Groksar

I'll be the TA handling your Lesson 2 critique.

I've removed your duplicate post to tidy up your sketchbook.

You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson and hopefully this critique will help you in your future attempts.

• Starting off in the arrows section your lines are looking smoothly and confidently drawn. You're doing a good job maintaining a consistent width as your arrows widen while moving closer to the viewer and with more mileage you'll become more consistent. It's good to see that you're trying to implement line weight, just remember that you want to keep your applications subtle and you'll become consistent with mileage. here are some things to look out for when applying it. I'd like you to experiment more with foreshortening in your future attempts, by utilizing it in both the arrows themselves as well as the negative space between their curves we can create a stronger illusion of an object moving through 3D space as demonstrated here.

• Moving into the organic forms with contours exercise some of your forms are getting a bit too complex. We want to create our forms with both ends being the same size and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form's length as discussed here. You're keeping your line work confident here which is great, if you feel uncomfortable working with contours still don't stress with more mileage it'll become more natural. Speaking of contours I'd like you to try and shift the degree of your contours more. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here. Quick reminder, remember to draw through all of your ellipses. You neglect the small contour ellipses on the ends of your forms here.

• In the texture exercises (more so in your dissections) you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows created by forms along the texture itself. This makes it difficult to create gradients with implied information which we could then use to create focal points in more complex pieces, by doing so we can prevent our viewers from being visually overwhelmed with too much detail. For more on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here. I'd also like to quickly direct you to this image which shows that when we're working with thin line like textures if we outline and fill the shadow we will create a much more dynamic texture than simply drawing lines.

• Moving into the Form Intersections section your forms are looking solid and like they belong in a single cohesive space, good work. In regards to the intersections themselves it seems like you're on the right track, but if you (like most people) feel like you may not fully grasp how to apply them just yet don't stress too much. This exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page. We'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons.

• While wrapping up your submission with the organic intersections exercise you do a great job demonstrating that your sense of 3D space is developing as your forms begin to wrap around each other believably. You're keeping your forms simple and easy to work with which is a good strategy to help produce good results. When it comes to your shadows you're pushing them enough so that they cast rather than just hugging the form that creates them which is a great start. Your shadows appear to be following a consistent light source, be sure to experiment with different angles and intensities when trying this exercise again in the future. I recommend pushing your light source to the top left or right corner of the page to start with, it's easier than working with a light directly above your form pile.

Overall this was a solid submission, while you may have some things to work on I have no doubt you will improve with more mileage. I'll be marking your submission as complete and move you on to the next lesson.

Keep practicing previous exercises as warm ups and good luck in lesson 3!

I'll be the TA handling your Lesson 2 critique.

You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson and hopefully this critique will help you in your future attempts.

• Starting off with the arrows section you want to be making sure you're drawing confidently to keep your arrows as smooth as possible, accuracy will come with mileage. There are spots where your arrows bulge/narrow suddenly, this is an issue because it gives the impression that your arrows are stretching which hurts their solidity. Remember that as our arrows move closer to the viewer we want them to widen consistently. This is a good exercise to experiment with line weight but when applying it we want to make sure we do subtly to key areas like overlaps to give clarity to our forms. Here are some things to look out for when applying line weight, and here are some reminders on how to apply it subtly. At times you don't overlap your edges when you should, this results in your arrows flattening out as you can see here. I'd like you to experiment more with foreshortening in your future attempts, by utilizing it in both the arrows themselves as well as the negative space between their curves we can create a stronger illusion of an object moving through 3D space as demonstrated here.

• Moving into the organic forms with contours exercise your forms are getting a bit too complex. We want to create our forms with both ends being the same size and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form's length as discussed here. You're keeping your line work confident here which is great, if you feel uncomfortable working with contours still don't stress with more mileage it'll become more natural. Speaking of contours I'd like you to try and shift the degree of your contours more. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.

