funkymills

Hello Chieftang, thank you so much for the review! I apologize for replying so late, I forgot about drawabox due to a busy schedule in real life. No worries about this critique sounding low-quality, it's quite the opposite and I'm glad to know that I can move on to the 250 cylinder challenge. Thank you again and have a great day!

Hello! So sorry for replying three months late, I completely forgot about this website as I had some other things going on in my life. I'm glad you found my critique helpful.

For the revisions, they look good! Remember to not correct your lines in the rough perspective pages. It's okay (and expected) to make mistakes!

You're all set for the 250 box challenge, good luck and have a great day!

Hello Kcaruana, welcome to Drawabox! My name is Finch and I will critique your submission today.

Lines

Two pages of superimposed lines: You're off to a fine start with your superimposed lines, you've taken the time to position the pen at the starting point before making your stroke and most of your lines don't wobble (there are two exceptions to this, but you seem to have marked them yourself). If you do not know why the lines wobbled, it might help to take a look at this section of the exercise again: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/superimposedlines/wobbling. Overall, these lines are looking clean, keep up the good work.

One page of Ghosted lines: You are doing great with these, they are very confident and your lines are accurate as well. One thing I do notice is that your line has a general stopping point, which indicates that you slowed down at the end. Try to keep the speed that you have built up while executing your line, and simply lift your pen up when you get to the point, as explained here: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/14/lifthand. You can think of it as the same motion a plane makes when it takes off.

Two pages of Ghosted planes: These are looking fine as well, I see a bit more wobbling, which is usually caused by hesitation. Do not worry too much about accuracy here, it is not the main goal of the exercise. The main goal of the exercise is to learn how to make confident lines by using the ghosting method, this is something that you can directly learn. Accuracy is acquired over time by drawing more, since it is largely based on hand-eye coordination.

Ellipses

Two pages of Tables of ellipses: These are looking good so far, they wobble a bit though. Keep in mind that confident lines are your goal here.

Two pages of Ellipses in planes: Your ellipses follow the planes nicely and I see some good confident ones in here.

One page of Funnels: Your ellipses follow the minor axis nicely and fit in the funnel. I do notice a bit of wobbling still, so remember the following: the accuracy part of an exercise is simply something to aim for, you won't be asked to redo an exercise based on accuracy unless you've misunderstood the exercise, which is not the case in any of your submissions.

Boxes

One page of Plotted perspective: These are looking great!

Two pages of Rough perspective: You've made some nice boxes here, the front and back faces are nice and rectangular. A lot of students have issues with wobbling here, and I remember being quite stressed while doing this exercise myself, which is probably why wobbling arises in the first place. Remember that it's okay to take breaks and split up an exercise in multiple sessions, remember to adhere to the 50% rule and draw for fun as well, grinding these exercises or doing them while stressed can lead to burnout.

One page of Rotated boxes: Good job on a hard exercise. Your boxes rotate as they should and fit snugly to each other. You have missed some boxes in the top right corner, but it is not that much of an issue since it's clear that you understand the exercise.

Two pages of Organic perspective: These are looking good.

All in all, you understand the exercises and have built a solid foundation that will be useful in the 250 box challenge. Remember to do these exercises as a warmup before each session and good luck!

I'm glad that my critique was helpful to you Paradosso. Have an amazing day as well!

Hello Paradosso! My name is Finch and I will critique your submission today.

Your lines tend to converge well and you've tried out both shallow and dramatic foreshortening which is good to do. Your lines extend in the right direction and are easy to understand and analyze. Your lines are also nice and confident, so good job on that as well!

I honestly cannot see any mistakes in your boxes, you have followed the challenge and read everything carefully and it paid off. Here is a recommendation for future warmups instead:

Variety: You are already trying shallow and extreme foreshortening, but there are many other ways that a box might appear in a given space. Some ways you can push yourself are the following:

• Extremely long boxes: making a box very long, but small in width and height, like a toothpaste box.

• Extremely wide: this box follows the same principle as the type above, but you'll push the width instead and make it extremely flat, like a pizza box.

• Making one plane very small: While you have been experimenting with box shapes already, which is good, I have not seen this one yet. This box is characterized by having one very small plane and two big planes.

Here's a quick illustration of the three boxes I have described: https://imgur.com/a/KkbUxmj

I'm sure that you can think of other ways to vary boxes as well, don't be afraid to experiment in your warmups.

All in all, you have a great grasp on the fundamentals taught in this challenge. Your next step will be to tackle lesson two, good luck!

I apologize for the short critique, if anything is unclear let me know and I will elaborate on it. If you're reading this to add agrees and feel like I have missed something, let me know so I can improve my critiques in the future.

I'm glad my critique helped! Grinding happens to the best of us haha, good luck on your drawabox journey!

Hello Chy, my name is Finch and I will critique your submission today.

