Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

3:50 AM, Sunday April 10th 2022

Lesson 1 homework - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/tMwxFaW.jpg

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If I draw something and then immediately I realize that it isn't correct am I permitted to draw a better line after the fact, or do I need to just move on and try to do better next time?

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9:44 AM, Monday April 11th 2022

Hello Cephalotuses! I'll explain more on the critique, but even if you realize the line missed the ending dot or is wobbly then you should just leave it be and move to the next thing. It doesn't matter if it's wrong. Remember all these exercises are for practice, so all that matters is if they make you improve or not, how good they look isn't important.

Now onto the critique! Overall you've done a pretty good job, but there are a few things I want to comment on. Let's go through everything section by section:

Starting with your lines you're doing a great job committing to your lines and drawing them confidently even if they're going to miss then ending dot, which is just what we're looking for! They're also very straight and pretty accurate already, keep practicing like that and they'll improve even more.

The main thing I noticed is that a few times your lines fray on both ends, make sure that whenever you draw a line you carefully place the pen at the starting dot so the lines can fray on maximum one end.

Other than that you're doing a great job planning carefully every line and executing them cleanly, so nothing more to say here!

Moving onto your ellipses they're confident just like your lines on the lines section, which is exactly what you're meant to do! You also didn't get confused by the ellipses on the ghosted planes, and the ellipses are still confident, which is great!

Only thing is that on the ghosted planes your ellipses get a little bit deformed at times. You might be thinking that the centre of the ellipses is the same as the centre of the planes or that you should modify the elliptical ellipse shape so it touches the contact points, but this is not the case. Ellipses have to be symmetrical and have the same shape regardless of where they are, so the only things you can change is how wide the ellipse is, which position it is in and their size.

Your accuracy is pretty good in general as well, there are a few cases in which you don't get the ellipses to touch the sides of the adjacent ellipses or them to touch the top or bottom lines, but in general I think you're aiming for them. Keep practicing and accuracy will improve with time!

Lastly on your funnels sometimes you aren't aligning the ellipses to the minor axis. Make sure you always aim for the ellipses to be cut symmetrically by the middle line even if that means you need to ignore the initial curves. Pay also attention to the angle of the ellipses as well. They have to be cut symmetrically by the line, so they can't be tilted.

Finally in your boxes a few things:

-Lines are in general just as good as they were on the lines section! I can see you took your time with them and didn't get confused by the boxes! There are a few cases on which they get a bit wobbly so keep an eye on that, but great work!

-Sometimes you're repeating lines that were off, but like I said at the start, no matter how off a line is, don't repeat it. Keep going as if it was correct as drawing them will make the drawing messier and can encourage bad habits like automatically redrawing your lines after you miss.

-On plotted perspective you did a good job following the instructions of the exercise, nothing to say here!

-On rough perspective you are already doing some good attempts at guessing the perspective, but you still seem to have trouble at times keeping height lines perpendicular to the horizon line, and width lines parallel to it. I know it's hard, but make sure you always are aiming for it. You can check if the starting and ending dots are correct or not, and if you find that they aren't you can change them. You can put down as many dots as you want as long as it's before drawing the actual line, so give it a shot!

-On rotated boxes you've done a great attempt apart from the line issues I mentioned. Most boxes are rotated and all are kept close together, good job! The only thing is that some of the boxes on the outer ends have lines that diverge, this isn't anything important as you'll work on it on the box challenge, but remember to take a look again at this exercise after you finish the challenge.

-On organic perspective the main thing is that I think you aren't drawing starting and ending points for all of your lines. If this is the case make sure you do it because it's super important for applying the ghosting method properly.

Remember also that you can add lineweight to the parts of outer lines that overlap with other boxes to clarify which ones are on top and which behind, so give it a try on next attempts you have at the exercise! It's important that you don't add lineweight to the inner parts of the boxes as well. It'll get explained more on the box challenge lesson, but for now only add lineweight to the outer parts of the boxes.

Lastly you are already doing some good attempts at the perspective of the boxes, good job! They still have some perspective issues, but you'll work on it on the box challenge, so nothing to worry about.

Overall you've done a great job, but I want to make sure you can draw boxes while planning them using the ghosting method properly, so I want you to do 1 more frame of organic perspective (1/3 of a page) while making sure you draw starting and ending dots before drawing every line, make sure you don't redraw any line as well! Good luck and keep up the good work!

Next Steps:

1 frame of organic perspective (1/3 of a page)

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
1:48 AM, Thursday April 14th 2022

https://imgur.com/a/TWLI4bd

Thank you for your feedback!

10:03 AM, Friday April 15th 2022

That's much better, great job, nothing else to comment here!

Overall like I said you've done a pretty good job so I'll mark this as complete.

From now on you need to do warmups before every session, so don't forget about them! And make sure you ask any questions you might have. Keep up the good work and good luck on the box challenge!

Next Steps:

250 box challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
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