frog

I only really know the exercises on this site, but if you practice the lesson one exercises often enough you will see improvement in overall motor control! I would say that table of ellipses and ghosted/superimposed lines will help you get a lot of mileage the fastest, but I think all the exercises are good to revisit fairly regularly. A 15 minute warm-up of these exercises a few days a week will be enough to improve. Maybe doing ghosted/superimposed lines every warm-up session and then rotating through the other exercises. Also, use the ghosting method to construct all your boxes for additional practice! I think the best advice I can give is to practice often, and experiment to see what personally helps you improve.

If you start a discussion thread maybe someone will have a really good suggestion for you. Good luck!

Hello,

If you do another challenge like this, I recommend you number your boxes as you go along so that it is easier to critique and keep track of. It also helps to upload your work in chronological order so we can see how you improved. Right now it's really hard for me to see which concepts you are currently struggling with.

Foreshortening - Most of your boxes are foreshortened quite a bit. While the lesson plan states that it is good to practice foreshortened boxes, it's better to practice boxes that have shallow foreshortening more frequently. So I would like you to have your lines converge less quickly, so that the vanishing point ends up farther away. You can read more about foreshortening here.

Convergences - I think your convergences look nice, but it is hard to improve these when there are other misunderstandings in your boxes.

Convergence Lines - I think you are having difficulty with knowing which direction convergence lines are going. Convergence lines alway extend away from the center dot of the Y You could after you've drawn your initial Y, add arrows to the ends so that you know which direction to place your convergence lines. Another way of thinking is that your convergence lines go away from the planes visible to the viewer. Aka, if you can see the bottom of your box, that set of lines converge above the box. Here's a useful diagram.

Here are some critiques I made, red being convergence lines and blue outlining the plane facing the viewer. The way I drew these would make them in 1 point.

here is another page with my convergences.

Points of Perspective - Another thing that may help you is to decide before you start your box whether you will be in 1,2, or 3 point perspective. You only need a Y for 3 point. Remember in 1 point two sets of lines are parallel, and one plane faces the viewer. In 2 point only two planes are facing the viewer, and one set of lines is parallel. In 3 point no set of lines is parallel and three planes face the viewer. If you look at the bottom right box of this page, it is in 2 point perspective because you can only see two planes facing you. There should be one set of parallel lines, and this should be the lines that are currently converging on the left. If you wanted to make this box in 3 point, you'd have the make either the left or right plane face the viewer. I hope this highlights a misunderstanding.

I would recommend you reread the Lesson 1 boxes notes to review different points of perspective. I also recommend this video. And especially this video to follow along with.

I hope I could help you out! Congrats on completing the challenge! Remember that the discord server or discussion forums on drawabox are good places to ask questions or get partial critique. If you have any questions for me feel free to ask!

Congratulations on finishing the first lesson!

Lines - Superimposed lines look great! On the ghosted lines exercise, your lines wobble quite a bit. Don't worry about the line trajectory so much - it's more important to have a straight and confident line. Make sure to ghost your lines quickly multiple times before quickly making a mark. You can start with smaller lines and gradually work up to longer lines like you did in the superimposed lines exercise. Make sure you are also rotating the page as your lines change direction. For ghosted planes, make sure you are placing dots down for the X and cross that go through the plane. It's a good idea to place dots for every line you ghost in general. It will help train your arm and eyes.

Ellipses - A lot of your ellipses are wobbling a little bit. To address this, ghosting quickly and making quick marks are important. Don't try to correct your ellipse as you draw it, it should be difficult to do that. Ghost to get a sense of the shape and place you want, but once you start drawing it's more important to create a smooth and confident ellipse. Something I did was to focus on one ellipse shape for a row or so than gradually increase the degree. I think in the funnels exercise specifically you were more concerned about the accuracy of your ellipses and they came out more wobbly. Also, watch out that your ellipses don't warp and become flatter on one side than the other like some ellipses at the end of the funnels do. I also think you aligned the minor axes really well. For this exercise you can also try changing the degree of ellipse throughout the funnel as described in the lesson.

Boxes - Plotted and rough perspective exercises both look good. Rotated boxes is also a good start, good job on drawing through boxes! For organic perspective all I wanna say is to try and vary the shapes of your boxes more as you continue on. Good job!

