Check Out NMA    About our Partnership    Collapse this Ad
View Full Submission View Parent Comment
2:57 PM, Friday September 3rd 2021

Thanks for your quick reply.

  1. This was part of Uncomfortable's reply on this subject to a previous question on this.

"That's actually the purpose of the exercise. To draw boxes, then to use the ellipse on either end of the cylinder to test how far off the two opposite ends were from being proportionally square."

So given this I think the boxes are very much part of the purpose. I think my brain has a problem holding all the visualisation clues at one time. I agree that I think the contacts points ( and their need to be at the midpoint of the edge ) and their correct alignment to perspective are critical> I think I haven't been visualising them as much as I should before drawing the second square.

  1. I have drawn some boxes where the major and minor axes swap directions between the two end planes. I know it's wrong but it keeps happening. I think I need to stick with obvious perspective before becoming too nuanced that my errors make them flip.

Thanks for your help. I think my brain struggles because there are so many variables now in this exercise and it is all freehand.

4:21 PM, Friday September 3rd 2021
edited at 4:27 PM, Sep 3rd 2021

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that boxes or their square faces are not part of the purpose of the challenge. I meant that in the case in which a "not circle in 3d space" ellipse is drawn in a box face, while technically the box face in some cases can be interpreted as square, such a case is not really important to the challenge, since it's not really possible to tell without further context.

If you're running into the case where the minor axis of one (or both) of the cylinder's faces are going off in a completely different direction, like towards one of the other vanishing points instead of the correct one, I believe this is due to the proportions of the face of the box being significantly off (as in, much wider than it is long, or vice versa). It's kind of hard to tell without an example though. I've run into a few situations like this, and it's usually because my box face was very rectangular.

EDIT: A second case for the minor/major axis switching is due to the cylinder face being very close to circular (in 2d), so a small change can cause the minor axis to change significantly. Don't think there's much to do in this case other than to try to be more accurate with the ellipses or boxes.

edited at 4:27 PM, Sep 3rd 2021
5:05 PM, Friday September 3rd 2021
edited at 5:22 PM, Sep 3rd 2021

No worries. The lack of context around what is being drawn is one of the challenges. There is little to tell you you are wrong until you have run the ruler over it. And even then.....

PS I cut out a cardboard square and put the circle and axes on it and pushed a brush through the centre which identifies the minor axis. It is helpful for visualisation.

edited at 5:22 PM, Sep 3rd 2021
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 we've used ourselves, or know to be of impeccable quality. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Proko's Figure Drawing Fundamentals

Proko's Figure Drawing Fundamentals

Stan Prokopenko's had been teaching figure drawing as far back as I can remember, even when I was just a regular student myself. It's safe to say that when it comes to figure drawing, his tutelage is among the best.

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