Chieftang

It's been a long day. I think you're my 11th critique of the day, I've been working since 11am and it's now almost 11pm. One might reasonably ask, "why are you telling me this," and it's for one simple reason. Submissions like yours, where I get to see all of the hard work come together in a clear grasp of the concepts the course seeks to share, make it all better.

Jumping right in with your form intersections, your work here is almost perfect, and the only mistake I saw was where you accidentally confused the diagonals you used to find the center in this pyramid's base as an edge, and had your intersection line form a corner upon it. Mistakes of course happen, and what's important is that we don't correct them or make too much of a fuss, and simply allow them to stand for themselves. Beyond this however, you're clearly demonstrating an exceptionally strong understanding of the relationships between these forms as they sit in 3D space. Something about how this cone peeks just above the box's top plane to introduce a bit of curve to the intersection is extremely gratifying - but maybe that's just the critique exhaustion kicking in.

Continuing onto your cylinders in boxes, though these could stand to be a bit bigger (drawing bigger is always good for engaging the brain's spatial reasoning), you're executing it very well, and all of your line extensions are applied appropriately to ensure that you're being made aware of anywhere your proportions could be altered or adjusted in subsequent attempts, showing that you're well equipped to use this exercise to its greatest effect going forward.

For your vehicle form intersections, admittedly this is something that confuses most students - they tend to assume it's asking for much more than it is (and so they stray from simple primitive forms and even end up working some subdivision into there). Most still hold to the principle of the exercise, which is to remind us that even though the more detailed demos can make it seem at times like we're only piecing together a final object at the very last stage from a forest of lines, that we're still approaching it from simple to complex, big to small, and effectively working as though we're carving out of a block of wood, rather than building up out of toothpicks.

That said, your work here, while remaining within the confines of what the exercise prescribes, actually demonstrates just how far those primitives can be taken even without the complexity of subdivision or non-primitive forms. The excavator is really stealing the show on this one, although all of your constructions for this section really show how these complex objects are made up of the simplest of building blocks.

And lastly, your more detailed vehicle constructions. Here you demonstrate an exceptional degree of patience and care with every aspect of the construction. Ultimately these are 99% planning, 1% execution, and that can really wear on one's patience. Of course, that's not remotely uncommon in this course, and so our students tend to be better prepared for such things than most - but it's still nice to see it put into practice to such great effect.

Unfortunately, I have no critique to offer in terms of your execution of the concepts from the lesson - the work is very well done - so instead I will give you a couple of stylistic suggestions. These likely aren't things that you're going to make use of, since they're very specific to the limitations of this course (working strictly in black and white, for example, narrows the choices we have down considerably).

A lot of it comes down to how those filled areas of solid black are leveraged as a visual element. Ultimately the more separate things a single type of visual element can potentially represent, the slower the viewer will necessarily be able to interpret what they're looking at. Now, we're talking about a difference in milliseconds, but it does make a difference. So for example, if you use filled areas of solid black for both cast shadows and to represent form shading (in this case we'll use form shading to also refer to the separation of planes, like how in this vw beetle's wheels the side planes are filled with black, while the outer face is left white), then the viewer's brain has to spend an extra moment processing whether what they're looking at is intended to be a cast shadow or form shading, and so their read of the image will slow down, impeding how effectively it gets the idea depicted across.

If instead it is only used to represent one thing, the viewer will process that more effectively. But, which do we use? At this point, we consider what information each one will provide that isn't already present. Cast shadows are very useful, because (and this is a major focus of how we engage with texture in this course) cast shadows through their specific shape define the relationship between the form casting the shadow and the surface receiving it, in 3D space, which is very much up our alley for this course. Form shading however doesn't actually give us much that isn't already conveyed by the silhouettes of our forms (and how those silhouettes "turn" to imply the presence of a side plane alongside a front plane (as shown here - this is what "turning" of the form means, and it took me years to understand that as a beginner with no foundation in spatial reasoning).

So, in effect, using filled areas of solid black for cast shadows in these scenarios is inherently going to give us a lot more information than using them for form shading. Of course this'll change drastically if we're able to include midtones between black and white, but that's a story for another day, and another course (preferably one on shading).

