loadsofskeptic

hi, it's been awhile, sorry for responding too late. anyways for the 250 box challenge, for it to get critiqued, it's said that you should critique atleast 5 lesson 1 submissions after that you can then submit your submission or paste your link at the #critique-exchange in the discord so that it can get critiqued by the discord members of the drawabox community, if ever you haven't gotten critiqued yet.

cheers, loadsofskeptic.

flow for each leaf is pretty good,

good attempts for leaf number 1,5, however 5's left edge seems to be zigzagging,

you've worked subtractively instead of additively in leaves 9 & 4

some zigzagging in leaf 3

for branches

a bit better from your previous work, good attempt for 1, 3 & 7.

one thing to point out is that you are often repeating a line(lines that you try to correct/ don't mind/ not serve any purpose on the page); like in branches 6 & 2.

another thing is that when you're forking branches: https://drawabox.com/lesson/3/2/forking instead of drawing 2 ellipses in both sides, you draw 1 ball and then draw an ellipse then a flow line in the side you wish to add a branch.

so i won't hold you any longer, since the problem seems to lessen. one thing that i'm a bit worried is the case of you repeating a line since i've checked your previous submissions and they're present throughout each lesson so you may bring it along as you progress through lesson 4 and above.

you surely did improve but there are still a lot of things that you can improve, i'll be completing this submission and if you can, keep the points that i've rasied in mind.

space:

-

hi, sorry for the long wait, so there are a few things that i missed that somebody pointed out:

for the leaves, i made an honest mistake and it slipped away from my mind; so the tropical palm that i worked from simple to complex was additive, but when i applied the edges/ drew the edges to form the negative spaces became subtractive because i disregarded the construction of the leaf, so keep in mind that we should be constructing additively and not subtractively(don't disregard anything, just build everything on top of each other.)

another thing is that when doing leaf edges is that when it's somehow very complex, instead of one complicated stroke, you can also just make it into simpler, more manageable strokes.

for the branches you seem to have a hard time aligning the ellipses onto the minor axis, you can ghost as much as you want and use dots to your advantage to better plan your ellipse's allignment.

now onto the critique of your revisions:

for the leaves i can see that you aren't zigzagging your edges, however there's a case where you're working subtractively rather than additively, especially when you're working on edges.

another thing to point out is that you've outlined your leaf veins rather than focusing on implying the cast shadow of the leaf vein, if you look closely at the leaf vein you'll be able to see that there'd be some shadows that it's casting upon: https://www.plantsnap.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/leaves-3420078_1280.jpg

for your branches:

there's still some occurences wherein the edges don't transition smoothly like branch number 10,3,12. do the flow lines first before constructing your branches since in some branches it seems like you first constructed your branches(ellipse then connecting it) before the flow line, it wouldn't hurt to ghost the flow line.

for your plants:

there's a lot of repeating lines for the branches and the leaves, or it may have been an attempt in adding lineweight, nevertheless, when you make a mistake always stick with it, don't try to hide it/correct it since you won't learn from it or would just make it work.

the rafflesia plant was a good attempt, one thing that could've better emphasized the solidity of the construction is by adding contour curves in the center of it like this: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/814676072649719808/995905929935589477/unknown.png you could also add lineweight to define which is in front and which is at the back.

for the flowers, you've done great creating the initial structures of the plants, although the problem is that there are times where your leaves aren't clearly defined; for parts where it can't clearly be seen, try to guesstimate the structure behind it and not just draw it based from what you saw(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/814676072649719808/995915983543873606/unknown.png).

there's still some problems with the branches as it's not transitioning quite smoothly and there are still some sharp edges that's present.