• In the texture exercises you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows created by forms along the texture itself. This makes it difficult to create gradients with implied information which we could then use to create focal points in more complex pieces, by doing so we can prevent our viewers from being visually overwhelmed with too much detail. For more on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here. I'd also like to quickly direct you to this image which shows that when we're working with thin line like textures if we outline and fill the shadow we will create a much more dynamic texture than simply drawing lines.

• Moving into the form intersections exercise your lines aren't drawn confidently which is an issue. In regards to the intersections themselves it seems like you're on the right track, but if you (like most people) feel like you may not fully grasp how to apply them just yet don't stress too much. This exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page. We'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons but your lines are an issue that will need to be addressed.

• While wrapping up your submission with the organic intersections exercise you do a great job demonstrating that your sense of 3D space is developing as your forms begin to wrap around each other believably. You're keeping your forms simple and easy to work with which is a good strategy to help produce good results. I'd like you to draw through all of your forms when attempting this exercise again in the future, it will help reinforce your understanding of the 3D space you're creating. When it comes to your shadows you're pushing them enough so that they cast rather than just hugging the form that creates them which is a great start. Your shadows appear to be following a consistent light source, be sure to experiment with different angles and intensities when trying this exercise again in the future. I recommend pushing your light source to the top left or right corner of the page to start with, it's easier than working with a light directly above your form pile. Reminder before wrapping up, you should be drawing through all of your ellipses, you neglect some of the ellipses on the end of your forms here and in the previous intersections exercise.

I won't be moving you on to the next lesson just yet, each lesson builds upon each other and I'd like to make sure you understand a few of these concepts a bit more before potentially creating more problems down the road.

Unfortunately I did point out that your lines were an issue in the box challenge and mention that you'd likely be asked for revisions if they weren't addressed.

With that being said I'd like you to please re-read and complete:

• 2 pages of the arrows exercise

• 4 pages of the form intersections exercise

Once you've completed the pages mentioned above reply to this critique with a link to them, I'll go over them and address anything that needs to be worked on and once you've shown you're ready for the next lesson I'll move you on.

I look forward to seeing your work.

Hi there! I saw your submission so I figured I'd take a look:

Organic Arrows and Contours. I'm seeing clean confident line work for the most part here, save for one kind of wobbly arrow on the right side of the page here. There are some errors with line width across a number of these however. This creates arrows that do progress through space, but they have sections that appear less dynamic, which brings down the overall appearance of the arrow in question. Practice, as always, will help with this. Make sure you consider the path your second line will take as it moves in tandem with the first. I traced over a few of your arrows in case you find it helpful. Other than that, I thought you did a good job of keeping track of how the arrow bends in space. It may help to apply some line weight to the line that overlaps the other on the arrow.

With the contours it looks like you have the right idea as far as the ellipses shifting in degree as the sausage moves closer or away from the viewer. The sausages are well made with good effort to ensure that the forms are evenly sized throughout. Make sure you keep your ellipses aligned 90 degrees to the minor axis as you work though. I also noticed with your contour curves page that you ran into the trap of contours that don't probably shift in degree on the ellipse. It is a bit harder compared to the ellipses assignment, especially since we aren't drawing through the elliptical mark we make. Make sure you ghost your ellipses, even if you aren't drawing a full one. Alignment to the minor axis applies here as well.

Texture. Your analysis page looks pretty spot-on as far as utilizing cast shadows to describe form; one thing to look out for is not utilizing the black band in the analysis window. Those bands are as much a part of the shadow shapes as anything else you put in that window, so those bands should stretch and merge into the other shadow shapes in the window. A small detail at the end of the day, but if you end up doing the texture analysis challenge, then it's something to keep in mind.

