Ledvi21

Alright thank you so much for your time and help, I really appreciate it, now i can finally start using references without worrying too much.

Thank you for the detailed response. And also thank you so much for your contribution as a whole to the art community, Its amazing and quite impressive honestly to see you answer questions from students across the Drawabox page, Youtube and Reddit. The generosity you show with your time is incredibly appreciated, especially when you have no obligation to do so.

Now I think what you said its starting to make sense to me as to how I interpreted the 50% rule and where i might have taken my own wrong turn on it.

In the 50% rule FAQ where we talk about whether or not it's okay to use reference, the factor that we consider is whether or not the student is afraid of working without a reference and the fear of drawing something incorrectly or badly as a result.

I think this line might highlight that, I thought it was a general statement for "Draw what you fear without references", but now I think its a line more dedicated towards the very beginners of Drawabox, naturally they are afraid of the idea of drawing anything, because they think they are not capable of doing so, and because of that, they search for a reference not to inform their decisions, not to improve their visual library, but to avoid drawing something badly/poorly. That is, without the reference they wouldn't even dare thinking about it.

If i were to compare my situation, If I search for references, Its not because i fear how a drawing might turn but just to inform my decisions, to see what it is that I'm actually representing, contrary to that, a beginner will only search for a reference because they are afraid to even try it, and in doing so, they only draw from references copying it exactly as they see it.

Rather, it's the choices of what goes where, how the scene is laid out, where you choose to include more detail or less, etc. that makes the illustration uniquely your creation. Sure, you may have used a wealth of reference in its creation, but how they're all combined is entirely your doing.

I guess the best way that i could put this observation, is to analyze what is the scene in my mind and how much a reference is really contributing to that scene, searching for individual references doesn't give me the solution to my idea or scene as a whole. However if i find a nice pose in Pinterest and claim that single picture "is my idea" then i take it that would 100% be an observational study and not something that I was doing "for the sake of it" nor to explore a part of me.

I supposed however that in your video and example of the tiger and pigeon, i would probably skip the part where you actually learn and study the references of what you are drawing (In your case the pigeon and tiger references) because that would be an observational study and not "drawing for the sake of it", is that right?

Of course all of what i said above might be entirely wrong again and I might be taking the idea in another wrong turn.

To conclude, I guess my only question is: How do you identify the sweet spot between having too few references and too many?

For example, inspired by your words, i went ahead and thought about an idea that i could draw "A character in a vending machine punching it because it doesn't work", so i went to Pinterest, grabbed a few references for vending machines and a clenched fist, and that was it.

Should i have looked for more references? Perhaps the character is facing the back to the viewer maybe i should have search for that, maybe i should have looked what happens with the scapula or deltoid or trapezius.

Is there a point where gathering more references stops being helpful and becomes "hunting for the exact image I want to draw?"

We need to understand how those references depict things in 3D space, in order to make meaningful use of them that does not break the illusion that what we ultimately draw is itself 3D as well.

As yes you are absolutely right in here, its all too about understanding the 3D Forms and the space that conforms those, no objection or confusion here.

Yeah, you want to start as soon as possible, this is not really like a concept only for Drawabox but really a change in mentality that will help you through your art journey (at least thats how i see it, because you will never stop doing bad drawings, there will always be something we can improve at, so you need to accept your drawings and drawing for fun).

Draw all the things you are interested in, if you want to draw characters, draw characters, in you want to draw environments, draw environments, etc.

I know that is hard to start drawing for the sake of it because we have expectations about the outcome, unfortunately we are very aware of our skill level and because of that, we know what a "good" drawing is and what a "bad" one looks like, this basically makes us afraid of even trying to draw anything because we know that the result is not going to be good, and thus we come back to the good ol' saying "i dont know of to draw that".

Children are a good example of just simply drawing for the sake of fun without having any expectations, most children drawings suck, but they don't care, they enjoy the process and they keep drawing because for them is fun, most of them have no concept of a "bad" drawing (at least not fully) and so they are not very critical about their drawings, they just draw.

