Vexyl

So I've been experiencing this issue myself during this challenge. My pen doesn't really change in weight based on whether I'm pressing down lightly/heavily, and kinda stumped me for a bit. But, by just going over the line again once or twice, you'll bleed just a bit more ink into the paper, making it thicker. It's not much, very little in-fact, but it's enough for the subconcious to pick it up and outline the general shape of the box (They actually talk about this during the reading for the challenge).

This is what works for me, though it might not for you. Even if it doesn't, don't worry about it too much. It's just a recommendation and helps visualize better what orientation the box is in. Hope this helps!

If there's nothing that comes to mind, or there's nothing nearby that's feels worth drawing out, you can find a bountiful amount of drawing prompts on the drawabox discord server. They have made a big list for exactly this reason, so you should give it a look!

It can be found in the #drawing-prompts channel, in the pinned messages.

P.S. It also never hurts to ask/look at what other people have been drawing in their free time!

Hey! Nice job on completing lesson 1! Let's see how you're doing:

Superimposed Lines:

Good line confidence! You're starting in the same spot consistently, and have a smooth stroke, and are ending with little deviation. Of course there's a bit of a struggle with the longer lines, but that's entirely natural and will better with time. Overall solid job!

Ghosted Lines:

Looking good! Use of the ghosted method is evident and you're very consistent all throughout. I'm also happy to see that, even if your a bit off the mark or overshoot by a bit, you continue to keep that line smooth and straight. This mindset of prioritizing confidence over accuracy is essential and will help out a lot in later lessons (And accuracy will improve with practice anyways), so keep it up!

Ghosted Planes:

Confidence is as good as always! There's really nothing else from what I've previously said. Only a little recommendation: Try to experiment more by drawing different lines (Similar to how you did in the ghosted lines exercise). It will expand your horizons and make practicing all-the-more helpful.

Tables of Ellipses:

A solid start. The majority of ellipses are confident and well-fit. I can see drawing through the ellipses is working, as the second go-around is consistently more accurate than the previous. You also have good variation with your ellipses, which is always nice to see. Only recommendation I have is to practice the more extreme variants of ellipses; wider, thinner, smaller, etc. It's a bit of a weak area here, as you tend to lose confidence in your lines during these (It's an issue most people have so don't worry.

Ellipses in Planes:

Very similar to the tables of ellipses exercise; Good confidence and consistency. As said above, the more extreme variants you struggle with a bit more to fully fit the ellipse properly, but practice makes perfect. Just try and keep that variety going and you'll have a good proficiency all-around.

Funnels:

Ellipses are looking decently fit and symmetrical! and confidence still only wavers during the more extreme variants, so nice! As expected, it can be difficult to nail each ellipse as you go outwards from the center (Considering the subtle size changes). There are a lot of different variables that go into this exercise; Consistency, continuously changing, symmetry, consistent angle... Yea, a lot. So be sure to revisit this exercise for practice/warmup, since it covers so many basic foundations for the course!

Plotted Perspective:

Nothing to say here. Only advice is that this makes an awesome reference when dealing with perspective, so you should hold onto it!

Rough Perspective:

Boxes are looking good, but there's only 1 noteworthy issue: You traced the points back to the VP instead of following your drawn lines! This isn't a big deal, as it still gives you information whether you were close or not in regards to perspective, but it's not as useful. From our points, we should be extending our boxes, so we can see where they would actually vanish along the horizon, and how far that differs from the intended VP. It's a lot easier to discern than tracing back directly to the VP and will be used a lot later on. If you're confused as to what I am talking about, take another look at the exercise reading (Near the end, before the mistakes portion).

Rotated Boxes:

Super solid work! You're using each edge well as a guideline, giving your next box a general frame, which makes your perspective look nice and consistent. I can also see that as you went through the exercise, you got a better understanding for how it all works and how it's all supposed to go together. The exercise is meant to be hard, and forcibly dives you in to give you a general understanding of perspective and 3D in a 2D space, which is exactly what you did. Just keep what you learned here, and do your best to apply it in future scenarios!

Organic Perspective:

You have a good, consistent change in size as you move throughout the trail, and all the perspectives are pretty good and hit the mark. Confidence never seemed to lack anywhere, and you varied with the boxes decently. I can see some distortion with some boxes, but those will all get hammered out when you tackle the 250 Box Challenge. Solid job!

Summary:

You have good confidence, are applying all the skills/methods being taught consistently and accurately, and have an awesome understanding of the course material thus far. I'm only going to ask for a revision of the rough perspective; This is solely because the tracing-back will be used extensively after this, and will be extremely useful in determining how you're doing in regards to perspective.

Hi!

Nice job on completing lesson 1! Let's see how you're doing:

Superimposed Lines:

• You have good consistency, you're starting at the same spot every time, and stopping within a pretty good margin. Only issue you seem to have is getting maintain that line confidence, typically with the longer length strokes. You always seem to curve the same way, which leads me to believe you're using unconciously using your elbow vice the shoulder. This is completely natural (It's why this lesson exists), but just do your best to conciously think about locking your wrist/shoulder in place and it'll become second-nature in no time!

Ghosted Lines:

• Line confidence is looking pretty solid here, and accuracy is pretty good too. Occasionally I can see you curving towards the end goal at the last second, which implies you prioritized accuracy over confidence, but there are pretty few cases of those. Just do you're best to keep those lines straight, the accuracy will come with time/practice.

Ghosted Planes:

• Pretty similar situation to the ghosted lines exercise; Lines are straight for the most part, with few cases of curvature. I'm actually glad to see that your overshooting target, because that implies your prioritizing the confidence of the line over possibly slowing down to a wobbly halt (An issue I deal with a lot), so kudos there!

