pseudonoid

Hi there, good job completing this lesson. Sorry for the wait; I will review your homework now as promised on Discord.

Lines.

Superimposed lines: You did well starting at a consistent point and keeping fraying to one end of the lines only. Good job!

Ghosted lines: These look good as well. You are starting precisely on the plotted dot and then moving towards the endpoint with decent smoothness and accuracy. There is some slight, barely noticeable wobble in your lines. If you want to remedy that, I’d suggest moving your pen a little faster. Otherwise, well done.

Ghosted planes: Good job for the most part. I noticed that you didn’t mark the starting and ending points for lines that bisect the plane – remember, since ghosting is the method we are practicing here, you should properly mark all endpoints. Most of your lines look nice and smooth, but some of them show a noticeable arc. This is sometimes due to correcting course as you get to the end of a line, and sometimes it’s just an artifact of the way your arm moves. If it’s the former for you, then you should worry less about accurately meeting the endpoint before making sure your lines are smooth. If it’s the latter, then consciously arc your line slightly in the opposite direction of where it would normally arc, and you should end up with a straighter line.

Ellipses.

Table of Ellipses: Good job drawing each ellipse 2 or 3 times. Make sure you do not go above 3 repetitions, as things can get incrementally messier and harder to judge. Your ellipses have no problem touching each other or the border, but as the other reviewer said they overlap in quite a few places. Additionally, some of them have significant distortions and no longer look like ellipses. In the future, when you draw ellipses, I would advise that you ghost several more times to make sure you have the trajectory down before committing. When drawing the ellipse itself, also try to go as slow as possible without making things wobbly/distorted.

Ellipses in planes: Looks good! Most of your ellipses manage to touch at least 3 sides of the plane, and your lines are smooth. There are still minor overlapping and distortion issues, and you seem to have repeated some ellipses more than 4 times, but overall you’ve improved from the table of ellipses.

Funnels: you are doing a good job of aligning the minor axes of your ellipses to the axis of the funnel, and your ellipses manage to touch but not exceed the bounds of the arcs. I did notice that you freehanded the arcs. This is not necessary unless you don’t have any cylindrical objects or compasses, and even then I would not recommend repeating the arcs multiple times because this blurs the goal of each ellipse.

Boxes.

Plotted perspective: I noticed that you did not draw the back edge for most of these boxes, and some of the edges that should be parallel to each other in 2-point perspective are at an angle instead. These things indicate to me that you did not read/watch the instructions carefully before proceeding, so I’m going to ask that you redo this exercise while properly adhering to all guidelines.

Rough perspective: You seem to be rushing a lot at this point and missed quite a few instructions: first of all, your red critique lines do not follow the edges that you drew. What you should do is, first, ghost towards the vanishing point and draw your edge, then align your ruler with the edge you drew and trace out where it would have converged to. See this example panel from my homework. Next, the edges of your front & back faces are not always perpendicular/parallel to the horizon, especially in the back. Remember that in 1 point perspective, two of your edge pairs should never converge. Finally, you are missing some back edges and repeating many of your front edges multiple times. Line weight is not part of this exercise, and you should not try to correct your lines; let the mistakes stand out from your page so that you can learn from them. Sorry to say, but I will have to require a redo of this assignment to make sure that you understood all instructions properly.

Rotated perspective: you did well drawing all the boxes (except one – you missed the top left box) and applying shading/line weight. At several places, your boxes failed to rotate. This is partially because you did not keep your corners close enough to use context in constructing new boxes. However, these mistakes are mostly expected for this exercise, so I won’t require a redo. Do keep in mind though that you should read all instructions, including the common mistakes section, before attempting every exercise.

Organic perspective: These look good! You are trying a variety of rotations and ghosting your lines properly. Only thing I’d note is that you added line weight to some of the boxes, and that you repeated some of the curves. Neither of these things are necessary or recommended for the organic perspectives exercise. Otherwise good job.

Conclusion: Your homework shows a good start into understanding the concepts of markmaking. However, I’m concerned that your understanding of perspective may be comparatively weaker due to not following instructions properly. Once I’ve confirmed that you’ve learned & internalized everything in lesson 1, I will mark your homework as complete and move you on to the 250 boxes challenge.

Good job! I'll mark your lesson as complete. Also, in response to your other reply, you can add your homeworks to a priority review list by doing critique on 5 other homeworks and then messaging @Elodin#6013 on discord. (In fact, trying to get my own homework on the priority list was why I found yours to critique in the first place!)

Yeah sure! I'd be glad to offer a second pair of eyes.

Hi there, good job completing this lesson! I’ll be reviewing your homework today.

Lines.

Superimposed lines: These look good! Most of your lines look smooth and confident. You seem to have noticed this as well, but there is slight fraying on the starting point in some of your straight lines, and more severe fraying in the curved lines. I wouldn’t worry too much about the curves at this point, but for the straight lines you should take care to just place your pen more carefully on the starting dot before committing to the line.

