Vega

Hi Cynsh! Im going to go over your submission.

Starting out by your cylinders around an arbitrary axis, it looks like you are doing a good job aligning your ellipses to their minor axis, although your ellipses started a little wobbly at the beginning, you made up for it later! As always, there is still some things that I want to talk about.

First off, the convergence of a cylinder (and other forms) is represented on two ways. its reflected on the change of scale between the two ellipses, where the closer one is bigger than the further one, its always visible on the shift of degrees of the ellipses, where the further ellipse always has a wider degree than the closer one. This two "shifts" help the viewer understand how a cylinder is converging, though they need to work together. Here I picked a cylinder where these two "shifts" are communicating two different foreshortenings- On one case, the sizes of of this two ellipses are pretty similar, while the back one is smaller, its not a drastic change, this tells the viewer that the convergence is shallow. However, when seeing the change in degrees between this ellipses, its way more drastic, where the closer one is really narrow, and the back one really wide, this is communicating the viewer that there is a lot of convergence happening on the ellipse. In this cases what it ends up happening is that the illusion of depth gets broken. To be honest, you are doing an overall job on this area, though I wanted to pick one of the cases where it didnt work out to explain this, so you can apply it more consciously!

Another thing that called my attention is that as you move forward with the challenge, some of your cylinders started looking a not so much as 3d representations of circles, but more like tappered circles. Take for example this cylinder you have drawn, see how it looks more like a deformated cylinder, that is wider on one direction than the other. The thing to remember here is that ellipses are representations of perfect circles in 3d space, while we are never going to be able to create an ellipse that perfectly represents a circle because we are not machines, we need to always strive for it. This happened quite a lot on your later cylinders around arbitrary axis and is also we have been dealing on your sausages where you are sometimes making ellipses flatter than what they should. Dont worry too much about it, the key thing to remember is what I have been saying about ellipses representing perfect circles in 3d.

Moving on to your cylinders in boxes, it seems like the issue we have just talked about, translated a little into this sections of the challenge. The aim of this part are not the ellipses, the aim here is for you to develop your intuition when creating boxes whit more square proportions so they better fit circles. The issue that I think it happened here is that you are not fully understanding that these ellipses you have been drawing are supposed to be circles in 3d, and when you where drawing your boxes you wouldnt always aim to create a box with at least a pair of faces that are proportionally square so you when you fit your ellipses in there they would create a better cylinder.

As to take an example, check this one, I think we can both agree that thats not a cylinder, but more of a tappered one. Now, I want to clarify that I know that this is not an easy exercise, I also have a hard time creating proportionally correct boxes that can fit ellipses, but the reason that I wanted to point this out is that it seems like the issue wasnt your ability to create this kind of boxes, since you showed in quite a lot of cases that you are able to (221 and 225 are an example of some well done), but the issue was this missunderstanding that we have been talking about.

All this said, I think you did pretty good on this challenge, though I want to ask for some revisions, just to make sure that you are able to get past this deformed cylinders issue.

Hello Dino, congrats on finishing the 250 Box Challenge, time for some feedback.

linework and markmaking

The ghostng method- I can see you have taken the time to plot the start and end points and plan your lines throughout the set, great work. On the whole your lines do look to get straighter and more confident as you progress through the set. There are still a few wobbly lines though, and considering how straight your hatching lines are, I think it may be an issue with confidence. https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/98d7b3a3.jpg Once you've planned your stroke and ghosted it to your satisfaction, try to execute it confidently from your shoulder. Always prioritize confidence over accuracy, the accuracy will improve with practice. You certainly do make a good number of smooth confident lines though, so I can tell you understand the process and are heading in the right direction, good job.

I noticed a significant number of your lines overshoot the end points slightly, so I'm going to paste in this little tip from Uncomfortable here: *"A lot of students struggle with overshooting their lines, and as a result they tend to hesitate more as they reach the end point, causing them to undershoot and waver slightly as they slow their pen to a stop.