Dissections generally look okay. You definitely try to keep the textures following the form of the sausage, and you push the silhouette out to capture the texture's forms. There are a number of these that sort of miss the mark. The ones that stand out to me are the thorns, tentacles, rippling water, and the succulent. These surfaces can be a bit complex to understand, so I drew some sketches that might help you see the forms that we're supposed to be describing. These surfaces are generally considered smooth with the exception of the forms that protrude from the surface. These surface forms will typically not be drawn through, so we really have to lean on pushing the silhouette to make them visible. With the rippling water, the silhouette is the only way to show this texture. I do want to note here, that in lesson 3, there's a demo of a cactus where the bumpy surface is completely drawn through; I don't remember the logic of that, but I believe it wasn't a construction that had any texture to the drawing, I just wanted to warn you that it may seem contradictory. Incidentally, doing the organic intersections exercise can help improve your understanding of these surface forms, and that happens to be the next section.

Form and Organic Intersections. If there was a page that was just box intersections, it looks like it wasn't successfully uploaded. That said, these intersections look logical, though the lines are a tad scratchy here; much like any other assignment, we want to strive for smooth confident lines every time. Organic intersections look pretty good too, though you may want to keep your forms more uniform in design. That said, this is nothing I'm going to nag you about, it looks like your contours make sense in these.

I'll be the TA handling your Lesson 2 critique.

You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson and hopefully this critique will help you in your future attempts.

• Starting off with the arrows section you want to be making sure you're drawing confidently to keep your arrows as smooth as possible, accuracy will come with mileage. There are spots where your arrows bulge/narrow suddenly, this is an issue because it gives the impression that your arrows are stretching which hurts their solidity. Remember that as our arrows move closer to the viewer we want them to widen consistently. It's good to see that you're trying to implement line weight, just remember that you want to keep your applications subtle and you'll become consistent with mileage. here are some things to look out for when applying it. At times you don't overlap your edges when you should, this results in your arrows flattening out as you can see here. I'd like you to experiment more with foreshortening in your future attempts, by utilizing it in both the arrows themselves as well as the negative space between their curves we can create a stronger illusion of an object moving through 3D space as demonstrated here.

• Moving into the organic forms with contours exercise a couple of your forms are getting a bit too complex. We want to create our forms with both ends being the same size and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form's length as discussed here. You're keeping your line work mostly confident here which is great (you are redrawing at times which is a bad habit so try not to do it in the future), if you feel uncomfortable working with contours still don't stress with more mileage it'll become more natural. Speaking of contours I'd like you to try and shift the degree of your contours more. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.

• In the texture exercises you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows created by forms along the texture itself. This makes it difficult to create gradients with implied information which we could then use to create focal points in more complex pieces, by doing so we can prevent our viewers from being visually overwhelmed with too much detail. For more on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here. I'd also like to quickly direct you to this image which shows that when we're working with thin line like textures if we outline and fill the shadow we will create a much more dynamic texture than simply drawing lines.

• Moving into the Form Intersections section your forms are looking solid and like they belong in a single cohesive space, good work. In regards to the intersections themselves it seems like you're on the right track, but if you (like most people) feel like you may not fully grasp how to apply them just yet don't stress too much. This exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page. We'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons.

• While wrapping up your submission with the organic intersections exercise you do a great job demonstrating that your sense of 3D space is developing as your forms begin to wrap around each other believably. You're keeping your forms simple and easy to work with which is a good strategy to help produce good results. When it comes to your shadows you're pushing them enough so that they cast rather than just hugging the form that creates them which is a great start. Your shadows appear to be following a consistent light source, be sure to experiment with different angles and intensities when trying this exercise again in the future. I recommend pushing your light source to the top left or right corner of the page to start with, it's easier than working with a light directly above your form pile.

Overall this was a solid submission, while you may have some things to work on I have no doubt you will improve with more mileage. I'll be marking your submission as complete and move you on to the next lesson.

Keep practicing previous exercises as warm ups and good luck in lesson 3!

Hello, Cykachu! I'd like to give some critique on your work.

Lines

• Superimposed lines. I can notice that your lines tend to fray at the farther end which is completely acceptable as you're beginning the course. I can also see the work you put to establish the starting points, though they didn't always fit in some cases. Yet, I don't see your second page of this exercise. If you forgot about it, attach it here in the comments.

