The Ringling Thread Part Deux (2005 hopefuls) + summary of old thread

[sula_nebouxi]

Ok, I know it seems really damn early to start a thread for this but might as well get a head start eh?

I guess I'll follow AgentJ's thread by introducing myself...My name's Anthony Tso and I'm 19 yrs old and currently a sophmore at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Ever since I joined CGtalk I've seen so much talk about Ringling. I was curious if this school lived up to the hype so...I checked out their website and student's work and all I have to say is...DAMN. This place had better reels than every other school out there, some were even better than some professionals. Sadly though I missed the deadline to apply for the 2004 semester by a few weeks. I had only heard about Ringling recently. I applied for SVA in new york city though, but didn't get in. I think it was better I didn't apply for Ringling. I wouldn't have gotten in anyways.

So, fast foward to the present. Ringling is now my first choice for a cg school with SVA 2nd. I'm almost as obsessed about Ringling as AgentJ was(heh no offense). Ringling , as far as I'm concerned is the Harvard of cg animation. I think I'll have a nervous breakdown if I don't get in. That's why I'm busting my ass off, and starting on this portfolio real early. Even if means spending a total of 7 years in school and $80,000 in debt, I'm still going. This has become my dream and I...will...live...it...

I've read through the other Ringling thread and this is my attempt to condense 24 pages of information down to a few paragraphs. This info is basically for Computer Animation(CA) and Illustration majors. Whew...here goes...

Application process and Portfolio:

Official requirements:
Ringling requires a portfolio of artwork which ranges from 10 pieces(if you're in high school) and 15 (if you're transferring). In addition 2 pieces from each studio course must be included if you want credit for it. At least half of the artwork must be done from direct observation. Ringling also requires an essay and 2 letters of recommendation. You need to have a high school GPA of at least 2.0, not sure about college GPA if you're transferring, but I'm guessing it's the same. SAT scores are not required, but they may help if they are high. An essay is also required on one of the following subjects:
1. The creation of art is the result of many influences. Who or what has most influenced your work? In what way?
2. Discuss your goals as an artist or designer. How will attending Ringling School of Art and Design help you achieve your goals?
3. Discuss a local, national or international issue that is important to you. How would you address it in a work of art?
4. Describe an important experience that has shaped you as a person and as an artist.

Unofficial requirements(Or probably what they like to see, in no order)

-Figure studies and still lifes, lots of them. When Ringling means observation from life they mean this. -Don't ignore composition in still lifes, they can turn a dull piece into something really interesting to look at.
-Be very careful in including 3d work, only include it if your 2d skills are top notch and even then only include a few, and even then still, only include it if it kicks ass.
-Be diverse. Include a little bit of everything, by which I mean different mediums. Paintings, charcoal, pencil, etc...
-I've heard from a person who got in that a representative from Ringling said they like to see motion studies, and that you have some understanding of animation or movement (ie walk cycles, the bouncing ball)
-No storyboards. Stick to observational drawings.
-Scanning drawings can be a bad thing. Use slide film or a good digital camera in good lighting.
-It is possible that attending a college prep/precollege program will increase your chances of getting in. The official requirements stated that they like to see that you have taken a bunch of studio art and art history courses prior to going to Ringling.
-Plan to spend LOTS of time with your drawings, expect to spend at the very least 6hrs on each one. It's grueling but the amount of effort will show in your work.
-Your current GPA and portfolio are key to getting in. If you have a very high GPA(3.5 and up) you can probably get by with a decent portfolio, if you show potential. But if your GPA is low(between 2.0 and 3.0), your portfolio must be fantastic to offset the GPA. GPA's are important because they show that you are willing to work hard to improve. And also because academics are also important to Ringling.
-Your essay is also very important. It may tell a bit about you that your drawings cannot. To a lesser extent it also shows that you can put words together to form a sentence . Your essay should have a sense of eagerness to work hard, humility, no arrogance, and don't say something like "If I don't get in that's fine, I can do it on my own". They might think "OK, next!".
-Ringling wants to see a few things above all else: Potential, drive, creativity, skill, and your personality shine through your portfolio.
-Not sure if this matters too much but, do your drawings on a nice unwrinkled sheet of paper with no rips or tears or whatnot.
-Showing contrast in drawings is a must. Have a large range of values in your drawings. It's never good to just have grays in your drawings. Include dark blacks and bright whites.
-Play to your strengths. If you have weak figure studies, try not to include too many of them. Instead include what you are good at. Just don't neglect the observational art.
-Show only your best. Including bad or relatively average drawings can hurt your chances. It kinda gives a rushed feeling and they may think you aren't consistent with your work. Even if you have very few pieces, it's better than filling it out with mediocre work.
-Try not to wait until the last minute to send in the portolio, while they may be lenient on this, it doesn't hurt not to take any chances.
-Quick gestures may be a good idea to include. Maybe a large sheet full of them.
-Ringling likes to see creative works alongside the observational stuff. Show them what you are interested in. Remember, this portfolio is supposed to show who you are.
-Ringling, and most other art schools for that matter, don't want to see comic/manga style work. It's hard to be original with those kinds of styles. They also do not want to see stuff drawn from photos. Usually a trained eye can notice whether or not something has been photographed beforehand.

