First time drawing a mantis

[Plex]

So I'm getting back into art from a nearly 6 month hiatus and decided that my first drawing to get back into it before my art classes start next semester would be of a mantis. I used a few photos of subadult creos for reference and used drawing pencils and vine charcoal, and I am unsure if I'm happy with it or not and will likely make many changes to it before I call it a done deal. I was wondering what some people who are also into mantids think of it and what parts of the anatomy I should work on a bit more/fix on it... I had to take a picture of it with my phone though so the quality isn't the best until my scanner is replaced or somehow fixed. Thank you ahead of the time for the advice / feedback!

 

[Mime454]

I think that the wing buds look off and the legs are a bit too far apart. I'm still drawing stick figures, so what do I know?

 

[Plex]

Okay, thank you. ^^ I'm planning on working on him a bit more and will work on the wing buds definitely and try to work on spacing a bit more with legs if I can figure things out with that.. XD

 

[JSaff86]

looks great wish i could draw like that.

 

[Malakyoma]

Hey that looks like my subadult creo!



Very good job. I can't draw like that.

 

[Rick]

Good job!

I just drew this in about a minute hahaha

 

[aNisip]

Nice job Rick! ....however more life in the picture! ...

Plex great job! It is an awesome drawing, however I do agree with Mike about the wingbuds, but the antennae aren't quite working for me; I'm and no where near an expert at all, but just some input!

 

[Plex]

Thank you for the input everyone!

Hey that looks like my subadult creo!

Very good job. I can't draw like that.

Aww thank you, and it does look like your creo. xD I used a few photos I found on google as reference. x3

Good job!

I just drew this in about a minute hahaha

Haha thank you, and very good job, quite a character that mantis drawing is!

 

[petoly]

good start. but it needs a lot of work. you need to work on your values. Pop darker darks and lighter lights for contrast, you're losing the front arm and lots of the thorax because it's all the same shade of grey. Don't use just one stick of vine charcoal, add some compressed charcoal in there for darker darks. The wing buds need to be further back. Overall it needs much smoother shading and more attention to detail. Another 20 hours on it may help. you're also missing a rear leg. The eyes and antennae are way too dark. it makes my eye just want to fall there and nowhere else. work on your hard edges and soft edges. that's what defines shapes in art. There are no lines in realistic work only how the light hits stuff. also proportionwise it's legs are way too thick.

 

[Koshmar]

I think you know where you are going and understand how the animal moves which will help you a lot in finishing it. I'm just a hobbyist, I have no formal education or training in drawing. I've never taken a class so I'm not sure what they teach you but one of the big things I've learned is that it all comes down to how you "see" and lighting is probably the most important things to understand. Once you understand how light and shadow work, you have it pretty much figured out. Line variation is another factor that I still need to improve upon. The style that you are taking with your drawing though looks mostly like what I do so the line variation won't be as big of a deal. You need to darken the entire work more. I take it you have a blending stump? Those make a huge difference but you can use your finger almost as well. Eyes are difficult with insects due to the translucent effect you need to capture but it can certainly be done.

While I haven't had the time to start a terrestrial mantis drawing, I do have one of a mantis shrimp drawing I've done. Hopefully it will give you some ideas since some of the anatomical features are similar. I also included a few drawings of the eye in order of progression which can help you get that translucent effect down. These were all done with a .5 mech pencil and taken with an cell phone.

 

[Plex]

good start. but it needs a lot of work. you need to work on your values. Pop darker darks and lighter lights for contrast, you're losing the front arm and lots of the thorax because it's all the same shade of grey. Don't use just one stick of vine charcoal, add some compressed charcoal in there for darker darks. The wing buds need to be further back. Overall it needs much smoother shading and more attention to detail. Another 20 hours on it may help. you're also missing a rear leg. The eyes and antennae are way too dark. it makes my eye just want to fall there and nowhere else. work on your hard edges and soft edges. that's what defines shapes in art. There are no lines in realistic work only how the light hits stuff. also proportionwise it's legs are way too thick.

Thanks for the input. Yeah I was definitely having issues with the original lines popping out to much I noticed and I couldn't decide what angle the other rear leg would be at so... I'll work on what you commented on and put in quite a bit more time on the piece.

I think you know where you are going and understand how the animal moves which will help you a lot in finishing it. I'm just a hobbyist, I have no formal education or training in drawing. I've never taken a class so I'm not sure what they teach you but one of the big things I've learned is that it all comes down to how you "see" and lighting is probably the most important things to understand. Once you understand how light and shadow work, you have it pretty much figured out. Line variation is another factor that I still need to improve upon. The style that you are taking with your drawing though looks mostly like what I do so the line variation won't be as big of a deal. You need to darken the entire work more. I take it you have a blending stump? Those make a huge difference but you can use your finger almost as well. Eyes are difficult with insects due to the translucent effect you need to capture but it can certainly be done.

While I haven't had the time to start a terrestrial mantis drawing, I do have one of a mantis shrimp drawing I've done. Hopefully it will give you some ideas since some of the anatomical features are similar. I also included a few drawings of the eye in order of progression which can help you get that translucent effect down. These were all done with a .5 mech pencil and taken with an cell phone.

The only drawing class I've taken so far (this next one will be my second) touched a bit on shading but not as much as I would have liked, and yeah I have a couple blending stumps actually though some of them are rather damaged. Thank you for showing how you draw the eyes for the effect, I'll try something similar out and see how it works out. ^^

 

[petoly]

light has 5 main elements and it works universally.in order or brightness you have a highlight, surface light, core shadow, reflective light and a cast shadow. Technically the reflective light is lighter than the core shadow.

If I have time I will post up a diagram but for now I'll explain in words

the highlight is the lightest spot on any surface, it is also the spot on any given surface that's closest to the light source. This doesn't mean each object depicted will only have 1 highlight. Normally there are multiple ones of different intensities.

the surface light is the part that's lit by the light but it's not as bright as the highlight basically no shadows yet,

the core shadow is the stuff that is in shadow on the surface being depicted,

the cast shadow is the shadow projected to another surface from the original object,

and the reflective light is residual light that's bouncing from a surface next to the object being rendered, and bouncing back onto the object that is being depicted. Reflective light is always going to be found within the core shadow.