paperhat

Hey!

Thank you for your kind words! Is there anything you noticed that I should watch our for in the future?

Hey!

First of to your comment. I interpret to " The best of your current ability" a bit different I think. For me it means that it does not matter if everything is not perfect, if an ellipses overshoots a bit or a line is not 100% accurate. However, this only holds if I truly do my best: so ghost every line and every ellipses, think of what I am doing and, most importantly, take my time. I have to admit that that is hard sometimes (and I am only at the beginning), but the phrase "It's a marathon, not a race" keeps me going I think (I do not know which community member I am quoting here and have quoted in the critique before, but I have definitely read that from someone on the server :D)

To the anxiety part: If you are not sure if you are doing it right it might help to either watch the video again/read the text again or to simply ask on discord. Maybe it also helps to step away for a bit and start a bit later (maybe the next day) where you left of but with a different mindset and perspective on what you have done. Sometimes taking a step away and looking at it from behind is really helpful!

To answer your questions:

1. You should wait until your homework got marked as completed. So do the additional work I advised you to do and send me a new link with your work underneath this critique. I will go over it and if I think you are ready I will mark this lesson as complete for you.Then you can go critiquing others on their lesson 1 (:

2. For the other lessons and challenges you do not have to wait one week in between (you will probably also not finish every challenge or lesson within one week, especially if you pay attention to the 50% rule and do other stuff then drawing ;) ). What you have to do though is to critique five lessons/challenges you have completed before and then send Elodin a submission link on discord.The pinned message in the critique-exchange channel on discord also explains this.

Hey earvinwils! I am paperhat and I will be doing your lesson 1 critique.

My critique will be divided into three sections:

Lines

• Super-imposed lines: Your lines here are confident and not wobbly, that is great! However, there are some things I can notice that can be improved upon. All your lines are somewhat the same length, be sure to practice lines in all sizes (lengths) when you use this exercise in your warm-ups. Your lines are only fraying on one end, which is great! But they fray quite a lot, be sure to take your time with every new line and ghost them properly, this should help you avoid a lot of fraying. And last of, nearly all your lines are arching. Arching might happen if you are not using your shoulder pivot. However, it might also happen if you use your shoulder pivot. In that case try to consciously arch in the opposite direction. Try to pay close attention on which pivot your are using. Also, same as for the fraying, be sure to take your time. This is a marathon not a race.

• Ghosted Lines: With this exercise I see the same problems as with the first one. Your lines are arching a bit (not as much as before though, that is great improvement!) and they are all ruffly the same size. It again seems a bit rushed (notice how the line thins out towards the end?). I do not know if this is because you just wanted to be done with the exercise or you drew your lines super fast in order to have them more confident; I'm guessing you wanted to be more confident. Be sure to know that super fast does not equal confident. Maybe try drawing your lines a little slower, but ghost more often so you get a better feel for it. Don't rush it, practice takes time and patience.

• Ghosted Planes: Here your lines are less arching, great improvement! The also look confident. However, they overshoot a lot. Do not get me wrong, a little overshooting is totally fine and to be expected, but here it is a bit much. I again would guess this is because you draw your lines super fast (at least it looks to me like that is the case). One other thing I can see here is that you did not put a point everywhere a line start and/or ends, for the "crossing middle lines" I cannot see them. They are a crucial part to ghosting!

Ellipses

• Tables Of Ellipses: Your ellipses here look mostly confident (smooth) and not wobbly, your second page also shows great improvement when it comes to that, nicely done! However, there are 2 things I want to point out. First, your ellipses have more or less the same degree (width). Be sure to practice all kins of different degrees and angles of ellipses, that is very important. Second, you are not going around the ellipses two to three times properly. It is often only on ore one and a half times. That is not how it is supposed to be, please be sure to follow the instructions of the exercise and do not rush! Ghost each ellipse multiple times and then draw through it 2 to 3 times (2 times is prefered, but 3 times is ok as well).

• Ellipses in Planes: Here your ellipses look a little less confident. Same as before you did not draw through each ellipse often enough. It also looks to me like you might not have ghosted the ellipses enough times, because the ones where you did draw through your second "round" of the ellipses is quite of from the first one. However, your second page here looks also better than the first one, this shows that with only a little more practice (1 page in this case) you can already improve, that is great!

• Funnels: You placed the minor axis correctly, cutting the ellipses in two halves! Here some of your funnels are really great looking (smooth ellispes that do not over/undershoot a lot) and some share the problems as mentioned above. I guess the better ones are the ones you have done last, again, showing great imporvment within an exercise!