Random Info: (Also in no order)
-You should get your response from Ringling between the end of February and mid-March. It seems to depend on how many have applied and when and if you get weeded out(sorry if that sounded harsh).
-It doesn't really matter if your drawings are done on large paper or small paper. Whatever you're comfortable with.
-Solid foundation in art goes a long way. Understanding the human body will help tremdously in creating not just realistic works but believable ones.
-You can call the computer animation department to see if you have been accpeted. Sometimes they can check for you. Or they might give in from all the requests
-To be eligible for the Presidential scholarship(all expenses paid) you must complete your application and submit your FAFSA by March 1st. It goes to one person from each major and depends on your entrance portfolio. It only goes to the best.
-Unconfirmed: You can reduce your tuition by working as a Resident Advisor in the dorms. By doing this you do not have to pay for housing. That's $5000 less each year you have to pay.
-Freshmen are required to have a meal plan, after freshmen year you do not have to have one. This is because Freshmen dorms do not have a kitchen.
-FEWS is a great extra-curricular activity. Kids get together and just draw live models. Perfect for those who want to improve their skills.
-There are LOTS of scholarships out there. Pretty much every major corporation has one(it's a nice tax write off) Target, McDonald's, Taco Bell etc...It is possible to pay off a major part of your tuition with just scholarships. Check fastweb.com, lots of scholarships are available for those that just graduated high school and those who are undergraduates in college. Hell...I found a scholarship just for atheists.
-Word is, the Keating Freshmen dorms are full of fresh out of high school partiers. It will be loud and hard to concentrate on work there. Look into "family housing" or check to see if you can transfer into the Quads or Bayou dorms. Quads are also considered to be the nicest of the dorms so, if you're transferring in as a freshman and you have transfer credits and you are older than a traditional freshman, you have a good chance of getting in there. The Cove is supposedly quiet but it's quite a walk to the main campus.

Hmm...I think that pretty much sums up the last Ringling thread. Just remember to do your best and don't ever give up! Oh, and if you don't get in immediately, don't worry. Get on the waiting list and usually a couple people who got accpeted choose not to attend. It seems the wait list position can be anywhere from 3 to 10. Wow this took quite a while to write...well...anyways good luck...we'll need it.

[sula_nebouxi]

Here's some more stuff from the other thread...It's a good read.

Originally posted by keithlango
I'm very familiar with the Ringling program. I know the faculty and have been involved as a visiting artist and guest lecturer on several occasions over the last several years.

In my opinion, the quality of the education in the Ringling Computer Animation department is top notch. There's a strong emphasis on traditional art throughout, as well as for developing the ability to tell a story. The faculty are constantly inviting working professional artists to review and critique student work in progress. Every year the faculty also hires working pros to come and do faculty training so that they stay current with the industry. Not to mention that the faculty also do a fair amount of actual professional freelance work during the off months of the year. So there's no basis for implying the Ringling program is not among the best in the world from a quality of education standpoint.

Having said that, going to Ringling is not a guarantee that you'll get a high paying job in the CG industry right out of school. I'd say a good 50% of each graduating class isn't ready for the job market upon graduation. They need more work on their own time after graduation to get up to par. I make that judgement based on a simple question: Would I hire this person right now as a junior artist in my studio? To more than half the graduates I'd say that answer would be "No, not yet."

Is that a fault of the program? I don't think it is. Those are actually pretty good averages for hire-able people from a given pool of graduates. I've seen entire classes of students coming from other programs that I wouldn't hire if you held a gun to my head.

