Mikka

The stiffness is more of an observational problem and less of a constructional one.

Anyways, starting with the organic intersections, these are largely looking really good. The forms slump and sag over one another and their silhouettes change in correspondence to the forms beneath them. There are few minor things I'd like to direct your attention to:

• Remember that the farther contour curves along the sausage's length should be wider - right now you're drawing them with roughly the same degree

• A few suggestions in your cast shadows here. Right now, your shadows are wrapping around the forms beneath them. This is good and I do encourage you to take the opportunity to push these further. Think about the shadow like a sticker - it gets detached from the form as it's being projected onto the surface beneath it.

Moving onto your animal contructions, there's a tendency to start with faint lines, then doing a follow up pass with darker marks. This might not seem like a big problem at first glance, but it actually changes how we perceive the elements of our drawing. This leads us to believe these earlier masses to be less like they're solid and 3 dimensional, and more like they're just marks on a page. As a result, this traps us into working in 2 dimensions.

For example on this cat, I've highlighted in blue a number of spots where you drew a one-off mark bridging from one 3d structure to another, enclosing the hatched area. But this hatched are exists only in two dimensions- there is no clearly defining elements that help the viewer to understand how it is meant to relate to the other 3d elements at play. Here I've highlighted in red, instances where you've cut into your forms. Thus, it reminds us that we're drawing something flat and two dimensional and reinforces that idea to you as you construct it.

There are cases where it might make sense to work this way, such as the open wings of these birds. Even then, I would still avoid it in favor of the approach shown here. Wings do have volume to them after all.

There's also an instance of form shading on this zebra once you've done your construction. Do try to avoid this if at all possible since this leads to trying to find reasons/excuses to add more ink and speaks to a general goal of doing what you can do to make your drawings more visually appealing. Since this is a one time occurrence, I won't be pushing this point any further.

Continuing onto your use of additional masses, Im noticing that you're approaching them a little more timidly and having a fair bit of trouble with the intentional design on some of these as shown in this alpaca. Remember that all inward curves need to be caused by pressing against something specific and defined. So if it's like a dent just hanging there, without anything actively pressing it in, then that complexity will undermine the solidity of the mass you've drawn. With that said, I would recommend you look for opportunities to push these masses into other forms to make the construction feel more grounded and give us clear places to use inward curves and sharp edges.

Onto leg construction, I can see that you are making a clear effort to stick to the sausage method as often as possible, and as a result, much of your leg construction-or at least the base structure-is coming along decently. When it comes to building up your masses, you need to think about how these masses are held together. So far, you'll add a few additional masses, but in most cases, these are very much limited to bumps that impact the silhouette, without much consideration to what's going on within the silhouette.

As seen in this dog's leg demo and this ant leg, the forms that sit along within the silhouette are still important because they're the connective tissue that hold together the forms that do impact the silhouette.

I did notice you jumping back and forth between using visibly boxier forms for your animals' feet (clear corners help imply the presence of internal planes and generally to make these structures feel more three dimensional) specifically in cases like this alpaca where you seemed to follow the approach shown here from another student's work which can be pushed ever further. Conversely, these cat's paws are more blobby. They wind up feeling more flat and don't have a strategic use of corners on their silhouettes.

When it comes to head construction, Lesson 5 as a ton of different strategies in the informal demos section. Given how the course is developing new more effective ways to construct heads so not all approaches are created equal. As it stands, this tiger demo and this demo from the informal demos is what's generally most useful. This approach relies on a few key elements:

• the the specific pentagonal shape found in the eyecockets, which allows for a nice wedge in which to place the muzzle into as well as the flat area found in the forehead

• this focuses heavily on everything fitting together - no arbitrary gaps or floating elements. This allows all the different pieces to feel grounded against one another like a three dimensional puzzle

• we also have to be mindful as to how all the marks carve along the surface of this cranial ball, working on the individual strokes instead of using an ellipse for the eye socket

I will say that there a few elements of this approach in your work but still need to see it applied a bit more directly. So try your best to follow this approach as closely as you can. It might seem like sometimes its not the best fit for certain heads but with a bit of workaround it can be done. Just look at this example of how the most banana headed rhinoceros is done using this approach.

