gekki

Hi Beckerito, I immensely appreciate you taking your time to critique my submission, thank you so much.

I'll keep your comments in mind, especially regarding the branches - I noted around 5th/6th page that the moment things go south, I just kinda "give up" mentally and repeat the same line instead of stopping myself and making sure the marks after this will come out as intended. I am currently incorporating the branches exercise into my warm-ups to slowly make progress both in my technique and my mental approach to them. Thank you for the technical reminders!

The contour lines were tricky for me and there indeed were times that I overused them, thank you for pointing that out. Usually happens when I was feeling insecure about my forms and tried to compensate for it by adding those - another thing to keep in mind and know when to move on. I'll practice slowing down more and think more in depth about each mark I'm making to avoid this.

And the smaller space... yeah that one hit me hard once I finished the witch hazel, I did not expect the small size to disrupt the clarity this much, learned as much.

Thank you again for your time, I am excited to continue!

Ohh I see, that is on me - I forgot that Uncomfortable suggested adding line weight during these exercises and haven't double checked, so that is a mistake on my part.

During the 250 box challenge you will be encouraged to add line weight, and one way to gradually prepare yourself for that is using the Superimposed Lines exercise during your warm-ups, as well as doing your best throughout the challenge.

Thank you for clarifying!

Perfect, exactly what was needed!

Note the increased confidence and accuracy in your ellipses (it kinda works the same way the Superimposed Lines+Ghosted Lines exercise does, ghosting and then superimposing your ellipses, eventually increasing the accuracy), and the fact that some of the back lines in the Plotted Perspective page go more diagonally than expected - this is completely normal within this exercise, it's something that really proves the point Uncomfortable makes - any small deviation from the vanishing points can make a big difference in how the box is constructed.

Wonderful job, remember to adhere to the 50% rule, do warm-ups before each session using the exercises in this lesson, and move on to the 250 box challenge!

Perfect, it is clear that there is some "getting used to" happening here, but that's exactly the point.

Keep what you did here in mind if you ever do boxes for warm-ups, and when you do any of these techniques in Lesson 2 and onward.

Congratulations, really impressive work.

Hi SNS, thank you so much for the critique!

The sausage forms were tricky for me in the start, absolutely. Ghosting them was difficult since we haven't done a lot of curves in Lesson 1 and 250 Box challenge, what is helping me with that right now is doing sausages and superimposed curved lines during warm-ups.

Same deal with contour lines, instead of trying to think of their purpose, I focused on ghosting the ellipse and finding the right timing to draw in the shape. By the time I got to the intersections my priorities became more clear, even though I am still very much figuring this out.

Texture analysis was a mess mentally for me, and I'm glad that you point out the mistakes. I was confused as hell and I feel like I only started to get it during my 50% leisure drawing. Thank you for the second image, that actually clarified it a lot for me.

I'll keep the light source in mind! I think I heard Uncomfortable mention that the light source doesn't really matter in the video explanation, so I tried not focusing on it too much, but I do agree that

a) I'd like to improve at it and consider it

b) it makes some parts of the image a bit confusing to read

Thank you so much for your review! Huge help.

Hey Z, congratulations on finishing Lesson 1, glad to see another person join us in the course!

First of all, I want to say that no revisions are necessary. You have followed the instructions closely and have improved considerably, your work is admirable.

In regards to your lines, you have clearly had some difficulty in the start, the lines were consistently wobbly and occasionally the accuracy was off too. That is expected, line confidence is something people are still figuring out even when going into the 250 box challenge.

Your beginnings aside, there is a huge improvement in your Organic Perspective exercise. Something clearly clicked for you there in terms of line confidence, and I want you to keep that up and explore it, since your lines clearly have jumped to a new level.

Good job on the ellipses as well, they were quite a bit more accurate and confident in comparison to your straight lines, and it seems you have utilized the exercise to your improvement well.

I want you to note the Funnels exercise - note how your top-right and bottom-right corner ellipses are significantly more confident and accurate than the ones in the center. The quality of your ellipses is not much at fault here, the issue is the "environment" in which the ellipses exist - the boundaries are skewed, so the ellipses followed.

Just for experimentation, I encourage you during one of your warm-ups to use a cup/plate to draw the boundaries of the funnel and try this exercise again. You'll get a solid feel for what I mean here.

In the Rotated Boxes exercise you definitely could have gone more extreme with the perspective, some of the lines are practically parallel to others, but other than that - a wonderful job.

Last comment - while you rarely do this I am assuming you are aware of the issue, but I shall comment on this anyway:

Avoid fixing your lines by drawing over them, this is seen the most in the Rotated Boxes exercise and occasionally popping here and there where you drew boxes. Keeping it at one line makes it easier to learn from, doesn't highlight the mistake to the viewer, and makes your learning quicker by not trying to fix your lines and instead moving onto new ones.

