Join the daily sketch by @tonyr

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Initially inspired by this photo which goes along the trends of my latest sketches...

Now let's see the journey which was a little bumpy towards the end...

..no problems so far... going smooth stroking like a king ..lol

Oh! Oh!... I think I went off the paper limits...! ... I initially thought of starting over for an instant there perhaps going portrait mode instead of landscape but then I said why waste time and resources and continued stroking till I reach the limits as I had already thought about a solution...

No panic! I took another piece of paper and added under the first one with some books for weight on the top... - those crazy birds look like they are laughing at me... laugh if you want to... :D, those books turned out to be a comfortable arm rest as I continued drawing with the other...

Now what a wonderful picture to express the situation I got my self into but no worries I am hanging in there... also this was the most frustrating bird to draw (just look at his face ^o^)... I guess my confidence got shaken a little bit and I lost focus for a moment there in fact I wanted to end it here because i got stressed out...well at least I managed myself to finish it ..hmm thinking...

without second thoughts I decided to continue and hopefully Mowgli will help me out here.. I initially took the measures from head to feet in reference of the birds so I don't go off scale .. (I initially did that at the beginning of the sketch with a rough estimation but the strokes were a little bigger I guess ) I intially started from the head but Mowgli told me to put his feet on the ground because he didn't like to feel light headed and dizzy.. ^^

The anatomic features are very sensitive and a light offset of stroke could deform it ..
So I applied a technique which may sound impossible to do but you really should give it a try right now and i mean right now!
Just grab a pencil and a paper and place it between you and your monitor and try to replicate what you see on screen (in this case my post) with all its lines, angles, rectangles, etc.. now here is the trick...WITHOUT taking your eyes off the screen...
yes, you read that right,

draw your monitor without taking your eyes off it and with only your hand moving like Adam's family Uncle Fester's crazy hand (you know that hand that was cut off... xp) and then tell me what came out...

It doesn't have to be perfect but you will be surprised on how accurate the major guidelines and proportions are overall maintained and respected

What happens here is that your eyes are registering the "X" and "Y" coordinates of your monitor instantaneously and send them to your hand, in an orthogonal projection fashion and ultimately to the accuracy of your pencil tip and on your paper...

By not distracting the eyes, with continuously changing references by looking back and forth to the picture you are trying to draw, you are using a single reference, pinned to your eyes like a nail to the wall
...also do not move your head for better results so center that monitor, lock it in and fire..i mean draw hahaha...I probably should make an entire post about it with illustrations along other tricks and an insight understanding of the drawing process

Anyway...this is what I did when drawing Mowgli' right leg...i roughly defined the foot and then went up to knee level without taking my eyes off...to my surprise (because it is also an awkward moment for me too) I couldn't do it better and from first stroke! ;)

Again, it is not perfect but what's important are the coordinates, the proportions of the body and its guidelines...
Now my confidence was back in full force even though i knew that parts like the hands and face will require dedicated attention and slow....veeeeery slooooow strokes
You can almost see the canceled lines as I had to redo the arms a couple of times and minute details to give an honest replica...

So here is, finally, the overall sketch... ups! that "frustrated" bird's head is bigger than Mowgli's... that's what happens when you draw fast sometimes ^^

now for the outlining ...(those birds still laughing ^^)

It is always a dilemma for me on where to put the tags on the paper ... I put my name on bottom and thought that's cool then I wrote "ltdwf" on top but it disrupted the drawing so i thought I should ask Mowgli to say it for me ^^ ...
He gladly accepted but the bird on top couldn't hear it well, the one below was just drunk, lol...the other couldn't see anything from his hair and the poor "frustrated" bird carrying all that weight on his wings just couldn't stand another moment .. ^^

Birds