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I really appreciate your critique Dio, thank you for taking the time to mark my homework and providing useful links. You gave me a lot of good info to keep in mind, I'll turn back to this review as I work on Lesson 5. Cheers & happy drawing

Hi Javob18,

It looks like you rushed the lesson a bit, I'll try to give you a review with the best of my abilities.

For superimposed lines it'll be easier to start with lines shorter in length and gradually increase their length as you get more comfortable. Remember to practice your shoulder motion as you draw any line, so they'll be smoother and you'll draw them more confidently.

I'll have to ask you to redo Exercise 2 because it looks like you added different shapes that are not included in the exercise, make sure you reread the instructions before you reattempt it, and you can ask questions here or in the Discord chat if you don't understant it.

Ghosted Planes looks OK, make sure you're drawing your ellipses confidently through your shoulder motion. Don't try to make them touch the edges AS you draw them, because this way you're sacrificing the smoothness of the ellipses. It's okay to overshoot or undershoot a bit as long as they're drawn correctly, they're going to touch the edges as you keep practicing don't worry about that

The way you drew the table for Table of Ellipses is correct, their size is also consistent, you can try drawing ellipses in different sizes and different openness as you redo this one but make sure you're drawing through them 2-3 times. We can't draw smooth ellipses in a single motion if we did not practice drawing through them a bunch of times before attempting.

For funnels of ellipses you can make a thinner ellipse right in the middle of the funnel, so you're going to be able to see both its major and minor axis, and make them a bit wider as you get closer to the ends.

Plotted perspective is OK

For organic perspective you can make boxes closer to you bigger and make them gradually smaller as they're going away in the distance.

So in conclusion it's important to practice line quality before going further in the lessons, make sure you read the instructions carefully and use your shoulder motion. Please don't get discouraged at all! As you keep practicing your line quality it'll become a second nature to you. Good luck!

Hi Priyajoshi, congrats on completing Lesson 1! I'll be handling your review.

You took the time to place your pen at the start of your line while doing the first exercise, you did it quite well and it's expected for longer lines to fray a bit at the end, as you keep drawing from your shoulder these too will get better.

Your ghosted lines look confident, it's okay to overshoot a bit because if you try to stop before reaching the 2nd dot your lines will not be as straight and confident as if you overshoot. You can keep your lines a bit longer and gradually reduce their length as you keep practicing

It looks like you improved your lines in ghosted planes, some of them looks like they might've drawn from the elbow so focusing on your shoulder motion instead of drawing a "straight" line will improve the quality automatically

Ellipses are hard when you're just starting out, you made a good start by following the instructions. Locking your shoulder pivot makes them smoother

Your ellipses are smoother in funnels of ellipses exercise, you can make them thinner in the middle and wider at the end, we're going to use this technique a lot in the Lesson 2

Plotted perspective good

In rough perspective keep your lines parallel or perpandecular to the horizon line as much as you can. Putting dots at the corners before you draw your boxes helps a lot with that. They look better on your second page

Good job on rotated boxes! A couple of your boxes look a bit distorted in rotated boxes but that's okay.

You did a good job on this lesson! So in summary it looks like you understood the concept and followed the instructions carefully, the only thing you need to do is to practice your shoulder motion a bit more so it'll be second nature for you.

Hi Asury, I'll be giving you a critique about your submission.

For superimposed lines, it's important to place your pen at the start of your line so all of your superimposed lines will flare from the same point. We draw our lines in a single motion from our shoulder, when we lock that joint in we don't change the directory of our line as we draw it. I see that your lines wobbled 2-3 times, which is an indicator that you might not be using your shoulder.

Same thing goes for the ghosted lines, however you have confident lines which is drawn in a single motion. It'll be beneficial for you to increase the length of your strokes as you get more confident in drawing straight lines.

In tables of ellipses, you filled with some areas with ellipses in different sizes and lenghts. We're not trying to make a mosaic or texture of ellipses, rather we keep them in the same length and lock them into their direction so we're practicing drawing the same ellipse over and over.

We tend to draw over our wrong lines in an attempt to correct them, however it brings more attention to our mistakes that way and makes it hard to judge the quality of your strokes. If you draw a line in the wrong way try to leave it be.

Good job on your progress so far. Remember to draw from your shoulder and read the instructions carefully before you move on.

Hi ABLOCKOFGOUDA, I know you already received a review for your assignments but I wanted to give you a brief critique so you'll have a better understanding on what to work on.

One of the first things we try to improve in these exercises is line quality. When we try to draw a straight line, our brains work hard to do it exactly straight so it changes the direction of our pen when it feels like we go off track. This result in wobbly and unconfident lines, the way to fix this is to deactivate our inner dialogue about the quality of the line and draw a single stroke from our shoulder without thinking. It'll be easier to draw straight lines if you ghost your line about 3-4 (more if necessary) times before you draw it. So you judge the quality of your line after you draw it, not during. Resist the urge to draw from your wrist or fingers, relax your shoulder and upper body before you draw your line so the tenseness of your muscles won't be reflected to your drawings. It gets better with practice, you'll se improvement in a quick way as you keep drawing the lines as instructed in the lessons. Good luck!

