Retired

This is definitely a step in the right direction.

Some of your forms do get a bit complex still, and you're still turning them very sharply which leads to flat edges but it's an improvement over your previous attempts.

Your shadows do make sense here but don't be afraid to push them further.

I'll be marking your submission as complete and moving you on to lesson 3, good luck.

Hey there I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.

You're making a lot of progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson, below I'll be listing a few things that you can work on to hopefully improve your results when you attempt these exercises again.

• Your arrows are off to a good start, only have 2 quick suggestions here. The first being that sometimes your arrows bulge or pinch in terms of width, remember that we want to keep them flowing as smoothly as they can and if they grow larger it should be consistent growth. The second being I'd recommend you experiment with foreshortening the space between curves of the arrow more, as seen here if we utilize foreshortening here as well we can really sell the illusion of an arrow moving through 3D space.

• A few of your organic forms with contours get a bit too complex, our goal is too keep both ends of the form roughly the same size and to avoid pinching, bloating, or stretching along it's length as discussed here. I'm glad to see you're trying to shift the degree of your contours, but don't be afraid of pushing them further when necessary. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.\

• Your textures are looking mostly well done, there are a few spots wher you focus more on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows but textures like your Broccoli attempt show that you are getting the idea down just need more mileage. By focusing on cast shadows we have an easier time creating gradients which are quite helpful when we want to create focal points and prevent the viewer from being overwhelmed by too much visual information.

• If you feel like you don't fully grasp form intersections just yet don't worry, right now this exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page, we'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons. Overall your forms are looking solid, good work.

• The forms in your organic intersections could be simplified a bit more but these are good attempts. There are some spots where you could wrap your forms better, but again we don't expect you to nail it the first try, you're understanding of 3D space is clearly growing, great job. One thing that does stand out is your shadows could be pushed a bit further in some spots, they're often quite small and don't always feel like they're being cast in a believable way.

Overall this was a really solid attempt, you have some things you can work on but I'm sure you'll get the hang of these concepts with more mileage. With all of that said I'll be marking your submission as complete and moving you on to the next lesson.

Keep doing previous exercises as warm ups and good luck in lesson 3!

Hey there I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.

You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson, I'll be listing a few things below that I notice you can work on to hopefully improve your next attempts at these exercises.

• Your arrows are off to a good start but could flow a bit more smoothly, there are spots where they bulge or pinch. I'd also recommend experimenting more with foreshortening, by utilizing it in the space between curves of the arrow as well as the arrow itself we can really sell the illusion of the arrow moving through 3D space, for more information on this idea you can check here.

• In the organic forms with contours exercise your forms do get a bit too complex. Remember that our goal here is to keep both ends of the form roughly the same size, and to avoid pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form itself as shown here. Pushing the degree of your contours further and shifting them would also be something to work on. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.

• When it comes to the texture exercises you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows created by forms along the texture. This makes it difficult to create proper gradients which are useful when we want to create focal points in more complex pieces. Your orange peel dissection is a bit closer to the goal here, for more information on the importance of focusing on cast shadows check here. One last thing I'd like you to check is this image that shows that when we're working with thin line like textures we should still outline and fill the shadow in, by doing so we create a much more dynamic texture than just drawing a simple line.

• If you feel like you don't fully grasp form intersections just yet don't worry, right now this exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page, we'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons. Some of your forms do get a bit wobbly and could be tidier which shows you may have been a bit hasty in this exercise, remember that whether our goal is 1 form or 100 we should be treating each line we create with the same amount of time in terms of planning before drawing them confidently. As a final note in this exercise, make sure you draw the minor axis of your cylinders, you skipped a step.

• Your forms in the organic intersections exercise are wrapping around one another nicely. Your shadows do hug the form a bit at times rather than being cast so try and push them further.

Overall this was a solid submission, you have some things to work on but I'm sure you'll smoothen them out with more mileage. With that said I'll be marking your submission as complete and moving you on to the next lesson.

Keep doing previous exercises as warm ups, give some extra attention to texture to try and really get comfortable focusing on shadows.

Good luck!

Everyone wants to get as good as they can as fast as possible, but like you experienced this leads to burn out. You'll often grow faster doing 30 minutes of mindful practice a day rather than 6 hours a day and burning out by the end of the week.

As for your resubmission, your forms are still getting a bit complex as well as suffering from flat edges at times. Your organic intersection forms are much too complex and floating rather than wrapping around one another.

I'll be asking you to redo these 3 pages again, not only to make sure you show an understanding of what's being asked here but to make sure you don't develop holes in your skill set that will take longer to fill than if you took your time in the first place.

While these are still a bit too complex they are a step in the right direction, you have a habit of sharply turning your form which throws them off a bit.

