Waxdog

I appreciate the kind words, believe me I know I'm just in my own head about it :). For once, I'll keep my reply brief too.

Thank you very much for your continuous advise and insight, I appreciate this course and you as an instructor.

I'm glad to know that (for the most part) I did well enough. And yes I did use orthographics, I wasn't sure if I should include them so I didn't.

I know most of my worst habits (redrawing, lack of any real VPs, not ghosting enough, etc.) are still around, Case in point the Kia, the Beetle, and the swordfish, but even with those faults I'm glad to know my work was acceptable. I'm trying to fix them. I just forget when I mid drawing. (Or when it's been months). But that's more a lack of diligence.

Regardless of all that,

Thank you once again for your kind, thoughtful instruction. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience with us. It took 3 years, but I'm glad to have finished this. (Besides the textures and chests but that's extra. Speaking of, which is recommended first? Chests, right?)

I'm glad to say I know how to draw a box...for the most part. :)

I'm glad to know my wheels aren't quite as bad as they felt to look at.

On going back over my linework, usually it's a reaction I have to fight myself to not do. Bad habit, horse beaten. For the case of the wagon wheel, I wanted to emphasize that the wheel has a little bit of a "lip," it overhangs, but the line came out WAY too thick. Still, it's shading and I should have left it alone (and no, I won't hide mistakes anymore after the last lesson). And yeah, spot on, the wheelchair was local color, which we are not supposed to do, but without it it felt like a strange floating curve whenever I looked at it. Not defending a bad habit, just explaining my reasoning. And I know, looking nice isn't the goal.

On the second one, again spot on, ellipse guide issue. Next size up was a bit too big.

As for my treads, I got nothing. I need to review what you've said and linked here, review lesson 2, and go over what I was told back then in the critique. Texture has always beaten me pretty bad, it's why I've opted to rarely use any in these lessons. I'm going to have to figure it out though. (Texture challenge is going to be the death of me)

Thank you again for your time and knowledge. See you again in 7 (and hopefully in less weeks.)

I'm glad to know my work is looking better.

Briefly on the form intersections, besides a few minor things I'm glad to know it looks good/ that I show a grasp of how the intersections work. As I continue exercising I'll keep it to one color.

For my objects, I can't describe how much a ruler helps me. Free handing is something that is, and will probably always be, an issue, one that will improve with practice surely, but being able to make straight, precise lines, speaks for itself. This is one of the few lessons we've done where I actually kind of felt like I had a decent grasp of it and I'm relieved to know that feeling wasn't just ego or something.

I will say/explain, on the pens. I only used two pens for this lesson, a bic ballpoint and a Castell brush pen for the large blocks of dark/"shade" lines. I did not use a fineliner, I did not switch pens mid drawing, but I know why it looks like I did. I was as light as I could possibly be with the construction and subdivision, then I'd draw the object and draw heavier and heavier (to a fault like with the guitar and such). I'd use the ruler and guides and make sure the lines were clean(ish) and solid. And if they weren't, I made them thicker.

I learned from the cylinders, you told me to be sure I read the whole instruction, and I did. I followed them, reviewed them every couple of sessions, and will continue to do so.

But still, I won't deny the scaffolding of construction lines felt a bit separated as I drew them, I regarded them almost as seperate drawings and (as I already admitted) do go back over lines when I should leave them be. I'll try to keep it all as one thing in my intent, and continue to try to just commit to lines over try to sort of "correct" them by making them fatter. All it does is damage it further. Still, I don't want it to come off like I'm not listening, I am. (Also because text doesn't carry inflection, I will clarify the general emotion on this part is a kind of nervous/panicky "Hold on, wait wait wai-!" kind of feel. Just in case, I know how this can read.)

On the curves, I found it difficult to actually plot out straight edges for the curves to follow without being either a bit arbitrary with where I put the lines or just straight confusing myself. This usually resulted in just one straight line from end to end of where the curve goes and just guessing the curve from point to point (as is apparent with the teapot and hat). Your example on my utility knife helps though, and curves being curves makes them inherently difficult. I'll try to plan them out with more than one line in the future.

