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6:48 AM, Thursday August 5th 2021

Welcome to drawabox! Let’s take this one exercise at a time.

Starting with your superimposed lines, these are looking good. Do be careful that you’re not altering their trajectory, and remember that for the arcing ones (for all of them, really), what’s important is that they’re confident, not that they’re accurate. So rather than have the line wobble, because you’re trying to have it stick to the guideline, feel free to have it miss it, provided that it’s confident in return. The ghosted lines/planes look solid, save for some minor course-correction at the end. Rather than stress about the end point, to the point where you’ll consciously adjust to meet it, simply concern yourself with drawing a line that’s smooth, and straight; again, accuracy does not matter.

The table of ellipses exercise is mostly good, though there’s a number of issues to address. First, ghost a little longer; right now, you’re committing to these marks before you’re ready, as evidenced by one being entirely different from the next. On that note, recall that ellipses in a frame need to share a degree/angle. Second, always check back, to make sure that your lines are originating from the correct pivot. Not doing so may lead you (as it has) to move down the line, and let a lesser pivot handle any sharp turns – if you notice the pointy ellipses in your page, that’s the reason for them. Third, and finally, rotate around each ellipse a minimum of 2 times (not 1 and a half, 2), and no more than 3. This is irrelevant of how the ellipse turns out – it’s a consistent amount, that’s decided on beforehand. In addition to the aforementioned issues, the ellipses in planes are at times a little stiff. Ghosting more should solve this issue, too; what’s likely happening is that you’re stressing about their accuracy (whether they properly fit inside of their frames), but this is unnecessary. Ghost, and trust in that ghosting, when you execute. The funnels are more of the same, which is to say that they’re solid, save for some minor issues that we’ve covered. The only thing I’ll say in addition is that you should not take liberties with the exercises (looking at that double funnel).

The plotted perspective exercise looks clean. Minor thing, but the back line should be estimated, so that it’s still perpendicular to the horizon. Find one that’s equidistant from your 2 points, if minor errors cause the line between them to be crooked, normally.

The rough perspective exercise looks good. From the occasional unused point on the page, it’s clear that you’re taking your time planning each convergence, but perhaps not as much as you should, looking at the end result. One thing that might be the issue is that you’re not, through your ghosting, able to tell if a point is incorrect. This is entirely normal. What I’ll offer instead, is the shape of the near/far planes. As we’re dealing with 1-point perspective, thee shapes should be identical (this is to say, if the near plane is a square, the far plane cannot be a rectangle). If your points suggest that it is (consider page 2, frame 3, the bottom right box), then they’re incorrect, so think about giving them another shot.

The rotated boxes exercise looks great. The only issue with it is that you’ll, when starting a new box, not respect the guides set by the previous one (the red lines, in that instance). Outside of that, however, the boxes are big, snug, and rotating comfortably. If you encountered any further issues here, don’t stress, we’ll get deep into box construction in the 250 box challenge, and, the next time you attempt this exercise, you’ll be able to make some more informed decisions regarding how your boxes should behave.

The organic perspective exercise looks decent. Looking at the amount of overshooting, I find myself wondering if you’re plotting start/end points for your lines. If you’re not, know that you should. Other than that, the exercise looks good, the increase in size doing a decent job of suggesting the flow of your boxes, but the foreshortening somewhat contradicts this, being as dramatic as it is. Again, we’ll get into that in the challenge.

Next Steps:

Speaking of, as I’ll be marking this lesson as complete, feel free to head on over to it.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
5:12 PM, Thursday August 5th 2021

Thank you for the very thorough critique! ????

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Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens

Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens

Like the Staedtlers, these also come in a set of multiple weights - the ones we use are F. One useful thing in these sets however (if you can't find the pens individually) is that some of the sets come with a brush pen (the B size). These can be helpful in filling out big black areas.

Still, I'd recommend buying these in person if you can, at a proper art supply store. They'll generally let you buy them individually, and also test them out beforehand to weed out any duds.

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