250 Box Challenge
4:39 PM, Sunday October 22nd 2023
I learned a lot from this challenge!
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2 users agree
10:43 AM, Monday October 23rd 2023
Hello 14thmoon, congrats on beating the 250 box challenge!
First of all, I just want to compliment you on the improvement that’s seen in your boxes. Both your line confidence and perspective have improved tremendously during this challenge. Your boxes are very solid and believeable.
Here are some things to remember when doing this exercise as a warm-up:
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Lineweight: Lineweight should only be added around the silhouette of the box, not to every line. You managed to make your lineweight much more subtle when comparing box 250 to box 1, but it could be even more subtle; adding only one line should be enough. https://drawabox.com/lesson/250boxes/1/lineweight
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Wobbling lines: Some of your lines, mostly the hatching lines and line weight seem to wobble. Make sure that you’re ghosting your lines and draw them quickly. Don't be afraid to overshoot these lines, confidence is more important than accuracy in this course, since you'll learn to be more accurate over time.
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Adding variation: Try to add more variation in your boxes, go extreme with them, experiment! Try drawing very long boxes, very flat boxes, very dramatic foreshortening and any other shape that you can think of. All of those boxes will be useful in your drawing journey. Here’s a good image for box orientation: https://imgur.com/Kqg6uMX
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Additional exercise: Boxes on a string. If you haven’t seen this page already, it’s worth checking out. This exercise is optional, but it might be fun to incorporate in your warm-ups after you tackled the first section of lesson 2 (thinking in 3D): https://drawabox.com/lesson/250boxes/2/string I’ve been told that it’s better to hold off subdividing boxes until you’ve reached lesson 6.
All in all, your submission shows that you understand this exercise very well. You’re ready to move on to lesson 2, good luck!
Next Steps:
Lesson 2
6:04 AM, Monday November 6th 2023
Funkymills, thank you so much for the feedback! I really appreciate the compliments and the important reminders. I’ll keep them in the front of my mind during my warm-ups, and I’ll be sure to try out the boxes on a string exercise after section 1 of lesson 2!
7:03 AM, Wednesday November 8th 2023
I'm glad that my critique was helpful to you, have a nice day!
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Sakura Pigma Microns
A lot of my students use these. The last time I used them was when I was in high school, and at the time I felt that they dried out pretty quickly, though I may have simply been mishandling them. As with all pens, make sure you're capping them when they're not in use, and try not to apply too much pressure. You really only need to be touching the page, not mashing your pen into it.
In terms of line weight, the sizes are pretty weird. 08 corresponds to 0.5mm, which is what I recommend for the drawabox lessons, whereas 05 corresponds to 0.45mm, which is pretty close and can also be used.