I would also generally avoid using black to identify the local colour of darker objects (the closest example of this is your steering wheel and seat in this truck, although I'll explain in a moment why it's not a great example), simply because it's inconsistent - we're not identifying the local colour of anything else, so singling out dark things doesn't really make sense. Consistency is key.

And, having said that, I'm going to immediately break that rule and mention that when it comes to vehicles, what does generally work out fine is filling in the entire interior of a vehicle with solid black - so taking what you did with the steering wheel and seat, and applying it to the whole, like this - although the more cut-outs, the better. I usually explain it away in terms of the exterior frame casting shadows to cover the interior, but technically that doesn't entirely hold up to scrutiny since you'd get light coming in through the windows.

The last thing I wanted to share is much more subjective. I find that when drawing objects in isolation like this, it's best to fill in the shadows that are cast back upon other parts of the object itself, but to simply outline them when they fall onto the ground plane - and to do so with the same line thickness as the rest of the construction (so like the chevy step van, but without the extra thick line). It keeps the shadow from being too distracting, whereas the self-shadows like those we see on this biplane are extremely... well, the technical term is "juicy".

That's not even a joke, it is very much what they're called.

Anyway! As should be clear through my gushing throughout my critique, your work here is phenomenal. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson, and the course as a whole, as complete. Congratulations!

Hi! Here I am for the critique. Overall, your lesson 4 is very good, and the progress is evident within the images you posted.

There are some problems with the contour lines exercise and related principles of form wrapping.

Organic Forms with Contour Lines

• simplicity: your forms are all simple with very confident lines, just as they should be

• contour curves: I see you are changing your degrees but sometimes you do it incorrectly* (see https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/ellipses and https://drawabox.com/lesson/250boxes/1/degree). The thing is, as objecs recede, more of their cross section is visible so the ellipse / box / [insert your shape] degree will be higher. A lot of these curves are also “hanging in the air” (see https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/floating), particularly on the 2nd page – perhaps you got tired and rushed it?

• contour axis alignment: mostly good, I see that you are trying to follow this axis, but you sometimes use misaligned contour curves (be careful!) https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/alignment (the contours are just the visible part of these ellipses)

4 Pages: Pure Constructions

An interesting observation here is that you use the contour curves for the big constructions perfectly – you make them fit in the form, use the correct degrees, and also align them to the halves of your objects. It makes me wonder what happened to the sausage forms above.

• spider and ladybug: you mostly use sausage forms for the legs which is good, but sometimes draw shapes and circles which seem out of place. Your legs are constructed better on the later pages, so keep doing what you did there. The shadows work here, and the texture on the abdomen is good as well. It’s good that you used shapes for the dots of the ladybug, people often color things like this with black which should be avoided – good job!

• wasp and louse: I see you had some trouble with the forms wrapping around the abdomen for both. The contour curves you used before these should be your guides. In fact, this is one of the main reasons you have to draw them for Drawabox. They help you orient these wrapping forms. Also, when you draw them, draw through other forms. If you don’t you will get discontinuities* which flatten the image or send wrong messages. The underlying constructions, as well as the head, antenna and leg constructions are good.

• scorpion: here you actually followed the implied contour (it might be of help to draw it) with additional forms, which is the cross section of the abdominal box. Try to do this more intentionally, it will help you with constructions like the wasp and louse above.

There is a problem with the shadow: in general, shadows will fall in a specific direction, away from the light source(s). When you pick one direction, you have to stay consistent. Here it seems you picked the shadow to fall directly below the scorpion. Because of this choice you shouldn’t draw any shadows above or on the side. See the link below.

• fly and spider: here you made the shadows much better. It is great to see improvements between just consecutive pages :D You also followed the contours with your forms on the fly. Great job!

6 Pages: Detailed

You seem to have taken all the good stuff from the pure constructions and applied it here. Nice.

The leg constructions are good, but the ones for the grasshopper are excellent. It’s really good to see how these forms interact and it gives it an extra 3D feel. I wish you used a similar technique with tour black widow as well. I can see you defaulted to 2D shapes here and sometimes went over your lines which should be avoided.