• Ghosted lines. The linework is pretty good, I didn't notice any wobbling. The only major thing to my mind is that your lines tend to make an slight arch. Make sure you keep pushing yourself to draw from your shoulder. If you keep having trouble with this, try to compensate by arching your lines in the opposite direction.

• The ghosted planes look confident and even have a plenty of accuracy, good job.

Ellipses

• The tables of ellipses are amazing! They tend to have a smooth surface without wobbling and a pretty symmetrical shape with no lagging at the ends. I'd say, they are better than mine after the seven months of DaB. Also, you are drawing them through two or three times, just as requested.

• The ellipses in planes are also in general smooth, however, keep in mind that you are supposed to prioritize the elliptical shape over it touching the borders. Preserve this exercise as a part of your warmups and you will improve.

• While the ellipses in the funnels are of okayish quality, I can't help but notice that they are starting to loose that even shape from your previous tasks. Also, a large number of them doesn't touch the funnel sides which would have helped in the latter lessons to set up the forms in 3D and which this task is trying to foreshadow. Though it shows that you have some understanding and that you try playing with the elliptical degrees, which is a good sign, I think you'll need to work more on it.

Boxes

• I start to see some very disturbing signs on your plotted boxes. Overshoot hatching, clearly redrawn lines, some totally confused lines when the hatching conflicts with the initial and the new line (right-bottom of the third panel). It really breaks the believability of the forms, so you'll need to tighten the grip on markmaking.

• Great work on rough perspective! There is a visible improvement of their convergence. Still... the same double-lines problem shows up in a few of the boxes.

• The rotated boxes are neat. I can see you actually trying to rotate them and using the neighboring boxes as a guide. You also put the work to emphasize the order with hatching. Wonderful!

• The organic perspective pages are not so great. Again, I can see you second-guessing yourself and redrawing the lines whereas the very thing drawabox attempts to teach is that any decisions are permanent. Additionally, a huge distortion of some boxes is present there, make sure you have the constant rate of foreshortening. Seeing how a few boxes are also divergent, I'd like you to revisit this exercise. (don't forget to reread the lesson content before each revision)

Now that we have come to the end I'd like to congratulate you on making the first step into the world of Drawabox. While it may not have been smooth, you'd shown that with effort you were capable of making a significant progress on this subject. I believe you'll be doing just great after a couple of revisions.

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

Lines

-On the superimposed lines I can see that you have always started from a clearly defined point and kept all of the wavering on one side, which is correct. That said, I do notice that your lines tend to wobble, make sure you are prioritizing confidence over accuracy, and also keep pushing yourself to engage your whole arm with a locked wrist. We have the expected fraying at the ends but that tends to disappear with more practice

-Moving on to the ghosted lines, you have done a better job committing to those lines even if they are going to miss the ending point, all of the previous wobbliness is gone, but here I notice that your lines tend to make an arch, one thing that can help you is to draw your lines a little faster to avoid any chance of wobbliness.

-The lines in the ghosted planes have some of the issues already mentioned, remember to give each mark as much attention and focus as it requires, each line is no less important for being part of a larger group, take your time and use the ghosting method to ensure that you are drawing to the best of your ability.

Ellipses

-The tables of ellipses are turning out quite well and they are looking very tidy instead of rushed. You have kept in mind the alignment, degree,angle and spacing of the ellipses. Man thing you should keep working on is to draw symmetrical ellipses with well rounded ends this may affect the spacing but keep in mind that accuracy tends to come with more mileage and practice.

-The ellipses in planes are confidently drawn, I only have one thing to call out: You might be thinking that the center of the ellipses is the same as the center of the planes or that you should modify the elliptical ellipse shape so it touches the contact points, but this is not the case. 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 funnels are turning out well, and you are doing a great job having the ellipses fitting snugly within the funnel shape, the alignment is also looking alright as the minor axis is cutting each ellipse into equal halves. Overall you did a great job on this section.

