Koyomi

oh shoot i didn't noticed someone already critiqued your work, he also seems to have done a way better job than me.. anyways, i hope it will still be useful !

Hello, i’ll be the one handling the critique for your lesson 1.

-Lines

Your lines are looking pretty good ! they’re pretty confident although i notice a lot of wobbling lines so that’s a good start, but always keep in mind to prioritize confidence over accuracy !

Some of your lines are fraying on both ends in your superimposed lines exercise as well as your ghosted lines exercise your lines should never fray on the starting dot. Make sure you’re placing your pen carefully at the beginning of each lines.

You repeat your lines a lot in the ghosted planes exercise, no matter how off a line is you should never go over it, keep the line as if it were correct and move on !

-Ellipses

Your ellipses are drawn pretty confidently and you drew through them multiple times, i have not much to say on this section, it’s certainly not perfect but i’m confident that with practice you’ll get this.

-Boxes

here the first thing that caught my eye is your line-weight, line weight should be added with confident, ghosted lines and only to the part that overlaps, not the whole line.

also avoid adding line-weight to the inward lines of your boxes as it tends to make your boxes lose solidity, especially when the same thickness of lines is not found on your outwards lines

that’s all for my critique, i hope it will be helpful, good luck for the rest!!

Hello, i’ll be the one handling the critique for your lesson 1.

.If you struggle drawing from your arm, remember to use the ghosting method, to lock your wrist and use only your elbow and shoulder joint, as for small lines these can be tricky and require some time to get used to.

.Ballpoint pen is fine for lesson 1 and 250 boxes challenge even though it’s not recommended, from lesson 2 a fine-liner is required though.

-Lines

.Some of your lines are fraying on both ends in your superimposed lines exercise, the lines should never fray on the starting dot. Make sure you’re placing your pen carefully at the beginning of each lines.

.in your ghosted lines and ghosted planes you got some nice confident lines! but i notice a lot of wobbly ones, so remember to always prioritize confidence over accuracy and to use the ghosting method

-Ellipses

Your ellipses are drawn pretty confidently! they are certainly not perfect but you’ll get this

.You did a good job in the ellipses in planes exercise, there are just some ellipses that don’t really touch each corners of your planes, but it’s looking pretty good.

.On your funnels, some ellipses, often those closer to the end of the funnel aren’t matching with the minor axis.

-Boxes

.In the rotated boxes exercise, some of your boxes aren’t rotating make sure to increase the foreshortening from the one that is beside each time you draw a new box.

.On your organic perspective i think you could have fitted more boxes here, don’t be afraid of making things cluttered.

that’s all for my critique, i hope it will be helpful, good luck for the rest!!

Hello, i’ll be handling the critique for your lesson 3

arrows

those are well executed your lines shows confidence, but i notice that you struggle to put them in a perspective. you attempt to do it but you don’t push the foreshortening (making the farther end smaller, and the closer end larger) enough when needed.

on some of your arrows the hatching given to the corners feels rushed, remember that every line you draw contribute to the solidity of your drawing so take the time that it needs and don’t rush steps of the process.

leaves

Your leaves are flowing through space pretty well and i see that you stick to the construction method when drawing a leaf composed of many different "arms".

Keep in mind that when we add zigzags to the edges we give one stroke, one trajectory, don't autopilot those and be mindful of each stroke.

branches

There are leftovers from your previous segments, be sure to draw using the shoulder with a ghosting method. We want to execute our strokes confidently and make them go over the next ellipses

plants

You stick to construction heavily here, that's great !

you’re drawing really small, Drawing small makes things harder for us. We draw more clumsily and it limits our ability to think through spatial problems, so i would recommend you to take one full page for each drawing.

Hello, i’ll be the one handling the critique for you 250 cylinders challenge.

-- starting with your line-work: your lines and ellipses are turning out nicely, i can see that they’re drawn with confidence and that you used the ghosting method and this really helped your cylinders to look more solid.

