G4rinuun

Hi there, I'll be the one giving your critique for this post. Sorry if it took that long, mine was only recently checked as well!

2 Organic Form With Contour

I would say that you have done well in communicating the eclipses and the way it turns away / into the viewer. I could see that the contour expanded when when the sausage was facing the viewer and that the contour shrinks when the sausage faced away from the viewer. I appreciate the dot where the line would enter the sausage, which made it easy for me to understand the shape better. I think the only thing that needs improving is the confidence to which contour was drawn, it's a bit wobbly so it doesn't look that smooth. Don't be afraid to do correction after the mistake (like how some of the contour had another one on image 6), I think it communicated to me that you just found a better way to draw the contour. Just draw it with as much confidence as you can (use ghosting before hand).

Insect / Arachnid Drawing

Overall I think the construction of the insects are just amazing. Seeing it does give me a feeling that you were actually an explorer who don't have a camera and trying to sketch things as best as possible. From what I see, you use simple basic shapes that we have learned so far and slowly build the shape bit by bit. I also appreciates the multiple angle of drawing which shows to me that you understand the way the insect sits in a 3D spaces. The cast shadows are a nice touch and it seemed you understand how the light reflects on the insect's surface.

On the second image I saw that you seem confused as to how one of the insects body looked, as you just left it slightly unfinished. I think looking at a reference images of the insect from multiple angle might help in solving that issues. There was also another semi unfinished looking construction on the crab one (next to the one with the shell) where the left side of the crab looked unfinished compared to the right side. Leaving the crab with just a line of leg. Just remember to take a small 1-2 minute break and to try to finish the image. Not too long so you don't let go of the "flow". Don't worry about how good it looks, we are here to learn!

Another thing in general, from what I see is that a lot of the lines felt scratchy or wobbly. Like the sausage had a some bump or cragged look to it. The only thing I could think off as to why you are doing this is to mimic the imperfect texture of an insects legs / parts, but it does feel like it fight against what the course is trying to teach which was to make confident line. I myself still have that problem from time to time and I just want you to keep in mind. I think two of the insects where the monkey hopper were the one I have issues with. The spider, while looked and feel 3D, feels a bit wonky due to the shaky lines. However, I appreciate that careful consideration has been made for each line drawn, making it still looks professional.

I appreciate the color on some of the insects! Make them look beautiful even though they are some creepy crawlies haha.

Overall, I think the only thing you need to improve is the confidence of the line. While it may make things looks too smooth, seeing a smooth lines would make the image pop even more. Both the insects and the contour suffered from this issue. Learning is a not something one and done, so just keep this in mind for the future homework. But other than that, you did a stellar job.

Thanks a lot for the critique, looking back at the drawing a year later I really do need to take my time on some of the legs. I found it weird how I just draw a strips of line for the legs even though it had mass. And for the paraphynus, I was slightly unfamiliar with the bug and the way the shadow was casted. At first I thought it looked cool and when I did it I was like, "Okay, their legs is so thin that their shadow is even wider" which made it weird. I will try to use multiple angles and make a conscious decision to decide where the light should shine.

Thanks a lot for critiquing this! I really appreciate it! You went above and beyond, providing even your own interpretation of the insect

No worries, I'm not looking for pretty drawing, just you trying out new things. From what I see you did pretty well on this, so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete! Congratulations! You can proceed with the next lesson.

Awesome :D I'm going to mark the lesson as complete but that was solid. Good luck on the next lesson!

Good luck on the next lessons :D Don't worry, we all make that mistake once

Hi Ferni! I will be giving you feedback for the 250 boxes. First thing first, congratulations on completing this task! Give yourself a pat in the back for completing this task!

Overall, I am really really surprised how well you handled your lines. The lines are confident and doesn't overshoot the end and the hatching themselves is done with such care that it doesn't looked that wobbly. The rapid and shallow foreshortening line extension converge around the VP that you have set up and I think you fully understand what the point of the exercise.

The only feedback I could see is that the only type of boxes that seems to slightly throw you off was the short but wide boxes type, especially the line extension for the height / width where the lines that made them were spread too far apart due to them being wide. Usually out of the four lines it felt like a pair was following one vanishing point (VP) and the other followed another VP. I'm sure with enough practice you will get a hang on it in no time :D

I am also seeing the back end of the boxes throwing you out at first, but eventually you seem to be able to get a hold of it and make sure that it would converge on the same VP.

Conclusion: You did a pretty good job, just that you might have problem on the boxes where one of the sides may be spread too far apart from the other.

Hi! I will be critiquing your submission for lesson 1 :D But first of all, congratulations for finishing this exercise!

