goodboy123

Oh, thank you so much! I'm going to try doing the other challenges when I have the time as well :)

Hey, sorry for the late reply.

I found the course very effective as a beginner honestly. Now whenever I'm trying to learn something new in art, I feel way more comfortable thanks to DaB: :)

oh I'm planning to get into figure drawing and 3d modeling but I can't say anything for certain right now. Although I feel like I would be building on the stuff I learned here no matter what I go with hehe.

Good luck with lesson 4, it's a fun one!

Hey weijak! Thanks again for this critique roasting.

I knew I was doing a lot of stuff wrong with my textures but I just, went along with it instead of revisiting that part of lesson 2 for some reason. Now that you've mentioned it though, I'll definitely go over that again. I'm glad you're happy with my constructions though!

Also, as far as I know, my last three submissions were completely new for you when it comes to writing a critique and I just wanted to say how thankful I am that you were willing to go through all that trouble just to help me with my art journey. I know how scary it can be to critique an unfamiliar lesson and seeing how dedicated you are to helping me has been incredibly motivating. As always, I will make sure to to through everything you pointed out here. Thank you.

I'm glad you found the critique helpful, good luck ahead!

Hello again, congrats on finishing the lesson! I'll be looking over your work.

Starting with your lines, you did a great job here. Your lines are both confident and accurate which is pretty difficult to do at this stage. You lines tend to get slightly arced when trying to do longer ghosted lines but this is still a small issue and I'm sure you'll have no problem fixing it in the future.

Your ellipses look pretty solid overall as well. You did a great job with making sure that you were drawing through each ellipse 2 to 3 times and with keeping each ellipse within their bounds in the funnels and the tables of ellipses exercises. You have a couple of deformed ellipses especially in the ghosted planes section though. I know this is harder when it comes to ellipses because you can clearly see that your ellipse isn't big/small enough or isn't in the right place as you're going over it multiple times but remember that you should always prioritize confidence when you put down your marks, especially in this lesson. Accuracy will come with time. There are also a couple of misaligned ellipses in the funnels exercise but that's not a huge deal for now.

Plotted perspective looks great! In the rough perspective exercise though, your lines tend to get a bit wobbly overall. Also it seems that you were going over most of your lines to correct them. Keep in mind that trying to fix your mistakes with ink will only shift the viewer's attention to them.

Except for trying to correct your mistakes, you did a great job with rotated boxes as well. You did a great job with using the neighboring edges to construct the next box and making sure every box was rotating in space.

Again, except for the corrected mistakes, organic perspective looks pretty solid. You have a couple of diverging lines but you'll have a lot of time to work on that during the 250 boxes challenge.

Overall, you did great with this lesson, congratulations! I'm going to mark this lesson as complete so here are some helpful links for the box challenge: an alternate method for placing the inner corner, different orientations of boxes. That last link is for inspiration only though, make sure to draw from your imagination.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here or on discord by tagging me, good luck with 250 boxes!

Hello DECEPE, congrats on finishing your first construction lesson! I'll be going over your work.

Also I know that you're waiting for people to ask for critiques on the critique exchange channel but because that can take a while, I thought that I'd give you a critique right now to let you move on and you can write critiques as you're going through lesson 4. So, let's get started!

Starting with your arrows, your work here seems really well done. Your lines were both accurate and confident in every arrow you drew and you managed to create a solid illusion of depth by compressing the further end of your arrows.

Just like your regular lines, your line weight seems very confident and accurate as well. However, because you used thicker lines for your line weight and stopped drawing them rather abruptly, they stand out a bit too much. You should instead try making your line weight subtler by using thinner lines, using the method shown here.

Moving onto your leaves, just like your lines, they flow through the scene pretty smoothly and create a pretty good illusion of depth. You did a good job with building more complex structures as well. Regarding the way you added edge detail, although I'm glad to see that you were often using individual strokes to add each bump/cut, you occasionally strayed away from this and tried adding detail to the majority of the edge in a single line, therefore making your drawings look cluttered and rushed through. If you want to read more about this, make sure to revisit the markmaking section of lesson 1.

When adding textures or shading, even if what you're drawing represents what is on the reference picture, try to refrain from filling a whole segment of your forms with solid black unless it's absolutely necessary. When we fill in a large part of our constructions with a single color, we risk making our drawings look 2D because we're using up space that can instead be used to show how that surface/form sits and flows through the scene as a 3D object.

Your branches look pretty solid overall. Although you occasionally skipped doing this, you generally did a good job with extending your lines to create a smoother transition between segments. Your ellipses look pretty good as well. I'm also very glad to see that you were changing the degrees of your ellipses to create a better illusion of depth.

