qzhans

Hey, these are looking better, and I'm glad you took a break when you feel you needed it.

I think an issue you keep running into is how you tend to try to make one set of lines in each box parallel to each other. Usually, especially for boxes where a corner points towards us more directly, all lines will be converging to some shared vanishing point.

Additionally, there's a bit of a trend in this one where you tried to do a lot of boxes in 2 point perspective (boxes where you can only see two faces). These are easy to tackle once you really get 3 point perspective boxes down, so I wouldn't worry about throwing too many of these into the mix. #9 is a good example of a box that is showing 3 faces (this allows you to apply the steps I talked about in the original critique).

Although, now that I look at it, #9 has an issue where you've drawn the error lines in the incorrect direction (green set). This calls back to the issue of trying to make at least one set of lines parallel in any given box. Like I said before, if you find yourself struggling with divergences, it can help to go back to more obviously converging ones.

Overall, I think with this set of feedback you'll be able to tackle this slowly on your own. I think it'd be best for you to move on while continuing to do these on the side diligently. For feedback, feel free to use the community discord or the forums on this site.

Good luck on Lesson 2!

Hey, these are looking a lot better! I can see that you really made an effort to follow up on the advice that was given. While these aren't quite perfect yet, as long as you keep going at them in warm-ups like this, I'm sure they'll shape up in no time. Good luck on the 250 Box Challenge!

p.s. You might want to switch out your pen, yours looks like it's on its last legs here

hey, these are looking better. While you still have some that are diverging pretty heavily (351), I'm seeing a trend of improvement. Continue to pull these out for warm-ups and you'll be fine. Good luck on Lesson 2!

Heyo, TA qzhans here!

Before we begin, I just want to congratulate you on giving those 250 boxes a good ol’ pen and ink smackdown. It is a MASSIVE undertaking and you’ve joined the prestiged club of its completers.

You’ve diligently drawn through all your boxes and extended every single last line out to check your errors, and your boxes have been better for it. Indeed, you’ve made a marked improvement throughout the set.

Overall, your internal understanding of convergence is quite nice. Most of the time, you get all the visible lines to look like they're converging, which is the most important step to making a box look solid, but some of your middle back lines are still stubbornly not jumping in line with the rest of them. That’s okay, and is something that gets ironed out over time, but I’ll offer some advice. When you go to draw a line, think only about the lines that are supposed to be parallel to it (share a vanishing point). Lines closer to an existing line will converge slower, while the opposite is true for lines further away.

In terms of your linework, it's mostly clean and accurate. I do wish you would've experimented with line weight more, to reinforce the silhouette of the boxes to make them pop. Try and challenge yourself with that when you pull this out for warm-ups in the future.

What I'd like to comment on is all the crossing out and re-drawing lines that went astray. I'm not sure what was said in your previous review, but I'm a big proponent of always resisting the urge to try and fix anything you put on the paper. Once it's down, work around it. This is because laying down more lines to fix something will only create more contradictions and draw eyes to a mistake. Which it definitely did here; while it's quite common to have a little bit of wonkiness in this exercise, the boxes where you put extra line weight (not for the purpose of reinforcing, but for the purpose of fixing) drew my eye first, and the ones with the crossed out lines stood out even more. When you do warm-ups, try to avoid doing this.

Overall, this is a solid lesson, however. Both your linework and convergences are nice, I just wanted to nitpick that small habit. Good luck on Lesson 2!

Yo, TA qzhans here!

First, superimposed lines. You’ve in general kept a good grip on those finicky horsetails, but I see a few where there’s fraying at both ends. Remember, no matter how long it takes, slowly and precisely place your pen before making that line. Your confidence here is an okay start, but remember, once you've began your stroke, that angle is law, and you have to follow it through, even if it means you careen way off into another line above or below. That’ll help you remove some undulation. Basically, at the moment of drawing the line, you should be confident enough to close your eyes (you can actually try this a few times just to see how it feels).