Superimposed Lines

I think the lines you have drawn are pretty confident, which is what the exercise is all about. However, the fraying on the first page was too large to the point that it felt rushed. I see that you have made improvement on the second page which is a good thing and I'm sure you will get more accurate as you step through the lessons here.

Ghosted Lines

The lines are confident, which is something that exercise is trying to make you practice, so that's nice! There was a slight arc on the end, but nothing major. However, accuracy of the lines needed a lot of improvement. A lot of the lines went through the target that was set and some didn't event meet the other end that was set. Perhaps try lifting your hand the moment you hit that end as it is more reliable way to stop yourself from going further (suggested here https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/14/lifthand).

Ghosted Planes

The ghosted planes suffered from the same issue of ghosted lines where the lines goes over through the intended end. However, the mistakes here isn't as bad as the one on ghosted lines, so that's nice! However, I'm seeing a bit more wobble / arc throughout the lines that wasn't there before on the ghosted lines. So try to be aware and not rush things when you draw the lines and overtime I believe you can do it :D

Table of Ellipses

The ellipses you drew filled the entire tables, which is one of the main goal of the exercise that you achieved. However, in the future try to have a firmer control over the circle as some of it had felt a bit unfocused, the repeated strokes caused the ellipses to grow smaller. While I'm not expecting a perfect ellipses, try to find that perfect pace where you wouldn't draw too fast that you lost control too easily but not too slow that your lines become wobbly. Try to also end your ellipses with within a stroke so that way the end of the stroke didn't look like it hang outside of the ellipses. You can achieve with tighter control so that the ellipses felt like a fully realized shape (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/drawingthrough)

Ellipses in Planes

Similar to the previous feedback, try to find the perfect pace for you to draw so that you could have greater control over the way ellipses was drawn. Some of them still have the mistakes of growing smaller or overshooting the planes to which they should fit in. However, I want to congratulate for having a tighter control compared to the previous exercise, shows that you are improving.

Funnels

The lines are confident and I think you followed the funnel restrictions given quite well. However I noticed that now the ellipses ended in like in an open shape through growing instead of shrinking like before. This can be seen especially on the two funnels on the right where it ended with an open stroke that made them look like a hook. I'm happy that you tried to correct the previous mistake, which is something that is important as you go through the lessons.

Plotted Perspective

Looks good, a bit of control should be given to the hatching so that it doesn't overshoot the boxes.

Rough Perspective

Next time please draw a horizon line, it would help you have a guide on when it comes to extending the lines toward the vanishing point (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/20/step2). Other than that, some of the boxes drawn here could use a bit more confidence in the way the lines are drawn. There is one boxes that had a slightly tilted angle that I don't think is really fit for this exercise, but kudos on you for trying! Some of the extension didn't meet the vanishing point, but I could see that it was heading on the general directions of that vanishing points.

Rotated Boxes

The angles are perfect in my opinion, so I think you get what this exercise is trying to do. The only thing I suggest for improving in the future is the confidence of your lines. If your lines are more confident, I'm sure the rotated boxes would look even bolder! There was a slight wobble that I felt from the lines.

Organic perspective

This exercise is more of an experiment to see how you handle perspective if thrown into the deep end. Other than the usual "be more confident" with your lines, just be mindful on the use of hatching to indicate the one that is facing the viewer. There are some hatching that made the box harder to interpret in 3d view, so be mindful and think for a moment before you apply the hatching. The foreshortening done is pretty good, with boxes getting smaller as it goes further away from the viewer and growing larger when it get closer.

Conclusion: Overall, I think you did pretty great and understood the things that this lesson is trying to tackle. Be more confident in your line drawing and find that perfect speed to which accuracy and confidence could stand together. I'll be marking this as complete and hope to see you in lesson 2! Good luck!

Hi! I will be the one giving you feedback for this lesson! First of all, congratulations on finishing this exercise!

Organic Arrows

The stroke of the arrows are confident which I really appreciate. However, there are two things I want to point out. The first is that some of the lines connected the two curves felt like they were placed a bit higher than it is supposed to be, making it looked like it was not part of the arrow. I also saw some of this line was angled a bit off so they didn't connect.

The second thing I want to point out is that most of the shadings you done seems to be on the opposite side of where the shading should be. So the shading of the arrow should be done on the side to which the hills are covered by the other, essentially where a shadow would be casted. A lot of the shadings you done seem to be drawn on the side to which shadow should not form because it was not covered by anything. Here is an example from the exercise: https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/4/example

Branches

Your lines are mostly confident and I really like that you varied the width of the ellipses depending on the way people views it (facing the viewer will have a wider ellipses). The mistakes there are something that everyone has experienced when doing this exercise which was having trouble connecting the line between the two ellipses. I'm sure with time you will get to improve this further, so I think what you did here was already pretty good.