Onto your plant constructions, it seems that you were building them in stages and using the methods taught in the lesson material. You also managed to make all of your constructions look 3D which is great. I'll try to make as many pointers as I can without being too nitpicky to help you move forward though.

• I know I mentioned this before but I'd like to go over it again. When applying texture, filling certain areas with black can really help make that construction stand out more (this mushroom, for example). However, when we start filling in large parts of a form, that form looks almost completely flat (certain parts of this mushroom, for example). I don't think there is a single answer to how much of your drawings should be filled in though, it's just something that you have to observe carefully and decide for yourself. If you think that you've filled in a texture enough to fool the viewer that that part has a shadow being cast onto it, that's usually enough.

• Also, for this course, try to avoid filling in parts of the surface to show the local color of that part. Remember that we're not trying to create pretty pictures here. Every mark you put down on the page for your constructions should only be there to make your constructions look more convincing. When you try showing local color with the same pen you've been using before, you often risk making that construction less believable.

• I want to go over your use of shadows, especially on this page. Adding too many shadows can actually make your constructions less readable which is what happened here. You should instead try to apply only cast shadows and apply them sparingly, making sure that every area you're filling is being filled in for a purpose; which is mainly to show how the forms relate to each other. You can revisit this part of lesson 2 for a better explanation regarding shading.

• On the last page, although it's great that you're dedicated to accurately show the textures of each form, you should instead try to work implicitly when adding textures. If we add textures to our drawings to make it look as close to our reference picture as possible, our drawings often look a bit confusing to look at. You should instead choose a focus point, and simply imply the existence of texture everywhere else. Using this method helps make our constructions more readable because we give the eye a clear resting point (as explained here).

Anyways, I don't think I have anything else to add! Overall you did a great job with lesson and managed to create constructions that show a good understanding of 3D space, congrats! I'm sorry if my critique came off as harsh but I'm sure you won't have any issues fixing the mistakes I pointed out here. I'm going to mark this lesson as complete so if you have any questions or if there's anything wrong with this critique, please let me know either on here or on discord by tagging me.

Good luck with lesson 4!

Hello, congrats on finishing the lesson! I'll be looking over your work.

Starting with your lines, you did a great job here. Your lines are both confident and accurate which is pretty difficult to do at this stage. You lines tend to get slightly arced when trying to do longer ghosted lines but this is still a small issue and I'm sure you'll have no problem fixing it in the future.

Your ellipses look pretty solid overall as well. You did a great job with making sure that you were drawing through each ellipse 2 to 3 times and with keeping each ellipse within their bounds in the funnels and the tables of ellipses exercises. You have a couple of deformed ellipses especially in the ghosted planes section though. I know this is harder when it comes to ellipses because you can clearly see that your ellipse isn't big/small enough or isn't in the right place as you're going over it multiple times but remember that you should always prioritize confidence when you put down your marks, especially in this lesson. Accuracy will come with time. There are also a couple of misaligned ellipses in the funnels exercise but that's not a huge deal for now.

Plotted perspective looks great! In the rough perspective exercise though, your lines tend to get a bit wobbly overall. Also it seems that you were going over most of your lines to correct them. Keep in mind that trying to fix your mistakes with ink will only shift the viewer's attention to them.

Except for trying to correct your mistakes, you did a great job with rotated boxes as well. You did a great job with using the neighboring edges to construct the next box and making sure every box was rotating in space.

Again, except for the corrected mistakes, organic perspective looks pretty solid. You have a couple of diverging lines but you'll have a lot of time to work on that during the 250 boxes challenge.

Overall, your work here seems pretty solid! I would love to mark it as completed but there seems to be an issue with the website since I can't find the "mark as completed" button. I'll post this critique anyways and try to mark it as completed by commenting but you should feel free to move on to the 250 Boxes challenge.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me on here or on discord by tagging me.

Hello Tygrixon, congrats on finishing the lesson! I'll be looking over your work.

Starting with your lines, your work here seems generally well done. Even though there are couple of slightly arced lines (especially in the ghosted lines section and in some of the longer superimposed lines) I can tell that you were doing your best to prioritize confidence as much as possible which is great. However, on some of the ghosted lines, there is a bit of fraying on both ends. It's completely normal if your lines are fraying on one end right now but you should always pay attention to where you place your pen before you start drawing a line.

Just like your lines, your ellipses look pretty solid as well. I can tell that you were prioritizing confidence here as well which is especially difficult when it comes to ellipses. You do have a couple of slightly deformed ellipses but I'm sure your ellipses will get cleaner as you keep practicing. There are a couple of overlapping ellipses in the table of ellipses exercise and some misaligned ellipses in the funnels exercise but these are pretty minor issues and I'm certain you'll have no problem fixing them over time. Also great job on going over each ellipse multiple times. Keep in mind that every ellipse we draw throughout this curriculum must be drawn through 2 to 3 times.

