Alright! So I haven't drawn in forever and I have never tried shading, so this was a great experience for me!!! I went off a book about drawing animals, so I can't claim the design nor even the shading placement but I didn't trace anything so I am happy about how it turned out :D

Advice, especially on shading, and opinions would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you so much!!!!



hopefully you can tell that is a lioness >.< If not then I should try quite a bit harder x.x

Sorry about the poor image quality!!!!

not an expert on animals, fair warning. also forgive me if i come across as rude or anything, i mean well, truly! and if you don't want anything on anatomy then skip to the bottom.

drawing books are nice, photos are better, real life is best, remember that. sometimes other artists' drawings may look SUPER GOOD, but you're referencing a reference, and it's too far apart. sometimes people even get things wrong! if you have a zoo near you, it might be a good idea to bring your sketchbook along next time, sketch a sleeping lioness. or, you can look at a lot of photos and lion anatomy--again, not as good as being up close, but if you learn the bone structure and muscle formations of lions, any being in general, you can learn to draw from scratch more realistically. which is why i say look at LOTS of photos(photos, not drawings)--anyone can look at a picture and copy it, but if you really wanna bring it to life, you have to know what you're drawing. if that makes ANY sense whatsoever? like there's a difference between using a reference, where you copy the pose and every detail, and using a pose reference, where you just take the pose but you draw all your own details because you know what goes where!

Take this image, for example.

It's not the best, and i'm not going to use it as a reference. But i can look at it and say, look how her head is essentially one long curve from the top of it to her nose! sure, there's smaller details(eyebrows), but you want to get to know the basic shape first.
the front of her muzzle dips in with her nose, then starts to puff out again with her upper...lips i guess? again, not an animal expert. then her chin/lower jaw is very fluffy and further goes outward.


this is a much better image, especially considering what you drew. but again, you're not looking to copy the details, you're looking to learn from it. notice the long slope of the upper skull, the dip inward of the nose, the outward slope of the chin. now we can see her jaw, and how it almost follows the line of the upper lip, which connects to the neck before the bone curves upwards.
(wish i had my tablet rn, it'd make more sense!)

So, seeing just those two, we now know that the skull jutting in by the eyes needs a bit of correcting, it should be a more or less single swoop through to the nose. other than that, it fits pretty well!

Skip here for shading!
shading-wise, I'd say ease up on the pencil when you shade, and use the side of the pencil, not the tip. i'm not much of a traditional artist(shame on me), so i'll link some tuts that'll show you more about shading.

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though i will say, it seems you need to learn how to see/use values, and how to add texture. look for some tutorials on that, they WILL help lots! searching 'pencil shading values tutorial' or 'pencil shading texture tutorial' should yield the right results.

First, thank you so much for taking your time to write all of that! I really appreciate the advice and the time you took to write it, so thank you so much!!!!!

Second, I totally agree about the looking at actual photos and the real thing, sadly I can't go to the zoo due to the fact that the 115 degree weather is a little too hot for me xD I also really just wanted to draw one first based off of a tutorial and then I'll go off of actual drawings.

About the shading, I completely agree. This was my first time doing shading, of any sort, and my first time using my new graphite pencils so I definitely agree with it needing to be lighter >.<

Thanks again!!! I will definitely take your advice and will start looking at pictures and, hopefully, going to the zoo once our heat turns down a little bit. xD

Hehe, yeah, that's why i try to explain how to use photos to learn, since most people write it off as not good enough instead of remembering that you can't exactly find an anaconda or a lion or a wolf in your backyard, or whatever animal you're going for! I don't even have a zoo near me, well i have the animals in Disney but this is tourist season, heh.

Good for you though, the first step is to try!

Yeah, it wasn't till i got to blending that i actually got anywhere with shading traditionally! i see all these artists with these fabulous shading techniques and i'm just sorta like HOW?! I press too hard most of the time, too, so it's like WELP, gonna keep trying.