Every year there's 1 or 2 Ringling graduates who are so good they have multiple offers awaiting them upon graduaton. Then there's the next level, perhaps the top 5-8 graduates who will get a job offer within 2 months of graduation. There's the next level of students (perhaps 10-15 of the 35 or so who graduate) will need to work on their reels on their own time for a period of 6-12 months after graduation, occasionally getting a spot assignment here or there until they can catch on with more consistent work. They have training and ability, they just need to get more practice and grow in their skills. Even so, that's not bad. Again I've seen whole classes of graduates from other schools that I would say would need years of additional work on their own in order to be good enough to get in as a junior level artist.

Sadly, just as every graduating class from Ringling produces some super stars, it also produces it's share of duds. People who never took the program seriously, rebelled against the faculty's instruction because they thought they knew it all already or were so talented that they didn't need to listen, folks who goofed off or didn't feel a burning need to improve their craft and take advantage of the opportunities they'd been given. Almost universally the people who fall into this category have their schooling paid for by their parents. Such folks likely will never work in the CG industry without a significant change of attitude, but they won't have any loans either. They'll just have taken their parents for a $100,000 joy ride on the sunny beaches along the Gulf Coast of Florida.

When calculating the costs of the education, you need to weigh what it's worth to you to have access to knowledgeable, well trained faculty, industry pro reviews and a competitive class environment which will push you artistically. The typical pay for a graduating Cg artist from Ringling may be a bit higher than from your usual Art Institute, but not much. After all this is a merit driven business that judges the artist by their work, not by their class ring. The hire-able Ringling graduates have offers that are typically in the $30-40,000 range. Maybe $45k if it's the right studio or game company. But not typically. Still, $30-40k is quite good for a first job right out of school. The top guys will get a bit more (maybe $50-65k, but VERY rarely). The folks who have to work on their reels for a few months will get less to start because they won't be walking into the top studios right away. Overall the payoff is not bad for a typical graduate. But you'd better not be dreaming for a 6 figure income right out of school because that just doesn't happen anymore. That pay scale is reserved for high end TD's, senior level artists with many years of experience and supervisors. The occasional production artist may hit that mark in a very few select studios if they work a ton of paid overtime (key word here is "paid"). But fresh graduates won't get a sniff of anything near 6 figures, not even superstar Ringling graduates.

The way to ensure that you get an offer for employment when graduating from Ringling is to be in that top 5-10 students in your class. Those are the folks who will get work. The rest have to do it the way the rest of us mere mortals do and work their way up from the bottom over a longer period of time. You need to HONESTLY assess your abilities right now. If you cannot say with confidence that you are capable of producing work that is on par with the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater or Animation Theater shorts coming out of Ringling each year, then you're best served not spending your money to go there. You're better served keeping your overall debt load low and taking the longer, slower path to a job in this business because that's the way you'll have to go if you can't do stuff that is on the same level as something like Poor Bogo.
http://www.animwatch.com/Spotlight-PoorBogo.shtml

That's just my opinion.

-k

Originally posted by danistheman
Kieth is dead on, that should be required reading if you even think of going.

6 months after I graduated and after I started getting bills for my huge loan I finally found a 3 month contract doing very tedious stuff making $13 an hour. I wasn't at the top of my class but I wasn't at the bottom either.

But the education there is topnotch.

[filtered]

Graphic Design 2005

Most recent designs:
Poster 1
Poster 2

* If the new window says 403 Forbidden, just hit refresh.

Fixed the links - my server is down forever.

[sula_nebouxi]

Those are some pretty nice designs but then again, I don't know a damn thing about graphic design. I can't really help ya there, filtered . But, since everyone needs observational drawings to get into any of the programs...maybe you could post some drawings or paintings. I'm a little better at looking at those kinds of things.

[filtered]

I don't have any drawings or paintings..yet..

[Daissan]

Yeah, I just got into the Illustration program for 2004-2005 and I dunno how helpful I can be on getting a portfolio together, but I'll try.

Biggest thing by far is to have a decent variety of traditional drawing techniques represented. Even if it is the most Fancy Shmancy tech art school in the whatever, they're gonna expect you to know traditional rendering when you show up. Know how to do value shading as well as line work, get your perspetive up to snuff, and study figure drawing.
My porfolio consisted of about 40 percent still lives, 40 percent figure drawing, an architectural drawing, a perspective drawing, a portrait, and two sculptures. (traditional sculptures, out of clay and glass respectively) The drawings themselves usually took a minimum of three hours, usually more for the better ones. I drew at least three times as many pictures with the intent of prepping my portfolio than I actually ended up using. (about 35) In other words, do enough work you can pick and choose your best.