So basically, we want to achieve that "children level" with the 50% rule, we want to just simply draw the things that we want, without any single care about what the outcome is.

Now i know that this concept is incredibly hard because, again, we know what a good and a bad drawing is, but from my personal experience, once you start pushing yourself to just draw for the sake of it, without any expectations about the outcome, you will start to enjoy the process and your drawings a lot more, but you got to be patient, once you reach a certain level of conformity you will start to accept your drawings a lot more, and eventually you will start to unconsciously incorporate the concepts from drawabox and other art resources into your drawings.

So basically, if you want to draw humans and environments, you should absolutely try drawing them, even if the result is bad, try to play with it, experiment, don't let the outcome discourage you, just try to draw the things that you would draw if you had the level that you want to achieve.

Lastly, when it comes to ideas, try drawing things out of your imagination or from simple ideas at first, maybe things that you like but with a twist, you can also try drawing prompts and see how you can interpret that into a character, an environment, or a combination of both.

Yes they do count, but they should constitute less than half of your plant drawings.

This is actually written in the lesson's page under "Homework and exercises".

You are just over-thinking it, yes watching the lessons and videos counts towards the "work" part of the 50/50 rule, because you are getting filled with a lot of concepts, ideas and theory that it takes time to let it sink in, not to mention that sometimes these concepts can be very stressfull.

To put it simply, the work part in the 50% should include your study time and your practice time both, and your other 50% time should be all about just playing and drawing for fun.

This also applies to any other art course or class outside of drawabox.

On the ellipse guides it depends on how much are you willing to pay, one thing that i can say its to make sure they have markings for the minor axis and that they have a good range of ellipses degrees, the rest is up to you so you may wanna shop around.

There's complete ellipse sets (very expensive) or there is also an ellipse guide thats called pickett master that's called "master ellipse" i think that one is relatively cheap and its on amazon (its the one that Dab recommends, but there's also different options of the same brand).

One "warning" that i will say is that if you go with a "master ellipse" you will be limited in size and range of ellipses, so some things may or may not align, and depending on how big your ellipse guide is, it will obviously limit the size of your construction.

You may want to try Lesson 6 without an ellipse guide, some people succeed without one, some people don't, based on your work try to analyze what's best for you.

For the french curves im going to be honest with you, i don't think they are worth buying, because you will draw curves as straight lines, once you have a set of straight lines to define your curve you will then draw said curve (refer to lesson 6 page), so in my opinion you never really use a french curve because you already have good defined points to base your curve.

The major problem comes in under the understanding of the form of the particular subject that causes our brain to just wing it off

Yeah i can understand this, but in my opinion we can still wing it while maintaining a sense of volume or 3D, which may not be what we want but definitely far better than drawing lines or doing symbol drawing.

If you don't mind , can you provide some exercises to reinforce the process of clearly understand the structure present below the reference.

Drawabox in fact focuses a lot on this, so i can't really give you a better exercise from the ones that already exist in Dab, i mean if we go back to Lesson 4 and 5, Insects and Animals, its really all about understanding how those particular subjects are composed and then picking the most suitable forms to reproduce that particular subject, that's what in my opinion is understanding the structure of a subject (and like i said, this is literally what Drawabox lessons are about from Lesson 1 to 7).

Once you have a good understanding of the structure of that object you can then start to draw it out of your imagination, for example, how is a spider composed? I know theres 3 shapes, a circle, an 2 ellipses for the body, and sausages/cylinder like forms for the legs, once i understand that, i can then draw those shapes and transform them into forms (by either wrapping around, giving sense of the different planes of the object, etc) or drawing direct forms (things that have a strong sense of 3D, like a cylinder or a box) and then have a drawing of a spider, the same applies to an animal, i know that animals have a cranium, a ribcage and a pelvis, i can create an animal of some sort by knowing the components and how to simplify them (A ball, and 2 ellipses), and then draw those shapes, transform them into forms and then have an animal of some kind.

