Rivgar

Hello, glad to have you back

Sorry for the late response, I have been occupied with other stuff so dab went to backlines for me.

Your linework is looking way better this time. It shows that you are confident with your lines. When in doubt, take more time. But when things get frustrated take a step back and go for a walk or something to stop those negative thoughts.

For your lineweght, for most parts, it got better. That said there are some places that I am unhappy with how they turned out. For example, house fly thorax and abdomen segments, it is way too messy in there. You did make them feel more 3d as I asked before, so that's great.

But in laters drawings, it is getting way better, so good job fixing that and remember to keep it in later lessons.

In the ladybug, the box isn't aligned to the rest of the body. https://imgur.com/YsLktNc

We can clearly see the top of the ladybug(top face of the box), more of her left legs so her left side(left face of the box) and we can see her face so front.

I realized that I forgot to point out that you are drawing pretty small. Drawing small makes things harder for us. We draw more clumsily and it limits our ability to think through spatial problems. It also makes it awkward for our arm, especially when we don't have as much experience with a shoulder. There is plenty of empty space on your pages so use it to full advantage. You have plenty of blank space that should be used for your drawings.

Lastly, the black widow doesnt have a head for whatever is supposed to act as one. I wont call that out as I have arachnophobia and I probably wouldnt look for pictures of them. But if you arent, the drawing should include it.

I believe you made a great job, fixed your weakness, and are able to proceed to the next lesson.

Hello Lupurisan, I hope you are well

Starting with organic forms:

Those are made quite well, you make them simple with both ends the same sizes.

But quite often you aren't changing their degrees, remember that when ellipse gets away from us its degree becomes wider.

The next thing that I want to point out is that sometimes you arent hooking the contours enough, quite often you hook only one end.

There are places where your lines are quite sloppy. Keep in mind to take as much time as needed for ghosting and when it feels right, execute the line in a single stroke with the upmost confidence.

Insects:

You draw them really good, but the thing that stands most to time is that your linework and lineweight on legs could see some work. As it stands now, your lineweight makes them really flat. So for lineweight remember to also ghost for that process. What we want to do is add another line on top of our initial one and what we should get is an effect of our line becoming darker(as we give more ink to the line) and slightly wider(as ink spills slightly to the sides). Making our line wider isn't our goal, it is to make it stronger/darker. This diagram conveys what I am trying to say.

It could be also your linework, don't repeat your lines, even if you made a bad line, leave it and treat it as if it was the correct one. We don't want to correct our lines as it starts bad habits and teaches us that we don't have to commit to our lines. Leave your bad line there to be seen. Next time you try to make a line, don't repeat the same mistake you did the previous time.

I like your house fly 3, it isn't perfect but it does have a fair number of really confident lines that reinforcement 3d feel of that drawing. On the subject of that house fly, you don't emphesize the segmented abdomen enough, it feels 2d, you need to make those segments go outward a little bit more. Another thing that doesn't help is again your quite messy lines.

With shadows and lineweight we want to show which masses are on top and which aren't. We don't want to strengthen every line we made previously with lineweight, this is called working in passes. We don't do that in drawabox. We want to carefully construct our building block and then help the viewer with overlapping form through shadows and little lineweight.

Conclusion:

Your sausages are good, no need for a redo in that part.

For you insects, I would want you to make another 3, no need for texture. Keep in mind what I wrote and mostly take your time and be patient with every line. Don't overdo the lineweight and repeat your lines.

If you have any questions feel free to write to me.

Helle Thatonemushroomguy,

I hope you are well,

Starting with your sausages.

Those are done really well, it shows that you have a great understanding of 3d forms and how they react to each other in space when you add shadows you do think about the curvature of the form it is cast on. But sometimes you add those lines to your sausages, this is not a bad thing to do, but there are places where it definitely confused viewers than anything. Additionally, those are not simple sausages, as it seems to me you add those stripes to them.

Moving onto your animals

Those look really great, but our focus isn't to make good-looking drawings. It is to learn a "thing" through exercises.