so i gave the daisy a go and here's my step by step process: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/814676072649719808/995912622803271751/unknown.png

for the cactus. instead of drawing the actual silhouette of the cactus you can instead just draw a ball, or a branch that goes smaller and smaller to make it more believable, remember that we're tasked to break down the reference from complex to simple: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/814676072649719808/995922308231348335/unknown.png

for the mushrooms you seem to be trying to replicate the underside of the mushroom which is daunting to replicate, so if you don't want to capture the texture you can instead encompass it into a form like this image here: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/814676072649719808/995931015505780816/unknown.png

overall, there are still somethings that i want you to learn from so i'll only be giving you the exercises for branches and leaves since there are somethings that you still seem to be confused at.

branches:

• make sure to make the edges connect and transition smoothly, it's fine if there are some feathering as long as you are able to make it transition smoothly, that's fine

• align the ellipse on the minor axis

• apply degree shift for ellipses

• maintain consistent width for each ellipses(optional)

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/814676072649719808/995933285161115648/unknown.png

leaves:

• make sure to not outline the leaf veins(if ever you want to copy the leaf veins, make it as a texture and only focus on it's cast shadow)

• don't zigzag your edges.

• work additively, instead of subtractively

• don't do a complicated edge in one stroke, break it into smaller simpler strokes: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/814676072649719808/995935937009819678/unknown.png

for the table of ellipses compared to your first work is much better, there's still some overlapping going on, so just keep in mind that you should just keep it touching each other.

for the plotted perspective, nothing to say, great work!

i'll be completing this submission now, good luck with the future lessons

hi, so i was expecting an imgur link with your revisions on it not the 250 box challenge(since somebody else other than me would critique it.) so that i can complete this submission and that you could get a badge once 2 people agreed with my remarks.

to get critiqued faster you can join here at the drawabox' discord if you haven't yet: https://discord.com/invite/drawabox

hey there emoki, i'll be the one critiquing you today,

before starting off, one thing i've noticed is that there are some doodles/ notes/ self reflection in your submission, it's best that we separate these onto a different paper since sometimes the people who offers feedback gets distracted by it which could affect the quality of their critiques.

• so starting off with your arrows, you did a good job conveying the fluidity of the arrow as it goes through the page, the initial line is also well-executed(although, sometimes the line-weight makes it look broken/ chickenscratched) but there could still be some room for improvement and remember to always apply the ghosting method. for your lineweight, only add it to the overlaps of the arrows(or sausages/ forms when you reach lesson 4/5) since it's pretty hard to ghost the entirety of the arrow in one go, it would also better convey the overlaps of the arrow and would lessen the mistake in case you miss it, but it's good that you're subtle when applying lineweight and kept it with only 1 additional line. this image right here could be of use for you to keep in mind when applying lineweight.

• for the leaves, i'd like to raise some points here, so let's take your tropical palm leaf for example: this image here would tackle some of the things that you did wrong

  • so firstly when you're gonna enclose your major leaf shape, it's best that you try to commit with it rather than ignore it since it'll just add lines on the page and each line is made from a decision, and that decision builds up which then forms into a drawing in your case, ignoring it will make it feel 2d or not as believable as when you build it on top of one another, supporting one another, here's how'd i tackle it, even if it doesn't look like the reference you can deviate from it as long as the construction feels believable, you can also see that i didn't disregard the major leaf shape and worked with it(here's another example when constructing complex leaves).

  • next when adding texture don't hatch the shadows to fill it in, refer back to lesson 2 where it's tackled that we should be focusing on the cast shadows of the form rather than the form shadows(and filling it), keep in mind the textural properties for lesson 2 since in your work you've drew the outline of the leaf veins rather than focusing on the cast shadows of it(an example of how to do the texture of a leaf is here.

  • lastly is your edges for some of your leaves, there is one leaf (which could've been just a minor slip up) where you're zigzagging your lines and not respectfully following the major leaf shapes, making it feel like it's floating rather than a part of a leaf(like the leaf in the middle).

• next up is your branches, i see you that you tried your best to stick on how to construct your branches, but keep in mind that we're constructing branches and not cylinders connected to one another; when connecting it the edges shouldn't have a sharp corner but rather a smooth transition. for the ellipses:

  • some of your ellipses are drawn through 1 times/ 4 or more times, remember back to lesson one that we'd want to keep drawing through it around 2-3 times.

