Lesson 7: Applying Construction to Vehicles
8:34 PM, Thursday February 6th 2020
I commented the album with what I remembered about going through those.
Alrighty! So your work here is preeeeeetty fantastic. Are there issues? Sure! Are they minor and irrelevant to the primary focus of Drawabox? Hell yes they are. You've overall demonstrated an excellent grasp of constructional drawing, a well developing understanding of how the forms you establish relate to one another in 3D space, and have overall made me look very good as an instructor.
Starting with your form intersections, I actually did catch a few notable issues in terms the intersections themselves. Since we're finally towards the end of the course, I feel it more relevant to actually point some of these out than it would have been back at lesson 2. It's still not that big of a deal, and none of this reflects in your actual constructional drawings (since the kinds of intersections we deal with in this exercise are above and beyond anything you actually use in the majority of actual drawing).
Take a look at this - you'll notice that I've mainly outlined areas where your intersections involving rounded surfaces didn't quite work out. There are two main things to keep in mind:
When there's a dramatic turn in one of the objects (like transitioning from the length of a cylinder to its face, or moving from face to face on a box), that's going to result in a pretty sharp corner in the intersection where effectively two different, unrelated intersectional paths meet. Keep in mind that it is two different paths, even when those paths are similar enough that they appear to flow into one another.
When a two rounded forms intersect one another, you basically end up with two different, competing curvatures. As shown in the top right of my redlining, I've shown how the sphere/cylinder result in two different dimensions of curvature, that each form a sort of C curve, and combine to create an S curve.
I did say two, but a minor point worth mentioning is that you tend to be drawing both ends of your cylinders as being the same degree/width - the farther one needs to be at least a little wider.
Moving onto your vehicle constructions, I'm really pleased with how these came out. Your first bunch definitely did have some weakness in terms of proportion, but despite this you had a tendency to stick to your guns and end up with an otherwise believable drawing of an object where the assumption would be that the thing you were actually drawing was oddly proportioned. That is to say, you faithfully captured a clown camaro and an adorable plane with little stubby wings.
That said, you definitely do have a specific tendency with those sportscars to make the actual cab section taller than it ought to be. I think there may actually be a tendency to make the rest of the body of the car get shorter/compressed as it moves farther back, resulting in the already tall cab section to annex part of the territory beneath it. Aside from this, I think you did a great job with the front of the cars, with all the grill, headlights, and general hood/whele construction.
I'm not entirely sure why, but I really did love your horse carriage - I think it's the simplicity and cleanliness of the wheels that really activates my almonds.
Skipping on forward, I did feel your Ferrari, while definitely an excellent rendering, suffered from one teensy little issue. Underneath the door, between the two wheels, I caught some areas where you put down some heavy blacks that appeared to be more along the lines of form shading rather than cast shadows. This inconsistency led to a little bit of visual confusion that throws the drawing off just a tad. I actually talk about why we don't delve into shading for shading's own sake in lesson 2. It was wholly rewritten just last week, and hopefully explains the specifics succinctly.
Lastly, I think your sherman tank at the end there is phenomenal, in that it really does make me look good as an instructor. You delved deep into the detail of the tread, the drive gear and all that goodness without actually treating it like superfluous detail. You dug deep into the forms wherever appropriate, constructed everything that required it, and were not afraid to apply cast shadows where needed. I feel this one came out especially well. You also did a great job with choosing where to place your vanishing points - the one close by on the right adds a lovely dramaticism to it all, while pushing the left VP way off helps keep it from getting distorted.
So! You're done lesson 7, and with it, you've completed the entirety of the Drawabox curriculum, and have earned the title of completionist. From here, you're welcome to tackle the 100 Treasure Chest challenge if you want, but it is entirely optional. Congratulations.
These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.
Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).
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