Some more drawings I am working on

Since my last post, I started working on some other drawings.  My favourite black pen ran out of ink and I moved on to the next one in my drawer, just a standard blue pen (however its aptly named Jetstream considering I work in the aviation industry!)

So my cartoony drawings started looking terrible, time to try shading with pen!  Why I don't use pencil, I am not really sure.  I may argue that pen hurts my wrist less since I don't have to press as hard, but I was getting so into the drawings that I was hurting anyway!

Another thing I contemplated and learned was that I am terrible at scaling pictures. Again, I used my 15 minute background rotations to inspire my work, but I found with the detail i was putting into it, I was lucky to be able to fit half a head onto the sheet.  Also, after the 15 mins was up, I started the next one, so the doodles were very incomplete in numerous ways.

With all that negativity aside, I am really pleased with my improvement!

Without further ado, here are my best 2 doodles:

This one was particularly difficult to shade as the light was from behind, making most of his face dark.  Lessons learned here...

 Could be applied here!

I was interested to analyze the way I approached drawing them.  I always start from the ears and work my way down the top of the face, adding tack, then completing the face.  On the second one, I had realized this and decided to start elsewhere, I started with the bit and moved on to the mouth, then finished the noseband, then chin, and the rest of the face.  Last thing I added was the eye, and the eye always seems to come last for me, it really defines the picture.  You can see in the last one, I didn't get around to filling in the reins and cheekpiece in my 15 minutes but they were actually one of the first things I drew (as they were attached to the bit).  I really think that by breaking my ear start habit, I came through with a much better picture!

I have never really done the "draw squares, circles, sausages etc" technique, I kind of just follow where the pen takes me.  Maybe I will try it someday, maybe this works just fine.