Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes
2:47 AM, Sunday February 2nd 2020
Imgur link didn't seem to work. This is take two.
Hi Ipass~ I'll be looking over your submission~
So, starting off, your superimposed lines, especially the straight ones, are looking really confident. I'm happy to see that, despite not always being able to stop at the correct end point, you continued to prioritize that confidence, as opposed to sacrificing it for accuracy- that's how it should be! The arcing lines are a little lacking in that department, but that's to be expected. If you'd like to improve them a little further, though, I'll recommend being a little less ambitious, at this stage. See if you can make them larger, and less sharp, really giving your shoulder some room to breathe, and then, once those become easy, try some of those smaller, hard-turning ones. By the way, there's some noticeable 'stop marks' at the end of your lines (the little dots/hooks). To get rid of those, I'll recommend lifting your pen off the page at the end, rather than coming to a hard stop / immediately pulling it back to the starting point. It'll, as a bonus, give your line some fine tapering at the end, too, making it look really dynamic. That same confidence carries over to your ghosted lines/planes, too, so nice job there. The lines have a tendency to arc a little, though. See if you can fix that by consciously arcing in the opposite direction. There's also a tiny amount of course-correction present at the end. For that, I'll recommend being a little less conscious of the end point. Use it as a guideline, but, once you commit to your line, forget it, and aim for the line to be fully straight, instead. In regards to the planes, see if you can take a second longer to line your pen up to the correct starting point. It's important to maintain the built up rhythm, certainly, but it's also important for your line to start at the correct point. Also, though it's a little beyond the scope of this exercise, the perspective on the center lines of the planes is looking a little wonky, at times, so see if you can spend a second longer considering the start/end points of the non-diagonal center lines of the planes.
Moving on to your ellipses- they look good! In general, I'll recommend upping your confidence a little bit. It's more important for an ellipse to be confident, and rounded, than it is for it to hit the bounds of its frame. That said, ellipses are notoriously annoying, so don't worry if you can't get said results immediately- what's important is to aim for them. Anyway! In your table of ellipses exercise, I notice the occasional pointy ellipse. Be careful that you're not letting a lesser pivot handle those sharp turns- always check back to make sure that you're using your shoulder. Also, rather than flicking your pen at the end, and running off-course, I'll recommend lifting it off the page, instead, being careful to maintain the ghosting motion until it's off. In the ellipses in planes exercise (and the funnels, too!), your confidence improves by quite a bit, so nice job on that front. Be careful not to stiffen up, though. Priority #1 is, as always, a confident, and rounded ellipse. Hitting all 4 sides of the plane is waaay less important- it's priority #2. (Okay, so the numbers don't exactly scream that, but it's totally fine to sacrifice one for the other! Remember: confidence > accuracy, always!) There's the occasional exception, but, in your funnels exercise, your minor axes cut the ellipses into 2 equal, symmetrical halves, as they should. There's a bit of an issue regarding their degrees, though. Remember that ellipses need to increase in degree as they move away from the center.
Finally, your boxes look really solid, as well. In the plotted perspective exercise, there's some issues concerning the back-lines. These are not super uncommon, considering the amount of lines present on your page at all times, but, nonetheless, take a look at some corrections I made: https://imgur.com/a/5k6hjDg I'll mention that the hatching for this exercise should've been done using a ruler, too, but that's not a huge issue. By the way, for this exercise, the lines to thicken are the lines of the silhouette, and the inner lines that are closest to us. Thickening the ones that are furthest away from us, especially as much as you have, tends to make the box fall apart (as it looks more like a collection of lines, rather than a box) so be mindful of that. The rough perspective exercise looks good! Try not to redo lines, though, if you can help it. It's a bad habit, and all it does is make our mistakes stand out more. This automatic reinforcing is also present in your rotated boxes / organic perspective boxes, so definitely keep an eye out for it, next time. Speaking of, both of those exercises look good! The boxes in the organic perspective exercise are not always, strictly speaking, correct, but, considering the recommended next step, that's not going to be an issue for long.
Despite all of the issues I raised, this is a solid submission, so nicely done! Take a small, well-deserved break, and, when you're ready, move on to the 250 Box Challenge. GL~
Next Steps:
250 Box Challenge
Here we're getting into the subjective - Gerald Brom is one of my favourite artists (and a pretty fantastic novelist!). That said, if I recommended art books just for the beautiful images contained therein, my list of recommendations would be miles long.
The reason this book is close to my heart is because of its introduction, where Brom goes explains in detail just how he went from being an army brat to one of the most highly respected dark fantasy artists in the world today. I believe that one's work is flavoured by their life's experiences, and discovering the roots from which other artists hail can help give one perspective on their own beginnings, and perhaps their eventual destination as well.
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