Cocheese's Sketchbook

[Cocheese]

Regarding that 20th Loomis head. It looks like Proko might teach it a little differently than Loomis does in his books (I've never seen Proko's videos) but I'll comment anyway. I think the main problem is that the jaw joint isn't as clearly indicated as in your other heads, and it looks like the angle of the mandible* is roughly on-level with the bottom of the cranium, when it's normally lower. This gets harder to indicate with heads that are a bit upward-facing like that one, though.

Now I have to complain about the "draw the rest of the owl"* factor that's inherently present in all art instruction (and in instruction for anything that requires a lot of hands-on experience). When guys like Proko and Loomis draw those heads, they're doing it with decades of knowledge gained from studying anatomy and drawing from life and photographs, so their Loomis heads naturally look good and head-like, and they automatically chop off just the right amount off the sides of the cranium. In fact, it's probably impossible to get really good at drawing Loomis heads without having some degree of proficiency in drawing actual heads, because the Loomis head is an abstraction of the real thing.

This is why it's actually productive for you to spend some time on just drawing what you feel like for fun. If you like drawing hot chicks (or guys, whatever), you can use that as an opportunity to get some figure drawing practice. It's definitely helpful to draw simplified things like Loomis heads and stick figures, since the human body is too complex to tackle all at once, but you can't get really good at drawing one without the other.

Regarding being a perfectonist and erasing things too much. My personal opinion is that it's more productive to move on and try to do better in the next sketch instead of trying to make existing ones better, since you're going to hate them by tomorrow anyway. One exception is if you've actually got an idea for how to improve an existing drawing and you're not just groping aimlessly. That's just my opinion, though.

Lastly, while I admire your enthusiasm in posting every day, there's no need to push yourself too much (unless you want to). Taking a break for a day or more can actually be beneficial. I know lots of guys say you need to draw 8 HOURS A DAY EVERY DAY, but that's far from being a universal strategy of genuinely successful artists, and if you need to do regular human things like go to work, school, do laundry, and/or cook, it's flat-out impossible on most days.


*Angle of mandible: https://www.bartleby.com/107/illus176.html
*Draw the rest of the owl: http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/img/blog...l_draw.png

Thanks for being a voice of reason. I feel like it's very easy to adopt a "studying for the sake of studying" mentality and forget why one wanted to learn to draw in the first place. I've been avoiding doing it just for fun out of a feeling of "I'm not ready yet," but deep down I know the only way to get rid of that feeling is by trying to do what I want to. It seems like that's really the best way to internalize the scholarly concepts in practical ways (assuming one still has an analytical mindset and isn't just doodling) rather than them existing in this sort of vacuum where people only ever want to draw bowls of fruit all day. Forcing yourself to draw just for the sake of drawing seems like an easy path to little improvement and fast burnout, and I sort of noticed myself slipping into that mindset yesterday. Thanks again for giving some grounded advice (and stuff on the Loomis head,) it's really what I needed to hear.