Bell just rang, and I have a final, but I'll edit this one with a bit more info later.

[Hett15]

Well here goes. I decided not to put it off another year. I'm going to try to get into the Computer Animation Program for 2005. The wife gave me a green light and now it's all engines go. So hello all you other hopefuls and applicants. Let the journey begin!

[AnarchyAo2]

I'm going to apply there, but I haven't made up my made as to what school I really want to go to.
Heres some stuff I plan on doing for my portfolio:
-Setting up some still lifes.
-Doing some self-portraits
-Drawing outside ( I'd say life drawing, but thats misleading).
-Taking a hike in the woods just to draw whatever. Maybe I'l find a stream or something.
-Going by the pool an the apartment complex where I live. I spotted about 3 different angles where I can draw some really cool things. Like, drawing the gazeebo (sp), or standing in the gazeebo and drawing the forest and the mountains (If your standing there, you see no buildings, just nature)
-Maybe go up the mountains. There are a lot of peaks I know about up there, and old run down houses which would be great.
-In the fall, do a painting of the leaves changing colors on the mountains (If you know what the Shenandoah Valley is, you know what the leaves look like, if you don't, here is what I'm talking about:

Basically, draw a lot of stuff from the mountains because it kind of shows who I am, and my roots. Anyone have any ideas? Or anything I should change?

[sula_nebouxi]

Alright Hett15 and Anarchy, that's great! If we all get in maybe we'll see each other around campus and we can all do...something...

Anyways Anarchy, still lifes and drawing from life(which is what you're doing) is great. Ringling loves it. I even heard an admissions person say it. They love observational stuff. Make sure your portfolio is at least half done from observation. I think it's a good idea to do landscapes showing your roots. I think it may give a bit of a creative edge. (Curses...now I'll have to do the same to compete...hehe j/k) seriously though, I'd say it's a lot more well thought out than a randomly put together still life. Self-portraits are good too, just don't make them too boring like where you look straight ahead with no change in emotion. While it's a lot easier to draw, it needs to show some creativity too. Make sure you spend a LOT of time on them too. Make them look finished and polished. Oh and contrast too, have lots of contrasting tones. Don't have everything in midtones.

Which major are you applying for? It may help to throw in some work that you are interested in doing later on. Like motion studies for computer animation etc...

I wouldn't change anything to your plan Anarchy, you're on the right track. I think it'll be a LONG time before we see stuff we can all critique so...I think for now we should all try to see what Ringling wants in a portfolio(besides observational stuff). Maybe I should go and bug some admissions counselors... Anyways...good luck!

[Hett15]

The longer version of my decision is that I was planning to apply for the 2006 school year because my wife and I are moving to Sarasota for her teaching career. (we are only 22 years old) I have just graduated from FSU with a business degree, but that was only because my parents refused to pay for Ringling right out of highschool. They didn't see the point in spending that much money on art school. Well back then when I still was dependent on their financial support I turned my interest into going to the film school at FSU. It is very selective and I missed the cut by 3 people and they put me on the waiting list. One person dropped out, but I still had another person in front of me. I was already committed to going to FSU and holding out until the last instant for hope of getting into the filmschool. Well I ended up getting an international business management degree and I never got into the film school. I did however make friends in the film school and I storyboarded a couple of the Senior films (one film which won a student Academy Award) I got married to my highschool sweetheart my senior year of College, and one day before my junior year while we were in the Animation Tour at MGM Florida she blew me away when she told me that no matter what it would take we would put me through art school. She is the greatest woman in the world! Then I got very hardcore obsessed with all things animation and drawing related (hence how I came across this site) We devised a plan for how we would pay for school. I would work until she finished her masters (Spring 2005) Then we would move to Sarasota so she could teach special education and I would work for a year saving up as much money as I could and then apply for the Fall 2006 admissions. Well after some talks we've been having we decided that it would be better for me to get through school sooner so that when she wanted to have kids I wouldn't be in school still. Then I would be able to get a better job post-Ringling instead of wasting my time at a crappy job the year before in Sarasota. We are debt free because we both earned scholarships to pay for our time at FSU we have already paid off both of our cars (and her wedding ring $$!!!) So with her income as a teacher we will be able to support ourselves just fine for a few years since we are already used to living off of about $25,000 a year. being a teacher in Florida means that all of her families health, dental, and vision insurance will be covered and we are eligible to get lower interest rates for loans through the educational credit union. I have taken all of my Art history classes already as electives here at FSU so I get to save my money there and I also will get to pass out of almost all of the "extra" required classes like the liberal arts and math classes because I already have a degree from a liberal arts school Everything just seems to be right for me to just bite the bullet and start school a.s.a.p. Another thing is that I don't want to be too old before I get started. I want to make friends there too (although at FSU I have found that nobody likes hanging out with a married guy that doesn't drink or do drugs :chug: Maybe some art people will like me