That said you can use methods learned in lesson to make a solid and believable drawing that focuses more on form than looks. There are a few minor things that I want to point out:

• Make your cranium smaller. I went over a couple of your heads and drew brow ridges as you sometimes miss this step and by missing it you get a flat and confusing result. Keep in mind that with construction we want to draw by piling forms on top of each other. Step by step, patiently without winging any 2d forms.

• Remember to not cut back into your shapes. We work additively, meaning we only add more 3d mass on previous mass, we don't subtract.

• There are times where your linework isn't as consistent as in other parts of your work. Give each line as much given patient as it needs to be confidently made with ghosting.

Conclusion

There were only a few minor mistakes done by you. You clearly grasped how to make believable drawings with 3d forms and masses. Your linework is mostly great, but there are rarely lines that could be a lot better if given more time. I will mark this lesson as complete.

I do know that Soprano already did a critique for you, but I feel it is missing guidance for you and he didn't point out any of your mistakes.

If you have any questions feel free to ask me here,

Have fun during your journey,

You did quite a good job with those leaves, you could push the flow line a bit further but that's good enough for now, also there could be a lot more of them on the page.

For your plants, those are definitely better. You are clearly more confident with lines but there are places where you run out of patience. The pitcher plant has quite a few sloppy lines, as shown here.

Be more patient with lines, I know it is hard sometimes. But when you feel like you have run out of it, take a break, even if it is for 2 minutes.

I will mark this lesson as complete then.

Hello Koyomi,

I hope you are well,

Starting with your arrows

They are done quite well. You executed them really confidently with your linework, but I notice that you struggle a bit with putting them in a perspective. You attempt to do it, but you don't push the foreshortening(bigger if near the viewer, smaller is away from the viewer) that much when needed.

Your lines wobble and aren't as confident as I would want them to be. Remember to ghost each line with your shoulder with your wrist locked. Take as much time as you need and be patient.

Moving to leaves

Those are done really good. Your use of flow line is quite great there. That said few of them have a problem of bending in unnatural fashion. There are few leaves in which zigzags didn't get as much love as in other leaves, but your didn't fall into common trap of autopiloting them.

Keep in mind that when we add zigzagging to the edges. We give one stroke, one trajectory, don't autopilot those. Be mindful of each stroke.

Next, branches

There are leftovers from your previous segments . Be sure to draw using the shoulder with a ghosting method. We want to execute our strokes confidently and make them go over the next ellipses. By following this process correctly we create a seamless illusion of a smooth line that curves.

Remember to draw through your ellipses 2-3 times when you do DAB exercises. Doing so we gain experience faster. This also allows us to create a smoother shape of our ellipse. This does happen later in the lesson, so please be mindful about this in the future, as it is extremely important to draw through your ellipses.

Lastly plants

You stick to construction heavily here and that's a really great sign. That said, there are few things I want to point out. There are also, as written previously, problem with you not drawing through your ellipses.

You are drawing pretty small. Drawing small makes things harder for us. We draw more clumsily and it limits our ability to think through spatial problems. It also makes it awkward for our arm, especially when we don't have as much experience with a shoulder. You have plenty of blank space that should be used for your drawings.

There are places where your lines become quite sloppy. That's because you don't commit to them enough. Remember to be patient with ghosting and take as much time as needed for each line. Then when it feels right, confidently execute the line. Also keep in mind to use your shoulder with a locked wrist.

Conclusion

Remember to draw bigger and be more patient with your lines. This would greatly benefit your work. There weren't any major mistakes done by you, just a few minor one. So I will mark this lesson as complete.

If you have any question feel free to ask me here,

Have fun on your journey,

Hello Noodlecake,

I hope you are well,

Starting with your sausages

As you realize yourself, your contours are quite off. Most important thing is that your contours aren't hooking around the courners, your contours on sausages and other forms would benefit greatly if you did that. You understand how the degree of ellipse works so it is a matter of practice to get it right.

It doesnt matter if our contours are uneven, what we want to inform our viewer with them, is that our form is turning in space or how it exist in it.

Moving to insects

They are really solid, you made a great job executing those curved lines confidently. That said there are places where your line work could be better. That might be caused because you don't commit enough to those as they wobble. Remember to be patient with ghosting and take as much time as needed for each line. Then when it feels right, confidently execute the line. Also keep in mind to use your shoulder with a locked wrist.

