7:41 AM, Saturday June 14th 2025
Hi there, I saw you recently submitted your work so I figured I'd take a look:
... Unfortunately, Chrome crashed and I lost everything I typed. So I'm going to go through this kind of fast, but I promise to try and be comprehensive if I can, so let's give it a shot:
Organic Form Intersections.
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Forms looked squished or deflated, and when they wrapped around the sausages beneath, they were not drawn through. We rely on these for structure in our constructions, so make a habit out of forming complete sausages with clear contour information. Drawing through them helps improve our spatial perception of 3D within the 2d plane of the page, so make sure you draw through your forms for this exercise.
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Application otherwise looked similar to how added forms are applied in lesson 5, so it's not necessarily a bad thing here, it's just worth reinforcing the intent and purpose of this exercise.
Construction as applied to Animals.
The core of the lesson as I look at it:
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Looking for a body constructed as two balls connected to form a sausage, with the arms and legs formed by sausage forms with equilateral ends.
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muzzle construction as per the diagram in the informal demos
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Additions are almost exclusively three-dimensional organic forms that are placed with its edges following the contours of any forms beneath it.
All of the constructions here are quite well-done observational drawings. There are elements that can be improved upon in order to better convey dimensionality.
Leg forms appear to be segments that closely mirror the subject’s actual forms. This limits our ability to see the constructive elements of those forms. As I demonstrate here with your horse, the goal here is to show as much of the underlying structure as we can. Sausage forms intersect into each other, with their intersecting contour visible. It can help make the leg feel like a truly solid piece.
Head construction can be very difficult for many students. The muzzle is especially tough, but it helps me to treat it like a form intersection that juts up against the eye sockets. I like your approach of carving the socket in a way that more closely mimics the creature’s actual skull; I have been experimenting with this approach myself in my own work. The payoff of the muzzle construction as DAB performs it is in how it conveys the planes of the muzzle and how it clearly shows the front and sides of the muzzle as it connects to the head. Keep this in mind as you work on future constructions.
Additions on a fair number of your creatures are two-dimensional with the exception of the larger forms on the body and arms. I believe there’s a certain amount of visual conflict that can occur when your additions don’t directly interact with the surface of their adjacent elements. That said, your work still conveys a fair bit of dimensionality through use of contours (though you don’t need extra contours on added forms in most cases). Here’s a useful diagram that also demonstrates the difficulties presented in using them. I will say from personal experience, they do seem to work okay for flat elements like fins like your lionfish, so there’s a degree of finesse to using them. For most cases, 3d additions will be used though. On a related note, I have another good diagram that I'll share here that shows how organic additions are best applied, with all of the changes occurring where the form interacts with others. These diagrams here, here, and here are just really good ones to look at for examples of eyes, feet, and dogs.
At the end of the day, I do feel like you have a good handle on creating dimensional-looking creatures. There's room for improvement, but you should be well-equipped to improve as you continue to draw more and more animals.
Next Steps:
Continue to the 250 cylinder challenge. Good luck!