Marek, critiquing my effort from the first week suggested my value study would be improved by focusing on the light shapes instead of the shadow shapes. To achieve that, I started with a darker background and just draw light blobs and tried to scrub them into the right shapes. I did that once before to good effect, but it definitely takes some adjustment to thinking. I also spent some time blending out the edges to soften things in places where the forms are rounded. The anatomy drawings are kind of crappy this time around; I need to use a more precise tool for that if I do more of these.
What worked, what didn’t? An interesting thing happened when I did the light shapes. It helped me identify where I was getting proportions and angles wrong. By focusing on outlines, I encode errors this helped me to identify. It did take a long time. This is basically painting. I’m sure eventually I’d get faster at it, but so far it’s a painstaking process. Marek, critiquing this one, said some of my edge softening was broader than necessary and then added in a little additional half-tone detail in the light areas. It’s when he demonstrated the effect of added a little core shadow to the dark areas that the drawing really took life though! I need to try that out next time.