Overall, wonderful work - you have followed the instructions properly, have done your best during the intentionally challenging exercises, and your line quality has improved considerably.

Remember to adhere to the 50% rule, use the exercises from this lesson during warm-ups and move on to the 250 box challenge!

Oh it's all good, happens to all of us (my review was literally erased when I uploaded it, so I guess we both got our share of technical problems :D)

Thank you for uploading it again, I have reviewed your submission in a separate post!

Hi again, time for a proper review this time.

First of all, congratulations on completing the challenge again! It is quite a task, and I hope you managed your time and energy well and adhered to the 50% rule, in any case I hope it went as smoothly as it can be.

Many improvements are seen, you quickly figured out which sides are facing the viewer and which lines to extend (as well as the importance of the hatching lines for clarity).

You improved significantly with adhering to the vanishing points, the improvement was gradual but noticeable, good job.

I see that your most significant jump happened around 130-150 boxes in, both your line quality, confidence, and your accuracy when making the lines thicker went up significantly, wonderful.

For the most part, this exercise was done really well, and while your understanding of 3d space may not be perfect yet, it's not supposed to be - that's what future lessons and practice are for.

Couple of things to keep in mind:

First, when drawing the hatching lines, did you use the ghosting method and drawing from the shoulder? Your hatching lines are consistently a step or two below your usual lines. While it does take more time and effort, any mark made on the page should be made using these principles. Not only they will look better, they will also gradually teach you to get more accurate and faster with your lines, to the point where eventually you'll be able to ghost less and less to achieve the same lines. So, please adhere to those methods!

If you are, then see what makes your lines be less confident in those cases. For me, I figured out that I was ghosting too much, some people ghost too little, some people get messy with shorter lines. Experiment during your warm-ups with varying line lengths

Second, while it is rare, occasionally I see that you try to "fix" your inner lines by drawing over them. It seems like you are aware that this isn't desirable, but reminding you anyway - keep it at one line even if its bad, it keeps the drawing cleaner and also helps you to learn from them when trying to figure out what happened.

Overall, amazing work with noticeable improvements. Keep warming up, adhere to the 50% rule and move on to the next lesson!

Hey there, congratulations on completing Lesson 1! A real good start and some great progress. Here's my review of it.

First of all, your lines. A good start, big improvement by the end, and while there is some solid arching to the lines even now, as long as you are adhering to the ghosting method and drawing from the shoulder your lines will improve significantly.

When you draw within Drawabox exercises and during warm ups (remember to do warm-ups!) try experimenting with things that make you draw more confidently. Maybe you need to ghost more, maybe less, maybe exactly 3 times, see the perfect number for you. In addition to that, remember to experiment with what angle you are drawing at, so you will learn to rotate the page so it meets your best stroke perfectly.

Now to some exercise notes:

First, in all the ellipses exercises (Ellipses in Planes, Tables of Ellipses and Ellipses in Funnels) you need to draw through the ellipse fully 2-3 times. The reason I bring this instruction up is because in the majority of your ellipses you draw only about halfway through before moving onto the next ellipse. I know they seem real messy, but doing so will really help. So keep that in mind when warming up or doing more exercises with ellipses.

You did quite a bit better in that regard in the Funnels exercise, but still rather inconsistent. The point of drawing through the ellipses multiple times is not to do it only if it came out bad on the first try, but to really solidify the motion and get you used to it so eventually you won't have to do it as much.

Second, in the Plotted Perspective exercise, you forgot to draw the back corner of the boxes! Not a big deal, but be aware of such things because that means you have missed an instruction and a pretty important detail to help with your understanding of these shapes.

It's pretty impressive how you have done your Rotated Boxes exercise. Do pay attention to how the corner boxes are somewhat unfitting due to their edges being mis-aligned. Don't be afraid to really jam them close to other boxes if that means being properly aligned, it might seem intimidating but it ends up adding quite a bit more to your understanding.

And lastly, during both the Rotated Boxes exercise and during the Organic Perspective exercise - you have attempted to "fix" your lines quite often, by drawing over them. Remember the instructions from the ghosted lines exercise - plan, draw, move on. Adding extra "fixing" lines makes it hard to reflect back on what went wrong, and it makes it way more obvious that there was a mistake in your drawing and eyes keep drawing to it.

Overall, wonderful work! I will ask for a single page of revision and a quick fix to your Plotted Perspective, but other than that you have done an amazing job and I am excited to see another person join Drawabox and learn with us.

Hey Starpixo, congrats on completing the challenge!

Could you please upload pictures of the entire challenge, or at least extra 10-15~ pages that show your beginning and middle? While the end is certainly a highlight, it is useful to see the entirety of the process.