ItsSeaJay

So you finished lesson 1! Great job! Let's take a look at the results:

Superimposed Lines

These are decent enough, but I notice quite a bit of fraying at the beginning. Make sure to keep the pen steady when you begin a stroke and always begin from the same place. I also don't notice a lot of attempts where you use curved lines. This is important to showing your understanding of the lesson material.

Ghosted Lines

These are simply OK. The wobble on these is quite noticable and runs a little wide. This seems to indicate that you perhaps weren't in a proper position to be drawing. And come to think of it your use of a clipboard does worry me a little. Try to work on improving your flow in future warmups.

Ellipses in Planes

I don't see this exercise anywhere! I can't critique something that doesn't exist.

Tables of Ellipses

These are fine, but the wobble inherent to your drawing is still noticable here. You could have used a bit more variation in terms of the patterns and degrees of ellipses attempted.

Funnels

This one is interesting because not only do your ellipses not seem as tight as before, you've actually got the degrees backwards from how they would normally be. You see, the exercise calls for you to increase the degree of the ellipse with distance, not decrease it. Otherwise I can't fault it much. You did your best.

Plotted Perspective

You placed your vanishing points at either end of the horizon line, which makes it harder to see. You could have drawn a lot more boxes and played with vanishing point placement more. Make sure to outline the boxes a second time and mark the near plane like the lesson material states you should do.

Rough Perspective

Your boxes have no foreshortening whatsoever! The lines are parallel and it's more of an oblique projection more than anything else. The far plane should be a smaller version of the near plane, which should have been marked by the way! At least you followed from the edges of the form rather than the vanishing point. You'd be surprised how many people get that wrong...

Rotated Boxes

Every box appears very similar, indicating you did not shift the vanishing points at all. The drawing looks very flat as a result, though this exercise is difficult to begin with. Don't beat yourself up over this marred attempt.

Organic Perspective

This feels really flat! We're not drawing shapes here (something that's gone into more detail later) we're drawing forms. And that means you have to believe in the secondary world the page is presenting to you. Watch that foreshortening, and remember to vary the rotation on the z (forward) axis. I know you can do better!

Something must have gone wrong with your embed. You actually just posted the same link twice.

Congratulations on finishing lesson 1!

Let's take a look at your progress:

Overlapping Lines

OK so you have the basics of the exercise down, but by the general wobbliness of the lines and lack of fraying at the far end of each one it appears you're going just a tad bit slow. Speed up and keep the flow going!

Ghosted Lines

Your lines are very precise, but again we're still seeing that wobbling. Instead of slowing down to a stop on the mark, make sure you draw past it and lift up your pen when it's about to connect. You're going to end up missing or overshooting at times, but that's not what we're worried about at this stage. Try to draw some longer lines as well and see how that turns out for you! You can always hone that flow in your warmups later.

Ghosted Planes with Ellipses

Now there seems to be a marginal improvement between these sheets and the Ghosted Lines exercise you did previously. If you apply the suggestions suggested above then you should continue to see that improvement here as well. Your ellipses are very tight but I still notice that wobble! It's very important that you go at the right speed for your mind and body.

Tables of Ellipses

Some very tight ellipses with a lot of variation with their pattern and how they're applied. No problems here!

Funnels

You seem to have some aptitude for ellipses, but the way they're applied to this exercise is suspect. Remember that the degree is supposed to increase the further away they are from the center, wheras here they're very similar. A little bit of extra planning and forethought could go a long way in terms of making that change in degree more noticable.

Plotted Perspective

You've understood the point of this exercise well, though the scale and placement of boxes is very similar. You could have done with just a bit more variation here.

Rough Perspective

This was really rough, but you understood that you needed to plot along the lines of your box and not just towards the vanishing point. If you were to attempt this again, I'd focus on not only keeping the lines of your front and back planes level, but also increasing the foreshortening, since it's greater than you think.

Rotated Boxes

You actually submitted two attempts at this, which is understandable given what's happening with the first one. Something I've seen help other students is to imagine the boxes form a sphere, that way it'll end up looking less stiff and you'll remember to mentally place differing vanishing points for each one. Your second attempt was much closer, but watch out for that lack of symmetry!

