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9:09 PM, Thursday October 19th 2023

Hi there, I'll be handling your box challenge critique.

Not only does the challenge help deepen your understanding of important concepts but it shows your desire to learn as well. That being said I'll try to keep this critique fairly brief so you can get working on the next steps as soon as possible.

Things you did well:

  • Your construction lines are looking smooth and confidently drawn.

  • It's good to see that you're taking the time to plan and evenly space your hatching lines. This helps keep your boxes tidy and makes them look more solid.

  • You're doing a great job of experimenting with orientations, and proportions. Experimenting is an important habit to build when learning any new skill, it helps form a more well rounded understanding. I hope you'll continue to display and nurture this habit in the future.

Things you can work on:

  • I'd like you to experiment with rates of foreshortening more. Currently you tend to keep your lines close to parallel and push your vanishing points far from your boxes or you switch to 1 or 2 point perspective and only bring those sets in closer. Try bringing all of your points in closer so that your lines have to converge more dramatically. Remember that experimentation is important.

  • At times you're placing your vanishing point between the viewer and your boxes (boxes 231-233 and 243 are examples of this). This leads to you extending your lines in the wrong direction and your boxes becoming distorted because your lines are actually diverging from where the vanishing point would actually be. Here's a guide I wrote that will hopefully help you place your vanishing points and line extensions more consistently. If you need some more examples you can find them here and a simplified guide below.

  • There are times when your lines converge in pairs or you attempt to keep your lines a bit too parallel which results in them diverging. This is an example of lines converging in pairs, and this shows the relation between each line in a set and their respective vanishing point. The inner pair of lines will be quite similar unless the box gets quite long and the outer pair can vary a lot depending on the location of the vanishing point. Move it further away and the lines become closer to parallel while moving it closer increases the rate of foreshortening.

The key things we want to remember from this exercise are that our lines should always converge as a set not in pairs, never diverge from the vanishing point and due to perspective they won't be completely parallel.

I won't be moving you on to the next lesson just yet, each lesson builds off concepts in the previous course material so if you move forward with un-addressed issues you end up just creating further issues on top of them.

I'd like you to draw 30 more boxes please. Focus on extending your lines consistently in the correct direction and experimenting with rates of foreshortening. For the first 15 I'd like you to draw your boxes' vanishing points explicitly on the page after you've drawn your starting Y, this will make it so you have to keep these vanishing points in mind. For the latter 15 go back to the challenge's method without drawing the vanishing points which will hopefully be easier after the first set.

Once you've completed your boxes reply to this critique with a link to them, I'll address anything that needs to be worked on and once you've shown you're ready I'll move you on to the next lesson.

I know you can do this and look forward to seeing your work.

Next Steps:

30 more boxes please.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
10:26 AM, Monday October 23rd 2023
edited at 10:27 AM, Oct 23rd 2023

Hi there!

Thank you very much for this feedback! I tried to do what you told me for the 30 extra boxes. Although using a VP in the first 15 boxes helped me understand it a little better, I still ended up with a few boxes that didn't quite work. I can't explain it at the moment, although I wanted to know if it was due to the different spacing of the VP. I hope the imgur link works like this:

https://imgur.com/a/Q6RsMWH

edited at 10:27 AM, Oct 23rd 2023
6:04 PM, Monday October 23rd 2023

These are looking solid, I'm not entirely certain what you mean when you say some of the boxes didn't "quite work" but I assume you're referring to the rear corner and the convergences not always lining up perfectly.

If so, keep in mind that the goal of this challenge isn't to create perfect boxes (we have tools like rulers and computers to help with that), instead it's to improve your understanding of 3D space. The rear corner will very rarely be perfect because we tend to draw it last and any inaccuracies you've made up until that point will get reflected in it making it more noticably off. Try your best of course but don't get too frustrated if it's not perfect.

I have no problem moving you on to the next lesson now so I'll be marking your submission complete.

Keep practicing boxes and previous exercises as warmups and best of luck in lesson 2.

Next Steps:

Move on to lesson 2.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
3:51 PM, Tuesday October 24th 2023

I actually meant exactly that, that the rear corner wasn't always perfectly lining up. But it eases my mind to know that it's okay.

Thank you again for your feedback. I'm looking forward to continuing with lesson two.

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The Science of Deciding What You Should Draw

Right from when students hit the 50% rule early on in Lesson 0, they ask the same question - "What am I supposed to draw?"

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