I talk a lot and my typing had to keep up, so it sped up and now i type too much. So it's honestly no problem! Yeah, and try some other animals too, it's always good to keep your options open!

Yes! Thank you so much!! I do have two zoos near me but, as I said, it is way too hot here. I doubt the animals would even come out of the shade, not to mention me coming out. I like this thing called air conditioning xDD

Thank you so much! It is obvious that I will need to work on shading quite a bit more, but I am glad I tried it. The hardest part was probably the muzzle since you need quite a bit of shading there.

No worries! I talk a lot too, well if I enjoy talking about the subject xD Thanks again for all the advice! It really helps me!

Also! Your artwork is gorgeous and you should be receiving a pm soon :DD

Yeah, i'm a sucker for a/c too, i live in Florida so it's always hot and humid. Plus i've been weirdly hot, even for me lately, so i'm just a constant sweaty mess OTL like i always say, you can always add layers, but you can only take so much off!

Yeah, i'd work with the shading-a-sphere/cylinder/cube exercise as a warm-up practice, then move on to fruit, especially ones with more complicated shapes and textures. If you have one of those bendy desk lamps, those make excellent light sources! All shadows are shapes, if you can find the shapes, find how dark they need to be, you're set!

I'm awful at concise statements. For every one message a friend'll send me, i'll send like 6, it's terrible. Even About Me's on my various accounts have become like, statistic lists rather than actual descriptions 'cause i figure people might figure out more about me with my age, zodiac sign, and personality type than if i wrote three paragraphs that no one reads! Well, three paragraphs was short compared to my early Abouts...

Eeee, thank you! Take your time though, if there's other stuff you wanna spend on first i'm totally ok with that, heh.

Oh gosh, I feel your pain. I hail from Arizona so all I get is heat >.< A/C is a blessing xD

I will do that! I just have to re-plug in my desk lamp xD

Ah, well I am fine with long paragraphs! It is fun to read everything they have to say, unless they are boring then bleh. I love your about though, so you don't have to worry about that haha.

And nope! I must have your arts xD

I was actually born in New Jersey, so i totally don't have a heat tolerance to begin with T_T
It's a different kind of heat, yours is a ~dry~ heat, as they always say. But, let's be real, they're BOTH awful, i don't think i've laid so much on the floors in my house as much as i have the past month. With icepacks. And we have the air on!

Yeah, i have to start poaching the one we have again, i need the practice.

I agree x.x I hate when people say that -dry- heat is better. Like, I understand that humidity sucks, but so does 115 degrees >.< I hate it so much, but yes, humidity sucks as well. lately, we have been having quite a bit more humidity than normal. x.x So, I definitely feel your pain xD

Whoops, missed the second half of the reply on the previous one...

Awwww, you're too kind! It sounds like a fun request, i'll def do it. I've got one big project that was due like three weeks ago, i promised to attempt Lupora for someone, so i had to attempt to learn how to draw wolves again, then family came down for a week and i didn't draw, then it took a week to get myself used to drawing again, then ANOTHER to get used to wolves again, then it's either been exhaustion or thunderstorms keeping me from getting the lineart and coloring done. I feel awful, but i wanna get that one done first, then someone beat you out by two hours for the first paying slot. Shouldn't take long, i'm gonna recruit a friend to stalk my common sites and keep me from using them till i'm caught up!

It's like, would you rather live in an oven or a sauna? Gee, no moisture but hotter than humans can handle, or the air moisture is pretty much boiling on your skin in addition to the heat. What a choice! Gotta love showering and then sweating the moment the outside air hits your skin, humidity is awful.

Still, they had a recent heat wave in the UK, and from what i heard it seems like they don't have air in most places? My friend was practically dying the one night, all the normal cooling off things i could think of she either couldn't do or already was doing. I ended up suggesting she watch a documentary about penguins, to trick her brain into thinking she was as cold as the arctic (I'm a terrible friend when i run out of ideas...). So, could be worse.