Boxes

-On the rough perspective your linework has some of the issues that I raised back on the ghosted lines exercise, do your best to draw straight lines for your boxes, it is important to make them look solid and believable. Aside from this, I can see that you are doing your best to align the sides of the boxes to the horizon line, and your estimations to the vanishing point will get better with practice.

-Your rotated boxes are turning out well, you have kept the gaps between boxes narrow and consistent and you are clearly thinking about the rotation. I only have some suggestions for you. First, try to be more subtle with that lineweight. If you end up making it too thick you will take the solidity of your form and turn them into graphic shapes, adding one superimposed line is more than enough. And lastly, one thing that can help you is to give as much room as possible to your drawings, this way it will be easier to ghost and draw your marks, and you will also have an easier time thinking about the rotation.

-Finishing with the organic perspective, you are doing a good job with the linework but I am noticing that you are repeating your lines, if you make a mistake, leave it like that and do not try to correct it by drawing on top of it as that only makes it stand out more, By getting rid of this habit you will develop the discipline necessary to do your homework to the best of your ability. To conclude,remember you can add lineweight to the parts of outer lines that overlap with other boxes to clarify which ones are on top and which behind, so give it a try next attempt you have at the exercise.

Before letting you move on I’ll leave you some additional work, I’ll leave it below, and I look forward to seeing it, good luck.

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

Lines

-Your superimposed lines are off to a great start , as you have always started at a clearly defined point and kept all of the wavering on one side.. The fraying at the ends is not much, and it will decrease with practice.

-Moving on to the ghosted lines you are doing a great job, all of your lines follow a consistent trajectory and they are confidently drawn even if they are going to miss the ending dot, with this in mind, you can try to take your lines to the next level by trying the approach highlighted here.

-The ghosted planes are no different from the ghosted lines, here your linework is coming along nicely too

Ellipses

-Starting with the tables of ellipses, these are looking very tidy instead of rushed, and I can see that you have kept in mind the degree, angle, spacing and alignment of the ellipses, just remember that you should always aim to draw symmetrical ellipses.

-Your ellipses in planes are turning out nicely, I just want to give you a quick reminder, you might be thinking that the center of the ellipses is the same as the center of the planes or that you should modify the elliptical ellipse shape so it touches the contact points, but this is not the case. Ellipses have to be symmetrical and have the same shape regardless of where they are

-The funnels are also turning out very well, and it is great to see that your ellipses are still confidently drawn and have not stiffened. You did a great job fitting them snugly and having the minor axis cut each of them into equal halves.

Boxes

-Starting with the rough perspective, here I like to see that you have drawn each line with the same good deal of confidence, which really helped you boxes look more solid and believable. You are also doing a great job aligning the sides of the boxes to the horizon line, and lastly, your estimations to the vanishing point are good and they will get better with practice.

-Moving on to the rotated boxes, you have done an excellent job, as you have kept the gaps between boxes narrow and the rotation is clearly there. That said, I do have some suggestions to make.

• First, try to use more of the space available on your page. When doing any of these exercises in spatial reasoning it is always good to use as much space as we can, that way your lines will be confident while maintaining good accuracy, as it will be easier to engage your whole arm.

• Secondly, try to keep the lineweight reigned in, it is a good tool to use as we have many boxes clumped together creating a lot of visual noise, but it is better to keep it subtle and only add one superimposed line. Take a look at this diagram which shows my point more clearly..

-Finishing with the organic perspective, your linework is still looking confident but some parts look sketchy and scratchy, so try to avoid this as it undermines the solidity of our forms. Take your time to ghost each mark to draw it to the best of your ability. Finally, you are already making some good attempts at the perspective of the boxes, and overall you did an excellent job in this lesson. So I’ll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, now you can move on to the box challenge, good luck!!

Hi RiotGearGlenn I'll be handling the critique for your lesson 1.