Overall good job, and good luck in the future!

Critiquing guide to check your own work!

Hello litmusik!

Lines - Superimposed lines look good, just make sure they only fray on one side. For ghosted lines, I think your next steps should be to practice longer lines, lines that are about the width of page or longer. I say this because it will require you to use your shoulder, and will build confidence. For ghosted lines and planes, I think your lines have accurate trajectories, which is good, but you may want to focus on creating smooth and straight marks. My advice is to make sure to ghost and draw quickly, and over time you will gain dexterity and muscle memory in your arm. I see some lines are really straight and look excellent, so I know with practice all your lines will look like these.

Ellipses - Your marks are really smooth and confident, so the next thing for you to focus on is accuracy (staying within bounds). Ghost several times to make sure you are within bounds, and then place your ellipse. Many of your ellipses are pretty loose as well. I think this just improves with practice. If you notice your ellipse is very inaccurate while you are drawing it I would just follow through with it instead of trying to correct and making a very loose ellipse. On the funnels, for the most part, your ellipses have the minor axes aligned very nicely! I think you should try varying the degree as mentioned in the lesson, and trying this exercise with the lines coming out of a corner.

Boxes - For the plotted perspective, it's recommended you ghost in the hatching lines instead of using a ruler. This is true in the 250 box challenge as well. On rotated boxes, good job changing the vanishing point appropriately and with drawing through all your boxes! Looks very nice. On organic perspective, I would vary the shape of your boxes and their initial Y's for extra practice. I honestly think this exercise looks really nice.

Good job completing the first lesson, and good luck moving forward!

Critiquing guide

Hello coconutcake!

Lines - Your lines are looking really straight, especially in the ghosted planes. Your next step is probably to improve accuracy of the lines so they intersect both dots ("level 2" as described in the lesson) without any wobbling happening. I'd recommend on submissions like ghosted lines you try to fill up the page more.

Ellipses - I think the biggest thing to work on is making tighter ellipses, which just comes from practice and gaining a steady hand imo. Keep doing tables of ellipses to work on this because tighter ellipses will definitely help in lesson 2 and later. Also, do not try to correct your ellipse as you go around. If it ends up in the wrong place or shape, just follow through so it doesn't end up super loose. A lot of your marks are really smooth, which is great, keep it up! Good alignment on your funnels, keep practicing gradually changing the degree of your ellipses. Your alignment is a little weaker for the corner ones, so keep that in mind.

Boxes - Your rough perspective looks really nice, good job! Rotated boxes also looks good. On the organic perspective, it's a good idea to vary the shapes of your boxes more. They don't all need to be cube-like. Good job having all your Y's have angles above 90 degrees, that's really important!

Best of luck in the future!

Critiquing guide

Apologies for posting my original critique in the wrong spot

Hello!

Lines - I'd suggest varying the lengths of your ghosted/superimposed lines more so that you can get a better awareness of your arm (when to use wrist, elbow, and shoulder). It's not a bad idea to practice very inch long lines and lines that span the entire page.

Table of ellipses - A lot of the ellipses look pretty wobbly and unconfident, so it's a good idea to ghost multiple times and makes your marks quickly. And make sure your shoulder is engaged especially. It's important you have enough room at your workspace to engage your whole arm. Your ellipses look very smooth on the ghosted planes though, so keep doing whatever is working for you.

Funnels - I think you aligned the minor axis really well. The biggest thing to work on I noticed is wobbly marks, which I think tables of ellipses can help with.

Rough perspective - I think you did a good job. My only suggestion is to focus on your linework more. Doing ghosted lines beforehand may improve the line quality.

Rotated boxes - It looks great, good job especially on drawing through your boxes! I can tell your boxes are really rotating, as opposed to them all going to the same vanishing point.

Organic perspective - Well done. Your boxes have quite accurate perspective and the 250 box challenge will only improve them further. It's a good idea here, and in the 250 box challenge, to draw a wide variety of shapes of boxes - which I think you could do more of.

Congrats on finishing the first lesson! Remember to keep practicing these exercises as warm-ups as you continue on.

Guide on critiquing lesson 1 I'd highly suggest writing some lesson one critiques if you have time!

Hello Nulelu!