Moving onto ghosted lines, your confidence here is okay. I do wish you would've done some longer ones, just as a challenge though, and in general your density is lacking here. You can always take a look at Uncomfortable’s example for a good idea of the density and variety required.

Your ghosted planes are more of the same. There continues to be a lot of arcing, but it does look pretty confident and that you’re drawing at the correct speed. I would recommend spending a bit more time on your ghosting, or even applying a conscious reverse arc when drawing (without sacrificing confidence). I do like how you aren’t afraid of your mistakes, though; I don’t see any redrawing of lines that missed the mark (for the most part). The next step for you would be to refine your ghosting technique even more so that you’re able to not undershoot or overshoot.

Moving onto your ellipse tables, I like that you're keeping your ellipses tightly packed within the bounds that you've set. There's expected room for improvement in getting your ellipses to be tight and tidy, but drawing through with confidence is more important at this stage, which you are. The next step for you would definitely be refining your ghosting technique. It does look like you’re drawing through with the necessary confidence, but it looks like you might not be spending enough time ghosting before getting to the paper.

Your ellipses in planes show a bit of an improvement in that regard. However, I am seeing just a little bit of deformation of your ellipses, with jagged edges here and there, perhaps to stay inside of the bounds. Opt instead for a confident, smooth ellipse, not caring if it edges out of the bounds a little bit.

Next, your funnels have a bit of an issue aligning to the minor axis that you've set. This exercise is really about getting used to the use of the minor axis line, as well as continuing to work on getting those ellipses to fit snugly within a set space, so when you pull this out for warm-ups make sure to really focus on that. Part of the issue was that you didn’t draw the minor axis out all the way, so on the ellipses where the minor axis didn’t cut through it, the ellipses got a little out of hand.

For your plotted perspective, the plotting looks good. But I’m not sure why you got so chicken scratchy in the last frame; even on these, you should be reinforcing lines with one confident stroke, if you choose to do so.

For your rough perspective, I’m pleased to see that you are applying the error checking method correctly, extending your lines parallelly back to the horizon line instead of directly to the vanishing point. I do see a few issues with keeping the verticals perpendicular to the horizon line and the horizontals parallel to it, so watch out for that. I do attribute that to the fact that you’re still working on that line accuracy, so I think that aspect will improve over time. One thing I’d like to comment on is a bit of degradation in your line work, with scratchy lines and double lines appearing here and there. This is quite common on this exercise as it’s pretty hard, but you want to remember that all lines we put down are law, and laying down more lines to fix something will only create more contradictions and draw eyes to a mistake.

And now, the one you’ve been waiting for: rotated boxes. Before anything, I wanted to congratulate you on its completion; it's not something you're really supposed to be ready for. In general, I like how you’ve structured this exercise, keeping the gaps between boxes consistent and drawing through each box (outside of a few at the corners). As a result, the illusion of rotation is not bad. However, there is still the problem of not enough rotation with the boxes. Keep in mind that as the boxes rotate, the vanishing points slide along the horizon line, so the two sets of parallel lines that aren't parallel to the axis of rotation will get new vanishing points. Thus, the boxes in the middle column and row at the edges should have their faces be shrunk by a lot, since they are turning away from the camera and their vanishing points are sliding very close to themselves. Take a look at Uncomfortable's example again and you'll see what I mean.

Finally, onto organic perspective. In general, there’s an attempt to shrink and grow the boxes as they move through space, but it could be exaggerated greatly. Additionally, there could be a lot more overlapping of the boxes. There's also work to be done in getting those parallel lines to converge to their shared vanishing point, but you can iron that out with the box challenge. The problem that arises here would be your linework, and I’m seeing sketchy lines here and there. Remember that every line you attempt should be one, confident stroke, and if you mess up you have to work around it.

Overall, there’s a good understanding here, but the technical parts need a bit more of a push before they really start to solidify, in my opinion. Thus, I’m going to assign you 1 more page of superimposed lines, ghosted lines, and organic perspective. Really focus this time on being patient and properly ghosting for each line, and resisting the urge to re-draw anything or patch things up.

Howdy, TA qzhans here!

