Ahh these are so awesome! Well done :D my only comments are to not overuse contour lines (the more you add, the less effective each individual contour line is) and to not forget the intersection between the sausages for the legs, as they convey how the leg is folding.
Next Steps:
:) Congrats.
hello :)) im willing to take a look, but i was wondering if you had the references you used?
Hello, I'm Joxmarf and I will be reviewing your lesson 4!
I want to start by saying that your submission is really well done. There's nothing to comment regarding the quality of your lines. I can see that you are adhering to the principles of lesson 1. Regarding the textures, you didn't adhere to an important rule, which is to capture only cast shadows, but texture isn't the priority at all in this lesson, and that may have been added at a later point than when you did lesson 4 since... it was three years ago. Now, these are my comments on what could have been improved:
Some of your forms don't look 3D. On some cases you recur to flat shapes (example: spikes in your haverstman construction). Remember that all of what we are capturing exists in 3D, so we must construct it. Using 2D shapes breaks the illusion we are trying to create. Your owlfly larva feels particularly flat (but to be honest, that's not on you... that insect is just like that) and one of the reasons is that instead of an additive construction for the head, you cut into your forms.
There are forms that could have started out simpler. For example, in your construction #4, you used a conic shape for the head and the thorax. You could started with a ball and added forms until getting the desired shape.
In your sausage with ontours exercise, the sausages should be uniform. They also should have been uniform for the legs of your insects.
Overall, your constructions are very well done! Congratulations :) You had suggested to give you revisions given that your submission is old, but I'm hesitant to do so given their quality! Still, I will assign two constructions so you can apply my feedback.
Next Steps:
2 insect constructions please :)
hello! Thank you so much for your thoughtful critique. Here are the revisions, i hope they are better: https://imgur.com/a/e0hgIU4
I'm glad it helped! You will be able to refine the exercise when you do it for your warmups :)
Hello! I'm Joxmarf and I will be reviewing your Lesson 1 :)
Superimposed Lines
I notice that many of your lines have fraying. Drawabox encourages to think of every mark we put on the page. That begins with thinking where to place the pen. Also, some of your lines arc. Remember to, when you start executing the stroke, focus only on the end point and draw confidently enough not to allow your brain to steer the stroke. Make sure you are doing the stroke fast enough.
Ghosted Lines
Some of your marks wobble. Time and practice will make your lines more accurate. Also, once again, some of your lines arc. Some of your marks wobble. Remember not to focus on accuracy, but on the confidence of your marks. Time and practice will make your lines more accurate. Also, once again, some of your lines arc. Remember to consider from which pivot you are drawing from. If you are engaging your whole arm from the shoulder, you could try to intentionally arc your stroke a little in the opposite direction to counteract the natural curve. I notice that many of your lines don’t reach the other point, I take this as a sign that you are trying to focus on the confidence of your marks and not the accuracy. Well done.
Ghosted Planes
These are good! Well done.
Table of Ellipses
I see you are drawing through your ellipses two full times, which is great. However, many of them are not evenly shaped. There could be many reasons for this. Remember to ghost mindfully and thoroughly before making the mark with confidence. Remember to try to touch the corners and sides of the plane and keep the ellipses tight. Overall, these are well done!
Ellipses in Planes
Good job! Your ellipses are drawn with confidence and most of them are touching all the 4 edges of the plane. Also, you are doing two passes.
Funnels
It is quite difficult, but I would like to note that some of your ellipses are not aligned to the central minor axis line. Also, some ellipses are not touching each other. In one of them, you left a lot of space which could have been filled with ellipses.
Plotted Perspective
Awesome. Though stick with the same fine liner unless otherwise stated.
Rough Perspective
Well done! Remember what I said about arcing.
Rotated boxes
Well done.
Organic Perspective
Well done. You could complete the back corner before moving to the box challenge if you want the extra practice
Next Steps:
move onto the 250 box challenge, well done!!