Thinking in 3D

2 pages of organic arrows: I'll start off by saying that these arrows are nice and confident. The first arrow of page 1 seems to miss an overlap right at the start of the arrow, but you have corrected it in all other arrows. Try to lessen your lineweight a bit, right now the lineweight goes over an entire side of the arrow, while it is already effective if only applied by the small parts that overlap (take a look at the image attached here: https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/4/step4). Having too much lineweight can make your lines seem less confident than they really are. Do not worry too much about accuracy, but if you want to improve your confidence when drawing line-weight, you might want to add superimposed lines to your warmup pool a bit more often: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/superimposedlines.

2 pages of Organic forms with contour lines: These are looking good so far, your contours and ellipses fit really nicely in the forms as well. You are starting to get the general shape of the form down, although some forms are a bit thicker in the middle or have different sized ends, if you want to work at this you can use this exercise in your warmups a bit more often, since these forms are common for constructions in lesson 4 and 5.

Two things to focus on here is to make sure that you shift your degrees and that your ellipses and curves follow the form. Right now, your degrees are not shifting enough: these forms turn in space and a shift in degrees should reflect that as well (https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/degree). Make sure that you align your ellipses and contours to the form, they should be perpendicular to the sausage: https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/alignment. You can also see it like a funnel, where the spine serves as a minor axis: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/18/step3.

Texture and Detail

1 page of texture analysis: These look great! You've really taken the time to observe each texture carefully.

2 pages of dissections: These look nice, you've kept the implicity and detail shown in the texture analysis page. I do see a bit of a decrease in detail on the second page, make sure that you take breaks and cut exercises in sessions, especially for longer exercises like this. I remember that the dissections took me about 5 sessions of 30 min-1 hour each, probably even more. Do not grind it all in one session since it increases the risk of burning out. You're not afraid to break the silhouette on any of these textures which is good. Make sure that you think about the curvature of the form, especially for textures like rope and basket weave: https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/7/curvature. One way you can do this is by planning the general form of larger shadow shapes, as if you were to ghost them. By having this 'frame', you can plan out the texture while not getting caught up with any details just yet, which is usually the reason why the textures fail to curve around the form.

Construction

4 pages of form intersections: These are looking good, you're not afraid to intersect many forms on one page and your lineweight has improved. One thing I noticed is that you tend to make the boxes have quite a dramatic perspective. This makes them feel quite stretched compared to the other forms: https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/8/stretched. Make sure that your spheres are round as well, stretched forms tend to read as flat ellipses instead of 3D spheres.

2 pages of organic intersections: These are looking good. You're making sure that the sausages stack well and the shadows follow the form nicely. Be a bit more careful with how you fill in big shadow shapes, you can easily fill in big pieces with a black marker, I like to use a black tombow brush pen but acrylic markers (and maybe even small paint brushes) would work as well.

All in all, your submission shows that you understand the topics discussed in this lesson. Make sure that you use lesson 1 and 2 exercises as warmups before you work on drawabox in every session. Good luck with lesson 3!

Let me know if anything explained is unclear, I don't mind explaining it in more detail or drawing it out for you.

Hello aGenericMirkWoodElf, welcome to Drawabox! My name is Finch and I will critique your submission today.

Lines

2 pages of superimposed lines: First off, good job on trying out different lengths and curvature on these, it is an useful skill to develop for later lessons. I see some fraying on both sides, which suggests that you are not taking the time to position your pen correctly at the starting point of the stroke. Uncomfortable goes into more detail about this here: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/13/fraying. I also see that only one page has been submitted to the imgur album instead of two, so I will have to ask you to draw or send a picture of the second page.

1 page of ghosted lines: These are looking good as well. Just like in the superimposed lines exercise, try to be more aware of where you set your pen in the starting point. I also notice some wobbling, which means that you're either hesitating or drawing with your wrist. For the former, remember that making mistakes is a big part of drawabox and learning as a whole, if you are feeling very nervous it might be good to take a short break and do some stretches, work on the 50% rule or something else that calms you down. Drawabox is hard but it should not push you to a burnout. For the latter, try to pay more attention to the way you draw, do you notice that you are using your wrist instead of your shoulder? This part of the ghosted lines article goes into more detail about wobbling: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/14/wobbling

2 pages of ghosted planes: I can see some great improvement of your lines when comparing A to B, nice! I don't have much else to say here except to mind the wobbling a bit. Keep up the good work.

Ellipses

2 pages of tables of ellipses: These look good, they fit into the table nicely. Keep an eye out for distortion though, some of your ellipses tend to have pointier ends to fit better in the table. While you should keep accuracy in mind, confidence is your main goal here. Accuracy is something that comes with time as your hand-eye coordination improves, while confidence is something you can work on directly, as you are doing with exercises like this.

2 pages of ellipses in planes: Your ellipses look great in these, they are more confident here and it's clear that you kept accuracy in mind as well.

1 page of funnels: Your ellipses are once again nice and confident, and align to the minor axis as well. Make sure that you keep the spacing in mind: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/18/spacing.

If you want to challenge yourself while doing this exercise as a warm-up, I suggest making the ellipses very narrow at the center, and wider as they move away to the edges of the funnel. I'm pretty sure that it was an older variation of the exercise, but it can be a great opportunity for practicing a variety of ellipses, you can still see it a bit in the example page provided.

