Starting with your organic intersections, these are looking pretty solid. You're doing a good job of showing how they wrap around one another, and applying gravity effectively to them in how they slump and sag over one another.
Moving onto your animal constructions, there are elements of your approaches that I certainly appreciate. For example, you're very consistent in defining the relationships between your forms, like how you establish the intersection between the necks of your animals and their ribcages/torsos. There are a number of areas in which things can be improved as well, however.
The first thing that stands out to me is that when constructing your torso sausage, you're pretty consistently drawing your ribcage to be way too small, and the pelvis in such an angle (generally quite vertical) that the resulting sausage comes out awkwardly cut off. Take a closer look at this section - notice how the ribcage is roughly half of the full torso length, and how the pelvis is angled in such a way that once you construct the torso sausage the far end is considerably more rounded, rather than flattened out.
Next, let's look at your use of the sausage method. There are definitely areas where you're employing it... mostly correctly - your meercat for instance. I say mostly because you're adding contour lines through their midsections (you'll note that in the sausage method diagram I mention you should not add any contour lines through their midsections) and not adding a contour line where it connects to the paw to define that spatial relationship - but other than that, you're sticking to simple sausage forms (two equally sized spheres connected by a tube of consistent width) and are otherwise defining the joints between those forms.
As you push through the lesson however, you appear to be less and less mindful of the proper application of this technique to construct your legs. In your dogs, you stop using consistently "simple" sausage forms (the thighs usually end up larger on one end than the other, though your lower leg sections are still good). In your cows, you move onto entirely different, complex shapes instead that end up reading as being flat instead of three dimensional (due to the aforementioned complexity). Lastly, in this reindeer (specifically the back legs), you start incorporating partial shapes around the joints to extend the 2D silhouettes of your forms.
Sausage method aside, whenever you add anything to your construction, it needs to be something that exists in 3D space. You can't simply tack on 2D shapes when it's convenient, because this will remind the viewer that what they're looking at is just a flat drawing on a page. Our goal is to ensure that they're fooled into feeling that what is in fact a drawing, is actually a real 3D object. Any time you work explicitly in 2D space, you'll undermine their suspension of disbelief. The viewer wants to be fooled, but they're not going to put up with too much.
If you want to add additional bit of form information along the joints (which is something you'll often want to do), do so as shown at the bottom of this diagram.
Now, while you didn't do it incorrectly, that leads to an issue that is present just about everywhere else - your constructions are, especially around the legs, pretty simplistic. There's a lot more going on there, but you're not quite observing your reference images closely enough to really break them down further. You can see what I mean here. What you'd draw for this dog's leg would be what's traced over on the left - but as you can see on the right, once the underlying sausage structure is put in place, we can then add bulk and nuanced forms as additional masses that wrap around that sausage structure.
Conveniently enough, that leads us into the next issue - which has to do with the 'additional masses' in your drawings. In these redline notes on top of your reindeer drawing, I've pointed out a number of different issues:
Don't give your additional masses those sharp corners. You're not wrapping a piece of paper around the form, you're wrapping a mass like putty or like a water balloon around it. It doesn't have such sharp edges to it.
Always focus on how the mass is wrapping around the underlying structure.
Draw each and every mass in its entirety, don't cut off your lines when they're hidden by something else.
If you've put one form down, it becomes part of the existing, underlying structure. So when you add a new form on top, it's going to wrap around the previous one.
Identify all the major masses - like the big shoulder/hip muscles for instance and integrate all these masses together, fitting them together like a 3D puzzle.
I actually really liked the head construction on your kangaroo. I felt you established the forms well, you fit the eye sockets to the muzzle (again, like a 3D puzzle), and you draw the eyeballs generously large rather than letting it get cramped.
One last point to raise - you seriously overuse contour lines. You add them all over the place, often where they don't actually contribute much. This tells us that you're not necessarily thinking about what that contour line is meant to contribute to the drawing as a whole, you're doing it because you feel you're supposed to. Whenever you move to put down a mark, think about exactly what it is meant to contribute to a drawing, the specific task it is meant to accomplish, how it can best do its job, and whether any other marks might do it better. Also keep in mind that the contour lines that define the intersections and spatial relationships between forms will always be vastly more effective than the contour lines that sit along the surface of a single form. With those in place, you often won't even need to add additional contour lines.
I've outlined a lot of issues that I want you to address, so I'll be assigning additional pages below. In addition to the various diagrams I've offered here, you can also check out the informal demos from the lesson. The puma one will be especially useful, as it goes into just how far you can dig into the subtler, more nuanced forms present in your animals' bodies.