Boxes

• Plotted Perspective: You draw through your boxes which is very good. Your hatching looks neat and orderly.

• Rough Perspective: You draw through all your boxes and use the line correction method. You keep the width lines are parallel to the horizon and height lines perpendicular to the horizon. Your lines are mostly confident, some are a bit arching but this looks way better than some earlier lines. However, same as before, your lines look very fast drawn and are overshooting quite a bit. You did however already estimate really well how the lines have to go in order to reach the VP, that is great!

• Rotated Boxes:In this exercise your "cross" in the middle looks quite good, you keep the corners close and rotate the boxes. That is great! The other boxes are not really rotated though. Take a look again at this https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/17/step7 and at this picture https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/17/step8 . The difference you might notice is that your furthest corner is not "pressed down" enough and you have to "push it" further behind.

• Organic Perspective: : FIrst of your linework here is way better than before! Your lines are confident, not as arching and way more accurate! Very well done! You have a variety of box sizes and angles, which is great. You also tried overlapping some boxes, but could have overlapped even more to give everything a more 3d feeling. Here and there you have some problems keeping up the illusion, because some of your line pairs are diverging and not converging. Have a look at this https://drawabox.com/lesson/250boxes/1/convergences if you do not understand what I mean by that.

First of all great job making it through all the exercises! You have sown great improvement not only within an exercise, but also over all exercises! That is awesome! There are some things, however, I would like you to try again before getting into the 250 box challenge. If you are not confident with ghosting and your linework that challenge will not be fun for you, so getting a good foundation now is crucial. It also seemed like you rushed a lot of exercises, so I would like you to take your time with the homework I am giving you. I know taking your time can suck, but it is important. Think marathon not race (: I hope this critique was not to harsh or anything and I am not totally off with my guesses (if so please let me know). If you have questions about my critique or otherwise, please let me know.

Hey Lana! I am paperhat and I will be doing your lesson 1 critique.

My critique will be divided into three sections:

Lines

• Super-imposed lines: Your lines are only fraying on one end and not on both, that is great! Your lines are also generally confident looking. Some of your longer lines wobble a bit, be sure to not stop being confident while your drawing a (long) line. For now it does not matter if a line is not accurate (here: goes off the first line) as long as it is confident all the way through. Some of your longer lines are also arching. Arching might happen if you are not using your shoulder pivot. However, it might also happen if you use your shoulder pivot. In that case try to consciously arch in the opposite direction. Try to pay close attention on which pivot your are using. All in all this exercise looks good though!

• Ghosted Lines: Here all your lines look confident, the longer ones as well, well done! Here your lines are also arching a bit. This is probably caused by you trying to hit that end point. When you use this exercise in your warm-ups try to not "force" the accuracy, as long as the line is confident it is fine.

• Ghosted Planes: For this exercise it is the same as for the other ones. Your lines are generally confident and accurate, however, the longer ones are arching sometimes. But less lines are arching and not as much as in the exercises before. So you have already improved, which is awesome! Keep it up! (:

Ellipses

• Tables Of Ellipses: Your ellipses are (mostly) nicely touching and repeated two to three times, that is perfect! (For future reference: two times is preferred) Again, as with the lines, it seems like you are sacrificing accuracy for confidence. Some of your ellipses are quite wobbly and not smooth, but they do not over/undershoot much. This should be the other way around. As long as the ellipses are smooth (confident) it does not matter if they are not perfectly accurate. Within this exercise you have also shown improvement. Your second page looks way better than the first one (less ellipses are wobbly, they are touching better).

• Ellipses in Planes: With this exercise you also show great improvement. On your second page the ellipses confidently drawn and are also quite accurate. On the first page however there is the same mistake as before: Trying to be more accurate and thus loosing confidence.

• Funnels: You placed the minor axis correctly, cutting the ellipses in two halves! Here your ellipses look mostly confident and do not over/undershoot a lot. Well done!

Boxes

• Plotted Perspective: You draw through your boxes which is very good. Your hatching looks neat and orderly. One of your planes is, however, to correctly hatched. I tried to mark which part should be hatched here : https://imgur.com/a/9mEX4z0 One thing you did not do which the exercise showed is to draw all lines all the way to the VP, like shown here: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/15/example

• Rough Perspective: You draw through all your boxes and use the line correction method. Your lines are mostly confident, but sometimes arching again. You keep the width lines are parallel to the horizon and height lines perpendicular to the horizon

• Rotated Boxes: : You keep the corners between boxes close and tried to rotate the boxes. I believe the lower right quadrant is the one you did last, here (and generally on the right side) the boxes are more and better rotated. Your hatching here is neat, but it somehow "swallows" the boxes ab bit, because it is quite thick and dark in comparison. One thing that might help you boxes stand out more against it, is adding some lineweight to them.

