Last year I finished Lesson 3 and then took a little break. It was nice revisiting DAB within the purpose of this course and completing DAB Lesson 4. After doing so, I really challenged myself to go out of my comfort zone. I used crosshatching (which I hated up until now) while applying what I learned so far from this course, and what I've learned about insects, to make a drawing of an insect purely from imagination, without using references. Doing this before moving on to the section on inventing shading is deliberate - I have promised myself to redraw this after completing the next section and see how it differs. I feel there is some realism lacking from my imaginary insect, it would make me happy to get some critique on what is missing - a background tone? Is the value organization too messy? Should I have done outlines in certain parts? I feel it's a lot harder organizing values with crosshatching, but I am determined on slowly getting there.

I will use drawabox more later

Draw a box is awesome. Love the community idea. Would love a Dorian / Shading community with you guys aswell ... just an idea :-) Cool exercise!

Crosshatching is still such an extreme challenge to me! I definitely can imagine the form, but quickly start to overthink because of neighboring planes. One of Dorian's tips has especially helped set me straight: hatch along the most dramatic change of direction in a plane! I was inspired and immediately did another Asaro head to test my newfound reasoning, unfortunately, I accidentally closed the tab and did not finish the ear and some larger plane. Grateful for feedback!

Did not find a non-complicated way of doing the complex joints at the elbow and knees, and anatomically, spheres are not a very truthful representation... decided to skip it. Suggestions?

Looking for some input on the perspective on the legs and arms, specifically for the limbs receding from the viewer and the pelvis. Since the pelvis is tilted in the opposite direction of the torso, it becomes a bit tricky to decide whether to find the perspective from the ASIS landmarks, or relative to the torso... usually, I imagine were I would be with my own eye level at the scene and go from there. Here, I see some other solutions. Grateful for an explanation!

Not sure I chose a good image, I feel like I may have misunderstood the light direction in this one... maybe? It's the red blazer that confuses me, because when I look at the values of the fabric and their cast shadow especially, seems like there is another light from the left. A bit unsure. Very valueable exercise which I will revisit often.

Watching this made me very emotional. For the past ten years I have been suffocating in the medical field as a doctor because I was one of the kids getting told to get a "serious job". Looking back on my old drawings, there was so much potential that was wasted until I grew up and got a little more control of my life. Today I continue to try and work myself out of the medical field and one day, hopefully, into art. That's where I'm supposed to be. If you visit this video, are in your 20's and you're doubting whether to quit a "serious job" Uni program - hold that thought. Stay with it and don't be afraid to explore this option. In my case, I found Marshall and the Draftsmen podcast a little too late. Knowing what I know today, I would have quit med school immediately and never looked back. If you have strong feelings for what you do, and your body and mind loves the process no matter the temporary problems, it WILL work out in the end.

Marshall is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of perspective. And art. And life.

This exercise was a lot of fun even if it messed a bit with the shading and planning order. I realized that I erroneously used white, the color of specular highlight, as the fourth and lightest color during planning. This was because I got a bit confused by the four-value instruction after getting used to working with five values. I should've just forgotten about the specular white, even though it's technically the "fifth", lightest and last value to be put down. I adjusted this misunderstanding as I went along the four stages and it turned out just fine.

Somehow I end up overcomplicating shapes. And forget that a bottle is a combined shape, which makes me forget the cast shadow of the top cylinder... Discovered that there are some knowledge/awareness gaps considering more complex objects and how cast shadows fall on them. A very welcome addition to this course would be a video on how to figure out, let's say, if the bottom part of a cylinder, such as the bottom of the "arrow" shape in Lvl 2, gets any light. Very sneaky and humbling exercise!

If you think about the previous video, the right guess comes pretty quickly!

I have some regrets in these ones. The hardest for me was bottom Lvl 1 and Top Lvl 3. I started with the darkest, and then the next darkest, all the way towards the lightest. Though my instinct tells me to do 1. Darkest 3. Lightest then 2. Middle/halftone in between.

Must admit, this one got me good

2B Mars Technico lead holder. A bit zoomed in.

I can't for the life of me get good photos of my work. In real life, they look so much better, and the best part - almost identical. Bought the Mi-Tientes just for the sake of this course. Did the top one first and was sure I had bought the wrong paper because it felt and looked way too rough. Then I turned the finished work around and realised there was a smooth side... So I re-did the gradient. Best part, they both look similar even though I did each by feeling only. 2B and 2H Staedtler Mars Technico lead holder.

2b and 2h pencils. i think it's not value is too light overall. Any feedbacks will be appreciated

I would have preferred to do this traditionally but I had no printer and my Photoshop subscription just ran out. While doing the assignment, I felt that I was finished a lot of times but decided to stick with it, trying to exaggerate and improve even more on the AO placements and characteristics. Trying to see what more I could "show". This is a very educational exercise regardless of which method.