Plotted perspective looks great! Also it's cool that you tried pushing one of the boxes more to the side to see how it would look.

Rough perspective looks pretty solid as well. Your lines were a bit wobbly on the first page but the second page looks cleaner overall. There were a couple of cases where your width lines weren't parallel to the horizon line or where your height lines weren't perpendicular to the horizon line but I'm sure those weren't intentional.

Rotated boxes looks pretty good. You did a good job with using the neighboring edges to construct the next box and you made sure that every box you drew was rotating in space.

Just like the rotated boxes exercise, you did a pretty good job with the organic perspective exercise as well. Your overall line quality seems solid and you did a good job with making sure the lines on each box was converging. There are still a couple of diverging lines but you'll have a lot of time to work on that during 250 boxes challenge. Also drawing through each box was a pretty bold choice so congrats on that as well.

Also, I'm reading that you applied line weight to some of the first boxes by mistake which is okay. One thing that I'd like to point out though, even though you did a good job with keeping your line weight lines confident, it seems that you were probably drawing them slowly, thus making them stand out a bit too much. Keep in mind that you should apply line weight the same way you draw your lines, by ghosting through and executing each stroke in a fast, confident manner (as shown here).

Anyways, I don't think I have anything else to add! Overall, you did great with this lesson, congratulations! I'm going to mark this lesson as complete so here are some helpful links for the box challenge: an alternate method for placing the inner corner, different orientations of boxes. That last link is for inspiration only though, make sure to draw from your imagination.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here or on discord by tagging me, good luck with 250 boxes!

Hi, congrats on finishing your first construction lesson! I'll be looking over your submission.

Starting with your arrows, you've done a pretty good job with creating a solid illusion of depth by compressing the further end of almost every arrow you drew. You also made sure to prioritize confidence as much as possible which is great. However, especially on the first arrow, it seems that you were a bit hesitant when applying line weight and when your line weight wasn't accurate, you went over your lines to correct your mistakes. Remember that trying to fix your mistakes with ink will only shift the viewer's attention to them. Also, make sure that you're applying line weight in the same way you're drawing your regular lines. By ghosting through until you're comfortable and executing each mark with confidence (as shown here).

Moving onto your leaves, you tried doing more complex structures and you managed to make your leaves look 3D here as well. The way you added edge detail seems pretty solid too. You generally made sure to add each bump/cut individually instead of going over the entire edge in a single line. Try to pay more attention to how each detail you're adding blends into the form you're adding them on though. Making the lines for the edge details thicker do help make them more recognizable but if you don't blend them in to the thin lines of the form they're sitting on, they instead look like individual lines rather than 3D forms. Make sure to also pay attention to where each lines begins and ends since loose line ends can break the illusion of 3D as well.

Your branches seem pretty solid. You did a good job with extending your lines to create a smoother transition between segments and your lines generally tapper pretty well. I'm also very glad to see that you're changing the degrees of your ellipses to more accurately show how each form sits and rotates in space.

Onto your plant constructions, it seems that you were building them in stages and using the methods taught in the lesson material. Because of this, your drawings create a pretty solid illusion of depth. Some of the mistakes I pointed out so far are apparent in your plant constructions as well though. I'll still try to go over every major mistake I see to help you move forward.

• The first thing that I'd like to mention is the way you draw your lines. Even though your overall line quality is pretty good, the dots you placed around some of the lines you drew implies that you were a bit hesitant before drawing them. This is still understandable since drawing accurate curved lines is pretty difficult. However, when we rely too much on placing these marks on the page instead of ghosting through, we tend to end up with drawings that look rather cluttered. This isn't a big issue though, it's just something to keep in mind in the future. (also, make sure to read this comment by Uncomfortable if you wish to read more about overcoming hesitation)

• The mistakes I pointed out with adding edge detail are apparent here as well. Also I wanted to go over paying attention to where each line begins and ends again since those loose line ends I mentioned can also be seen on regular construction lines. Even if we create drawings with a really solid sense of depth, if we fail to show how each form connects with each other, that tiny mistake can make the entire construction look 2D (this can be seen in some of the leaves on this page, for example).

• Again, on this page, some of the details you added inside the flower itself seem pretty rushed. Even though those details are pretty insignificant, you should still be mindful of how they sit on the page when drawing them.

Overall, your work here seems pretty good! Your constructions show that you're developing a solid sense of spatial reasoning and I'm sure that with time, you'll have no problem fixing the mistakes I pointed out here. I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, good luck ahead!

If you have any questions or if there are any mistakes with this critique, please let me know either by replying to this or tagging me on discord.