Gashif

Very intensive critique, I really resonate with the example of making 3D forms in 2D paper. I noticed I was doing things differently from others, I also took painting as a second subject to learn aside of DaB and indeed it focuses on silhouette and shapes of values as a measuring tool. Not trying to make an excuse though hahaha, but I think being able to draw the 3D illusion will benefit me in the long run. I got that mixed up xd

Either way, Thanks Weijak! It's very useful critique, I didn't get this at the Discord :]

Glad that my answer satisfies you :]

I personally think DaB is to inform you about perspective in an intuitive way in the most basic form.

I think what matters most is how you achieved a certain result, if you learned by measuring it roughly then it's your win - you learned something for yourself through improvisation. It's all a matter of habit after that, it will take less time to measure in your decision making process after you do it over and over. As long as you do what the homework is supposed to do, it's fine - better if you learnt something along the way

What I meant to say is keep the balance of 50/50 of doing exercises while also having fun to not exhaust yourself, yes.

You don't need to critique my work, I get critiqued if I critique 5 times so it's a feedback loop hahaha

Your welcome, good luck!

Your welcome! :)

Hello Kamez0R, today I'll be doing my best to critique your work :]

Congrats on completing lesson 1!

To start it's not very noticeable that your pen is dying, so don't worry.

I will divide this critique into 3 category of Lines, Ellipses, and Boxes.

Lines

Your lines are not too great and not bad, it's functional. Plotted Lines have this level of wobbliness but it's pretty consistent overall. One thing to add is to be more confident in your lines, and don't focus too much accuracy early on. Some lines are arching, to counter this try to arch the opposite way of your lenience to arch. This applies to the Ghosted Planes too. Overall you are going to the right direction, just keep pushing those lines as long as you are early in Lesson 1.

Ellipses

Ellipses are fine and quite confident, they follow most of the guidelines needed for the completion of this homework. Ellipses in Tables are not overlapping with each other which is good, but personally it lacks variety (though it's not a deal breaker). Ellipses in Funnels are okay, what's important in this homework is being able to cut the ellipses in 2 symmetrical halves with varying sizes. Your Ellipses tend to be a leaning a bit in either direction, thus making few errors - try fixing this by ghosting longer and make sure yourself that you get that intention of the ellipse. If you already did that, then you are on the right direction.

Boxes

Since Lines is a part of boxes, your lines seemed to improve here which is always a good sign. Your boxes are good, there's not much to say for me personally. Plotted Perspective is good, Organic Perspective look like they are foreshortening, Rotated Boxes being not perfect serves it purposes - maybe some boxes need to be kept to each other closer and boxes look hesitant in rotating sometimes. I think you did well on this one (or at least understand what you are aiming for). Keep pushing it!

Hello Dramaticmoon! Today I'll be doing my best to give you a critique :]

First thing first, I noticed that you are using a pencil? It's not forbidden but it's not recommended, just putting it out there because part of the critique heavily relies on line quality or draftmanship. Just a personal advice, try to invest a 0.5 fineliner or at least a pen. Of course you can read this if you want to: https://drawabox.com/article/ink it explains fully on why should you use ink (especially if you are planning to do further lessons too). Otherwise let's get going.

I'll be dividing it into 3 parts of Lines, Ellipses, and Boxes.

Lines

Overall your lines has a lot of wobbles and not much confidence, it's important to have confidence over accuracy earlier since you will work on accuracy later down the line. So lesson 1 is very crucial on building a good foundation. Try reading over the part of drawing lines again: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/3

I can see your efforts here already but let me point out common mistakes that you did here. Arching lines in both Ghosted Planes and Ghosted Lines especially. Try to counter this with arching the opposite way of your tendency to arch. Also take account of the wobbly lines too. Either way you are going on the right direction, try to push yourself more to get the desired line work. It's all mileage and intentional drawing .

Ellipses

Your Ellipses are mostly fine. Good job on getting it contained and minimal overlapping in the Ellipses Tables. In the Ellipses in Planes are ok, not too accurate but you did what the homework serves. Funnel is also good, the ellipses looks like it's symmetrically cut in 2 halves by the minor axis. Most of the ellipses are drawn 2-3 times, and it's quite confident. Keep this up and try to get more confidence in your ellipses. All in all it's pretty good and going to the right direction.