  • sometimes the degree shift of your ellipses suddenly widens and narrows within a very little length giving it a feeling that the branch is so big that it's dramatically widening/ narrowing which shouldn't be the case, remember back in lesson 1 that as the ellipse goes further, the degree of the ellipse gets wider and as it goes to the viewer it gets narrower, so it should subtly widen/ narrow as it goes futher or closer to the viewer.

• moving onto your plants, i have a couple of points to raise here:

  • you seem to be very loose when it comes to marking your lines, don't rush and use the ghosting method how many times you want, if you seem to catch your self from rushing try to stop for awhile take a break and continue it later on.

  • always have reference since i can see in some of your pages that there's the same plant with a repetitive outcome(daisy#4, daisy#7, daisy#8, last page daisy) - also take a good long look at your reference, it isn't required for you to completely copy your reference, just break it down using a series of shapes/lines(ellipses, branches, leaves, contour lines.), and lastly use non-committal marks such as dots or dashes so that will be able to visualize and still correct it if you think that it's still wrong, you can also use it to know how big you want your leaf/ pot/ plant to be.

  • don't use hatching to fill in shadows or big spaces, if you're using it to differentiate which is in front and which is in front, use lineweight - be subtle when using lineweight, only superimposed once or twice, and only add it when there are overlaps occuring.

  • for pots, try to add more ellipses/cylinders to it or copy the reference's pot to further emphasive the body/ the rim of the pot and the soil of the pot like this also only add hatching lines(if you'll add one) to the visible parts of the soil.

  • also don't draw too small or fit 3 or more plants onto one page, working small will be awkward to our arm and would force us to work on it using either the elbow or the wrist, it also lessens our spatial understanding of the plant, object, try to atleast work with 1-2 plants per page or if you still insist to work with 3 or more plants, don't overlap them to one another.

there are still some things to be worked on so i won't let you off on this lesson yet, there are somethings that i want you to fully understand and apply, you also seem to forget some of the concepts so keep in mind the points that i've raised and ask questions if you ever have one. for now i suggest that you go back and revisit the lesson's content, don't rush - rushing won't do anything good, good luck and i'll be waiting for your revisions

hey there elvenstar207, i'll be the one looking over your submission.

if you do ever find a sale for a4 paper, the investment would be worth it as you'll be able to use it for the upcoming lessons that you'll be tackling once you finish since a5 is pretty hard to work through especially because of it's small size, later in the course when other people critiques your submission, you might get pointed out for having way too many pages rather than what was instructed.

• now starting off with your superimposed lines, these are off to a great start! most of them are fairly straight, there aren't any arching lines and i can see that there are only fraying in one end which shows that you took the time to carefully position your pen before marking. your ghosted lines and ghosted planes are also both confidently executed well! the accuracy isn't that far off and you'll get even better once you keep practicing these in your 10-15 min of warm-ups.

• your table of ellipses are tight, not overlapping and confidently drawn through 2-3 times, they also seem to be symmetrical when cut through by the minor axis so great work! for your ellipses in planes, there were some cases of deformed ellipses, remember to prioritize confidence over accuracy! if you prioritize accuracy you sacrifice confidence. don't worry too much about accuracy yet since you'll be able to gain mileage overtime, especially for the upcoming 250 box challenge as well as the warmups. in your funnels, i noticed that as the ellipses reach the far end of the funnel, they seem to tilt a bit making the ellipses not aligned although greatwork keeping the smoothness as well as keeping it snug and tight and not overlapping.

• now onto the boxes, you've done the plotted perspective exercise well so i don't have anything to say. for your rough perspective, you did fairly well for maintaining the vertical lines perpendicular to the horizon while horizontal lines parallel to it, you've also done good job at extending it on the horizon line and not onto the vanishing point which shows that you followed the instructios by heart, now there's one issue that came up from this exercise and that's the slight hesitation that's showing onto your lines, there are some subtle s/c-curved lines which shows that you're slightly hesitating when marking or that you are focusing way too much on accuracy sacrificing confidence in return, for the subtle c-curved lines, one thing that you can do is to consciously arch the opposite way to maintain a straight line when ghosting, this can help lessen the arching problem. for the subtle s-curved line, try to ghost a lot of times before actually commiting to it, you can also increase the speed of ghosting.

