RiggityRenekt

I was stuck at the texture studies for a couple years because I fixated to the point where I made it more overwhelming than it actually was. I knew from experience that I can occasionally do that to myself and knew I just had to not let myself be intimidated and take things a step at a time.

Ultimately I started paying for official critiques and made myself take it more seriously. I briefly upped my ADHD meds and powered through it.

Of course, ymmv. I could maybe help more if you gave more specifics.

For what it is worth I trust that, if it is something you really want, then you can do it(become good at art). Obviously I don't know you. And it isn't that I believe this is something so easy that just anybody can do. Art is very hard. It is the distillation, a hyperfocusing, of all our basest struggles and doubts. But ultimately it just requires confidence in one's self, constant effort, and desire. The things that stop a person from being good at art are all in that person's decisions. They can be overcome with just a daily choice to dedicate yourself to doing better than the day before. It is both simple and difficult in that way.

You could make one. I found this spreadsheet in the discord that lists the warmups that are available at each stage. It might be a bit dated, though. You could make something to randomly select from that list as appropriate.

Honestly, I am not sure if it would be worth the trouble. In most cases people shouldn't pick randomly. In my experience there are exercises that are a lot more beneficial to do more often than others. At least initially. I believe the standing advice is to lean more on the ones you feel are your weakest.

edit:

Actually I just saw the spreadsheet had a link to this

https://mark-gerarts.github.io/draw-a-card/index.html

Don't confuse getting wider with getting larger. In this instance, wider just means it is turned more toward the viewer. The back sides will still be smaller.

Personally I found worrying about width in this regard isn't as valuable as just making sure all your edges converge to the vp's properly. As long as you do that well enough the sides will just naturally turn toward the viewer as necessary.

The entire process for the first 150 is stated here. No more, no less. It is best to just follow the directions and not overthink things.

Does that entail measuring/copying boxes with different rates of convergence until you had it memorized or is it through a different process?

A part of it is definitely mileage; developing the intuitions for what angle would establish a set of edges that are 90 degrees from another set, and then again for the 3rd set(basically, the Y method).

It might come entirely down to what you are asking. For some people that might be something they need to do before things click. Once it clicks though, it should be a matter of deducing "ok I want to be looking down the barrel of this gun I'm drawing" and having the ability to immediately know you'll want 1pp with dramatic foreshortening. But it doesn't even have to be in those explicit terms for yourself. It could just be gut feeling and memory from observation.

The rates of convergence really come down to how "close up" to the camera you want to object to feel or, at the same time, how "massive." It is a question of scale and proportion. The typical example is standing at the base of a Skyscraper and looking up to see how dramatic the foreshortening gets as the edges go toward the top. You could get the same effect by looking really closely at a lego.

Like with the gun drawing example, I find it helpful to go through a checklist of thoughts like "am I looking down on, or up at, this thing?" "Is it centered, and if so am I looking at a corner or centered directly on a face?" etc And you could understand the direct implications is has on the vp's. The more natural it becomes the less you have to think in terms of convergences and the more you can just do.

I just happened to see this video on camera lenses in my youtube recommendations. It was pretty cool. Worth a watch.

I meant two things. One is the second bullet point Comfy mentioned here with:

https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/7/rotation

Though in the example below, both set of edges rotate by the same consistent amount, their vanishing points will actually move at different rates. How quickly they slide along the horizon depends on where in the frame they are - as the left vanishing point moves towards the center, it will slow down, moving less and less for every degree of the box's rotation. Conversely, as the right vanishing point moves further away from the center, and continues off past the right side of the compositional frame, it will slide more and more for every degree of the box's rotation.

The vanishing points move at different rates.

And basically the intuitions explained here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkp1xfWJ9n4

Where the convergences toward vanishing points are perpetually in the middle of swapping which ones are going to go to infinity(parallel) and which one is going to be in the center. The state of each set of converging lines is a blend that you'll want to develop a feel for depending on if you want 1pp, 2pp, or 3pp and what camera lens you want to simulate.

Don't restart the challenge. Work boxes into your warmups. What your concerns are trying to push you toward is grinding. Resist that temptation and trust that gradual, daily practice will get you there. Trust the process. It is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes time and regular application to rewire how the brain goes about a task.

No, you weren't supposed to stress about where the horizon line is during the box challenge. Considering the horizon line comes more into play when you start placing multiple boxes in the same scene, building out mannequins, etc. For the box challenge, as long as you can reliably converge the edges going to the appropriate number of VP's then you are good. I'd say don't worry too much about the horizon line before you can do that.

so you're recommending it's better to post on Discord and more regularly then?

Yes.

Sorry I took so long to respond. The website signed me out and I didn't notice.

Great job on the object studies!

For your 250 box challenge, only go over the outline once.

For visualizing the vanishing points I'd recommend not trying to ghost out to predetermined vanishing points. That tends to make the boxes converge very dramatically. Your boxes definitely have that hallmark. It can be a fine stylistic choice, as long as it is an actual choice and not an unconcious mistake.

Instead, I think it is better to get more of a general feel for how the rates of convergences change as you rotate boxes and change the angle of the lens.

I believe these are the standard positions Uncomfy takes in DaB as well.

You are welcome!

I notice it has been a few days since and you are still stuck waiting on two "agrees" I recommend asking someone on the discord channel to take a look. To see if they'll give it the last go-ahead you need for it to be marked as complete.

I recommend posting the daily boxes you manage to complete in there as well. It will help keep you accountable and people can head off any wrong paths you may not realize you are going down.