Hey Apple, not really a shading critique because I like your shading, but I really think you should spend a bit more time on proportion. Trust me, proportion is my least favorite part of drawing, but it really makes your drawing feel more cohesive if done correctly. In most drawings I do, about one 1/3 of my time spent is just on proportion because of it's importance (and my lack of intuitive proportion). Now there's a ton of ways to measure proportion, and many videos are here on Proko about it, so I won't relate what I do here (unless you'd like me to). A good exercise is to compare your reference to your drawing and see what things you tend to make bigger or smaller, and remember that next time you go into a longer drawing. But yeah, in case you forgot, I've been following you for a bit because I really like seeing your progress, and I hope you'll continue to grow as fast as you are now. - Dwight

Hello. The shading on this one looks much more clearer and readable. If you want a figure with only 6 values, the figure drawing demo of Yoni from Stan applies this principle. If you want more of a challenge, you could try to replicate one of Michael Angelo's anatomy studies. It's a very complex drawing but the shading is only reduced to 5 values. I've attached it to the post. Something that might also help is doing a compositional study where you just do a quick drawing of the figure but with the flat values and assign the 5 of them to the figure before starting the real drawing (2 for the shadows, 3 or 4 to the lights). Try to make the core shadow darker than the reflected light. You did this well on the leg but on the torso it's much less noticeable. This is optional but another thing that I like to do is hatching to give it some texture. For example, I would do some hatching surrounding the leg near the core shadow to better represent the cylindrical form of the leg. As for the general form and gesture its pretty good. The only thing is the breast shape is a bit different from the reference. In the reference is more elongated but in yours it has a more rounder shape. Not that big of a deal tbh.

Great work!

The reference you used has soft lighting but you made your shadows too confusing. Dont overcomplicate the shadow family and make it compete with the light family. If you do, there's no harmony to the figure. For example in the legs, you have a mixture of shadow tones and half tones and this breaks the shading. For the shadows just use two tones for the start (one for the core shadow and other for the reflected light) and also dark cast shadows when the surface is covered by something. The rule is the lightest dark is always darker than the darkest halftone. It's hard to keep this in mind but this must apply throughout the entire drawing. I usually take a few breaks when shading to keep my mind clear because it can get tiring if you shade for hours straight. There are also some lines that seem unnecessary like the one between the shoulders near the spine and the other one the butt. Those sharp lines hurt your drawing so avoid them as much as possible unless it's absolutely necessary to indicate a sharp turn. Always start by separating light and shadow with a single line (the terminator) variating between soft and hard edges observing the reference. In this case, it's mostly just soft edges. Make sure the shadow family has less details and focus more on the light family. You need to make a plane get lighter in the center (center light) with the highlights (if there's one) and that light slowly fades has it goes away from the center (halftones) If you're just starting with shading, I recommend you use fewer values (5 to 6) just to master the fundamental concepts, then you slowly build up details by increasing the value range. The form, gesture, proportions look pretty good.

Hi @opaqueapple, nice studies! I think the core shadows are really nice! - I think the values in the shadow are getting to close to the values in the light, which diminishes the feeling of form.  As a rule of thumb 'the lightest dark should be darker than the darkest light'. You might appreciate this video Mind-Blowing Realistic Shading Tricks. If you want to learn more about values, you can access the How to Organize Values lesson for free through the Proko Course Sampler. Hope this helps :)

That is an awesome practice. I'm gunna start doing it as well. I do most of my stuff non-digital so I will have to use tracing paper.

These are a little hard to see but they're fairly decent. Watch your proportions. On some of them I notice stuff like the rib cage being too large or the femur being to short.