First, superimposed lines. You’ve in general kept a good grip on these finicky horsetails, and I’m not seeing a lot of fraying. Your confidence here is a good start, but there’s some undulation in some of the longer ones that you want to slowly erase out. Remember, once you've began your stroke, that angle is law, and you have to follow it through, even if it means you careen way off into another line above or below.

Moving onto ghosted lines, your confidence here is solid. I do wish you would've done some longer ones, just as a challenge though. Something to keep in mind for warm-ups.

Your ghosted planes are nice too. I also like how you aren’t afraid of your mistakes; I don’t see any redrawing of lines that missed the mark (for the most part). The next step for you would be to refine your ghosting technique even more so that you’re able to not undershoot or overshoot.

Moving onto your ellipse tables, I like that you're keeping your ellipses tightly packed within the bounds that you've set. There's expected room for improvement in getting your ellipses to be tight and tidy, but drawing through with confidence is more important at this stage, which you are. The next step for you would definitely be refining your ghosting technique so that when you put pen to paper, the ellipse comes out nice and tight even through the draw-throughs.

Your ellipses in planes show a bit of an improvement in that regard. More importantly, you don’t stretch out your ellipses needlessly to hit the bounds, opting instead for a confident ellipse (outside of a few boxier ones in some planes).

Next, your funnels generally do a good job of aligning to the minor axis that you've set. You do have a few that get pretty wobbly here however, for example top right. Make sure to be confident on these ones too, and it’s okay if you edge out the sides of the funnel a little bit to maintain that speed and confidence.

No problems with plotted perspective!

For your rough perspective, I’m pleased to see that you are applying the error checking method correctly, extending your lines parallelly back to the horizon line instead of directly to the vanishing point. In general, you kept your horizontal and vertical lines parallel and vertical to the horizon line respectively as well. One thing I’d like to comment on is a bit of degradation in your line work, with scratchy lines and double lines appearing here and there. This is definitely not a habit you want to have, so after you put a line resist the urge to do anything else to it.

And now, the one you’ve been waiting for: rotated boxes. Before anything, I wanted to congratulate you on its completion; it's not something you're really supposed to be ready for. In general, I like how you’ve structured this exercise, keeping the gaps between boxes consistent and drawing through each box. And I also liked how you did two extra rows and columns (you only have to do 5 columns and rows, not 7). The main problem I see here is not enough rotation with the boxes. Keep in mind that as the boxes rotate, the vanishing points slide along the horizon line, so the two sets of parallel lines that aren't parallel to the axis of rotation will get new vanishing points. This causes the boxes to have their faces be shrunk by a lot, which you did, but you didn’t distort the vanishing points correctly. The faces should become almost trapezoidal due to the vanishing point sliding towards itself. Take a look at Uncomfortable's example again and you'll see what I mean.

Finally, onto organic perspective. In general, your boxes do a good job of shrinking and growing as they move through space. I'm pleased to see a little bit of overlapping here and there as well (although I do think you could've done a bit more). There's work to be done in getting those parallel lines to converge to their shared vanishing point, but you can iron that out with the box challenge. The problem that arises here would be your linework, and I’m seeing sketchy lines sneak in here and there. Remember that all lines we put down are law, and laying down more lines to fix something will only create more contradictions and draw eyes to a mistake.

Overall, this is a pretty solid lesson, but I am a little worried about that linework habit. I don’t think it’s enough to keep you from going on to the box challenge, but please keep in mind that for every line, only do one stroke. With that being said, good luck on the 250 Box Challenge!

Heya, TA qzhans here!

Before we begin, I just want to congratulate you on giving those 250 boxes a good ol’ pen and ink smackdown. It is a MASSIVE undertaking and you’ve joined the prestiged club of its completers.

You’ve diligently drawn through all your boxes and extended every single last line out to check your errors, and your boxes have been better for it. Indeed, you’ve made a marked improvement throughout the set.

In general, I like your linework here. It's both clean and confident, and I'm not seeing any sketchiness or re-drawing of lines. I do wish you would've experimented with line weight however, so when you pull these out for warm-ups make sure to challenge yourself with that.

