soundpaints

Seeing how you tackled intersections and shadows on my pages really opened my eye. And the explanations were super helpful. Now I feel that I asked for too much! I feel that you put too much effort to just help me. ;-;

I now feel more confident in my understanding of cast shadows and how it applies here, as well as intersections playing a big role in reducing stiffness.

Link to revision:

https://imgur.com/a/NoMTaxz

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Let me know if I'm to revise this or focus on it during warm ups. I feel that your explanations have helped me a great deal for this exercise, but I've yet to apply it to my satisfaction (especially the cast shadows). I appreciate your honesty!

Again, I can't thank you enough for your effort. Hope you're doing well!

I'll definitely try my best to stop annotating. Pretty much what you've said is true. Although sometimes it was for me to keep in mind mistakes to avoid as I'm working. I now know how it can be bothersome for the critiquer, so I'll stop. Sorry about that!

Thanks for the critique Lefebul!

About the organic intersections:

A mistake you made on both pages is that your shadows are sticking to the form casting them rather than to the form they’re being cast onto, and thus are looking more like a thick dark outline than like cast shadows, as is shown here: https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/516f8d4f.jpg

After I sent my 1st page for critique on the Discord server, I was also told the same thing and got some tips. I tried to apply it to the 1st page and make sure the 2nd one didn't have the same issue. I guess I didn't understand shading in this scenario as I thought, and even now I still cannot imagine what would the correct way would look like on my submitted pages. If you don't mind, I think it might be very helpful to see how you might fix a shadow on my page, or at least point out which particular sausages have the issue. The only thing that comes to mind is that I could intensify the shadows more; like in the case of the 1st page middle sausage, I'm guessing that you mean that I should bring that shadow down more (and of course distorting it based on the contour of the of the sausage below it like in the example image you sent).

Your forms also feel too stiff, especially on the second page, which could be improved by having them intersect more instead of laying them one in front of the other. The underside of one sausage will be “lifted up” by having another round sausage under it, and you can show that by “carving” the form of that second sausage into the first one. It may be a little difficult now, but keep practising and thinking of your sausages as water balloons, and it’ll get better. See how the small round bottom sausage on the right is carving into the bigger central sausage laying on it here, for example: https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/db8b6730.jpg

The second page certainly has more stiff sausages, but I guess they're too stiff? I think that I try too hard to avoid the "Mistake: Complicated forms" and forget that I still need to deform the sausages at least a little; Similar to what you said about the lack of foreshortening in the form intersections. Maybe that's the case here as well.

So in my revision, I'll try to make the sausages less "stiff". As for the shadows, I still don't really "see" the problem you mention in my pages to be honest. I understand well the example image you shared, but it's only 1 pair of sausages with a unique position set. The only idea I have about fixing is maybe to exagerrate some of the cast shadows, but even then looking at the example homework on the lesson page, it doesn't seem necessary.

Anyway, I'll try my revision soon. Perhaps I should wait a bit if you have any other advice on the shadows though. I feel that I need more clarification, because at the moment I simply can't "see" it no matter how much I've been trying.

I hope I didn't sound rude, because I really appreciated your critique and for the time you spent on it. Thanks for the warmup recommendations. I wish you the best Lefebul!

I'll most definitely do the box exercises as warm ups! I'm looking forward to the blunders! I plan to do this course to the end, no matter how long it takes!

Thank you for always taking the time to reply and not only critique but give motivational advice. I really needed both!

Hope you're doing well! In case we don't meet again, good tidings or happy holidays if you celebrate!

Revisions Imgur:

https://imgur.com/a/BGO2Juq

Finally did it. I think I did better on the rotated boxes this time, but I still hate it xD

Pen really made a big difference in comfort (got it when I did the rotated box revision)

Revisions Imgur:

https://imgur.com/a/rsV6NeO

I feel more confident in my revisions, but there's definitely a lot of room to improve for sure. Also I appreciate the motivational words. I suppose I could be a little less hard on myself. The ellipses certainly bring out the worst in me, not gonna lie. Still not quite happy with it but more comfortable doing it now. Thanks for the effort you put into your critique. Found it incredibly helpful.

(Also, sorry my pen seemed to be dying out in the ellipses exercise)