And lastly on the topic of fur texture, I am seeing a number of cases like the back of this dog where you're being purposeful and designing those individual tufts, although zigzagging back and forth across the existing form's silhouette, which in turn results in you cutting into that silhouette. Think of each shape as an extension of the silhouette - don't risk undermining the solidity by having those shapes cut into the form. You are putting down a lot of different tufts, which aren't neccessarily required. Always ask yourself what you're trying to get across, and try to do so with as little markmaking as possible. It's better to draw a few specific, well though out tufts of fur, than draw hundreds of haphazard ones.

Overall, while you generally seem to be moving in the right direction, I'd like to assign some revisions just in case. I ask you to complete another 2 pages of animals (1 day minimum per animal). Think about all the points I've raised in the critique. Once you're done, come back with your submission and I'll take a look at it.

Hello aeshnabx!

Starting with your organic intersections you're making a good use of the organic forms, the shadows are solid and run well across the forms and the forms feel solid too in general. The only thing here is that some of the forms feel like they are going to fall. Make sure you imagine the forms falling and you draw them on their final position, they shouldn't feel unstable.

Moving on to the animal drawings overall you've done a pretty good job:

-First of all about the belly thingy what you can do is to draw the initial sausage way curvier on the bottom so you don't have to add massses to the belly. Adding masses to the top of the forms is much easier than adding them to the bottom, so make sure you always do it like that if you can. That being said, this demo of the donkey covers the masses on the bottom of the forms in the cases where you have to add them no matter what, so make sure to give it a read-reread.

-Overall your use of the basic sausage forms is pretty good, so nothing to comment on that! You're keeping the forms simple and adding mass when necessary with additional forms, which is what you're expected to do. Intersections between forms are also drawn most of the times and they feel believable, so nothing to comment on that as well.

-About contour lines I think you tend to use them too much. Try to stick to maximum 1 contour line per form, and always prioritize contour lines at intersections instead of intersections on the middle of the forms, because they're much stronger.

-Another thing is additional forms. Like I said earlier you've approached them pretty well overall, but sometimes you wrap them around making the forms a bit weird. Here's an example. Overall you approach them well like you did on the rhino, so just try to keep an eye on that on future attempts.

-Lastly on textures you're doing some good attempts already at them. But in general you try to do way too much texture. Keeping only a few spots of fur on the silhouette already makes the brain think the it's an animal with fur, so you don't need to fill the silhouette completely. The shapes are also a bit too repetitive, which is normal, but make sure you do your best to make different shapes so you have more variety. Remember as well that on textures you can increase the density and add more cast shadows like on the lesson 2 exercises, so don't hesitate to experiment with that as well.

One very important thing on this is that you take photos of the exercises before doing the textures, it isn't very important here as the other drawings showcased your work pretty well and I can still see the construction on your texture drawings, but it's a good idea to do it as it'll make it easier to give you better critiques.

So! Overall you've done a pretty good work so I'll mark this as complete. Good luck on the cylinder challenge, dont' forget to ask any questions you may have, and keep up the good work!

Hi there weijak! I'll do my best to contribute as much as I can! Let's go:

-Starting with the form intersections you're doing a great job at the main goal of the exercise, which is mantaining a consistent foreshortening throughout all the forms to make them feel like they share the same scene, just be careful in the cylinders, which have at times quite a bit of degree shift. If you choose your foreshortening to be generally shallow as I can see from your boxes you need to aim for your cylinders to be that degree of foreshortening as well, so the shift at degree should be minimal. If you struggle with it try to imagine how a box would fit that cylinder, it should help to visualize how much the degrees of the ellipses should shift.

About the intersections I think you've done a great job as they look super solid! Here's the only intersection I found that is a little bit weird and how I'd approach it.

