kotka

Yeah, you got it now. You made a clear example of how it should look!

Good evening Knight! I see that you have been waiting for a really long time, almost two months, for critique! I want to help you with this. I really appreciate you giving me some notes on what you think about your own mistakes, as it gives me an indication whether you're ready to move on regardless of how the result looks.

Let's start with Organic Arrows. Here, I can definitely see you are struggling a bit with drawing with the shoulder throughout all the curves. This will come with time, believe me. Right now, it affects this exercise quite a bit, and I see where you have scribbled over arrows that didn't work out at all. There are some arrows that do work out though, and in those I see that you understand the assignment. I see it because your arrows taper the further away they get from the viewer, and the distance between two curves crossing over are smaller further away, too. Keep practicing your shoulderwork, and rather than abandoning a curve because you are not satisfied, make sure to stay in the curve all the way regardless of how you feel about it. It will develop your skills more than adding tails and corrective appendages to broken/unfinished/bad arrows.

The light effect in the Texture Analysis and Dissections is important to teach you how to use shapes to explain for your viewer how forms turn in 3D. Since you are aware of this mistake, I'd like to see you redo the crumpled paper gradient, from the darkest to the lightest like the instructions for column 3 says, and just one sausage of textures (choose any that you already did) on the same page.

As for the other aspects of Dissections, they are well done. You try to follow the turns of the sausages and also break the silhouette. Good job!

Now for the Form Intersections. This exercise is hard and I hated it, no kidding. One problem I think affects many is forgetting that the main purpose of the exercise is not correct intersections, but keeping the overlapping shapes mostly the same size and not overstretch them. You manage to do this even though I see you struggled, but I'm missing one page of boxes only, which is what you should've started with before including spheres, pyramids and cylinders. I'd like to ask for a revision of this. Don't spend too much time on the intersections on this one, as I can see that you already did your best on the other sheets for this exercise.

Your Organic Intersections are not nearly as bad as I thought after reading your notes! I think that they look mostly OK, you could definitely exaggerate the cast shadows on the last sheet, but I see that you already did a good job with this on the second sheet. Here, you show in a good way how the cast shadow follows the form of the sausage below. Your sausages are also stacked in a proper way, avoiding parallell sausages on the same "level". The second sheet is clearly your best for this exercise, so keep it as your own reference as you revisit this exercise in future warm-ups.

Good evening!

This is a very solid submission where I can see that you have understood the instructions and executed them really well. Starting with your Organic Arrows, which are very nice, and moving on to the Organic Forms with Contour Lines, there are no bad mistakes. If I can make any remark for these, try even more to really vary the degree of the ellipses as you move through the form in future warm-ups.

While your Texture Analysis is well done, it seems like one aspect of this exercise was a little bit forgotten and also transferred over into the Dissections. I'm talking specifically about presenting textures in cast shadows. Yours have a tendency to become outlines. I can see in some places that you managed to avoid it, so it's a pass, but next time make the areas you imagine as dark really dark, and avoid the temptation to outline at all costs. To me, it looks like you thicken outlines to make it look like cast shadows, rather than bravely using black shapes. You're doing it right on the snake skin sausage, but the dirt with some grass is not correct with regards to cast shadow. Anyways, this is the gravest mistake, because you nail the other aspects such as properly breaking the silhouette and minding the contour turns. I just want to see one big sausage where you really use a lot of black shapes to represent cast shadows before I can mark this lesson as complete.

The Form Intersections are absolutely one of the better I have seen during my short time reviewing Lesson 2's! Your lines are confident, you group the shapes nicely, they are the same size, not stretched out AND you also manage to do the intersections pretty well! That's a bit rare, so I think you should be really proud of yourself.

A really good job on the Organic Intersections, too, as you avoid placing sausages parallel to each other, stacking them proper and perpendicular, as well as bravely showing the cast shadows in a believable manner on the sausages below.

Good evening!

Overall, this is a very good submission! Especially your Texture Analysis and Dissections are great, I found no remarks whatsoever on these (but maybe someone else will, if pressed?). Moving on.