Boxes

Boxes are pretty good. I have the same critique for the lines since boxes are just a bunch of lines. But I think you followed every guidelines for the boxes. Plotted Perspective looks neat, Rough Perspective is smudgy but correction line is on point, Organic Perspective, Rotated Boxes despite having wobbly lines looks tight and boxes look like they are rotating and are kept close.

Hello BWXD! Today I'll be doing my best giving my critique and hopefully this proves useful to you.

First of all are you using the 0.5 fineliner? It seems to me you are using some kind of ballpoint or just not a very good pen in general. It's okay to use a ballpoint for now, but I really recommend upgrading if you could (especially for higher lessons)

Here are links regarding about that matter; https://drawabox.com/article/ink , https://drawabox.com/lesson/0/5

Consider to invest in fineliner pens, though smudgy pen isn't frowned upon or not allowed - it will definitely improve morale and the cleanliness of your work.

So I will critique as sections of Lines, Ellipses, and Boxes

Lines

Your lines are quite wobbly, I can only take this implication that you are not confident in drawing your lines. Don't fuss to much over accuracy and try doing very confident linework (as it's very important in the earlier lessons), because the next lessons will be very elaborate and sophisticated homeworks that it's very beneficial if you are used to drawing confident lines already. Since Lines encompasses a lot of things in what we draw including ellipses and boxes, it's crucial to have a good footing on it.

And also you have quite few arching lines, try to fix this by arching your lines in the opposite way of your tendency to arch.

Overall it serves the homework.

Ellipses

Your Ellipses are surprisingly not bad, it's solid and neat but could definitely have more room for improvement. Ellipses in Tables need to be really enclosed in the bounding boxes, try to be more mindful about it since it's important for later lessons. Just like with your Lines, Ellipses needed to be drawn confidently and as for my critique it's the same application for lines since it's a parallel problem. You did good on drawing your Ellipses 2-3 times average, try to unify those uncertain lines into a whole clear Ellipses, try narrow that gap and you are good to go.

Ellipses in Tunnels are the most neat out of them all. One tip to add is to have the minor axis slice the Ellipses in 2 symmetrical halves, it seems that you already attempted that but it's always good to keep in mind/remind. Keep up the work!

Boxes

Boxes suffer the same with the lines since it is just a compilation of lines orchestrated in a perspective manner. Though your boxes does align with the homework needs. Overall I think you did everything right, it's just the lines are supressing the overall structure of these lessons.

Hello Akakunari! I'll be critiquing your work, and hopefully you'll find it useful. It's fine if you used the wrong size for the pen, but try to use the correct one for the next one if you can.

First I would like to give my thoughts regarding about Tonika Pantoja's thoughts on it. I think I agree to it to some degree, but I obviously disagree that it's not useful at all.

What makes drawing boxes from different angles useful is the decision making process of each boxes with what you knew about perspective. Fundamentals are boring and repetitive, that's because it makes you get used to the decision making with all of your knowledge of perspective at the back of your mind - on top of that you get the mileage of your muscle memories to draw a single line deliberately with careful thoughts. It's a matter of building a good habit. Like Tonika said, drawing with INTENTION is what makes you learn something. When we see people draw fast, what we see is their hands putting a bunch of cooordinated lines together - but with thought process it's almost impossible to compare (like comparing your drawings with their drawings) because it's incomparable with our own decision making process.

With boxes it's hard because people tend to go to the path of the least resistance to work this repetitive task and doing it autopilot or mindlessly. I think that's why DaB has the 50/50 rule to somewhat relieve and keep in mind of what you learnt.

I think I watched an interview with Finnian McManus, a legendary concept artist, where he also said something similiar regarding drawing fundamentals thing over and over and over but I couldn't find the specific timestamp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGM7Im8VghQ

Drawing boxes in multiple angles will help you visualize what you draw, but that's only a part of the puzzle and not the salvation of solution. Think of it as learning to use the tools instead of the rules, you can't use a hammer and nail it mindlessly without learning how to use it - well you will probably learn how to use it via happy accidents but what you want is to put that hours to actually learn something consciously. This is my personal take on it, and please take it with grain of salt - maybe ask again in DaB discord if this answer doesn't satisfy you.

