Hi,

I'm working on a castle series and I would like your feedback on finishing up this drawing of Vufflens.
The drawing is around 70 by 50 centimeters in size. It is done with 6B through 4H graphite.

The reason I ask your help is that I would like to stop, but something keeps tugging at me say that I should go for more detail.

RJ, I am not an expert at this by no means, but my eye tells me somethings seems unbalanced with it. I know its supposed to be a dark cloud but it reads more like dark smoke coming from the back . I don't think a dark cloud would be distracting but the shape and the darkest of the way it is now throws it off somehow to me. Maybe needs darker values in the bottom right corner to balance it better? I like the lighter tone of the dark cloud better than the blackness.

This is an interesting castle. I have a fascination for historic buildings but haven't really tried drawing many of them.

I agree that the darkness at the top is a little distracting as there aren't similar dark values elsewhere in the drawing. You could either lighten the top of the sky or increase the values for the rest of the sky.

I'm a little confused as to the light source here as there seem to be a couple of sources as I look at the castle walls - the right hand far tower for instance is shaded on the inside where other towers are shaded on the front. And the main tower doesn't have a lot of distinct shading to give it form. Now this subtle shading may be the result of an overcast day where light is subdued, but even then shading should be consistent.

I feel the same .. so i dont want to repeat but the clouds need some light values and the left small tower would maybe have a shadow near the wall of the larger tower ..maybe even some shade near the top as the cloud seems to be hanging low ...you could had a few of the brick and fade them out in some of the brighter areas .. same as the shingles on top ... I think you have yourself a nice drawing for sure with a few extra tweeks its gonna be a masterpiece !

Yep, sky and shadows are what jump out !