No problem! I'm glad I was able to help :D
Like Uncomfortable said, I won't get notified unless you reply to the original critique - luckily enough, I didn't see the first notification until now, so I saw both messages.
Next Steps:
Your revisions look good! You've drawn through your rough perspective boxes, and finished the last page of organic perspective.
Your next step is to tackle the 250 box challenge.
LINES
Your lines look confident and straight, well done!
Superimposed Lines:
Same as above, good work! If you’re working with A4/similar size paper, you may want to draw some lines across the wider section of the page.
Ghosted Lines:
You’re correctly lining up at each starting point, well done! I’d only recommend throwing a few more lines in and not worrying about overlap.
Ghosted Planes:
Your planes look accurate and you’ve set out points for each line beforehand, they look good! The only (albeit small) thing I noticed was that the bottom right plane on one page wasn’t fully done.
ELLIPSES
Your ellipses are drawn through 2 - 3 times and look confident, well done!
Tables of Ellipses
Some sections of this exercise have ellipses which don’t quite hit their boundaries, and I’d recommend less tiny ellipses - it’s okay to just have space in some places!
Ellipses in Planes
Some ellipses hit their boundaries width/height wise but don’t hit both - it might be useful to try making your ellipses wider or more “circular" when ghosting.
Funnels
The lines separating funnel sides are missing, which can make proper spacing at the center difficult. There’s also inconsistency in minor axis alignment / degrees - for this exercise, we want the alignment of our ellipses' axes to stay the same, and their degrees to stay the same or consistently get larger moving outwards.
BOXES
Your boxes use parallel lines which converge at a single vanishing point, use clean hatching, and are well constructed - good work!
Plotted Perspective
You’ve done well applying the concepts of perspective to each box, good work!
Rough perspective
Each box should be drawn through (like the plotted perspective exercise) - we also only need to take our perspective guidelines back to the horizon line.
The only other thing I noticed were some vertical lines which weren’t going straight up (which for this exercise all of them should).
Rotated Boxes
The top/bottom sections’ boxes don’t get "compressed" (look shorter) as they rotate - this makes them look taller/wider than they should. Other than that, your boxes are rotating, drawn through, and are put close together, well done!
Organic Perspective
You need to complete two full pages of the organic perspective exercise - you’re almost there, you just need to finish up that second page.
You’ve avoided dramatic foreshortening on smaller/far away boxes, and scaled them as they move back, well done!
OTHER
Not much else to put here, except this: the critiques I’ve given don’t mean you’ve done badly/failed the exercises. You’ve gained a very thorough understanding of Lesson 1’s concepts - you came here to learn, and you’ve done just that. Keep moving forward!
Next Steps:
REVISIONS
You’ve learned all the concepts Lesson 1 teaches! The requests I have are less revisions and more polishing up what you have:
Finish your rough perspective pages by drawing the lines you wouldn’t normally be able to see for each box, and then use guidelines to take their vanishing points back to the horizon line.
Finish the second page of the organic perspective exercise.
If you have any questions/concerns, let me know, and I'll do my best to answer them!
LINES
Superimposed Lines:
Your lines go off of the page, so there’s no way to identify over/undershoot. It’s important to see the whole mark, otherwise I can only review a portion of your work! There’s also some wobble, which is usually a sign of not drawing confidently.
Ghosted Lines:
You've taken the time to find your starting points, and have heavily reduced wobbling, well done! There is some overshoot, which will reduce with practice, but you can also try lifting your pen off the page as soon as you reach an endpoint.
Ghosted Planes:
Several planes merge / share points - we’ll get more practice if they’re separate. This is done correctly at several spots, so it’s just applying that to the rest. I’d also recommend varying your planes’ sizes and point positions more.
ELLIPSES
Tables of Ellipses
Your tables of ellipses look good! You’ve drawn through your ellipses 2 - 3 times, and their minor axes are quite well aligned.
Ellipses in Planes
Your ellipses are drawn through 2 - 3 times - you’re placing your ellipses in the proper boundaries, and they look confident, well done!
