Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes
1:59 PM, Tuesday June 20th 2023
I'm using a 0.3 fineliner
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7:50 PM, Tuesday June 20th 2023
Hello! I'll be critiquing your Lesson 1 work this afternoon. I'll be tackling this pretty generally in Lines, Ellipses, and Boxes, which'll roughly correspond with each section of Lesson 1.
Lines:
Good work with your Superimposed Lines! There's some slight fraying at the beginning, especially as we move into page two, but it's effectively negligible. Just try to line up your pen at the starting point as best you can.
You're pretty accurate with your Ghosted Lines, but you tend to have a fair bit of course correction as you make your mark, resulting in some subtle S curves. It's better right now to build confidence in your markmaking than to focus on accuracy. Indeed, some of your most confident lines only barely miss the second endpoint, which tells me that if you worry a little less on your accuracy, you'll have an incredibly confident line that's still pretty accurate.
Your Ghosted Planes actually have the best of both worlds, maintaining a balance of confidence and accuracy. Again, just work on prioritizing the confidence first—you can build accuracy later.
I noticed a dip in line confidence through your Rough Perspective and Organic Perspective when you worried more on line accuracy and convergence to a vanishing point. In these situations, it's helpful to first estimate the endpoint, and then ghost the line several times until you are completely confident in hitting the mark.
Fortunately, you'll gain a lot of skill with confident markmaking as you move through the 250 Box Challenge, so you're bound to see more improvement soon.
Ellipses:
In general, your ellipses are drawn smoothly and are well-bounded. You also have a tendency to overshoot the size of the ellipse as opposed to undershooting it. This is a good thing—it's better to err on the size of a larger ellipse than a smaller one. Still, it's something to keep in mind as you work on drawing more confident and tighter ellipses.
There's some slight deformation of ellipses in your Ellipses in Planes. It can help to visualize the largest ellipse possible that can sit in the frame before ghosting it and sketching it out.
Finally, great work with your Funnels! I can only notice a subtle skewing of ellipses about the minor axis, but this seems to be more due to your two bounding lines not being perfectly perpendicular as opposed to issues with how you're constructing your ellipses.
Boxes:
Your Plotted Perspective is very clean! Just a minor note for the 250 Box Challenge, though, try to only add line weight to the edges of the box that comprise its sillhouette. It makes the form a tad more readable. Still, great work!
As mentioned in the Lines section, just try to plot the endpoints of lines when constructing your boxes. It doesn't appear that you did it 100% of the time for Rough Perspective and Organic Perspective. Plotting endpoints helps your lines be more accurate (since you know where the line should end up) and cleaner (since you can ghost the exact line several times over.)
Overall, though, great work with your boxes! You've got a good grasp of convergence right now, and it'll only be refined as you work through the 250 Box Challenge. Many forms are clean, too, especially those in your Rotated Boxes.
Congratulations on completing Lesson 1!
Next Steps:
Congratulations on completing Lesson 1! You're free to move on to the 250 Box Challenge.
A few tips:
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Make sure to follow the 50% Rule. Even if it's painful now, it'll save you from burning out as the lessons become more grueling, especially as you're working through the 250 Box Challenge!
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Remember that consistency beats intensity. It's better to do a few boxes a day than 20 in one sitting.
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Improvement isn't linear! Try not to get too frustrated and learn to trust the process. You will get better at drawing, even if it doesn't feel that way.
Happy drawing!
8:20 PM, Tuesday June 20th 2023
Thank you!
Even my art professor didn't give such a concise and helpful review.
8:43 AM, Wednesday June 21st 2023
Hello. I found some minor readibility issues, which are good to keep in mind when redoing the Lesson 1 exercises as Warmups. Otherwise, I agreed with the critique above, and you did a good job.
Rough Perspective: When checking, some of your red lines went past the horizon line
Organic Perspective:
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(Might be outdated, but you'll definitely be using this in future lessons:) You didn't add line weight to clarify overlaps +
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When redoing this exercise in the future, try to make the line thicker when it's closer and thinner when further like in here (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/22/step1)
Try comparing your works to the example homework in each section if you're unsure.
9:53 PM, Wednesday June 21st 2023
Yes I will add line weight, I don't remember if he mention that before the 250 box challenge.
Thicker and thinner lines are harden when dealing with 0.3, I already bought a 0.5 to use.
Thanks for the tips, and if you agree with the first critique, mark the agree box, it really helps!
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