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Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction

2:07 AM, Tuesday December 8th 2020

DrawABox - Lesson 2 - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/4U19rWC.jpg

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Hello-o, here is my entry for lesson 2.

Even though I have not seen it explicitly stated I took myself the liberty to add the reference photos for the Texture Analyses, they are the three last pictures in the post. I also have a ton of reference for the Dissections exercise which of course can be added as well if desired.

Form Intersections is by far the first time I really have felt like being in the deep end of the pool . After some internal battles and eventually realizing that I am actually not supposed to understand form intersections by now (yes, I know it's clearly written in the assignment), I still have a hard time to let it go. It is stated that it is expected that the students will practice form intersections after this lesson, but they will not come into practice again before lesson 5 or 6, and by that point in a easier matter. What resource can I put to use to understand form intersections better, it can't only be reuse of this exercise if this only is an introduction to the concept where I am not really suppose to get it yet?

English is not my native language, so I hope the formulation of this post is understandable. If you got any questions or request more reference photos, I'll try and respond as fast as possible. Always eager to recieve constructive criticism. :-)

Best regards,

Crey

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3:41 AM, Friday December 11th 2020

Hey there I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.

You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson. Below I'll be listing some things you can work on in your future attempts to get some better results.

  • The most noticeable thing in your arrows exercise is you drew over your lines a lot. I'm not sure if you were trying to apply line weight or cover wobbly lines but as mentioned in lesson 1 you should be ghosting and drawing a single confident line, (or drawing through an ellipse which would still be one line pass) if there's mistakes you need to accept it and work with it. If your goal was to apply line weight, we do so with certain intentions and certain sections of the line/form. In this case we can use line weight to make the sections of arrow that folds more visibly clear, other than that it should be a single smooth confident line to avoid creating a mess. When doing this exercise in the future I'd also like you to experiment more with foreshortening, by utilizing it in the space between the arrow's curves along with the arrow itself we can really sell the illusion that an arrow is moving through 3D space, read here for more info on this idea.

  • Your organic forms with contours get a bit too complex, our goal here is to create a form with both ends being the same size and to avoid pinching, bloating or stretching along it's length as discussed here. Other than that there's the redrawing issue occurring again on your page with contour lines, I'd also like you to experiment with shifting the degree of your contours more. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.

  • In the texture exercises you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows created by forms along the texture itself. This makes it difficult to create gradients with implied information which we could then use to create focal points in more complex pieces, by doing so we can prevent our viewers from being visually overwhelmed with too much detail. For more on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here, I'd also like to quickly direct you to this image which shows that when we're working with thin line like textures if we outline and fill the shadow we will create a much more dynamic texture than simply drawing lines.

  • If you feel like you don't fully grasp form intersections just yet don't worry, right now this exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page, we'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons. Your forms here are looking pretty solid and like they belong in a consistent space, good work.

  • Lastly your organic intersections will benefit from you simplifying your forms and also the piles you attempt to create. Currently there's quite a few forms floating off each other in ways that don't make much sense rather than wrapping around one another. I'd also like you to push your light source to the top left or right corner to work on your shadows, having it in the middle is trickier and it leads to some of your shadows being inconsistent, starting with a simpler light source will build up your understanding better/faster.

While this is a solid submission I won't be moving you on just yet. I'd like you resubmit 1 more page of organic forms with contour lines to make sure you understand what we're looking for in basic forms, as well as to make sure you don't build a bad habit of redrawing your lines so much.

Once you've completed the page please reply to this critique with a link to the page and i'll go over it. Then I'll point out anything else you need to work on and if you've shown you're ready you'll be moved on to the next lesson.

I look forward to seeing your work, good luck.

Next Steps:

Re-read and resubmit:

  • 1 page of the organic forms with contour curves exercise.
When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
6:24 AM, Friday December 11th 2020

Thanks for your feedback, here is my resubmittion:

https://imgur.com/a/PJSkXOQ

As far as the lines in the arrow goes, it was mostly an attempt at reinforcing my overlaps as described here: https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/4/step4 I totally see that I exaggerate this, and in addition I gotta admit I like to go over my lines a few extra times regardless. This is a bad habit I'll work with.

In my resubmittion of the contour curves I've drawn with only one confident line throughout the whole exercise without the form to the upper right where I went auto-pilot for a very brief moment. I'll really start to add single lines without drawing over them to be a part of my warm-ups to be more conscious about it. I hope it is okay that one of the forms I've drawn is the form you linked as an example, where both ends of the sausage points towards the viewer.

When you're criticizing the texture exercises I assume you are referring to both the texture analysis and the dissections? I appreciate your feedback here as this also was a part of the lesson where I got a taste of the deep end of the pool. As far as the crocodile skin and the tree trunk cross section I don't see how I may have done them any differently, when the only source of shadows is down in / between these 'cracks' in the pattern?

Thanks for your feedback,

Best regard,

Crey

7:22 AM, Friday December 11th 2020

These are definitely an improvement, good job.

When reinforcing your overlaps remember you only want to be adding line weight to that small section of line however, like it says in that step you linked "Don't go overboard with this though, just make it a little bit thicker. Be subtle."

Correct, I bundle both texture exercises together as they share common issues. Each texture is it's own challenge so in a way it's a bit of a case by case exercise. When tackling a tree trunk as an example, you are correct a lot of the shadows will be in the cracks but depending on how deep those cracks are will determine how strong the shadows may be, if the cracks barely go deeper than the surface when exposed to extreme light they may not develop shadows.

Largely the issues I mention develop more in your dissections, your grass, fur, fish scales, feathers, pineapple and corn are all examples of you focusing more on outlines.

I'll be marking your submission as complete and moving you on to the next lesson.

Keep practicing previous exercises as warm ups, don't be discouraged by texture it's really difficult and we don't expect you to be great at it right away, it takes a lot of mileage to get used to focusing on cast shadows.

Good luck in lesson 3!

Next Steps:

Do previous exercises as warm ups.

Move on to lesson 3.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
12:11 PM, Saturday December 12th 2020

Thanks for your thorough feedback! I will keep it in mind for both the upcoming lessons and the warm ups from now on. :-)

Cheers

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