Dr_Scrapjack

Hi Mikael, good job with getting done with lesson 1! This is your first milestone in this learning journey, so give yourself a little pat on the back. I will handle this critique, which will be divided in sections for each exercise.

Superimposed lines

Here I don't have much to say, you did good! Your lines fray only on one end (sometimes even on neither!) and go mostly in the same general direction as they should. You've also experimented a bit with curved lines and that's good, because curved lines will become very important later on.

Ghosted lines

Some of the lines look a little wobbly, most likely coming from initial uncertainty, but you quickly corrected your path and most of the lines look rather confident, all of them ending up close to the second fixed point with little to no deviation and little over/undershooting too. Overall, I'd say you've done quite well here.

Ghosted planes

Not much to say here that I've not already said in the previous section: the lines look for the most part confident and quite precise at same time, except for some occasional wobbling here and there (mostly in smaller planes, which is not unsurprising since using your shoulder as the pivot makes it easier to draw bigger objects but harder to draw smaller ones). All in all, you seem to have applied well what you've learned in the previous exercise to this slightly more complicated case.

Tables of ellipses

The ellipses are mostly good. You correctly draw 2 times through each one and each ellipse fits snugly between the bounds of the table and each other. For the most part they look fairly symmetrical and confident, the more elongated ones more than the more circular ones, probably because they deviate less from straight lines, which so far had been the focus of previous exercises.

Ellipses in planes

Here the confidence of the previous exercise seems to waver a bit. Your ellipses look noticeably more wobbly and less confident and often quite asymmetrical. This is probably because you are trying to prioritize accuracy over confidence in trying to hit all the four sides of each plane. While that is certainly one of the goals here, our first priority in this course should always be confidence over accuracy: a confident line paced in the wrong way will always be better for our purposes than a correct but not confident one.

Funnels

The same critiques about wobbly ellipses of the previous section apply here too. The ellipses look for the most part roughly symmetrical, with their major axis aligning with the minor axis of the funnel. The major axis of a couple of funnels doesn't precisely cut in half the ellipses, but since they are mostly shaped correctly this is probably due to the funnel's axis being placed too close to one of the curves or simply being misaligned, so I wouldn't count this as a mistake.

Plotted perspective

Not much to say here, since this is more of a trial exercise to let the student get familiar with perspective. You have applied correctly the principles of 2 point perspective. As a note, I just would have done a couple of more boxes, but otherwise you didn't do anything really wrong.

Rough perspective

Here you did well. Each box has 2 sets of perpendicular lines and one of lines going towards the VP, meaning that you understood and applied correctly one point perspective. Most of the line going towards the horizon are fairly accurate and land in the proximity of the VP.

Rotated boxes

This exercise usually gives much trouble to beginners of the course, but I think you did quite well here! The boxes are mostly closely packed and rotate rather well in space, forming a nice spherical-ish shape. Some of the boxes in the corners of the ball look a bit funky, but you shouldn't worry about this too much since in this exercise we are doing mostly guesswork to decide how to place each side, and also you will have plenty of time to learn about eyeballing perspective in the 250 boxes challenge.

Organic perspective

Some boxes look quite wonky, but as said above at this stage nailing perspective isn't our main goal here. For the rest, the exercise is done according to instructions, with the boxes getting progressively bigger going along the curve towards the viewer. My only critique here is that boxes could have been a little bit less sparse and superimposed more and that there's marginally more wobbling compared to previous sections.

Final remarks

Here are some conclusive thoughts. I think overall you did very well in this first lesson! You showed for the most part confidence in your mark making and good capacity of applying the concepts described in the lesson. The only part where I feel you should work a bit more is in the ellipses and for this reason I will assign you a bit of additional homework before moving on. Remember to always draw from your shoulder, ghost as long as you feel you should and then place the mark with confidence. Take all the time you need and when you are done, reply to me with your exercises.

Hi Fredsnow, good job on completing your first lesson! I will divide my critique in 3 major sections and some conclusive thoughts.

Lines

Superimposed lines: I think you did a good job here. The straight lines look fairly confident and fray only on one end and they don't arch too much. Some of your curved lines look quite wobbly at the beginning, but I see you got better by yourself as you kept going, and by the end they look much smoother.

Ghosted lines: The lines here look also confident with little to no wobbling. It looks like you already have a good grasp on line control since most lines deviate very little, if at all, from the direction identified by your fixed points. Also, when you happen to overshoot/undershoot, it is usually not by much.

Ghosted planes: Most of what I said in the above subsection also applies here. Additionally, you seem to even have improved a little bit on the overshooting.