Ghosted lines: Excellent! Your lines start on the plotted dot and show minimal wobbling/arching. Your pen looks like it’s starting to run out of ink here, but I understand that resources can be limited sometimes and won’t fault you for that. I’m more concerned about how it seems like you reused the same starting point/endpoint for multiple lines? I sometimes had trouble judging how accurate a line is because I couldn’t find the intended endpoint. When you do the ghosted lines exercise as warm up in the future, try to avoid reusing the same point.

Ghosted planes: As before, your lines are very smooth; well done. There’s some unused space on the second page, however, that I think could be put to use by drawing even more planes and ellipses. Anyways, now that you have the line smoothness down, I’d like to propose a more advanced goal for you: try to avoid overshooting your lines in the future! The main strategy for avoiding overshooting is to slow down slightly as you approach the endpoint, and very gradually start to lift your pen so that it would be fully off the paper by the time you reach the endpoint. Go ahead and try it out!

Ellipses.

Table of ellipses: great job! You’ve drawn each ellipse two or three times, and they are mostly touching each other/ the frame. Your linework here looks good too; your ellipses are smooth with few distortions. Sometimes, though, your ellipse looks very different on one revolution compared to the next. This is perfectly okay for lesson 1, but I’d like to see you keep consistency in mind moving forward.

Ellipses in planes: You did a nice job touching all four sides of most planes without distorting the ellipse’s shape. For the few places where you do fall short of touching one or two edge, or where you have to distort the ellipse to touch an edge, I recommend ghosting more before committing so that you have a very good idea of what the ellipse should look like on the page. I do not recommend altering the ellipse once you are already on the page, such that the first repetition of an ellipse touches two sides while the second repetition touches the other two sides. At some point, you are just drawing two different ellipses.

Funnels: Awesome! Your ellipses’ minor axes are aligned properly with the line down the middle of the funnel, and they avoid overlap for the most part. There’s not much for me to add here besides stuff I’ve already said, so good work!

Boxes.

Plotted perspectives: good job! Only comment here is that, since you added shading for the top two frames, I would have liked to see shading in the bottom frame too.

Rough perspectives: smooth lines as always, and it looks like you’ve started fixing the overshooting issue on some of them, so good job. On top of that, your vertical edges are all perpendicular to the horizon, your horizontal edges are parallel to the horizon, and the convergence of all your other lines is properly marked. The way you put multiple dots on the horizon to mark intersections with it is a little confusing though, and I’d rather that you only kept one dot – the vanishing point – on the horizon. Anyways, my biggest concerns with this exercise are how you tried to fix some lines by drawing them multiple times, and also how you tried to cross out one of your boxes as wrong. These things suggest to me that you are self-conscious about your mistakes and trying to obscure them. At Drawabox, we do not recommend either of these behaviors; we’d rather you display the mistakes proudly to build confidence, and to know at a single glance what you can do to improve.

Rotated boxes: good job overall; some of your boxes on the top row and bottom row are not rotating properly, but mistakes are expected for this exercise, even more so than any other in lesson one. Your line weight is pretty messy and heavy here, I just hope you didn’t get too obsessed with getting it “right” or “perfect” instead of moving on.

Organic perspective: Your boxes are rotating well and all feel like part of the same scene. Again, I see that you repeated some lines and would advise against that in the future. The 250 Boxes Challenge should help you understand perspective even better.

Conclusion: You are off to a great start! Your lines and ellipses are some of the smoothest I’ve seen, and your grasp of perspectives is good as well, so be confident in your drawings and don’t beat yourself up over small things! Moving forward, I would also recommend that you use these exercises as warmups in future lessons and drawing sessions; for instance, the ghosted planes exercise will be particularly helpful for the 250 Boxes Challenge. I think you are all clear to move on, so good luck with the rest of Drawabox!

Welcome to Drawabox and congrats on finishing lesson 1! I’ll be reviewing your homework today.

Lines.

Superimposed lines: Wow, these look great! The lines only fray at one end, and they look smooth and confident. Good work!

Ghosted lines: For the most part these look awesome too. I did notice that for some of your lines, you missed both the start and the endpoint. While it’s expected that you’ll often miss the end, you are allowed to find & place your pen at the starting point before drawing the line, so you shouldn’t miss the first point! Make sure to take your time with this in the future.

Ghosted planes: Looks good here as well. I did notice that some of your lines here curve slightly towards the end, as if you’re correcting course to meet the endpoint. This is not necessary, and you should just be more confident in your trajectory! For curving at the beginning of the line, you can try to fix this by drawing faster and not pressing down too hard.

Ellipses.