Organic Perspective

This one got better with time, but you need to pay attention to how much foreshortening is applied to each one! It should increase the further forward the box is towards the viewer.

Well done, you appear to have addressed some of my complaints, such as drawing through your ellipses and drawing your boxes freehand, but I specifically asked you to revise the exercises traditionally. When writing my critique, I was unsure of your situation, so left any mention of materials and camera equipment out of the conversation.

Now I could go on a rant saying "If you can afford a computer, you can afford a camera" or chastise you for laziness, but that would be totally antithetical to the spirit of this course and is the kind of talk that'd probably make you give up. And that's even before we begin to talk about how that kind of behaviour makes me look...

Hey. If you want to complete this course digitally, then I won't stop you. I've already said my piece on the matter. But using an eraser of any sort is completely out of the question.

Sure, in your day to day life, you're going to be making use of this tool extensively. It's really good at neatening up linework and such. But when you're doing technical exercises specifically designed to teach you a concept, it completely defeats the purpose if you can just... forget... you ever made a mistake to begin with.

There's a rather obscure Disney movie that I think you should watch. It's called Meet The Robinsons. It's about a young boy travelling forward in time to meet his future ancestors who coincidentally own a pet t-rex that gets possessed by a man in a bowler hat and--

Look the plot doesn't really matter.

Point is there's this one scene where the main character Lewis screws up. The family garden is in tatters after one of his inventions goes awry. Everyone rushes out to survey the damage, and Lewis braces for the worst as he tells them the truth. Instead of chastising him though, the family starts cheering; congratulating him even! Lewis is understandably confused, but after they explain to him how making mistakes is necessary for long-term success, he just smiles and joins in the celebration.

You should have the exact same attitude when it comes to your art.

A pretty good attempt with some minor flaws. Let's look at the break down:

Overlapping Lines

Almost perfect. Your straight lines arc considerably, but you have the confidence and always start in the right place. Try using your shoulder joint to consciously push back against the curve of your elbow joint!

Ghosted Lines

Highly accurate, but quite wobbly. You need to take into consideration the speed and flow you learned from the previous lesson and apply it here. That's what makes the world go round. I think the problem is that you're afraid of overshooting, which is understandable, but also totally acceptable in this stage of your development. I would have like to see some greater diversity in lengths, too! You seem to have that down from the last lesson, so what happened?

Ghosted Planes

Your trademark wobble carries over from the previous exercise, but there appears to be some flow in there as well? Are you actually ghosting? It seems like some of the lines were drawn in one shot in an attempt to not miss the mark, but overall I think you did well.

Table of Ellipses

Oh dear. Whilst you do have a good number of sizes and styles of ellipse, they're so wobbly it hurts! You did draw through the ellipses several times so well done with that, but otherwise you need to speed up and make sure you're using your entire arm for the motion. Ellipses can smell fear, remember that.

Ghosted Planes with Ellipses

You opted to do additional planes for this exercise, which look very good, but my goodness. Those ellipses! You really need to speed up and not worry about hitting all the points on the exterior edge. Having the ellipses flop over the edge is fine and totally expected at this stage.

Funnels

Much better. The wobble is slowly working its way out, but you need to keep that smooth flow going or else it's gonna come crawling back. The minor axis of each ellipse is identical, which isn't correct. You're supposed to increase the size of the minor axis with each ellipse, the thinnest one being flush with the centerline. Otherwise you didnt' go outside the lines much and there's lots of variety so this is OK I suppose.

Plotted Perspective

It's OK. You've understood the material, but a bit more variety in dimensions and point placement would have been nice.

Rough perspective

Very sparse. Your lines are wobbling again, and in many cases you missed the mark entirely. It's OK to use the vanishing point as reference, you're just not supposed to draw a line all the way back there. Also, make sure to shade the back plane so the forms stand out from the background! It helps a lot with marking!

Natural Perspective

OK, so the boxes are the same dimensions which is good, but the change in scale needs to be more gradual. This can be fixed by drawing more boxes, and making those boxes overlap. The convergence of each box also stays entirely flat throughout and doesn't change at all. Boxes that are farther away should converge less than boxes closer to the eye. Load up any free game engine and throw a bunch of box meshes into a scene and you should be able to see this happening as you budge the camera around. This can be a tricky concept to get your head around, but don't worry. It'll come with time and practice.

