Shading – Background and Final Touches
Shading – Background and Final Touches
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Figure Drawing Fundamentals

Figure Drawing Demo

Shading – Background and Final Touches

2.5K

Shading – Background and Final Touches

2.5K
Stan Prokopenko
The Background and Final Touches of a full Figure Drawing Demo
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opaqueapple
Hi all, i ended up doing a study of Stan's own approach to figure drawing. I'll do 1 or 2 more figure drawings just to apply what I've learnt before i wrap this course up!
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Coen
6mo
Hi All, I just finished the figure drawing course and tried to do the final assignment. I used pencil in stead of charcoal so the whole shading process took me a bit longer than the demo. I’m open to any suggestions for improvement!
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Nio
10mo
Hi everybody =) ...4 days ago I posted my 'final' finished piece for this course. (The last picture attached). I was not very happy with it. That drawing I made was probably the 6th or 7th drawing I have ever shaded so it came out pretty rough. I studied light and shading for a few days and created this new piece to give the course it's proper conclusion. It just didn't feel right to finish this course with a drawing I wasn't excited about. But with this, I am satisfied to move on to anatomy =)
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mrfrar
Looks quite solid. May I suggest you take a look at the portrait course and see the features. The nose and eyes look somewhat distorted. Also try to organize your values when shading so you can render the forms better so they look more 3 dimensional. I see alot of outlines on the abs but not 3D form. The shading on the right arm looks sweet but on the torso is weaker. Your proportions and structure for the body are quite nice though. It's very important you get good consistency on shading before you move on to anatomy because after you indicate your muscles with outlines, it's the shading that will render the form of muscles. Your observation skills are pretty good though, keep it up.
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Nio
10mo
Here is my finished piece. I lost a lot of the form after I added the tone using a graphite stick and napkin to create the background. I didn't foresee it smudging most of my lines, including some outlines and shadow maps. Whoops. I decided not to go back and re-establish the lines. I would consider this a successful failure though. I learned 5+ lessons of what I should do and not do thanks to this one drawing. Thank you Proko for the course.
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Sandra Süsser
Ok that’s it. Did some small final adjustments to this. Now I call this long drawing finished. Had a great time with the course. Thank you, @Stan Prokopenko . Onwards to anatomy! :)
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squeen
wonderful job!
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flugmodus1
Wow really nice rendering
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mikuni_uu
I really like how you catch the gesture, and the finished picture is great! Maybe the left leg could be more dynamic like the first one you did, and a little bit thinner? compare with the photo. But, sometimes it's just so hard to balance the whole picture:> choose between right anatomy and a good design.
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Elijah Thomas
My follow along drawing with the demo
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namdao
Can i get some advices ? Thank you !!!
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tomasb
Another drawing. This time with conte pencils. Any critiques and comments always appreciated. I think this will my last post for this course.
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Romain Decotte
Hi! I have just finished my Yoni drawing. This was my second attempt. The first time around I was simply unable to apply Stan's measuring technique(s) and I gave up simply thinking I was not yet ready or lacking drawing practice (gesture, anatomy etc). I then started the anatomy course and more particularly the Torso section, which I have not finished yet. After completing the drawing and shading of the torso I thought I'd go back to the Figure Drawing course and have another shot at completing the final drawing so here you go! Any critique will be very welcome. @Stan Prokopenko @Jesper Axelsson. Cheers, Romain
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Jesper Axelsson
Really nice! I think you did a really good job shadow mapping and rendering this. One thing that makes it stronger than your previous one is that the difference between light and shadow is much more clear. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that "the lightest dark is darker than the darkest light" (Mind-Blowing Realistic Shading Tricks at 8:10) Keep up the good work!
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Robin
Great work!
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Allen
Hi all. Here's my follow along with the demo. I enjoyed the course overall and found the long form demo at the end really helped tie things together. It also really helped demystify the rendering process. I do a lot of sketching in my free time but rarely spend the time to do detailed rendering. I'm open to critique/comments if you have them. It's encouraging to see other people learning so I figured I'd share to keep up the course momentum a bit. If you're here and haven't done a follow along yet. Let me encourage you to do so. It's a lot of fun.