One thing that i will point out is that you tend to undershoot your lines, which means that your lines stops before attaining the they’re point which makes your cylinders look vague and less solid so, i’d advise you to practice the ghosted lines exercise and to try to lift your pen off the page the moment you hit the end point.

-- on your actual cylinders, i see that you have been patient and that you really took the time to check the real minor axis of your ellipses, this will help you to avoid plateauing and will keep you improving.

I think your cylinders looks all same-ish, you can avoid that by experimenting with different sizes, rate of foreshortening and orientation in your cylinders.

Also your cylinders looks like they had been squished, this is caused by the degree shift from the front ellipse of the cylinder to the back ellipse that is too shallow in your cylinders.

-- moving on with your boxed cylinders, your line-work is still very confident and you’re experimenting with a different variety of degree and rate of foreshortening in your cylinders, this is great ! though i think your foreshortening is very often too shallow, try experimenting more with dramatic foreshortening.

I noticed that on your boxed cylinders you stopped checking your minor axis, try to remember that next time, checking our minor axis helps us notice our mistakes and take action upon them to improve.

Lastly, your priority should be to align your ellipses to the minor axis rather than having them fit snugly within the plane. if you remember in the ghosted planes exercise in lesson 1 our main priority was drawing smooth and symmetrical ellipses regardless if they didn't fit snugly within the plane, it’s the same with the ellipses on the planes of a box.

i think you could have made this insect way bigger putting your page at a vertical angle.

your sausages looks better! they still lack solidity and they don't quite look 3d but i think it's enough to let you go on lesson 5, there you will use sausages a LOT! so take this as an opportunity to learn and get better at it.

best of luck

thank you this is really helpful!!!

Hello, i’d be handling the critique for your lesson 3

Arrows

Your arrows are done quite well your linework is pretty confident, i just notice that you struggle to put them in perspective a little bit, you don’t push the foreshortening (making the farther end smaller, and the closer end larger) enough when needed

There’s a pinching on your arrows where the overlap happens which makes them quite confusing to look at sometimes and weakens the effect of perspective we’re trying to create, this is caused by your second curve struggling to follow the first one as accurately as it needs to be, remember that your second curve is supposed to be pretty much the same as the first one

The head of your arrows generally looks pretty stiff and flat, try to make it follow the same flow as the rest of your arrow, don’t be afraid to twist and bend it

I see that you have put some line weight on the edges to reinforce the perspective of your arrows so good job on that!

Leaves

Your leaves are flowing through space pretty well and i see that you stick to the construction method when drawing a leaf composed of many different "arms" so props for that

I just think that you didn’t push your "zigzags" enough and that it gives the impression of a wobbly line or a line that has been repeated multiple times

Branches

There are leftovers from your previous segments and you often miss to go over to the next ellipse so be sure to draw using your arm with the ghosting method.

Plants

You really stick to construction here so that’s a good thing!

I notice that you are drawing pretty small. Drawing small makes things harder for us as it limits our ability to think through spatial problems, I would recommend you to take a full page for each plants that you’re drawing

There are places where your lines become quite sloppy. Remember to be patient, to ghost you lines and to take as much time as needed for each line

Your line weight often comes out way too thick. To add line weight you should only go over your lines two or three times with the same 0.5 fineliner pen that you use for your construction. The reason we use line weight is just to show what is sitting in front of what, not to cast any shadows

Hello Rainbow, i’d be handling the critique for your lesson 4

First, i notice that you didn’t use the right tools for this lesson, this is well explained here https://drawabox.com/lesson/0/4 that past lesson 1 and the 250 boxes challenge you should be using a 0.5 fineliner

Organic Forms With Contour Curves

Here you misunderstood the exercise you did one page with contour curves and the other one with contour ellipses, just like in lesson 2. However here you’re asked to do both pages of organic forms with only contour curves. https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/curves

Most of your organic forms are not consistent, keep in mind that your organic shapes should only consist of two equally sized spheres connected by a tube of consistent width as viewed here https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/simplesausage

