A five year old told me my cat drawing looked like a potato

I was sketching at a coffee shop and this kid walks up, looks at my doodle of my cat, and goes "that's a lumpy potato." At first I was annoyed, but then I looked at it again. The body was just a round blob with legs, no shape at all. So I started paying attention to actual cat anatomy, like where the shoulders sit and how the tail curves. Now I spend 2 extra minutes just blocking in basic shapes before adding details. Has anyone else gotten brutally honest feedback from a kid that actually helped?

2 comments

2 Comments

robertb4717h ago

Hold on though, cats aren't really that far off from lumpy potatoes in terms of basic shape... especially when they're loafing around. The kid wasn't wrong about the drawing but the comparison is pretty fair for a lot of actual cat poses. What helped me was realizing anatomy isn't just about getting the skeleton right, it's about noticing the little angles like how a cat's back legs bend completely different from their front ones. That kid might have been rude about it but they had a good eye for the big problem...

jenkins.reese17h ago

Used to roll my eyes at people who talked about "trusting the process" with blocking out shapes first. But yeah, after a kid called one of my dog sketches a "weird shaped loaf," I finally got it. Sometimes the bluntest feedback cuts through all the excuses.