Lesson 6: Applying Construction to Everyday Objects
8:47 AM, Thursday April 22nd 2021
Hi,
Here is my homework from lesson 6. It was quite challenging.
Thanks for your critique
S.
While it may indeed have been challenging, as a whole you did a pretty good job.
Starting with your form intersections, you've demonstrated a pretty solid grasp of how these various forms exist and interact with one another in their shared space. Additionally, while tackling these rather cognitively demanding problems, you still maintained really solid line quality, showing that you were still working through each mark with as much time and patience as they each required. Good stuff.
Moving onto your object constructions, I'm pretty happy with how you've jumped into breaking down your objects using boxes, subdivision, and so on to position the major forms relative to one another and keep them all consistent in their orientations. As a whole, that's the main concept this lesson introduces students to - building scaffoldings and breaking down into greater levels of granularity.
There are definitely still places where you're approximating/eyeballing certain measurements or distances. This is normal, and I don't hold it against you for this lesson, but we'll take a look at some of those cases so that you can push yourself to be even more granular in your subdivision when you get into lesson 7 where it'll really matter.
One instance that stood out was this game controller. Overall, as far as the construction of the form and the believability of the structure goes, it's well put together. The handles especially feel nice and voluminous, like something you could reach out and grab. But in terms of process, it's kind of unclear where the handles sit relative to the larger bounding box around them.
So for example, we could have taken that subdivision/breakdown further, establishing where exactly the "ends" of the handles would sit and mirroring that across the center to make sure they're consistent, as shown here. The same could be done for a lot of elements of the controller's construction - for example, where you approximated the curvature of that handle, rather than building it out with clear landmarks before rounding it out in the manner explained in these notes on building curves. Admittedly the curvature you drew was really well done, in that it felt specific and solid, but as far as following a repeatable approach, it's still better to build out your curves with a straighter, more solid and specific structure, then rounding them out towards the end.
It's also worth pointing out that you found a more specific location for that top joystick, but for the other one, you approximated it, and it definitely suffered for it. That's more or less the kinds of challenges students face in this lesson - they learn that it takes time to build things up properly, and that cutting corners does hurt.
Continuing ono, a minor point about this lead pointer - you captured the texture of those little inset rectangles, and used a good approach to do so, but it looks like you've got some shadows being cast to the left, and some to the right. Always maintain a consistent light source. I think in this case it might have made the most sense to focus on a light source coming from above, giving you more prominent cast shadows from the top edge of that inset section, and just a little from the relevant side.
Aside from those points, you're doing really well. I can see a variety of places where you're pushing your scaffolding construction really far, and some other little cases where you just decide to eyeball it (like the little squares in this one). When you get to lesson 7, you will find that it demands a lot from you, with drawings taking several hours. It'll be your choice whether you want to push yourself to your limit and see them through, or whether you'll want to cut corners (and of course, which ones). The choice will be yours to make, and the results will be determined by those decisions.
So! Keep up the good work, and I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.
Next Steps:
Move onto the 25 wheel challenge, which is a prerequisite for lesson 7. You're almost to the finish line!
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