Lesson 3: Applying Construction to Plants

12:59 PM, Saturday March 13th 2021

Lesson 3 Plants - Album on Imgur

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

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Phew! This was harder than I'd like to admit! Because I was drawing "real" stuff, I really didn't like how some of my plants turned out in the end. Thankfully I was able to move on without grinding though. Also, I'm sorry that some of my ellipses look like they were drawn by a 3 year old. My hands would just start shaking sometimes. I think ellipses still scare me a bit but I'm working on it.

Thank you for taking a look!

2 users agree
2:07 PM, Wednesday March 17th 2021

Hi Goodboy, I'm gonna check out your submission,

Starting out by your organic arrows, you've drawn them with very good confidence and fluidity, though I'm seeing that you are applying line weight in a very slow, wobbly manner- Remember that every line should be as confident as you can, applying the ghosting method, don't worry too much about mistakes. In this demo I did, you can clearly see how the line weight it's not accurate, but the important thing here, is that it looks confident. Also, try to compress the spaces between zig zags of the arrows so it appears to be further back, as shown here.

Moving on to your leaves, you are killing it on this one, you are making them really flow on space and also trying to build more complex structures. One thing though, try to go a little easier on those cast shadows, you can see in the arrows demo I just send you a good way to apply cast shadows, to not only arrows, but also leaves.

Branches also look pretty solid, most of your segments appear to tapper almost perfectly with your next line, though remember that you should be extending them to the half point of the other line, which I'm seeing you are just going a little more than the ellipse. Another thing to take into account is to try to change the degrees of your ellipses inside your branches, just as we did with organic forms. This helps to create a more solid illusion of depth.

Onto your plants constructions, It seems like you are building them in stages, applying the concepts learned in this lesson and you are drawing big, while managing to maintain the solidity of your forms. Though, there are some minor issues I want to highlight so you can work on them moving forward!

  • I'm reading that you are having issues with your ellipses and in your lesson they look pretty wobbly. To be honest, I'm in lesson 6 and my hands still shake when drawing ellipses or have to do something difficult, the important thing is that you try to make your marks as confident as you can and try to move on anyways. I can clearly see that you are doing this, and I have not doubt that you will eventually get over this, so remember to apply the ghosting method since it's from there that we get confident marks. Also, when doing things like pots or cylinders, remember to put down a minor axis to guide your ellipses.

  • I'm sorry for repeating myself, but looking at your mushrooms I need to remember you to apply line weight with confident, since when we apply wobbly lines in an already confident constructions, that wobblynes attempts against the solidity of our forms. Which is a pity, since you did a really solid work on those.

  • Whenever we need to apply texture on our constructions should be done like we did back in lesson 2, whit exhaust observation and in an implicit manner, with the use of cast shadows. I see that you are struggling a little with this, so check this demo, I hope it makes things easier!

  • Also regarding texture, I'm seeing in your leaves that you are applying lines to them, if they are just contour lines then it's okay. But, if you adding texture to them, remember to make it with the use of cast shadows, try this approach when the texture you need to add looks like a line.

Overall, you did a good job on this lesson, I'm gonna go ahead and mark it as completed! Keep it up.

Next Steps:

Feel free to move on to lesson 4!

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
2:36 PM, Wednesday March 17th 2021

I didn't even realize how sloppy I was when applying line weight lol. I will work on everything you pointed out here, thank you!

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