Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes
5:56 PM, Wednesday March 9th 2022
this was originally submitted for community feedback, which was received. Submitting this now for official critique. Thanks
Welcome to drawabox, and congrats on completing Lesson 1. Let’s take a look at it, shall we?
Starting off, your superimposed lines are – and this is a little hard to tell because of the quality of your photos but – a little wobbly. It seems like you’re more concerned with sticking to the guideline, than you are to have the resulting line be smooth, and straight, but that’s having your priorities backwards. Your ghosted lines/planes look mostly confident, save for at their ends (more on this in a second). I’m pleased to see that you made the start/end points of your lines a little smaller, as compared to the ones in the ghosted lines exercise, but I do wish you’d actually plotted some start/end points for the non-diagonal center lines of your planes. Speaking of those center lines, you’re missing 1 of them in each plane – remember that all planes consist of 8 lines (4 inner, 4 outer). With regards to your lines wobbling as they approach their end points, this is likely due to you slowing down, in an effort to not stop short of the point, or overshoot. This is not necessary, however; as mentioned, the smoothness/straightness of your line is most important – as such, it’s recommended to keep your speed consistent throughout.
The table of ellipses exercise is certainly better in its second page, where you’ve actually drawn through most (though not all…) ellipses. That said, even there, you’ll prioritize their accuracy first and foremost. As you might expect, at this point, what we’re to prioritize here isn’t how snuggly the ellipses fit into their frames, or how well their rotations match up, but rather how smooth, and rounded, they are. To that end, it’s perfectly fine if they overshoot their frames, or their rotations are entirely unmatched. Here, too, by the way, try to keep a consistent speed throughout – right now it feels like you’re slowing down, and perhaps even switching to your wrist, during the sharp turns. The ellipses in planes are a little better in all these respects, though still not quite there, so continue pushing in the direction of confidence. Particularly, try not to be super conscious of the 4 points of the plane, that we encourage you to make contact with. That contact is not more important than the smoothness/roundness of your ellipses. The funnels are more of the same. Here, the main issue is the pointy nature of some of the thinner ones, so again, be mindful of your pivot.
The plotted perspective exercise is well done.
The rough perspective exercise shows some nice improvement throughout the set, until it doesn’t… I generally assume that any decrease in quality in this exercise is due to it being a different day, or something along those lines, but do remember that you’re meant to re-read the instructions, and warm up, before starting work on a new day. Anyway, the exercise is well done beyond that, but do be a little more mindful of your linework. For one, it’s a little lacking in confidence here, as compared to its counterpart in the ghosted lines exercise, but it need not be – the process of drawing a line hasn’t actually changed. Also, I notice that you’ll, sometimes, re-draw a line that you consider to be ‘wrong’. That’s also not something we encourage. You get one try at a line. To have it come out well, spend as much time as is necessary on the steps prior to drawing. If you do, anything that comes out of that is correct by default. If you don’t, have the result be a reminder to, next time.
The rotated boxes exercise looks mostly good. It’s a little small (drawing big is something we encourage, as it’s effective in giving your brain some room to think), but its boxes are snug, and rotating nicely. A lot of the time, it seems like you’ve prioritized keeping their lines snug over the boxes themselves being correct. Though this is wrong, it’s what we recommend you do. I mention it so you can know that, as we progress through the box challenge, and learn how one goes about constructing a box, you’ll be able to replace a lot of this guesswork with some properly informed decisions. Hold out until then!
Finally, the organic perspective exercise looks great. The amount of overshooting suggests to me that you’re using start/end points to plot out the direction, but not length of your lines, so please see if you can do both. Other than that, however, your boxes are well constructed, and flow well as per their size and foreshortening.
Next Steps:
Now, before I send you off to the box challenge, I’d like us to work on your ellipses a little. Please submit 1 page of the table of ellipses exercise, and another page of an ellipse exercise of your choosing (so, either ellipses in planes, or funnels). Good luck!
thanks Benj. due to my confusion after i submitted this for community feedback instead of official by accident, i went for the 250 boxathon. im going to proceed with ellipse table plus one exercise per your advice then submit the boxes
funnels https://photos.app.goo.gl/FJE5j3UZ9uqNa7ZC6
ellipse table https://photos.app.goo.gl/TyX7sb8QjZKEUuPt8
funnels https://photos.app.goo.gl/FJE5j3UZ9uqNa7ZC6
ellipse table https://photos.app.goo.gl/TyX7sb8QjZKEUuPt8
Good improvement, though still not perfect. I'll let any further improvement come in your own time, however, and simply recommend that you play with your speed (I suspect you're drawing a little slowly) to get it.
Next Steps:
For now, however, feel free to move on to the box challenge. GL!
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