• ladybugs and beetle: now you colored them. With these constructions, it’s better to keep that pure black for shadows and textures. Color like this can easily distract and flatten the image, e.g. the patterns on the leaf. Was that supposed to be some kind of texture?

The usage on the beetle is how you should approach this. The black implies an indent here, and it transitions from a texture, which gives you 2 things at once: texture and form reinforcement.

• grasshopper: as I said earlier, it might not be 100% as the reference, but the constructions are excellent. I would go a little easier on the thick lines but other than that, great!

• planthopper: overall good, but beware of using lines this thick on the wings. It makes them look too stiff and solid, like they are a part of the form. Try to outline these so they look like veins, see the wasp’s wing above this step: https://drawabox.com/lesson/4/2/step6

• for the crab orb weaver I’d taper the texture more slowly. You also seem to have used outlines instead of form shadows (https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/6/notransition) Also leg construction – try to make it more like the shrimp or ideally grashopper (you don’t have to be so detailed, but the way you used the ellipses and sausage forms is really good).

• the last scorpion is excellent. You did the texture right, and the shadows, and the legs. Keep doing constructions like this! Also – are you using a fineliner here? The lines on the legs look much thicker than those on the abdomen and shadow outlines. There is no need to change the thickness / medium like this.

Summary

Your constructions show a significant improvement. For some reason, you tend to revert to 2D shapes and odd constructions for the legs occasionally. You definitely improved the form wrapping and shadows.

Images with examples: https://imgur.com/a/7MpbrfP

Hello Cornball! I'm Simon and I'll be attempting to review your 25 Wheels challenge :)

First of all for your construction you did a really good job putting the back ellipse with a wider ° than the front one I imagine you had an ellipse guide that's about the best you can do unless you have 200 ellipse guides for all the different °

I'll just note for number 17 and 21 the structured is kind of screwed and it does seem like a few of the latest wheels you put a bit less effort into, so just be careful during Lesson 7 not to rush the construction step since it's the most important one.

With wheels like n°24 I see you got better at drawing the sides of the wheels and taking into account their 3D shape but be careful with wheels like n°9 to use the right ° of ellipse as the center goes further and further inside.

For the textures you started doing a really good job of doing the cast shadows of the texture only with wheels like n°1 or 5 but the more you advance the more it seems like you gave up a bit on it and started losing sight of the texture you were shading like n°21 or n°25. Be sure to always have a distinct light source when shading and I recommend you go back and check the material about shading from Lesson 2(I think) to refresh if needed :)

Little note on the shading, when filling in the dark areas with a ballpoint pen it looks like be careful to not leave little white spots during lesson 7 and if possible get a fineliner brush or just a big fineliner like 1.0 to help you fill in the black areas :)

Other than that all in all great job! Just be mindful not to rush and I'm sure your vehicles will come out looking great!

Best of luck!

Starting with the structural aspect of the challenge, your work here is generally well done - you're doing a good job of building out your wheel structures with successive ellipses so as to control its profile (having it widen through the midsection allows us to create the impression that the tire is more inflated, that it would land with a heavy bounce, whereas keeping the profile flat gives the impression that it's more dense and heavy). There are two main points I wanted to bring to your attention though:

• When constructing the spokes in the center of your wheel, be mindful not only of the outward face of the structure but also the thickness of those individual spokes. In this case you constructed each spoke with many edges, but they all met along the same edge of the wheel's inner tube, meaning that the structure did not have any thickness (at least not where it meets that inner tube). Based on how you'd drawn them, it appears that the intention was to have them maintain a certain thickness all the way through, which the arrangement of your edges did not convey.

• For cases like the bike wheels on this page, where we have spokes that are simply too thin to accurately convey as anything but a single line, this leaves us with a choice to make. A single line isn't enough to define, within the constraints of how we're drawing in this course, something that can be understood as a 3D form, which can create some mild visual confusion for the viewer. The bare minimum we need to convey that these spokes are 3D is to use two lines, enclosing a space between them. This creates a 2D shape, but the absence of internal edges isn't actually a problem - it can still be interpreted as the silhouette of a 3D form. The problem is of course that it's going to end up being thicker than the reference image, but for our purposes in this course (being that conveying solidity and form is our main focus), this would be the better choice.

