pikscarots

Hi, from what I've seen, you're really good at applying construction to what you see. Apart from some small easy-to-miss details (like the rhino-lizard's tail looking a little flat), everything here feels very solid and real.

I can understand why you didn't refine some of the drawings or didn't add too many additional masses, as this was very last-minute. Something you can do to save time is, instead of drawing multiple iterations of the same thing, you could just draw one and have your efforts focused on it and it only. I understand drawing multiple iterations in the homework- it's good to do if it helps you better understand what you're doing. However, in something like this, I'd recommend that you save yourself a little bit of the effort and draw only one complete iteration of your creatures (you could also just draw one creature instead of two). Good on you for going the extra mile, though!

Good luck on the rest of Drawabox!!

Hello AHMEDHASSAN021, congrats for getting through lesson 5! Here are the comments that I have to make.

Intersections

Your organic intersections feel very weighted. they slump together really nicely. Some of the linework could use some work, especially the one at the top of the first pile. Wobbly lines not only look a little messy, but also undermine the solidity of the form that they represent.

It's good that you're thinking about how cast shadows wrap around the forms that they are cast upon. Remember to try your best to keep within the lines when darkening your shadows.

Animals

Your first bird head is appears to be a little bit two-dimensional. Remember that when we create the eye socket of an animal, we are carving into the base spherical form that we've created, so these carves would follow that form's contour lines, as opposed to being akin to a sticker being slapped onto a 3-D ball.

In your linx-like creature, I noticed some wobbly sausages. It's better to take your time when planning out a mark. Ghost as much as needed, as you really want that mark to come out clean. Another thing- some of your sausages lack contour curves around points of intersection, specifically with neighbouring sausages. These small contour curves add a great deal of solidity, especially since we don't rely on individual contour curves when using the sausage method- correctly defining points of intersection does their job really well. You can see this problem in your second canid drawing as well.

Remember that all additional forms have faces- front faces, back faces, top and bottom faces, etc. In your camel, the toes look like 2-d shapes. For Drawabox purposes, you must consider how these shapes that you see exist in 3-d, and you must draw them with that consideration in mind.

I can see that you've placed protrusions from the camel's body form to make some of its additional forms look more natural. This heavily breaks the 3-dimensionality that you've created. We should never change the silhouette of a form after creating it, as that will undermine its solidity. Instead, we should add an additional form on top of it, which would leave the original form intact and unchanged. In this case, instead of stretching out the camel's body form to fit some of the lumps on its back, it would have been better to add another form entirely to serve that purpose.

One thing I have to say about your second horse is to make sure to keep in mind how every form we draw is 3-D, and that they all intersect with one-another. You didn't draw a lot of contour lines or complete silhouettes of your forms, but everything still looks like it fits together nicely. For learning purposes, I'd say to avoid this when you're trying to study, as adding contour lines and/or completely drawing in your forms will let you have a better visual on what is actually going on in the drawing.

In your bear, make sure to communicate the curvature of some forms with your additional forms. For example, one of the forms you added near the top backside of the bear looks a little flat. Make sure to include subtle curves in these forms to communicate how they wrap around the forms that they sit atop.

The mane in your hybrid looks a little flat. Remember, even if things appear to be 2-D in a photo, they're still flat 3-D objects. Make sure to define where they connect to other forms to enforce this idea.

When looking at everying as a whole, I would say to be more careful with your lines. Try to avoid going over lines again and again as "corrective passes", like you did with the hybrid's tail. We're trying to build more confidence with linework through thinking about our lines more than what we would normally do. Remember to use the ghosting method!

I'm asking for two more drawings of quadruped animals (1 non-hooved and 1 hooved), and I want you to specifically focus on making clean linework and your forms look like they naturally interact with each other.

Hello,

Congrats on completing Lesson 5. I have a couple of comments for you:

In your organic intersections, some of your contour ellipses look a little flat. Remember to have them follow the contour lines of the form that you've created, rather than plainly facing the viewer. Other than that, I don't have problems with what I see.

I've read some of the comments on your pages so I'm assuming you're aware about why pen is preferred to do Drawabox lessons. Personally, I take it as less about making a beautiful picture and more about training yourself to draw better. In the case of your lines, I can see that you've gone over your pencil marks many times (especially with circles), with the problem extending to your done-in-pen bird constructions that you did as well. Drawabox's whole shtick is that your marks are permanent on the page, not being able to be undone. Drawing over them a lot takes away a lot of the pressure in the individual marks that you make. It's something to be weary about, as you want to develop confident mark-making habits. Pen helps a lot with that, as the marks you make are going to be a lot bolder and darker, so it's practically impossible to make sketch lines with them without completely muddying up the page.