Funnels
The alignment of ellipses to the funnel’s minor axis is off in some places, but overall they look good - remember you only need to submit one page of the funnels exercise though!
BOXES
Plotted Perspective
The boxes themselves look good, but your perspective guidelines shouldn’t overshoot their vanishing points - since we’re using a ruler it's something we can control.
Rough perspective
There may have been some confusion here - you’ve correctly submitted one plotted perspective page, but only one full page (out of two) of the rough perspective exercise. The other is half plotted, half rough perspective. For the full page of rough perspective, the top section doesn’t have perspective guidelines - it’s important to do this for every section, so we can gather information about mistakes.
Rotated Boxes
Some boxes haven’t been drawn in, and some line sections merge with each other - we also only need to draw 2 boxes on either size of our center one. Your boxes are rotating correctly, which is a very difficult concept to grasp - well done!
Organic Perspective
I’d recommend a few more boxes per scene - also, you don’t have to worry about hatching/drawing through boxes with this particular exercise. You've done very well tackling the depth/spatial reasoning concepts involved with this exercise!
OTHER
There are sections of lines which are redrawn multiple times - there’s just a couple, but it’s important to keep it in check! Lastly, certain sections of hatching don’t fully cover the face they’re supposed to.
Not much else to put here except this: the critiques I’ve given here don’t mean you’ve failed/done poorly, and I’ve seen a ton of improvement looking at your work - keep moving forward!
Next Steps:
You’ve gotten down the concepts Lesson 1 teaches, now it’s just a matter of applying them to some missed spots:
Review the superimposed lines instructions and complete half a page. Avoid going off the page - draw with confidence, don’t worry about course correcting as you go, and use the ghosting method.
Review the ghosted planes instructions and complete one page. Vary size and points like the example homework, use the ghosting method, and make sure all your planes are separate from each other.
After you submit these revisions, incorporate the Lesson 1 exercises into your warmups (specifically the rotated boxes and rough perspective) - I would also suggest reviewing instructions for an exercise about once a week (which I’ve found helps me significantly).
If you have any questions/concerns, let me know, and I'll do my best to answer them!
The way you drew the mask is well done, the rat looks very ready for war!
Thank you! :D
(Don't worry about clicking the lesson links I put here unless I wrote something confusing or you want to learn more about something)
LINES
A few sections of the superimposed lines exercise fray on both ends. Fraying on the endpoint is fine (since we’re prioritizing confidence over accuracy), but our starting point should be pretty accurate, since it’s something we can control before making confident marks. (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/9/fraying)
Your ghosted lines/planes exercises look good!
ELLIPSES
Your ellipses in planes exercise looks good!
The table of ellipses exercise one or two ellipses that “pinch” at a point. Even though this can help hit the boundaries of where we want to put our ellipse, that is our second goal - unless its confident and smooth, putting an ellipse within certain boundaries won’t be much use to us. (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/13/deformed)
The table of ellipses/funnels exercises have some overlapping ellipses, but most look good! Your alignment with the minor axis is a little off at somepoints - remember that we want our minor axis (in this case the long line in between the two curves) to cut each ellipse into two equal parts. (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/5/minoraxis)
The only other thing I recommend would be less funnels - it’ll give you more room to experiment with different sizes of ellipses.
Nice work drawing through each ellipse 2 - 3 times - your ellipses show a lot of improvement over these exercises, well done!
BOXES
Your plotted/rough perspective exercises look good! Just remember with the rough perspective exercise you only need to take your extension (red) lines to the horizon. (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/step6) This will be enough for us to see how off the line was, while keeping the page just a bit cleaner.
For the rotated boxes exercise, make sure each set of parallel lines maintains the same vanishing point. Boxes are made up of 3 sets of parallel lines, and each set converges at a single vanishing point (that's what makes them parallel). When you rotate (or move the vanishing point of) only a few lines in a set, it makes those ones non-parallel to the others.
Most are correct - their vanishing points move as they rotate. (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/17/rotation) Some don't though, which can make it look like half the box is rotating. Lastly, a few spots are missing hatching and some boxes aren't drawn through - you’ve got most down, there’s just a couple sections missing.