Here's an alternative: Try lifting your pen off the page the second you hit that end point. Lifting it up is a much more reliable action you can perform far more responsively, and it avoids the hesitation you get from slowing down.

In general, overshooting isn't that big of a deal right now. You'll get better at it, and it's always better than hesitating. Still, this approach can solve two problems at once."*

Lineweight- It looks like you've done a good job using super imposed lines to reinforce the silhouette of your boxes, well done. There are a few places where I can see you went over your lines multiple times, just remember that one super ipmosed line is enough.

Hatching- As I mentioned earlier, your hatching lines are pretty straight and parallel. You've done a great job of neatly applying hatching to a front face of your boxes throughout the set, nice one!

Box Construction

Line extensions - You've done a good job of making your error checking extension lines. There were a couple of hiccups with lines extended the wrong way for example the blue lines 224 and 221. A way to make sure you do this correctly 100% of the times, is to always extend the lines away from the center dot of the Y, as shown here: https://imgur.com/iNpIubA also double check this explanation from the challenge page here: https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/bc7fcf51.jpg

Convergences - A box in 3 point perspective will ALWAYS have their lines converge. They can never diverge, or be parallel. There are some boxes where you've got all 3 sets of lines converging, (even if the back corner is slightly off) for example 168, 230, 227, 235. However there are a large number of boxes with clearly diverging lines, even towards the end of the challenge (eg. 247, 243, 242, 231, 232) which is honestly quite concerning.

It is perfectly normal for the inner edges connecting to the back corner of the box to be troublesome throughout the challenge. What I find unusual is that you seem to struggle with getting the outter edges of your box to converge, too. If you take a look at this example from the challenge page https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/f717b0fd.jpg you can see that the outter edges of the box all get closer together as they are extended away from the inital Y. That's what you should be aiming for, throughout the challenge.

There's a fair number of boxes where you seem to have used a different method of construction to the Y method shown in the challenge instructions, along with what looks like a concerted effort to keep certain sets of lines parallel. It's okay to experiment a bit, but I think that you may have distracted yoursef from the core focus of this exercise by drawing so many boxes in 1 and 2 point perspective, instead of 3 point.

Variety of boxes - On a more positive note, you have done a fantastic job drawing boxes with a variety of foreshortening and from lots of different angles too, bravo!

Size of boxes - It's great that you stuck to the reccomended 5 boxes per page accross the challenge, but I thought I'd mention that there are a few pages where you've drawn your boxes pretty small. Drawing them biggerhelps encourage students to draw from the shoulder, and can also help with thinking through spacial problems. The majority of your boxes are a good size though.

Conclusion

Given that this challenge is over a month old and I know you've already finished lesson 2 and made a lot of progress since you posted this, I'm just going to ask you for 2 more pages of boxes, to show what your current ability looks like. Make sure you draw all of them in 3 point perspective using the Y method. I'll be looking specifically at your convergences. Feel free to mark your vanishing points on your page and ghost your lines towards them, if you feel it will help. (This will give you dramatic forshortening, because you'll have to place your vanishing points fairly close to the box) If you have any questions about anything I've said feel free to message me on Discord. (I'm DIO)

You have room to improve, but you've done a solid job with the material.

While the arrows flow well, there are a number of them that aren't drawn how the lesson recommends. The main idea behind the arrows exercise is to draw winding arrows whose curving indicates 3D space, with the space between each portion of said arrow getting smaller as the arrow gets further away. There are arrows in your pages that have noticeably straight paths; they still flow very well, but they don't quite conform to the main purpose of the exercise.

The organic forms are decent, but there is room for improvement. Some of your organic forms change width from one end to the other, which they are not supposed to do. It's generally not super pronounced, but it's still worth noting. I also notice that you didn't shift the degrees of the ellipses very much; this can be a tough part, but it's worth practicing to help convey how that shape exists in 3D space. That being said, the ellipses do adhere to the sides of the forms well, with a couple problem children here and there.

The texture work is actually very good here. You depict each texture very clearly. Admittedly, the gradient in the analysis exercise could be better - the black bar is very apparent, with no smooth transition in sight. The transition to complete white, on the other hand, is handled well.