Continuing onto the textural aspect of the challenge, this is where things become something of a trap for students. Being as far removed from Lesson 2, it's not especially uncommon for students to simply forget that we've addressed the approach for conveying texture (which the treads of our tires, being made up of forms arranged along the surface of a larger structure, definitely falls into). As a result, some students approach it entirely through constructional drawing/explicit markmaking, trying to transfer the visual information directly from their reference to their drawing, while others remember that filled areas of solid black are involved, but aren't sure how to employ them specifically. Ultimately the result is the same (they end up using explicit markmaking instead of the implicit markmaking techniques we talk about back in Lesson 2).

When it comes to texture specifically - at least, how we handle it in this course, which is very specific to this course - we are ultimately looking at the same kind of problem that the course as a whole explores: spatial reasoning. We imply the marks we draw (you can refer to the implicit vs explicit markmaking section for more specific information on this) by drawing the shadows our textural forms cast on their surroundings, not by drawing the forms themselves (in terms of outlining them, or otherwise drawing anything about the form itself). It's the shape of the shadow itself, which is designed based on our understanding of the relationship in 3D space between the form casting it and the surface receiving it. And so, as stressed in these reminders, in this course we're never just drawing what we see. We're looking at our references, and understanding what they tell us about the forms in question, and then deciding on how to convey the relationships between them in space.

The reason we use implicit markmaking instead of explicit is fairly simple, although it's not always obvious. For example, looking at any of your wheels like this one, it looks excellent floating in the void, all full of detail. But when it becomes part of an existing drawing, all of that packed detail can actually work against you by drawing the viewer's eye to it whether you want it to or not. This interferes with our ability to control composition (which is all about dictating how the viewer experiences a piece, what they look at and in which order), which while outside of the scope of this course, is still something I want to give students the tools to engage with more easily.

Explicit markmaking basically locks us into an agreement with the viewer: whatever is drawn is present, and whatever has not been drawn, is not present. And therefore to convey each textural form, we have to declare its presence explicitly. Implicit markmaking on the other hand gives us more freedom by disconnecting the marks we draw from the specifics of what is present. As shown in this diagram, depending on how far the form is from the light source, the angle of the light rays will hit the object at shallower angles the farther away they are, resulting in the shadow itself being projected farther. Even without necessarily having to think about the light source and where it is (maintaining a consistent light source for an illustration is important, but outside of our scope here), what this means is that we have the freedom to change which marks we might use to convey a given textural form from one location in our drawing to another, without telling the viewer that the form is any different between the two cases.

Now, while you've fallen into this trap and definitely need to go back and review the textural concepts from Lesson 2 (I'd recommend starting with these reminders, this is largely intentional. I find that allowing students to make the mistake allows the correction to stand much more strongly than if you'd simply been told to consider the textural material in the first place. That said, it is also worth considering that this is just an example of something that fell through the cracks, and that you would do well to reflect upon any other areas of the course that may not have received as much attention going forward, and review them as well.

I'll leave you to do that, and will go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Hi, I hope you're having a wonderful day. My name is Saif i will be going over the critique for your lesson 4 homework submission.

• 2 pages of organic forms with contour curves: I don't see any major issues here, the contours flow nicely and in perspective. One thing I did notice was that at times the contour didn't hook around but otherwise it's smooth sailing.

• 4 pages of insect/arachnid drawings that are purely constructional with no texture or detail:

1. https://imgur.com/QZwAF19 This was a really good attempt!! There were a few things that were missing like contour lines at the joints and an additional form at the back (don't worry too much about this right now you will learn how to better deal with additive forms in lesson 5)

2. https://imgur.com/P2JICXD This attempt was a lot better than the last one, many of the problems I noticed in no 1 are gone here which is awesome! good job! There is one thing that I noticed that overall the proportions are a little off but it's okay we will tackle that a lot more later on so for now this is good!

3. https://imgur.com/KdiP2t8 No problems here beside the angle of your abdomen

4. https://imgur.com/c7JSUcX I like the construction here quite a bit, some of the problems I saw was the thorax lacking a little structure (this isn't an issue we will be tackling this in lesson 5 so you will learn how to do it even better once you start the next lesson) and the jaw area being a little too big which is completely okay at this stage since you will be taught better ways to tackle the head in the next lesson where you will learn how to properly construct the head.