• Organic Perspective: : For the lines here the same goes as for most of your lines: They are generally confident, quite accurate but also arching here and there. Other than that you have a variety of box sizes and angles, which is great. When you you this exercise in your warm-ups be sure to also overlap some boxes, this helps the 3d illusion a lot. Do not forget to add lineweight to where the boxes are overlapping in order to make clear which box is in front of which.

You have done great work here and can be proud of yourself! Overall everything looks fine and I will go ahead and mark this lesson as complete for you. During the 250 box challenge be sure to pay close attention to your lines in order to avoid them arching, the warm-up before is extremely helpful with that, because you can get all the bends out of your system :D Good luck!

Happy I could help you! The thing with the hatching makes total sense :D

Good luck on your journey (:

Happy I could help!

Hey Owl! I am paperhat and I will be doing your lesson 1 critique.

My critique will be divided into three sections:

Lines

• Super-imposed lines: Your lines are looking confident and not wobbly. That is great! There is also only fraying on one end and not on both. On your first page this fraying is a lot, however, your second page is already much better. So you have already improved a lot in only one exercise! Some of your longer lines are slightly arching. Arching might happen if you are not using your shoulder pivot. However, it might also happen if you use your shoulder pivot. In that case try to consciously arch in the opposite direction. Try to pay close attention on which pivot your are using.

• Ghosted Lines: Your lines are mostly confident looking here as well. However, there are some lines where it appears that you tried to correct the lines in order to reach the desired end point, resulting in some lines making s-curves or arching. It is natural that one might want to do so, but a confident line that is not accurate is always better than a non-confident accurate one.

• Ghosted Planes: Your lines are again confident looking and also quite accurate. You also remembered to always make a dot for each starting and end point. Great work!

Ellipses

• Tables Of Ellipses: Your ellipses are nicely touching and repeated two to three times, that is perfect! (For future reference: two times is preferred) Some are over/undershooting a little, but that is perfectly fine. The ellipses also look very smooth (confident), which is great! One thing you should do when you use this exercise during your warm-ups is to not only change the degree of the ellipse itself (how wide it is), but also its degree relative to the borders. You also did not include a lot of different angles for your ellipses, most of them are quite wide. Try narrow ones as well!

• Ellipses in Planes: The ellipses are again quite smooth and confidently drawn. Sometimes the overshoot, but that is totally fine and will get better with more practice.

• Funnels: You placed the minor axis correctly, cutting the ellipses in two halves! You missed two draw through one of your ellipses twice (left upper corner funnel). Most of your ellipses look confident and do not overshoot too much. One thing to note: Some of your funnels have an ellipses on the middle line diving the funnel into a left and a right half. This is not how it is supposed to be, the line in the middle is an ellipses itself. The ellipses you draw into the funnel should be kind of mirrored at this axis. This mistake might have happened because you did not change the degree of the ellipses much, try taht when using this exercise as a warm-up.

Boxes

• Plotted Perspective: You draw through your boxes which is very good. Your hatching looks neat and orderly.

• Rough Perspective: You draw through all your boxes and use the line correction method. Some of your lines are not as confident as they should be and have a little wobble to them or are making an s-shape. For drawing boxes the same thing holds as for drawing just lines: confidence over accuracy. All in all this looks good though, you are also not extremely far from hitting the vanishing point, this will also just get better with time (especially after doing 250 boxes :D)

• Rotated Boxes: : THis looks really good! You keep the corners between boxes close and tried to rotate the boxes very well. Your hatching and lineweight are neat and make your boxes pop. Good job!

• Organic Perspective: : Here your lines are loosing a bit of accuracy, but that is fine as they are mostly confidently drawn. You used different sizes of boxes and angles, which is great. You also tried overlapping some boxes. One problem I can see you having with this exercise is the lineweight. Your lineweight is not really neat and looks more scratchy, which lets your work appear a bit more messy. When applying lineweight be sure to always ghost those lines as well, that is crucial! In the middle third on the second page there is also one other mistake that ruins the 3d illusion a bit. Here you applied linweight to a (somewhat) small box that should be behind the big box in the front, however, the lineweight let's us believe the smaller box is in front. Overall this is good though!

You have done great work here! The main points you should work on are apllying neat lineweight and practicing different ellipses (you will need them!). The ellipses part you will work on during your warm-ups , as for the lineweight you can try this is the next challenge which I will move you onto! 250 boxes are welcoming you!

