pretty

I love pictures like this! My favorites gallery is full of WIPs because I think having the whole process displayed in one image is fascinating :)

Wow! This is nice.

Stunning and educational! <3

It looks really beautiful nonetheless!

Man, I have always adored your acrylic work with its gorgeous textural strokes and use of neutral tones with greatly varied subtlety. This piece is no exception, and actually reminds me a lot of an older piece you painted, of a snow leopard (I believe?) where you used only a very large brush. I just find rough work like this so expressive and inspirational!

This is beautiful, particularly the clumping fur and how the background works in so subtly. I love seeing process.

I need to do more drawing from photos, but I find myself flicking my eyes between my drawing and the photo to compare, so it kinda feels like I'm really only tracing-by-eye, if that makes sense.

How much do you try to make it an exact copy, and how much is more an informed interpretation?

The big difference between using photographs as reference vs. merely copying them with the eye is in closely studying the forms. If you're just taking a 2D image and trying to duplicate it exactly you don't learn much, but if you convert that 2D image into a 3D object as you work on it you learn new anatomical details. This does take a little prior knowledge of the 3D form, which is why life drawing is so valuable. Most people don't have access to wolves, but dogs are built very similarly, and a day of sketching at the dog park will teach you more about form than looking at dozens of photographs.