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Weekly Art Practice - Week 2

· 4 min read
Kylie
Kylie
Admin

A wild week at work resulted in me spending most of my evenings trying not to think about it by drawing. So here are a bunch of sketches of pangolins.

Day 1 - Drawing from imagination​

Since day 1 is drawing from imagination I didn’t want to look at a single reference image before starting. This resulted in a funny mistake.

Messy pangolin sketches.

I had a moment early on, of asking myself, do pangolins have ears that poke out? I didn’t want to break the assignment by looking at a reference so I gave them little poky ears… which was wrong.

Day 2 - Figure sketching​

I was able to correct my mental image of pangolins on day 2. These quick sketches reinforced my thinking that these guys have a similar build to squirrels in a few ways. They have the same triangle-ish arms, smaller chest zone big butt zone, long tails. But even with those similarities I feel like they give off very different vibes.

Quick pangolin sketches using references

Day 3 - Reference studies​

I really like day 3. Having an image up and scrutinising it for the mistakes I made in the first 2 days feels like the learning coming together. However this is also when I get torn about being more detail oriented (draw all the armour scales) and skipping over that because it’s not the most educational in these exercises but is fun.

Pangolin walking

Pangolin making lovey eyes at the camera.

Pangolin trying to be a ball.

Close up artsy shot of a pangolin.

Day 4 - Style studies​

Having seen a few stylizing pangolins in the wild previously I knew I could get some good variety here. I tried to choose some of the more stylized versions to learn from. Especially when it comes to different approaches to doing the scales.

Vector art simplified pangolins.

These guys got simplified down to zig zag patterns which is pretty good. Though I don’t love how it makes them look so smooth.

Reference: VectorStock

Pattern based pangolins

These guys have just the hint of triangles to convey where the scales would be. I feel like this is a nice compromise when working with simple shapes or a limited colour palette or size.

Reference: Redbubble shop

Detailed cartoon pangolins

These ones were pretty normal and I didn’t want to spend all my time drawing on the scales so I moved on.

Reference: Peppermintnarwhal Instagram

Pink pangolin

Then this guy is mostly just has shapes thrown down to hint at the repetition and presence of the scales.

Reference: [Redbuddle shop](https://www.redbubble.com/i/sticker/Cute-Pangolin-Why-Hello-There-by-juliekhansard/29045257.EJUG5_

Day 5 - Drawing from imagination​

This second time around felt less test-like than week one. This time the struggle was pangolin poses. While I felt like I had spent the week getting their shape down I didn’t really spend enough time watching them move about. Squirrels I see every day, I get them. Pangolins are pretty mysteries. So I felt a little limited by my ability to imagine them in a variety of poses.

Four digital pangolin sketches.

I do at least like them, I think these pieces are still cute and do look like pangolins. But the movement and idea of looking at videos alongside still images is a good takeaway for creatures moving forward.

Conclusion​

Week 2 felt like it went pretty smoothly. And that’s with the hiccup of sending our iPad in for repairs. So this week's digital sketches were done on my Huion tablet that I set up for the first time in 3 years. This meant a little bit of adjustment time and tech troubleshooting before I could get to my daily practice. Slowed me down a bit but should now be prepared to survive without the iPad for a week.

Now to prep for week 3: Pigeons

My pangolin Pinterest board with all my reference images can be found here.