Hey Rustyx! I am paperhat and I will be doing your lesson 1 critique.

My critique will be divided into three sections:

Lines

• Super-imposed lines: Your lines are looking confident and not wobbly. That is great! There is also only fraying on one end which shows me that you take your time doing the exercises and think about where to put done your pen at the beginning. Some of your longer lines have a slight arch here and there to them. . Arching might happen if you are not using your shoulder pivot. However, it might also happen if you use your shoulder pivot. I think that is what is happening here, your brain is "correcting" the line in order to stay on the line. Try to actively work against your brain in this case, a confident (non-arching) line is better than one that hits the end point but is arching.

• Ghosted Lines: Your confidence as well as your accuracy are really good here! There is only little arching/s-shapes happening, which is great!

• Ghosted Planes: You made very great use out of the paper space and tried different sizes and angles. You also placed a start and an end point for every line, this is crucial for the ghosting method, so you did a good job here! Your confidence and accuracy are both really good here as well!

Ellipses

• Tables Of Ellipses: Your ellipses are nicely touching and repeated two to three times, that is perfect! (For future reference: two times is preferred) Here and there they are over/undershooting a little, but that is perfectly fine. They are also nicely smooth (confident) and not wobbly, great job!

• Ellipses in Planes: Here your ellipses are mostly smooth as well. The ones (which are not very many) that are a bit wobbly are the ones where you tried to be more accurate and not undershoot too much. This shows the trade-off between accuracy and confidence. In the future try to stay on the confident side (:

• Funnels: You placed the minor axis correctly, cutting the ellipses in two halves (with an exception being the lower right funnel)! Your ellipses are smooth and do not over/undershoot a lot. One thing to note: Some of your funnels have an ellipses on the middle line diving the funnel into a left and a right half. This is not how it is supposed to be, the line in the middle is an ellipses itself. The ellipses you draw into the funnel should be kind of mirrored at this axis. This might have happened because you did not try to change the degree of the ellipses within one funnel, during your warm-ups you might want to try this.

Boxes

• Plotted Perspective: You draw through your boxes which is very good. Your hatching looks nice and neat and makes your boxes very good looking :D

• Rough Perspective: You draw through all your boxes and use the line correction method. You keep the width lines are parallel to the horizon and height lines perpendicular to the horizon. Your lines are confident and accurate!

• Rotated Boxes: : You keep the corners between boxes close and tried to rotate the boxes. Your hatching here is a bit messy, do not rush this process, it makes a huge difference! You mention that you do not understand how to rotate the boxes yet, however, I would say you are doing very well here! One thing you might tried is to push that furthest corner a bit more down, that would make a good difference I'd say. You also missed the corner boxes like shown here for example: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/17/step8 . Also, please remember that this task is supposed to be too hard for this point in the lesson and that it will probably not turn out in a way that one would hope for. But that is totally fine! That is part of the learning process!

• Organic Perspective: : Your lines are confident and quite accurate as well! You have a variety of box sizes and angles. You could have tried to overlap some more boxes to give it more of a 3d space feeling. Also some of your boxes look distorted, because the line pairs are diverging and not converging. This picture might give you an idea of what that means: https://drawabox.com/lesson/250boxes/1/convergences .

You have done a great job here! Do not worry about the boxes in 3d space too mcuh yet, you will elearn a lot more on those during the 250 box challenge. But before that I would like you to try the rotated boxes again, just because you missed some of them. Good luck!

Hey Alchemy! I am paperhat and I will be doing your lesson 1 critique.

My critique will be divided into three sections:

Lines

• Super-imposed lines: Your lines are looking confident and not wobbly. That is great! There is also only fraying on one end which shows me that you take your time doing the exercises and think about where to put done your pen at the beginning. Your longer lines are a bit (like really little) arching sometimes, but not much. Arching might happen if you are not using your shoulder pivot. However, it might also happen if you use your shoulder pivot. In that case try to consciously arch in the opposite direction. Try to pay close attention on which pivot your are using.

• Ghosted Lines: Very confident lines again! Your accuracy is also very good already! Your lines are never extremely arching or making an s-shape, they stay confident, nicely done.

• Ghosted Planes: Your lines, again, are confidently drawn. They are also very accurate already! You remembered to place both a starting an an end point for all your lines, this is very important and you did a good job by doing so.