Another thing to add- I feel as if you should worry a little less about little visual flourishes (like the marks of color found on your shark pages), at least with Drawabox lessons. I don't find them to be problematic, but doing so may save a little bit of time on your end.

In terms of your construction, you're doing really well. The creatures that you've drawn generally feel very solid and 3-D. I've noticed a lot more confidence when you've used pencil (and when you've outlined that pencil with pen). My same comments about mark-making apply here, but I do see that you're very aware about how everything properly sits in space and interacts with one-another.

A lot of your contour lines in your shark drawings do not hook around the edges of the forms. This isn't that big of a deal, but I feel like it'd add a lot more visual clarity to what you've drawn if you were to do so. If you don't want to rely on too many contour lines in your finished product, let your additional forms suggest your form's contours by wrapping the additional ones around the base form. If done well (and with the right forms), you can suggest a contour line without deliberately drawing one. Something that I find problematic is in your hybrid animal, as there is a visual lack of underlying construction. If you've hidden them under another layer, please let me know.

Another thing that I've noticed is that, sometimes, you've gone ahead and drawn a form with its edges visible separate from an actual construction, where that form's edges aren't visible (see your 2nd rhino page, where you drew a head's construction separately from the body). For people like me, it would've been a lot easier to understand how you've constructed the rhino if the head construction wasn't done separately from everything else. Again, I can see that you understand how the forms sit together in space, but it would've been nice to keep that visual clarity through the underlying construction.

As long as you keep thinking about how forms intersect and interact with each other, I think that you'll be A-OK to continue, but drawing out your underlying constructions would really re-enforce the ideas that you're communicating.

Hello,

I've quickly taken a look at your work, and I feel as if you correctly understand what is asked of you in this assignment, and that you tried your best to adhere to that. Improving on your sense of line convergence will come with time, practice, and more thought.

One thing I have to say is that you should never give up when something goes badly. I see that some of your boxes are crossed out, and have subsequently not been finished. Remember, nobody expects things done here to look nice; everything is done purely for practice. When you do something wrong, try your best to finish what you're doing, but never give up on it.

Aside from that, I would say to start to think about boxes that have harsher convergence rates in their edges. They may not be used as much as boxes with more relaxed convergences, but they still well represent aspects of the concept.

Hello Fairuz, good job completing the lesson. I have a couple of comments to make on your work.

contour curves

Overall, these were very good.

Keep in mind that, when the form goes from facing one direction to another (so when they turn in space), you have to make the curves transition a little more smoothly. You forgot to do the contour ellipses, but it should be OK. From what I see, you have a good understanding of how these sausages exist as 3-D forms. Next time, be sure to pay extra attention to what the assignments ask of you.

insects

Next time, I recommend to rotate your images so they're easier to look at.

Your constructions are very good. I recommend to use more contour lines, especially ones that run down the center of your subject. it'll help you to orient all your forms in your desired way.

Remember that breaking the silhouette of your object is a really good way to convey solidity. if you're stacking a form on top or around another, breaking the base object's silhouette is a good way to maintain the form's volume. This could be seen in the abdomen of the vertical image of the bug that's after the fly and also isn't the spider (I'm, quite frankly, not sure what that is). You added a form on the outer side, but it looks flat, almost as if it is a sticker that you placed on the base form, as it sticks with the silhouette of what was under it.

On that same drawing I see that you've added contour curves to one of the saugsage forms. Remember that, with those forms, we convey volume through how they interact with other forms. I can see that you might've messed up with these legs so I can see why you added contour curves, but it's good to keep in mind that we convey solidity through how the forms interact with each other (at least for our sausages).

One last thing to note; did you draw the base forms in with pencil? One of the rules with Drawabox is that it works exclusively in ink. I understand the sentiment of wanting it to be visually clearer, but for someone like me who is looking at your work, doing everything in ink gives me a clearer vision on how you went from point A to point B. It also reinforces the notion that every mark we make on the page counts, as we cannot erase ink. If this wasn't pencil and instead a dying pen, make sure to use pens with enough ink in them so that your lines come out more clearer and pronounced.

I'm marking this lesson as complete. Again, congrats!

Hi Simone123, I've taken a look at your work and I have a couple of comments to make.

Contour Curves and Ellipses

Some things about your contour curves and ellipses;

You've drawn a lot of curves and ellipses in your sausages. I understand that the more you draw the more you'll understand, but I feel like you could get a lot more mileage out of this exercise through playing with your forms a lot more. Try varying the degrees of the ellipses and curves (check out lesson 1 to see what I mean), playing with the idea that these sausages twist and turn in space. Drawing less ellipses and curves in each sausage would give you more room to play around with these concepts.