Organic Arrows look great, too. You diminish the size of the curves, as well as making the distance between the turning curves shorter, like one should. Your lines are confident, made in one stroke, and I don't see any criminal wobbling. If anything, the shading lines could be more dense closer to the viewer.

There is some work to be done on your Organic Forms with contour Lines. Your ellipses are dangerously close to being all of the same degree. Try to really exaggerate the difference between the two ends of the sausage. If it's hard, start with the part that is perpendicular to the viewer, which usually is the middle of the sausage in this exercise (extremely narrow degree, or, just a line). Then, draw the extreme ends, where the sausage is more towards or away from the viewer (broad degrees, almost perfectly circular). Also, pay attention here that the ellipses reach all the way to the edge of the sausage form. I'd like a small revision here, just three sausages where you try this out is enough, before I can mark this Lesson as complete.

The Form Intersections is a hard exercise because it's easy to fall into the hole where you start to focus on the intersections more than the shapes. You managed this great, since your shapes are mostly the same size and nicely grouped. If anything, I'd try to use three-point perspective more, especially for the first page of boxes. If you haven't done the 250 Boxes Challenge already, now's the time. If you have, then you should know that your boxes would look even better in three-point perspective and actually help you organize the shapes to see where and how the intersections happen (but not too dramatic!).

Lastly, I really like your "sausage organization" in the Organic Intersections. If anything, I advise you to try doing larger cast shadows, so that you force yourself to think about how they wrap on the sausage below. Make sure to try this when you revisit this exercise as a warm-up.

Good evening ASH5680! I will critique you submission today. But before I start with the specifics, make sure to rotate your images properly, to make it easier for reviewers in the future. It makes them more inclined to critique, if they don't have to download and rotate the images. No

In your Organic Arrows , the two pages are very different. In the second page (which looks like it might be your first attempt), it's barely a pass, but in the first page (your second attempt?) I see that you are tapering your arrows, and applying the trick of smaller distance between the turning curves, the further away you imagined the arrow to be. You are overlapping the curves like you should. That's great self-correcting! When doing this exercise in the future, try exaggerating perspective and curves even more, don't be afraid to try some crazy things while adhering to the rules. You totally got the assignment in the end, but I'd like to see more confident lines. For the shading, especially, it would help if you added line weight on the curve that overlaps the other.

Your Organic Forms with Contour Lines look good, no major errors here, just a question of curve confidence and practice.

What happened in the Texture Analysis? I can see that you completed the exercise, but not sure why you felt you had to cut out individual squares for each step. If you drew the textures on the squares after you cut them out, don't do this as it makes drawing and using your arm properly a lot more difficult. As for the texture analysis, it doesn't look like you fully understood the purpose of the exercise, so I'd like for you to redo the third column of this exercise before I can mark this lesson as complete. In the last column, you are supposed to organize the textures you studied going from the darkest to the lightest, while avoiding outline scribbles. The texture should come alive as cast shadows overlapping each other, rather than shape outlines. Your major mistakes here are 1) Drawing the outlines and 2) No transition from dense to sparse. Read the assignment, ask for help on Discord if you need it, and try again! I

Because your Texture Analysis suffered, the error of drawing the outline of the texture rather than the cast shadow, transferred over to Dissections. Still, you are doing the turning of the texture correct along the edges of the sausage, so you're minding the curvature like one should, and you definitely breaking the silhouette. This exercise would look even better if you worked with cast shadows rather than outlines, so keep that in mind when you revisit this as a warm-up in the future!

The Form Intersections look good apart from correcting lines instead on one, confident line (even if it's faulty, it's still better than correction lines). It's a difficult exercise, but you managed the task. Make sure to keep practicing this one as you continue your DAB journey.

Finally, Organic Intersections are not bad, but on the first one you are drawing a lot of sausages parallel to each other. That is a mistake, which you seem to correct on your second page. You also seem to try following the contours of the underlying sausage for the cast shadows more carefully in the second sheet, which is the right thing to do. Keep practicing this one, too, as you move on to future challenges.

Hello DNGJ02, good work on getting through this lesson! I will critique you submission today. I have noted that you struggled with seeing the form intersections, and this is totally normal. It is a difficult exercise for most of us.

