Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction

12:50 PM, Monday November 15th 2021

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I'm really looking forward to some critique on these. I definitely felt like I struggled more on some exercises than any prior ones. Some mistakes that I've noticed on my own is that my lines weren't as confident as they should be in some areas of the organic intersections and dissections. My ellipses definitely aren't as accurate as I'd like them to be. These two combined made for some wonky sausages in the organic intersections. Especially on page 2, there were some contour lines that I think contradicted each other and made the lie harder to believe.

I'm also still struggling with line weights. The person who marked my 250 box challenge said I just need to continue experimenting with it but whenever I do it I feel it just looks like I'm mucking up the original line. I'm not sure if I'm missing something or if its just a matter of practice. I also had my fine liner get very little ink out on some lines in the form intersections exercises. I wasn't certain if I should do the line again when it was barely visible.

Thanks in advance to whoever looks at this.

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4:06 AM, Friday November 19th 2021
edited at 4:22 AM, Nov 19th 2021

Hello again. Sorry for the delay I'll be the TA handling your Lesson 2 critique.

You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson and hopefully this critique will help you in your future attempts.

Also before we get started to answer your question about line weight it is something that requires a lot of mileage before people start to feel comfortable applying it. Which is why I suggest experimenting with it when critiquing box challenges, people make a lot of lines look worse before they begin to look better. That being said they won't ever look better if you don't practice and the sooner you start the sooner you see better results. As long as you keep experimenting and practicing you'll see improvement with time, just remember that these exercises aren't beautiful pieces of art or anything.

  • Starting off in the arrows section your lines are mostly looking smoothly and confidently drawn. There are spots where your arrows bulge/narrow suddenly, this is an issue because it gives the impression that your arrows are stretching which hurts their solidity. Remember that as our arrows move closer to the viewer we want them to widen consistently. It's good to see that you're trying to implement line weight, just remember that you want to keep your applications subtle and you'll become consistent with mileage. here are some things to look out for when applying it. I'd like you to experiment more with foreshortening in your future attempts, by utilizing it in both the arrows themselves as well as the negative space between their curves we can create a stronger illusion of an object moving through 3D space as demonstrated here.

  • Moving into the organic forms with contours exercise a few your forms are getting a bit too complex but you're largely on the right track. We want to create our forms with both ends being the same size and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form's length as discussed here. You're keeping your line work confident here which is great, if you feel uncomfortable working with contours still don't stress with more mileage it'll become more natural. Speaking of contours you're doing a good job trying to shift the degree of your contours so far, be sure to keep experimenting. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.

  • In the texture exercises you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows created by forms along the texture itself. This makes it difficult to create gradients with implied information which we could then use to create focal points in more complex pieces, by doing so we can prevent our viewers from being visually overwhelmed with too much detail. For more on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here. I'd also like to quickly direct you to this image which shows that when we're working with thin line like textures if we outline and fill the shadow we will create a much more dynamic texture than simply drawing lines.

  • It's quite common for people to feel like they don't fully grasp the form intersections exercise, if you feel like you may fall into this category try not to stress too much. This exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page. We'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons.Your forms are looking quite solid here and they believably appear to belong in the same cohesive 3D space, good work.

  • While wrapping up your submission with the organic intersections exercise you do a great job demonstrating that your sense of 3D space is developing as your forms begin to wrap around each other believably. You're keeping your forms simple and easy to work with which is a good strategy to help produce good results. In the future I'd like you to draw through all of your forms, it will help reinforce your understanding of the 3D space you're constructing. When it comes to your shadows you're pushing them enough so that they cast rather than just hugging the form that creates them which is a great start (more so on the first page). Your shadows appear to be following a consistent light source, be sure to experiment with different angles and intensities when trying this exercise again in the future. I recommend pushing your light source to the top left or right corner of the page to start with, it's easier than working with a light directly above your form pile.

Overall this was a solid submission, while you may have some things to work on I have no doubt you will improve with more mileage. I'll be marking your submission as complete and moving you on to the next lesson.

Keep practicing previous exercises as warm ups and good luck in lesson 3!

Next Steps:

Keep practicing previous exercise as warm ups.

Move on to lesson 3.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
edited at 4:22 AM, Nov 19th 2021
8:06 AM, Friday November 19th 2021

Hi Tofu,

I think I understand what was meant about experimenting with line weights now. Thank you for taking the time to explain it to me. I'm really appreciating the in-depth responses to my submissions, and I don't mind the delay too much. It forces me to properly catch up on personal art and maintain the fifty percent rule

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