Superimposed Lines: It looks like you took extra time to put the tip of your pen at the start of the line each time, and you used your shoulder in general. Good job

Ghosted Lines: I see some hesitation in some of your lines, when you're drawing them don't think about it. Don't consciously "try" to draw a straight line, trust your shoulder and draw it

Ghosted Planes + Ellipses: Your lines are a bit better in this exercise, and I think your ellipses are excellent. You understood it very well

Tables of Ellipses: Drawing circles is very hard, but they'll also get better as you keep practicing. Second page looks better & more confident than the first one

Funnels: Remember that your ellipses should be narrower in the middle and wider as you reach the end, it'll make more sense in future lessons

Plotted Perspective: Good job

Rough Perspective: I think it's quite good for first try, you'll have quite time to practice those as you work on 250 box challenge

Rotated Boxes: Also quite good

Organic Perspective: Some of them are a bit off but I think you know it already, be sure to practice ghosted lines exercise as a warm up before you move on to 250 box challenge

Thank you for this amazing review! I completed this lesson about a year and a half ago, I kind of rushed it because at that time I was very busy with school projects and burnt out from all the drawing. I'll definitely review this lesson before moving on, thanks again!

Superimposed Lines: Be careful with putting your pen at the start of every line. You have fraying on both ends and the curves look jagged, especially the smaller ones.

Ghosted Lines: You had a lot of hesitation here, your ghosted lines in the first exercise were smoother but in this one you didn't complete some of them and they aren't as confident and smooth as we want them to be. However I noticed they started getting better in later exercises but I wish you drew more ghosted lines in this page for practice.

Ghosted Planes: You started drawing lines faster but some of them have arch. You'll going to have arches if you rush your lines, take more time with ghosting

Ellipses in Planes & Table of Ellipses & Funnels: What helped me with drawing smoother ellipses was to stop thinking about if I'm doing it right in the middle of drawing them. When you use your arm motion in a certain speed the ellipses will be smooth, after you draw smooth ellipses you can improve accuracy. Just draw your ellipses with using your shoulder, stop thinking midway if they'll turn out accurate because your thinking mind sabotages the quality of your lines. Think of your shoulder as the pivot of a circular pendulum, your ellipses should be as smooth as your lines and don't forget to draw through ellipses 2-3 times to build muscle memory

Plotted Perspective: Good

Rough Perspective: You overshoot lines but it's clear that you understood the concept, good job

Rotated Boxes: You got a good understanding of this concept but you overshoot most of your lines. It's very important to stop at where the line ends. It's also harder to control your arm motion if you're drawing in a small scale, you will control your lines better if you draw bigger. Notice that most of your page is empty. I believe you wouldn't overshoot this much if you drew bigger.

Organic Perspective: Take your time with ghosting your lines so you won't overshoot them

Congratulations for completing lesson 1! This was a lengthy critique but please don't think that I was harsh here, it's very expected to make mistakes on your first try and you'll work through them as you keep drawing. You have no problem with understanding the concepts, you just need to practice your line quality.

Superimposed lines: Your lines are pretty wobbly and not confident but you align your pen at the correct place.

Ghosted lines: Dots doesnt need to be that big and your lines are still wobbly, we want them to be smooth and confident

Ghosted planes: Your line quality increases a bit but remember, you need to use your arm and draw your line without hesitation

Ellipses in planes & Table of Ellipses: You need to complete your ellipses in 2-3 motions you can't build muscle memory with only one round

Funnels of ellipses: They get a bit better but remember, you need to use your arm

Plotted perspective: You could be a bit neater with your paper but it looks correct

Rough perpective: We don't draw over the same line in order to correct it. If it's not correct, leave it be and do better next time.

Organic perspective: I think this page looks like it's done a bit quickly. Make sure you read through the exercise page before you commit. I also recommend you to take a cube on your hand and examine how it looks like in different positions

Superimposed Lines

You have a bit of arching with longer lines but you took the time to align your pen at the start of your line, good

Ghosted Lines

You overshoot most of your lines, that can be fixed if you practice more on the sheet

Ghosted Planes

You overshoot a little bit

Tables of Ellipses & Ellipses in Planes

These are OK but quality of your ellipses decrease at your second page

Funnels of Ellipses

Good

Plotted Perspective

Good

Rough Perspective

You didn't complete some of your lines and a couple of them are wobbly due to hesitation, you'll practice them a lot in 250 box challenge

Rotated Boxes

This one is actually pretty good, well done!

Organic Perspective

Some of these boxes are not actually cubes, you drew some isometric cubes with no perspective but you needed to implement what you've learned from 3 pt perspective here. However your linework is quite good in this exercise