Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

8:24 PM, Tuesday September 29th 2020

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I have realised after scanning the pages that on the superimposed lines exercises some of those I alternated going from left to right and right to left. Having thought about this I have come to the conclusion this is likely due to it being my natural drawing habit, from before the course, being left handed and more comfortable drawing in towards my body (left to right).

I am now using some of the early exercises to improve my control. Focusing on accuracy in doing ghosted planes with ellipses.

Perspective, oh dear oh dear, I know that needs work.

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9:09 PM, Tuesday September 29th 2020
edited at 9:10 PM, Sep 29th 2020

Hi! The left-to-right/right-to-left thing is not an issue, unless you did so on the same line. As for the rest… no worries, we’re here to learn~ Let’s look through your submission!

Is what I’d usually say, but all you’ve got here is page 1 of superimposed lines. Could you upload the rest, please? (As a reply to this comment is fine!)

Next Steps:

The missing exercises (all but 1 page of superimposed lines.)

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
edited at 9:10 PM, Sep 29th 2020
9:49 PM, Tuesday September 29th 2020

https://imgur.com/a/kgb8poP

Oh how I love imgur at times.

It was supposed to be the full lot.

Thanks for pointing that out.

And yes, it was only always going in a single direction for those superimposed lines.

5:00 AM, Wednesday September 30th 2020

Alrighty, let’s see~

Your superimposed lines look good! They’re confident, properly lined up at the start, and of a consistent trajectory. Your ghosted lines/planes look quite smooth, too, save for an occasional arc/wobble near the end. Try to be a little less conscious of the end point, if you can.

The table of ellipses exercise looks good. Your ellipses are smooth, and for the most part rounded. To push them even further, spend a little longer ghosting them, if you can. They’ve been rotated around the correct number of times, for the most part, but you have a habit of flicking your pen off the page at the end of your rotations, giving your ellipses a tail in the process. Instead, see if you can lift it off. The ellipses in planes exercise looks great. Your ellipses maintain their roundness, even as they strive to touch all 4 sides of the plane. They do a good job of that, too, and I was pleased to see that you’d even thought of the perspective a little (this is overkill, but nice to see.) Finally, the funnels exercise looks decent. There’s the occasional misalignment, so you’d benefit from spending a little longer on the ghosting stage, rotating the page as necessary, and the occasional pointy ellipse, in regards to which I’ll recommend being a tiny bit more conscious of your pivot (usually, pointy ellipse = wrist.)

The plotted perspective exercise look good. For future reference, if the points of the back-line don’t add up (not uncommon, it means that there’s some slight errors in your other lines), estimate its location (it’ll be somewhere in-between them) so that it is still straight. A tilted one makes no sense, as that set of lines needs to be at infinity. The plotted perspective exercise looks okay. Your line-work is solid, and you’ve put some thought into your convergences. Unfortunately, there’s still many lines that don’t run parallel/perpendicular to the horizon, though they should. The way to fix this, is to not trust the points you’ve placed explicitly. Once they’re on the page, pull back, and try to imagine the shape they’ll form. It should consist of 2 sets of parallel lines- and if it doesn’t, this doesn’t mean that the laws of perspective are incorrect; just your points. At which point, it’s a good idea to reconsider them. Personally, I think about all of this as I’m plotting them. I’ll ghost a line that’s parallel/perpendicular to the horizon, and place a point in the path of it, that also heads to the VP. But there’s many ways to go about it, so go for whatever suits you best. Anyway, the exercise looks good aside from that, though I’d recommending spending a little longer thinking about your convergences, too. There’s some obvious errors in there. Great job on the rotated boxes exercise! The boxes are snug, and they rotate nicely. I also appreciate the addition of line-weight, though it didn’t need to be this overt. Next time, see if you can draw a little bigger, by the way- it’ll give your brain some more room to think. Finally, the organic perspective exercise is well done. There’s a slight misunderstanding in regards to the line-weight (it should be applied locally, rather than to the entirety of the line, and be faaar, far more subtle (a single superimposed line works, usually)), but that’s fine. The boxes themselves look good: they’re of a consistent, shallow foreshortening, and have a subtle increase in size, that carries the illusion well.

Solid work on this lesson, I’m happy to mark it as complete. Feel free to move on to the box challenge.

Next Steps:

250 Box Challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
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