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7:36 PM, Wednesday February 8th 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:
- 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:
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Your line confidence is something to work on, currently your lines aren't as smooth as they could be. Remember that line confidence is our tp priority and that accuracy will improve with more mileage.
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Your hatching lines could be tidier. Just like any other line we want to take our time planning them using the ghosting method, space them evenly and draw them confidently.
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When applying line weight it should be a single additional line and follow the principles of markmaking just like any other line. This means you should take the time to ghost and plan your line and then draw it in a single smooth confident motion. Currently your line weight gets quite messy.
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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. Try bringing your points in closer so that your lines have to converge more dramatically. Remember that experimentation is important.
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Early in the challenge you were placing your vanishing point between the viewer and your boxes. 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. You then switch to extending your lines in both directions and trying to keep them as parallel as you can. 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.
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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'll be asking you to complete 75 more boxes but this time they'll be a bit different. To start with I recommend reading through the challenge instructions once again, especially these reminders. Then for the first 30 boxes I'd like you to draw all 3 of your vanishing points on the page after you've created your starting Y shape, this will make it easier to keep them in mind and make you converge your lines more dramatically. After you've completed the first 30 go back to the original method for the final 45.
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:
75 more boxes.
11:28 AM, Thursday February 9th 2023
today experiment the method that you sugisted for firt 30
https://imgur.com/gallery/sbRPKTA
the 4 is best i kind do now using the 3 vanising has reference is that anything is that I can corret ?
or anithing need to be more careful.
ps: I reviewed the video and 250 change page
12:15 AM, Saturday February 11th 2023
Tofu asked that I take a look at your work and offer whatever additional feedback I could to help you along.
There are a number of major issues I can see present in your latest attempts, which largely come down to whether or not you're adhering to the instructions as closely as you can.
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The first point is that your attempts here all differ quite a bit. It's unclear which specific approach you intend to use throughout the rest of your work, or if you're still trying to feel things out. If it's the latter, don't. Follow the instructions as closely as you can, and if you find your approach changing from box to box, that suggests that you need to go back and look at (and even take notes on) the specific instructions. The instructions don't change, so your approach should remain consistent as well.
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To that previous point, I will note that it's possible you're not maintaining a consistent approach because you may have tried a box, felt it was going wrong, then abandoned it to try again. This is also something you should not be doing. Every box you do counts, and each one should be taken to completion even if you can clearly see that things have gone very wrong earlier in the process. It is the mistakes we make that tell us where we're perhaps not paying enough attention, or where we're misunderstanding something - but we cannot assess that if we don't first commit to a course of action, and then go back to analyze them afterwards.
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You don't appear to be consistently applying the line extensions to each set of lines. Sometimes you extend all your lines, sometimes you extend only some, sometimes you extend none.
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I noticed that you are in some cases extending both away from and towards the viewer - for example, this one where the vertical lines are extended upwards (which in this case is towards the viewer). Doing this is going to confuse you even further, because you're not going to know which direction is which. Only extend in one direction - away from the viewer.
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For the boxes along the top of this page, you're not drawing through your boxes, which is required for every box throughout this challenge.
In addition to the sections Tofu linked you to before, I also recommend you take a look at this video from ScyllaStew which goes over her approach for constructing boxes.
And lastly, I noticed that Tofu asked that for the first 30 boxes, you actually place your vanishing points on the page itself (as in, actually drawing them, then with each edge you then draw, you'd try to line them up with their given vanishing points). You do not appear to have done that. If you're unsure of what he meant by that, please ask for clarification. The intention is to scale back the difficulty a bit by allowing you to actually see the vanishing points you're aiming for as you draw each line. Then after those first 30 are complete, you go back to doing the exercise without having those vanishing points actually marked on the page.
I should also mention that if you're still having trouble, we do have a large community on our drawabox discord chat server. You may want to try getting feedback in between submitting your revisions there, to make sure you're on the right track (since we have limited resources, so our TAs cannot give feedback a little bit at a time).
9:42 AM, Saturday February 11th 2023
can plz more clarification for the firt 30 boxes i have ahde and delexia so audio aproche is better for me since since when read is dificult to information enter in my brain.
i tried to read again his guide is was drawing 3 the poits but not exting the lines insted i has using the ghoted metohed to creat the extion resulting somting like this https://imgur.com/gallery/gLSxW7m.
is purpste refing to draw somthing like this https://imgur.com/gallery/wd3XKXh.
Sorry for taking your time and thanks for the good work.
1:44 PM, Tuesday February 21st 2023
7:38 PM, Wednesday February 22nd 2023
Largely there is improvement here which is good to see.
That being said in boxes: 38, 43, 44, 45, 48, 59, 70, 74 and 75 you have lines extending either in the wrong direction or you extend them in both directions.
This is an issue because it can result in distorted boxes or a misunderstanding of where your vanishing points are placed. Feel free to read the previous critiques and comments Uncomfortable and I provided to refresh yourself on a more in-depth explanation.
You do show that you can do this correctly if you slow down and take the time you need as demonstrated by the rest of the boxes you've provided here.
That being said I'll be marking your submission complete but with the condition that you're expected to keep working on this in your own time.
Lesson 2 will build upon a lot of these foundational skills and is quite a bit more difficult than the exercises you've completed up until this point. If these issues persist you may run into a wall in which we
may not have the resources or time to help with, given the limited resources Uncomfortable referred to earlier. We can really only do so much given how cheaply we offer our one-on-one feedback. This is of course a limitation of what we're able to offer - there may be other resources (albeit perhaps more expensive ones) that can provide more help..
Regardless even if that does end up being the case, I hope that you'll continue to pursue drawing and find something that works for you.
As mentioned I'll be marking your submission complete.
Keep practicing boxes and previous exercises as warm ups and best of luck in lesson 2.
Next Steps:
Move on to lesson 2.
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