The funny thing is that I actually got a job right now as a non-linear editor here in Tallahassee and many of the film school kids are still looking for any kind of job related to film. I just came in at the right time and talked to the right person I guess. They don't know that I will be leaving in a year to move to Sarasota so lets keep that on the DL.

Hope we all get in and if it comes down to me or one of you.... well lets just say in college you learn how to make things look like an accident:cool: Hee hee just kidding

Anyone want to be drawing buddies kind of like Alcoholics Anonymous where we would check in on each other to see eachother's progress and support and critique eachother and rant on eachother for the days that we don't draw! I'm up for it if any of you are?

I wonder what this thread will look like in a few months after we start filling it up.

[sula_nebouxi]

Heya Hett... alright! A fellow Super Senior! hehe That was a nice little story, I wish I someone like your wife. Hell, I wish I had someone *period*. But, that's another story...

About paying for Ringling, apply for every scholarship you can! I heard of a person who paid his entire way through Harvard with just scholarships. Plus you can always do artsy stuff down in Sarasota for work. There's plenty of things to do(or so I hear). Worse comes to worse you can camp at some sidewalk in Sarasota and do caricatures Everywhere I go to in NYC the sidewalks are crammed with people who paint names, do caricatures or sell some of their own art. They seem to get a lot of business too from tourists and such. I always see a bunch of people carrying big pieces of bristol board with names on them. And they're like $10 each! Not bad if you can do a couple a day.

Heh college really does teach you to live on the bare minimum, something I need to learn Which is one of the reasons why I chose Ringling. I need to get the hell away from New Jersey. It's driving me insane and I'm living with some very *ahem* disgusting people. I won't mention what they do but I guarantee you will not want to eat anything for a loooooong time.

Oh and Hett, I'll be your study buddy! Heh, it's definetly a good idea. In fact I have a thread over on the life drawing forum, I'll post my stuff here too. The first few are crap which i did a few months ago the rest are pretty recent(and are still crap I might add). The earlier ones are bad in that I pretty much had no conception of contrasting tones. A big no no. Haven't really done much that would be considered finished. They're mostly gesture drawings with charcoal and a few paintings. Nothing portfolio worthy so far heh...I'm still a n00b to oil paint. I need to get me an easel too so I can paint outdoors. Anyways...here's some of my work...Warning! really friggin big download. I really hope I don't kill my bandwidth(it's my school's webspace) Anyways, they're in order from oldest to newest. Gotta retake pics of my paintings, they were all underexposed.
























I'll get some more up within a few days hopefully. (Assuming I can figure out what aperture width/ISO setting/shutter speed I need to shoot something in low light without a flash...ugh...) Well...Cheers guys and gals. Here's to hoping we all get the coveted acceptance letters.

[Hett15]

Well all right study buddy I'll start trying to get mine posted soon too. I was just in Jersey last weekend to see my brother and his fiance. They live in Hillsbourough just north of Princeton. Anyways I'll give you the first critique.

First off I really like the gesture drawings the best.
You are getting fairly good proportions and the body angles are coming along nicely. The figure drawings do need work (but I know you said this isn't portfolio stuff) Some of the muscles could be more defined and the facial features are generic looking. How long did you have to draw each one? You already mentioned differing the tones and values up so you know some are too light (also a scanner problem often) The still lifes look really good in form and value. I can tell you have a wide variety of work here as far as how much time you have put into them. Some look really good and some need work, but overall nice work.

I would reccommend getting a drawing anatomy book. I have one that is helpful. It's by Christopher Hart, Human anaotmy made amazingly easy http://www.bookideas.com/reviews/ind...yReview&id=946

Alright I am at work but I'll post something by tomorrow morning. Since I am too lazy to go search which thread do you have up in the drawing area? I'll check it out because I don't think you are allowed to post images in two places on here becasue it uses too much bandwidth. Also if possible resize your image in photoshop to something around 300x200 pixels so you can post more

[sula_nebouxi]

Heya Hett, I live over in Old Bridge which is just a few miles from Hillsborough. Thanks for the crit, I need as many opinions as I can get.

