Sifter's Sketchbook

[Artloader]

Hey Sifter, really nice start here.  I love how clean and well constructed your figures are.  You seem to have a very good knowledge of the main muscle masses from what I can see.

I looked up the two artists you mentioned and they blew me away - awesome!  

Before you read my feedback for you please bear in mind that I am still learning too and you should take my comments with a pinch of salt :).

I feel that a big part of the gap between where you are and where your art heroes are lies in visual library.  Their work includes a lot of those little touches here and there that comes from having built up a highly advanced visual library.  John Grello works a lot in line by the look of it, but one thing I noticed is that he still has a lot of respect for light and shadow, he still indicates shadow using his linework.  From looking at your work above, I feel that you are strong at constructing your forms but not as strong at indicating light and shadow on those forms.

So my suggestions for you are:

1. To continue building your visual library using either photo reference or real life reference but take more notice of light and shadow - actually sketch in the boundaries of the shadow shapes.  Dorian Iten teaches this very well in my opinion:  http://www.dorian-iten.com/howtodraw/.
2. Study the work of your art heros - sit down and draw studies of their work e.g. these sketches by John Grello:  

Hope that helps, please ignore if not.

Good luck anyway, keep posting :).