Quickly on the surface information coloring bit, I did this more to "hide" how messy the elipses were and clear up the...tines(?) of the fan, to use the brush pan to sort of "crutch" shade and hide mistakes. I shouldn't, (but I was very fed up with that fan). I learned back in plant construction to not try to color/shade things. I still made the "shading" mistake here on more than one, but I don't want you to misinterpret what I show in my work.

Overall though, I'm relieved this one went well enough.

Thank you once again for your time, patience, and knowledge in this thorough critique, I'll see you with my next novel of a comment after I face the true enemy, elipse wheels. Stay safe out there.

Links: (75 unboxed) https://imgur.com/a/ZcDax3b

(50 boxed): https://imgur.com/a/55hmDaC

TL:DR: Bad habits, lack of due diligence, lack of practice, and not throughly reading instructions.

Starting off, thank you very, very much for not assigning a full re-do. I appreciate that break greatly. I don't intend to make any excuses, but I do feel obliged to explain a few bits (though I doubt it's anything new). Just bad habits and a lack of due diligence.

For one, I still have a bad habit of seemingly regular hiatuses with little practice. I'll hit a point where I'll go "eh, do it tomorrow" and that turns into months. Not a new problem so I'll leave it there. But I do appreciate your reiterating of good warmup routine and I'm kinda glad (?) to know that elipses are a hurdle to the end of the course. It make me feel less...bleh about mine.

Continuing to the main error in this one, I truly don't know how I misunderstood the varrying of foreshortening part. I either missed it or (more likely) forgot early on. I wont deny that when I did go back, I skimmed the instructions each time. For some reason, I thought "They all gotta be the same size." Not an excuse, just...dunno, that's probably how it happened. I will be VERY sure to read ALL the instructions carefully next time. (Really hope I didn't miss something this time)

I, on this section still, appreciate you taking the time to explain "Why" we can't have the edges of the cylinders going to "infinity," why it just doesn't work, at least for the kind of things we're drawing, using perspective.

This leads in to my boxed cylinders. For my paralleled boxes, there's no valid excuse even, Just a bad habit from the start, relying on parallels over actually visualizing some kind of approximate vanishing point. I'm betting (because it's been quite a while) that my starting boxes were like that to get a feel for the challenge before picking VP's, but I know I probably shouldn't do that. Bad habit :(

As for the second part, my VERY misaligned minor axes, the reasoning is actually pretty simple. Instead of finding the minor axis, I looked for symmetry. If the line looked WAY off, like many of them very much were, I would go "nah, I must be looking at it wrong, it CAN'T be that off " and would look for where the elipse gets "cut in half" somewhat evenly. I hadn't even bothered to consider the major axis.

I'm very much hoping I fixed my errors with this resubmission, though I feel that some of my minor axes in the boxed cylinders might still be off by a bit. For more than a few identifying the major axis,and subsequently perpendicular minor axis to actually mark was difficult, but that may be due to their wonky shape more than anything. Either way I hope these are more accurate to what was asked of us in this challenge. I know the instructions say that we improve gradually, that errors are common but damn...still looks bad.

And not that I want to take any more of your time than I already have but I have some questions again.

I feel that, as I have in a few exercises before, even when I can identify what I did wrong,like with minor axes here, or box extensions and such in previous things, I don't quite know how to actually use the information this all reveals. I don't quite know how to take what I see to "fix" future work, or at least I'm not sure I do. With the planar elipses here, at best, I could go "Ok, so the contact point and axis were kinda off so I should angle them more like this, so they touch around here and the axis goes about there."

I just don't know if we're supposed to glean more than that. I know it's supposed to be gradual but...I dunno, it's hard to know if you're "learning" correctly.

I think that's actually all this time. I was going to ask about "proportionally square" faces but upon rereading a few times I think I understand that part. I think I just made my box faces a bit "rectangular" and got a little confused. I'm sure my whacked out boxes didn't help, but I think I understand what we're supposed to be retaining/learning.

Alright, I've rambled and edited and rewritten plenty I think.

Once again, thank you very much for not assigning a full redo, and thank you again for you time, teaching, critique, and patience. (I'm sorry btw,I know I'm overly formal/long winded with replies and such, can't really help it)

Thanks again, and Have a happy new year.