5. https://imgur.com/s09xMMa REALLY GOOD!! The only things I could find to be a little off was the tail part not aligning properly with the abdomen and thorax and some tiny problems with the shape of the thorax and abdomen (it was a bit too round compared to the ref)

6. https://imgur.com/s46M76d Actually nothing much to critique here, the drawing was missing a few contour curves and i saw some ellipses whos perspective was a little off. The antennas at the top were a bit weird so i added flow lines for the construction in its correct perspective.

7. https://imgur.com/kwLCpPm Nothing major here either, some things that I did saw was that the thorax shape was a bit off so I added some forms to make it more even, similarly the wing size was a bit off. I did notice that you got a bit lazy with the tail part that the insect is balancing on as it's a bit too thin towards the bottom and is basically just a line so I added a little bit of width to that as well.

8. https://imgur.com/gBgRdGH My advice for you on this is more of an reminder than an advice. Focus on your construction first then worry about texture, Your texturing work is gorgeous but the underlying foundation is just as important. The abdomen wasn't aligning properly so I added an ellipse to improve that. The main issues I noticed was with the head as it was a bit squished and didn't resemble the reference much so to start instead of an ellipse i've noticed that it's better to start with a box in such cases where the subject is rather flat than round, As always I use the Y method for your box then aligned the horns at the front by drawing ellipses in that box aligned to it's perspective, There is a much better way to align this but that's not really necessary right now and is more so something you will learn more about in lesson 6 so don't worry too much about that right now.

9. https://imgur.com/jiNJpQV This was really good! I didn't see anything worth pointing out at the bottom half, on the top I noticed that you added the horn a little loosely so to reinforce it I used a variation of the branches exercise from lesson 3 and constructed the horns. For the upper torso I also noticed instead of 2 ellipses it was better to just draw a sausage shape as it looked a lot less messy and matched better with the reference. Overall this was really good! really nice improvement so far! Most of the mistakes I saw in the previous insects were solved at this point so good job! Also special thanks for including a seperate image of just the construction and one with texture it made critiquing a ton easier, on the other image I don't have anything else to critique your texture work is flawless.

10. https://imgur.com/3l0lVgI Aside the alignment being a bit off and some contour lines missing there wasn't anything else that could be improved here. Even the stuff i saw was pretty much all covered and most of it wasn't apparent after the texturing.

Phew that took a while, I saw a ton of improvement throughout the lesson, most of the problems I saw in the initial insects were pretty much gone towards the end, Congratulations on finishing the lesson and good job! Can't wait to see more improvement from you moving on!

Hello! I'm Simon and will try to review your Lesson 6 :)

I can completely understand for the shadow on the duckie that.. happens x)

First of all for the forms intersections you did really well! I don't have that much experience reviewing this but I couldn't find anything that would appear wrong, a thing i like to do sometimes with complex intersections is to try to get the same arrangement of shapes in blender and to play around to see how the intersection changes it can be really insightful so if when you do this exercise sometimes you're left unsure with something feel free to check this way after you've put a line down.

Moving on to the Everyday objects constructions,

Overall it all looks great i'll just go object by object with some thigns I find that could be improved on,

First of all for the airpods, speaker, rubber duck (which all have curves) you didn't seem to first draw straight lines to approximate the curve and then come over and draw the curve, this can seem like it's not that useful but especially with complex curves like the duck's it definitely comes in useful so if you practice this exercise in your warmups try to pick a curved object and first draw straight lines like mentioned in the exercise's page.

Second thing that's also got to do with curves do you have a set of french curves ? Because for all of the curves you seem to have redrawn over them manyyyy times even though your individual lines look clean enough, if you don't I understand why you'd want to redraw over but honestly it just makes the drawing look a bit messier and doesn't really make it feel more solid, so even if you don't have french curves I'd say try as much as you can not to redraw over your lines too too much.

Another little thing I could tell you I guess is for your mug you didn't draw the handle using Uncomfortable's technique (that's fine I didn't either for the first mug) but it's just a reminder to go check it out next time you draw a mug since it's good practice to try out different techniques :)

Other than that honestly great job! you practiced subdividing a ton and managed to transcribe your objects in the right proportions, you used ortographic plans and it worked great!

