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250 Box Challenge

7:24 PM, Sunday February 26th 2023

Draw a Box 250 Box Challenge - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/FRpBZ3V.jpg

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Hey there, there's not much I have to add here other than that it took me about 3 months to complete this. Unfortunately I couldn't spend time everyday on this exercise consistently due to IRL matters, but I managed at least to stick to finishing at least one page per week during busy seasons (on average I drew 2 pages per day, 4-5 days a week). As a result, it's possible that the resulting boxes may be rather incosistent, especially on the earlier pages.

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8:34 PM, Sunday February 26th 2023

Hi there, I'll be handling your box challenge critique.

Congratulations on completing the box challenge, it's definitely a lot more work than most people expect. Not only does it help deepen your understanding of important concepts but it shows your desire to learn as well. Be proud of what you've accomplished and that desire you've shown. That being said I'll try to keep this critique fairly brief so you can get working on the next steps as soon as possible.

Things you did well:

  • Your construction lines are looking smooth and confidently drawn.

  • It's nice to see that you're taking the time to plan each of your hatching lines and space them evenly. This helps keep your boxes looking tidy rather than looking like they were rushed on to the page.

  • Seeing as how line weight is not a requirement of the challenge it's nice to see that you're applying it. It's a useful tool but one that most people need some mileage with before they feel comfortable applying it. Getting an early start like this will help you see better results sooner.

  • You're doing a great job of experimenting with orientations, proportions and rates of foreshortening. Experimenting is an important habit to build when learning any new skill, it helps form a more well rounded understanding. I hope you'll continue to display and nurture this habit in the future.

Things you can work on:

  • You tend to draw fairly small, I'd like you to draw larger in the future. Drawing large will help you become more comfortable working from the shoulder and allow you to see any mistakes you've made more clearly.

  • There are times when your lines converge in pairs or you attempt to keep your lines a bit too parallel which results in them diverging. This is an example of lines converging in pairs, and this shows the relation between each line in a set and their respective vanishing point. The inner pair of lines will be quite similar unless the box gets quite long and the outer pair can vary a lot depending on the location of the vanishing point. Move it further away and the lines become closer to parallel while moving it closer increases the rate of foreshortening.

The key things we want to remember from this exercise are that our lines should always converge as a set not in pairs, never diverge from the vanishing point and due to perspective they won't be completely parallel.

Overall while you did make a few mistakes your boxes are improving so far and with more mileage you'll continue to become more consistent. That being said I'll be marking your submission as complete and move you on to lesson 2.

Keep practicing previous exercises and boxes as warm ups, and good luck.

Next Steps:

Move on to lesson 2.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
9:20 PM, Sunday February 26th 2023
edited at 11:02 AM, Mar 1st 2023

Hey there, thanks a lot for the feedback! I'm glad to hear that I'm (mostly) on the right track (with some room for improvement, as always); it really makes me feel like these past 3 months toiling through these boxes were worth it. :) On that note, I'd like to ask you about the things I need to work on.

First off, I am aware about what you mentioned regarding lines converging in pairs (or diverging), however as of yet I haven't found a reliable way to avoid it. Currently my approach to drawing the boxes is to visually estimate where the vanishing point between two of the parallel lines would be and then draw the remaining two converging towards said imaginary point. However, I tend to misjudge (or simply "forget", especially if the VP is very far away) where a vanishing point would be and end up with the results you saw above. Do you have any pointers on how I could mitigate that issue (barring the obvious answer of practicing more, which goes without saying)?

Regarding the boxes being too small, noted, I was wondering about it at one point myself. In your opinion, how big should I make the boxes in relation to the page (A4)?

With all that being said, I'll make sure to add this challenge to my warm up exercises and keep working on it from here on. Here's hoping the next lesson goes well! :)

Thanks again for the help and cheers!

edited at 11:02 AM, Mar 1st 2023
7:29 PM, Monday February 27th 2023

No problem.

In regards to your vanishing point question. I'd recommend taking a look at the video ScyllaStew did on her process of drawing boxes and gauging vanishing points, you can find it here.

As for how large to draw your boxes there isn't really an easy number I can give like each box should be at least x by y by z cms or anything specific, but it largely comes down to how much negative space you have left on the page. If you have a tons and tons of free page space left over it shows that you could likely either be planning your boxes a bit more to make the most of your page (some people keep them all bundled in the middle) and/or making the boxes bigger to better utilize that space. Some people try to get around it by using bigger pages but in reality since it's a matter of space utilization they should be drawing even larger to use all that extra space. Since I've already directed you to ScyllaStew's page you could take a look at the boxes she drew and get a rough idea of how much larger you can go (though if you went even a bit larger that'd also be fine).

Hope all of that helps.

11:11 AM, Wednesday March 1st 2023

Hey there,

This message is going to be a short one, but OK, I'll make sure to check her video out, thanks! Likewise in regards to box sizes; I'll make sure to better utilize the negative space in my future box warm ups (using ScyllaStew's video as reference if/when needed).

Thanks again for the help!

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