Tables of Ellipses:

• Looking pretty good! You're making good use of the space given, and your ellipses themselves are fit pretty nice and tight. I can see that drawing through the ellipses is working, as you're second go-around always makes the ellipse better than it was before. Only recommendation I have here is that you should try more variation with ellipses; Make some wider/narrower, others smaller/larger. It makes for great practice, and can help you much more than you'd think!

Ellipses in Planes:

• Good consistency, and your correcting each ellipse as you draw through them, which shows good progress. I can see that drawing larger ellipses seems to be a weaker area, since they aren't as tightly fit and have larger corrections as you draw through them. Don't worry about it (I was way worse with these at this stage), just practice the recommendation I made above and you should see quick improvement.

Funnels:

• Like the last exercise, drawing through the ellipses is definitely helping. Just need to keep up the hard work so you can fit those ellipses together with little-to-no overlap. If you haven't, you could consider changing the pace at which you draw the ellipse, so that you can gain more control (But remember: never sacrifice confidence for accuracy!)

Plotted Perspective:

• Not too much to say here, consider we use a straight edge for the entire exercise. Only advice I have is to save this page so you can always use it as a reference, since you'll be drawing many, many more boxes...

Rough Perspective:

• you actually have a pretty good eye for perspective! Most of your lines are lining up within an acceptable margin from the vanishing points. Only advice I have is to ensure your using the ghosting method often to trace those lines back to the vanishing points, and to keep that line confidence up!

Rotated Boxes:

• Wow, you did really good. You clearly used all the lines you made as a reference/guide to make the next box, and kept your sense of perspective really consistent (It even looks symmetrical!). Only struggle I see is keeping the back of the boxes consistent with the front, but that issue will clear itself when you take on the 250 box exercise. Just keep in mind the mistakes that you were making, and that you can always use nearby lines as a guide for what your gonna draw next!

Organic Perspective:

• Perspective is looking good. It looks like your line confidence wavered a bit when trying to make your boxes, which ended up in some curving. This can be an issue since the curving distorts the box in a way to where its difficult to tell where the vanishing point is (Which is a good reason to always prioritize confidence!). So keep that in mind while moving on, and everything should be just fine!

It can honestly be whatever you want. They say throughout the course that as you go through the lessons that you can randomly choose some exercises to practice for around 10-15 minutes. But if you know you're struggling in a particular area, or just want to do something specifically, you're free to do anything you want.

Hey! Congrats on making it up to this point! I see you've been waiting on this and your revision for a while, so let me give you a fresh take from start to finish (I'll include your revision):

Superimposed Lines:

I'm glad to see your starting point is very consistent and precise, since that lays the foundation for any mark-making. Some lines do have some curvature to them, which implies that you aren't taking full advantage of your shoulder. If you're having issues with this (Like I did), try and actively think about locking your elbow/wrist in place. It will take conscious effort now, but after plenty of time and practice it will become second-nature. Aside from that, they look great!

Ghosted Lines:

The mark-making is much more confident here and lines are much smoother. From the way the lines are curving towards their intended target, It seems like you're a bit worried about the accuracy of them. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, remember that we are entirely focused on confidence. It's the act of getting into the mind-set of making a good, solid, straight line with the shoulder that takes priority, accuracy will follow with time.

Ghosted Planes:

Continued improvement in all areas! It seems you're getting the hang of mark-making, prioritizing confidence over accuracy. I'm also happy to see you've varied with the box shapes as well. Good job!

Tables of Ellipses:

Biggest thing here is line confidence (You're going to hear this a lot). The ellipses themselves are pretty consistently well-placed, the only thing truly holding you back is practice. Don't worry, the sudden change to ellipses tends to hit everyone like a truck, so don't feel bad. As you practice these, the smoothness will come with time and everything will look nice, tight, and together.

Ellipses in Planes:

You're getting a better grasp at confidence here, and the ellipses are coming out much smoother because of it! Accuracy may be a little off, but like said before that'll come with time.

Funnels:

It's evident that line confidence wavered as you tried to fit the ellipses into the funnels, as some aren't turning out quite as smoothly. Remember, don't prioritize accuracy over confidence. Do your best to fit each ellipse while maintaining that smooth, calm and continuous stroke. It's a hard mentality to break, but It'll work wonders later.

Plotted Perspective:

Nothing much to say (Since we use a straight-edge for it) about the drawing itself. I WILL advise, however, that you keep this as a reference, since can definitely help you with later exercises.

Rough Perspective:

Perspective is tough, no doubt. It seems you have a good grasp on how the lines are suppose to converge, it's just that the struggle is estimating and commiting to it. I cannot stress enough the ghosting method with this one. Trace your lines all the way to the vanishing point, multiple times. The muscle memory will help both your confidence and accuracy tremendously.

Rotated Boxes:

You actually did really well here! You maintained consistent gaps/edges, with the majority of your lines converging as they should. It's very evident on how you used your surroundings to guide you as you went through each box, and used the ghosting method continuously to ensure good confidence/accuracy.

Organic Perspective:

You've got a good sense of scale and experimented with size quite a bit, which makes for good practice. You've got a bit of distortion from time to time, but that'll improve as you get a better sense of perspective. Line confidence still seems to be wavering a bit, particularly when gapping those larger distances.

Revision:

Confidence seems to have improved by a good amount! And you have a better understanding of perspective and how parallels are supposed to be converging. Ellipses still need improvement, as they are not smooth and consistent, but otherwise good progress!

Summary:

Overall, you did fantastic! There's clear improvement over the course of lesson 1 in all areas and you should feel proud about that. As of right now, you're biggest issue still seems to be with making confident strokes, particularly during the rough organic and ellipses exercises.