If you have any questions or if I can help in any way feel free to ask :) I'll be marking your Lesson as complete now

Hi! I'm willing to take a look at your submission, but I cannot see any of the files you've shared.

Hello Kat2000, I’ll be critiquing your submission today. If you have any questions, feel free to ask below. With that said, I’ll go ahead and review your submission.

Organic Intersections

Now, before heading into the cast shadows themselves, I’ll walk through an issue with the forms. As you’re likely more than accustomed to by now, the aim for the sausages is not only to be as simple as possible but also to describe the weight behind placing each individual sausage onto each other. Both pages suggest you have a good sense of how the forms should build up. However, the mass of forms almost seems not to interact with the structure below, almost giving off a “frozen” effect which ultimately breaks the illusion of the sausages cohesively lying on top of each other.

Let's take a look at this leaning structure here , the form seems to be leaning against the 2 stack to the right but nothing prevents the mass from falling forward. If we think of these forms as water balloons, it's easier to judge how the masses will behave against one another. In addition to the choices of placement we decide to make. In the future, I suggest taking some time to consider how the forms should obey the laws of gravity in a convincing way to the viewer. One final point to add about the contour lines, you seem to use the same method from the organic forms with contour lines exercise. At this step here, our approach with this exercise is slightly different in our intention to add volume with a variation of contour lines along the surface.

For the cast shadows, a separate issue arises in how the shapes are unnaturally sticking to the forms. For both pages there’s a tendency to copy and paste the same shadow shape rather than designing the cast shadows accurately from the given underlying forms. Remember that cast shadows are not always constant; variation in position and light source can present new ways to design a cast shadow. Another factor that may be affecting the illusion might also be the overlaps themselves. At first glance it’s difficult to identify which forms are in front or behind. I highly recommend adding line weight over forms that are in front to demonstrate their “dominance” over other forms.

Animal Constructions

I found a few instances in which a few lines stop abruptly where they should pass behind existing forms. Make sure you’re always drawing through all your forms. Once again, line weight comes in handy to unconsciously push forms behind or in front of the viewer.

Cranium/Ribcage/Pelvis

In terms of the torsos themselves, they tend to miss out on the sag introduced here where the relationship between the ribcage and the pelvis is established. It becomes increasingly critical when we later add additional forms. It can make or break the solidity of the torso form. I took one of your wolf constructions to demonstrate how you could bend the torso a bit further.

Hooved Animals

The implication of hooves as 3D forms are a bit shaken in some areas here and start to push into the 2D boundary. I believe you were attempting to replicate the cloven hoof but, unfortunately, it flattens the overall form. Remember that our paper is equivalent to a window into 3D space, and we want to be deliberate in how each mark we make will imply they exist cohesively in 3D. Based on the reference itself, although the hooves are hidden in the grass, there's still an opportunity to make some convincing constructionsions using our own methods from the lesson. Here’s an example of a way to imply the form of the hoof without sacrificing the 3D aspect. Recall in lesson 4 where Uncomfy demonstrates how to convey changes on the organic forms surface.

Leg Construction

A common theme between your hooved animals is the base leg construction. Adherence to the sausage method tends to vary across the pages. I believe it's the most apparent on this horse leg here in which the sausage will contract and expand at the joints of the limbs, almost in a way to replicate the bone/ligaments in one form. Our goal with these animal constructions is not to create a 1:1 copy of the animal reference but to use the reference to blueprint our own construction given the methods we’ve learned (sausage method). We want to bend these references to our will, not the other way around. Take a quick glance at step 3 of the donkey demo done by Uncomfy of what we should aim for with limbs. Instead you want to stick to keeping the sausage as simple as possible for the first iteration of the construction and to use additional forms to add those complexities such as ligaments, muscle, tendons and so on.

Here’s an example of what that could look like (simple sausages in red, additional masses in purple) For the hooves, I took a similar approach to boxed paws and imply the different planes that exist on the hoof. (Deers notably have cloven hooves, so I chose to use 2 separate forms instead.)