Boxes

1 page of plotted perspective: These look good, try to be a bit more careful when hatching, use the ghosting method (or a ruler if you are doing this exercise specifically).

2 pages of rough perspective: If you can dig up the second page, it would be great, I suggest getting a folder with a spine to keep your drawabox submissions in, it's not very cumbersome and easy to organize. As for the submitted page, I see two mistakes: wobbling and fixing lines. For the wobbling part, refer to the advice I have given you in the ghosted lines part. Approach these exercises with a calm mind, I personally found that being stressed makes my lines worse. As for correcting lines, remember that it's okay to make mistakes, they help you with learning. Not correcting your mistakes also helps the person who critiques you since it makes it easier to see what went wrong. If you're interested, Uncomfortable made a little comic about it: https://drawabox.com/comic/4

1 page of rotated boxes: Great job for one of the hardest exercises of lesson 1! I have no comments for this one.

2 pages of organic perspective: These look good. Drawing through your forms is a good habit, and you should absolutely use it! (It's even required in the 250 box challenge) Once again, try to keep mistakes as is, do not correct them. You've done a good job here and really pushed yourself with drawing a variety of boxes in different angles and shapes.

All in all, your lesson 1 submission shows that you have a good understanding of the concepts presented in this lesson, although I will have to ask you to submit the following two pages:

- 1 page of superimposed lines

- 1 page of rough perspective: I don't doubt you that you drew two pages, but I believe that it might help to redo this one again keeping the advice I have given you in mind.

You can reply to this comment with a link of your two pages, good luck and I hope that this critique was helpful to you.

If anything is unclear, let me know and I will explain it in detail or draw it out for you.

Of course! Feel free to reply to me in case you need more help with anything. I also suggest joining the discord if you get stuck on specific exercises in lesson 3 and forward (since I tend to forget to check my DAB account while working on lessons), people there are willing to help as well. I'm glad that my critique was helpful to you!

Hello Johnkook97, my name is Finch and I will critique your lesson 2 submission today.

Thinking in 3D

Two pages of Arrows: You start off great with your arrows. I can see some wobbling in your lines but most of it is confident. You apply perspective nicely to your arrows, they clearly have depth to them. I suggest trying to add lineweight when you try this exercise as a part of your warmups, you should add lineweight by ghosting, just like you've done in the 250 box challenge. https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/4/step4 shows lineweight added to an arrow where it overlaps, it establishes a sense of dominance making the arrow more 3D.

Two pages of Organic Forms with Contour Lines: Your forms follow the shape they need to be nicely, although some of them have a flat or pointy end, it might help to practice the forms more in warmups, try to ghost them in different ways and see what is comfortable for you, you could also try to add some dots as guidelines. Your ellipses and contours fit into the form and you're getting the hang of hooking it around as well. Do make sure that your ellipses and contours change degrees as the form bends in space: https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/degree. You can see the intended change in degrees in the image that accompanies this section: https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/ellipses.

Texture and Detail

One page of Texture Analysis: You are drawing the cast shadows nicely and you have taken your time with these, good job! You've grasped the implicitly of texture drawing, but I will point out that the big holes on the third texture could probably be drawn implicitly as well: unless the light is coming directly from above, a hole is usually not completely enclosed with cast shadows. The section shows an example with bumps, but the general idea applies to holes as well: https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/6/drawingforms. If you decide to tackle the 25 texture challenge, it's helpful to write down what texture you have drawn or accompany your submission with the refence images so people can compare.

Two pages of Dissections: You're not afraid to break the silhouette of the forms and you have once again taken your time to observe the textures and draw them in detail, great job! I would like to point out that the examples in this exercise are a bit outdated, as it includes surfaces like metal which don't have any cast shadows and are therefore not really a texture, but I can't blame you for drawing them. Most of your textures follow the form nicely, but some textures such as bird feathers and zebra flatten the form: https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/7/curvature. For complicated textures, I plot some of the bigger shadows as if I were to ghost something, it helps me to think about the form before going in with any details. I suggest you try it, it might help you as well.

Construction

Four pages of Form Intersections: These look nice, the forms are ghosted confidently and adhere to a shallow perspective as intended. The only thing I can really point out here is that your lineweight could be a bit thinner, one line is usually enough. Make sure you don't repeat lines as well, some of the lines on the cubes have been corrected, for example. Just keep them as it is, even if you drew it incorrectly. Since this is going so well, I suggest that you try and push yourself when doing this exercise as a warmup. Make your forms intersect even more. For example: instead of intersecting at the edges, try to let a cylinder pass through a cube. Don't worry too much about the intersections though, the main point of this exercise is to make all the forms share the same scene.

Two pages of Organic Intersections: Your forms are kept simple, the contours hook around them nicely. Your cast shadows are good as well. I don't have any comments on your drawings here, they're solid.

All in all, you've taken the time to read the instructions carefully and attempt the exercises as well as you can, and it paid off. Your submission shows that you grasp the concepts introduced in lesson two and I think that you are ready to move on to lesson 3. Good luck!

If anything is unclear in this critique, don't be afraid to ask me. I'll explain it further or draw it out for you.