ThisHeat

I don't think the newer revisions of the lessons differ significantly enough from the prior versions that you really need to wait for it to be updated before moving on. It might also be another few weeks to a month before the next set of lessons and exercises are updated so I think waiting will only slow you down. Feel free to carry on!

Organic Forms: Look pretty nice and even, but the first page should also be curves and not ellipses.

Insects overall look good and your sausage forms are again evenly spaced. Construction is evident and your cast shadows stick to the forms well.

-The contour line on the black widow on the top of page 4 seems slightly misaligned with regards to the overall shape of the form. I think it should either aim slightly towards the left, or your abdomen should be made a bit smaller around the left side.

• You could place some ellipses between the thin and thick front legs of the scorpion to make it look more 3D. While the forms are good, they do look a bit flat relative to the angle of the picture. Putting an ellipse in between this space helps convey the perspective.

-The wings on the top insect on page 9 don't seem to have much flow to them, particularly the left one. They feel a bit stiff and don't seem to show any evidence of construction applied to them. Starting out with a simple wide ellipse or flowing center line and working from there might help in making it feel more fluid.

• Some of your insects could benefit from some additional line weight, particularly the front legs of the insects in your first five pages and the abdomen of the ladybug, black widow and housefly. This will help make them look more solid and let them properly stand out in relation to the rest of the body.

Besides these issues I think your insects are constructed nicely and you should be ready to move on.

Organic Forms

• Fluid and mostly consistent, only issue is a few of your curves not fully connecting to the forms but that's pretty common.

Insects - Well done overall, forms are well proportioned, solid and neat. Excellent work in particular applying the Lesson 3 techniques on that leaf bug. The legs look great and flow very nicely.

• For the wasp, the contour curves on the abdomen should wrap around the whole form instead of stopping short.

• I think the louse could have some additional line weight applied around the head and upper legs. Being at the front they need some darker lines to establish their overall dominance over the rest of the drawing.

• The filled in shadow on the scorpion looks unnatural around the abdomen/tail. Cutting it right before it curves into the tail would help, so it doesn't bend unusually.

• Wings on the housefly are a bit flat. I struggled with wings a lot too, but I think seeing them as leaves could help with improving the flow so they're more pointed and equal.

• Some line weight on the ant antennas would help them stand out more relative to their place in the drawing.

• Same point on the wings for the insect on image 9 (I can't believe I don't remember its name). Again, give it flow likes leaves.

• 'Neck area' on the grasshopper is a little flat. Letting those contours fully wrap around it would reinforce the illusion of 3D.

• Some contour ellipses around the spot between the sections of the legs for the beetle would make them connect better. The thinner ends just sort of loosely attaches to the thicker part without them.

All of these are relatively minor issues that don't significantly detract from forms, but they are things to keep in mind. As a whole these are very well done and you've applied the concepts well. I think you can move on straight ahead, but I suppose maybe you should wait a week or so in case someone offers a deeper critique than I'm really capable of.

The organic forms look good! They're much more equal in size. The insects look pretty good too, and I like the line weight applied to the leafhopper. I'm going to mark it as complete because I think you've got a good grasp on the concepts so far, but I still think you should try out some of the demos when you have the chance, especially the one of the wasp. Good job!

Hey there, I'm still going through this lesson myself so I'll keep this pretty short and stick to what I've got a grasp on.

Your organic forms are alright, but I think they could use some more work. For the purpose of this exercise, I would recommend sticking to contour curves rather than the ellipses, since curves are what we use to help establish the 3D forms in our insects. A few of your forms are also tapering on end, with one end noticeably smaller and more compressed than the other. Generally you should try to keep both ends of the form about identical to each other. If you think of them as two similar shaped spheres at each end with a tube connecting them, that might help with getting them more into proportion.

As for the insects, they look pretty good! You've got the head, thorax and abdomen clearly defined and the sausage forms for the legs look pretty good and well connected. I will say that some of your insects (such as the moth) look a little flat, and I think that's a result of using top down poses. That's not to say you shouldn't utilize those views, but for getting a better sense of 3D space, I think picking more dynamic poses might help you out in that regard. Look at and try some of the demos like the wasp and black widows ones to see examples of more '3D' poses and how to do them. Finally, in regards to texture, in the future avoid attaching short little lines around the outline of the insects. It doesn't really convincingly convey any sense of real texture and can actually distract from the main forms we're trying to look at. Rewatching the main video can help you out here, as Uncomfortable goes into how to apply texture near the end.

Overall I think you're doing a good job and your insects are put together nicely, you just need to hone in a little bit more on your forms and your texture and you should be good to move on to the next lesson. Good luck and have fun!

Hey there,

Thanks for the critique. I tried another round of organic intersections after doing some practice in my sketchbook. I'm still trying to grasp the weight of the forms (especially the 'drooping' ones) and I think I need to work out where my shadows go, but I hope this is at least passable. I'm definitely going to keep honing this out regardless. Thanks again!

Here's the re-do

These are some well done boxes! Your improvement is noticeable, especially how your lines went from shaky to well placed and executed. Great job there. Overall these boxes are good and I would say you're ready to move on but I have a few suggestions:

• Practice boxes using foreshortening. Of the boxes you've posted here, most of them are from the same 5 or so angles and perspectives. Try to branch out a bit more, and look at the examples posted on the lesson page for an idea of dramatic and shallow foreshortening.

• Make your line weight a bit more pronounced. All of your boxes display about the same amount of line thickness to them. I say go over the lines that are opposite the initial 'Y' you made and to give slightly more weight. Again, check the lesson page for some visual examples of how to apply this technique.

• Unrelated to the boxes, but try to find a brighter light source (like a lamp or open window) to take these photos from. As it stands, there's a lot of shade and shadow that makes it a bit hard to see.

These look pretty good overall! Your lines are clean and straight which is good and shows you're confident making lines. Box 244 bends a little bit, but for that's the only real glaring error I notice here. You also make good use of foreshortening on several of these boxes, which shows that you have a decent handling of perspective. I'd say overall you demonstrate proficiency with your boxes. Perhaps the only thing I would recommend is to employ line weight more noticeably. For the most part the lines seem to share the same thickness to them and you should try to subtly go over the lines opposite to your initial "Y" once more to add that extra weight.

Hi there!

Overall, this looks pretty good! There's some arching on your ghosted lines exercise, but your lines seem to improve from that point onward which is good. You did a very good job of keeping to the directions and it shows. For the box exercises, specifically plotted perspective and organic perspective I would suggest giving the boxes in the former a quick pass with your ruler to give them more weight, as per the lesson instructions. The same goes for organic perspective, on the largest boxes go over them once more to add that extra weight and give a greater sense of distance from the other boxes.

https://imgur.com/a/Qa8gbTR

Here's the revised plotted perspective, I think it came out much better. I made better use of my ruler than last time.