Shrunk

Great work on completing Lesson 1 homework!

Okay so, I'll break it down for ya in the three sections: lines, ellipses and your boxes;

1.Lines: GREAT work on your lines so far. There's little to none fraying in the beginning which is good. Confident and accurate lines are also great in the Ghosted Lines exercise. Only one thing I noticed is that there's a little bit of arching which can be caused by not mostly using the shoulder pivot. If you were using the shoulder pivot it can be worth mentioning that you can try and arch consciously to the opposite direction.

2.Ellipses: Your ellipses also look good. You're drawing through them 2-3 times and they look pretty confident. Only a small note to add in your Tables of Ellipses exercise, is that you should try your best to keep them within the borders and close to the corners, but overall great work!

3.Boxes: Wonderful job on your boxes. They're overall smooth with almost no serious wobbling whatsoever. Great work on the Rotated Boxes exercise, narrow gaps and good rotation. Organic Perspective also looks really nice, the growth from bigger to small and the boxes rotating are good.

Genuinely fantastic job on this homework.

Good job on completing the lesson. I will be reviewing your submission.

Arrows: For your arrows, you need to imagine that there's a space with depth, and they need to be flowing through that space. For most of your arrows it doesn't seem like you're considering the way they are traveling in 3-d space. You are keeping the width the same throught the entire arrow, and the spacing between each fold is the same, which breaks the illusion of 3-d space. Consider this when you're drawing arrows. Also, be more careful with the hatching, it seems like you placed it on wrong parts of the arrow, and take your time with the arrow heads, make sure you are using the ghosting method. Finally, be more confident, and remember to keep using your whole arm when drawing.

Leaves: You need to slow down on this excercise. Just like with the arrows, you are also considering the way this leaves are flowing in a 3D-Space. It seems like you were rushing with the lines you placed inside each leaf. Also, the twisting and turning on your leaves is not very accurate, and makes it look unnatural. Use references if you need, so you familiarize yourself and fully understand the twists and turns. For the big leaves with smaller ones inside, it seems like you were rushing. Please remember to take your time. Be intentional with each line you put down and plan it carefully.

Branches: You seem to have understood this excercise, so good job on that. You did a good job with changing the degree of the ellipses so it seems like the branch is turning. There are some things I want to point out. When connecting the ellipses, you tend to miss them when the branch is more complex. Slow down, just like you did on the more straight branches. With time, you will get better at this and won't miss as much. Another thing I want to point out is that for some branches (specially the one on the upper right), the way you placed the ellipses and connected them contradicts the initial flow line that you drew. Draw more ellipses if you need to (but don't overdoit), and remember the concept of minor axis.

Plant drawings: It seems like you understood the concepts of this lesson more when you started drawing plants. I see you were more careful with the leaves and branches. I will still point out that on some branches and branch like structures (like the mushroom), you contradicted the initial flow line you put down. Remember to be mora careful and take your time with that. For this drawing, you also weren't very careful with the leaves. Also , remember you need to be using a fine liner for these lessons. The detail you added on this plant looks incomplete, since you didn't fill the shadows completely. You need to also consider which leaves are on top of which so you place shadows currently. Watch the demo for the Potato Plant again so this becomes more clear. For this plant, you could have added more ellipses to the branch, so when you are connecting them, it results on a more solid branch. You will eventually be able to do it with less ellipses, but for now, i advise you to add more.

I advise you do one more page of arrows, and one additional plant drawing. So you develop a better understanding of the 3-d space the arrows and leaves are flowing in. Keep practicing and reading the instructions carefully.

Just keep moving forward, the goal of the challenge is not to create perfect boxes. For example, looking at your boxes here I can see your lines converge in pairs rather than sets, you will not completely get rid of this issue but it will diminish as you continue with the challenge. Good luck :

I understand your confusion. When I first started learning perspective recently, I thought I had the basics down. Then Uncomfortable and other sources explained to me all the things I didn't know and was getting wrong. One of those things has to do with how many vanishing points and lines you actually need to represent the real world.

The "horizon" line is often primary line used to mark the vanishing points. This makes sense. Imagine you are standing on a street looking at a group of buildings and you want to draw them. Imagine all the buildings are build on street corners with right angles. From your fixed position all of those buildings will have the same vanishing points (let's just use 2 point perspective for this example). Even if one of those buildings is turned a little, the vanishing points would shift on the horizon line, but would remain on the line. This is very convenient and covers many typical situations, so the horizon line is often the only one you will need.

Now the question you have concerns tilting. I think a real world example can help. You are standing on the same street with the buildings. Imagine holding a cube straight in front of you so that you can see only two sides and the vanishing points match the rest of the scene. If you rotate that cube clockwise still holding it straight in front of you, you will see that the angles of sides don't change but clearly don't align with the "horizon line". If you were to draw this, it would have to have it's own axis. Try drawing a simple box in 2 point perspective right in the middle of the horizon line so that you can only see two sides. Then draw another picture with the same vanishing points. Rotate the center line (the one closest to the viewer) and try to keep the same vanishing points. You will see that the picture is really weird looking and no longer looks like the first box at all.

I hope this helped. I am still learning it myself and still make lots of mistakes. Maybe someone else has a better explanation than me. Real world perspective has lots of vanishing points, axis lines and other things. It gets complicated.

Honestly, I would recommend redoing Lesson 1 and 2, but just 50 additional boxes for the box challenge rather than the whole set - that's usually what we recommend for those starting over if they decide to use official critique. While it's certainly not as easy a pill to swallow as starting off where you left off, it'll ensure that any holes of understanding or recollection about the instructions/earlier exercises are closed off, providing you with a solid basis rather than going ahead with potential pieces missing.

Congratulations on finishing lesson 1!