Arrows - I think your heading in the right direction! Some look very good, but some it looks like you lost control of the line you were drawing. Don't be afraid to ghost the lines of the your arrows and to draw them in segments. Sometimes your arrows are way too thin too do anything with. Lastly, don't feel like you need to draw all the arrows with dramatic perspective. I think that over time, with practice, your arrows will look smoother and they will be easier to draw in perspective.

Contour ellipses - Remember to only go around the ellipse 2-3 times. Doing a table of ellipses beforehand can help you train your muscles to draw tighter ellipses, which will make the exercise easier. However, your ellipses look very smooth, which is great! They also have their minor axes very well aligned to the center line.

Contour curves - I think you can expand the degrees of the curves you draw to give your forms a greater range of motion. A lot of your curves look wobbly and lack confidence, so I'd suggest doing a table of ellipses beforehand to train your muscles. Also, ghosting ellipses before drawing a curve will help you draw confident marks.

Textures - Remember we are only drawing the cast shadows. For example, in your leaf study, you probably wouldn't draw the gradient. I think Uncomfortable talks about this in the lesson video. Basically, it's not a good idea to try to shade, or worry about value/color, because it detracts from the main focus of the lesson. Instead look carefully at the reference to identify cast shadows (even very small ones) and block them in. Similarly, try to avoid gradients because they may come out as random scribbles, like in the mayonnaise dissection. In Uncomfortable's example you can see he uses very few lines to convey this texture. Every mark should be intentional. On another note, I think you did a good job with this (finding cast shadows) in your crumpled paper study. I also think you did a great job with making your texture 3-dimensional, particularly with your rose.

Form intersections - For the cubes you might want to draw them overlapping more so you have more room to draw the intersection. I think these look really good! I'd say in general don't be afraid to try intersections you haven't done before, or that you're unsure of how to do.

Organic intersections - I think your forms have a good sense of solidity and that they are 3D objects that are interacting. I think your contours are really realistic. When you draw cast shadows, really make sure they wrap around the object they fall on. Even if they look a little long, it's a good learning experience. I think right now you draw them too close to their forms, which makes them difficult to learn from.

Congrats on finishing the lesson! I hope my suggestions help you out, and good luck in the future!

Thank you so much for the kind words and helpful suggestions! I really appreciate all of it!

Hello!

Arrows - It would help you to add extra line weight to the 'dominant' line of your arrows (as described in the lesson), and then add the cast shadows. This will save you from wanting to redo the cast shadows because you will have already mapped out how your arrow is turning in space. Also make sure to ghost and draw your lines quickly so that they don't come out wobbly. Good job changing the width of the arrows to add perspective.

Contour Ellipses - I think some ellipses don't quite have their minor axis aligned to the center line, so just watch out for that. A lot of ellipses look pretty wobbly and lack confidence, which makes the exercise harder imo. A table of ellipses might be a good warm-up.

Contour curves - It looks like a lot of curves are coming out as straight lines, so make sure you ghost these lines as ellipses, but then only draw one side of the ellipse. Also to me it looks like the curves have their minor axes aligned really well.

Texture - I think you made good use of the silhouette in your textures, especially in the turtle. Remember to avoid scribbling, or random marks. In things like metal scales, it's good to draw the scales individually so you can show them interlocking and give them more dimension. Try to see your textures with more dimension. For example, I think you could've made the octopus tentacles with more dimension, maybe drawing them as cylinder instead of circles. I think doing construction exercises will help with this. I'd also suggest drawing your sausages bigger so you don't feel cramped.

Form Intersections - Push yourself to see the forms as intersecting, not just touching. Push yourself to draw the intersections through the planes of the forms, not just along the edge. Make your best guess and see if you were accurate. Looking up pictures of 3D models helped me (but don't use these as a reference to copy from) to get a sense of how to draw intersections. This exercise is really difficult, so keep it up!

Organic Forms - Make sure your cast shadows are following the contour curves of the surface they fall on. If they fall on to different forms, make sure they wrap around both of those forms. Kind of imagine placing a flat circle on your forms. Also if you don't have a brush pen, I recommend just using a sharpie or a marker.

Good luck in the future, make sure to keep practicing these exercises as warm-ups!

I hope this critique could help you out, let me know if anything wasn't clear so I can give a better feedback next time. Thank you!