Hello Andersonliddle, I'll be the teaching assistant handling your lesson 4 critique.

Starting with your organic forms it is clear that you're working towards the characteristics of simple sausages that are introduced here, and some of these are spot on. There are a few inconsistencies here and there, such as ends getting slightly flattened or pointy, or one end slightly larger than the other, but this is normal as these forms can be quite tricky. Its good to see that you're keeping your lines smooth and confident here, nice work.

I noticed you'd included a few forms with a completely straight central flow line. This isn't necessarily a mistake, but by including a subtle curve along the length of these forms we can give them a feeling of gesture, which is part of what makes these forms so useful as building blocks for organic constructions. Drawing them completely straight will make them look stiff, so that's something to keep in mind when drawing these forms in future.

You're doing a good job of varying the degree of your contour curves when you want to assert a form as having both ends facing the viewer. When you draw a form with one end facing the viewer you often draw your contour curves all the same degree. Keep in mind that the degree of your contour lines should be shifting wider as we slide along the sausage form, moving farther away from the viewer. This is also influenced by the way in which the sausages themselves turn in space, but farther = wider is a good rule of thumb to follow. If you're unsure as to why that is, review the Lesson 1 ellipses video. You can also see a good example of how to vary your contour curves in this diagram showing the different ways in which our contour lines can change the way in which the sausage is perceived.

Moving on to your insect constructions, lets kick things off by addressing your questions:

Do you have any tips for the line of symmetry? For example, in the final drawing, I struggled to communicate the downward angle of the pose without flattening out the shapes. Also, is the line of symmetry ever asymmetrical, as in the apex of the curve not appearing in direct center of the shape?

Sometimes this line is easy to identify on certain parts- the central split on wing casings is useful here. Other times the visual cues are subtler but you can still use the symmetry of the insect to help you. When I'm looking through constructions in this lesson, I look out for whether a student has drawn all their constructions in orthographic views- which is a sign that they're not thinking about how all these forms exist in 3D space, or observing the orientation of the forms in the reference. The other thing I look for is that the use of centre lines make sense, and don't contradict one another. Neither of these are the case in your submission, so I have no concern about your use of the centre lines.

For the final drawing which you expressed doubts about, I get a strong sense of your awareness for how these volumes exist in 3D space, with the head being in front of the thorax, and the abdomen receding in space. I also get the impression that the viewer is above the insect, looking down at it. Whether this is the orientation that was present in the reference, I do not know, but your construction stands up on its own as solid and three dimensional. Always treat the reference image as a source of information - something you observe carefully and frequently to apply that information as well as you can, but not as the end-all be-all of what you're trying to draw. So, if you deviate from it despite your best efforts, that's not actually a problem as far as the course is concerned. What matters most of all is that you hold to the 3D structure you're building up, and that you do not undermine its solidity under any circumstances. If that means the end result not matching up perfectly in some ways with your reference, that's fine.

The nature of the centre line depends on the surface of the form it is applied to, just like any other contour line. If the form is a sphere then the curve will be elliptical, with the apex in the middle. For ovoid forms and sausage forms we'd usually see more of the centre line on the end of the form that faces towards the viewer, and less on the end that faces away, as shown in this diagram, I hope that helps.

So, getting to the meat of this critique, I can see that you've paid a great deal of attention to how the forms you draw exist in 3D space, and I'm happy to see that you've drawn through most of them, including parts that are obscured in the reference. This is great, as figuring out how all these pieces connect together in 3D space helps to build solid constructions and will help you to develop your spatial reasoning skills.

I do have some points that should help you get more out of these constructional exercises in the future.

The first of these relates to differentiating between the actions we can take when interacting with a construction, which fall into two groups:

1 Actions in 2D space, where we're just putting lines down on a page, without necessarily considering the specific nature of the relationships between the forms they're meant to represent and the forms that already exist in the scene.

2 Actions in 3D space, where we're actually thinking about how each form we draw exists in 3D space, and how it relates to the existing 3D structures already present. We draw them in a manner that actually respects the 3D nature of what's already there, and even reinforces it.

Because we're drawing on a flat piece of paper, we have a lot of freedom to make whatever marks we choose, but many of those marks would contradict the illusion you're trying to create and remind the viewer that they're just looking at a series of lines on a flat piece of paper. In order to avoid this and stick only to the marks that reinforce the illusion we're creating, we can force ourselves to adhere to certain rules as we build up our constructions. Rules that respect the solidity of our construction.

For example - once you've put a form down on the page, do not attempt to alter its silhouette. Its silhouette is just a shape on the page which represents the form we're drawing, but its connection to that form is entirely based on its current shape. If you change that shape, you won't alter the form it represents - you'll just break the connection, leaving yourself with a flat shape. We can see this most easily in this example of what happens when we cut back into the silhouette of a form.

For example, I've marked on your weevil in red where it looks like you cut back inside the silhouette of forms you had already drawn. One thing I did notice is that most of the instances of cutting back inside your forms came down to the fact that your ellipses would come out a little loose (which is totally normal), and then you'd pick one of the inner edges to serve as the silhouette of the ball form you were constructing. This unfortunately would leave some stray marks outside of its silhouette, which does create some visual issues. Generally it is best to treat the outermost perimeter of the ellipse as the edge of the silhouette, so everything else remains contained within it. This diagram shows which lines to use on a loose ellipse.