I didn't have much time to do the figure drawings, most were around 15 min. I think the most time spent was half an hour, so I couldn't get too much detail in. Oh, I should note, in my figure drawing class, sometimes we were restricted to how we could draw. Particularly in the ones that are really dark. We had to use only the side of a charcoal stick(about 2 inches long) so...I'm not really happy with those.

On facial features, yeah I have trouble seeing detail there.Especially in the self portrait(i'm the guy with glasses) I actually have trouble drawing it in general unless I have hours and hours to spend on it. So, I think an anatomy book would be a good idea, thanks for the book suggestion, I'll have to check it out. I already have one of Andrew Lommis's books, Figure Drawing for all it's worth. It's not in depth enough I think in the anatomy area. I was also thinking of getting one of the old classics, Gray's Anatomy. It's pretty cheap too($10) considering this version is almost 1300 pages long. There's a more recent version with photos and over 2000 pages but the damn thing costs $200.

Anyways, thanks for the crit again, I can't wait to see some of your stuff . Oh and I'll resize the images from now on...maybe 500x300 or something. 300x200 seems a bit too small.

edit: oh yeah the thread I have over on the life drawing forum is here: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...threadid=23571

[sula_nebouxi]

On a side note, I just found out that Ringling is actually one of the most haunted campuses in the US. Not to dissuade anyone from going but...just a fair warning, if you believe in ghosts, stay the hell away from Keating, Appleton, Idelson and the Cove. Supposedly a woman named Mary committed suicide in Keating in one of the fire escapes(between the 2nd and third floors) back in the 1920's when Ringling was still a hotel. There's a bunch of stories of her around and it's quite well documented. I think there's supposed to be a TLC special on haunted college campuses airing soon(Ringling and Mary is one of the top 3 stories) Oh, and a student supposedly said her mirror spontaneously shattered, she was also housed in Keating.

Don't know too much about Idelson, but there is this one story of a student seeing a man standing behind him in the bathroom mirror, he was all alone. In Appleton, one of the RA's was all alone in the hall and she could hear high heeled shoes and she could smell perfume in the hallways. Thing is, it was before students moved in and the doors to the hall were all locked. The Cove used to be a nursing home before it became a dorm. I don't know about you but a haunted nursing home is a pretty damn scary thing to imagine.

Heh, I pretty much named all the residence halls. Supposedly there's more stories. I hope I didn't scare any hopefuls from applying...but not too worry I'm bringing my Proton Pack and my ghost traps! I ain't afraid of no ghosts!

[AnarchyAo2]

I can make this really creepy child's laugh. Its great to hide behind bushes and laugh when people walk by, it freaks the hell out of them. They think its a ghost of something. Oh yeah, my grandmother said that a demon in her basement tried on my uncle's old clothes. lol

Anyway, I hope you don't mind me giving you some crits. First, make your pictures smaller, they're really big for me. Your anatomy looks good but the hatching in your lines make the person seem hairy. It would look a lot better with smooth lines. With shading, I think I know what you're going through. You're using the paper as a base tone for the person's skin when the paper is too lite and the tone needs to be darker. Here is how I solved that problem. I bought a stick of graphite, and a sketchbook. I picked some random models from pictures and determined how dark their skin tone is. I tried to achive that same tone by rubbing the graphite stick evenly across my paper. Now you have something to build off of, you can shade in the darks, or use an eraser (or white chalk) to hieghten the highlights. I use a kneaded eraser to bring out the highlights because you can shape it into a small point so its more accruate. All-and-all, your drawings are good. You're using your eyes accurately to determine lines and you just need a few things to practice on, but who doesn't eh?

I'm going to go out drawing again today, and going to sketch a few things outside and later today pick which sketches I like. That way I can start on a final drawing. I'll see if I can post those sometime this week. I'd like to hear what you guy think about them. Seeya.
OH yeah, warning to anyone who wants to draw at the pool, DON'T. I had little kids swarming me asking "Is that a-", "What's that?" and the parents just say, "If you don't get him away now, he will ask you a million questions". After contemplating the idea of throwing the kids into the pool, I decided to go back home.