I would also say to make sure to accentuate the "swing-back" part of your contour curves. Some of them do this, but some of them don't. Remember, these curves run along the surface of the sausages. These little hooks help emphasize the idea that the side of the form that isn't facing us is also curved, which is important to keep in mind if you want to make your forms feel solid.

Insect Drawings

In some of your insects (especially your ladybug and your mantis), I've noticed that some of your lines are wobbly, or appear to be gone over multiple times. Take your time with your marks, plan them out, ghost them; do what ever you need to make them look as smooth and accurate (to what you want them to be) as possible. I've noticed this the most in the ladybug (in its spherical body) and the mantis (in its legs).

In your tarantula drawing, the legs' forms contradict themselves and end up feeling a little flat. An important thing to think about is how every form relates to each other. This means thinking about things like how forms connect to each other, which ones appear to be ontop of each other, etc. We use things like highlighted lines and cast shadows to reinforce what you see. I think you've highlighted some parts of your sausages too much, as they don't well establish a "visual hierarchy" (something that could help you tell how forms interact with each other). These things weren't the strict focus with making the legs (that being capturing their sense of flow), but it's something good to consider. Here's an image that hopefully clears things up a little bit.

Your other drawings don't have this problem to a great extent; they demonstrate the understanding of how forms can overlap with each other. Going forward, I would recommend to be very careful on how you highlight your lines. Remember that you're trying to create an illusion that everything you're seeing on the page isn't made of flat lines, rather tangible 3-D shapes. Highlighting parts of a form that aren't visible makes the form as a whole feel a little flat. Try to emphasize where you can visually see each form cut into the other, not where you can't.

Texture and Additional Forms

In your mantis drawing, I noticed that the shapes resembling flakes that sit under the arm seem to be drawn without any thought to them. If you zoom into the your reference for the mantis, you would see that these bumps have variations to them, with some being longer and some being shorter. Make sure to include details like these whenever you go out of your way to add smaller details to a drawing- it helps to better sell the nature of your subject.

Another thing I want to point out is how one of the segments of the arm has a little bump to the end of it- something that you didn't represent in your construction. It's good to start thinking about how you can include more complicated forms like these bumps in your constructions. The sausage form you have right now serves as a good base to add on to, so I implore you to do so. You could start by imagining that the bump in the arm is like another form being stuck onto your sausage form. Doing this allows you to gradually build up complexity in the forms that you create, allowing you to make more complex-looking things.

Misc

A final point that I would like to make might be a lighting problem, but it looks like these were done in pencil. If it isn't, then ignore this section of my comment. Ink is recommended as a tool for Drawabox as its permanent marks force us to think more about how we lay our marks on the page.

I am going to mark your post as complete. Make sure to continue to think about how all of the forms you draw sit in 3-D space and how they interact with each other. Going forward, make sure to take your time when doing all of the exercises, and try your best to capture the solidity of what you're looking at.

Hello,

Good job on completing this lesson. I have a few comments to make about your work:

Your arrows can be a bit flat sometimes. A good example of an arrow you did is the arrow on the bottom right. Something like this is ideal. Some of the turns on the other arrows can be flat (like the one under the top leftmost arrow, 3rd curve from the arrowhead). For this exercise, this should be avoided, as it's good to maintain a feeling of 3-D volume with the arrow while making it move through space (the latter of which you have a good understanding of). It's good to visualize how these forms appear to flow on top of each other.

Your leaves demonstrate good understanding of how flat forms flow through space. One thing to keep in mind (of which isn't the focus, but it's something I feel I should mention) is that textures, while they run across a form's surface, also bend and flow with a form.

(I don't know what your reference looks like, so take this with a grain of salt)

Take the leaf with the "ignore" comment as an example. I'm assuming that the area surrounded by the black hatching is supposed to be the middle area of the leaf. Comparing how it's drawn with how the leaf as a whole looks, the middle area looks as if it's ending at the edge of the leaf, rather than the stem area. Keep in mind how, since the leaf is flowing in on itself, the texture would follow suite and appear to be bending alongside the leaf.

Overall, your branches are good. Next time, try to vary the degrees of your ellipses more, making branches turn more in space.

For the plants you did outside of the demos, I'd keep in mind how each leaf and/or petal flows in space, as some of them could appear to be a little flat (see your pomegranate plant). Again, I don't know what material you referenced, but even if what you drew looked like the leaves and petals in the reference material, still think about how they can flow and overlap in space. Don't be afraid to draw through your forms!

Also, remember that, when connecting tube-like forms (like branches), you want to connect segments by using spheres. It's to give us a better understanding on how these things can connect to eachother while also being able to have that natural-feeling "flow" to them (how branches in real life aren't just cylinders). We want everything in a construction to feel cohesive and solid, and these spheres work to maintain that solidity.