The textures on organic forms are executed well. They conform to the shapes properly and are depicted clearly once again. Most of them break the silhouette, which is good.

The intersecting forms exercise is executed well. The shapes have consistent foreshortening, outside of a couple odd boxes here and there.

The organic form intersections portion is done well, mostly. The shadows follow the forms of the shapes they are cast onto, the forms are stable, and they wrap around each other fairly sensibly for the most part. One thing that jumps out to me is that the forms feel less like they are resting on top of one another and are moreso being absorbed into each other. This is technically not how the lesson is meant to be executed, even if I'm not sure I'd classify it as a major mistake.

Hello there Kap, congrats on making it through! I'll be looking over your submission.

Starting with your arrows, you did a pretty good job with drawing with confidence and accuracy, with your regular lines and with your line weight. You also did a good job with making your arrows flow through the scene fluidly but don't forget to compress the further end of your arrows to create a better illusion of depth.

Onto your leaves, like your arrows, you managed to draw in a way that your leaves sit and flow through space really fluidly. You experimented with more complex structures as well. You generally did a good job with respecting the initial construction when adding edge detail but on a couple of leaves, instead of adding forms to/carving into the leaf with individual strokes (like shown here) you tried adding the detail to the entire edge in a single stroke. This will come up in the future as well so I recommend revisiting this part of lesson 1.

Your branches look pretty solid as well. Every line seems to tapper almost perfectly to the next and the transition between each segment is pretty smooth. However on some of your branches, instead of extending your lines to the half point of the next segment, you stopped right past the ellipses. Also remember to vary the degrees of your ellipses to create a more solid illusion of depth (like here).

Onto your constructions, they seem pretty good! You're building in stages, using the methods introduced in this lesson and creating convincing constructions while drawing as big as you can. Here's some pointers to help you moving forward:

• First thing that I'd like to draw your attention to is your use of shading. Although you generally did a good job with using cast shadows to show how forms relate to each other, sometimes you instead used shading to make you constructions look better (the little dots on the branch of your rose construction, for example). I know it can be easy to forget the difference between those two but the main thing I'd like you to remember is that we're using shadows only to show the relation between forms, not to create a pretty picture. You can take a look at this part of lesson 2 for a better explanation.

• Also on the topic of cast shadows, you occasionally drew shapes instead of shadows (like on your mushroom construction ). Take a look at this demo to see the difference between those two.

• I'm sorry for repeating myself but try to always pay attention to the degrees of your ellipses. They occasionally break the illusion even though your actual constructions are very convincing.

• Because you skipped line weight/cast shadows on this construction, it looks really cluttered. I feel like you rushed that one since your use of line weight on other constructions is really good.

I don't think I have anything to add. Your constructions were pretty solid, keep it up! (I was especially impressed with your rose). Even though I would love to let you move on, I'm going to need you to upload one construction (because of the construction I mentioned right above). You can add detail if you want. You can use a simple reference as well, I only want you to take your time with it! Try to work on the stuff I pointed out here, good luck!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here or on discord :)

Hi Ardenin_, I'll be critiquing your submission.

Lines

Your lines in the first exercise are mostly drawn well but some of them are a bit wobbly so try to draw from your shoulder and draw the lines without hesistation. Fraying at the ends isn't a problem, as you will improve this naturally just by practicing.

The same applies to the ghosted lines exercise. Don't hesistate and draw them from your shoulder. The lines in the ghosted planes exercise are less wobbly.

Ellipses

You did well on the ellipses in tables exercise! They fit snugly in the tables and you've drawn through them twice which is good:) Good job! Same applies to the ellipses in planes.

The funnels exercise is also executed well, you have rotated the ellipses and they mostly fit snugly in the funnels.

Boxes

You executed the rough perspective exercise well. And you remembered to extend the lines to the horizon.

Remember to rotate the boxes more in the rotated boxes exercise. This exercise was supposed to be hard so don't worry if it didn't turn out perfect. The organic perspective exercise turned out well!

