Hi Puffer! I'll be reviewing your work. It's a long one, so be prepared:
The first issue I see is that there are a lot of boxes in two point perspective, even some in one point perspective; and you seem to be aware of it, since you didn't complete the correction lines for those. They look great, but the 250 box challenge tackles three point perspective specifically, that's why there's all this emphasis on the convergence of lines, foreshortening, the back corner, etc. We'll come back to this.
On some of your boxes, the lines don't seem to converge, and even diverge in some cases.That's a problem: 3 point-perspective boxes will always have their lines converging at some point, even if it is subtle. Here's an example of what you shouldn't do.
And here's how it should be. On that note, I'll take a phrase verbatim from my own challenge:
Remember that when you are adding lines to a set of parallels, you need to take into account the relationships with the whole set of parallels instead of just one line. When you have to guess how a line is extended into its vanishing point, its not enough to just compare it with the first line you draw of that set, you have to take the others into account to guess more accurately.
Take your time with these concepts, they can be confusing.
This relates to a big issue I'm seeing: you're extending your correction lines the wrong way quite often, like in boxes 176, 204 and 222. The thing is that your correction lines should always move away from the viewer. See this example.
Take box 222, for example. There are two vanishing points more or less well established, but the third one (when your correction lines come towards the right, that is, closer to the viewer) has two lines diverging, thus the box ends up all confusing to look at. And even with those two points diverging, if you ignore the correction lines you can quickly make out the box and see where the mistakes are, which is the whole point of the lines. So, make sure that your correction lines always move away from the viewer, from the center of the Y outwards. Like so.
In the page of box 231, you can see that you did a lot better, that's because they are all in three point perspective, and the lines are converging, even if they're not perfect.
The rotation of your boxes is pretty diverse, so that's great. One issue though is that you're going for boxes with quickly converging lines, with a lot of foreshortening. While that's not bad, you should try to do some that are less extreme in it's convergence. It should help you to avoid some of the heavy distortion that you got.
Your lines are quite wobbly at times, but as I can see, you realized that you weren't working with your shoulder, and that aspect got better, but still, watch out for when you apply lineweight, and don't forget to ghost your lines. Be subtle with the lineweight. One line over is enough.
Some other advices: when making the extended lines, hatching the plane that faces the viewer can help you, as it leads to less visual confusion (you'll have in mind where your lines have to get away from). Also, in relation to the colors you're using for the extended lines, try to be as consistent as you can. You could use the same color for the same set of lines, and then a different one for other set of lines in the same box. That way it will be way less confusing that what you are doing now, which is to use different colors for different boxes.
Finally, you can look this up when you're doing more boxes, it is useful to make better back corners and get your convergences right.
So. As you can see there are quite a lot of issues. I will not make you do the whole challenge again, because you did a fair amount of work, but between the one/two-point boxes and the constant divergence of lines, you will have to do some more work. There at least 43 boxes with one/two point perspective instead of three (and I may have missed a couple) and considering the other issues... let's make it 60.
60 more boxes. I know it is a lot, but I think that with less you wouldn't have the time to mess up and correct your mistakes. But let's make them count. Go back to the 250 Box Challenge page, see the video and read the page again, and when you are working at it, if you have doubts, look at it again, keep it open. Check this review again too. Ask on Discord, the community is great and always willing to help.
Also, I hope you don't lose motivation. This challenge is hard and it is meant to be that way. If it helps, my challenge took me two months, drawing five boxes per day, every other day, with some misses too. And you can go see my boxes too and you'll see that a lot of them were really messed up.
So that's it, good luck! Take your time, think about the process. I wouldn't suggest that you do more than 5/6 boxes per day. When you're ready, post the homework here to see it. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them.
Next Steps:
Watch and read again the material for the 250 Box Challenge.
Make 60 more boxes, taking in consideration all the corrections.
Hey aeshnabx!
Thank you so much for the thoughtful review! I want to describe my thought process, not to justify my mistakes but rather to dissect what lead me to my decisions and what I can do to improve over it.