Leaves

The leaves have enough bend and twist to help incoporate the fact that it is a 3d object, which I really like. The texture work is pretty good and highlighted the skeleton of the leaves. I think the hardest the more out-of-there leaves are the one you struggled the most as I saw a bit of corrections in the line, but I'm sure with practice you can do it. Do be careful that corrections may cause the line weight to be heavier than it is and may make it hard for viewer to discern what is at the front and on the back. Other than that, I think you should be a bit careful with the leaves on the upper right corner since the teeth on the edge looked like it was drawn "auto pilot" as in without much thought on it's stroke. Here is what I meant: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/3/consistent

Plants Construction

Overall, I think the shapes are drawn in a way that makes me believe that this plant has volume and 3 dimensional shapes. Some of the shadings you done are really cool, like the mushroom and the one that plants that was growing with rocks all around it.

However, on around image 6 and eight, it seems like the cast shadow might feel a little bit too extreme. Especially image 6, mostly on the leaves (NOT on the mushroom) where the cast shadow would just cover the almost the whole leaves. I think it's better to leave some white space (like some of the segments you have on the leaves on image 6) to make it look like it's has texture instead of just black ink. I am guilty of this mistake when I was doing it and the person who criticized me point out a good thing, which was to not to directly copy all the shadows from the reference. When it comes to shapes, copying is important. However when it comes to light and shadow, it is alright to use an imaginary light source and then combine it with the knowledge of the texture we have on the image.

On image 8, I feel like some of the shadows for the leaves felt a more like an ink blob, indicated by the rounded shape around the edges of the leave instead of a sharper shadow. There was careful attempt to not make everything dark like what is underneath image 6. One of the hardest thing I found when doing this exercise is when to not / do make that patch dark or not. While it easy to just color certain part of it black to indicate a change of color, I think using it to just mark the shadows that is casted from one parts to the other would give more "pop" for the 3d shapes that you are about to draw.

Conclusion:

Overall, your lines are confident and you did most of what the exercise wanted you to do. However, I might request a small revision for the exercise :D

Hi, I'll be critiquing this lesson! First of all, congratulations on completing the lesson! Anyway, onto the critique :D

Organic Arrows

Your lines are confident and the hatch mark to indicate the drop shadow of the curves are spot on. However, your line weight looked a bit scratchy on the curvature, so I think it's something you could improve on the future :D Other than that, try different angel in the way the arrows are bended, since most of them felt like they are viewed from the top (like the most left one was drawn with an interesting angle).

Leaves

The leaves you draw are very detailed and sharp (literally). Most of the spikes felt like it would hurt to touch just from seeing it. The only feedback I have is with some of the smooth leaves like the one on the bottom right where the curvature felt like it had no impact on the shapes or the construction that the leaves are in 3D. This is in comparison with your other leaves. The texture are beautiful so I think you did a pretty good job.

Branches

I can see some lines are not connected and some of the tubes need to be redrawn with another set of line to make them connect. There ellipses also felt a bit too flat. What I mean flat is that when the ellipses should look a bit wider as they face the viewer and looked thinner as the look away from the viewer. I suggest looking at this guide to help you draw branches next time https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/ellipses

Plants Construction

I was honestly blown away by the overall quality of your plant constructions. Their lines are mostly confident. At first the edge had this zig zag elements and the lines had this shakiness, but by the time you reached the fourth one it was very clear that you are getting the hang out of it. I could see more confident on the way you draw plant 3 compared to plant 1! Don't get me on the texture and how real they feel, especially on the mushroom.

However, seems like you are having a bit of trouble drawing the branches as can be seen in images 4-6, where the branches felt flat in comparison to the rest of the drawing. I'm not quite sure if the changes in between each segment is intentional or not, but it feels like you ditched the suggested methods for a more cleaner looking lines at the cost of the line being confident.

Don't let this bog you down that much, the use of drop shadows and line weight has been super appropriate, especially the mushroom that shown of it's tiny little drop shadow bumps. The roses, one of the hardest plants that I remember tried drawing at free time, also looked beautiful and the amount of lines in there meant that you did a lot of planning. I'm really impressed.

In conclusion, I can see a lot of improvement throughout this lesson and I think you understood the things that these lessons are trying to achieve. I'm gonna ask you redo the one page of branches before moving on, but I think it wouldn't be a big deal with what you have accomplished!

No worries, good luck on your next lesson!