Will this drawings be perfect? Maybe not, but its the foundation towards understanding how those subjects are composed, then is only a matter of repetition, time and mileage that i will be able to hopefully create a better representation of the subject matter (and of course if we want to get deeper and more accurate, maybe at some point studying the anatomy).

Now, will this approach work every single time? I don't think so, i mean i particularly don't consider myself a good draftsman, i still have trouble understanding particular subjects, for example i absolutely have no idea how to draw a mantis, i know how to do the head, but the bodies are incredibly annoying, at that point i think its best to experiment with different techniques, either the ones provided by drawabox or different ones and see which one fits the structure better, but the key idea is to always try to visualize simple shapes and forms to be able to simplify the complex structure of the subject.

Outside of drawabox however, i don't think there is a definitive answer for this, i mean there may be a lot of exercises to focus on understanding the structure of a particular subject but ultimately it comes down to how you understand the particular object and how you decide to break it down, because there is a lot of techniques to draw a specific subject while still focusing on Structure.

Much better if you can point out some methods and techniques that drawabox teaches that comes under the topic of understanding the below structure of the subject

Well like i mentioned earlier, Drawabox from lesson 1 to 7 focuses of different techniques to approach understanding the structure below the subject, that is what construction is.

But if I had to choose, i would say the concepts from Lesson 2 to 5 are key to understand a good chunk of how we could use forms as opposed to lines or symbol drawing, because they teach concepts that are incredibly vital such as:

• Wrapping around objects.

• Adding Masses to forms.

• Lines and Things that flow in 3D space.

• A general sense to draw in 3D as opposed to flat.

tbh I don't really know the meaning of "Sit in 3d space"

I personally understand the concept of "Sit in 3d space" as how that objects exist in perspective or in real life, because when we are drawing we draw on a flat piece of paper and that sometimes makes us forget that the subject that we are drawing as depth and volume to it, and thats something we need to keep in mind when drawing, so for me "keeping in mind how that object sits in 3D space" means how we can convey that the object has depth and/or volume to it, to make it really feel 3D and not flat.

To wrap things up, like i mentioned to OP, the biggest problem with Symbol drawing is drawing flat lines as opposed to believable 3D forms, like for example, an eyeball is a sphere not just lines.

Well part of the problem of why we draw at the beginning with "symbol drawing" is because we really don't know how the subject that we are drawing is structured, and so our brain tries to draw the major things that he sees or thinks that composes that particular object so we end up with a kinda goofy cartoony representation of what it believes is that particular object. This problem comes from two things in my opinion:

• Structure

• Form

Which i guess ....they are kinda the same thing(?) but anyways, the thing is, and in my particular opinion, when you are drawing from reference you should not copy the lines that you see but rather understand its structure and how it sits in 3D space, and based on that, create forms that reinforce that solidity and believability, once you understand enough of that particular object is when you will be able to create it from the imagination without a reference, but for this you'll have to analyze the object carefully and repeat it for a long time before you develop a natural sense of how its composed.

Besides that however, i noticed that you are right now at Lesson 1, so getting things to be believable and with a strong sense of 3D space is going to be hard for you at this moment, i wouldn't worry too much about it since all of the things that i mentioned you are going to learn them in later lessons so its something you'll have plenty of opportunities to work and improve at.

One last thing that i want to say however, is that just because we are bad at constructing things in 3D or at drawing things without reference, it doesn't mean we shouldn't draw, remember that one of the most important points in Lesson 0 its doing the 50% rule; dedicating a time to study art and a time to drawing just for the sake of having fun and not because you expect to improve at something, this is, in my opinion, one of the most important rules in Drawabox, because it will "free" you from the mentality of always trying to draw something that its good or presentable, and this is good because it allows us to experiment and to always remember that besides all the grinding and theory, we need to be able to enjoy our art, to enjoy the process. Sure, its not going to look good at all, but from my personal experience, once you break the barrier of not wanting to draw bad things you will start to enjoy the process of just simply drawing for the sake of fun again.

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