Superficial Intelligence

Something I used to do a lot during middle school, which I believe helped me train my observation skills, was copy other drawings. When I say copy, I don't mean tracing. I would have the drawing I wanted to reproduce next to my blank piece of paper and try to draw it as exact as possible, sometimes scaling it a little. These drawings are some of my favorites, because the quality is much better than that which I can produce by myself. All of these drawings were done when I was in middle school:

I drew these rain forest animals from a How-to-draw book:

This car was from a video game magazine, probably from a Gran Turismo review:

From that same magazine, I drew this ninja, though I can't remember from which game it was. The original drawing was about two inches wide.

This one was from a Xenogears Strategy Guide. I never got to finish the coloring.

This last one is my favorite.I started inking it, but decided to ink a copy instead because I was afraid to ruin it. Although I'm not a Mortal Kombat fan, this drawing of Sub-Zero is just too awesome:

Although copying other drawings always results in high-quality drawings for me, I think I don't do them often because I prefer to work on my own creative skills. Someday, hopefully, I will be able to produce similar drawings all by myself.