I may be wrong here, but I think the general advice for this program is: "When in doubt, stop". As long as the structure is clearly defined, everything else is extra. Detail is the surface. When I did lesson 5, I kept adding that little extra tuft of fur or feather, and Uncomfortable kept telling me to do less. When I look back on many of my drawings, I can see that I am still struggling with this.
Speaking from experience, you are only rushing the lessons if you are not following the lessons (and the 50% rule). In other words, there is no specific amount of time each exercise should take, but make sure that you are really understanding what the lesson is and doing it as correctly as you can. That may mean you have to take your time on observation or rereading the lessons before continuing. Some of the excercises are very straight forward and quick and others take time. Lesson 2 is a great example. Organic shapes with contour lines is not that time consuming but the texture exercise and dissections should take you a lot longer. I have rushed things at times and it really shows up in my submissions. Also, you may personally find some exercises more difficult (or easy) than others. Everybody is different.
Well the good news is that drawing cylinders is part of my regular practice, so I will keep at it. There seems to be a particular speed that seems to be the best combination of confident and accurate for me. Unfortunately I don't always hit it. Too slow and it gets wobbly and too fast and it's all over the place. I did make an effort to ghost and improve the side line quality.
Not to be contentious, but you did say to vary the foreshortening. I freely admit that I didn't have enough variation in my first batch, so I made an effort to increase the range on the second one. The word vary suggested to me a wider range, which would include the parallel sided ones too. When I look across the room at my paper towel roll, it looks a lot like the strait sided ones. I can see plenty of uses for greater foreshortening too, but I thought I should practice the full range. I wasn't trying to ignore instructions. Sorry if it came across that way.
Here is the link to the 60 cylinders requested. I had started the original batch back in December and I hope that I am doing better now. I tried to focus on ghosting my lines more carefully. I still feel my cylinders get wobbly when I am drawing them. I tried to push the foreshortening more, especially on the last 15 cylinders. As always, I appreciate the feedback.
There is a part of the lesson 0 FAQ that talks about use of reference during the 50% rule. I would simplify it as:
If you try to copy it exactly, it counts but probably won't be helpful in learning to draw from imagination because it doesn't build your spatial reasoning.
If you practice drawing a specific thing from different angles and variations, this is a study which is useful but counts as learning not fun.
If you use a reference perhaps altered a bit in order to draw some picture then this is fine. Uncomfortable's example is looking up a picture of a tiger when you are trying to draw a picture of a warrior princess riding a tiger.
Uncomfortable is pretty clear about the purpose of the exercise:
This is from the description of the form intersection homework.
"The purpose of this exercise
This exercise is all about developing your understanding of 3D space and how forms exist within it in relation to each other. It's one thing to be able to draw a form that feels three dimensional on its own, but throwing that form in with a bunch of others within the same space leaves a lot of room for inconsistencies and contradictions to arise. Building up your own grasp and overall belief in the illusion you're producing (something that is pushed that much further by learning how to define the actual positions of forms relative to one another through their intersection lines) helps us push a lot of this work more to our subconscious, where all of the lies we're juggling can be kept in line."
I found this exercise to be very helpful and I regulary practice it.
Drawabox is designed to teach students about spatial reasoning. This is a fundamental skill that should be useful in drawing any subject, whether it's cars or people. When studying anatomy, the human body is often depicted using basic shapes: cylinders, boxes, etc. Drawabox teaches how to convey those shapes on a 2D surface. Also, when drawing more than one figure at a time, or doing forshortening, perspective comes into play. Having said that, I don't know that Drawabox is designed to help with a specific subject, especially one as complicated as anatomy.
Thanks, I appreciate the compliment.
The mask is an Japanese oni mask. I used a reference from google images. DnD is Dungeons and Dragons. It is a roleplaying game usually set in a fantasy setting. The game master sets up a story and the players react using game mechanics and roleplaying to the situtation. Basically: Interactive storytelling with rules. It's a ton of fun. A character portrait is not necessary at all for the game but adds to the fun. This character is a Japanese themed female elf barbarian who wears an Oni mask and works herself into a rage when fighting. Fun character.
Yes, that is exactly what Uncomfortable asks you to do. https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/contourlines
He doesn't spell this out exactly with the contour line section, but does with the draw through ellipses. The principle is the same however. I think the link you posted shows a clear understanding of how contour lines are used in Drawabox. They take a simple flat shape and trick the viewers mind into believing it is 3D without the use of shading. The more I use contour lines, the more I don't feel like I am drawing but rather sculpting in 2D.
"Action BEFORE Motivation" is the best phrase I have heard lately when it comes to this topic. Imagine that you need to do something, let's say wash the dishes. There is a pile of dishes in the sink and you are really not motivated to wash them. If you can get yourself to wash ONE dish, chances are you will finish all of them. The trick is to wash that first one.
Starting to draw is the trick. Once you start, continuing is easier. I have given this advice before, but I would assign yourself a daily minimum. I would make that minimum so small that you have no excuse not to do it, like draw a single line on a piece of paper or draw for 1 minute. I think you will find that you will keep going and the habit of starting will form. Motivation will follow.
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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