Table of ellipses: Good job! Most of your ellipses are drawn between 2 and 3 times, and they often touch each other without overlapping. Some of your ellipses do look a little distorted; make sure that they are still the shape of an ellipse when you draw them.

Ellipses in planes: I noticed that your ellipses sometimes do not touch the sides. Additionally, you often had to distort your ellipses in order to fit them to the plane. Besides ghosting more before you commit to each ellipse, I would suggest that you try to fit the ellipses diagonally in the planes rather than horizontally, as that should make it a little easier to touch all 4 edges. Otherwise looking good!

Funnels: Well done on the majority of your funnels. There are a few (For example, top & bottom left) where the minor axes of some ellipses do not align with the line down the middle of the funnel, and the ellipses are not split into symmetrical halves. So just watch out for that in the future!

Boxes.

Plotted perspective: Looks good!

Rough perspective: Good job, looks like you followed all the instructions well, and your boxes look clean and confident. Don’t worry too much about the perspective errors as this exercise is all about recognizing them to help you prepare for more perspective work down the line.

Rotated boxes: These look really good! Besides some trouble rotating the corner boxes, I would say you’ve completed this exercise perfectly. Good linework, good perspectives, and good shading!

Organic perspective: Great work once again! Your lines are clean, and you followed instructions well. I see that you’ve tried a variety of different angles for the “Y”-shaped setup, and I encourage you to continue exploring different angles and how they change the faces of the box during the 250 boxes challenge.

Conclusion: Really nice job! Your work looks great despite the fact that you claim to be a beginner. Hopefully you didn’t have to grind (aka repeat exercises over and over) to get here, as I’d love to see your future work and would hate for you to burn out from overexerting yourself. It does seem like you’ve been following the 50% rule though, so keep on doing that! Also, I recommend that you keep some of the lesson 1 exercises in a pool of warmups you can draw from when starting later lessons.

Congratulations on finishing the lesson! Let’s take a look at your submission. I know this critique is pretty long, but make sure you at least read the first and last paragraphs.

Lines.

The first thing I noticed is the doodles on your page. Though you stopped adding them in later pages, I just want to remind you to always keep work and play separate. I understand that the lessons can get really tedious, but this is exactly why the 50% rule exists, so that you can relieve your pent-up stress outside of lesson time and use your full concentration on the material you’re learning. So make sure you’re keeping up with it! That said, onto the homework itself:

Superimposed lines: It looks like you were able to avoid fraying on the starting point, so good job with that. However, your lines show some pretty significant wobbling, which continues into some of your later exercises as well. I want you to check again that you are drawing from the shoulder, and speed up your stroke if necessary. Also, this is a small thing, but you don’t need to mark points on both ends of the line, just the one you start at.

Ghosted lines: These look smooth, and you’ve marked both endpoints properly. However, there’s some significant arching here that I want you to pay more attention to: for fixing arching near the beginning, move faster and don’t push too hard on the paper. For arching in the middle, consciously try to move your arm in the opposite direction of the arch. For arching near the end, don’t worry so much about meeting the endpoint and just follow through with your original trajectory.

Ellipses.

Table of ellipses: These look great! Your ellipses look smooth and confident, and most of them are repeated for exactly 2 total revolutions. The only thing I’d comment on is that your ellipses don’t always touch each other/the border, and they also sometimes overlap. When you ghost them, make sure you’re aiming to touch the adjacent objects, but not overlapping them.

Ellipses in planes: These also look very smooth, however you don’t always touch the edges of the planes without overlapping them. And when you do touch the edges, sometimes you distort the ellipse in the process. I would recommend just taking some more time and ghosting your ellipses more times, making sure that they would have the proper shape, and that they touch all the edges, before committing to paper.

Funnels: good job aligning the minor axis of all the ellipses to the line, but try to make sure that all your ellipses touch!

Boxes.

Plotted perspective: good job!

Rough perspective: Remember that you are supposed to split the page into 3 parts, so that you can practice more different scene setups and keep your foreshortening more manageable. Sorry, but I am going to request that you redo another page of this to make sure that you understood the instructions.

Rotated boxes: Your rotations look good on the top half; there’s some places that could have been rotated better but we’re not asking that level of precision from you yet. On the bottom half, however, you are missing five boxes. Remember that you should add two rows of boxes on each side of the central box. I also see that you started adding silhouette in the cracks, but did not continue all the way through. I won’t require that you redo this whole exercise, but could you finish the last five boxes for the bottom half and also finish shading all of the cracks?

Organic perspective: Looks good! Your boxes rotate naturally and feel like part of the same scene. I do notice that you seem to have repeated some of the lines – this is not required for this particular exercise, nor is it recommended.

Conclusion.