On the same image I marked in blue where you'd extended off an existing form using partial, flat shapes, not quite providing enough information for us to understand how they actually connect to the existing structure in 3D space.

Instead, when we want to build on our construction or alter something we add new 3D forms to the existing structure. Forms with their own complete silhouettes - and by establishing how those forms either connect or relate to what's already present in our 3D scene. We can do this either by defining the intersection between them with contour lines (like in lesson 2's form intersections exercise), or by wrapping the silhouette of the new form around the existing structure as shown here.

This is all part of understanding that everything we draw is 3D, and therefore needs to be treated as such in order for both you and the viewer to believe in that lie.

This is something you're already applying very well to many of your constructions. You can see this in practice in this beetle horn demo, as well as in this ant head demo. You can also see some good examples of this in the lobster and shrimp demos on the informal demos page. As Uncomfortable has been pushing this concept more recently, it hasn't been fully integrated into the lesson material yet (it will be when the overhaul reaches Lesson 4). Until then, those submitting for official critiques basically get a preview of what is to come.

I've made a couple more notes for you on this beetle. In green I've noted some places where you'd done a great job of building complexity onto your construction with complete 3D forms, as well as noting some places where I could tell you were thinking in 3D but didn't quite give the new form its own complete silhouette. In blue I've highlighted another example of extending off the silhouette of an existing form with a partial shape, which undermines the 3D illusion of the construction.

Your application of line weight has room for improvement, on some of your constructions additional line weight has been added to places that seem somewhat arbitrary, and here is an example of line weight being added to the leg using chicken scratch, which goes against the first principle of markmaking introduced in lesson 1. I find that the most effective use of line weight, given the bounds and limitations of this course, is to reserve it for clarifying overlaps as explained here, and restricting it to localised areas where these overlaps occur. What this keeps us from doing is adding line weight to more random places, or worse, attempting to correct or hide mistakes with additional line weight. Keep your line weight subtle, it should be a whisper, not a shout. Usually a single confident, ghosted, super imposed stroke will be enough to create the desired effect.

Here is another example of lines getting a bit scratchy, with the centre lines on the head and thorax. In general, remember you should be using the ghosting method for every line you draw, and executing your lines using your whole arm. It is easy to slip into old habits when there are a lot of lines you need to draw, or get tempted into trying to make corrections. Take your time. Go through the planning and preparation stages for every line, to make sure that the line is the result of a conscious decision, and actively contributes something to the construction.

The next thing I wanted to talk about is leg construction. It looks like your were working with the sausage method for constructing most of your legs. It's not uncommon for students to be aware of the sausage method as introduced here, but to decide that the legs they're looking at don't actually seem to look like a chain of sausages, so they use some other strategy.

The key to keep in mind here is that the sausage method is not about capturing the legs precisely as they are - it is about laying in a base structure or armature that captures both the solidity and the gestural flow of a limb in equal measure, where the majority of other techniques lean too far to one side, either looking solid and stiff or gestural but flat. Once in place, we can then build on top of this base structure with more additional forms as shown in this diagram, this ant leg demo and also here on this dog leg demo as this method should be used throughout lesson 5 too.

It is good to see that you've jumped right in with building additional forms onto a number of your leg structures. In general, try to avoid entirely engulfing an existing structure in the new element you add, as seen with the legs on this spider. This can limit how much actual contact the new mass's silhouette has with the existing structure, and therefore defines a weaker relationship with it. Instead, we can break apart the new mass into separate pieces, defining each one's relationship individually, and ultimately yielding a stronger, more solid result.

For your dragonfly construction I think you may find it helpful to study these notes on another student's work, where Uncomfortable has demonstrated solutions to some of the problems you're encountering.

When approaching texture in this course, remember that we're designing cast shadow shapes to imply the smaller forms on an object's surface. We're telling the viewer how that surface might feel if they were to run their hands over it. This has nothing to do with what colour that surface happens to be. So with that in mind, using hatching lines to shade the eyes like this is considered incorrect. Using hatching lines in this manner actually flattens the form, rather than giving the viewer additional information on the smaller surface forms. I suggest you reread these reminders from lesson 2 before your next attempts at using texture in these exercises.

One final note, everything you add to these constructional exercises should be done to the best of your current ability. Adding a cast shadow underneath your insects is an optional finishing touch. If you choose to add one, make sure you're carefully thinking about the shape you draw, and doing your best to stick to principles of markmaking which are introduced in lesson 1. Your early constructions like this show that you understand that the cast shadow is a projection of the construction's silhouette, though the lines are a bit loose and scratchy. By the time we get to your last construction you're clearly not putting your best foot forward with the cast shadow, leaving huge gaps in the shadow shape, keeping it vague to avoid having to think through the problem at hand. These lines don't add any information to the construction, or help to ground the insect, they're just distracting.

All right, I think that covers it. I've outlined some things work on, but these are all things that can continue to be addressed into the next lesson. I'll go ahead and mark this one as complete, just be sure to actively tackle these points as you handle your animals.