Red radish reference: https://www.veggycation.com.au/siteassets/veggycationvegetable/radish-red.jpg (it doens't let me upload the image for some reasons, forgive me)
to whoever will look my submission, thank you a lot for your time (and if you post a critique, for the critique too!) :)
Hello Lalincechelancia,
Congratulations on finishing Lesson 3! I hope you've had fun with this lesson as it's the one who finally takes the building blocks we learned over the last 2 lessons and 1 challenge, then finally teaches us how to put all of them together to draw an actual real subject.
Today I'll be reviewing some of your work, I hope that my advice is helpful to you in your Drawabox journey.
Let's start with your
• Arrows
You are doing well by keeping your lines fluid, confident and smooth, your main struggle is keeping the size of your arrows consistent, especially at the bends. To tackle this problem you can try building your arrows in segments with the ghosting method so you can see if the width feels right before you commit to a line.
Your hatching is very clearly rushed, only about 3 to 4 lines in the diagonal that stop at arbitrary places, you also skipped adding lineweight to the overlaps of your arrows.
https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/4/step4
Since your page also has very little arrows it makes me think you've rushed this exercise, remember to always give your all to each page and each line, it doesn't matter if you're making 1 line or 10,000, ironically completing these exercises faster won't make you improve faster.
• Leaves
Don't cross out mistakes, after all we're drawing in pen so we can't erase them, we must commit to them.
Construction wise your leaves are good and fluid, your smooth lines translate well into this exercise. the thing that is most detrimental to them is that you cut back into your forms quite frequently and tend to zigzag your edge detail a lot as well, something that carries over into your plant constructions.
https://drawabox.com/lesson/3/2/zigzag
Remember, one of the core principles of mark-making is that our lines must maintain a consistent path, otherwise we default back to symbol drawing and our drawings will look flat and uninteresting.
https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/3/consistent
Here's a demo on how to build edge detail additively, made by user Weijak on the Drawabox Discord Server.
• Branches
Continuing onto your branches exercise, I believe your rushing seems to come back and it's especially detrimental to your branches. For many of them you skip the instructions of drawing your lines in segments and opt for drawing them in a single stroke, the reason it's best to approach them with multiple but smaller strokes superimposed over one another is to maintain higher control over our lines like shown below.
https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/18463269.png
Something else that also jumps out to me is that you're not varying your ellipses' degrees, if we look back on Lesson 2 and how to draw cylinders we can see that as the end of a cylindrical shape turns away from the viewer the degree of the ellipse will increase. This is also true for sausages and branches, the ellipses' degrees won't stay static, they'll change as well.
https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/5/degreeshift
https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/degree
And lastly for forking branches we must draw a small ball, not an oval shape when adding a new branch.
• Plant Construction Section
Moving on to your plant constructions you seem to have understood how to connect your forms to create a 3D and believable subject. Nevertheless there is always room for improvement and I wish to point out a few things:
• When we approach cylindrical subjects like mushroom stems, drawing a minor axis first will help with keeping the ellipses aligned.
• When attempting to change the silhouette of any subject that isn't flat, remember to add new forms that wrap around the first ones, since simply adding new 2D forms will flatten your previous construction.
https://drawabox.com/lesson/3/8/buildingup
Here is a picture of the same mushroom as in your 1st page, but where the bubbles are drawn as forms that wrap around the stem instead of simple shapes.
• Once again you seem to be rushing through these exercises based on the fact that even on demos you seem to skip adding detail. When following demos remember it's best not to skip major steps.
• You also don't close the ends of your leaves quite frequently, don't leave them open ended with an arbitrary gap and don't be afraid to let them overlap and draw through them, it's important to draw through your forms so that you can better understand the relationships each form has with the ones close to it.
• Once again your edge detail looks rushed, is zigzagged and cuts back into your previous forms.
• A nitpick it that you could have used the space of your page much better, some of them feel a bit empty such as the pitcher plant one, you could have either put it a bit to the left and been able to add another plant, or drawn your pitcher plant much bigger.
Final Thoughts
You're moving on the right direction to start drawing things using construction, just keep in mind that you shouldn't rush as that will only be detrimental to your improvement during this course.
Do every exercise to the best of your ability and make sure to reread over any sections if you are unsure of the instructions such as the branches so you can do it correctly from now on.
I'll be marking this lesson as complete.
If you're not in it, have you considered joining the Drawabox Discord?
https://discord.com/invite/FtSS4hhqSu
The Drawabox discord server is the best place to ask for critique on partial work as you move along the exercises, and with the Critique exchange initiative you can make sure that you're always guaranteed a critique even though you're a community member.
Next Steps:
Feel free to move on to Lesson 4.
Hey Thatonemushroomguy thanks for the time and the critique!
As you noticed yes the whole thing was quite rushed (due to uni exams and vacations) although some mistakes were not due of rushing but because I didn't know they were are mistake such as the hatching on the arrows thanks for letting me notice.
Also I'll try to draw some arrows by segments didn't think about that thanks!
About branches, while this might sound(?)/seem mean to me to say, I didn't draw them with a single stroke, forgive me to say that, the ones that came out "well" such as maybe the top right one and the smaller one beside it, were all drawn with multiple strokes, I think it is also noticeable by the fact that near the ellipses the line(s) get a bit darker/thicker. (or maybe it is not noticeable at all lol) anyhow I assure you that every branch was drawn with multiple strokes.
As for the rest of your critique for this part I've got nothing to say,I agree with everything, Today I'll try to vary the degrees and draw balls instead of ellipses.
Also thanks for the rest of the critique on plant construction super helpful!
As for the Discord I was already a member for sometime,and I agree completely with you it is a super helpful place, although I don't interact that much ahahah.
Thanks for marking the lesson as complete, I think that before starting drawing all the crawling arachnids and insects I think I'll revisit this lesson exercises and draw some more plants just for practice and to see if I apply well all of your recommendations.
Thanks again, I hope I didn't sound like an A** hole with the branches thing, your critique is much appreciated!
I'm really happy my critique was helpful to you!
And don't worry I completely get it, you didn't sound mean at all :) my phone's resolution isn't always the best so I might not have realized you were applying the technique properly, but I'm really glad you are!
Good luck on your next plants, I can't wait to see how you'll do on L4 onwards
A lot of my students use these. The last time I used them was when I was in high school, and at the time I felt that they dried out pretty quickly, though I may have simply been mishandling them. As with all pens, make sure you're capping them when they're not in use, and try not to apply too much pressure. You really only need to be touching the page, not mashing your pen into it.
In terms of line weight, the sizes are pretty weird. 08 corresponds to 0.5mm, which is what I recommend for the drawabox lessons, whereas 05 corresponds to 0.45mm, which is pretty close and can also be used.
This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.