You're showing a better understanding of the goal here however and with more mileage I'm sure you'll iron them out so I'll be moving you to the next lesson.

Keeping physical copies is nice because you have physical evidence of all your hard work, a back up in case you ever lose your digital copies, something that is easier to show people, line quality gets reduced by scans some times as well, probably a few other reasons but ultimately it's up to you whether you keep them or not after being done with the lessons.

Keep doing previous exercises as warm ups, good luck in lesson 3.

Hey there I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.

I'll be going over your notes and questions first quickly then I'll be moving on to your critique.

• If possible I recommend alongside more fineliners to consider getting a brush pen for filling in large areas of black like shadows. It's also useful for texture and will save you money on fineliners in the long run. (Less chance of destroying your nibs and fineliners aren't great at filling in areas where brush pens are.)

• I'll be answering your form intersection question in that exercise section.

• Finding fineliner more difficult than pencil is normal and part of the reason we use them, it forces you to work with your mistakes and make intentional lines while consciously using skills like applying line weight to make lines thicker. I'd suggest reading this article for more information on why we use ink the way we do, as for what you can do to improve it's a mileage thing, the more you use ink the more comfortable it'll become.

• If you're drawing digitally by all means do the exercises as a warm up, but ultimately redoing the lessons would just be grinding at this point. It'd be best to use your free drawing time following the 50% rule that is discussed here.

• All lines that need to flow smoothly should be drawn from your shoulder, again this is something that requires mileage the more you do it the more you'll get used to it. The only time that we really give an ok on drawing from your wrist or elbow is when it involves some textures because they don't always flow smoothly.

With all of that out of the way I can start your critique, you're making progress but I'll be listing things below that will hopefully help you achieve better results in your future attempts.

• There's a few things to note in your arrows, for starters your pages are pretty bare and could be filled more. There are spots where you should be overlapping your lines to create new curves, by not doing so it appears like the arrow stretches and hurts the solidity of the image. You should also experiment with foreshortening more, by utilizing foreshortening in both the arrow itself as well as the space in between curves of the arrow we can really sell the illusion of an arrow moving through 3D space as discussed here.

• In the organic forms with contours exercises you're creating forms that are much too complex. Our goal here is to create a simple sausage with both ends being roughly the same size, and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form as discussed here. When it comes to the contours themselves keep in mind that you want to be shifting their degrees along the form itself. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here. You also redraw some of your contour lines it appears, which as mentioned in the answers to your questions is a habit you don't want to build, we have to work with our mistakes.

• In the texture exercises you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows. This makes it difficult to create proper gradients which are useful when we want to create focal points in more complex pieces. For more information on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here, I'd also like you to look at this image which shows how when even dealing with thin line like textures we want to outline and fill the shadow to create a more dynamic looking texture overall.

• If you feel like you don't fully grasp form intersections just yet don't worry, right now this exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page, we'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons. Again some of these pages could be fiilled a bit more, and some forms could be a bit more solid, it does give the impression that you may be tackling these exercises a bit too hastily.

• When tackling the organic intersections exercise again I'd suggest trying to draw forms stacking upwards rather than around the side, some of your forms don't rest in a way that would make much sense if they had gravity applied to them. Some of your forms also flatten out and appear less solid than they could because they're too complex overall, working on simplifying your forms will be beneficial here. As for your shadows they're mostly hugging the form creating them rather than being cast in a single direction. I'd recommend pushing your light into the top left or right corner and really experimenting with pushing your shadows further, simple sets of forms like this are nice to work with before moving on to more complicated ones.

Overall you do have things to work on but this isn't a bad step forward. I will however be asking you to resubmit some work so I can make sure you understand what is being asked of in these exercises

Please re-read through and resubmit:

-2 pages of the organic forms with contours exercise.

Once completed put them into an album and reply to this critique with them, I'll go over them and note anything you need to work and move you onwards once you've shown you're ready.

Remember to take your time, ghost every mark you make and draw them confidently.

I look forward to seeing your work.

Hey there I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.

As far as scanners go, every scanner is a bit different definitely use photo mode over drawing mode to try and reduce blowout from the scanner trying to make your page as white as possible.

You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson, below I'll be listing some things I notice that will hopefully help you achieve better results in your future attempts.

• When it comes to your arrows there are a few things I notice. You have some extra lines and didn't draw endings for some of your arrows, I'm not sure if the extra lines were corrections (which you shouldn't be attempting to draw) or you were perhaps a bit hasty in your attempts, but your work could be tidier. You have some line wobbling occurring which shows that you aren't drawing these as confidently as you could be, and your foreshortening could use some work. Your arrows don't flow smoothly so rather than appearing like you're utilizing foreshortening it appears that your arrows are stretching/pinching in places. By utilizing foreshortening in the arrow itself as well as the space between curves of the arrow we can really sell the illusion of an arrow moving through 3D space so it's definitely a useful skill to have, for more information on the idea you can read here.