Lines

-Starting with the superimposed lines exercise I can see that your lines tend to fray at the ends, this is completely acceptable as you are starting, but definitely keep practicing. Also there are some cases where your lines break their trajectory, so make sure you are using the ghosting method correctly and as much as you need to, even if you have to ghost infinite times, do it.

-Moving on to the ghosted lines exercise, I can see some lines that make an arch, the reason for this may be that you are not drawing from your shoulder, so keep an eye for it, also you have some trouble with overshooting lines so try the approach mentioned here, the advice here says try lifting your pen off the page the second you hit that end point, but I found that lifting it before also helps.

-Continuing on to the ghosted planes your linework is pretty good, there are some wobbly lines that suggest that you may be focusing more on hitting the intersection between the lines than drawing confidently, remember that at this point your highest priority should be drawing with confidence rather than accuracy.

Ellipses

-Starting with the tables of ellipses exercise, your ellipses tend to get deformed, as shown here, so keep in mind that it is crucial that you make smooth and even ellipses, working with wobbly ellipses is going to undermine the solidity of your drawings for next lessons. Also in the end of the second page, your ellipses started to fade, maybe it was your pen, but if not this means that you are still a little hesitant, remember that the ghosting method is all about getting rid of this hesitation.

-Moving on to the ellipses in planes exercise, your work here is coming pretty nicely, you grasped the purpose of this exercise.

-Finishing this section with the funnels exercise, I think that you didn't get as much form this exercise as you could, remember that the purpose of this exercise is to have your ellipses aligned to the axis and spacing them correctly or having them fit snugly, and again we return to the point I made in the previous exercise you have to strive to draw the ellipses as smooth as possible

Boxes

-Starting with the rough perspective, the first thing I notice is that your linework is pretty hesitant even when it comes to shorter lines, but in general you make a good job aiming at the vanishing point. So keep practicing your lines.

-Continuing on to the rotated boxes I'm seeing some orphan marks or lines that feel like they don't really belong there, I'm guessing that you tried to correct them, keep in mind that you have to take the adjacent sides of near boxes as hints to draw your next boxes. Also, here your applications of lineweight are pretty messy, always ghost them, take a look at this, it may help you.

-Finishing with the organic perspective, I'm seeing again these lines that you tried to correct, as I mentioned above the ghosting method is all about getting rid of all hesitation but also to plan the marks that are going to do the job best, once you've put that your pen in the page you have had gone trough all planning and as such you'll have to stick to them.

congrats!

Now to the critique, Your linework is pretty good overall. Except for a little bit of wobbling here and there, and some slight arching. I would recommend to try to be more confident with your lines to fix your wobbly lines a little more. Also for the arching lines I would reccomend doing what uncomfortable said, which is to purposefully arch your lines in the opposite direction. Also arching lines tend to happen when you aren't fully using your shoulder pivot. Of course this is something you would get over time, so for now just try and get your lines to be more confident.

Next is your ellipes, for the majority of them I saw that they were clean and confident so good job. Once in a while I saw a circle or two that they looked like you were trying to make them fit into the grid tables especially the ellipses in which you had to fit them into the squares. Overall you did a good job with your ellipses, its just something to keep in mind, cause we can sometimes forget.

Your lines also for the persepctive grid using one point perspective is also good. I just wanna say that the lines should either perpendicular or parrel to the horizon. Just something to keep in mind. i just saw your lines were still a little arched, so they weren't parrel sometimes. Of course that comes with practice so keep up the work and you should get better.

In the organic perspective and rotated boxes is also good. I did notice that it was kinda hard to tell if you plotted your points before ghosting your lines. It might be the ink covering it, so nothing to worry too much. Overall very good. I would also recomend drawing the lines that go inside your boxes to better your understanding of 3d boxes, but thats something you will get plenty of practice in the 250 box challenge.

Overall very good. Just some things to remember. Don't forget to plot your points before anything. Don't forget to ghost your lines. Good luck and I hope you continue to grow as an aspiring artist. Level up up to 9,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!