Great stuff! I would definitely agree that spending perhaps an hour or two on one drawing would have a great improvement. That's something that I've heard Steven Zapata recommend because doing a longer drawing even at the beginning stages of learning can have great results! Which will increase your urge to do the next drawing and so on.

Hi, Great improvement! Getting Rid of those lines around the highlights and halftone definitely works to make the shading more realistic! The proportions and construction are also much better! I would say that the the main problem is that the masses of value are still to hard. Everything in your drawing would benefit from being much softer. That would help to define the soft turning of the form. For example in this pear drawing by Stephen Bauman (Attached) everything is much softer, although he still keeps the shape design and value organization just visible. A helpful phrase to remember is to keep things ''soft but specific''. One other thing is I think the contour and shadow shapes in your first drawing looks much better where as the second attempt looks too angular to me. As Harold Speed suggests, the construction ''envelope shape'' should only be used to get correct proportions. Once you have that you can be more gestural and natural in your drawing, especially when drawing a soft and natural form such as as pear. Hope that helps!

Great great drawing! Nothing major jumps out. I will say the value on his left cheek is a bit dark. It's almost as dark as the cast shadows. On the model, it's not quite that dark. Then there's a couple tiny dark shadows on the sideburns by the ear that you didn't get. So, double check your values and then not sure what "style" you go for normally, but you can start doing a lot with edges at the level you're at. Amazing work.

Incredible--amazing work showing all the different planes with hatching!

@mil3s, Overall you did an excellent job, met most of the fundamentals but there are a few minor things i noticed. I've attached an image where i did annotations for a better understanding.

I think this is a solid, dimensional drawing. I would compress the values on the light side a little, but that's just nit picky, but I would continue the dark background around the whole image. Right now having the black background on one side makes the image look unbalanced. Other than that, quite good :)

Hello, not a critique, but a couple of questions. 1. Why did you make the background the darkest area? In terms of value range, you kept it pretty close on the face, but then the background is a black. Because of this, the range widens to accommodate the background, and then suddenly it looks like the face is underlit. 2. Why did you put the background on the side of the face? I always thought you added darkness to highlight a bordering bright, or to fade shadows into the background. Instead, I see a clear distinction for the eye socket shadow and BG, and not much stark contrast between light and shadow (only on the forehead and cheek). But yeah, I'm not very good at shading, and was wondering why you made these decisions. I've attached pictures to show what I mean. If you'd like, I have a .psd file with all my edits, so you can mess around with them, thought I think it's too big to be put as an attachment here.

Looks good. You have a nice compliment of edges and cast/ form shadows. Really nice sketch :)

Hey mil3s, Your drawing looks really nice, you have gotten pretty good at these kinds of drawings. I think now it is time to start to refine some of the more detailed areas of your drawing. I think what you need to focus on more is your edges. You tend to make all your edges pretty hard, especially when transitioning from shadow to light. For our drawings to look convincing, we must have both hard and soft edges. A basic rule is that cast shadows have hard edges and form shadows have soft edges. Also, make sure you use your cast shadows to reveal the shape of the forms that it is traveling over. It is another tool to help give our drawings dimension. I did a quick sketch to show you what I mean, I hope it helps :)

Wonderful job on the drawing. I also like the animated gif showing the differences. I don't think it's super important that your drawing is off a little bit. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate. What I think is most important, and you captured well, is the subtle values throughout the whole cast. Especially the reflected light. And even more important is your understanding of form. You've shaded the form in such a way that I can tell you understand how it moves through space. The depth is wonderful! All good stuff to say here. Move on to the next and Keep going!

Hey mil3s, Nice job on this, it has a real feeling of form. The thing I noticed is that your shadow value is too dark. As a matter of fact, the image has too much contrast all around. The values are much more compressed than you have them. In other words, they are a lot closer to each other than you think. Remember this cast is made of white plaster, so the shadows wont be that dark. Also, there are areas where you missed some highlights at the edge of some of the forms pointing up to the light. Also, even the grooves carved into the cast have the same characteristics as other forms- core shadow-shadow-reflective light- and highlights. I did a quick paint over to show you some of things I'm talking about, I hope it helps :)

Amazing job, @mil3s! I agree with @Christopher Beaven, the proportions don't need to be perfect (even though I think you did great with that). I also love the way you've used your hatch marks, they really help describe the volumes effectively and pleasingly. I'd add up just one little extra note to @Steve Lenze's shrewd critique by suggesting that you could perhaps try to vary some more the quality of the shading edges. The photo of the plaster cast shows a wide range of hard, soft and lost edges, while, in your drawing, everything looks a lot more hard and angular. As a personal shading style in a creative art piece, I actually think it looks pretty cool (as I mentioned, I really like the feel of the hatch lines). But if this drawing is an observational study which is supposed to be focused on light and value (as I'm assuming it is), I'd say it could be very helpful for you to notice those edge variations and try to bring them more into your drawing. For example, one of the areas that calls my attention the most regarding this issue is the large groove to the left of the eye (our left): there's a transition from the deeper shadow to the reflected light above it which, in the object, looks very soft, but happens to have a very defined and sharp edge in your drawing, and this makes that plane change feel blocky rather than rounded. Softening the value edge some more (as Steve did in the paint-over the provided you) could help better show that groove area as a rounded form. The same suggestion applies to any other areas in the drawing where you notice the forms should look more rounded than blocky. Hope this helps! If you have any questions, please just let me know. Keep up the good work!

I always say that a good drawing makes a painting. Love this still life. It's a good start. Have you ever tried light watercolor then using Gouache as dark tones. You can get interesting color combinations. use the watercolor loose. Then blend in the dark tones with the gouche. Let it bleed a little. Really like this though. Fabuluos! Artistjay