Hi there I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.
You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson, below I'll be listing some things that will hopefully help you in your future attempts at these exercises.
Starting off with the arrows exercise the biggest concern I have here is your line work. It's not flowing confidently or smoothly which is definitely something we want to work on, confidence is our first priority and accuracy will come with mileage. There are moments where the width of your arrows don't flow consistently and widen/narrow suddenly but this is something that will begin to become more consistent with mileage as long as you keep in mind that sudden changes create the appearance of stretching which hurts their solidity. I'd also like you to work on utilizing foreshortening more, by applying it to the arrows themselves as well as the negative space between our arrow's curves we can create a stronger illusion of an arrow moving through 3D space as you can see demonstrated here.
In the organic forms with contours exercise your forms get a bit too complex. Our goal in this exercise is to create forms where both ends are the same size and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form's length as discussed here. You have moments where your lines lack confidence here as well, you end up with squared edges on your forms as well as stiff contours at times. I'd like you to try and shift the degree of your contours in the future as well. 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.
If you feel like you don't fully grasp form intersections just yet don't worry, you're on the right track but right now 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 a bit of a mix of results, some are solid while some look like they could use a bit more time in the planning stage. Considering your lengthy break I assume this is mostly due to a bit of rust and once you get back into the swing of things you'll be more consistent.
Your forms begin to flatten in the organic intersections exercise rather than appearing solid and round. A lot of this is due to issues mentioned in the previous organic form section as well as your contours being quite straight instead of round. Your shadows also aren't consistent with the forms creating them and don't always cast as far as they could. I'd suggest pushing your light source to the top left or right corner as it's easier than having a light directly above.
I won't be moving you on to the next lesson just yet, there are some issues I'd like to make sure you address especially with such a large break in the middle of the submission it won't hurt to revisit some of the ideas. Since each lesson builds upon each we want to make sure we have a strong foundation before building more on top of it.
With that said I'd like you to re-read and complete:
1 page of the arrows exercise
1 page of the organic forms with contours exercise
1 page of the organic intersections exercise
Once you've completed these pages reply to this critique with a link to them, I'll go over them and address anything that needs to be worked on and move you on to the next lesson once you've shown you're ready.
It's great that you're getting back into the course, it just takes a bit of time to wear off some of the rust that's built up over a year. I know you can do this and look forward to seeing your work.
Next Steps:
Please re-read and complete:
1 page of the arrows exercise
1 page of the organic forms with contours exercise
1 page of the organic intersections exercise
Here are the assigments.
I think is good to tell you about some things you pointed out on the critique.
My lines are bad on the arrows exercise because on the explanation it says to go over the lines to give them more weight, but I don't reaaly know how to do it. Do I use my shoulder which is less accurate but more confident and smooth, or do I use my wrist which is more accurate but doesn't have good range and it's not smooth?
Also I have to say that the explanation on the contour forms exercise is really confunsing. Because it says that you should use the more consistent sausages forms but on the example of the exercise it has a lot of different forms and it becomes quite confusing. Should I draw or not every form like it is explained on the text?
Anyways thanks for the critique, it was great!
As mentioned here line weight is applied subtly to specific spots such as overlaps to help make them clearer. We don't expect your application of line weight to be great, you may not overlap the line fully and that's fine because accuracy comes with mileage and practice. However accuracy is not the issue with your line quality in both your submission as well as your revisions, your lines are wobbly and segmented which shows that they're not being drawn in a single smooth confident strokes instructed or you're trying to apply line weight throughout the form in places you shouldn't be. Here are some examples of line weight done well and incorrectly for future reference.
You use your shoulder for line weight, as you begin to become more comfortable accuracy improves as mentioned in lesson 1 and as I mentioned above, wrists wobble therefore are not more accurate.
Your organic forms with contours have improved a lot, they're looking much simple now. To answer your question you should be following the instructions, as mentioned earlier in the course the examples are meant to be what a good submission looks like not a perfect one, there are mistakes to show that it's ok to make mistakes. You will also see that compared to the examples some of your submissions end up more complicated than any of the examples shown.
Your organic intersections are an improvement but still need some work, your forms are mostly just resting against one another rather than wrapping around one another. Your shadows also aren't consistent with the forms creating them so be sure to experiment with pushing them further when you practice this exercise in the future.
I'll be moving you forward on to the next lesson because at this point you appear to understand what is being asked of you in the exercises you just need more mileage to be comfortable with them.
Keep practicing previous exercises as warm ups and good luck in lesson 3.
Next Steps:
Keep practicing previous exercises as warm ups.
Move on to lesson 3.
Thanks now I understand that I should be using my shoulder to give line weight, I'll be practicing this. Once again thanks for the critique and for taking your time to answer my questions!
Some of you may remember James Gurney's breathtaking work in the Dinotopia series. This is easily my favourite book on the topic of colour and light, and comes highly recommended by any artist worth their salt. While it speaks from the perspective of a traditional painter, the information in this book is invaluable for work in any medium.
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