They are all done in pencil in my sketchbook, except for the last frog and fox where I used my tablet and photoshop.
I had a lot of fun doing a variety like this! But I think I have the general shape of these animals down okay. I'm going to try to do fewer but more detailed pictures this week, focusing on faces, especially canines because I have a lot of trouble with that.
From Jottwick:
AntwortenLöschenTry to focus less on getting the silhouette shape of the animal, and more on defining the underlying muscle and bone masses. If you can find good animal anatomy reference, try drawing the animals in x-ray view to show how their bones and muscles look underneath the pose.
Also if you're trying to get more realistic with your work then I would suggest doing more drawings with tone rather than contour line. Use bold light/dark shading to make the forms look more dimensional.
I also suggest varying your lines more. These aren't exactly "rules" but they help your line art look more dynamic and realistic:
—Generally, the objects and forms which are closest to the viewer will have the thickest and darkest contour lines, and the more distant forms will have thinner lines.
—Lines also tend to be thicker when the form of the object is in shadow, and thinner on the lit side of the form.
—You can put the darkest lines and the most detail on a particular form and the viewer's eye will be most drawn to it. For example, if you're doing a portrait you put the most detail and contrast in the face (you used this technique in a lot of these drawings).
Well I'm ranting now. Hope this helps!
Thanks for the tips!
AntwortenLöschenShading is something I often have trouble with, so I'll try to work on that this week. Also I'm interested in trying to draw some of the underlying anatomy. That should help give them more depth.
From Gato:
AntwortenLöschenThose are good, even if a bit rough. Each animal looks very much like the animal you had as reference, the bunny is fluffy and fat, the lizard scaly,rough and dry, the elephant massive and solid.
Even the eye expression are very well done and characteristic for the animals.
You have a good eye for the overal big forms of the animal and you can see the movment well: the ocelot and the mountain lion have a good cat-like movement in them. That's a good thing, don't get too cought up in details right now.
There are several ways you can go from now on:
Jottwick suggested to dive a bit deeper into anatomy and then work on your lines.
Yep. I think if you want to draw animals you'll have to do the anatomy part sooner or later, but maybe that's a bit much right now because I'm not sure how good you are with basic forms yet.
If you want to make a slight detour, go here: http://www.animationarchive.org/?p=2091
This teaches you how to construct very simple and understandable figures with basic shapes.
Redraw some of these if you want to: http://www.animationarchive.org/pics/pbanimation05-big.jpg (does the dog count as animal? you decide.).
The same principles of these drawings apply to realisitc animals, humans and things, only that the shapes in them are more complex.
If you want to research anatomy, it's best to see the skeleton irl - maybe there's an animal skeleton in school that you can draw in a free hour or maybe you can take a trip to the museum. You have to take a look what parts are solid (skull, ribcage, hips), what parts can be moved (neck, spine between ribs and hips) and what parts have a limited movement (shoulders, arms and legs) so that you can lateron the right movement in your free drawings.
There are also some anatomy books on the net,
Ellenberger is copyright free and you can download it here: http://www.filesonic.com/file/13250373/811/W_Ellenberger_H_Baum__H_Dittri.html
I like the idea that you focus on one animal first, go for it!