Head Construction

For the most part, I think you’re applying the correct approach towards the muzzle of most animals, especially with the bulldog, horse, and owl constructions where the best course of action is shown to be applied to additional forms. There's a few instances where you slip back into 2D forms. Here on this construction the rabbit the nose and mouth don't really explain the changes in the muzzle planes. Although some forms may not break the silhouette we want to ensure we're taking similar steps to explain their solidarity. This recent squirrel demo by Uncomfy that shows off how you should be thinking about breaking down these forms.

Additional Forms

These are done okay. I think there are a few areas where you get stuck solving how to wrap some of the forms that are not as obvious, resulting in flat shapes that don’t completely convince the viewer it exists cohesively with other forms. In this image here, the additional mass of the deer glute appears to come off a bit flat. Covering large areas of existing forms with only one mass can pose a challenge in conveying proper 3D form. Whenever you can, try multiple additional masses to convey spatial relationships. In this example I've started out with the mass marked out in red and overlapped with the blue mass. Notice the transition of each mass, we want to avoid arbitrary sharp corners or curves.

Before deciding to place an additional mass, interpret the 3D form of where you’re placing the mass and how it might change as it comes in contact with surrounding surfaces. Here's a simple example made by DIO to help you think about designing additional forms.

Texture/Fur

For the handful of times fur was added to the construction, they were used appropriately to the silhouette with intention. Good work.

Alright then I think I covered all the major points with your submisson. But before I send you off to the cylinder challenge, I would like to see the items listed below to make sure you've understood the general feedback:

1 page of organic intersections

• Build up the sausages one at a time pausing each time to consider the behaviour of the mass.

• Throw in parallel contour lines along the surface of the mass to create a stronger sense of volume. However, be careful not to go overboard as one too many could cause the form to look flat.

• Add line weight over forms that are in front to demonstrate their “dominance”. This next tip is not explicitly explained in lesson 2, however it’s good practice to avoid large gaps shown here and closely follow the contour of the form as you draw the overhanging end of the sausage. It should help avoid running into sausages that may look “frozen”.

• Save the cast shadows for last only after all sausages are drawn. Start from the bottom, working your way to the topmost forms to ensure the overlaps are consistent with no visual contradictions.

1 page of any hooved quadruped

• For the leg construction, start off with simple sausages and use additional forms to build up the accompanying masses.

• Account for the torso sag when connecting the ribcage and pelvis. It doesn’t have to be a major amount but just enough to noticeably describe the gesture of the torso.

Hello, I will be critiquing your work today

Excellent work with the boxes. The boxes are well done and common issues such as the back corner and non-converging lines have been ironed out.

I believe you have demonstrated your capabilities in this challenge, and I believe you are fit to move on to Lesson 2. Congratulations and Good Luck!

The reason we do the work - all of which are exercises - is to learn and grow. While plenty of students share in your anxiety, it's because students tend to care about the end result, they put pride in the end result, and if it doesn't turn out as they'd hope it would, they feel that reflects badly upon them. But the end result doesn't matter, all it does is mark the end of the activity, the exercise, the process where learning and growth actually occurs. It's the prescribed process that matters, and that comes down to a simple truth: if you follow the process as intended and the result comes out poorly, you've done a good job. If you don't follow the process as intended and the result comes out well, you've done a bad job, because the purpose of the task was to do it in a certain way.

All that said, your work in this lesson is actually very well done. I'm not saying that to make you feel better though, rather to illustrate the fact that how you feel about your work simply isn't reliable. It's always going to be caught up in those misguided ideas of integrity, and the apparent need many students have to, in the absence of actual knowledge of whether or not what they did came out well, assume that it didn't. A student who assumes they did something poorly when they didn't is no better off than a student who assumes they did something well, when they didn't. Honestly, the latter case implies a greater degree of self-confidence, which might give them the edge.

Anyway! Jumping into your form intersections to start, as it stands you are further along than we generally expect from students at this stage (we expect them to be comfortable with intersections involving flat surfaces, but to still have trouble when curving surfaces are added to the mix). There are certainly some issues that I'll call out, but as a whole you're progressing well. Here are some mistakes I noticed on your first page. Some of these are nitpicky (where the intersection lines need to be more curved to properly adhere to both surfaces simultaneously). though others are cases where you may want to pay closer attention to the specific surfaces that are involved in each intersection (intersections occur in pairs, although a single intersection that crosses many surfaces will be broken down into separate sections). It's easy to end up guessing at how an intersection usually would go given a particular pairing of forms, but given that there are so many ways two surfaces could ostensibly intersect, it's always necessary to look at what's going on, and actively avoid giving into the temptation to make an educated guess.

