kotka

Giver of Life

Joined 1 year ago

5950 Reputation

kotka's Sketchbook

  • Sharing the Knowledge
  • Giver of Life
  • Dimensional Dominator
  • The Relentless
  • Basics Brawler
    12:45 PM, Tuesday June 20th 2023

    Hi Knight!

    I noticed now that I expressed myself a bit unclear. Your texture analysis was good in the third column; what I meant is that the cast shadow effect could have been applied more strongly in the Dissections. I should have chosen the Dissections option in the Next Steps rather than the confusing Texture Analysis.

    I will mark this lesson as complete since somehow, you deduced what I wanted to see and made it! Your complementary sausage is well done, showing the difference in cast shadows as the form turns. Have a great day!

    This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
    12:37 PM, Tuesday June 20th 2023

    Hi Ash!

    You did well on your assigment. I see that you understand how the cast shadows change in the lighter areas. Congratulations, you are ready to move on to the next lesson!

    This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
    4:35 PM, Saturday April 1st 2023

    Oh no... I totally forgot to scan them. I remember doing them during a stressful period at work (that's where I scan all my lessons). I hope a photo from my phone is good enough, I put them in the same folder but here are the links to the individual sheets.

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GUPlSfUnlMIDCu42W_hbN4QWj-XUq7uc/view?usp=share_link

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GVILmLlOYlzjqwTQJd7DNa1ZKTs0XMRN/view?usp=share_link

    Your critique is awesome by the way. I'm inspired to do video critiques myself. Thank you so much for taking the time, what you pointed out about ghosting even the smaller leaf details is true. I forget to remind myself of this when I get lost in the details.

    6:50 PM, Friday March 24th 2023

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

    Next Steps:

    Move on to Lesson 3!

    This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
    2 users agree
    9:44 PM, Friday March 10th 2023

    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.

    Next Steps:

    • Texture Analysis with lightning effect. Do this for crumpled paper (third column with grading from darkest to lightest) on one half of the paper, and apply this effect to any sausage you already did on the second half of the paper.

    • One page of Form Intersections with boxes only.

    When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
    2 users agree
    9:10 PM, Friday March 10th 2023

    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.

    Next Steps:

    One big sausage with some textures (you can just redo one sausage you already have done) where you aim to really show the dark cast shadows.

    When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
    2 users agree
    8:43 PM, Friday March 10th 2023

    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.

    Next Steps:

    • Three sausages from the Organic Forms with contour Lines, as stated in the critique.
    When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
    2 users agree
    7:09 PM, Friday March 10th 2023

    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.

    Next Steps:

    Revision to do:

    • One page of texture analysis, paying careful attention to the task for the third column (moving from light to dark)
    When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
    3 users agree
    4:24 PM, Friday March 10th 2023

    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!

    Next Steps:

    Move on to Lesson 3. From here on, stop rushing, and have patience with your markmaking especially for the more "boring" exercises. I think you would benefit from revisiting all the exercises of Lesson 2 at least twice (except the textures, which were really nice so you could also move onto the 25 Texture challenge).

    This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 3 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
    3:58 PM, Wednesday March 8th 2023

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

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