Hi, I am also rather new to this so I might not be 100% correct, but here is what I noticed:

Organic Arrows:

I think you mixed up the direction/perspective of some of your arrows. Some of them look like they are moving backwards in space which mean they should get smaller, but you draw them get bigger. (E.g. bottom right arrow on page 2/2).

Organic Forms with Contour lines:

I think the main problem here is that you are not keeping the sausages simple. Your sausages have tapers, pinches in the middle, and the ends are different sizes. This makes the exercise even harder than it needs to be, which might be why you are struggling with it.

Texture Analysis:

I feel this part is fine.

Dissections:

Some of your textures are very dense, such as the rope and, Barnacle and chainmail, which makes them rather visually noisy.

Remember, you have to decide what to keep and what to throw out such that it communicates the texture and is visually appealing.

Form Intersections:

The intersections are fine, but I think it looks a bit odd because of the extreme foreshortening. Some of your shapes have much more extreme foreshortening than others, which makes them feel a little inconsistent.

Organic Intersections:

Some of your sausages have too many contour lines. A general rule would be to have just enough to communicate the form to the viewer.

Aside from that I think it's good enough since it looks like you already have a solid grasp of how organic forms interact with each other.

Hello LoadsofSkeptic,

Congrats on finishing Lesson 2! It is quite a daunting lesson, but you pushed through and managed to finish it. Don't worry about the Imgur link, since you numbered your pages it's still possible to see a clear timeline of which exercise was completed first.

Without further ado, let's get to your critique.

Thinking in 3d Section

Arrows

Starting with your arrows, it's great that you've identified your mistakes and made notes on them. Identifying our mistakes is the first step towards improving.

You're doing a good job of keeping your lines smooth and confidently drawn, but your hatching is clearly rushed. For a comparison I looked over your 250 boxes submission and your hatching in your later boxes suggests that you can apply it properly here too, if you just take the extra time.

Sometimes you also repeat lines, trying to fix mistakes, remember that for Drawabox purposes mistakes cannot be fixed, only improved upon in the next attempt.

You're having trouble with keeping the size of your arrows consistent, especially at the overlaps, which breaks the illusion that this is an object of consistent size moving through space. A way to tackle this is to try building your arrows in chunks, using the ghosting method, with time however you should aim to make the curves in one go.

You also struggle with where to place your hatching, but it looks like you grasp it by your second page with the exception of the arrow at the top.

https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/4/step4

If you have trouble remembering which part of the arrow is in front, you can try using lineweight ( which you actually forgot to apply to your arrows ) before the shading to decide what side is closest to the viewer beforehand.

I will also suggest that when you tackle this exercise in your warm ups, that you try to make arrows that overlap more, diminishing the negative space between each overlap. It'll be very brain melting at first, but it'll help improve your sense of spatial reasoning greatly.

Organic Forms/Sausages

First things first I have to tell you not to grind, you've uploaded 3 pages for this assignment when only 2 is necessary. Remember that grinding is only gonna hold you back, you'll have plenty of time to revisit them during your warm ups or revisions.

While you do seem to realize this in your last attempt, I still feel like I should point out that in your first two attempts you've grinded a single sausage rotation. Remember there is at least three.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/368871234269741066/790354487055351818/QTEqgJa.png

Many of your sausages, including your last attempt don't keep the desired sausage shape of two balls connected by a cylinder, your sausage ends are also elongated, with at least one of them being streched out or pointy.

https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/simplesausage

You can try to address this by ghosting your sausages.

Another problem you face is that your ellipses and contours have hardly any variation, but you do get better at this in your 3rd attempt. Good job, but try to push the degrees even more.

Photos by user 'Slate', and often linked by Optimus.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/368871256067670027/426350263884972032/IMG_5773.JPG

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/368871256067670027/426351743190695937/IMG_5775.JPG

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/368871256067670027/426351973990662144/IMG_5774.JPG

And to finish this section, good job on keeping the ellipses and contours mostly within bounds, keep up the good work.