Your Organic Arrows look OK perspective-wise. You have understood why the turns create a feeling of depth as I can see that you really paid attention to increase the distance between the turns as the arrow comes forward towards the viewer. In some of the arrows, this is less apparent than in others, but it's a pass. If anything, your curves are a bit wobbly and some joins are sloppy. Also, try to do the shading more carefully with even strokes. It doesn't take that much longer but the result looks a lot more neat. It's very little effort for a much better result, don't you think?

As for your struggle with seeing where to shade, try to consistently decide which curve goes above the other, and shade the area underneath that curve.

In the Organic Forms with Contour Lines it looks like you were in a rush, even if you did the assignment correctly. Like before, I strongly advise you to slow down a bit, as this is not only a chance to do the lesson, but also incorporate and practice earlier markmaking skills from previous lessons. You still pass, but if you don't slow down in the future as the exercises get progressively harder, your communication to the viewer may suffer because of unnecessary wobbles and sloppiness.

Your strongest submission are the textures, both for the Texture Analysis and Dissections. Some suffer a lot when doing these but I can see that you had fun, were meticulous and careful about what you were observing. You avoided all the common traps, and made sure to use the cast shadows to communicate wrapped forms around some random sausages. Well done!

In your Form Intersections, the sloppy lines makes everything a lot more busy than it should be. Although, you still manage to stay true to the main goal of this exercise, which is to keep consistently sized shapes, not doing the intersections perfectly as it is very hard. I see three cylinders and a sphere that are a little bit too big on all pages, but most of the shapes are consistent.

Finally, Organic Intersections, are good, but still suffer from a little bit of sloppiness. In the first of the two pages, your cast shadows don't really stick to the form of the underlying sausages, and you do the mistake of putting two parallell sausages next to each other, but your second page looks a lot better! In your second page, you fufill all the criteria of a successful exercise. Well done on correcting your own mistakes!

Thank you so much for taking time to critique my lesson 2, I have been waiting for a long time. It was worth it!

It looks a lot better! I think you have addressed the major issues. The point is to see how off your inner corners are, not that they are perfect. This time, since you have done all the convergence lines, you will immediately see what to work in. As for the other convergences, it still looks quite good. Congratulations on finishing ????

Good evening soldier, nice to be on the "other side" of Box hell right? Give yourself a pat on the shoulder, you did good!

It's funny how a lot of people I see, feel that they peak at round boxes 150-180. It was the same for me, and I think one explanation might be 1) Like you say, higher standards, 2) Fatigue, 3) You start to experiment with more "odd" types of boxes, especially the long ones. Don't worry though, your box 200-250 still is a lot better than the first ones, and that is the goal!

First, some things I noticed overall.

• You have a good variety of boxes and the perspective communication is quite clear. I understand the direction you wanted to present the cube in and this is good. You really seem to have a knack to quite accurately draw the boxes in dramatic perspectives, I'd like to point out boxes 61, 98, 137 as especially good.

• The less dramatic boxes are not as accurate. I feel that you need to practice these a bit more, not only because they are harder but also because the ones I see have too little convergence and thus become too parallell. You can read more about it in this link, where the issue is illustrated in detail.

• You are not drawing all the possible convergence lines for your boxes. In a majority of boxes, you are forgetting, or skipping, the last convergence line. For this reason, I'm afraid I'll have to ask for a tiny revision from you. It's very important that the convergence line from the inner corner exists, so that you can clearly see if you have issues with the inner corner (a very common issue!).

• You are never supposed to correct the convergences by tracing the back from the common vanishin point, like you did in red marker for boxes 246-250 and a lot of others. This defeats the purpose of the exercise, but I understand that you are doing it to "check" how off you were. In that case, do it on the side but not within the scope of DAB course submissions and instructions.

Now for some specific critique.

Extending lines in the wrong direction

While often skipping the proper amount of convergence lines, yours are extending in the right direction, which is away from the viewer. That is correct.

Divergences and parallel lines

This relates to my earlier comment about trying to do some more boxes with a perspective drama somewhere between very parallell and extreme. In your revision, I'd like for you to focus only on these type of boxes. Here you can find some examples, but remember to imagne your own boxes and draw from imagination.

