Project - Simple Animal Portraits

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

inDrawing Basics

12K

Course In Progress

Assignments 1.6K

Downloads 8

Project - Simple Animal Portraits

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

12K

Course In Progress

Assignments 1.6K

Downloads 8

Deadline: Submit your assignments by 06/15/2023 for a chance to be featured in the next critique video!

Level 1:
Create animal portraits using basic shapes. Try to simplify the animal using 10 shapes or less. Keep your shapes organic and simple. Simple shapes could be stretched, bloated, indented, or curved to capture personality. Don't worry about perfect proportions. Instead, focus on creating cool, simple designs. No details or shading! Use the three reference photos I provided and find 5 to 10 more.

Level 2:
Take Level 1 assignment and push them further. Play with your basic shapes and size relationships to give the animals different personalities. Don't hesitate to experiment and look for additional references to understand your subject better. Now, go have fun!

mark bonaccorso

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This was the hardest assignment so far I think. Didn't do the extra 5, think I will watch the demo first

Rachel Dawn Owens

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Woah. Some of the chickens are wild. Great job pushing the designs. Looks like you had fun with it.

Mila Ivanova

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10d

This is my second try at sketching the hippo (turned out trickier than I thought, and it still looks a bit… inappropriate 😅). The others are my first tries.

Chuck Ludwig Reina

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These look great! One fun thing to play with is to bloat out some of the shapes to give the animals an even more characteristic look, while still throwing in the nice straight lines you've added. Go wild with it, and have fun.

zeynep sezgin

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11d

Level 2

zeynep sezgin

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11d

Level 1

@jonliebers

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12d

Not sure if this is the idea?

Rachel Dawn Owens

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Yeah, it looks like you’re starting to get the idea. Especially on the bear. Keep drawing more of these. Your shapes are simple and easy to read. Maybe add more straight lines to give your drawing more structure. You have a lot of circle shapes on the bear. Try balancing it out with some straight too. I added a couple straight lines to the bears arms just the show you what I mean. You can push the shapes way more.

Catssius

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12d

Initially started mostly with closer to observation for the provided portraits... buuuuut since I've always been horrible at keeping it simple I tried with the later portraits to get something better to... some avail. All I know is that I see Aaron Blaise in future lessons so "Mr. Blaise... save me" Small thing, if anyone has an answer to save me from overthinking myself. What exactly is the differences between "Shape" and "Form"? I feel like I've heard them be used to refer to 2D and 3D respectively but at times there is a lot of overlap when I hear those terms that's making me overthink things

Rachel Dawn Owens

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Wow, these are really lovely drawings! I can tell you’re thinking about 3d form a lot. These drawings have a lot of depth. You gave these animals a lot of character too. If you wanted to simplify things more, try counting your shapes. No details, no fur, no feathers. Just simple shapes. Form is more of a 3d idea and shape is more of a flat idea. Both words can be used interchangeably at times. Try not to overthink it too much. I like your drawings. Keep it up!

Lily A

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15d

This was a new experience for me—trying to draw animals! I struggled a bit with the hippo, but overall it was a really fun assignment.

Alison Shelton

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14d

You did a really good job picking out the core shapes. I like how you used a different color for the basic shapes and your simplified drawing.

Alison Shelton

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15d

I’m not sure l did this right. Also my hippo looks like a tiger. Off to watch the demo.

Alison Shelton

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14d

I learned a lot from this assignment. I borrowed a picture of my friend’s cat so I made her a chat sticker to use in her game as a thank you.

Alison Shelton

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15d

I think I finally have the hang of this. .

Alison Shelton

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15d

Post demo in procreate. Trying to keep it to 10 shapes while looking like a red panda was challenging.

Jonathan Fisk

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15d

This was fun! The buffalo and hippo were definitely more difficult for me conceptually for reducing complexity into simple shapes. I think it's partly because I get too hung up on the underlying structure (like the jaw and nasal cavity of the buffalo) rather than just letting myself see it as a tapered rectangular prism. This is definitely something I want to practice regularly, especially to eventually move to level 2 and work on expressive shape language.

Alison Shelton

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15d

I really like your hippo. I could tell it was a hippo even in the simplified form.

@atv

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17d

Hi! here is my assignment. I need to work for sure on using less shapes, I will try to work on this, would appreciate any advice :D

@jacoba

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18d

Flo

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18d

I needed some time but in the end I think I got the idea

@torexaa

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21d

C. A. Corbell

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21d

I redid this assignment after watching the first couple of critiques. (My earlier attempts are in my drawing-basics album). In addition to the basic level 1 images I did a little owl and a beaver.

C. A. Corbell

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21d

After watching the critiques I did a few more of these, trying to focus more on simpler shapes and simplification of the portrait.

@yearly7777

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22d

Here is my second take. I did'nt like the way Fennec turned out I just had much more fun with Longhorn Cow. Decided to elaborate on triangular design I've made.

Mal

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23d

My project submission. I may have taken the circle, square, triangle thing too literally. The first pass of the bird was meant to be the simplified circle shape, but it ended up taking on more of a realistic appearance. I will continue to do this exercise until I can better simplify complex subjects.