G'day! I am Doctormein and I'll be the person who critique your submission for today.

Before we move on to critique your submission, let's answer those questions you have in mind first.

"Should I wait for a response on my lesson 2 before moving forward?"

Yes. Yes, you should. Drawabox is built in a way that the next lesson content is built on top of the foundation of the previous lesson. To ensure that you're understanding the lesson content properly before moving on to the next lesson, it would be ideal if you could wait for feedbacks on your previous lesson before moving forward.

"Should I be drawing 1 plant per page?"

Though you didn't ask me this question, I believe it would probably be for the best If I answer it. It's recommended that students only draws 1 plant per page. Because this'll leave more room for each plant, therefore, you could focus on the construction or the details of each one separately without worrying over not having enough room on a page. (Plus! This'll give you more room to operate, as a result, indirectly recommending you to use shoulder which is at the core of Drawabox.)

Can you draw multiples plants on a page? Yes, You can. But It'll simply make things harder for yourself and the person who's giving critique to you. It's a lot harder to see through the construction of smaller plants, especially with all the detail, than with a larger one.

Now, let's move on toward your actual critique section.

Organic arrows

• First thing that jumps out to me is that in some of your arrows you're repeating your lines. Always remember not to repeat your lines, regardless of how misplaced they may be. A confident stroke that's misplaced will be far better at communicating your intention than multiples chicken scratch marks that's placed properly.

• When you're adding lineweight to arrows, always remember not to overdo it. Just a single of stroke of lineweight will do.

(Additional notes) I am not sure if you're simply just not used to giving lineweight to curves (I am at first too!), but in most of your curves seem quite hesitant and chicken scratchy. Bear in mind the same principle of being confident before being accurate will always applied to every line you'll be drawing for this course.

Other than these, I believe you're compressing and giving the illusion of 3dness just fine. It might be wise to make it clearer by making foreshortening a little more dramatic, but it's still being perceived as having depth nicely.

Branches

• I've saw you draw a flower on a branch for this exercise. **Doodles and drawing for fun are inherently good by themselves, but you should be drawing them in your own time instead of drawing them in the exercise. (50% rules)

By drawing those doodles, you might be distracting yourself from the main goal of the exercise by spending your attention elsewhere.**

• There are certain branches that aren't being drawn with the instruction provided properly. In some branches, you stopped the moment you've reached the ellipse instead of drawing past it. Pay attention to step 2 in this image.

• Most of your branches appeared misshapen and chicken scratchy. As always, remember to be confident with your lines. For the cause of misshapen branches, I believe it stems from not drawing large enough on a page. Because for those bigger branches you've drawn, you seem to be following the flow quite well and, as a result, those branches looks great. While practicing smaller branches will certainly come in handy one day, I believe you'll need to understand the core of the exercise first before attempting that. These 2 link may prove to be useful to you. Mistake page 1 Mistake page 2

(Additional notes) Don't forget to add center line to one of your branch too. And bear in mind, all ellipses in the context of this course should be drawn through 2-3 times. No more. No less.

Leaves

For this exercise, I believe you've done well in capturing the flow of the leaves and draw shape accordingly. However, there's still some points I would like to shed lights on.

• In most of your leaves right now, you seemed afraid to let them fold naturally. Don't be afraid to let them fold or bend just like your arrows. Because that's often what leaves does in its nature. Fold naturally

• If you were to draw detail for those leaves, always remember that the principles from lesson 2 still applied here. Draw shadow shapes instead of lines Right now you're drawing them as line instead.

(Additional notes) You might want to refer to more updated informal-demos (From lesson 3-7, most of the content in the main section will be outdated, therefore you should refer to informal-demos more often.) https://drawabox.com/lesson/3/8/texture https://drawabox.com/lesson/3/8/complexleafstructures

Plants construction

If we look past your texture and try to identify the main bulk of this exercise, construction, you seem to be doing quite well on those area. Though, There are points I want to mention.

• In most of your branches, you seem to be using a lot of chicken scratchy lines. Remember not to repeat those lines, regardless of how misplaced they are. Though, this might be the result of drawing too small, hence giving you less room to operate.

• All ellipses should be drawn through 2-3 times only. No more. No less. In your mushroom and Asplenium, I can clearly see that you've drawn through them way too many time. This rule should always apply to every exercise you'll be doing for this course.

• In some of your branches and leaves, you are leaving out the center line completely. Center line or flow line is the most important part of this lesson. So please always include them

• In your Calceolaria you're not drawing through your form properly. Keep in mind that if those connection between form are left undefined, your brain won't interpret those as 3d and will think of them as flat 2d shapes. So, don't forget to define those out by drawing through your form

• Finally, the biggest point of them all. Always remember to put construction before detail. Think of it like a tower. A tower with a solid foundation but without all the decoration is far safer to live in than an elaborate, beautiful tower without a solid scaffolding.