Your organic perspective exercise looks good, just add a little more variation - we want to shift from very large boxes to smaller ones, so we can convey depth - if the transition is too subtle, the scene can feel flat. I would also recommend fewer boxes, but this will come naturally by varying their size more.
OTHER
There’s a tiny amount of lines which were redone - you’re doing well keeping that in check, this is just a reminder to keep it up!
Not much to put here, except for one more thing - the critiques I’ve given don’t mean you failed the exercises/did poorly. What’s important is you’re learning, and gaining an understanding of the core concepts the exercises teach. You’ve done this very well - keep moving forward!
Next Steps:
You’ve worked hard to gain a good understanding of the concepts Lesson 1 teaches! There is only one revision I request:
If you have any questions/concerns, let me know!
Good to know! Makes sense to just continue on, and I'd just recommend writing "forgot to number" or similar next to the box. Glad the feedback is appreciated!
:D
Drawing through your forms:
All of your boxes are drawn through with x-ray vision. Good work!
Checking out convergences:
Your line extensions are done in the correct directions, with the only exception I could find being box 187. This box does not have 3 vanishing points, as one set of its parallel lines runs perpendicular to the viewer.
This isn't wrong on a technical level, but isn't something we're supposed to do in the 250 box challenge. The only other critique I have is some boxes are missing a set/sets of line extensions (69, 124, 130). Both of these issues are few, and don't occur with the later boxes. Good work!
Line weight & hatching:
Your lines look consistent and confident. Your line weight is used correctly on the silhouette of each box, without it being too heavy. Well done!
The hatching is also well done, but several boxes seem to be missing it (boxes 159, 216, 239), and at one point a page is missing hatching (boxes 242-247). While its not stated you have to use hatching, if you're applying it to some of the boxes, it may be a good idea to apply it to all of them.
Hatching helps clarify which faces are in front, which speeds up the process of extending our lines later, but I also find it breaks up the monotony of drawing boxes - switching to a different task, and then back helps keep my brain from zoning out at least.
Additional Notes:
Between boxes 64 - 65, there is a box labeled "x". Similarly, box 195 is labeled as "bad", and the description says that this is your second 250 box challenge homework. I'm guessing it was decided these boxes were "unfit" for the 250 box challenge, and I will address that idea here. If this isn't what was meant, feel free to move past this section of the critique.
Every box you have drawn here is fit for the 250 box challenge, bad or good. If I solve 100 math problems and do 5 wrong, I'm not going to scribble them out and say "no, those don't count, they're poorly done", and do 5 more math problems. The ones I did wrong are the most important, because they show me where I need to improve. If I don't number those and take responsibility for them, I will not be able to learn as quickly.
These "failures" will not cause you to be shamed and forever banished from this course. You are expected to fail many, many times, like everybody here. You, me, and everyone else are simply here to make note of each failure and learn from it. If you don't include them in what we're supposed to critique (boxes 1-250), we can't do that. Keep going, and don't be disappointed with this one :D
Next Steps:
You have made it through the crucible, and have completed and understood the purpose of the 250 box challenge. Your next step is to move on to Lesson 2.
Drawing through your forms:
All your boxes are drawn through with x-ray vision, good work!
Checking our convergences:
Some sets of parallel lines are not converging as they get further away (such as with boxes 4, 38, 198, and 226). This isn't technically wrong, as it is possible to have fully parallel lines in space (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/6/infinity), but it's not something we're supposed to do in the 250 box challenge.
Your line extensions are done in the correct directions, well done!
Line work & hatching:
Some boxes (such as 28, 66, 218) have heavy use of line weight. We need the outside lines that make up our box's silhouette to be subtly thicker than the other lines, so it can hold the form together without drawing too much attention. On the other hand, our inner lines should only have the first stroke we make.
This becomes less of an issue with later boxes though, so I would not be too concerned about it - just try to only do the necessary amount of lines.