Rotated Boxes

Well done on completing this notoriously difficult exercise. Did you use the original as reference?

The thing I immediately notice is that you have completed your exercises digitally. This isn't necessarily a bad choice, some students do this to improve their skill with a tablet and stylus. But Drawabox is first and foremost a traditional art course. It is strongly recommended that you use physical materials to complete your homework. You'll find an explanation for this on the page for Lesson 0 and on Uncomfortable's blog, linked here: https://drawabox.com/article/ink.

Not only is it impossible to verify whether you have used the undo function to hide imperfections in your linework, but on many of the perspective exercises you appear to have used a line tool to render your boxes! This makes giving critique more difficult, since I don't know how much of the homework is down to your ability, and how much is down to the computer.

But I digress.

Superimposed Lines

Your work is very wobbly to begin with, but this seems to improve over time. Make sure to maintain a consistent speed and don't fret about the end result! I can just about tell where you have started each stroke, but there is a large amount of fraying on both ends of your superimposed lines. This indicates you weren't thinking straight and might have been rushing. The start of your line should be in the exact same place each time. A good mixture of attempts at straight lines and curves.

Ghosted Lines

Very good. You're overshooting by quite a lot, but it appears like you've maintained a level of confidence and flow from the previous exercise that this shouldn't be too hard to correct. The important thing is that you take time to line up your shot as it were.

Ghosted Planes with Ellipses

You have included a failed attempt in your Imgur gallery that really should have been removed. The attempt that does feature ellipses is OK, you have a good level of accuracy and flow, but the interior lines have been drawn with a ruler and you didn't follow through with your ellipses. You shouldn't be drawing perfect ellipses in a single pass right now. That comes later in your own time.

Table of Ellipses

There are a lot of ellipses here, so well done on making such a big effort, but at some point you stopped drawing through your ellipses and tried to perform them all in one pass. When you do get around to drawing your ellipses properly, they feel very loose and wobby. When you try to do it in one swift motion, the line doesn't connect smoothly.

Funnels

Again, you're not drawing through your ellipses and now have the additional issue of identical minor axes. The innermost ellipse should have the smallest minor axis (i.e. it's thinner than the others), which gradually expands as you draw further away from the centerline. Otherwise your accuracy is pretty on point.

Plotted Perspective

You understood this perfectly, but next time maybe put a bit less effort into presentation? Deciding unique colours for each box might be fun, but it doesn't make it any easier to mark. These exercises aren't supposed to be pretty to look at, they're supposed to teach you a lesson. Ideally, no-one else is going to see them and if you're really finding yourself drifting off during study time, either draw something more interesting or take a nap. Also, it's expected at some point during this exercise that you move the position of the vanishing points around so you get to play with distortion and fun things like that. Would have also liked to see a greater variety in box dimensions as well.

Rough Perspective

Not only did you use the line tool for extending your lines to the vanishing point so that you could display convergences, but you also used them to render the boxes, which defeats the point of the exercise!

Natural Perspective

The dimensions of your boxes aren't consistent, which makes it very difficult to determine the scale and distance of each box. They should all resemble a unit length cube, only with a different overall size and convergence depending on how close they are to the viewer. Also, they barely overlap half the time! It seems like you got better with this as you go on, but there's little indication that these boxes are in fact receeding into the distance.

Rotated Boxes

Pretty excellent! Pat yourself on the back for doing it at all.

Some students just run away in fear...

There's some good rotation in there, but some boxes aren't rotated enough and the spacing between them seems a little wide. They need to be very tightly packed. Also, make sure to use shading to clarify where the outer faces are!

OK. So it took me an entire month, but I did 15 more boxes just like you asked https://imgur.com/a/DM4vLGQ is this OK?

A decent attempt. Well done for making it this far!

Overlapping Lines

Very wobbly. Make sure you're using your entire arm and that you keep a consistant speed with each stroke. This should also reduce the large amount of fraying that I am able to see.

Ghosted Lines

All right. There appears to be a slight wobble, as well as a lip at the end of each line. Maintain a consistant speed using your pen. Don't get shaky!

Ghosted Ellipses

Pretty standard attempt. Most of the critique of your ghosted lines applies here, but you're slowly getting better. Don't give up!