• Your organic forms with contours are getting a bit too complex, remember that our goal here is a simple sausage with both ends being roughly the same size and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form as described here. While it appears like you're attempting to shift the degree of your contours you can defintely push some of them further. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here. You're adding corrections here which again I stress isn't something you shouldn't be doing, part of the reason we use fineliner is so we're forced to deal with our mistakes and to learn from them by seeing how they effect everything else. Plan your mark with the ghosting method, draw it with confidence, as long as you give it your best attempt you will grow from it, don't make your work look worse by making a mess.

• In the texture exercises you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows. This makes it difficult to create gradients which when utilized properly are useful when we want to create focal points in more complicated pieces, without focal points things tend to become visually overwhelming and lose their solidity, for more information on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here. I do get the impression that you were working form memoy in spots here as well and perhaps being a bit hasty, remember that most of your time should actually be observing your reference. Lastly I'd like you take a look at this image, it shows how when even drawing thin line like textures it's best to outline and fill the shadow still, by doing so we can create a much more dynamic looking texture.

• If you feel like you don't fully grasp form intersections just yet don't worry, right now this exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page, we'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons. I do wish you attempted to draw more intersections themselves, while they are difficult we don't expect you to nail them at this point it's still good to push yourself to start thinking how these forms would interact.

Also not to beat this point into the ground but you yourself say in your album: "Didn't do the form intersections for this one since I wanted to move onto the organic forms (real reason was my brain imploded trying to do these)" This is probably a sign that you should take a break, not that you need to skip steps or go faster.

• Lastly in the organic intersections exercise, you'll be benefit from simplifying your forms as they lose their solidity and appear a bit flat at times. Your shadows are also something you want to take the time to consider, you tend to draw just circles of shadow on the ground that don't really make much sense at all, the forms get wider or overhang which would also be a factor in these shadows.

I apologize if I have come off as a bit harsh in this critique but know that it's because I want you to succeed and I do believe you're capable of better than this. You're taking steps in the right direction with a lot of these exercises but it's things like lack of patience that will hold you back from building a proper understanding of the concepts trying to be taught here. At the end of the day nothing wastes time like trying to save time, art like any skill takes a lot of mileage and time to develop there's nothing wrong with taking a break when you feel like fatigued and coming back the next day, in reality you'll probably absorb the concepts better this way and ultimately grow faster.

With all of that said, I don't believe you're ready to move on just yet.

I'd like you to re-read and re-complete:

• 2 pages of organic forms with contours.

• 1 page of organic intersections.

Remember to take your time, plan out your lines and execute them confidently. When you're done add them to an album and reply to this critique, I'll go over them and either move you to the next lesson or address any further mistakes and help point you to the next step.

I look forward to seeing your work, I know you can do this.

Hey there I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.

You're making good progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson, I'll be listing some things I notice below that you can work on to hopfully achieve better results when attempting these exercises again in the future.

• Your arrows are off to a good start, I only have 2 quick suggestions here. The first being that your arrows could flow a bit more smoothly, you do have some wobble occurring as well as bulging and pinching in the arrow itself which is a sign you may not be drawing these as confidently as you could. Remember that there's no harm in starting simple and getting comfortable before experimenting more, some simple S arrows with 2 or 3 curves is plenty. The second suggestion I have is to try and experiment with foreshortening more, by having the arrow as well as the space between curves of the arrow increase we can really sell the illusion of an arrow moving through 3D space, for more on this idea you can read here.

• A few of your organic forms with contours get a bit too complex, remember that our goal here is to draw a simple sausage like form with both ends being roughly the same size, and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form, for more info on the idea check here. When it comes to your contours your ellipses are looking a bit stiff and wobbly which shows you may be concentrating on keeping them in the form rather than focusing on drawing them confidently. Remember that accuracy will come with time so try to keep them smooth as your top priority. Other than that you could also work on pushing the degree of your contours further. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.

• You're on the right track with your pebbles texture in the texture analysis exercise, however in most cases you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows. Cast shadows allow us to imply information which are really beneficial when we want to create gradients/focal points in more complicated pieces. For more information on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here, you may also find this image helpful, it shows how when drawing thin line like textures that outlining and filling makes the texture appear much more dynamic. If possible I do recommend getting a brush pen for exercises like this and when dealing with shadows, you'll save money on fineliners and they're quite helpful/fun to use.

• If you feel like you don't fully grasp form intersections just yet don't worry, right now this exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page, we'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons. Outside of some line confidence issues I do notice that you skipped the first step in your cylinders where you draw the minor axis as shown here.