Next thing I want to point out is your line weight. Remember we use it to clarify overlaps of our form. What we want to do is add another line on top of our initial one and what we should get is an effect of our line becoming darker(as we give more ink to the line) and slightly wider(as ink spills slightly to the sides). Making our line wider isn't our goal, it is to make it stronger/darker. This diagram conveys what I am trying to say. We don't want to make our whole drawing outlined with line weight. We want to make sure our initial lines are as good as our abilities allow us to.

Additionally the same as with line work, there are places where you are sloppy with the execution.

Drawing small. You said it yourself but I want to make sure you understand we don't want to draw small. Drawing small makes things harder for us. We draw more clumsily and it limits our ability to think through spatial problems. It also makes it awkward for our arm, especially when we don't have as much experience with a shoulder. There is plenty of empty space on your pages so use it to full advantage. After finishing the 1st drawing, look at your page and think if there is enough space for the next one. But don't force things into a tiny corner.

In your last drawing, you cut back into the head. This image teaches perfectly why we shouldn't do that as it flattens the form out.

Lastly when you add forms don't do it with 2d shapes. When we use construction we want every form/mass to be 3d. I went over one of your drawing, which contains good use of it and bad one.

Conclusion

You did a good job absorbing material covered in this lesson. There are few areas that you slightly lack knowledge but those areas are used in lesson 5. So I will mark this lesson as complete.. Remember to practice those contours as this is one of your biggest weaknesses in this lesson.

If you have any questions feel free to ask me,

Have fun on your journey,

Hello Cytori,

I hope you are well,

I don't think the color of your fineliner matters, but it is good practice to not be wasteful with your money and use up the remaining fineliners.

Starting with sausages

Those are quite great, as you change the degrees of the contours properly. There are few cases where you make your contour sloppy, but your overall intention is to make them fit inside. Additionally on the topic that includes your contours, the linework. There are places where it could be better, try to be more patient with it.

Moving to insects

Looking through them I notice that your line weight is applied "incorrectly". It is a little messy and I know you could do better as your linework is quite good as you can make straight lines if you commit to them. So for lineweight remember to also ghost for that process. What we want to do is add another line on top of our initial one and what we should get is an effect of our line becoming darker(as we give more ink to the line) and slightly wider(as ink spills slightly to the sides). Making our line wider isn't our goal, it is to make it stronger/darker. This diagram conveys what I am trying to say. Keep in mind that we don't apply the lineweight with our wrist, what we want to use is our shoulder. Line weight is about clarifying the overlap between forms in specific areas.

In your last beetle you made the segments of it "armor" too much 2d. This demo shows how we should tackle that part of an insect body. This might be caused as you used a top view, which I believe doesn't help us when we draw a 3d object. Additionally in front limbs, you have skipped quite a few steps building those "forearms". When we construct anything we want to add forms on top of forms. I went over this section of the drawing here, my execution is quite crude as I drew it with the mouse. But what I want you to gain from it, is that we draw those complex forms with stacking small simple ones to create a feel of a solid 3d drawing. You can see an example of this with this beetle horn demo, and even on this ant head demo.

Lastly in this demo, I think you didn't draw proper sausages for the back legs. You again draw a silhouette, which creates a 2d shape. This is how it should have been made.

In your dragonfly drawing I think it's wings are missaligned or that could be how the reference just is.

Conclusion

You did a good job absorbing the material covered in this lesson. In the future try to avoid the top view in your drawabox drawings. Now I will mark this lesson as complete.

If you have any questions feel free to ask me here,

Have fun on your journey,

Hello Solonegociosserios,

I hope you are well,

You did a great job throughout the challenge. Good job extending your colored lines away from the viewer. Your lines are really straight, but you sometimes overshoot them. That's fine as we work in levels, but it is something to look out for in the future.

Sometimes your lines converge in pairs, https://imgur.com/KSHwTwo this is what you do sometimes, we don't want that because we want all our 4 lines to meet in the same point, a vanishing point, as shown here https://imgur.com/8PqQLE0. That says to me that you perhaps lost your initial vanishing point. This diagram should also help you understand the angles of lines converging to the vanishing point. The inner lines have a smaller degree unless our box is long and it also depends on the position of our vanishing point. I want you to remember that our lines should always converge in one point, vanishing point, but they never meet in pairs.

