FishingGuppy

While community feedback is by nature not guaranteed, since it relies on the good will of other students to share their time and energy for nothing in return, it is up to the student seeking feedback to take advantage of everything our community offers to increase their likelihood of receiving feedback.

Posting your work on discord is certainly one way to increase those chances, but another that many students neglect (despite it being mentioned in the Lesson 0 video about getting the most out of this course) is the critique exchange program being run on our discord server by our students.

It is essentially a system set up by students with its own requirements for receiving feedback. It is run in the #critique-exchange channel on the server and its rules/requirements are explained in the pinned message in that channel. For more information on it you can read through it and speak to the folks there - as it is student run though, I try not to speak on their behalf in terms of how it works. I don't want to explain something incorrectly, and generally I keep my distance so as not to unduly influence how it operates (since again, it ultimately still comes down to folks being generous with their time and energy).

Again - nothing guarantees that you will receive free feedback from other students but participating in the critique exchange program is your best bet, especially earlier in the course.

LINES

Superimposed Lines:

Your lines go off of the page, so there’s no way to identify over/undershoot. It’s important to see the whole mark, otherwise I can only review a portion of your work! There’s also some wobble, which is usually a sign of not drawing confidently.

Ghosted Lines:

You've taken the time to find your starting points, and have heavily reduced wobbling, well done! There is some overshoot, which will reduce with practice, but you can also try lifting your pen off the page as soon as you reach an endpoint.

Ghosted Planes:

Several planes merge / share points - we’ll get more practice if they’re separate. This is done correctly at several spots, so it’s just applying that to the rest. I’d also recommend varying your planes’ sizes and point positions more.

ELLIPSES

Tables of Ellipses

Your tables of ellipses look good! You’ve drawn through your ellipses 2 - 3 times, and their minor axes are quite well aligned.

Ellipses in Planes

Your ellipses are drawn through 2 - 3 times - you’re placing your ellipses in the proper boundaries, and they look confident, well done!

Funnels

The alignment of ellipses to the funnel’s minor axis is off in some places, but overall they look good - remember you only need to submit one page of the funnels exercise though!

BOXES

Plotted Perspective

The boxes themselves look good, but your perspective guidelines shouldn’t overshoot their vanishing points - since we’re using a ruler it's something we can control.

Rough perspective

There may have been some confusion here - you’ve correctly submitted one plotted perspective page, but only one full page (out of two) of the rough perspective exercise. The other is half plotted, half rough perspective. For the full page of rough perspective, the top section doesn’t have perspective guidelines - it’s important to do this for every section, so we can gather information about mistakes.

Rotated Boxes

Some boxes haven’t been drawn in, and some line sections merge with each other - we also only need to draw 2 boxes on either size of our center one. Your boxes are rotating correctly, which is a very difficult concept to grasp - well done!

Organic Perspective

I’d recommend a few more boxes per scene - also, you don’t have to worry about hatching/drawing through boxes with this particular exercise. You've done very well tackling the depth/spatial reasoning concepts involved with this exercise!

OTHER

There are sections of lines which are redrawn multiple times - there’s just a couple, but it’s important to keep it in check! Lastly, certain sections of hatching don’t fully cover the face they’re supposed to.

Not much else to put here except this: the critiques I’ve given here don’t mean you’ve failed/done poorly, and I’ve seen a ton of improvement looking at your work - keep moving forward!

Hey, I'm going to be doing some feedback for your lesson 1. Nice job completing Lesson 1! Instead of going by homework assignment, I'm seeing some general things across all of them, so I'm just going to note them here:

1. Wobbly lines - This starts to be very noticeable in the rough perspective exercise, make sure even if the lines are shorter you're still drawing from the shoulder and ghosting the lines. Also remember to prioritise confidence over accuracy, though accuracy is definitely still a good thing, don't sacrifice smooth lines for that. Your lines up until that point look good though, in the superimposed lines, ghosted lines, and ghosted planes, so keep that up!

2. Rotated boxes - So this exercise is hard, but keep in mind that the backs of the boxes should also be parallel to the adjacent boxes, not just the fronts.

3. Scratchy lines - Make sure you draw each line once, and all the way through. Some of the exercises allow for adding line weight, but you still should make sure it's one line all the way through. I'm seeing this a lot in the rough perspective, rotated boxes, and the organic perspective. Take your time with the ghosting, draw from the shoulder, and draw the line in one motion.