Let's take a look at your progress:

Overlapping Lines

OK so you have the basics of the exercise down, but by the general wobbliness of the lines and lack of fraying at the far end of each one it appears you're going just a tad bit slow. Speed up and keep the flow going!

Ghosted Lines

Your lines are very precise, but again we're still seeing that wobbling. Instead of slowing down to a stop on the mark, make sure you draw past it and lift up your pen when it's about to connect. You're going to end up missing or overshooting at times, but that's not what we're worried about at this stage. Try to draw some longer lines as well and see how that turns out for you! You can always hone that flow in your warmups later.

Ghosted Planes with Ellipses

Now there seems to be a marginal improvement between these sheets and the Ghosted Lines exercise you did previously. If you apply the suggestions suggested above then you should continue to see that improvement here as well. Your ellipses are very tight but I still notice that wobble! It's very important that you go at the right speed for your mind and body.

Tables of Ellipses

Some very tight ellipses with a lot of variation with their pattern and how they're applied. No problems here!

Funnels

You seem to have some aptitude for ellipses, but the way they're applied to this exercise is suspect. Remember that the degree is supposed to increase the further away they are from the center, wheras here they're very similar. A little bit of extra planning and forethought could go a long way in terms of making that change in degree more noticable.

Plotted Perspective

You've understood the point of this exercise well, though the scale and placement of boxes is very similar. You could have done with just a bit more variation here.

Rough Perspective

This was really rough, but you understood that you needed to plot along the lines of your box and not just towards the vanishing point. If you were to attempt this again, I'd focus on not only keeping the lines of your front and back planes level, but also increasing the foreshortening, since it's greater than you think.

Rotated Boxes

You actually submitted two attempts at this, which is understandable given what's happening with the first one. Something I've seen help other students is to imagine the boxes form a sphere, that way it'll end up looking less stiff and you'll remember to mentally place differing vanishing points for each one. Your second attempt was much closer, but watch out for that lack of symmetry!

Organic Perspective

This one got better with time, but you need to pay attention to how much foreshortening is applied to each one! It should increase the further forward the box is towards the viewer.

You can resubmit your lesson 1 critique as is if you don't want to redo it, then when that's critiqued you do another 50 boxes and submit them with your original 250. Beyond that you'll have to redo lessons 2 and 3.

This is quite normal! You're definitely not alone in getting lost in all the lines.

Starting with lesson 6 we are strongly encouraged to switch to ballpoint pen as they provide more flexibility in terms of line weight. By varying the pen pressure you can get different degrees of opacity to your lines. It does take some practice (and some ball point pens are better than others for it). Generall, you would use fainter lines for bounding boxes/subdivisions and heavier lines for actual constructions, silhouette etc

Aside from that here are some tips from discord (if you're not on there, consider joining since you can find even more advise):

• draw big. Try to take up most of the page for one item

• follow the demos since they teach different techniques.

• plan your drawing. this is not always efficient/appropriate but generally doing a orthographic study and/or rough drawing before doing the "real" take really helps.

• Don't be afraid to start simpler for your own drawings. I think it takes time to get used to this lesson so if you start simpler you can keep building your understanding without getting lost in lines

• Some people are able to offload the subdivisions into separate planes (i could never figure that one out). Quoting one of the discord users who is great at Lesson 6 "3rd is not basic: by optimizing subdivisions, for example offloading subdivisions to a temporary planes, or rethinking which landmarks are important and which aren't after some thoughts you may end up with less landmarks and as a result less subdivisions and less clutter overall"

For the superimposed lines, using the ghost method will help. In the animation of this exercise, they speak about the ghost method. It will help to reduce the problem of fraying.The ghost method is the crucial key for everything. For example your "Ghosted Lines" exercise, some are wobbling. If you ghost a line 2-3 times, it's still miss a dot or wobbling lines, add more times. That will help. The same as your ellipses, use the ghost method a lot will improve a lot. Your perspective boxes, I see the wobbling lines. Your rotated boxes, you do quite a good job.

Hi!

I'm just another student on Lesson 1 with you. As a result, take my suggestion with a grain of salt.

Superimposed Lines

Each line's starting point appears to be excellent, but I notice that this is not the case for the curves. See: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/9/fraying. Overall, this is a great piece.

Ghosted Lines

Most of the lines are smooth and confident! There's few wavey curves here and there, but nothing too serious. Also, there appears to be a hook at the end of a few lines; have you double-checked that you're fully lifting your pen after setting the mark?

Ghosted Planes

I think that you seem to be drawing from your wrist rather than your shoulder in certain planes (because they look a bit shaky). Also, when drawing the cross that in the middle of each line, make sure you place a point (do not skip the planning stage. See: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/10/planning)

Tables of Ellipses

This looks great; you made excellent use of the available area! Make sure that you go over the ellipses at least twice before moving on. But overall, everything appears to be confidently drawn/smooth.

Ellipses in Planes

Again, make sure that you go over the ellipses at least twice. No need to rush! Some of your ellipses don't look like ellipses, but rather pear-shaped, and this is probably because you focused too much on touching all sides. But good work!

Funnels

Once more, make sure that you go over the ellipses at least twice! Also, there is a little bit of overlap between the ellipses, but nothing major. Some of the ellipses look a little shakey, make sure you ghost before you execute, and also make sure you draw from the shoulder. The ellipses are tightly joined together though!

Side note: the funnel arcs, as well as the straight lines, seem to be hand-drawn. Use a plate and a ruler, respectively, to assist you with these tasks because it will make your life lot easier.

I am unable to remark on the rest of your work because I have yet to begin working on it. Keep up the fantastic work, though!

Actions to remember for the future:

1. Make sure that you go over the ellipses at least twice.