Also when you add hatching remember to keep it even and ghost it as it is line too. Don't make it messy, as when we add hatching to the face, it will become our point of interest for that box, so we want to make that point pleasant to the eye.

Your lineweight is a little messy and I know you could do better as your linework is quite good as you can make straight lines if you commit to them. So for lineweight remember to also ghost for that process. What we want to do is add another line on top of our initial one and what we should get is an effect of our line becoming darker(as we give more ink to the line) and slightly wider(as ink spills slightly to the sides). Making our line wider isn't our goal, it is to make it stronger/darker. This diagram conveys what I am trying to say.

Don't repeat your lines, even if you made a bad line, leave it and treat it as if it was the correct one. We don't want to correct our lines as it starts bad habits and teaches us that we don't have to commit to our lines. Leave your bad line there to be seen. Next time you try to make a line, don't repeat the same mistake you did the previous time. This also includes lines made for lineweight.

I will now mark this lesson as complete as you hadn't made any major mistakes in the challenge. Keep in mind what I wrote here for your future warmup.

If you have any question feel free to ask me here,

Have fun during your journey,

Hello Lupursian,

I hope you are well,

Starting with arrows

Those are made quite well. You are not afraid to overlap them. You also make them smaller as they go into the distance, which creates a feel of perspective. I like that some of them have that beveled feeling, but I think that is caused by not spending enough time ghosting, so keep in mind to give that step more time.

Moving to leaves

You made them fairly good, but they feel really stiff, that might be caused by not giving the flow line enough time. Remember to give the flow line a really good thought, as it is the most important thing when it comes to the leaves we are drawing in this exercise. Few of your leaves have a problem of zigzagging edges. Keep in mind that we give one stroke one trajectory, don't autopilot those. Be mindful of each stroke.

Next, branches

They are looking pretty good. But sometimes there are leftovers from your previous segments. Be sure to draw using the shoulder with a ghosting method. We want to execute our strokes confidently and make them go over the next ellipses. By following this process correctly we create a seamless illusion of a smooth line that curves. Additionally your line work could see some work. Good work on drawing through your ellipses 2-3 times here and in the rest of the lesson.

Lastly plants

In the beginning you are drawing 5, then 3 and lastly 1 per page. Make sure in the future you are still drawing only 1 plant per page. That's because drawing small makes things harder for us. We draw more clumsily and it limits our ability to think through spatial problems. It also makes it awkward for our arm, especially when we don't have as much experience with a shoulder. There is plenty of empty space on your pages so use it to full advantage. After finishing the 1st drawing, look at your page and think if there is enough space for the next one. But don't force things into a tiny corner.

Don't repeat your lines, even if you made a bad line, leave it and treat it as if it was the correct one. We don't want to correct our lines as it starts bad habits and teaches us that we don't have to commit to our lines. Leave your bad line there to be seen. Next time you try to make a line, don't repeat the same mistake you did the previous time.

You don't commit enough to lines as they wobble. Remember to be patient with ghosting and take as much time as needed for each line. Then when it feels right, confidently execute the line. Also keep in mind to use your shoulder with a locked wrist. That's your biggest weakness by far. Be more patient with every step of the line making process.

Lastly make sure when you draw ellipses you think about their the individual degrees convey the orientation of that circular cross-section in space. You could think of it in a way, that if our ellipses are farther from the viewer, its degree is going to be bigger/wider. Great way to see that in real life is looking at the pots in your house or anything cylindrical. See what happens when we stand/sit/look at it from the bottom and then doing it again from farther distance, observe the degree of our ellipses.

Conclusion

You didn make any major mistakes, just a few minor ones. But what you need to work on is your linework, as it highly degrades your work. This skill takes a while to build, but for now you need to be patient and ghost as much as you can.

Please submit an additional 1 page of leaves and 3 pages of plants, before I mark this as a complete.

If you have any question feel free to ask me here,

Replying to mark this as a complete, sorry once again for my mistake.

Take care,