Thoughts on progress....

I thought I'd just write a little about how I'm feeling with my progress...

As with any skill it takes a lot of time and effort to improve dramatically, and as much as I'm feeling gradually more confident in my drawing ability I still feel like I'm nowhere near where I want to be.

BUT I try to remind myself to step back and look at what I'm doing; my 7 year old self would be amazed that I can now draw Mickey Mouse like in my previous post.

So yeah, I've a long way to go but got to take it in baby steps.

Patience and persistence is the key.

Mickey Mouse

Found some great model sheets of Mickey Mouse and couldn't resist.

Like the drawings from Gravity Falls it took a few tries to get into the right style and proportions but I think towards the end I was getting pretty decent. I'm particularly happy with the pose on the very right, second from the bottom.

Hands #06

Yes. More hands. You're probably sick of looking at them. Thanks for soldiering on :P

Reference was here yet again (it's a really great resource!!).

Mabel Pines

I've started watching Gravity Falls (and I'm loving it!) and came across some model sheets of Mabel & Dipper Pines. I gave drawing Mabel a shot first, and I'm pretty happy with the results (it took a couple of drawings to warm into the style - the top right was my first)

Hands #05

No more explanation required... reference from here again.

Beaker

New sketchbook which means new self-portrait! This is my best impression of a muppet.

Hands #04

EVEN more hands (and this isn't even the last of them!)

Worked my way through this great resource for animated hands.

Les Mis

Anne Hathaway in the trailer for Les Mis. I originally wanted to draw her portraying Selina Kyle but I couldn't find any decent images to reference. This was a great substitute though!

Hands #03

MORE hands! Referenced from here.

Hands #02

More hands! References from this set of drawings by Preston Blair.

Hands #01

 

HANDS! I thought it would be quite handy (pun completely intended) to improve my hand drawing. This is the first of many sets I've done so far; the first 2 and a half pages were all using reference photos found at this wonderful website (I tried doing cartoon versions next to the more realistic hands), after realising I didn't quite know which features of the hand needed emphasising for a line-only drawing, I fell back to using some already hand-drawn reference, courtesy of this deviantart entry.

Caricature dump #01

Trying to practice caricaturing faces... took drawings I've done already and tried to exaggerate key features to varying degrees of success. I clearly need a lot more practice but there are a couple I don't mind (ie. 2nd image top row)

Jackie

After starting season 4 of Nurse Jackie I really wanted to draw Edie Falco with any of the incredibly emotive and complex emotions she portrays. This didn't turn out so well, but I may retry it again later. Still posting it thought, even if it's just for tracking my progress!

Figure drawing dump #04

So I've been a bit MIA with posting again... but I've been very consistently drawing so I've finally scanned in the last 3 or so weeks of stuff and will put more up when I find a chance.

In the meantime here's some figure drawing sketches to show my slow but nevertheless existent progress. I believe these were 60 secs a pop.