At 3/28/12 10:06 PM, BlackMist75 wrote:
A fast sketch of a crane in my town
Some tips to help your life-drawing:
You appear to be seeing the crane at it's most basic level - the simple shapes are clear to you (eg. criss-crossing beams). However, you are drawing these shapes without clear consideration for the actual image you're seeing - you're mostly drawing what you think a crane should look like, rather than what the crane actually looks like in the scene. I'll explain further.
Each beam has a set width and length in reality, running at certain angles, and the way that they connect to each other is very important to the structure of the crane. The varied and random lines that you've created don't respect the reality of the image - just because it's a sketch it doesn't mean you have to depend on such uncontrolled strokes. Light is hitting the crane in a very specific way that can't really be replicated in such a fashion.
I'm not saying that you have to sketch an entire background to truly represent the scene, but understand that drawing the crane's interaction with the environment will help in the realism. In a certain instance the beam might look better when shown as white in contrast to the surrounding darker environment (although that's unlikely to be the case, considering a bright sky).
Even for a quick sketch like this, it's important to be aware of these things. Not sure if I explained it well enough though. Keep it up.