Malk

Answering your questions: I don't decide when my orthographic plans are finished, I just reach a point where the larger form is measured out and I've added on all the unignorable details, so there's nothing more I can do. My best guess as to why these differ from the mouthwash bottle is that it's been months since then, and I barely remember what I was doing at the time... but I've reread all of the lesson material/previous feedback of L6 between constructions to commit them to memory, so I'm not certain on that.

That said, I don't see the mouthwash bottle as that much better than these, aside from the relative amount of time I spent on it. I deliberately went as slowly with these as I could (because I knew how pointless it'd be if I rushed), and I copied every detail/major form I could see from the reference, so even if I do make each mark as carefully as possible and take as much time as I can, I just don't understand how this process could take 5+ hours. (The fact that I find it absolutely daunting is besides the point, but I've never put 70ish hours of labour into anything before. That's probably even longer than it's taken me to do all of the previous lessons put together, and I've had to spread that over 3 and a half years!)

On eclipse guides and french curves: I made the ill-concieved decision to ignore them this time because of how difficult and unintuitive they are to use. You're correct in diagnosing my poor linework as anxiety and desperation, as I'm a 24 year old who's wanted to draw since age 12, so I'm constantly aware that I've used up half of my current lifespan on something that I still can't even do for fun. Everyone else has multiple skills/capabilities, and I'm still struggling with the Lesson 1 basics of this course, even after years of studying it. Obviously this is all stuff for my councilor to work with and isn't your responsibility in the slightest, but that's the context of where I am.

I'm just confused by what I need to do next; I already feel like I pushed myself to my limit and applied everything to the best my knowledge, and while I believe you when you say I can do better, I just can't see the next step of how. I want to say "if I did, I would've done properly the first time", but I can't think of a way to phrase the sentiment that doesn't come across as pithy or bitter over text. I'm not giving up on this course, but this might be a roadblock that I can't pass.

https://imgur.com/a/JG3ZIQy

As I've already needed more revisions on this lesson than the average person (and my issues are things I should've inferred from previous lessons), I'll reiterate that my mental health has improved to the point where I have no issue with being issued further revisions.

(Besides, I'm friends with artists my age who've spent years effortlessly drawing for fun without formal education and are decades better than me, and they consistently praise my sloppy homework as technically impressive - my glacial pace isn't too humiliating in that context.)

I've never drawn with a bic pen before (since starting the course I've exclusively used fineliners for everything), which probably shows. And thank you for the texture advice: I will likely attempt to finish that challenge soon enough.

https://imgur.com/a/Ou0YsRC

It's less that I forgot the texture lesson, but rather I didn't understand it in the first place. Even trying to apply "draw the shade as opposed to what's casting it", I still can't say I understand it. Hopefully it won't crop up again in this course, because I'll absolutely need those lesson materials to be remade until I feel comfortable retrying the 25 Texture Challenge.

Continued using fineliners as all my regular pens appear to be that exact same width anyway. I did my best at applying everything you mentioned, but I'm unsure on if I've made much of an improvement.

Just noticed the promptathon's soon: please don't feel any need to respond to this until it's over. I went with another mouthwash bottle, even if this one was less ideal (given that it's curveless).

Thank you so much for describing the concept of precision; I've always felt there's been some issue that's made drawing extremely challenging for me (which has naturally plagued my Drawabox submissions), and never quite knew how to put it into words. Being able to pin 'difficulty to plan things as I do them' down to a name helps, and I've already made way more progress with it than I had before. Or at least, in how I think about it.

The one necessary preface is that I really bungled up the actual maths involved. I was measuring it in fourths, then accidentally split it into fifths as per your demo of the previous bottle (it feels quite nice for my image to be the demo used in the actual lesson material: even if my only contribution was the image that happened to be used, it still feels nice to be indirectly assisting other students), and then completely lost control of the measurements altogether. I'm quite awful with maths, and so struggled when it came to figuring out how to keep track of measurements and mix unlike fractions together.

