drawing: before pictures

so here’s my “before” self portrait. it kinda looks like me, though madam didn’t recognise it was me until i took my glasses off she reckons it looks like me after i’ve had a shower cos i didn’t draw in all of my hair. my pencil kept breaking so i took that as a sign to finish, it took about 10 minutes. the features are all wonky cos i didn’t try particularly hard to get them in exactly the right places - mostly cos i didn’t have a rubber, so i didn’t want to draw guide lines. so the individual bits are quite a good representation, but their overall arrangement is all to pot. i could only find a 6b (though in general i prefer really soft pencils) so it’s a bit over-contrasty.

my second “before” picture, my hand. it looks a little freaky, mostly because of the high contrast again i think (though this was a 3 or 4b) but also just cos hands are a kind of freaky thing to draw. i took longer over this, at least half an hour, but i got bored before i finished the arm. i’m pretty happy with it. the thumb is a bit fucked up but the rest is okay. i’m pleased with the overall shape and how all the bits relate to each other, i like the way i got how my middle finger curves outwards compared to the others (so it’s my hands that are wrong, not my drawing :P). i’m particularly pleased that the fingers look like fingers and not all sausagey.