Keisari42

Yup, that looks a lot better. I'm glad I could be of help, and I'll also be glad to mark your submission as complete. Again, great job completing this lesson and best of luck with those plants!

Thank you so much for your critique! Can't wait to get into Lesson 5. Cheers!

Hello! Your pizza shall be delivered soon, but I'm here to critique your boxes today. Before doing so, great job on completing the 250 Box Challenge! Tis' the most infamous part of Drawabox, and by getting through it you've proved to have the resolve required to finish the course and the determination of an artist.

Your Lines look awesome. They're confident, smooth, straight and only minor and occasional wobbling, hesitation or arching can be perceived. It's clear you're using your shoulder and prioritizing confidence over accuracy, and there was visible improvement on all of those matters by the time you finished the challenge. Your only real issue is that you sometimes repeat your lines, which should NEVER be done throughout all of Drawabox, but that's nitpicky.

For the most part, you applied Line Weight and Hatching correctly in all of your boxes, and since those are optional, you get extra points. Your line weight is rather innaccurate, and for that I suspect you might not be making use of the Ghosting Method thoroughly enough for that matter, but other than that it'll improve with practice.

Your Box Construction is excellent, and there isn't much to point out. You've done a wide variety of boxes with a wide variety of foreshortening, with mostly correct extension lines and visible improvement in figuring out the convergence of lines. That's the meat of the challenge, so good job!

Overall, you did an outstanding job. I'm happy to mark this submission as complete. You're demonstrated to be ready for Lesson 2. If you want to try them out, you can also check out the advanced box exercises. Best of luck!

There's a whole lot of boxes missing. I'm assuming you just didn't upload most of your pages by accident. As effortful as that may sound, you're to upload every single one of your pages. You can edit the Imgur album if you have an account, otherwisely you'll have to reupload and resubmit.

Hiya! My name is Keisari(42) and I'm here to offer you some thoughts on your submission. Before getting into it, great job getting Lesson 2 done! You've reached farther than the vast majority of people who try out Drawabox, and I'm hopeful you'll go on to finishing the whole thing.

Thinking in 3D

Your Organic Arrows frankly look pretty darn amazing. You're doing great in pushing their foreshortening and exploring 3D space and having them behave accordingly, as well as applying line weight and hatching properly. The main thing I have to point out is that you seem to sometimes be repeating your marks, which should not be done at any point in the course; working with your mistakes is one of the main ideas Drawabox attempts to teach. Another thing I'd suggest is that you should abide a bit more to the fact that each curve of an arrow is but shifted copy of the opposing one, just being stretched by the way perspective works. This image by user betweenskyandsea explain this nicely.

Your Organic Forms are also excellent. They're very well constructed, nicely smooth and confident, and you've shown a pretty good understanding of the way the degree of ellipses shifts as they move through space. I have nothing to add.

Texture and Detail

All of your work in this section of the lesson looks excellent, and I really have little to nothing to say. You're mainly drawing cast shadows rather than outlines and thinking in terms of shapes rather than lines, your marks are very purposeful, you're able to convey texture amazingly well even with the limitation of only being able to use two values, the transitions on your gradients are seamless, you're taking advantage of the silhouette and the textures are wrapping around the forms very well. One thing to nitpick on though is that you probably should avoid textures that rely more on reflection, like metal and plastic, as it's pointless to try conveying them using only cast shadows and you've indicated the way light affects their surfaces instead.

Construction

The main objective of the Form Intersections exercise is to make the forms seem as if they are on the same scene by taking advantage of shallow and consistent foreshortening, and you've done amazing in that regard. The actual intersections are secondary, but even there you've done incredibly. Some of your forms miss hatching, but that's very much so irrelevant.

Following the overarching theme I've set with the rest of this critique, you can probably guess what I think about your Organic Intersections. Terrific job capturing their water balloon properties, making them stable and making good use of line weight and cast shadows.

This is a wonderful submission overall, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel some envy from your work here. You have tons of experience, and it shows. Congratulations!

(P.S.: Took a look at your 250 Boxes submission since it looks like you didn't receive any critiques, and those look outstanding as well. Only thing I'd suggest is experimenting with different orders of finding the planes, if you haven't done so already.)

Hello! I'm Keisari42, and I'm here to critique your work today. Before anything, great job on finishing Lesson 1! This journey is a tough one, but simply by taking the first step you've already gone further than many.

Lines

Your lines mostly look fine. They look pretty smooth, and you're doing good in not repeating any lines. However, it looks like you'd benefit from further internalizing the idea that confidence is a higher priority over accuracy by further mentally separating the stages of the ghosting method and perhaps experiment with laying down your marks with greater speed -- the moment your pen touches the paper to draw a line, you are to forget all about hitting any ending points, as that job was exclusively of the ghosting part of the process; you simply go on and do it without any hesitation, its path already having been determined. That point being made, your other biggest technical mishap is that quite a bit of arching is present, and for that I'd suggest further emphasizing the use of your shoulder as the main pivot of your arm, and if even then your lines continue to arch a lot, you may try consciously arching in the other direction.

