/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

Nobody worships Loomis, he's just generally recognized as a good resource for teaching construction drawing at a beginner level because the cartoons in FWAP are made of simple shapes and their gonky nature makes you less afraid of messing up something that's supposed to look pretty.
The problem is that brand spanking new drawbabies can't into construction, beginner level construction is actually a bit above complete beginner level.

The man wasn't perfect, he really just thought this was easy enough for everyone because he took for granted that beginners could easily grasp "feeling the form" for simple balls and stuff because it was just natural to him by that point. And I'll be honest, I took it for granted too because by the point I picked it up I had already been drawing a ton and had at least a little grasp of the illusion of depth and wasn't so self-conscious about fucking up, so I took to it rather easily. It took me a while to understand that people who never drew before or drew very little can't do anything but symbol drawing, let alone being able to understand how to draw volumetrically. Give the man a break, it was an honest mistake.

FWAP is still a good resource for beginner construction. It would be nice to have a modern spiritual successor that has a more comprehensive path from fresh-off-the-page to beginner construction and solves those issues while retaining the fun, inviting learning environment, but we don't have one AFAIK. Just refer people to Keys To Drawing in the meantime, even if it isn't as fun or glamorous looking.

Imagine having to trace or photobash to make anything worthwhile
And it still looks bad anyways

Honestly, tracing/photobashing is just gross and I'd feel ashamed to do it at all.