Congrats for sticking through until the end of the lesson!

Yeah, you well understood my point about the leaf vein!

Hi TonyGotCakes,

This is well done, good job! I have a few things that I would like to point out.

For your arrows, be weary about where you put your hatching lines, as you always want them to to remain on one side of the arrow while fully conveying the arrow turning in space. One of the arrows in the middle (https://imgur.com/a/kd6e2al) has some hatching that looks like it's on the outer side of the arrow but doesn't fully cover that side when it turns in space. The hatching stops before it is able to completely reach the arrow's edge (the one that signifies a turn), which does not sell the idea of the arrow turning in space as well as if all of your hatching was to reach that edge.

Your leaves are well done. If you ever do this exercise again, I suggest that you try to explore leaves with more varied silhouettes, because, from what I see, you have a good understanding about what you are doing. Just be sure to differentiate from the middle of the leaf form and the leaf's flow line as much as you can (if the flow line doesn't represent the middle of the leaf). In leaf 3, one of the veins looks like it is connecting to the leaf's flow line, making it a little confusing visually as to where the middle of the leaf is. The flow line itself doesn't touch the line that bridges the sides of the leaf together, making identifying where the middle of the leaf is a little difficult. If it helps, you can think of the leaf's form separate from the flow line entirely, just to envision where the middle of the leaf would lie.

Your branch/tube forms rotate and sit in space well. Again, if you every do this exercise again in the future, I'd say to play around more with forms that twist and turn more in space, with their ellipses having their degrees being widened and lowered at a more noticeable rate.

Your plant constructions were clearly done with a lot of thought nad understanding about how they are constructed, which is good. I would say to watch out how many times you go over your spheres that you draw, especially in the 3rd plant. A lot of the segmented branches have spheres that look like they're drawn 3-4 times over.

I understand that you got tired by the 8th construction (which is entirely understandable), but if you were ever to do something like the Trachyandra Tortillis (the plant with a lot of twisting forms), I'd suggest to add some cast shadows to make it even more clearer about which forms overlap others. Your highlighted lines serve well, but having some cast shadows (even smaller ones) would make the construction a lot clearer.

Good luck with future endeavors!

Hello,

Good job on completing all of lesson 3's homework. You did good overall, but there are some things that I would still like to point out.

In your arrows, I would say to have a little more visual hierarchy using slightly more thickened/bold lines. It helps to add a little more visual clarity about which lines are in front of others and vice versa.

This next point might be a byproduct of not adding too much line weight, but when you do your hatching, make sure it wraps around one whole side of your form as it turns in space. Take the arrow on the bottom right; the upper two areas that you hatched are good, as they both appear to stick to the one side of the arrow, that being the arrow's inward side. However, it is difficult to tell if the lower one is supposed to be on the inner or outer side of the arrow. To me, it looks like it is more-so on the outer side, but the illusion gets broken as you did not fill in the whole outer corner with your hatching; you stopped when your marks met the line that would only be seen by using x-ray vision.

*Other than that, I would say to play around with more exaggerated foreshortening. This isn't a requirement in any right, but it's something that may come in handy, so it may be something good to experiment with any time you do this exercise in the future.

*

Your leaves have good flow to them. Some leaf veins can look a little flat, but to me, you have a good understanding on how they flow on top of the leaf's form, so I think that this will go away with practice. I go into a little more detail about this in this comment's last paragraph.

Your forms are very solid. However, their perspectives can occasionally be confusing. Take the one on the bottom right: the ellipses on the top and bottom seem to have extremely similar degrees, which makes be believe that the tube turns away from the viewer, only to turn back to them (or vice versa), which is a narrative that is not supported by the ellipses in the middle. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, go look over some of the ellipse-related topics in lesson 1, as they are described in heavy detail there.

Overall, I'd say that your construction is good. I'd say to be a little more weary with how leaves turn in space (take the leftmost drawing on page #3- some of them can look a little flat. I don't know what your reference material looks like, so I may be heavily mistaken, but I feel like it's something worth being pointed out).

Moving forward, be sure to heavily consider how flat forms (like leaves) flow through space when their silhouette doesn't get affected as much. Take the rightmost plant on page 6; the flow and construction of the leaves are well done, but some of the leaf veins do not run down the leaf when it divots in the middle. Again, I'm assuming that that's what you were trying to do, as I do not have access to your original reference image. Try to imagine how the leaf's flat form would bend and bump in space, even if it's ever so slightly that it doesn't affect it's silhouette. This may help with the aforementioned leaf veins, making them run across the surface of the leaf while respecting it's form.