Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

8:04 PM, Thursday February 16th 2023

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Imgur: https://imgur.io/a/nk92Kmd

Discover the magic of the internet at Imgur, a community powered enterta...

lord forgive me I am not using printer paper.

those last 2 exercises were rough :')

2 users agree
8:48 PM, Thursday February 16th 2023

Good evening! I'm kotka#1891 on Discord and I'll be your reviewer tonight. Wherever you are, I hope you have a nice evening (or morning) with lots of tasty tea.

Lines

Your lines look very confident and there is a minimal amount of arching, which tells me that you have understood the task and your shoulder movement has a good balance of control and relaxation. Fraying of lines at the end is expected and something that will slowly improve over time as you keep doing lines as warm-up, but I see some fraying at the start of the line. Don't rush, place our pen perfectly on the same spot every time, and this error will disappear. Actually, it already disappears in your second page of Superimposed Lines, which means that you already know how to correct this. Great!

You have a minimal amount of overshooting in your Ghosted Lines and Ghosted Planes which is good. Try to see if locking your eyes on the end point while drawing towards it can improve your accuracy.

Ellipses

Confidence and fluent motion is more important than accuracy here. You have understood the assignment and done your best, but, your ellipse exercises need to have a bit more variety! You seem to choose very similar ellipse degrees, try experimenting a bit more. It will help you develop your skills. For now, it's fine, but make sure to include all kinds of degrees, axis and sizes for your ellipse practices. Your major strength in the ellipse exercises is that you are good at following boundaries for your ellipses, even though the accuracy suffers a bit. Nicely done! Just take a look at the big difference between your first and second submission of Table of Ellipses: you clearly understand how you need to improve and what to do. You accuracy is a lot better in the second, too.

Your strongest ellipse exercise is Funnels, so if I'd choose one of these exercises for you to prioritize once you use them for warming up, I'd recommend you to keep doing a lot of Table of Ellipses.

Boxes

Nothing to comment on Plotted Perspective, looks correct. Next, the Rough Perspective. Not much here either, some lines are wobbly but it's not a big problem and will improve with time and practice. You have done the exercise according to instructions.

Now, The Rotated Boxes is a very hard exercise, prone to a lot of mistakes. I applaud you for clear lines (even if wobbly), not drawing over and correcting twice, and finishing the exercise as instructed. While your sphere of rotated boxes is more of a rounded square, you have done all that is expected and with a minimum of unnecessary features. You shine especially in imagining and drawing boxes above the horizon line and they are quite symmetrical on both sides of the sphere. If anything, try improving your boxes at the lower half of the horizon line as those ones are suffering a bit more.

Organic Perspective is basically preparation for the 250 Box challenge. You wrote that this one was rough, too, but I see a proper execution of this exercise, and clear communication of how you imagine the boxes twist and turn along the curve. Just keep applying line making concepts such as ghosting and planning the end points with dots as you continue your journey, and it will be fine.

Your submission is solid and confident, but remember to have patience and ghost more than less in future DAB endeavors.

Next Steps:

Stock up on printing paper, it's cheap and worth it. Trust me, you will need it for the 250 Box challenge!

If possible, use a pen that is a bit less thick (you can find recommended brands and sizes here. It will help you in the long run, too.

You are ready for your first beastly and stamina-draining 250 Box challenge. Remember, ask for help sooner than later, and vent your frustrations before you burn out. We're in this for the long run, right? Good luck!

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
2:12 PM, Monday February 20th 2023

Hi Kotka,

Wow this is great, detailed feedback and more than I had hoped for! Much appreciated, I agree with all your points and will implement your tips for the next exercise.

Have a great week :)

The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Ellipse Master Template

Ellipse Master Template

This recommendation is really just for those of you who've reached lesson 6 and onwards.

I haven't found the actual brand you buy to matter much, so you may want to shop around. This one is a "master" template, which will give you a broad range of ellipse degrees and sizes (this one ranges between 0.25 inches and 1.5 inches), and is a good place to start. You may end up finding that this range limits the kinds of ellipses you draw, forcing you to work within those bounds, but it may still be worth it as full sets of ellipse guides can run you quite a bit more, simply due to the sizes and degrees that need to be covered.

No matter which brand of ellipse guide you decide to pick up, make sure they have little markings for the minor axes.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.