Hi!
This is much better work.
I suggest you to continue practicing the exercise from lesson 1 as warm ups since you need to get more mileage.
Well done!
Next Steps:
Continue with lesson 2!
So this is my feedback.
Your line quality is not confident over most of the boxes. Remember that is confidence over accuracy.
You mostly tried to draw boxes that are almost parallel.
Your hatching looks very messy and has the same problem as the boxes. To get good at line quality you need to practice being intentional.
As you mentioned you did those fundamental "mistakes" and you seems to have to done because you want to finish the challenge as fast as you can.
Your work is steady in quality but the very first page is the best of all. That means that you can do way better if you put the effort on it.
My general opinion:
I think that you are rushing your work. Working slowly and with the time that the excercise require might be boring but it will make you improve. If you decide when you can do any other lesson you are gonna miss a lot of important points. As I already said you can do way better if put the effort necesary to do it.
You said that: "I made some fundamental mistakes I think, like not hatching enough, not ghosting the hatching lines and not superimposing the outlines for example." and I want to mention that those are not mistakes, that is that you are not trying to follow the instructions correctly. If you skip hatching, that is not mistake, that was a decision. Also the other mistakes you point out are not mistakes they are decisions, your are deciding to not follow the instruction. That only hurt your learning and your grow.
In my experiences this challenge takes about a month with a lot of hard work. Be patient that is the only way you really can benefit from these lessons. One of the hidden reason for the 250 challenge to exist is to create in the student a sense of discipline and patient. Measuring the vanishing several times, trying your best at getting those points right, working in your line quality... etc. All of that build mileage and increase your ability to work on the tedius part of learning art.
Finally, participate in the Discord showing your partial work. In that way you are not going to repeat the same mistakes over and over.
Next Steps:
Do 50 more boxes. Having in mind the following:
Do them patiently, this should take you some days, or several hours (like 10) of your day.*
Hatch each of them with care.
Superimpose the lines that are visible to the viewer. That is add lineweight to those line.
Draw at most 6 boxes per page.
Draw bigger boxes.
Also practice your line quality a lot in your warm ups. Remember confidence over accuracy.
*If you ask in the Discord you will find out that 5 boxes take around an hour to be done.
Hi!
Congratulations for finishing the lesson 2!
Here is my critique:
Arrows:
I think that sometimes your arrows are not consistent in width in space, this is no easy to achive and it might be a good idea to train your arrows in warm-ups. Some of your arrows move mostly in the space of the canvas, remember that the idea is to make the travel through space as if the paper were a window for a bigger world.
It is better to nail the easy arrow before trying to do complicated shapes.
Also the little hatching in the backside of your arrows is frequently inconsistent.
Organic Forms
I am not very convince of your organic forms. I think that the outside contour is alright but I have comments for both the contour ellipsis and the contour lines.
In the case of the contour ellipses i feel that there are too much. Remember that the idea is to explain the form with the contour ellipses as it moves through space. So you have to pay attention to the degree of the ellipse and how much the ellipses you are drawing is helping to explain the form or if it is making the form look confusing.
In the case of contour lines i also think that there are a lot of contour lines.
I think that you would benefit from trying (as an exercise or warm-up) to draw this organic forms and see if you can explain them with three contour lines or ellipses. Try to choose the places where the ellipse/contour lines will have the bigger effect in explainig the form.
Texture analysis
Where is the crumpled paper?
It seems like you spend some time studying the textures you draw. It is difficult to draw just from the cast shadows and avoid hatching and I think it is a good idea that while you go through this course you push in the direction of understanding the texture as patterns of cast shadows. Although it is not the only way, it is the way that is used in this course and have the purpose of teaching us how to explain the form with the texture itself.
Also, pay attention of how the texture vanish as the it approach the light source. In your exercise the transition do not seem very smooth. You also have to pay attention when you approach to the dark side of the square, the idea is to make the texture melt with the dark part.
With all, this texture exercise is very difficult and you will have a lot of other opportunities to practice them in the future.
Dissection
This are fine in general. In this exercise it is easier to fall into drawing contour instead of cast shadows. You did follow the form with the texture and suggest that there were some light source in several occasions.
Intersection Form
I think that overall you did a good work with these. The foreshortening is consistent and you filled the page. You do have problems with the intersections but there is no reason to nail that just get. With the second and the third page I think that you could have drawn more forms to intersect.
Organic Intersections
In this one I have the suspicion that your fineliner was dying.
I think that you reflect that you would benefit from practicing the organic forms with ellipse/countor a little bit more. Here you repeat some of those mistake, like the degree of the contour lines and the number of contour lines.
Remember that the shadows you are drawing in this exercise are cast shadows so to do it correctly you have to think about the light source and how the shadows project over the other forms. Some of your shadows seem floating and some of them look scratchy. Pay attention to the smoothnes of the shadows you are drawing that gives a better appereance it.
Hope this comments help you!
Next Steps:
I think you are ready for lesson 3.
Also while warming up do some organic forms. This will help you improve!
Hi!
Good job!
**Lines***
Superimposed Lines: Good job on starting your lines directly on the point. The lines also look fairly confident.