I'm proud of my overall progress and understanding of this lesson, but I'm unsure on if I could put this skill to use if I actually had to.

Link: https://imgur.com/a/Ha8VruP

https://imgur.com/a/MLgHGaq

While I certainly regret having a breakdown when I typed that last response (and putting you in an unfortunate position to respond to it), I absolutely appreciate your response. My mental issues aren't magically fixed, but I've a healthier assessment of this course.

I can say confidently that these massively helped my grasp on how forms wrap around each other - still a lot of other issues in these and it's not perfect, but I can't be upset given I've finally made tangible progress after so long.

https://imgur.com/a/s7smJ6i

Apologies for the wall of text, but I just have to communicate everything that I'm about to.

I've been rereading your feedback and the lesson's informal tutorials practically once a day, on top of frequently rewatching older videos for my (roughly) 20 minutes of warm-up pages before I start each exercise. I've also been drawing more personal stuff lately, meaning I've been following the 50% rule more than ever since starting Drawabox. All this is to say that I have no excuse for how I still haven't improved, nor why I still can't figure any of this out.

Upon posting the Owl, a well-meaning person on the discord said something to the effect of "this is a good start, now all you have to do is learn how to make your additional masses make sense, and how to draw fur!", and I had to tell them "Those things are what I've been focusing on." Almost every time I've gotten advice on the discord (and occasionally in your own feedback) I'm told to try something I'm already doing (but hasn't been helping me improve), and that it'll help me improve, which is demoralizing beyond words. I've tried thumbnails, planning the deconstruction by tracing over the image digitally, drawing (smaller) doodles of different reference images of the animal to warm up... I've been constantly trying every suggestion and possible angle of attack, and none of it helps me.

The only piece of feedback I've managed to integrate is carving pentagonal eye sockets, but even those are extremely sloppy.

The main issue (I think?) is that I simply have no idea of how to add additonal forms. I understand how to wrap them around a simple joint on a leg, but I have no idea how you're supposed to decide where they should go and how to layer them on a frame in a way that makes sense. I can't find an answer to it anywhere, which usually means that it's something that's supposed to come intuitively to me, but can't.

My infuriation with my own incompetence in this lesson is threefold;

One, I'm certain that I'm overcomplicating a very simple lesson, and that being able to follow it properly would take way less time and effort, while yielding much better results.

Two, I can't stand the fact that I'm two years into a professional-level drawing course and have made less progress than most beginner artists do in just as much time, without any courses - and infinitely less progress than everyone else doing the same course, as evidenced by the discord.

Three, this is easily the most important lesson for me, as 'living creatures that look belivable in 3D space' is the one thing I always want to draw more than anything else, as I expect everyone else sees it as the most important thing to learn. Not being able to do this simply means that I don't have a creative outlet. (Still no progress on getting any professional help, had a recent phonecall with my Doctor who admitted that we've already explored every mental health service he has access to, and all of them have turned me away due to not having anyone who could help me/was willing to help me.)

I'm not going to give up on Drawabox (giving up on this course would be giving up on being able to draw, and giving up on being able to draw would be giving up on my life altogether), but I just want to apologize for spending this much of my energy and time on this course and (presently, we could turn it around) proving the ethos of the thing (that anyone can learn to draw using it) null and void. I know it reflects just as badly on the course itself, and by extension you and everyone else following it or who has completed it.

Redoing the entire lesson from scratch is the only logical next step, but I... genuinely have no idea how I'm supposed to fix the things that I haven't improved on, simply grinding away at doing another 20 images won't help: I need some kind of breakthrough in how I understand this lesson, and I have absolutely no idea what it could be. As upset as I've gotten in this message, the fact that this is the most important lesson for me means I'll gladly spend another two years on it, if that's what it'll take for me to learn how to do it. While I'm already bummed out that I've spent way longer on it than anyone else doing this course and with the least to show for it, if I have to, I'll have to.