Your contour curves are too shallow and they don’t hook around, when drawing your contour curves you should try to overshoot them just a bit to help you visualize it in 3d and not as a flat line sitting on a flat shape https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/shallow

Your contour curves are all of the same degree, you should give your ellipses a bit of a shift in their degrees, not doing this will really flatten your forms https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/degree

insect construction

The black flet pen you’re using makes is hard for me to see what is going on so i will only talk about the first ones

On the first one the details are hiding most of the construction, remember to use texture carefully place it where you want to draw attention to, using it everywhere and filling zones with black will only add noise to your drawing

On the second one your lines are really wobbly, you are using ellipses instead of sausages for the legs and outside of that i don’t really see any construction

I’d like to remind you to take your time with this course, whatever is your goal if you’re doing this course then i assume you must want to improve at drawing but it’s not a race, the first to come out on the other side here is not the one that is rewarded, so slow down, make sure you’re reading carefully through the material and have the right tools to make the best work you are capable of doing right now

Hello Mei, i’d be handling the critique for your lesson 4

Organic Forms With Contour Curves

Most of your organic forms are swelling and don’t keep a consistent width, very often you draw shapes that continually widens like ellipses, your organic shapes should only consist of two equally sized spheres connected by a tube of consistent width as viewed here https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/simplesausage

The degrees of your contour curves is all the same, because of that your forms seems to look very flat, you should give your ellipses a bit of a shift in their degree as you run through the length of the form https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/degree

Your lines are hesitant and wobbly, keep in mind to use your shoulder with a locked wrist to draw your lines, having confident and smooth lines will improve the solidity and believability of your forms https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/3/smooth

Insect Construction

it’s a shame that you didn’t provided the references you used here it would have been really helpful but anyway

You’re drawing really small, Drawing small makes things harder for us. it limits our ability to think through spatial problems. I would recommend you to take a full page for each insect that you’re drawing.

Most of the time you draw your legs with stretched spheres, you should build your legs using sausage forms https://drawabox.com/lesson/4/2/sausages

In your leaf beetle, cicada and your last one you drew legs that we’re not supposed to see through the body of the insects, i don’t have the references so i can’t tell if you’re entirely making the legs up or not but if we don’t see the legs on the reference then there’s no need to draw it, doing so will only add noise to our drawing

Hello Perkfever, i’d be handling the critique for your lesson 3

Arrows

Your arrows are done quite well your linework is pretty confident, i just notice that you struggle to put them in perspective a little bit, you don’t push the foreshortening (making the farther end smaller, and the closer end larger) enough when needed

Your lines wobbles sometimes, remember to use the ghosting method, and to use your arm to draw each lines

Putting some line weight to the overlaps would have been a great touch, emphasizing how the arrows twist and turn and also giving more depth to your arrows. think about that next time!

Leaves

Good job on your leaves they are flowing pretty well but i think you could have drawn more of them. Concerning the little caterpillar on the bottom left leave you should never doodle on your exercises pages, it can be tempting to draw something fun when the exercise is so boring but by doing that you’re distracting yourself from the exercise, uncomfortable has talked about this in the 50% rule video

also it’s quite a shame that i can’t see your entire sheet of paper because i can’t tell if you’re drawing too small or too big, you should use the space of an A4 format paper for each exercises, i see that your paper has a little bit of grain, i wouldn’t recommend to waste sketchbooks or fancy paper on the exercises, you could perfectly use a stack of print paper you really don’t need more than that

Branches

There are leftovers from your previous segments, and sometimes your lines don’t touch each other so be more mindful when you trace your line, be sure to place your pen on the previous line and to use the ghosting method while drawing with your arm so that you can execute confident lines

I think you would also benefit from drawing your branches a little smaller

Plants

You are drawing pretty small, Drawing small makes things harder for us. it limits our ability to think through spatial problems.

There are places where your lines came out quite sloppy, try to commit to them more. Remember to be patient with ghosting. Also keep in mind to use your shoulder with a locked wrist to draw your lines.