Ghosted Lines: Some lines have a wobble or curve to them, especially near the end. This usually happens when we consciously try to get our lines to end on the dot we've drawn. It's natural to do want to do this but remember to prioritise confidence over accuracy as accuracy will come with time and practice. There's not much we can do with wobbly lines.
Ghosted Planes: Same comments as above, although I noticed that some lines are more confident, so good job.
Ellipses
Tables: The ellipses are a bit imprecise. Most seem to be drawn confidently, although some of the narrower ones have a bit of wobble. Try angling the paper so that you draw the ellipse at an angle where you can utilize your shoulder pivot.
Planes: This one is kind of messy. It seems like you struggled a lot to keep the ellipses inside the planes. This is indeed difficult you should practice this when warming up.
Funnels: The ellipses have the same problem as in the planes. They are very imprecise. It also seems that you are not doing very confidently or your are not using properly your shoulder and the you get that wobble kind of ellipses.
Boxes
Plotted Perspective: Completed; no comments here.
Rough Perspective: Some of the horizontal and vertical lines for the boxes farther away from your vanishing point are not parallel with the horizon line or page edge. Don't worry though - you'll work on this in the 250 Box Challenge.
Also the lines wobble a lot. Remember that we are working on confidence over accuracy, while you practice, your line will improve.
The second page seems a bit better than the first one. Great!
Rotated Boxes: This is a tough exercise. But overall you were able to rotate the boxes even if you loses the symmetry of the picture. It is also good that you put some line weight over the front faces, this help to clarify the form of the boxes, but also ocasionally you put to much line weight. I think that one super impose line is enough.
Organic Boxes: I think this exercise show that you have improve over the lesson. It is nice even if your lines wobble a bit.
Next Steps:
I think you did a good job.
250 boxes is your next challenge!
Hi.
This is my critque:
Lines
Superimposed Lines: Good job on starting your lines directly on the point. The lines also look fairly confident. They still fray a lot but that will improve with practice.
Ghosted Lines: Most of the lines seems very nice but also you could've been more ambitious with the lenght. It is a good advice to warm up with this kind of ghosted lines.
Ghosted Planes: The ghosted planes seems very aceptable. A little comment, try to do the black dots smaller. They are way to big. This affect the overall apperance of the planes. Sometimes your lines wobble a lot, more frequently that in the ghosted lines.
Ellipses
Tables: In this case your ellipses are very uneven. They are suppose to be in the same angle. Essentially you are trying to adjust each ellipse with the other ellipses that surround it. It seems also that you rush while doing them. Try to take your take and do them patiently.
Planes: The ellipses inside the planes look aceptable but they lack a lot of accuracy. This is difficult to achieve and a way to improve them is to practice them while you warm up for your lesson.
Funnels: There some problems with your funnels:
Your ellipses are mostly in the same degree. I just read that this is not mandatory. It is optional and it is more optional if you are struggling with keeping them align.
Your ellipses are not very align with the minor axis.
Boxes
Rotated boxes:
https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/step9
https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/notrotating
Plotted Perspective, rough Perspective, organic Perspective:
Here we have a bit of a problem. It seems like you did not watch the videos for these lesson. Each sheet is suppose to have three divisions so you will do the exercises three times for each page. You did all of them once in each page. So you still have work to do.
Next Steps:
The Plotted Perspective, rough Perspective, organic Perspective are incomplete and they should be finished.
I also think that you should repeat the tables of ellipses exercises, at leat one more page, try to do it patiently.
We you complete the homework i can give you the rest of the critique.
You should pay attention to the part of your arm that is moving while you draw. Drawing confident with the wrist will give you bad lines, and the elbow sometimes does not work that well. Try to be very aware about the part of your arm that is moving while drawing.
Also take the fineliner very lightly is good for the quality of the stroke and the health of your hands.
Hi!
This is my critique.
Lines
Superimposed Lines: they wobble a bit. Remember confidence over accuracy. Look a little at the beggining of the lines they are fraying this usually happens because you are not paying enough attention.
Ghosted Lines: Some of your ghosted line wobble, but some of them are very nice. Try to make your lines confident.
Ghosted Planes: Same comments as above, although I noticed that some lines are more confident, so good job. Also sometimes you drew two lines that goes twice in the same direction this is not good thing you should draw your lines once in this exercise.
Ellipses
Tables: Sometimes it seems like you dont draw your ellipse with confidence. Try to draw your ellipses in a way that while going twice over them you finish at the same point you begin.
Planes: In this case you have the same problems that I mention above including the wobbly lines.
Funnels: The ellipses are also fairly parallel to your minor axis lines but they still have the same problem.
Boxes
Plotted Perspective: Completed. Some of the boxes look distorted you push them very far from the vanishing points. Look:
https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/7/distortion
Rough Perspective: Some of the horizontal and vertical lines for the boxes farther away from your vanishing point are not parallel with the horizon line or page edge. Don't worry though - you'll work on this in the 250 Box Challenge.
Rotated Boxes: Good spacing around the boxes. The boxes along the top/bottom of your "sphere" could have been rotated more (since they should be almost flat), but it's still a good attempt!
Organic Boxes: This exercise is difficult but you will improve in the 250 boxes challenge!
Next Steps:
250 boxes!!!
Thank you very much for the advices and the critique!
Really helpful, thanks for taking the time!
Sorry for accusing you of grinding! haha
These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.
Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).
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