I've also struggled with the 50% rule - I still honestly do, but that's mostly because I've barely tried to apply it; each time I get myself to draw something for fun, I get slightly more used to it.

In general, the 50% rule is just 'drawing your own stuff for fun' - for a lot of people, that's "don't draw from references, and just mess around with imagination (which is why a lot of people give that as their answer)", for myself (and it seems you?) it means "still draw from references and use drawabox methods as you learn them, but don't put any stress on yourself to do anything as well as you would when doing coursework.".

So, if drawing from references is how you have fun with drawing, do that.

https://imgur.com/a/9dXXGAl

I did a better job at not going back over my lines, but there are still a handful of places in each drawing that I lapsed - apologies.

I was so embarrassed by my first three goes at the exercise, so I deliberately stretched the crab over as many sessions as possible: 30 minutes one day to plan out the body, another to do the basic shapes of the claws, another for the basic shape of the legs etc. Today was me doing the eyes and the unfortunately godawful shell ridge. (It took me the better part of three weeks and it's still not that good, but it's the most honest showing of what happens when I put as much thought as possible into each form.)

It'll be a long while until I can get into actually adding texture, lol.

While my work still isn't as clean as that of my peers in the discord, hopefully they serve their purpose just well enough for me to now move onto my 'now let's try and get them to read as 3d forms' redos.

I took what you said to heart about going back over the previous exercies and realized that I needed to put in WAY more effort then just redoing the ghosting method - I'm actively redoing all of the prior lessons during my free time. (I have absolutely no idea how I managed to pass them all the first time.) It's disheartening to notice that I've almost no progress in almost three years, but that just means I need to spend more time studying.

https://imgur.com/a/x10oBqu

As requested, a half page of leaves/branches and two plant constructions, all timed.

Not to self-critique, but I do certainly feel like it helped - oddly enough, I found the plant constructions a lot more comfortable than the half-page exercises.

While none of these are perfect, I'm confident in saying that I have developed a better sense of how much time to put into each line/a greater piece as a result of timing them - the Potato Plant I did in a few short sessions over a few days, as you can see.

(The reason one of them is an approximate time is that I had accidentally turned off my stopwatch app early - human error.)

Thank you for your time, as always.

While I apologise for needing so many clarifications, I think I've hit a minor breakthrough just from doing a warmup page of leaves as you specificed, and that getting some feedback on an issue I'm having now is more efficent then addressing it after I send in this completed batch of redos. (Not that I'd complain if I had to.)

When it comes to adding edge detail, I believe I run into the same result from two different sources.

If I draw them from my shoulder, then I lose control quickly due to it being a relatively small mark, and I either draw too slowly and hard (making the mark too thick) or draw a mark that looks confident, but completely overshoots or misses where it's to supposed to go.

Likewise, when I draw them from my wrist or elbow, I'm unable to excute the mark confidently, and so it ends up overly thick or misses where it's meant to go.

I feel like this problem has also cropped up in my attempts at the 25 Texture Challenge (which I will share for the sake of commuicating this specific issue I'm facing, this isn't some attempt to get free feedback on that unrelated set of problems) - I've only done six so far, but they've all had this issue: I simply cannot draw extremely small percise marks and have them flow confidently. Textures are relevant, because it's why whenever I've tried to add texture to leaves it's just been contour lines, instead of the dozens of tiny little percise marks shown in the tutorial as 'this is how you texture a leaf.'

I know that I've almost certainly read/watched the lesson one markmaking instuctions at least a dozen times, but I'm likely missing something important.

Here's the page of warmup leaves (I know I need to be way more patient with them, I should probably try and make myself take at least 3-4-5 minutes for each leaf) and the two pages of the texture challenge to visually communicate this issue. Apologies if this isn't an issue that actionable next steps, or I'm managing to completely misunderstand what my own problem is.

As always, thank you for your time.

https://imgur.com/a/om1ItJs