Fair enough, we aren't making pretty pictures, we're learning to build. Thank you!

Thank you once again for your quick and thorough critique.

Briefly addressing the organic intersections, I'll keep your points in mind. I'm not sure why I tend to draw them smaller and smaller but I'll try to keep everything more evenly sized and stacked over stuck.

As for the animal sizes I'm fairly certain I was of the mindset that doing only one or two large drawings per page felt lazy, like an quick way to go "Look I did a whole page huhu." But you are absolutely right, making them larger would allow for more time to be spent and reduced the messiness of some of them. I'm glad to know that, should the drawings require it, just one per page would be acceptable. And also yes, I found that very frequently I'd have to stop myself from drawing from the wrist due to the smaller sizes. I'll focus on giving the subjects the space they need in the future.

And the second point yeah, I knew even while I was putting them down I was using too many. I'd go "Ok, this lump or muscle here looks a little odd, put a line to show how it flows." And that would repeat, which would result in an entire grid on the drawing, and like in most of the heads they'd look indescipherable from the actual, packed on masses they're trying to help describe. I am and will continue to try to only apply them when necessary.

I will say though, before I continue, in an absolutely unimportant, and trivial matter that's besides the point, the Caiman belly lines were not contour lines, they were supposed to be where the belly scales wrap up from the bottom. I don't know why, in all of the drawings with zero detail work done, I tried to include those but they definitely should not have been added. Still, they're besides the point. I was using and still do use too many contour lines.

I will say, I do actually employ the ghosting regularly for the larger masses and broader contours. My hands tend to shake quite a bit and this method helps enormously in planning how the lines will end up. I will admit though that I don't employ the technique as often as I probably should...like with the caiman. The lines were small and I didn't give them the time. Bad habit.

As for intersection lines I find I have a little trouble with them. My lines usually end up bold and dark already (not on purpose, more practice is needed) and when I try to add emphasis on intersection lines they end up too pronounced. I suppose it's just something else to practice.

I'm glad to know that my progress is notable and that the mistakes I'm making are common ones, that's a good sign that they're easier to correct.

As for my head construction, I did actually review that lesson but only once and it was months ago. I'll definitely give it a more thorough studying. Some of it's content I did try to apply to some of the animals, but it was usually more of an afterthought than a foundation. In many cases the eye sockets were somewhere near the middle to the last third or so of the head, muzzles and beaks first usually followed by jawlines. Very often though the issue became a lack of space. Once I'd add the eyelids things would be too messy to tell what I was really looking at anymore, let alone some kind of bone or muscle mass around the eyebrows or something. Anyway, I'll give that lesson the attention is deserves.

Here at the end I actually have a question. More often than not, I'd find myself outlining masses and shapes on the inside of the animals, on their bellies and ribcages and such, and I was wondering if I should actually be doing that or focusing more on the broader shapes, because while I don't mind trying to analyze and piece together masses like a puzzle of sorts, I'd find it makes the overall drawing a bit busy and, when combined with even a normal amount of contours, they tended to look like...well a lot. The same goes for things like legs to an even greater degree, even, due to their smaller space. Anyway, Should I be outlining things like muscles and tendons and such or should I keep the shapes more bare and rely more on silhouetting? I know you mentioned this earlier and while I'm glad to know I wrap things around the existing structure well, I'm wondering more about the inside of the silhouette/drawing. Or is what I was doing already just fine and I should just try to clean things up a little with less contour lines?

Once again, thank you for your time and patience in this course as well as your thorough critique and advice. I'll continue to practice and keep this and your previous critiques as well as the other instructors' in mind as I move forward. Yay...cylinders.

Thank you once again for your timely and thorough critique and advice. To start, yeah those were very much not my strongest contoured sassiges, many of the contours ended up just being an identical curve further down the form, they were flat. I do know better, I'll try to pull the curves out more where applicable.

I'm glad to hear that my general construction came out well, that the forms are at least believable. A confirmation of progress is a good relief.

As for line weight yeah, it continues to be something that just needs practice and work. Something I catch myself doing is using line weight to make up for scratchy lines, or just using it too liberally as a crutch to make things look less messy to the eye. I'll keep in mind that weight, like contours, should be used sparingly, not for entire silhouettes.