Ellipses

• Tables Of Ellipses: Your ellipses are nicely touching and repeated two to three times, that is perfect! (For future reference: two times is preferred) They over/undershoot a little sometimes, but this is completely fine. Your ellipses are confident (smooth) and this is way more important than them being extremely accurate (although they are still really accurate for this point in the course).

• Ellipses in Planes: Again, very confident and accurate as well. Good job!

• Funnels: You placed the minor axis correctly, cutting the ellipses in two halves! They ellipses are smooth and do not over/undershoot much. It appears that you have a bit more problems with the narrower and/or smaller ellipses compared to your other ellipses. But that is completely fine, because they are still very good and you will keep on praticing these in order to improve them.

Boxes

• Plotted Perspective: You draw through your boxes which is very good. Your hatching and lineweight are extremely neat and make your boxes pop!

• Rough Perspective: You draw through all your boxes and use the line correction method. You keep the that width lines are parallel to the horizon and height lines perpendicular to the horizon. Here your lines are not as confident as before and are a bit wobbly. This is probably due to you trying to hit the points as best as possible, but remember: confidence over accuracy!

• Rotated Boxes: : You keep the corners between boxes close and tried to rotate the boxes somewhat. Given how though this exercise is at this point, you did well though! You could have tried to aplly the hatching everywhere, because it makes your boxes look better. In the future you might also want to try to add some lineweight in order to make everything pop even more.

• Organic Perspective: :You have a variety of box sizes and angles and also tried overlapping some boxes. Your lines are again very confident. Some of your boxes do not appear like they are in 3d space and look a bit distorted as the "line set" are divering and not converging (https://drawabox.com/lesson/250boxes/1/convergences). However, that is totally fine and during the 250 box challenge you will have plenty of time to practice boxes in 3d space! In the future you could also try to apply lineweight to the silhouettes to make it even clearer which box is in front.

You have done a great job during this lesson and I think you are ready to take on the next challenge! Good luck!

Hey Silhouette! I am paperhat and I will be doing your lesson 1 critique.

My critique will be divided into three sections:

Lines

• Super-imposed lines: Your lines are looking confident and not wobbly. That is great! There is also only fraying on one end which shows me that you take your time doing the exercises and think about where to put done your pen at the beginning. Your longer lines have an arch to them. Arching might happen if you are not using your shoulder pivot. However, it might also happen if you use your shoulder pivot. In that case try to consciously arch in the opposite direction. Try to pay close attention on which pivot your are using. Other than that this looks really great!

• Ghosted Lines: Your lines are, again, very confident looking! They are also pretty accurate already. Some of your lines have a tinsy bit of s-shape to them. But so little it is not really an S, but you can see it got slightly corrected. This is a thing our brains do, however, with more practice and conscious line-making we can out-trick it. Overall this look also very good!

• Ghosted Planes: Again, confident lines, and very accurate as well! You also remembered to place a start and an end point for all your lines, which is great.

Ellipses

• Tables Of Ellipses: Your ellipses are nicely touching and repeated two to three times, that is perfect! (For future reference: two times is preferred) Some are a little over/undershooting, but overall your accuracy here is quite good as well. Your confidence also did not suffer because of that, your ellipses are nicely smooth.

• Ellipses in Planes: The majority of these ellipses is looking confident as well. Some of your ellipses are not touching all 4 sides of the plane, but that is fine. Your confidence and accuracy seems to have already improved since the Tables of Ellipses exercise. Good job!

• Funnels: You placed the minor axis correctly, cutting the ellipses in two halves! Again, your ellipses are drawn confidently and also extremely accurate! Excellent job!

Boxes

• Plotted Perspective: You draw through your boxes and also use hatching to show which planes are facing the viewer. Your hatching is also very neat and makes your boxes look very nice!

• Rough Perspective: You draw through all your boxes and use the line correction method. You also keep the width lines are parallel to the horizon and height lines perpendicular to the horizon. Your lines look mostly confident, here and there is a little s-shape or wobbeling. I can also see that you repeated some lines, please do not do that in the future. No matter how far of a line is, just keep it that way it is. You do a line and then you move on, no matter what (:

• Rotated Boxes: : You keep the corners between boxes close and rotate the boxes. The rotations should be more extreme, but for this point in the time, this is quite good. You also use nice and neat hatching to make your boxes stand out more. One thing you could try on top of that is to use lineweight.

• Organic Perspective: : You have a variety of box sizes and angles and also tried overlapping some boxes. Here you could also use some lineweight to make it clearer which box is in fornt and which is in the back. As with all the task your lines are confident.

You have done really well in this lesson and should be proud of yourself! Onto your next adventure you go :D Good luck with all those boxes!