Hi @yeej9354 I think sticking to boxes for the torso would be a good idea since it looks like using a slightly complex form (like the one you're using now) is throwing you off a bit. It also looks like your gesture lines for your figures is getting mixed up with your centerlines, but we can more accurately assess that if you do decide to do another go at these using boxes. It may also help to do some exercises of drawing boxes on a page and making sure the perspective of all of those boxes feel right. If you need help with any of these, feel free to tag me and I can take a look!

Hi @Matthew Alexander, the basic procedure of these Notan Master Studies is to try to simplify a painting into big abstract shapes of black and white. It is recommended that you redraw each of your studies instead of tracing over it because this will help to keep your eye for draftsmanship fairly sharp. When you first do these studies the exercise is going to be about analyzing the image and distilling it into it's most important parts. You're going to run into a lot of situations where it isn't clear cut whether 'this part should be black' or 'this part should be white', and when you run into these situations you just want to ask yourself what the image is really about, and THAT should inform your breakdown. Try to notice the focal areas of the original image and make sure your graphic breakdown retains focus in those same areas. If you ever give some of these a shot, feel free to post them! I love doing composition studies so I'd be happy to give some pointers if there are any specific areas that you end of struggling with. Hope this helps!

Im pretty new to proko, and I wanted to get better at drawing figures the way I imagine them. Ive done some quick 30 second gesture sketches from images i found online. I think I need improve the proportions. Any recommendations? Thanks!

Hi @Matthew Rawles, I think what you may be struggling with at the moment is your separation of values. Right now, your values for your lights and your values for your darks are very close together, pretty much right next to each other on the gray scale. Because of this, you are losing the believability of light on your image. I think it may be a good idea to try to nail down the values of your image in grey scale first before heading into color. Since you're working digitally, there are quite a few tools to help you nail down those colors after you establish your portrait in greyscale. Hope this helps! Let me know if there is anything that I can clear up for you

Hi @Christopher Tomley, this is a pretty solid start! This is a bit late but maybe I can give some input that you can take into consideration for your next study (I'm assuming this drawing might already be finished by now haha). So, I googled Grogu and I'm pretty sure I found the image that you were referencing from. From what I can see in the image, Grogu is mostly in shadow, and he has a source of really strong direct light coming from the right side. Having this information is critical because this is what's going to inform our plan for the drawing. So, we want to keep the separation of light and shadow clear on our object, this means that the area of direct light coming from the right side needs to have a clear value separation from everything else (which is in shadow). It looks like you added a lot of detailed information in the fabric which could be simplified more. Most of his clothing is being hit by ambient light, so the value variation between the folds is going to be very subtle. This is the main thing that I tackled in my paint over below. Doing this allows for a clear separation between the direct light, the ambient light, and the ambient occlusion in the deep folds of his clothes. Hope this helps and let me know if there is anything that I can clear up for you!

Hi @Natali Santini, on top of Vincentius's critique about designing the limb shapes for your figures, I think I also want to add one more critique: watch out for your proportions! Having proper proportions is one of the hardest things to nail in a drawing, so don't sweat if you might be struggling in this area. The most common pattern I see in your drawings is that your heads feel a bit too small in comparison to the bodies you've drawn. If you make them about 20%-25% bigger, then it should feel right. My critique was pretty simple so if you have any questions regarding Vincentius's critique then I can go more in depth into that principle as well. I'm sure Vincentius can elaborate if you ask them too! Hope this helps!

Hi @mussienko, I love your use of color in all of these studies! I think you have a pretty good self critique of your work, and I think the most impactful thing that you can work on would be to punch up your values. Right now, I think the areas in light and in shadow are not made all that clear. For example, looking at the road in your first painting, it looks like there are some segments of it that should be in light and other segments that are in shadow, however both your light and shadow values are too close to each other to communicate that. In order to get this clear separation of light and shadow, you might have to start either exposing your image to the light, or exposing your image to the shadow. When you expose your image to the light, it means you have a higher value range for objects being hit by light, and you compress the values for objects in shadow. When you expose your image to the shadows, you do the opposite: you have a higher value range for objects in shadow, and you compress the values for objects in the light. I've attached two separate images to illustrate this point. The first image is exposed for the light. Everything that's in shadow has been simplified to black (sometimes dark blue). Everything else is in the light. This allows the artist to get a clear separation of values for light and shadow for even the dark jackets in the scene. The second image shows a painting that is exposed for shadow. Notice how much color information and variation the artist is able to get in the shadows. Also notice that how everything in the light is basically white, in order to achieve that clear separation of value. Hopefully this concept can help as you try to apply it in your future studies. I think the challenge for you is going to be in keeping your color vibrancy while doing this value separation, but push through and your paintings are just going to get stronger. Hope this helps, and let me know if there is anything that I can clear up for you!

