Lesson 1 Crows

Still in the midst of ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog: Meta: The $100,000 Animation Drawing Course- Lesson 1.

Here's a case where I just kept making the same mistake over and over.

On my first try of the first crow, I got the overall outline fairly accurate, except that I staightened out the tip of the beak. But for some reason, I got completely fooled by the eye. I'm not sure why. Possible I was looking at the line representing the top of the beak, connecting to the bottom of the eye, and misread it as a level line. In my version, I leveled that line considerably, resulting in the eye starting much higher than it should. But I lined up the top of the eye correctly with the rest of the head, so the end ended up being way too small.

I knew that didn't look right, so -- without checking the scan -- I tried again, paying even more attention to the outline. This time the beak is remarkably accurate, but the hat is way small, and the mistake with the eye position is even worse! (I probably scaled the hat off the eye, so they both ended up too small.)

My second try:

I think I did a scan after the second one, and realized the problem with the eye. So I tried a third time, and dang if I didn't do the same thing again. Actually I had the eye almost in the right position in blue pencil, but changed my mind! And I missed the connecting line at the top of the beak. Other than that, there's a respectable accuracy about this try.

I only did one try of the second crow:

Overall, it's too "pointy" -- in subtle ways I exaggerated the diagonal stretch. And the jaw is extended too far; as it was for my earlier wolves.