Hatching lines

While optional, if you do it, they need to be as accurate as the line techniques listed in Lesson 1. Keep hatching, but try doing it just a bit more carefully in your revision.

Lineweight

I strongly encourage you to try this in your revision. Just like in lesson 1, lineweight should only be added to the silhouette of the boxes, and with a superimposed line, one is enough, as it's important to keep it subtle. When doing this superimposed line, it should be done ghosting and drawing it confidently, having it lose accuracy is acceptable, but having wobble is not. As always, confidence > accuracy.

Wobbly lines and repeating lines

No matter how off a line is, you shall not correct it with another line on top of the faulty one. All lines have to be drawn by drawing first its starting and ending dots, ghosting it, and drawing it confidently with the shoulder prioritizing confidence over accuracy. Just like in Lesson 1! For your last boxes, they looked much better than your first boxes but suffered from this mistake.

Similar orientations with boxes

You have a good variety of orientation!

Inner corner

This is your major issue and the reason why I want to see a revision - I cannot see how off the inner corner is if you are not extending the convergence from the corner! It's pretty normal to have the inner corners come out pretty off, as they are affected by the accumulation of previously done mistakes.

This diagram explain the issue, so that you can understand why your revision must have all the convergence lines drawn out.

One tip that is commonly suggested as "inner corner fix" is to draw the lines in a particular order. By drawing the inner corner before the last line of the box, it might become easier to think about the relationship between lines, which will make it easier to nail the convergences.

Good evening! I'm kotka#1891 on Discord and I'll be your reviewer tonight. Wherever you are, I hope you have a nice evening (or morning) with lots of tasty tea.

Lines

Your lines look very confident and there is a minimal amount of arching, which tells me that you have understood the task and your shoulder movement has a good balance of control and relaxation. Fraying of lines at the end is expected and something that will slowly improve over time as you keep doing lines as warm-up, but I see some fraying at the start of the line. Don't rush, place our pen perfectly on the same spot every time, and this error will disappear. Actually, it already disappears in your second page of Superimposed Lines, which means that you already know how to correct this. Great!

You have a minimal amount of overshooting in your Ghosted Lines and Ghosted Planes which is good. Try to see if locking your eyes on the end point while drawing towards it can improve your accuracy.

Ellipses

Confidence and fluent motion is more important than accuracy here. You have understood the assignment and done your best, but, your ellipse exercises need to have a bit more variety! You seem to choose very similar ellipse degrees, try experimenting a bit more. It will help you develop your skills. For now, it's fine, but make sure to include all kinds of degrees, axis and sizes for your ellipse practices. Your major strength in the ellipse exercises is that you are good at following boundaries for your ellipses, even though the accuracy suffers a bit. Nicely done! Just take a look at the big difference between your first and second submission of Table of Ellipses: you clearly understand how you need to improve and what to do. You accuracy is a lot better in the second, too.

Your strongest ellipse exercise is Funnels, so if I'd choose one of these exercises for you to prioritize once you use them for warming up, I'd recommend you to keep doing a lot of Table of Ellipses.

Boxes

Nothing to comment on Plotted Perspective, looks correct. Next, the Rough Perspective. Not much here either, some lines are wobbly but it's not a big problem and will improve with time and practice. You have done the exercise according to instructions.

Now, The Rotated Boxes is a very hard exercise, prone to a lot of mistakes. I applaud you for clear lines (even if wobbly), not drawing over and correcting twice, and finishing the exercise as instructed. While your sphere of rotated boxes is more of a rounded square, you have done all that is expected and with a minimum of unnecessary features. You shine especially in imagining and drawing boxes above the horizon line and they are quite symmetrical on both sides of the sphere. If anything, try improving your boxes at the lower half of the horizon line as those ones are suffering a bit more.

Organic Perspective is basically preparation for the 250 Box challenge. You wrote that this one was rough, too, but I see a proper execution of this exercise, and clear communication of how you imagine the boxes twist and turn along the curve. Just keep applying line making concepts such as ghosting and planning the end points with dots as you continue your journey, and it will be fine.

Your submission is solid and confident, but remember to have patience and ghost more than less in future DAB endeavors.