Next Steps:
I'd like to see 6 additional pages of animal constructions of your choice, with two additional restrictions:
Focus only on construction (you've already been doing this, so that's good). That means forms only, no detail. You can still push out a great deal of nuance to your constructions by focusing only on forms, and I expect you to dig into the subtler elements of your constructions with each of these, once you've gotten the core construction in place.
You will not be allowed to use any contour lines that sit on the surface of a single form. Meaning the ones that establish the intersection between two forms are still allowed, but those that only sit on one form will not.
One last thing - you need to observe your reference more, and rely on memory less. Right now you're really getting into the construction of things, which is good, but the forms you add to your construction, and how you draw those forms, needs to be informed directly from your reference. This means constantly looking at your reference and only looking away for as long as it takes to draw one more form.
Thank you! I'm impressed with how fast you're dishing out these comprehensive comments.
I think I understand all your points, and will get to work drawing some more animals with them in mind.
Okay, here we go: https://imgur.com/a/t0ouzRZ
Drawing is hard, who knew! :D
I don't quite know how to end my animals (you pointed this out in your first critique, but my back ellipses are still too narrow and not angled enough), and I consistently draw legs too small and short. I end up not being able to add masses under the ribcage (like the fox) because then they would drag the ground.
I definitely think there's a good deal of growth here, even over the course of these few drawings. Your last one - the fox - shows the strongest construction overall, although I think all of your drawings rely more on memory than direct observation than they should (to varying degrees). Basically when we get really focused on construction, we tend to forget to look more frequently at our references, and that can result in some elements of proportion and pose to be based more on what we remember seeing, rather than what is actually there. In turn, we get things being a little off, a little oversimplified in places, etc. So while it's important to think about how we're constructing a form, how it sits in space and how it relates to the other forms around it - we need to make sure we're observing our reference closely and frequently to ensure the form captures the element it is meant to as accurately as we can manage.
One issue I felt really stood out in your bison was that when you added additional forms, it's clear that you were trying to make those forms wrap around the existing structure, but it didn't turn out that well. I point that out here. The way in which your lines curve will either enforce the idea that it's wrapping around a given form, or completely contradict it. Avoid straight lines, as well, when you want to create a sense of wrapping-around.
It's also worth mentioning that there is a lot of nuanced forms present along a structure, and I feel like you're ignoring a lot of them. If we look at this image of a bison, you'll see how I've traced over a number of additional forms throughout the body that all integrate with one another, creating a great deal of subtle bumps. Your constructions can definitely be taken much further without getting into detail/texture than you have been thus far.
That said, getting back to your fox, I think it's clear that you are pushing those further with the fox's legs - though much of the body is still fairly bare (and I think its torso was drawn to be pretty thick and broad, whereas foxes are usually much more sleek. The head construction, which I mentioned before, was definitely fantastic.
One thing about the fox though - I love that mass you drew along its neck, it wraps around quite nicely. Do be mindful of avoiding having those masses cross the center-line of the body though, as shown here. Since the bodies are generally going to be more or less symmetrical, having that form overextend so far ends up feeling a little odd.
All in all, I think you're showing a great deal of progress, but that I would like to see you push it a little further with two additional drawings. If these come out as well as the fox did, I'd be perfectly pleased, although I'd be thrilled if you explored how far those additional forms can be pushed.
Next Steps:
Just two more drawings - try pushing the additional forms along the body much further, capturing more than just the bare basics. Also, pay closer attention to your reference images in terms of proportion, pose, etc. I don't expect you to match things perfectly, but I do want you to work less from memory and avoid oversimplifying things as you did with many aspects of your bison.
Thank you! Two more animals: https://imgur.com/a/gP7jr35
I'm starting to feel the forms more now, feels like something is about to click into place regarding wrapping forms around one another.
I obviously still mess up (the face of the rat didn't go as planned), but of all the Drawabox lessons so far I feel my drawing has had the most noticeable progress with this one.
Your drawings on top of mine really help me get the concept. I can see that your sausage form looks like it's wrapping around another solid form, and I can see that mine doesn't, and when you put them on top of one another I understand why.
Here we're getting into the subjective - Gerald Brom is one of my favourite artists (and a pretty fantastic novelist!). That said, if I recommended art books just for the beautiful images contained therein, my list of recommendations would be miles long.
The reason this book is close to my heart is because of its introduction, where Brom goes explains in detail just how he went from being an army brat to one of the most highly respected dark fantasy artists in the world today. I believe that one's work is flavoured by their life's experiences, and discovering the roots from which other artists hail can help give one perspective on their own beginnings, and perhaps their eventual destination as well.
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