Ellipses

Tables of ellipses: You have correctly drawn 2-3 times through each ellipse, and the ellipses are most of the time well confined in your tables and between one another. Problem is, they look very wobbly. This is especially evident in your smaller ellipses and in general in the portion of your ellipses where curvature is more pronounced. This is probably due to two main reasons: 1. You may be not be used to draw curved lines with your whole arm, resulting in some stiff movements or falling back to drawing with your elbow or your wrist, 2. In trying to keep the ellipses within bounds, you are sacrificing confidence in favor of accuracy. Keep in mind that, in this course, confidence is to be valued above everything else, and the idea of drawing with your shoulder is directly linked to this, since it allows more freedom of movement. Here we will always prefer a confident but inaccurate mark to an accurate mark with little confidence.

Ellipses in planes: You struggle a little bit less with wobblying here, likely because your planes give you more space to work than the tables, but it's still there. You are also a bit inconsistent with symmetry: ellipses should be symmetrical and while some of them seem to be fairly symmetrical, others (especially ones in the more slanted planes) look more ovoidal (egg-shaped) than elliptical. This may also be due to the fact that here you are focusing too much on control: you did well in having all your ellipses roughly touching the sides of the planes, but that sometimes probably led you to have to deform your ellipse to make it fit (and also led to wobblying). One thing you could do sometimes when a plane is too distorted to allow you to draw an ellipse aligned with its axis is to instead align the ellipse to the diagonal of the plane, so that instead of touching the sides of the plane near the middle your ellipse will touch them near the corners.

Funnels: Your ellipses here suffer the same problems noted above. Additionally, you seem to have struggled with keeping the minor axis of your ellipses aligned with the funnel. This is especially evident in your biggest funnel, where the ellipses look more and more slanted as you go on the outside. Remember, in this exercise your ellipses should be broadly cut in symmetrical halves by the axis of your funnel. Other than that, your ellipses are otherwise tightly placed and well contained in the funnels.

Boxes

Plotted perspective: You did quite well here. You plotted all your lines back to the vanishing points, you have drawn through your boxes and the boxes themselves were constructed fairly well. I don't want you to focus too much on your errors in this particular case since this exercise is more than anything thought to make the student a bit familiar with VPs, but there are some things to note for the sake of completeness. One thing is that some of your vertical lines look a bit slanted. The second is that in the first panel you placed the hatching incorrectly, and the two central boxes look like they are intersecting. Otherwise, the exercise is correct and you followed well your instructions.

Rough perspective: At the beginning your lines seem less confident then in your lines section, with more wobblying, however you seem to get better as you go on and get familiar with your task, and by the end of the exercise they mostly look about as confident as before.The back face of the boxes seems to give you some trouble, sometimes resulting in lines that are not parallel to the ones at the front: this is not supposed to happen in 1 point perspective. It's not unusual for a student to have some trouble with the far side of the box, and as you will find out in the 250 boxes challenge the back corners can be hard to estimate when we are just guessing our perspective, and for this reason it's useful to start right now in the simple case of 1 point perspective to think how each line of the box relates to the other. If you have trouble in placing the back corners in this exercise, one thing you can do is to proceed drawing the front with vertical and horizontal lines, drawing a line from one of the corners in the approximate direction of the VP to establish your chosen depth, then placing points at the back trying to outline a rectangle, and eventually adjusting them if you notice that by joining them to the front corners they wouldn't go towards the VP (before doing you marks of course). Another thing to note is that sometimes there are some double lines: remember that, unless we are placing lineweight, no line should ever be repeated in these exercises, even if we notice a mistake. Otherwise, your exercise is done correctly: you experimented with boxes of different shapes and depths, and most of your depth lines roughly converge towards the vanishing point, meaning that you start already with a good feel for convergence.

Rotated boxes: This and the next exercise are notoriously difficult compared to the rest of the lesson, so I think you should give yourself a pat on the back because in my opinion you did well! The boxes are well rotated and kept tight. The 4 corners around the central cross , although not perfectly symmetrical, are well executed and rotated consistently with the boxes in the cross. The only two things to note are that you should have added lineweight also on the visible parts of the depth edges of the boxes and that the hatching looks quite curved. As all lines in this course, hatching should be applied with confident strokes with the ghosting method.

Organic perspective: The exercise is for the most part well done. Lines are fairly confident and boxes get progressively bigger as they get closer, and they also overlap. Sometimes here you repeat the same line as before, which you shouldn't unless you are adding weight as said above. You tried to apply some subtle forshortening as instructed and while perspective is not perfect this is normal and you will have much time to practice with the 250 boxes.