• next up is your rotated boxes exercise, it's great that you drew it big but it might've been just the picture that's big so it must've been small when you worked through it, anyways wonderful job here, there's not much guessing happening, the rotation is somewhat good which makes me think that you already have good spatial reasoning, you've also kept the gaps narrow and consistent, great effort here, and you can also revisit this exercise again to check your progress and if you got slightly better in terms of rotating the box. it's honestly way better than my first attempt at this exercise.

• lastly organic perspective, there's a good sense of flow in the page giving the illusion that it's going from front to the back page; the boxes are also confidently executed which means that you are probably already comfortable with using your shoulder as well as applying the ghosting method and finally the foreshortening of some boxes are somewhat parallel making it diverge rather than converge, but you'll definitely dive more into that on the 250 box challenge and know both dramatic and shallow foreshortening.

overall this is a pretty solid submission, although there is still some room for improvement, there's no doubt that you can move on to the next lesson/challenge and you seem to understand the concepts behind each exercise, with that i'll be marking this submission as complete and so good luck with the 250-box challenge!

hi there 123_456, i'll be the one looking over your submission, but before getting started i'd like to congratulate you for finishing the 250-box challenge, not everyone is able to complete it as it's a challenging task that takes a lot of time, so you being able to stick by it and reaching the 250th box means that you're eager to improve and you have the patience on what it takes to tackle the next lessons.

• so starting off, i noticed while skimming through your submission that there's one case where you didn't extend a box or cross it out, keep in mind that making mistakes is a part of growth there's no point in hiding it since it'll hinder your growth if not found out while correcting it will just make matters worse. in future lessons/exercises on this course, when you make a mistake, it's best that you work with it.

• next up is your extension lines, most of the time you've extended them in the right direction as well as extending them just right to get an overview on how off or close you are onto coverging your set of lines, there are some small hiccups here and there so one tip that you can use for correctly extending your extension lines is by drawing small little arrows after you finished drawing your initial y like in this image here, you can also notice that the angle of the initial y should be greater than 90 degrees since having a initial y lesser that that would make it look deformed, make it look like it's on 2 point perspective and would be hard to know which is the right direction for you to correctly extend your lines.

• next up is the lineweight, it's good that you only applied it in the silhouette of the box. one thing that caught my eye is that sometimes the lineweight is uneven in some parts, one thing you can do is to stick by with only 1-2 additional lines when adding lineweight.

• hatching, like any other line, deserves to be applied using the ghosting method too. remember that hatching lines should be space evenly and consistent, it shouldn't be rushed or done sloppily.

• you've done a great job with experimenting different sizes, orientations and rotations of boxes it's also great that you kept your pages with a maximum of 5 boxes per page.

• convergence, divergence, parallel - this shown right here is convergence by pairs which is something that i've seen in some of your boxes and is a common mistake made by other students, although there's no definite solution as it still does take a lot of mileage before lessening the convergence by pairs issue, it would help to change your perspective a bit, This image here shows how each line is actually related to one another, when you move the vanishing point further, your lines will be close to parallel but not completely parallel(it wouldn't be completely parallel because it'll become isometric perspective, and isometric perspective is not real in real life.), when you move your vanishing point closer, the rate of foreshortening also would be dramatic, but you can never make it diverge or split onto multiple points.

overall this is a pretty solid submission, although there is still some things to be improved, there's no doubt that you've improved throughout the challenge. don't forget to put this challenge in your pool of warmups as well as the points that i've raised, with that being said i'll be marking this submission as complete.

hey there Bones, I'll be the one looking over your submission today but before starting I'd like to congratulate you on finishing the 250-box challenge, it's a very daunting task and you've managed to push through! This just shows your eagerness to improve and i'll be looking forward to your next submissions.