As for manipulating additions to forms yeah, I'd catch myself being more subtractive sometimes. Usually I'd do it to more keep things in proportion as occasionally when doing so additively I end up overshooting lines sometimes. I'll try to keep it additive.

For the sausage legs part of what happens, while definitely unintentional, is I'll just not give as much attention to where the sausage is going, where it ends. Sometimes I'll just lose track and start rushing or just not giving it enough thought in general. Bad habit. And yeah it's a big issue with skinny ones. I'll slow down which will just end up wobbling the line. I started putting a small mark for the endpoint in the last few, as we were taught to do with the boxes n' stuff. As for the joints yeah, the intersection is important, it helps the forms read solid. I'll try to keep them weighted.

When it comes to adding to structures, my main issue was size/area to draw. I didn't wanna complicate things by adding too many lines in small areas like the legs and then try to add line weight to clarify things and then just make it big mess. When I draw small, I tend to draw slow, which in turns ends up being thick. It's just something I'm going to need to practice. I'll keep it in mind heading forward.

Additionally I'll need to practice breaking down whole forms into simple masses like with those leg examples. Seeing it broken down is clear, easy to comprehend. Doing so myself is...messy.

Either way I'll try to keep what I've learned and been advised on in mind moving forward. Thank you once again for your time and knowledge, I'll move on to the next lesson.

I see, well thank you for the broken-down, detailed reply and the links. I'll try to keep this in mind. I'm still pretty unlikely to speak up, kinda just as a person, but this does help some and puts my question/worry to rest.

Thank you again.

Before anything else, thank you for your quick and thorough review of this lessons homework and additionally thanks for this resource in general. This is a great course and I'm learning more than with any of the digital courses I've taken.

For starters, I'm glad my arrows are looking better. I know previously I was having issues with them looking a bit wonky.

Nextly my fairly chitinous leaves. I wanted to do something a bit different than bumps and yeah, it didn't really work, I very much noticed how insectoid some looked. In the future I'll avoid the more complex things and not go out and back into the leaf with the patterns. For the second part, Line Weight is something I have difficulty controlling (Not an excuse, just a known issue). I already have kind of a heavy hand and when I slow down or work on a more detailed-ish area like bumps or texture I tend to press harder to go slower. Not a good habit, trying to break it.

With the branches, I'm glad they look ok to you, I really didn't like how they turned out. I'll work on continuing the lines from previous segments. They're gonna be lumpy branches for a while but eh, practice.

On the plants I'm glad the leaves at least look good enough. For the pink peppercorns on the pepper branch as I recall I was trying to only draw the darkened parts of them. I very quickly gave up on that. We're supposed to be constructing anyway. For things like the tomatoes I'll try to keep the silhouettes simpler, I mostly just lost where my hand was going I think, not really thinking about the actual mark I was making. For the last few yeah, I definitely ended up trying to recreate the image more than construct the plant. I'd see a part that's darker or shaded and go "Dark=Detail/Texture" which uhh...did not work. I'll try to be a bit more selective or deliberate when I attempt to do texture or detail in the future, less is more n' such, but furthermore I'll make more emphasis on solid construction given that it's the main focus of the course.

And yes, I'll be more deliberate with contour lines. They serve a specific purpose that's overwritten when they clog up the drawing.

Thank you once again Mr. Uncomfortable for this course and your time in reviewing my submission. I'll try to keep what I've been given in mind as I move on to Lesson 4.

Also on a side note, I have a somewhat off topic question/viewpoint or something. We're encouraged to critique our fellow students work, to give insight and advice and stuff when we can, but I feel very weird even thinking about doing so. The most I can imagine being able to add is "Looks good to me" because that's all I feel qualified to add. I'm as much an amateur as can be and it feels, I dunno, wrong to try and give advice when I know I really don't know much either in that I could do more damage than help. I guess my question is like, is this a valid concern or am I just getting in my own head?

Either way, thanks again for your time and teaching and have a nice day.

Thank you, I'll keep at it. (Sorry, just feels impolite not to reply)