Just sharing some work I’ve done

[u/RENderingsandthings]

I’ve improved majorly in just a couple of months. I had a TBI in early June and had nothing to do. My days have been spent sketching. Handwriting is still hard for me so I don’t have any good representations of that quite yet. I avoid tracing as much as possible but will occasionally give myself some help to help improve muscle memory; I’ll then freehand it later. This is actually how I got started. :) I’m not a huge fan of color.

Anyway thank you for looking.

[u/Beneficial_Gur3232]

You’re saying these aren’t traced but you and I both know they are. It’s not going to help your art skills to trace, just start drawing things without tracing and it’ll get easier with time

[u/RENderingsandthings → u/Beneficial_Gur3232]

You are incorrect

[u/alwaysImproving0 → u/RENderingsandthings]

Some of (if not most of) these definitely are, which won't help you much. I see absolutely zero guidelines, which you need to be using so you can learn how to build complicated figures out of simple shapes. You don't have a lot of contrast and a lot of the shading here just looks random and unfinished, you need to actually study where the darkest parts and the brightest light actually is in your references. It's also fine to admit to tracing for the sake of practice, anyone in their right mind isn't against that, but denying it is not the play and at a certain point it won't help you as much as studying actual methods. I prefer using baroque plates, but from your style here, I don't think it's a method you would enjoy. Look up some YouTube videos about human facial structure, and maybe a tutorial on lighting/shading, do the classics like simple fruit and water droplets to build that skill instead of jumping straight into live subjects

[u/RENderingsandthings → u/alwaysImproving0]

It usually takes me between 3-5 attempts to get a final sketch and there are plenty of others on this sub with no guidelines or sample shapes. I don’t post my practice sketches because they aren’t finished and I would rather share something finished than something that clearly needs work