Your hatching done looks consistent and confident. Well done! I would, however, recommend spacing out the lines more. It accomplishes the same purpose of clarifying a box's form, and uses up less time.
Box variety:
The only critique I have with this section would be to have a few more boxes with more rapidly converging lines, but each box drawn looks unique, and has an interesting shape.
Additional notes:
There's some writing and notes on a lot of pages, which is something I wouldn't recommend doing unless specifically requested by course material. The line extension method is pretty efficient when it comes to finding mistakes, and there is value in identifying mistakes visually, without notes.
Also, good job going back and and reviewing Lesson 0 :D
Next Steps:
You've made it through the crucible, by completing and understanding the purpose of the 250 box challenge. The next step is to move on to Lesson 2.
Lines
Some fraying on the superimposed lines, but much less so on the second page - same thing with wobbling (starts out noticeable and then is honed out).
On the second page of the superimposed lines, there are not any lines that go across the entire distance of the page - these are useful lines to practice, not just to make long lines, but also for shorter ones, as getting used to doing a line that long confidently can make the smaller ones seem easier.
The ghosted lines exercise has some noticeable wobbling - don't be afraid to draw confidently and miss the mark - consistency first, accuracy second (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/3/smooth).
Your ghosted planes pages look good - a few lines seem to 'hook' near one side, and I would recommend the same advice for this as the ghosted lines exercise. It's possible that this stems from a hesitation at the end of the line, and if so, it may be helpful to lift your pen up off the page as soon as you are done with a line (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/10/lifthand)
Ellipses
The tables of ellipses exercise has many ellipses overlapping/missing the tables they are supposed to be in - this is okay, and seems to be honed out in the ellipses in planes exercise. However, there are far too many ellipses in several sections of the pages - I would recommend using larger ellipses/ellipses that have a wider major axis more often
(https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/5/minoraxis explained here) to combat this.
Almost all the ellipses in this section are drawn through 2-3 times, though there are a few that have more - It's hard (speaking from experience,) but it's far better to just do 2-3, even if your accuracy suffers a bit.
The ghosted planes in ellipses exercise looks quite good, however - there are way too many planes and ellipses! I counted ~40 per page, whereas the example homework has ~14. This means one page you did is equal to over double the total homework requirement.
I had a similar issue with my homework, wanting to make the most out of the page, but it's important to remember small and large planes/ellipses are both important. I would recommend looking at the amount of ellipses/planes in the example homework (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/13/example), and doing a few more or a few less than that when doing this as a warmup. Do not grind. It's okay to not have so many on the page.
In the funnels exercise, for the funnels on the top right corner, there is no minor axis (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/5/minoraxis) for the cylinders to follow, and the guiding lines are not curved - part of the funnels exercise is trying to align your cylinders to the minor axis, so the ones done there may not be as helpful as the intended homework (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/14/example). Additionally, some of the ellipses are not quite aligned to the minor axis created by the ruler's main line - this will be honed out eventually, but it is good to keep in mind.
Boxes
Your plotted perspective page looks good! The only thing I would recommend here is making the hatching go across the entirety of the face - many of the lines fall short of the edges.
Your rough perspective pages look good as well! You have gotten rid of a good deal of wobbling here, though a little is still present.
The rotated boxes exercise is tricky, but you've done well here too! The only thing I would recommend is to rotate the corner boxes (ones rotated in two directions) a little more.
You have also drawn through all of the boxes necessary here, so good work on that as well :D
The organic perspective exercise also looks good!
Next Steps:
You have understood all of the main concepts of lesson 1. The 250 box challenge should be attempted next!
A lot of my students use these. The last time I used them was when I was in high school, and at the time I felt that they dried out pretty quickly, though I may have simply been mishandling them. As with all pens, make sure you're capping them when they're not in use, and try not to apply too much pressure. You really only need to be touching the page, not mashing your pen into it.
In terms of line weight, the sizes are pretty weird. 08 corresponds to 0.5mm, which is what I recommend for the drawabox lessons, whereas 05 corresponds to 0.45mm, which is pretty close and can also be used.
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