...and you seem to be aware of it, since you didn't complete the correction lines for those. They look great, but the 250 box challenge tackles three point perspective specifically...
I must've forgotten this bit of information at some point! I was indeed aware of the 1/2 point perspective boxes I drew, I even insisted in doing them in order to "practice all of the theory". In retrospect it makes sense that the challenge requires 3 point perspective only.
On some of your boxes, the lines don't seem to converge, and even diverge in some cases...
True! This was a big issue, specially at the very beginning. The way I was drawing then is more or less like so:
1 - Draw 1 X,Y and Z lines;
2 - Attack each side once.
I believe that at some point I even added a side note with something along the lines of "paying more attention to the Z axis". It now makes sense to me because it was the last set of lines I was focusing on, thus the one that ended up more distorted/poor drawn.
This relates to a big issue I'm seeing: you're extending your correction lines the wrong way quite often,
I sure had a hard time when trying to correct the boxes at some points. Partially because I didn't quite grasped the "move away from the viewer" concept and partially due to the last issue consequence: the distortion of the "Z" axis. I believe that the culmination of this two combined resulted in some misleading corrections. You can even see that at several points I have correction lines pointing to both sides.
One issue though is that you're going for boxes with quickly converging lines, with a lot of foreshortening.
I tried to vary the rotation as much as I could! Partially because I wasn't happy with my organic perspective exercise result... another factor that may have influenced it is that when the "inspiration" to draw a different angles was missing, I simply looked for an object nearby and put it in a box. In regarding to the extreme distorted boxes, they weren't intentional! I certainly did not meant to draw extreme angles this much, but I ended up with a lot of foreshortening regardless. I think that my lack of experience with this subject may have influenced it. At times I would imagine a box in my head (a simple one), and when drawing it on paper it would have been extremely distorted if compared to the original. "Lack of control"I would say, probably one the things I can fix if I practice more.
Your lines are quite wobbly at times...
I realized after a while that I was touching the table with my elbow. Funny is that it grew on me throughout the challenge; I didn't do it at the beginning, but rather in the middle to the end until I corrected myself. About the line weight, at times I tried to "solve" some wobbliness by thickening the lines, not worth!
Some other advices...
I didn't think of this "correction scheme" before! It makes way more sense, I'll make sure to apply it.
Lastly I would like to link a video that I've found that helped me quite a lot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEYQe_81M4U
The video above is about line weight, but the way that he draws boxes cleared my vision. He doesn't start by drawing the X, Y and Z axis as I was doing, instead he straightly does 2 to 3 lines to a specific axis while managing their length. Maybe focusing at one plane at a time before setting all of the others did the "click" to me.
Also, I hope you don't lose motivation..
You can surely know that with such an informative critique you just motivated me more! Now that I know why some pages looked better that others, I can make a small list with the main points and always review it before practicing my boxes. I'll happily draw another 60 boxes and whatever quantity more is needed until I'm confident with it. I was planning to use this challenge dynamic to warm up before drawing anyway, I find it kind of fun for some reason.
Once I'm done with the 60 extra boxes I'll make sure to reply here. Until there, take care.
Hi! Glad to be of help. It makes sense why you did the things you did, and yeah, I think that the instruction for the boxes to be in 3 point perspective is not present anywhere (maybe is in the video, I can't remember), but it's practically intuitive, as we put emphasis on the three set of lines converging. In regards to the video, great, if it works for you, then go ahead. I'll be waiting for the extra boxes!
Hello once again!
Overall I've found it way easier after applying the main points we discussed above.
There we go, 60 extra:
While I have a massive library of non-instructional art books I've collected over the years, there's only a handful that are actually important to me. This is one of them - so much so that I jammed my copy into my overstuffed backpack when flying back from my parents' house just so I could have it at my apartment. My back's been sore for a week.
The reason I hold this book in such high esteem is because of how it puts the relatively new field of game art into perspective, showing how concept art really just started off as crude sketches intended to communicate ideas to storytellers, designers and 3D modelers. How all of this focus on beautiful illustrations is really secondary to the core of a concept artist's job. A real eye-opener.
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