Congratulations on completing lesson one!

Hi SirColten, I'll be critiquing your submission.

Lines

Your lines in the first two exercises have some noticeable wobbles (try to draw from your shoulder and draw the lines without hesistation). Fraying at the ends isn't a problem, as you will improve this naturally just by practicing.

The lines in the ghosted planes exercise aren't as wobbly!

I'll have you redo the ghosted lines exercise (practice using your shoulder and drawing confident lines).

Ellipses

You did a great job on the ellipses in the ellipses in tables exercise! They aren't wobbly, they fit snugly in the tables and you've drawn through them twice.

The same applies to the ellipses in planes:)

The funnels exercise is also drawn well, you have rotated the ellipses and they fit snugly in the funnels.

Boxes

You remembered to extend the lines to the horizon in the rough perspective exercise which is great. Some of your lines are a bit wobbly though (improve this by practicing the ghosted lines exercise).

To improve your drawing in the rotated boxes exercuse you could rotate the boxes more. But this exercise is supposed to be hard so don't worry if it doesn't turn out perfect. The organic perspective exercise turned out well.

Hi DayTimeLantern, I'll be critiquing your submission.

Lines

Your lines in the first exercise are generally executed well but a few of them are a bit wobbly so try to draw form your shoulder and draw the lines without hesistation. Fraying at the ends isn't a problem, as you will improve this naturally just by practicing.

The lines in the ghosted lines and the ghosted planes exercise are less wobbly.

Ellipses

You did a great job on the ellipses in the ellipses in tables exercise! They fit snugly in the tables and you've drawn through them twice which is good:)

Same applies to the ellipses in planes exercise.

The funnels exercise is executed well, you have rotated the ellipses and most of them fit snugly in the funnels (to improve I would suggest you ghost them more)

Boxes

You forgot to extend the lines to the horizon in the rough perspective exercise so I'll have you draw them and reply with a picture of the finished exercise.

In the rotated boxes exercise you should add shading (as shown in exercise example. Reply to this message with a picture of the completed rotated box exercise:) This exercise was supposed to be hard so don't worry if it didn't turn out perfect.

The organic perspective exercise turned out well!

Try to submit the pictures in chronological order (it makes it easier to give feedback)!

Hi Levi99, I'll be critiquing your submission.

Lines

Your lines in the first exercise are mostly drawn confidentlt, but some of the lines in the first exercise are a bit wobbly so try to draw from your shoulder and draw the lines without hesistation. Fraying at the ends isn't a problem, as you will improve this naturally just by practicing.

The lines in the ghosted lines and the ghosted planes exercises don't have noticeable wobbles. You executed these exercises well.

Ellipses

You did well on the ellipses in tables exercise! They fit snugly in the tables and you've drawn through them twice which is good, although some of the ellipses are a bit wobbly.

The ellipses in planes generally fit snugly but a few (not that many) are a bit wobbly, so remember to ghost them more and remember to draw from your shoulder.

The funnels exercise is executed well, you have rotated the ellipses and most of them fit snugly in the funnels.

Boxes

You executed the rough perspective exercise well! And you remembered to extend the lines to the horizon which is great.

The rotated boxes exercise also turned out great! This exercise is supposed to be hard so don't worry if it doesn't turn out perfect.

Same applies to the organic perspective exercise:) It turned out well, and you even used line weight!

Congratulations on completing lesson one!

Hello there, congrats on finishing the lesson! I'll be looking over your work.

Starting with your sausages, it seems that you were trying to stick to the characteristics of a simple sausage but you're not fully there yet. Remember that your sausages should be two equal spheres connected by a tube of consistent width . You occasionally had some issues with placing your ellipses/contours inside the sausage. Try to ghost through each line until you're comfortable with where that line sits on the paper. You did a good job with varying the degrees of your ellipses to create a better illusion of depth though.

Moving onto your constructions, I'll try to point out any mistakes I see to help you moving forward but you honestly did an amazing job here, congrats!