4. Ellipses - These look pretty good, there's some smooth confident strokes here. A lot of them aren't touching the edges of the frames in the table of ellipses and the ghosted planes, but that accuracy comes with practice, so that's ok. Make sure you make sure you're not hesitating on those strokes and squishing the ellipses too, most of them look pretty good but there are some here and there that have squished sides.

All in all, looking pretty good! You should be good to move on to the 250 box challenge, and I'm marking this with complete, just make sure you're working on those smooth confident lines going forward in the box challenge and in your warmups =)

Hello I’ll be handling the critique for your lesson 1 homework

Lines

-Starting with the superimposed lines exercise you are doing a great job, always starting at a clearly defined point and keeping all of the wavering on one side, your lines have significant fraying but don’t worry as this is something that tends to disappear with practice.

-Moving on to the ghosted lines, here you have kept the confident line work even if you are going to miss the ending dot which is good. I can notice some instances where your lines make a slight arch, so make sure you are engaging your shoulder with a locked wrist.

-The ghosted planes are no different from the ghosted lines, there is nothing to comment here aside from the issues already raised.

Ellipses

-Starting with the tables of ellipses, I can see that there are some instances where you did not draw through them, do not forget to do this for all the ellipses that you will draw for your drawabox homework. Keep in mind that you have to draw through them 2-3 times only. Also keep working on the spacing and aim to have the ellipses fitting snugly within the rectangle.

-Your ellipses in tables are turning out well, but keep working on making symmetrical and evenly shaped ellipses Do not worry too much about having your ellipses touch the four sides of the plane as it can make your ellipses look distorted and wobbly.Ellipses have to be symmetrical and have the same shape regardless of where they are, so the only things you can change is how wide the ellipse is and which position it is in.

-The ellipses on your funnels are looking stiffer than on the previous exercises, so try to loosen up and draw them a bit faster so they end up fully confident, another thing that I’m seeing here is that you are drawing through your ellipses more times than needed, so as mentioned before, draw through them only 2-3 times. Keep working on the alignment and remember that the minor axis should cut your ellipses into equal halves.

Boxes

-Starting with the rough perspective, try to keep the linework confident. I can see some instances where your lines wobble, keep in mind that you should prioritize confidence over accuracy, aim to draw straight lines even if you are going to overshoot. This will help you to better align the sides of the boxes, remember that the horizontal lines should be parallel to the horizon and the vertical ones should be perpendicular

-There are a number of things to improve on the rotated boxes. First avoid any scratchy linework and ensure you are using the ghosting method to draw each mark to the best of your ability. Secondly, keep the gaps between boxes narrow and consistent, this will help you to have each quadrant equally sized. And don’t forget to draw through all of your boxes. This is just an exercise in spatial reasoning and doing this will help you to improve faster.

-Lastly on organic perspective you've actually done a good attempt overall apart from the line issues. The perspective on the boxes does have issues, but that's not a problem as you'll work on it through the box challenge.

Hello :) I'm a beginner myself so I'm sorry if there's any mistakes in my feedback. First, I want to say great job. I looked through each of your pages and I can see the hard work you put into each exercise, keep it up!

Part 1: Materials

If possible, I suggest you find a way to work through this course with a pen and paper. I've also tried to go digital and it complicated my learning of the material. Depending on your set up, it can be hard to rotate your page when using the ghosting technique. It can also impact your ability to achieve straight lines and come into the habit of using your shoulder to draw. If you're not submitting for official critique, you can even use a ballpoint pen to work if you can't get your hands on a fine-liner. However, the lessons are all still doable digitally (at least as far as I know, don't quote me on this) it'll likely just be harder and longer to achieve the results you want.

Part 2: Lines

Your lines look nice. For example, for your superimposed lines, there is little fraying at the beginning, which is good. There is fraying at the end of the lines though, but that's okay at this stage. I do see wobble in your lines in places. This can be caused by going slowly, or not using the pivot of your shoulder to draw. Remember to shoot for clean, confident strokes. When you warm up using these exercises, keep in mind the image of the end result you want, and bit by bit you will improve. For reaching that second point when doing ghosted lines, try stopping just before you hit the dot. If that doesn't work, experiment with different stopping times.