Table of Ellipses

Very wobbly and not all that tight, but that's to be expected at this stage. Minor axis seems under consistant control however, so well done for that.

Funnels

A very similar minor axis on each ellipse inside the funnel. This isn't the behaviour that is expected from this exercise. Each ellipse should have a slightly larger minor axis than the one before it.

Ellipses in Planes

Pretty good. You seem to be getting the hang of this, but as you continue to improve your art, I'd like to see you having more control over those ellipses. Your comprehension otherwise seems amicable.

Plotted Perspective

Excellent. Homework is well laid out and you used the correct method. I would have liked to have seen you attempt to plot boxes with more extreme dimensions.

Rough Perspective

Very wobbly. I know this exercise can seem intimidating, but you've just got to keep in mind that each exercise builds on the one before it. You need to take the confidence of the overlapping lines, as well as the accuracy of the ghosted lines and put them together to create boxes in perspective, watching for where they will converge as to line up with the vanishing point. It seems like you found this one very difficult, but you could make it much better by ensuring that lines converge in the same direction. By which I mean they should face towards each other, not away. Hopefully that makes sense.

Rotated Boxes

ALMOST! Your interior boxes seem to have the right idea, but you seemed to have panicked towards the end and picked random vanishing points to finish off with. Remember that these points change gradually and blend into each other. This is a hard exercise and it will take a while to understand fully.

Natural Perspective

A decent attempt, but you only submitted one page! Since I'm a nice critic, I'm gonna let you off since you appear to have understood the concepts well, improving on your boxes from the rough perspective exercise. Those notes must've really helped out!

Overall, I deem this to be an impressive attempt. Let's go over it point by point:

Overlapping Lines

A very good attempt with a lot of variations. I'm not sure why you marked the start and the end of the line with a circle. That was not part of the lesson material. Though you follow the line well enough, there is some noticable wobble coming from your strokes that could very easily be put down to inexperience. When you attempt this exercise again in your own time, make sure you're using your whole arm to deliver strokes more quickly, but don't rush. Finding the exact speed takes a lot of experimentation, but it's worth doing.

Ghosted Lines

Excellent work. Good job on filling the page. Lines are very subtly wobbly which might indicate you were slowing down to hit the mark. Don't be afraid of overshooting so long as your lines are confident. Accuracy comes later.

Ghosted Planes in Ellipses

Pretty standard. Planes are good but ellipses are wobbly. You seem to have the tightness down, just make sure you're being more confident. You don't actually have to be that accurate with the ellipses so long as they're not wobbly.

Tables of Ellipses

There's noticable improvement here. Well done for sticking at it and for using all of the available space. Remember to keep a consistent speed and to ghost your ellipses before you draw them.

Funnels

Excellent. Grasped the concept very well. Keep an eye on that minor axis!

Plotted Perspective

Good job here. You used the correct method, but nearly all of your boxes look the same. Try some more variation.

Rough Perspective

Probably your weakest homework. There are noticable mistakes here. Lines in the boxes aren't confident, and the vertical lines of each box are rarely straight. In one point perspective, such lines should always be parallel with the long edge of the paper, unless that box is rotated in the z axis.

Rotated boxes

Very good. This was a difficult exercise, but you seem to have grasped the concepts well. Keep an eye on your convergences, and remember that the final product should resemble a natural sphere.

Organic Perspective

You seem to have grasped the basic concepts behind the exercise, but the convergences are far too weak. They should get more intense the closer the box is to the viewer. Many of your boxes use parallel lines which makes them look like oblique (and therefore flat).

OK, so there's some good work on display here. I think the most visible improvement in your boxes is your linework and your hatching. Towards the end, it almost looks as if you are using a ruler, and if you only used the ruler to check your convergences, then that's very impressive and you should be proud of yourself.

I must say that the fact that each box isn't numbered makes it really difficult to verify whether you have done the specified amount of work, given the sheer volume of pages I'm willing to trust you. It seems like you gave it your all.

Though your boxes display an impressive amount of planning and forethought, they all seem constrained, somehow. I would have liked to have seen you attempt more extreme dimensions and perspectives a little more often. Varying the size could also help you to better internalize the concept of convergence, which you have otherwise displayed quite the knack for.

I wish you the best of luck for your efforts.