Texture and Detail Section

Texture Analysis

Really good work, especially on your last texture. You clearly are starting to understand the purpose of cast shadows, although paper feels a bit overworked, which makes it give off the impression of broken glass instead. Remember that cast shadows must be completely black, there are some white spots in your work, especially your ice cream, otherwise it breaks the illusion of these being single solid shadows.

Your gradient shifts too harshly too fast, it's very easy to spot the black bar on the last column of your work, this type of harsh transition wouldn't be possible in the real world with the type of "lightsource" we're trying to apply to this study.

Just to finish, it's recommended to approach shadow shapes like this, it creates more dynamic shadows this way, instead of by drawing just lines.

https://m.imgur.com/M9JJfr4

Texture Dissections

You're off to a great start by keeping the underlying 3d form in mind and applying light and shadow accordingly, by diminishing the amount of detail at the center, and also by breaking the silhouette. You don't go that extra mile though for every texture, some textures like cobblestone and feathers, would have benefited if you pushed the silhouette more.

For many textures you do a good work of following the principles of drawing texture, but some of them are clearly rushed, like the dragonfruit, hair and the feathers, while others like rope are overworked.

It's hard to ignore that due to your rushing you end up relying more on outlines and negative space to convey some of your textures, which makes some of your work look unfinished. I believe your homework would have greatly benefitted if you paced yourself better.

I believe that your turtle's shell is the best example of what you can achieve if you just take your time.

Other than these points, keep up the good work.

Construction Section

Form intersections

The biggest problem you face with this exercise is the different foreshortening in your forms, you've especially got stretched out pyramids, cones and cylinders. Your forms must have the same rate of foreshortening if you want them to feel like they belong in the same scene.

Your cylinders are also approached in a peculiar and inconsistent way, this might be due to the fact you don't understand how to foreshorten them, but nevertheless I'll point this out so you can keep it in mind for the future, you make the end ellipse being bigger than the ellipse closest to the viewer ,when it should be the opposite instead, size-wise, the ellipse closest to the viewer will always be bigger than the one further away. And some are very stretched out.

Sometimes you also shade the back ellipse of the cylinder or cones, remember that the ellipse with the thinner degree is the one that will be facing the viewer.

https://drawabox.com/lesson/250cylinders/1/stage1

https://drawabox.com/lesson/250cylinders/1/degree

Your impatience shows up again with your haphazard hatching, which is not planed and very messy.

I would like you to focus more on making all your forms look like they exist within the same scene before worrying too much about your intersections.

Organic form intersections

I commend you for understanding the purpose of this exercise and making your sausages wrap around each other in a believable way, but while you start out well, as you go on your shapes start to become a bit too long and complex, especially at the top of your pile.

https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/9/complicated

You're also having trouble with your shadows, your lightsource is a bit inconsistent, and your shadows don't follow the form of the sausage they're being cast on to.

Like the biggest sausage to the left on your first page ( and the only one that in my opinion looks like it's floating ) there is nothing under it, yet there's a shadow sticking to it when the shadow should be cast on the ground.

https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/9/shadows

In the future, when you tackle this exercise in your warm ups and in next lessons, remember to keep your forms simple, and take a bit more time thinking about your lightsource before drawing your shadows.

The unnecessary and non-confident lightweight around certain sausages is also detrimental to the illusion of the forms being 3d, and makes it look 2d instead, so remember to only add lineweight in a subtle way.

And lastly, sometimes you don't draw through your forms, or draw too many contour lines.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think you understood the purpose of these exercises and showed improvement. But you could have done many of these exercises better if you had been more patient and given each exercise the time it needs. If it takes you 20 minutes, it takes you 20 minutes, if it takes you 6 hours, it takes you 6 hours, if it takes you a month, it takes you a month.

Don't try to rush nor grind, it'll only hinder your progress.

I feel like you're ready for Lesson 3 and should move on, but I greatly recommend that you do not do more than one page of exercises per day. To help with your bad habit of grinding and rushing.