Ellipses

Your ellipses look pretty good and you're doing a great job in prioritizing confidence over accuracy and keeping them smooth rather than deformed. That being said, you're not-so-infrequently drawing through them way more than 2-3 times which can make them lose a lot of solidity, as well as obscuring your mistakes, so keep in mind that doing so is a crucial part of the process and should not be taken lightly; going for drawing through them 3 times is also rather dangerous as you can easily bypass the range accidentally, so I'd recommend you make drawing through your ellipses 2 times only a main goal in your warmups, even if that makes them look worse for some time. Additionally, you seem to have misunderstood the Funnels exercise a bit -- the shorter line you initially do represents a 0° ellipse, facing away from the viewer, and as such the first ellipses you do should be placed against it, rather than through it.

Boxes

Your boxes look pretty good, and for the most part you seem to have gotten a grasp of all the information that's presented in this section. Your line quality suffered a bit, and for that I'd like to note that every single mark on Drawabox should be made as carefully as you did them on the first sections of this lesson, but that's a common mistake. Rotated Boxes looking weird is very much so an universal issue and as such you did a fine job. One thing I'd suggest is try thinking harder about the spacing and size of your boxes relative to the viewer in the Organic Boxes exercise; their placement in space.

All that having been said, you did a good enough job and you'll have plenty of time to work on all of that with your future warmups, as well as your next step in Drawabox -- the 250 Box Challenge. Good luck!

Greetings, Plainquaido! I'm Keisari, and I'll be the one critiquing your Lesson 1 submission today. Before getting into it, great job on finishing Lesson 1! The hardest parts may be still to come, but you've kickstarted your journey and ventured further than many.

Lines

Your lines, and really mark-making in general, look great. They look confident and smooth, show little to no signs of arching nor hesitation, and I can't find a single instance of you repeating any of them. You're doing an amazing job engaging your shoulder and prioritizing confidence over accuracy, although they still undershoot here and there. I praise you for your work here.

Ellipses

Like your lines, your ellipses are also remarkably good. You're drawing through them 2-3 times, with very few instances of bypassing that threshold. They look incredibly smooth and confident, only looking slightly deformed in infrequent occasions. I have nothing to add, although something I'd suggest for your future warmups is practicing smaller ellipses in your Tables of Ellipses, filling the space between the bigger ones.

Boxes

Following the trend set by your work in the previous sections of this lesson, your boxes look excellent. Your line quality seems to have suffered a bit, but that's normal. You've demonstrated a great understanding of everything that's presented in this lesson and I really have little to nothing to say. One thing you seem to have missed, however, is that the further the boxes in Rotated Boxes are, the greater the space to neighboring boxes should be, and you're not quite pushing that enough. That's quite nitpicky however, and you'll have tons of time to work on that and everything else with your next step here at Drawabox -- the 250 Box Challenge! Don't forget your warmups.

Hi, Sijma! I'm Keisari and I'm here to critique your work today. Before we begin, congratulations on finishing Lesson 1! The worse is still to come, but you've made it further than many.

Lines

For the most part, your lines look pretty confident and smooth. Arching and wobbliness are still pretty frequent however, so I'd like to restate how important it is that you prioritize confidence over accuracy and use your shoulder as your main pivot. You may also try experimenting with laying down your marks with greater speed, finding out what angle gives you best results and biasing towards overshooting. Overall though, you did a pretty good job!

Ellipses

You're doing good drawing through your ellipses 2-3 times, but the issues that hold you back in your lines seem to be the same for your ellipses. Use your shoulder, ghost thoroughly and do not hesitate! It might be beneficial to reread Uncomfortable's page on the ghosting method and try internalizing the 'stages' of markmaking more. Like I did for your lines, I'd also suggest you try out greater speeds and biasing towards overshooting. Your main goal is to make those ellipses smooth and confident, and accuracy will come naturally.

Boxes

Your boxes look great and you seem to have understood the concepts presented here quite nicely. Your line quality suffered a bit however, so I'd like to note that you should put as much effort into your lines as you did on the first section of this lesson, through all of Drawabox. You're also not to repeat ANY lines aside from when applying line weight, to accept your mistakes and move on despite of them -- that is one of the greatest concepts Drawabox teaches, and should not be taken lightly. Your Rotated Boxes and Organic Perspective might look wonky, but that's to be expected from anyone, and you'll have tons of time to improve your spational reasoning in your next step.

You'll have tons of time to work on those shortcomings as you do those exercises as warmups in the future, so not forgetting to keep up with that, you may move on to the 250 Box Challenge!

Thank you so much for your critique! I highly appreciate it. Can't wait to check out Lesson 4. :D

Hi, sorry for the wait!

You've definitely shown an improvement in your Organic Arrows. They look much better and you seen to have understood what you're supposed to be striving for. Good job! Now you only need the mileage.

Your Organic Intersections also look better and you seem to be headed towards the right direction, although I'd like to once again say that they're not supposed to be cutting into each other, as you seem to have done here and here, for example.

Having that in mind, you'll have tons of time to work on that in your future warmups, so I'll be clearing you to proceed.