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12:19 PM, Wednesday January 11th 2023

Don't worry there are no such things as stupid questions! I should have been more clear when I was typing.

So for the object you want to rotate it should ideally be something that you want to study or are interested in. For example, say I wanted to study the torso of a human. I would first draw it facing the front and then rotate it a little each time to the right / left / up / down just like the rotated boxes exercise https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/rotatedboxes . I would do this to get a sense of how that object is rotated / sits in 3d space and it would give me a greater understanding of that object. Another benefit of doing this is that it allows you to rotate the object in your mind which helps when you draw it in the future, thats why doing rotations of human anatomy is useful if you were going to draw humans because it would allow you to see how it appears from different angles. The main thing to watch out for is that you don't want to get too detailed in your drawings because this exercise is more about gaining a greater understanding of an object and not trying to draw it beautifully. So try to simplify what you are drawing such that you can still gain a sense of rotation while not making it so simple that you gain nothing from doing this exercise. Here are some examples of what that would look like https://imgur.com/a/YGuebqN . The key to making this work is by already having the knowledge of how to draw the object you want, this exercise will increase your understanding of that object and how it sits in 3d space.

Another example could be that you are very interested in cars, you would then find car references and then draw cars like the rotated boxes exercise (Note: this would probably be the hardest thing to rotate).

When / If you get to lesson 6 and 7 you will realize that anything in this world can fit into a box and so anything can be rotated which makes this exercise a good test of your understanding of an object and how it sits in 3d space.

All that matters is that you choose something you want to know more about / are interested in and then you rotate it. Also remember that this is only one exercise, and pretty much anything (from lesson 3 onwards) on the drawabox website will test and deepen your understanding of 3D space.

I hope this clarifies things a bit and don't hesitate to ask more questions if you are still unsure.

2:38 PM, Wednesday January 11th 2023

Thanks saviour, just some little queries present in my head.

Should I use reference to rotate the object or should I do it from memory, and here is how I usually practice ( for example , torso)

First like usual stuffs I would try to gain information about torso like anatomy, proportion, connection either from YouTube or from some other books

Then I would go crazy doing drills of 100 or 150 torsos from references at different angles .

And then after doing it I would usually draw some 20 or 30 more but this time using the imagination to test whether have I grasp the information or not , and if I still struggle , I check the reference of the part I am struggling at , draw it and move on .

1)Should I incorporate your way to rotate in Drill or in imagination part

2) Should I make some amendments in the way I practice to increase the efficiency of the value of the practice!!!!

10:57 PM, Wednesday January 11th 2023

Hey, no problem!

1) You can try it and see if it helps you, if it doesn't help you then you don't have to do it.

2) The way you practice right now is very good and I wouldn't change it. Instead, after you have done the 20 - 30 torsos from imagination, I would do the rotation exercise from imagination as a test to see if you still struggle with certain angles, and if you do, you can study those specific angles. Alternatively you could use reference and do the rotation exercise while you are learning to better understand the subject. So depending on what you want to do you can use this exercise in different ways. All it comes down to is how you want to use it.

After that I would incorporate what I've learned into an actual drawing and see if I've improved or not, 9 times out of 10 there will be improvement because I've drawn about 200 torsos all from different angles. If there wasn't any improvement it could be because I didn't make the learning hard enough (I.e stayed in my comfort zone and didn't try to learn).

The critical aspect of this is applying what you've learned to actual drawings because there's no point learning random stuff if you will never use it in a drawing. There's a good analogy for this. Say you had a math test that you have to study for, you wouldn't start studying a bit of english, a bit of science etc. You would first do a practice test for math to see what you know and then study the bits you got wrong. For drawing that would mean actually making a piece of art and then studying the bits that look bad / you don't understand very well. However, when you do make a piece of art you should do it with your full effort and try to make it the best you possibly can like you would in a math test. If you don't then you can always say "I didn't do my best" and then the mistakes / things that bother you will never be addressed and fixed. Even if the piece turns out "bad" after you do your best you shouldn't get discouraged because at the end of the day all we can really do is our best.

Anyway, hope this helps!

6:52 AM, Thursday January 12th 2023
edited at 6:56 AM, Jan 12th 2023

Hey, thank you very much for your thoughts!!!

Where you have said "applying what you have learned into actual drawing" , I think that's very important part.

Can you please provide more in-depth of it because I think I didn't understand something in it!!

For example say the torso was the" very first thing" I learned about figures!! Once I have done it's practice and grasp the basic understand of it like a little bit of anatomy , shape of the chest muscles, different connections, proportions of muscles , like that

How would I incorporate into an actual drawing ( like WHAT DRAWING) because it was the only and the very first thing I learned about humans!!!

More over should I also draw squash and stretch in rotation or just simple movement in X and y axis??!

edited at 6:56 AM, Jan 12th 2023
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