For your homework critique I'll divide by three parts. Line, ellipses, and boxes.

Lines

Your lines are very satisfactory for homework, earlier homework like the Superimposed Lines and Ghosted Lines has mistakes with fraying lines on both ends, arching lines, and wobbly lines but most of it is somewhat resolved in the next homework. So I'll say to keep what you have in mind and don't let your guard down. Keep the perseverance!

One more thing to add is some lines in your boxes and Ghosted Planes are done well, but they are just wobbly (they seem to improve overtime). Really try to ghost your lines until you think it's 100% sure to draw that line, and when you draw it - execute it with the utmost confidence because you did your ghosting. By ghosting you gain confidence because you will be prepared for the next line that you draw. Don't worry too much about accuracy at this early stage, next lessons you will be drilled for making more sophisticated drawings.

**Ellipses

It's pretty hectic in Ellipses in Tables with the wobbliness and uncertainty of the whole ellipse and it does improve with Ellipses in Tunnels. Your ellipses' problems are parallel with the lines for the critique. What I can say is to try to have the minor axis in your Ellipses in Tunnels really equal in 2 halves, that's something to keep in mind for 250 Cylinders.

**Boxes

I think you did a splendid job on the boxes, it's clean and very neat (compared to mine hahaha). I don't have any critiques for this other than to keep up the quality of the boxes and try not to get complacent with it. Did you use a different pen for the rotated boxes' outlines? If so I think it's better for you to use the 0.5 fineliner instead as it shows your work and something to improve rather than hide it with thick lines. Aside from that, you did good and I'll be nitpicking a lot if I were to really try to give a critique.

Hello Naofumi, I'll try the best of my ability to give critique. Hopefully this will be very useful to you.

Lines

Your lines are fine, there are bits and pieces here and there in common that could do some work - as an example I see a lot of arching and wobbling lines especially the Ellipses in Planes exercise.

To fix wobbly lines is just to really take your time, superimposed it and really do it with confidence over accuracy - personally I think it's something that can be achieved in the beginning as long as you take your time and will be very crucial on the next lessons. Fixing arching lines it's as simple as doing the lines in the opposite of the arching.

Your Superimposed lines are also a bit messy, you'd usually want it to look like a big collective line made up of lines - but in your case it looks like a shirt that has ragged sewing (the best way I could describe it). Usually for me it implies that you are not taking as much time and consideration you needed for each line, but if you had already done it like that - then I think it's no problem.

The positive thing is your lines are fairly confident most of the time, and no repeating lines which should be a good foundation to have. Keep it up!

Ellipses

Your ellipses are good but it could have some more confidence and flow. The Ellipses in Tables look very neat, but some of them seems to have pretty wobbly markmanship - it's the same case with the lines for the solution, so need not worry. Try to draw it too slowly. Your Ellipses in Planes are good, with the similiar flaw that I mentioned - overall it's done well homework.

Ellipses in Funnels are good, the minor axis are symmetrical on each side. Not much I can add, other than keep up on what you are aiming!

Boxes

Boxes looked neat but it suffers the same because it all comes down to line, aside that everything looks in place as the boxes are intended look like in the homework.

Rough Perspective is done well. Plotted Perspective too with the horizontal and vertical lines done well. Rotated Boxes are the most difficult and it's normal to have them look disatisfactory, but there are some problems that could be solved to make it look better - like how your boxes doesn't converge to the VP as much as it needs.

Check this link for an example:

https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/d73eea49.jpg

It seems that you get the intent behind it, it's supposed to dip you in to the deep water so you respect it before you swim in it. Organic Perspective is done good :)

Thank you a lot Weijak! Really appreciate the breakdowns on specific exercises that I did. I agree with everything and especially that I was a bit obsessed on making things look good instead of trying to learn the lesson. I learned to draw really good through contour and I kind of got complacent in this particular lesson, the same with line weight and line quality. Will definitely try to improve them :)