so let's get started

starting off with your lines, you're off to a good start! your extension lines are all extended in the correct direction, and it's also extended to certain extent which will tell on either how off or how close you are on converging them, one minor issue though is that in some boxes, you crossed them off... i'll... let it slid- or would I? I know that these are all minor slip ups as the boxes 53 and above are all extended correctly, but i have one thing to point out, when you have this minor slip ups, it's better that you try to work with it since in future lessons when you try to either correct it or hide it it will most likely make it worse(which will make it more noticeable) or hide it(which will most likely make it so that you'll have a hard time knowing it's a mistake).

As you progress throughout the challenge there's no doubt that you got better! your mark-making, your hatching lines' consistency, tightness and confidence; the convergences on your boxes got significantly better, you've also experimented with a good amount of orientations, length, sizes for each box; you've also followed the instructions of the challenge which is to do both shallow and dramatic foreshortening, so great work!

moving on to your convergences, in some cases there are parallel/ diverging extension lines while in other cases there are lines that converge by pair, keep in mind that a set of line should be converging into a single point not onto multiple points (you can look at this image here which tells on how a set of line actually relates with angles), neither will it diverge away from the vanishing point(because if it does diverge then it isn't a box and more of a trapezoid or a pyramid) nor will it be parallel due to perspective(because it'll be called isometric perspective which isn't a true 3d object), but it's quite hard to get all set of lines to converge into a single point so it's not expected that students would be able to get it on their first try not even after finishing the 250 box challenge.

overall you've done a wonderful job in this submission, there's still room for improvement but you seem to get the gist of what this challenge is about, you also did your best of your current ability and you've gained mileage. don't forget to add this exercise to your pool of warmups and once you're more confident, you can start doing the advanced box exercises for your warm-ups.

Hi Luke, I'll be the one looking over your submission today and hopefully I'll be able to provide you a helpful critique.

Before starting I'd like to congratulate you for being able to reach the 250th box, this is a very tiring challenge which requires a lot of patience, and not everyone is able to push through this far as many stop before even starting this challenge; This just shows your eagerness to improve and I'm looking forward to you're next submission.

so let's get started!

• starting off with your extension lines, you've done great extending it on the right direction, you've also extended it to a certain extent which makes it so that you can see where you got it off or where you got it to converge into a single point. Looking at you're boxes, you've experimented well with the orientation, width/length, as well as the foreshortening of the box, it's also great that you kept your boxes into a maximum of 5 per page.

• moving forward there are some instances where you crossed out some things like the extension line or some hatching lines, while it does give you a sense of wanting to fix it, it's best that you try to work with it since you wouldn't want to hide it as you won't know that it's a mistake or correct it since it'll be even more noticeable.

• looking at you're hatching, although consistent and tight, they're wobbly; like any other line, hatching deserves to be ghosted which not only would it make it a bit more appealing it could also add to your mileage. if you did ghost it, try to experiment with the tempo or speed of your ghosting in your warmups and see where you are comfortable but confident with your markmaking.

• a lot of instances you were able to converge 3 lines into a point and some very close to converging into a single point, while it isn't expected that you're able to make the set of lines into it's own individual point, there is significant improvement throughout your submission and i can see well that you did your best, just to add this: keep in mind that a set of line should converge into a single point not into multiple points(it'll take sometime for you to guesstimate accurately, but adding noncommital marks will surely help make it slightly converge closer.), it shouldn't diverge away from the vanishing point nor will it be parallel due to perspective.

overall this is a solid submission, you did your best and you seem to get the gist of what this challenge is about, one thing that I'd want you to keep an eye out is the confidence in your lines but congrats, don't forget the 50% rule and add this challenge to your pool of warm-ups, once you're more confident you can check out the advanced box exercises: https://drawabox.com/lesson/250boxes/2

Edit: woops i meant to type move onto lesson 2 sorry for the typo