Hello! You're welcome :) For your question, it is a matter of what to prioritise: confidence should go over accuracy. We know where we want our marks to go, but we must prioritise doing the mark with confidence. If we get there, great, but that's not the purpose. Also feel free to ask any question :)
Good job! Marking this lesson as complete :) Remember to add these to your warmups ^^
Next Steps:
Move onto lesson 4
Hello! I'm Joxmarf and I will be reviewing your Lesson 1 :)
Superimposed Lines
There's some frying. Remember to not only think about ghosting and doing your stroke confidently, but also where you place your pen.
Ghosted Lines
Remember not to focus on accuracy, but on the confidence of your marks. Time and practice will make your lines more accurate. Also, once again, some of your lines arc. Remember to, when you start executing the stroke, focus only on the end point and draw confidently enough not to allow your brain to steer the stroke. There's some overshooting, but you will be able to control it as time goes on and you get more mileage, confidence is the focus on DAB.
Ghosted Planes
Well done.
Table of Ellipses
I see you are drawing through your ellipses two full times, which is great. They are also tight and even. Wow.
Ellipses in Planes
Your ellipses are drawn with confidence and they are touching all the 4 edges of the plane. Once again,many of them are woobly. I recommend using the same pen for every exercise unless instructed otherwise.
Funnels
It is quite difficult, but I would like to note that some of your ellipses are not aligned to the central minor axis line. Also, some ellipses are not touching touching the lines enclosing them or each other. Remember to respect the boundaries you established.
Plotted Perspective
Well done.
Rough Perspective
Good job, you are working with one vanishing point, as the exercise states.
Rotated boxes
Woahh, well done.
Organic Perspective
Well done.
Honestly, this is an extremely good submission. Congratulations! You are ready for the 250 challenge :D
Next Steps:
Move onto the 250 challenge. Add these exercises to your warmups.
Hello, I'm Joxmarf and I will be reviewing your lesson :)
First, huge congrats! The box challenge requires discipline, patience and consistency. Its repetitive nature can make it a bit of a drag, so good job for pushing through! Especially with college responsibilities...
General Observations
Your lines mostly converge. You were clearly mindful of avoiding parallel or divergent lines. It still happened sometimes, of course, but I could really see the improvement as the challenge went on. Regarding the line extensions, they are done on the right direction, going away from the central point of the Y. Later on the challenge, you didn't extend your lines to the end of the page.I recommend to extend them as it will give you a better idea of how your lines converged.
You varied your boxes. Not only from the orientation, but also with the length of the Y line. I saw boxes with the shape of cubes, bricks, rods, books, etc. However, the size of many was rather small. Doing bigger boxes will make the exercise more comfortable.
Regarding your hatching, it is good, especially in the later boxes, but remember to ghost before making a line on the page, thinking of where the line starts and where it ends. On one of your boxes, you divided the hatching lines.
Your notes say that for the first boxes you were ghosting from the VP. Honestly, I think it robs away from the exercise, even though it may feel easier. After all, the first 50 were to prepare you for estimating your lines by convergence. Your later note: "Focusing more on convergence over VP is actually making me hit the VP more" makes me think that you realised this by yourself, but I still wanted to note it.
Overall, a very solid submission.
Good luck with the rest! :D
Next Steps:
Well done! Move onto lesson 2
Where the rest of my recommendations tend to be for specific products, this one is a little more general. It's about printer paper.
As discussed in Lesson 0, printer paper (A4 or 8.5"x11") is what we recommend. It's well suited to the kind of tools we're using, and the nature of the work we're doing (in terms of size). But a lot of students still feel driven to sketchbooks, either by a desire to feel more like an artist, or to be able to compile their work as they go through the course.
Neither is a good enough reason to use something that is going to more expensive, more complex in terms of finding the right kind for the tools we're using, more stress-inducing (in terms of not wanting to "ruin" a sketchbook - we make a lot of mistakes throughout the work in this course), and more likely to keep you from developing the habits we try to instill in our students (like rotating the page to find a comfortable angle of approach).
Whether you grab the ream of printer paper linked here, a different brand, or pick one up from a store near you - do yourself a favour and don't make things even more difficult for you. And if you want to compile your work, you can always keep it in a folder, and even have it bound into a book when you're done.
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