Lesson 6: Applying Construction to Everyday Objects

1:24 AM, Saturday July 1st 2023

Lesson 6 - Construction to Everyday Objects - Album on Imgur

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I decided to include comments on the objects that i drew and the decisions that i took when drawing them, if this is not interesting for critiquing feel free to ignore, i just decided to include them since this lesson doesn't really have "hard" rules as to what is valid and what is wrong, it also doesn't have "common mistakes" section, all it says is that you must subdivide, find points, use straights when drawing curves, and translate to 3D, so im leaving comments in some of the objects to explain the logic behind.

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8:47 PM, Monday July 3rd 2023

Starting with your form intersections, your work here is looking quite solid. The intersections by and large demonstrate a good grasp of how these different forms relate to one another in 3D space, and while there are a couple small adjustments I'd make (which you'll find marked out here), you're doing very well.

Continuing onto your object constructions, honestly you've done a fantastic job. It's very clear that you have held closely to the lesson material, and in particular you've done a great job of adhering to the principles of precision presented throughout Lesson 6. This relates a great deal to the shift from Lessons 3-5, where we were primarily working through additive and reactive means, working from inside-out. This gave us more freedom to account for small mistakes or misjudgements by simply adjusting the proportions of our end result, and allowing us to maintain the overall solidity and structure that we're focusing on. Here, we're reversed, working from outside-in, in a manner that focuses on maintaining stricter proportions, but requires a lot more care as a result.

Precision is often conflated with accuracy, but they're actually two different things (at least insofar as I use the terms here). Where accuracy speaks to how close you were to executing the mark you intended to, precision actually has nothing to do with putting the mark down on the page. It's about the steps you take beforehand to declare those intentions.

So for example, if we look at the ghosting method, when going through the planning phase of a straight line, we can place a start/end point down. This increases the precision of our drawing, by declaring what we intend to do. From there the mark may miss those points, or it may nail them, it may overshoot, or whatever else - but prior to any of that, we have declared our intent, explaining our thought process, and in so doing, ensuring that we ourselves are acting on that clearly defined intent, rather than just putting marks down and then figuring things out as we go.

In our constructions here, we build up precision primarily through the use of the subdivisions. These allow us to meaningfully study the proportions of our intended object in two dimensions with an orthographic study, then apply those same proportions to the object in three dimensions. Throughout your work on this lesson, you've held to these principles extremely well, applying those subdivisions very effectively to build out each step of your constructions in a solid manner. This results in structures that feel three dimensional and believable.

While overall I don't really have major complaints or issues to call out, the only thing worth noting is that there were areas where you could or should have pushed your constructions just a little bit further - but the nature of construction is such that technically the earlier steps are always more important than the earlier ones. So for example, you did a great job in laying out the structure for this cable cuff, but it would have been best for you to actually draw in the curves themselves, as shown in this section of the notes, especially the demonstration that accompanies them.

Similarly, I noticed that on your pencil sharpener, you laid out the ellipse for the opening, but you had it right up to the edges of that plane. Instead, it would have been more accurate to create another plane inset a little within that one, then draw the ellipse inside of it, as shown here.

Aside from those considerations - which you'll have ample opportunity to push further on in Lesson 7, which is really just like this lesson but more complex and intensive - you're doing very well. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

Next Steps:

Feel free to move onto the 25 wheel challenge, which is a prerequisite for Lesson 7.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
12:59 AM, Wednesday July 5th 2023

Thank you for the feedback!

I just have a few minor questions.

In the cable cuff when you say i could have drawn the curves, i assume you mean in the actual construction/drawing of the object and not the planes right?

Now this one requires a bit of context, but, do you think is a good idea to do orthographic plans for each separate form if the object has multiple complex parts, then combining it? For example, if i want to draw this old telephone can i do separate plans for each form and then combining them in the construction? this would be the breakdown of the forms, each with an orthographic plan (kinda like an amalgamation between your stacking boxes method while combining orthographic plans).

7:15 PM, Thursday July 6th 2023

For the curves in the cable cuff, yes I did mean in the 3D construction. While it wouldn't hurt to have them in the orthographic plans as well, they wouldn't provide any specific benefit, since the plans are mainly there to help you lay out your specific structures (in other words, the ones with the straight edges).

As to your other question, it is perfectly okay - and often the better choice - to break a complex object down into separate pieces, and plan each one out separately. So for example, with the telephone, each of your highlighted boxes would be the bounding box and you'd construct each object inside of it, each having their own orthographic plans.

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