To that point, this diagram talks more about identifying the individual surfaces (for example, looking at how the side/top planes of the box illustrated there dictates which cross-sections of the sphere we should be paying attention to). It also tries to explore curved intersections a little differently than you might consider them now, by explaining them in terms of being a transition between two different surfaces (similarly to how an edge denotes the border between surfaces that are oriented differently), but where an edge is sudden, a curve is itself a gradual transition spread out over a larger distance.

Anyway, this exercise comes back up in Lesson 7, and as it stands you're still ahead of what we expect to see, so keep working at it and try to incorporate what I've explained here, and we'll take another look when the exercise comes up again.

Continuing onto your object constructions, these are honestly really well done. You've adhered closely to the principles of the lesson, which focus on how we can increase the amount of precision in our process to more directly control the results. Precision is often conflated with accuracy, but they're actually two different things (at least insofar as I use the terms here). Where accuracy speaks to how close you were to executing the mark you intended to, precision actually has nothing to do with putting the mark down on the page. It's about the steps you take beforehand to declare those intentions.

So for example, if we look at the ghosting method, when going through the planning phase of a straight line, we can place a start/end point down. This increases the precision of our drawing, by declaring what we intend to do. From there the mark may miss those points, or it may nail them, it may overshoot, or whatever else - but prior to any of that, we have declared our intent, explaining our thought process, and in so doing, ensuring that we ourselves are acting on that clearly defined intent, rather than just putting marks down and then figuring things out as we go.

In our constructions here, we build up precision primarily through the use of the subdivisions. These allow us to meaningfully study the proportions of our intended object in two dimensions with an orthographic study, then apply those same proportions to the object in three dimensions.

Your orthographic plans and your use of subdivision adhere very closely to this, so my critique isn't really going to be calling out mistakes. Instead, I wanted to make a suggestion that might make certain kinds of constructions easier.

A number of your constructions feature components that don't necessarily always sit at the same angle to one another all the time. For example, where a table is generally going to have legs that sit perpendicularly to the tabletop (or if it's fancy, maybe they're set at an angle, but that angle never really changes in its use), other objects - like these glasses, which have three components (the main part of the frame containing the lenses, as well as the two arms or "temples" as they are apparently called), feature elements that could ostensibly be at a wide variety of angles to one another. Sure, the glasses have a fully "open" state where the arms' hinges are as open as they'll get, but when you have a pair of glasses sitting around, you'll often find that the arms are set at angles to one another.

Constructing such an object with a single bounding box has its advantages - it allows us greater overall control of the proportions of different aspects of the object in relation to one another, but that comes at a cost. Any subdivision we add has to stretch across from where it may be relevant, across places where it may not be relevant at all, and where it may increase clutter and confusion. In addition to this however, it also lends itself much more to setting objects at 90 degree angles to one another (although in the case of your glasses, your arms weren't entirely perpendicular to the central part of the frame, but achieving that definitely took a lot more work from you). This can result in the object potentially feeling overly stiff and unnatural.

Ultimately every technique we learn is a tool. It's up to us which tools we use, based on which concepts those tools prioritize, and whether or not they align with our own priorities.

So, an alternative option here is to create three distinct bounding boxes - one for the central part of the frame, and one for each arm. These would be free-floating boxes constructed separately from one another, more similarly to how we approached construction in lessons 3-5, where we built things up from the inside-out. This limits our control over those proportional relationships, but in cases where the proportional relationships don't have to be anything too specific, it can definitely save us a lot of complexity.

Arguably the stapler could also benefit from this, but given that the stapler does have a very specific "neutral" position, and the top section only pivots when it's in use, the way you approached it with a single bounding box still likely would have been the right choice. But of course, "right" is subjective - it's all dependent on what problem you are specifically attempting to address.

Anyway! All in all, very solid work. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.