Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

12:50 PM, Wednesday September 23rd 2020

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Hey there. Been looking for a while to dive into constructional drawing, and so I started off with lessons 0-1. All the drawings have been done with fineliner as asked, and I'm happy to receive any new directions/instructions. Thanks.

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2:15 PM, Wednesday September 23rd 2020
edited at 2:15 PM, Sep 23rd 2020

Hey hey! Welcome to drawabox! Let’s look through this~

Starting with your superimposed lines, these are looking good- smooth, properly lined up at the start, and of a consistent trajectory. The same can be said of your ghosted lines/planes, and I’m especially pleased to see that you’ve also plotted some start/end points for their non-diagonal center lines- most students forget. One thing I’ll note is that they’ll occasionally arc a little, near the end. Be sure to maintain a consistent speed throughout them, rather than decrease it near the end, in an effort to stop at the correct place. Them being straight is far more important than them not overshooting their end point.

The table of ellipses exercise looks good, and I’m pleased to see so many of them. Occasionally, they’ll come out a little pointy, however. This is more often than not an indication of a lesser pivot, so be sure to check back every once in a while, to make sure that all of your marks are originating from your shoulder. Also, if you can, see if you can lift your pen off the page at the end of your rotations, rather than flick it off- it’ll get rid of those tails at the end of them. The ellipses in planes exercise looks good- your ellipses maintain their smoothness/roundness, despite the added difficulty of having to touch all 4 sides of the plane. The ellipses in funnels are sometimes a little misaligned, so I’d recommend spending a little longer on the ghosting stage if you can, remembering to rotate your page as necessary.

The plotted perspective exercise looks quite clean- nicely done. The rough perspective exercise is well done, too, in that you’ve carefully kept 2 sets of lines at infinity (parallel/perpendicular to the horizon) as instructed, but I don’t see this same level of care in the 3rd set- the one that’s meant to converge. It’s important to remember that you’re the one that decides when to commit to a point, so do so when you’re ready. If you’re not satisfied with it (check if you are by ghosting it to the horizon, and taking note of where it intersects it) absolutely ignore it, in favor of another. Pay attention, also, to the shape of your planes. Because of the rules of 1 point perspective, the far plane is identical in shape to the near plane, except smaller. If your points suggest otherwise, then they’re incorrect, so consider revising them. The rotated boxes exercise is fairly well done. Your boxes are big, snug (a little less so on the back, but that’s alright), and rotate quite comfortably. The next time you attempt this, I’ll recommend being a tiny bit more subtle in regards to your line-weight, if you can. Finally, the organic perspective exercise looks good. Your boxes flow smoothly, as a result of a subtle, and consistent increase in size, though this is in part contradicted by their foreshortening. You’ll recall that dramatic foreshortening implies an object that is really close to us, or one of a massive scale, and, as such, has no place in this exercise. That’s not a huge issue, though, as you’ll have plenty of time to experiment with this in the 250 box challenge. Speaking of, feel free to head on to it!

Next Steps:

250 Box Challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
edited at 2:15 PM, Sep 23rd 2020
9:21 AM, Thursday September 24th 2020

For the organic perspective, I figured that there would be a little dramatic foreshortening with the closer boxes. I also found it hard to make my lines perfectly straight for the rough perspective to show their parallelism to the horizon. I will now continue on with the 250 box challenge. Thanks for the critique.

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