For future times if you still want to practice this exercise, what you can do is to open paint 3d (comes free with windows 10) or blender or whatever 3d program, and snap the forms you had doubts with after finishing a page of a warmup. It has helped me a lot when practicing so I recommend it!

On cylinders on boxes you're doing a great job so I don't have much to say! One thing I'd recommend to do from now on if you want to go to the next level is to start learning to freehand full cubes in perspective and not just squares like you do in this exercise. One trick I found from an artist called krenz cushart is that you can visualize the cube inside a ball and it will fill the proportions of it. Like this Being able to draw these cubes and rotate them from imagination is super useful for doing what we did in these lessons but without having to measure nearly as much. You can then use them after studying proportions of an object to learn to draw them in any angle. Which is a great exercise to keep practicing spational reasoning skills.

Now onto the vehicle constructions!

Overall I think you've done a good job carefully subdividing every vehicle and drawing through your forms. The initial forms you draw are in general also pretty good, so great job on that!

The main thing I want to comment on that I see in your constructions is that I think you go a bit too fast towards the details, specially when there starts to be curvy forms. I think that even whenever you are approaching any vehicle, even if it's curvy stuff it's great to decide on a form simplification and commit to it. You can then draw the curves over them to make the forms curvier, but thanks to having drawn the blocky forms below you'll have a very good foundation to lay them on top.

Here are some examples on initial forms taken a little bit further.

Something similar happens as well when you approach some details that rely more on observation. Like on this part of the boat or in the front parts of your cars, in which you could try to cut into your constructions to simplify them in newer more specific forms.

Lastly I think that you sometimes freehand curves directly (curves in general, not just curvy forms). I recommend drawing first at least a simple straight line even if you don't want to divide it in several. It will make the curves much more accurate and easier to control. Here are some examples so it's a bit clearer to see

That said I think you've overall done a pretty good job and your vehicles are very solid. Congratulations on finishing lesson 7 and drawabox! I do think you've done an awesome work overall throughout the whole course even if you didn't take the official route, so I think you should be proud! Good luck on whatever you do next and keep up the amazing work!

Hi Raime,

Good job on completing lesson 1. I'll be reviewing your homework submission. I'll be going through each exercise and look at what you did good and what you can improve.

Superimposed lines

Looks good. You have a good variation of short, long and arcing lines. Most of your lines look straight and drawn with confident. One thing I miss here are lines which extend the whole width of the paper. Make sure you also practice longer lines during a warm up.

Ghosted lines

Looks good. You've plotted your lines correctly. Some wobbly lines here and there. When plotting your lines (placing a start and end dot for each line), don't draw these points too heavily - ideally the resulting line should swallow both of them up.

Ghosted planes

Looks great. Nice plotting of lines and great accuracy. Some overshooting here and there, but that's something you will improve over time.

Table of Ellipses

Looks good. Your ellipses are placed nicely inside the bounds and you've drawn through them more than once. I notice a change in the degree of the circles in some tables. When drawing ellipses in the same table, always draw these in the same angle.

Ellipses in planes

Looks good. Your ellipses are drawn nicely between the bounds. Make sure not to overdraw through your ellipses. Two is the ideal amount, but three is also acceptable. No more, not less.

Funnels

Looks good. Your ellipses are aligned decently with the minor axis.

Plotted perspective

Looks great. The boxes are correctly plotted and contain clean hatching lines.

Rough perspective

Looks great. Your estimates come close to the actual vanishing points. Keep in mind that all horizontal lines should be parallel to the horizon and all vertical lines run perpendicular to the horizon. Some of your lines are a little off, but not that much. Keep practicing this during a warm up.

Rotated boxes

Looks great. You drew all the boxes and drew through them. One thing I may want to point out is, while not necessary, to hatch the overlapping faces of each box, which adds some more depth to your drawing.

Organic perspective

Looks decent. There is a clear difference between boxes which are closer to the viewer and boxes which are further away. I do notice some divergence, but that's something you will improve a lot during the 250 box challenge.