Hi @persona937, this is a really good study overall so I could only come up with some minor adjustments you may want to keep in mind. In your original study, it looks like the sizes of the eye differed just slightly, which made her expression feel a bit off. I just adjusted the proportions of the eye so that they matched one another. The second thing I did was to darken the shadows on the side of the face. I can see how the shadows in the reference image do feel a bit bright, and the reflected light on her cheek adds to the confusion. However keep in mind that when drawing a directly lit object (like this one), you want to have a clear separation of light and shadow. Other than that it looks great! I really like the charcoal look you got on the shading of her face, and it would be cool to see if you could apply that uniformly to the rest of the image. Hope this helps, and let me know if there is anything that I can clear up for you

Hi @Valerio Pilotti, these head studies look great! I think one thing you may be struggling with is the structure of the head as it rotates upwards (I have trouble with this angle too honestly). Just keep in mind that as the head starts to rotate up and down, the features (brow line, nose, and mouth) no longer sit at the 'thirds' of the face. Additionally, the head will start to appear smaller at this angle and will have proportions closer to that of a circle. I also did a minor tweak to adjust the structure of the forehead and brow line and the shape of the jaw. Other than that your studies look awesome! Let me know if there is anything that I can clear up for you

Hi @Bruno Khoueiry-Jaber, from what I can see, it looks like some of your quicker studies have more of that 'Force' that you're looking for. I'm especially seeing it in your second image. In order to create a stronger sense of gesture, you want to find opportunities to simplify some parts of the body to make big sweeping lines. In your second image for example, I like how you simplified the gesture from the head, down to the spine, and to the bottom of the legs, as one big line. In contrast, look at the first image you posted. By spending more time on the drawing, you got more caught up in the details of the drawing and lost opportunities to design and simplify the gesture. Just be aware of the principle and try to apply them in your longer gesture studies and I feel you'll be well on your way to finding that 'Force'. Hope this helps! Let me know if there is anything that I can clear up for you

Hey @Jesper Axelsson @Luigi Manese @Liandro just letting you all know that I have started the portrait course (likely anatomy next). Starting to get the hang of this a bit. Will be reaching out for assistance as I go through the course if that’s okay. Thanks!

Hi. Here are my attempts at applying structure to some animals. Feedback is appreciated as always. Thanks!

Hi, here are some of my bean studies. I generally do one myself and then draw another right next to it after watching Stan. I had the most difficulty with the foreshortening examples (image 3.) as some my attempts ended up quite a bit different than the demo. I'm happy with the fact I used fewer lines than I usually do in this exercise but I'm noticing I could improve my line weight and I feel like the design of some of my shapes gets a bit stiff. Feedback is welcomed and appreciated.

Hi! Any criticues are greatly appreciated,thanks!

These are a few of my quick sketch assignments in chronological order (couldn't attach them all but these are representative enough!). During this week I had a real problem with my carpal tunnel and had to wear a brace which actually helped me as it prevented me from using the wrist at all. It took some time to get used to and my accuracy was way off. But thanks to that I couldn't put lines in without thinking and correcting my lines as I really had to make my hand do what I wanted it to during this short time period. Correcting a line would mean I wouldn't be able to finish the gesture in time as it took so long for me to make my hand to what my head wanted. I would really love any critique on the exercises. The placement/size of the head is something I noticed I struggle with and proportions (torso to legs), when I go back and study Stan it makes sense but when I do them myself I struggle, so feedback regarding this would also be very appreciated. Thanks for taking your time!

Hi @eleftheria_arts I think the crosshatching technique looks great, I'm especially impressed with how soft you were able to get some of those shadows (like in the cheek area) using this method. I do think that the handling of detail on the hair could be simplified to put a greater emphasis on the face. Additionally, there are some minor areas where the light/shadow seems a bit inconsistent. For example, there are some really dark occlusion shadows under the nose and where the nose meets the cheek, but they should probably be kept lighter because the occlusion of light in those areas aren't that dark. Additionally, there is a patch of light hitting the shadow of her cheek, which I also think should be grouped into the shadows by making the values just slightly darker. Even if the reference does happen to make those values that bright, you can design your own image for better clarity. Hope this helps! Let me know if there is anything that I can clear up for you

Hi @Tobias Degnebolig, I think these are some great 5 minute studies. One proportional issue that seems consistent in most of your drawings is that the heads are feeling just a tad bit too small in proportion to the body, so try to keep that in mind and make them slightly bigger in your future studies to match. Additionally, I think it feels a bit difficult to critique some of your pieces because it looks like the level of finish for some of your mannequins vary. I've attached an image that shows one of Proko's simpler mannequins (the on one the right) and I feel that's probably a good level to do your studies. Try not to focus on adding features for now, and just make sure that the major features (simplified rib cage, hips, limbs, and head) all feel very solid and well constructed. If you want a point of reference from what you've uploaded, I think the second mannequin is a good level of finish to go to. I think lastly, just watch out for some of the proportions for the limbs in your studies as well. Proportion is definitely one of the harder concepts to fully learn (just doing the drawing lay in for your figures will be challenging at all levels) so don't be too hard on yourself if you're not getting it right away. If there's anything about my critique that you need me to clear up, feel free to let me know so that I can expand on some of these concepts!

I think this is one of my favorite concepts in composition because it gives you a lot of freedom to experiment with a certain mood. Here's on I did a bit more recently where I did have a specific metaphor in mind...it isn't exactly subtle so I'll give bonus points if you can guess what it was haha

Definitely looking a lot more solid overall! It's awesome to see how many different critiques you've applied to your updated piece.

Hi @Emma, these are some great gesture drawing studies. I really like how you've abstracted the shapes of the torsos/limbs so to create more flow in your drawings. The actual gestures are pretty solid overall, so the only critique that I can think of would be to still keep an eye out for your proportions/structure in your figures. Namely, the two images I attached below, you can see some instances where the structure of the actual figure started to slip a little bit. It's a lot to juggle, especially when doing quick gestures, but try to keep this in mind as you continue to do these exercises because it'll only serve to help you once you start getting into longer and more finished poses. Hope this helps! And feel free to let me know if you have any questions