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Allen
Decided to follow up by trying to do another study off of a different reference photo. This is one from a Grafit reference photo pack.
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drusk
First attempt at figure drawing. I used newsprint and I didn't have charcoal powder so there are some obvious differences there. Any critique is welcome as long as you understand that I have an extremely delicate ego that can be crushed with the slightest bit of negativity. (Joking!)
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John Harper
It's a good first attempt. Your proportions are well thought out and executed. I noticed that you really struggled with coloring the background. I would either be meticulous about creating the background or omit it. For now, I would take a soft microfiber cloth and rub the background. Unfortunately, you will find that those scratchy marks will not go away. Look at what Emanuele Dascanio does to get his black backgrounds (Emanuele Dascanio - YouTube).
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Christopher Beaven
Honestly it's really good. The only thing that I notice right away is a lack of subtlety in the shading, but this comes with experience. Considering you did this on a sheet of newsprint, and depending on the tooth of the paper, the shading will be rough. Did you use smooth newsprint or rough? There is some areas around the rib cage on the left side that look confusing. Lots of bumps here that don't read well as the bottom of a rib cage. In my opinion the best next step you can take is get some smooth newsprint and practice subtle shading from dark to light. Trying to get the transitions really smooth. This will help tremendously with controlling the values in your future drawings. Other than that, keep going!
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jean marc
hi guys... i still dont understand the knee, any advice or critique would welcom
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Lucijan Prpić
Hello everyone, this is my first post. I finished my long drawing and any critique would be appreciated !
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Martin Dubček
Happy new year friends. Critique and comments welcome also in this year.
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persona937
this is my attempt. any critique would be appreciated
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Kelly Dembowski
I really enjoyed this exercise. I didn't have charcoal available and it isn't to scale. Nonetheless what fun!
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Siqi
2yr
This was a challenge but I'm glad I took it. It was also super helpful to have Stan's demo to follow, since I don't know much about anatomy yet! One of the most useful things I learned is to try portraying each shape within the body as a 3D shape. I tend to be distracted by contours, so I think this made a big difference for me. Plus I really love Stan's manipulation of the light to make it look like it's glowing on his shoulder. I did this one entirely with graphite pencils because the art stores near me don't carry charcoal powder! (Boooo) So alas, I couldn't get as much of a value range as I could've with charcoal. I was able to superimpose my picture over the reference and Stan's drawing, so I know there are some things that are off about the anatomy and placement of muscles. If you have comments or suggestions, I'd love to hear them!
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Marco Sordi
2021/5/6. Hi everyone. Here's a my daily figure drawing exercise. After fixed the proportions I tried to move on to shading. Still struggling with charcoal... Thanks for any advice or suggestion. Good night.
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Avinash
@Stan Prokopenko please find the attached image of my attempt at sketching yoni. Would appreciate your critic please. ‘’also fellow artists here please do share your feedback on my humble attempt please” regards
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Alex Dejak
Yoni: materials: I tried to use all of the same materials Stan used for his Yoni drawing to reduce inconsistencies but the only local art store (Blick) was out of Arches 88 and the associate informed me the product is being discontinued. Upon the associates recommended alternative I used 22"x30"Stonehenge paper and conte a paris 1710 pencils. I found the value I was getting when putting marks down were coming out darker than Stans and hard to control the variation in value. When Erasing on the paper, it was impossible to take off enough charcoal to get down to the white of the paper and seemed to only erase to certain point and then no more charcoal would come off the paper. Trying to problem solve this I decided it is either user inexperience, the different paper I was using, or the Hard MDF backer behind the paper was not allowing enough give when pressing. After putting a cutting mat in-between the MDF to soften it a bit the problem still occurred so I am not sure if it is user inexperience or the paper type as I have yet to try erasing on Arches 88 still. I think it is likely a combination. So I know there are some spots where the value did not turn out how I would have liked and rather than fight it I moved on. Critiques welcomed, appreciated, and harsh truth encouraged. Thanks
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Mike Karcz
this looks really good in my opinion
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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
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