Final remarks

I don't want you to let my critiques discourage you, as I think that despite some mistakes I pointed out you, your submission was overall well done and I think you got the spirit of each exercise right. There are still a couple of things that I'd like you to work on just a little bit more before moving on, in particular your ellipses. I'd like you from now on to consciously privilege confidence in your mark making. When drawing ellipses, establish the fixed points and bounds you want your ellipse to have, ghost as many times you feel are necessary and then try to draw your ellipse with a fast stroke, drawing 2 times trough the ellipse. You may notice at first that the ellipse will be less accurate and lines will be looser: this is normal and will get better with time and practice. If you feel you will need additional work on them, try to privilege ellipse-releted exercises in your future warmups. I also would like you to do a bit more work on the back faces of the boxes, trying to keep them parallel to the front faces. This will be useful in future, when you will deal with more complicated perspectives. As such, I will give you some additional work before moving on. Take all the time you need and remeber the 50% rule. Good luck and good work!

Hi, congratulations on completing your first lesson! I will handle your critique:

Lines

Superimposed lines: The lines look very good, the mark is confident and lines fray only on one end as they should. I see you also made many curved lines, wich is very good.

Ghosted lines: The lines seem very confident here too, with little to no wobblying and they pass through your fixed points, or at least very close to them. Sometimes your lines arch a little bit, but nothing too dramatic for your first try. This can be corrected by ghosting a bit more, consciously compensating the arching by subtly arching in the opposite direction if you tend to consistently arch in one direction, drawing with your shoulder if you aren't already or all of the above. Finally, there's a bit of overshooting/undershooting, but that's no major concern right now.

Ghosted planes: Some of the lines here look a fair bit wobblier than in the previous excercise. This could be due to the fact that since now you are not drawing simple lines anymore but closed shapes, you are subconsciously trying to have more control on your mark, resulting in slower arm movement. Remember, for all marks here we want to prioritize confidence first, accuracy second. Once you feel you have ghosted sufficiently, try to place you mark quite fast. This will sacrifice accuracy in the short term, but it will improve with time. Otherwise, your planes look good: you followed the instructions and experimented with a fair range of angles and orientations.

Ellipses

Tables of ellipses: The ellipses are very good. The lines are smooth and confident, you correctly drew two to three times through each one, and the ends are well rounded. Most of them are fairly symmetrical and fit snugly into the bounds on the page.

Ellipses in planes: Pretty much all of the above applies here as well.

Funnels: Same here. Additionally most of the ellipses are correctly aligned, and are cut in half by the axis of the funnel.

Boxes

Plotted prespective: Not much to say here, everything is as it should be and I don't see notable errors.

Rough perspective: Aside from a few boxes, most of them do converge roughly towards the established vanishing point. One thing to note is the lineweight: you seem to have applied it equally to all visible edges of the box, but the outer edges should have more weight than the inner ones. Also after applying lineweight your boxes look generally wobblier, most likely for the same reason your ghosted planes look wobblier than your individual lines. Applying lineweight should be done just like any other lines: with a confident rapid stroke after having ghosted sufficiently.

Rotated boxes: This exercise is probably the hardest of the lesson, but you did it rather well. The central cross is well rotated, although not equally rotated horizontally, resulting in asymmetry. The gaps between boxes are narrow as they should. Your linework seems to be improved from the rough perspective excercise. A thing to keep in mind for the future, for when you will eventually revisit this exercise in your warmups, is to pay attention to what happens to the boxes in the outer corners: they should be more rotated.

Organic perspective: Not much to say here that I haven't already said in the rotated boxes section. The size of your boxes correctly increases along the curve and you drew through near boxes as instructed. Some of your boxes look somewhat distorted, but it's normal for this exercise, and you will gain plenty of experience in the 250 boxes challenge.

Final remarks

I think you did really well in this lesson. I encourage you to keep focusing on confidence first from now on. I feel you got the spirit of all of the exercises, and I don't feel you did any mistake that would require additional assignments. I'll mark this lesson as complete, and say you can confidently move on to the 250 boxes challenge. Good Luck!

Hi! First off, congratulations on getting through your first lesson! Now, on to the critique:

Lines

1. Superimposed lines: We are off to a good start! On the first page there are a fair bit of mistakes such as wobbly lines and fraying on both ends, but on the second one you successfully corrected most of them: your lines clearly get smoother and more confident, and also tighter, and also fray only at one end with very little arching.

2. Ghosted lines: Not much to say, your lines here look nice and confident as they should, and they pass through or at least very close to your fixed points. There's a bit of overshooting/undershooting here and there, but that's not a big concern for now, and it is to be expected in our first approaches to the ghosting method.

3. Ghosted planes: Not much to say here either, you did well. Just to be a little nitpicky, you seem to have forgotten the last internal line in one of the bigger planes.