You are off to a good start; your lines are getting better as the exercises go on, and you’ve started getting a basic grasp of perspective. I recommend that you keep doing some of the lesson 1 homework, especially ellipses in planes, as warm-ups when you start on the other lessons. Before you can move on though, I do want to make sure you finish all the assignments as instructed. Also, keep the 50% rule in mind! This is the single most important rule to follow as you progress though Drawabox. It felt at some points that you were getting bored/tired/burnt out, and drawing for fun will help with all these by providing stimulation, stress relief, and a reminder of why you started learning art in the first place. Welcome to Drawabox, and good luck with the rest of the lessons!

Hi there, I cannot seem to access your homework. Can you make sure the link is correct?

Nice job completing all the homework! You may call me Lixing, I’ll be reviewing your submission today.

Lines.

Superimposed lines: everything looks good here. Good job keeping the fraying to one endpoint only. I did notice that you marked one of the lines as erroneous, and I’d just like to remind you that it’s okay to have mistakes in your lines. No need to cross anything out, simply accept the mistake and carry through with the rest of the exercise.

Ghosted lines & planes: good job following instructions for these parts. For most lines it looks like you are starting at a definite plotted point and aiming for a plotted endpoint. I did notice that some of your lines are arcing or wobbly – make sure that your are drawing confidently from your shoulder, and that you are not consciously trying to correct the lines half way (which can cause arcing in the last part of the line).

Ellipses.

Table of ellipses: you are doing well at keeping lines smooth and drawing 2 complete revolutions for most ellipses, besides one or two which were drawn through only once (try to avoid this in the future). Some of your ellipses do not touch each other and/or the border of the frame. On the first page especially, you can remedy this by both ghosting your ellipses more times and by adding more small ellipses to fill the frame. As for the slight wobbles and distortions of your ellipses, practice more (consider using these exercises as warmups for future lessons) and ghost your ellipses more before committing.

Ellipses in planes: most of these look good, and you’ve done a good job drawing through each ellipse exactly two times. There is one ellipse, however, that you seem to have repeated 4 times? Not sure why that happened, but I encourage you to avoid it in the future. Some of your ellipses do not touch all four sides of the plane – try to ghost your ellipses a few more times before committing.

Funnels: The ellipses themselves look good, discounting a little wobble; they are also properly aligned to the ellipses. Some of your curves look like they weren’t drawn with a compass or round object, but the ones that are round look good. I did notice that, again, your ellipses often do not touch each other. Remember that when this happens, it’s considered a mistake, and that it should be avoided.

Boxes.

Plotted perspective: looks good!

Rough perspective: overall things look great here. There’s some wobbly lines but your linework is mostly smooth, and it seems you also properly followed all the instructions for this section. One thing I noticed though is that you repeated some of the lines. Remember to avoid doing this; simply accept your mistakes and move on. Plus, some of your convergences are looking pretty good already!

Rotated boxes: Your rotated boxes are great. I don’t have much to say here; you seem to have an excellent grasp of line weight and how to rotate the boxes. Keep up the good work!

Organic perspective: your boxes look natural and seem to be part of the same scene. Remember to draw out all of the edges, even if they would be blocked by boxes in front of them. This will help you gain a better understanding of boxes much faster. In the 250 boxes challenge, I encourage you to try a greater variety of rotations and angles!

The TA Elodin suggested to me another thing that you should keep in mind: in the funnels exercise, some of your ellipses are not aligned to the minor axis. Make sure that you understand what these ellipses are supposed to represent -- cross-sections of the funnel itself -- and think about the 3D shape as you draw, instead of just trying to fit ellipses in between the curves.

Good job finishing the lesson! I’ll be reviewing your homework by section.

Lines.

Everything looks great here. Your lines are confident and smooth, and they do not show much arching. One thing I noticed, though, is the occasional repetition of some lines in the ghosted planes homework. This seems to have continued in the boxes section in the form of Unless explicitly stated in the instructions for an assignment, it’s never necessary, nor is it advisable, to repeat the lines. Draw confidently, accept your mistakes, and move on.

Ellipses.

Good job here as well with smoothness. In the table of ellipses, your ellipses mostly do well staying in frame and avoiding overlap with each other. Though not necessary, I think it would be helpful to try more variations of ellipses: longer & thinner ones, and also ones that are close to circular. The ellipses in planes look great: most manage to touch but not exceed all four sides of the plane. The funnels look good except for a few places where the major axes of ellipses aren’t perpendicular to the line. It’s a minor mistake, but keep the orientation in mind when you utilize ellipses in the future.

Boxes.

In plotted perspectives, you should draw out all the edges of all the boxes. Rough perspectives look good, except again, don’t repeat the lines. Your rotated boxes look good on three sides, but the bottom side seems to have had some trouble rotating. To be clear, though, this is a difficult exercise, and mistakes are expected, so don’t worry too much about it. Your rotated boxes look good, and the 250 boxes exercise will help you get the perspective right on them.

Nice job overall, I'll mark this lesson complete, and you can move on to the 250 boxes challenge.