In terms of convergences, you seem to have mostly gotten it down pat, but there are a few times where it runs away from you, even on the last page. That’s okay, and is something that gets ironed out over time, but I’ll offer some advice. When you go to draw a line, think only about the lines that are supposed to be parallel to it (share a vanishing point). Lines closer to an existing line will converge slower, while the opposite is true for lines further away.

And finally, just a side note that a lot of the error lines you drew were a little off from the one that you originally drew; most likely the fault of your ruler. While the difference wasn't massive, please do pay attention to that in the future.

Overall, this is a solid submission. I think as long as you keep pulling these out for warm-ups (which I encourage you to do) these will continue to shape up nicely. Good luck on Lesson 2!

p.s. In the future, please submit your lesson via imgur.com! it makes it a lot easier for us.

Yo, TA qzhans here!

Before we begin, I just want to congratulate you on giving those 250 boxes a good ol’ pen and ink smackdown. It is a MASSIVE undertaking and you’ve joined the prestiged club of its completers. And you even did an extra 50 to boot!

You’ve painstakingly drawn through all your boxes and extended every single last line out to check your errors, and your boxes have been better for it. Indeed, you’ve made a marked improvement throughout the set.

In general, I like your linework. There was a lot of sketchy, re-drawn lines in your first 250, but you seemed to have fixed that in your last 50. I like how you don't try to fix your lines, working around them even if it means making a wonky box. The next challenge when you pull this out for warm-ups would be to experiment with line weight, reinforcing the silhouette with a confident line to help the boxes pop.

However, I feel like your internal understanding of convergence still needs an extra push somewhere. The thing about boxes is that we're actually tricked fairly easily; as long as the front facing lines all look like they converge properly, even if it goes wonky in the back, we'll still be convinced. Thus, what I like doing is drawing the 3 lines (forming a "Y") from the corner that's closest to us, then dealing with the visible edges (2 per branch of that "Y") and making sure they are properly converging towards a shared vanishing point. Then, only after that do I pick a far corner in the back and finish the box with the drawn-through, "unseen" lines (not sure if this is what you were doing already, however). This ensures that the visible edges are properly finished.

I can also offer this advice. When you go to draw a line, think only about the lines that are supposed to be parallel to it (share a vanishing point). Lines closer to an existing line will converge slower, while the opposite is true for lines further away. Also, don't be afraid to plot some dots down on the page first, just to kind of imagine how it will look. This will help you catch a lot of convergence mistakes earlier, and the dots will be ignored even if you put a few of them down.

This issue showed itself the most when you tried more isometric boxes. if you find yourself struggling with divergences, it can help to go back to more obviously converging ones.

Overall, I'm thinking you're almost ready for Lesson 2, you just need a bit more to really help solidify this fundamental knowledge. Thus, I'm assigning you 10 more boxes. Try to do most of these as subtly converging ones, but if you're having trouble switch back to more distorted, obviously converging ones. Really try and get the convergence as tidy as possible this time.

Howdy, TA qzhans here!

Before we begin, I just want to congratulate you on giving those 250 boxes a good ol’ pen and ink smackdown. It is a MASSIVE undertaking and you’ve joined the prestiged club of its completers.

You’ve painstakingly drawn through all your boxes and extended every single last line out to check your errors, and your boxes have been better for it. Indeed, you’ve made a marked improvement throughout the set.

Overall, I'm liking your linework here. It's clean, confident, and accurate. That being said, I can't really tell if you experimented with line weight or not. This is due to the thickness of the utensil you used to check your errors. In the future, when you pull this out for warm-ups, I'd recommend using something like a ballpoint pen, or even a pencil. The colors are less important than being able to see exactly how much error you have.

That brings me to your understanding of convergence. In general, it's pretty nice, but some of your middle back lines are still stubbornly not jumping in line with the rest of them. I’ll offer some advice. That’s okay, and is something that gets ironed out over time, but I’ll offer some advice. When you go to draw a line, think only about the lines that are supposed to be parallel to it (share a vanishing point). Lines closer to an existing line will converge slower, while the opposite is true for lines further away. Again, your utensil choice for these boxes may have impacted this, because there's quite a lot of room for error with something that thick.