Part 3: Ellipses

For ellipses, make a conscious effort to use your shoulder to draw them out- even for tiny ellipses. In the end, drawing ellipses with your shoulder will cultivate smoother lines. Your ellipses, for example in the Ellipses in Planes and Table of Ellipses assignments, bend unevenly and wobble in some places to stay within the boundaries. Here, I feel you should worry less about staying within the lines for now and focus on executing confident strokes. As you work to build that confidence, your awareness of keeping within the boundaries will also improve. Don't forget to go over your strokes 2 - 3 times before completing the circle. As always, keep in mind your end result when drawing these out.

Part 4: Cubes

The same advice I wrote above mainly applies here too. As for things specific to boxes, there are a couple times when your depth lines, when traced back to the horizon line, didn't touch the horizon line at all and instead ran parallel to it. This happened to me a lot too! For moments like these, refer to the boxes you made in the plotted perspective exercise. Pay attention to how they behave, what angles are seen. Slow down, and think about what lines would make sense in reference to the vanishing point. However, I won't go into perspective much more than that. The 250 Box Challenge will improve your perspective and help you get more comfortable with drawing in 3D. I have yet to do the challenge myself, so my knowledge is limited.

One last thing, unless stated otherwise, don't forget to plot your lines. I think that using the ghosting technique was implied to be used throughout, so even in the Organic Perspective assignment, make sure to draw out those dots. (I'm not 100% on this, so apologies if I'm wrong).

Thank you for reading. This is my first time writing feedback on this website, so I hope it's okay and that it helped you out a little.

Hi Gpanda, welcome to Draw a Box!

Starting out by your lines section, in your super imposed lines it seems like you are taking ghosting your time ghosting and prioritizing confidence over accuracy, this translates pretty sweetly to your ghosted lines, where Im seeing little to no wobblynes. Although Im seeing that in a few cases your lines are not starting at the dots you are setting up, remember to consciously position your pen where you want them to start after ghosting, since its the last thing you have total control over before you make your line, after you start marking, the line might not hit the target (like it happened to you in some ocassions) but thats not an issue since you will get better at it with time and practice. On your ghosted planes, although sometimes they fall short to hit the dots, as I´ve already said, its something you will get better at it with time.

Moving on to your ellipses; a very common issue when students get to this point is that they focus too much on accuracy and end up making wobbly ellipses. Now, it seems like you´ve fell on this issue a little, but I can see that you really did fight against it. So, remember to always put your focus on making confident lines over anything else, this includes making smooth ellipses and other kind of lines like curves (but you will get there on lesson 2, so dont worry yet).

All this said, on thing that happened to some of your ellipses on planes is that they are deforming, this is a clear sign of the issue we´ve talked about, where you are putting more of your focus on accuracy rather than confidence. This also happened a little on your table of ellipses and your funnels, though remember that when you are drawing ellipses, just go through them twice, more than this will just make everything more messy. Also, in your funnels remember to align the ellipses to their minor axis.

On to your boxes, it seems like you´ve maintained an overall nice line quality on this exercises so good job with that. That said, on your rough perspective some of your lines are arching a bit, this may be a sign that you are using more of your elbow rather than your shoulder when drawing them, so keep an eye on that. This also happened a little on your rotated boxes, talking of which, you did a pretty solid job on it, even though it is a hard exercise- The only thing that caughts my attention on the perspective side of things is that on your corners some of your boxes are rotating too fast, also you could add some subtle line weight in order to clarify everythin up! Your organic perspective although it has some curved lines that I´ve mentioned before, you did really good on it.

You did a very good job on this lesson, So Im gonna go ahead and mark it as completed! Keep up the good work.

Hey Techartbg120,

Overall, I would say you have understood the intention of the exercises and are ready to move forward.

With your superimposed lines, remember to take your time positioning your pen at the start of your line. You have some fraying at the beginning of many lines which suggests you may have rushed this step a little.

It's good to see you drawing through your ellipses. Many of your ellipses in the "Ellipses in Planes" exercise didn't touch all four sides of the planes, but that is in no way crucial at this point and accuracy will come with time! Just remember to ghost your ellipses and take your time moving forward.

With your rough perspective exercise, you should extend your depth lines (the ones in blue) all the way to the horizon line and no further. The purpose of extending the lines is to see how close you were to the vanishing point, which sits on the horizon line. Extending them further doesn't have any benefit and can make it a bit more confusing for you!

You did a good job with your rotated boxes (which is a very difficult exercise, so well done!) and kept them nice and close together. Your organic perspective started off a little distorted but I can see you improved over the course of your two pages so good job there too!

Well done. I say you are ready for the 250 Boxes challenge.