• As for your organic intersections I just have 2 quick suggestions. I'd like you to try and draw through all of your forms, if you're struggling with confidence this will help because you're not worrying about where the form should start and end, it'll also help build your understanding of 3D space like drawing through our boxes did. I'd also like you to try and push your shadows further (again a brush pen makes this a bit easier) as right now your shadows are mostly hugging the form creating them rather than being cast.

Overall while you have some things to work on I believe you mostly just need more mileage and to keep working on your line confidence. I'll be marking your submission as complete and moving you on to the next lesson.

Keep doing previous exercises as warm ups, give some extra attention to texture and good luck in lesson 3!

Hi there I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.

You're making a lot of progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson, I do notice a few things to work on and I'll be listing them below to hopefully help you in your future attempts of these exercises.

• Your arrows are off to a good start, just 2 quick notes here. The first being that there are some spots where your lines get a bit wobbly so make just keep in mind that you always want to be drawing confidently. The second being that you could push your foreshortening of the negative space between the arrows curves a bit more, by foreshortening the arrow and the negative space you can really sell the illusion of an arrow moving through 3D space as discussed here.

• When it comes to your organic forms with contours you're close to keeping the form simple but do over-complicate it in a few spots. Try to keep the idea of a simple sausage in mind, we want to have both the ends of our form roughly the same size and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form itself as shown here. When drawing your contours in the future also try to keep in mind that you want their degrees to shift along the form as well, your could push the contour lines further. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.

• In the texture exercises you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows. Your rain on glass is a step in the right direction, by focusing on cast shadows we can create gradients using implied information, this is incredibly beneficial when we want to create focal points in more complex pieces. You can read more about the importance of focusing on cast shadows here.

• If you feel like you don't fully grasp form intersections just yet don't worry, right now this exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page, we'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons. Overall the majority of your forms here are looking solid, good work.

• Lastly in the organic intersections exercise, I'd recommend trying to simplify your forms and piles a bit more, at the moment they're complicated enough that they lose some solidity and cut into one another awkwardly in some spots rather than wrap around each other smoothly. I'd also recommend pushing your light into the top left or right corners and trying to push your shadows further, at the moment they're mostly hugging the form creating them rather than being cast on to the form/ground below.

Overall you do have some things to work on but this was a solid submission showing that you're starting to grasp the concepts introduced, just need some more experience working with them. With that said I'll be marking your submission as complete and moving you on to the next lesson.

Keep doing previous exercises as warm ups, and good luck in lesson 3!

Hey there I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.

For future reference you could have had all of these images in 1 album and it makes it a lot easier for the person critiquing you.

With that out of the way, you are making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson. I'll be listing some things below that will hopefully help you achieve better results in your next attempts.

• I like your use of foreshortening in the arrows exercise, the biggest issue I see here is that your arrows aren't maintaining a consistent width. There are quite a few spots where they bulge, remember in order to maintain their solid appearance that their width should be consistent, a ribbon wouldn't stretch. This is something that will become more consistent with mileage however, so as far as problems go this is one of the better ones to be occurring at this stage.

• In the organic forms with contours exercise some of your forms do start to get a bit too complex. Try to keep in mind that our goal here is to create a simple form where both ends are roughly the same size without any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form as discussed here. You also want to try and shift the degree of your contours, some could definitely be pushed further and some of your contour lines appear a bit stiff. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.

• You're largely focusing on outlines and negative space in the texture exercises rather than the cast shadows. This makes it difficult to imply information which is helpful when we want to create believable gradients, we can use these gradients in more complicated pieces to form focal points rather than overwhelming the viewer with too much visual information. For more on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here. Other than that you're drawing largely with lines in mind rather than creating shadow shapes, if you look here you can see that even when working with thin line like textures, outline and filling in the shadow results in a much more dynamic looking texture.

• If you feel like you don't fully grasp form intersections just yet don't worry, right now this exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page, we'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons. Some of your forms do appear quite off in these exercises which do give the impression that you may have been a bit hasty in this exercise. Remember that whether your goal is to draw 1 box/form or 100 you should treat each line with the same amount of planning and confidence.

• As for your organic intersections you're off to a good start, but I'd recommend simplifying your form pile a bit more and try to push your shadows further. They're currently hugging the form creating them rather than being cast in a consistent way that makes much sense, try moving your light source to the upper right/left rather than directly above to build up an understanding of how shadows and light behave.

Overall you have some things to work on but I don't believe you misunderstand the concepts being introduced, rather that you just need more mileage (and maybe some more patience.) I'll be marking your submission as complete and moving you on to the next lesson.

Keep doing previous exercises as warm ups, give texture another go and good luck in lesson 3.