Additionally, while your variety does go down to the particularly small boxes, I wish you would've done some extra big ones. In the future, try to do a few where you only put 2-3 boxes on a page, just so you can get practice with super big ones.

Overall however, this is quite a solid submission. As long as you take what I've said here in mind as you pull this out for warm-ups, I don't think this will give you trouble for long. Good luck on Lesson 2!

Heyo, TA qzhans here!

First, superimposed lines. In general, you’ve kept fraying under control here, and I’m only seeing wobble on the super long lines. Although those are pretty challenging, try and draw those as straight as possible. Once you've began your stroke, that angle is law, and you have to follow it through, even if it means you careen way off into another line above or below.

Moving onto ghosted lines, these are pretty good too. I do wish you would've done some longer ones, just as a challenge, however, and in general the density here is pretty lacking. You can always take a look at Uncomfortable’s example for a good idea of the density and variety required.

Your ghosted planes are showing some nice confidence as well. I also like how you aren’t afraid of your mistakes; I don’t see any redrawing of lines that missed the mark.

Moving onto your ellipse tables, I like that you're keeping your ellipses tightly packed within the bounds that you've set, and you filled each space quite nicely. There's expected room for improvement in getting your ellipses to be tight and tidy, but drawing through with confidence is more important at this stage, which you are. The next step would be to improve your ghosting method even further so you can bring down the amount of times you need to draw through your ellipses.

Your ellipses in planes show an improvement in that aspect. I am seeing just a little bit of deformation of your ellipses to hit those bisection points in some of your ellipses though (mostly on the first page). Opt instead for a confident, smooth ellipse, caring only that it generally fits within the bounds.

Next, your funnels generally do a good job of aligning to the minor axis, but it seems like you’ve lost a bit of your confidence here. I’m seeing wobble and jagged edges on a lot of your ellipses, perhaps due to how hard you were trying to keep the ellipses in bounds. Remember to always draw with the requisite speed, not caring so much if you edge out of the lines a little bit.

No problems with plotted perspective!

For your rough perspective, I’m pleased to see that you are applying the error checking method correctly, extending your lines parallelly back to the horizon line instead of directly to the vanishing point. I do see a few issues with keeping the verticals perpendicular to the horizon line and the horizontals parallel to it, so watch out for that. The problem I do want to address is a little bit of degradation in your line work, and I’m seeing lots of reinforced/patched-up lines. Remember that all lines we put down are law, and laying down more lines to fix something will only create more contradictions and draw eyes to a mistake.

And now, the one you’ve been waiting for: rotated boxes. Before anything, I wanted to congratulate you on its completion; it's not something you're really supposed to be ready for. In general, I like how you’ve structured this exercise, keeping the gaps between boxes consistent and drawing through each box. As a result, the illusion of rotation is quite solid, especially on the center row and column. The only thing that seems to have tripped you up are the corner boxes. Each box has an axis that it rotates around as it shifts to a different direction. The lines parallel to this axis of rotation will not change vanishing points, but the others will. Thus, each box adjacent to a box will have one set of lines that share a vanishing point with a set from that initial box. But I wouldn’t worry if this stuff isn’t clicking for you yet, we have the box challenge for that.

Finally, onto organic perspective. In general, your boxes do a good job of shrinking and growing as they move through space. I'm pleased to see a little bit of overlapping here and there as well (although I do think you could've done a bit more). There's work to be done in getting those parallel lines to converge to their shared vanishing point, but again, you can iron that out with the box challenge.

Overall, this is a strong submission. The only reservation I have is your habit to reinforce lines that you deem as mistakes, rather than the lines that need line weight. You should resist this at all costs, especially in the 250 box challenge (having the habit will make you reinforce the inside lines of the boxes, which is not what we want to be doing there). With that being said, good luck on the rest of your journey!