• First thing that I'd like to point out is your use of shading. Even though you usually did a good job with using cast shadows to show how forms relate to each other (on the abdomen of your ant construction, for example) you occasionally strayed away from this and instead used form shading/hatching on your forms (like in the legs of your spider construction). Keep in mind that we're only allowed to use cast shadows since our main goal is to show how each form relates to each other, not to create a pretty picture. You can revisit this part of lesson 2 to get a better explanation.

• This isn't as big of a deal but there were a couple of cases where you went slightly overboard with line weight. (on the thorax of your ant, the abdomen of your beetle and the thorax of your mosquito, for example) The main use of line weight is to show the relation between forms in very limited areas (like shown here). When you only use line weight to only show how forms overlap each other, it really helps make the image more readable. When you start using it more loosely though, line weight only really helps reinforce the silhouette. Try to think about how the line weight you're about the place helps show the relation between the forms and when placing the line weight, only draw through the parts where it's necessary (following the method presented here) instead of drawing through the entire line.

• I'm seeing that you think the mosquito construction looks rather off. I haven't seen your ref so I can't give an exact answer but the abdomen of your construction looks like it's connected to the thorax through the middle of it, although on the pictures I've seen online, it looks like it's supposed to be connecting through to the top of the thorax instead. Also the abdomen looks like it's supposed to be made out of four planes instead of a normal sausage. But honestly, your construction looks pretty good!

• In the beetle construction, it can be a bit confusing since the legs are supposed to emerge from the thorax but in some cases, thorax actually reaches into the abdomen! You can take a look at a part of this video (10.23-12.42) for a better explanation.

I don't think I have anything else to add! If you have any questions however, I'd be happy to hear them! You did a great job overall so I'm going to mark this as complete, good luck ahead!

Hello again Ran, congrats on finishing lesson 3! I'll be looking over your work.

Starting with your arrows, they look pretty confident and you generally did a good job with compressing the further end of them to create a more 3D image. This carries over to your leaves and branches as well. It seems that you were always mindful of how every form sits and flows through space, great job!

Onto your leaves, again, you did a great job with making them flow through the scene and you also experimented with more complex shapes. Except for a couple of random scribbles (mainly in the bottom left leaf), you did a great job with textures as well. I'm very thankful that after pointing out a couple of mistakes on your lesson 2 critique, you started to work on your textures. Because of this, your textures look far more convincing here. You also did a good job with respecting the initial construction when adding detail to the edges.

Branches look pretty good as well, you managed to keep up the illusion of depth by varying the degrees of your ellipses. Your lines seem to taper with each other relatively well. However, you seem to stray away from the method on the lesson page for most of your constructions. Instead of starting to draw your lines from the ellipses and letting them overlap with the previous line, you usually started your lines where the previous one ended or drew the connection between a couple of ellipses in a single stroke. Because of this, your lines rarely flow consistently. Remember that letting your lines overlap with each other helps you achieve a smoother transition between each segment.

Moving onto your plant constructions, you managed to draw as big as possible, while still maintaining the solidity. You also seem to build them in stages, while still respecting the initial construction. Here are a few observations to help you moving forward:

• First thing I want to draw your attention to is your use of line weight. The main use of line weight is to help clarify how forms overlap each other in very specific areas (like shown here). When used for this purpose, line weight really helps make the image more readable. However, when used more loosely, line weight really only helps reinforce the silhouette of the construction and this is true for some of your constructions. On this page for example, because you tried applying line weight consistently on most parts of your construction, it doesn't really add much to the actual drawing and instead, it creates a more clustered image. You can take a look at this diagram to see how to apply line weight correctly. Also you didn't really need to apply line weight to the flower pots since they aren't an important part of the construction.

• On this construction, you seem to add the extra part outside the leaves rather loosely. This is very nitpicky but try to ghost through the curves until you're comfortable with how they sit next to the lines of the leaf.

I honestly don't have much to add. Other than some occasional line weight mistakes, you did a great job with this lesson! If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here or on discord but I'm going to mark this as complete, good luck with lesson 4!