Ellipses

1. Tables of ellipses: Here we start to see some recurring problems. You seem to be too much focused on accuracy, and as a result your ellipses, while fitting neatly in your page divisions, are very wobbly. The approach we use in these exercises is however the opposite: we prioritize confidence first and foremost. Your first priority when drawing an ellipse should be having a confident and smooth mark. It's not important if your ellipse doesn't come out extremely precise as long as you made it smooth and well rounded. Precision will come with practice. Also remember that an ellipse should be symmetrical and with rounded ends, and some of yours ended up asymmetrical and with pointy ends.

2. Ellipses in planes: Your ellipses stay mostly within the bounds of the planes, and as before you correctly drew through each ellipse 2 times. The wobbling seems a bit improved, but it's still very noticeable.

3. Funnels: The wobbling of the previous excercise is here as well. Additionally, some of your ellipses do not touch the borders of the funnel, and some ellipses either tend to bend outwards with their axis or have their axis parallel to the axis of the funnel, but are not cut in symmetrical halves. The last thing is at least partially due to the fact that the walls of your funnels seem most of the time placed asymmetrically with respect to the major axis of the funnel. One thing that can improve this "systematic error" is to trace a symmetrical minor axis, so that the major axis cuts it in half, and tracing the curved lines from its ends (you will still probably end up with a slightly asymmetrical funnel because the round object you will use to trace the curve could have its center a bit misaligned with the minor axis of the funnel, but it will likely won't be that noticeable).

Boxes

1. Plotted perspective: The boxes look good, not really much to say. You draw trough your boxes and trace the lines to the vanishing points. Only mistake of note is in the first panel, where the vertical lines of one of the boxes converge upwards, and they shouldn't since this is 2 point perspective.

2. Rough Perspective: Not much to say, you drew through your boxes with confident lines, and most of the boxes have a a good approximate convergence towards your fixed VP.

3. Rotated boxes: This exercise is quite hard for this early lesson, so mistakes here have a much lower weight. The initial "cross" of boxes is well rotated, and all the boxes are tightly draw. The problems really start only in the boxes that fill the corners, particullary the upper and lower one, that look very distorted. This is normal for this exercise, and you will get much practice in rotating boxes during the 250 boxes challenge, but nevertheless I suggest revisiting this excercise in your future warmup routine. Also, you seem to have forgotten to place the boxes in the four outer corners.

4. Organic perspective: The boxes sometimes look a bit more isometric rather than in perspective, but for now this is not a big mistake, especially in this exercise. Otherwise, the boxes are well rotated and scale well with distance. I also noticed that you tried to add line weight to one of the boxes, which is good and I encourage to do more. Remember that line weight should always be added in a single confident stroke, and always with the ghosting method. It should also be done only on the outer edges of the box (you did it on all the visible edges instead).

Final remarks

All in all you did well for this lesson, but I encourage to do a bit more work on your ellipses. As I said, confidence and smoothness should be your top priorities: when constructing an ellipse set your goal precisely, ghost as many times you feel you have to and then place your mark drawing 2/3 times trough it, of course engaging you whole arm in tracing the curve. A way to do this is to trace your mark rapidly after ghosting. You may initially lose some accuracy and you may notice your repeated lines become looser, but those things will improve with practice. I will assign you some extra homework before moving on, so you have more occasions to practice.

Thank you again for taking the time to review my work, I really appreciate that!

No problem, additional insight is always welcome :) Thanks again for your time!

Hello, sorry for the wait. Here's the work you assigned me: https://imgur.com/a/TIqNEfP

I've tried to focus more on confidence rather than accuracy by trying to make marks faster after ghosting. I think the lines look less wobbly. Accuracy seems diminished (as I should have probably expected), especially in the tables of ellipses that have more overshooting than the original. The problem of "pointy ellipses" seems to be still there, I suspect that could be because I'm still not used to making broad curves with the whole arm, resulting in some stiffness. I guess I will have to try to focus more on ellipse-related excercises during warmup routines.

Here I am, back with the assigned work! https://imgur.com/a/QvR6HBl

I've tried to focus more on line confidence and less on accuracy as you suggested. I think the ellipses do indeed look a bit less wobbly than the ones in my homework. I guess that I still have to do much work on them tho, since lines seems very loose and some of the ellipses don't seem quite symmetrical.

Thank you for your time and patience! I'll try to put additional work in the ellipses. Will reply with the assigned homework as soon as I can!

Hi, first of all thank you for taking the time to look at my work! I definitely see what you mean about the ellipses, and they were definitely one of the things I struggled the most with in this lesson. I will try to reply with the homework you assigned as soon as I can.