Hello Jub, I'll be the teaching assistant handling your lesson 5 critique.

Starting with your organic intersections these look good, you clearly understand how to draw your forms slumping and sagging over each other with a shared sense of gravity. You've explored some interesting combinations and arrangements of your forms without straying form the exercise instructions, which is pretty cool. It's great that you're drawing through all your forms in this exercise, as this helps to reinforce your understanding of the 3D space you're creating.

You've generally done a good job of keeping your forms simple and easy to work with, in future I'd advise you to avoid adding wobbly deflated looking forms in this exercise, like the little one on the lower right of this page as complex forms like this are more difficult to assert as being solid and three dimensional.

You're doing really well at drawing forms that appear stable, like we could walk away from the piles and nothing your topple off, which is what we're aiming for in this exercise.

This is a little bit nit picky, but still something to be aware of- when part of a form pokes upwards away from the force of gravity with nothing underneath to support this area, it can make the form feel stiff. It's only happening in this one small area but I thought it was worth mentioning. If we think of these forms as being soft and heavy, this form might slump over the form below like this.

You're cast shadows are showing a clear consideration of not only the forms casting them, but the curvature of the surfaces they are being cast onto. You're doing a good job of keeping a consistent light source in mind, and it's impressive to see that you're thinking about the light source as a point in 3D space (looks like you have it to the side and also behind the camera on one of your pages) rather than simply top left or top right on the 2D space of the paper.

There are just a couple of spots where I think pieces of shadow might be missing (mostly on the ground plane) and I've added where they might go here. Whatever rules we set up for the world we're creating, we want to apply them consistently to each form to uphold the basic assumptions we have for this reality.

Moving on to your animal constructions your work shows a lot of promise, you're demonstrating developing spatial reasoning skills by connecting the pieces of your constructions together with specific, three dimensional relationships.

I have a few points to bring to your attention that should help you to get more out of these constructional exercises in future.

One of the first things I look for in these animal constructions is whether a student is taking steps towards taking actions in 3D by adding to their constructions with complete 3D forms, and sticking to the following rule that was introduced in your lesson 4 critique- "once you've put a form down on the page, do not attempt to alter its silhouette."

On the whole it looks like you've made a jolly good effort to apply this to your work here, although there are some exceptions where you'd slipped into taking an action in 2D. Let's discuss a couple of examples on your hybrid. If I look at the underside of the belly, I can see a line for the bottom of the torso sausage, and then an additional form added on top to build a solid 3D extension to the construction. This is all fine and dandy, but a problem arises where you'd redrawn the lower edge of the additional mass. We now have two possible lines representing the edge of a single form, which forces the viewer into choosing which line the think is correct. Whichever line they choose, there will always be another line on the page to contradict that decision and undermine the 3D illusion by reminding the viewer that they are looking at lines on a flat piece of paper.

Another area of this construction that involves an action taken in 2D is the tail. This is, at best, a 2D shape, and in places dissolves into a loose collection of disconnected lines. For constructional drawing we want to maintain tight specific relationships between each step. I can see that you drew a central flow line, which is a good start, but then you jumped straight to drawing a mass of fur for the silhouette of the tail without establishing a solid form for this fur to sprout from. This was handled much better on some of your other pages, for example this squirrel, where although the fur itself could be better executed, it does at least have a solid foundation in place to support it.

Speaking of fur, there are some areas where, to be frank, it looks rushed. Remember during this course our marks should maintain a consistent trajectory as introduced in the markmaking section of lesson 1. This means each tuft should consist of a stroke going up, and another stroke going back down. While it's not happening universally across the set, there are quite a lot of places where you've zigzagged your lines while drawing fur. Remember each mark you add to these constructions should be the result of a conscious decision, with the aim to actively contribute some information and meaning to your work. At no point are we sketching in this course, and we don't rely on randomness when adding texture and detail. There are plenty of places where you've done a decent job of designing specific intentional tufts of fur to the silhouette as discussed in this section of the lesson material, which leads me to believe the rougher areas aren't due to a lack of understanding, but perhaps a lack of patience. I get it, the approach to texture in Drawabox is really tedious, but it is also optional in this lesson. If you choose to add it, try to exercise patience with it and make each mark to the best of your current ability.

Continuing on, another key area I assess is leg construction, and whether students are using the sausage method that was introduced in lesson 4. It is good to see that you're generally sticking quite closely to the sausage method throughout your work here. You're a bit inconsistent about remembering to apply a contour curve at each joint for the intersection where these forms connect together in 3D space, as highlighted in red on this copy of the sausage method diagram. These little curves might seem insignificant, but using contour lines to define how different forms connect to one another is an incredibly useful tool. It saves us from having to add other stand-alone contour lines along the length of individual forms, and reinforces the illusion of solidity very effectively. There are a few spots where you don't always keep these sausage forms simple as explained here, for example with the top section of the hind leg of this horse. Try to keep these leg sausages simple (both ends a similar size, and a consistent width along their length) and remember that these sausages aren't necessarily supposed to describe the entire leg, they serve as an armature upon which we can build additional forms to capture any extra bulk and complexity as needed.

You've made a decent start with exploring the use of additional masses to build on your leg structures, but this can be pushed farther. A lot of these focus primarily on forms that actually impact the silhouette of the overall leg, but there's value in exploring the forms that exist "internally" within that silhouette - like the missing puzzle piece that helps to further ground and define the ones that create the bumps along the silhouette's edge. Here is an example of what I mean, from another student's work - as you can see, Uncomfortable has blocked out masses along the leg there, and included the one fitting in between them all, even though it doesn't influence the silhouette. This way of thinking - about the inside of your structures, and fleshing out information that isn't just noticeable from one angle, but really exploring the construction in its entirety, will help you yet further push the value of these constructional exercises and puzzles.

Let's take a moment to talk more specifically about how to design these additional masses. One thing that helps with the shape here is to think about how the mass would behave when existing first in the void of empty space, on its own. It all comes down to the silhouette of the mass - here, with nothing else to touch it, our mass would exist like a soft ball of meat or clay, made up only of outward curves. A simple circle for a silhouette.

Then, as it presses against an existing structure, the silhouette starts to get more complex. It forms inward curves wherever it makes contact, responding directly to the forms that are present. The silhouette is never random, of course - always changing in response to clear, defined structure. You can see this demonstrated in this diagram.

So, as an example I've redrawn a few of the additional masses on this deer.

I started with the mass on the belly. A section of the silhouette of this mass just in front of the hind leg appeared to be ignoring the volume of the torso sausage, and going straight across it to attach to the front of the hind leg. I've wrapped it around the curvature of the torso sausage instead.

Next I redrew the long mass on top of the back. I'd generally avoid running masses over long distances like this, as it is likely you'll accidentally introduce too much complexity (as we see here with the two inward curves on top of the mass where it is exposed to fresh air and there is nothing to press against it and cause these inward curves) which tends to flatten the mass out. So I've broken this mass into 3 pieces so that each one can serve a more specific purpose and stay simpler. Notice the inward curves in the two red masses where they press up against the shoulder and thigh masses. This is something I can see you've done well on some of your other pages, the more interlocked they are, the more spatial relationships we define between the masses, the more solid and grounded everything appears.

The masses I've redrawn on the legs cover two main points: Masses that try to do too much and fall flat, which I've broken into pieces, and masses where the silhouette had a minimal overlap with the underlying construction, which can make them feel precariously balanced. I've wrapped these more boldly around the legs to give them a firmer grip.

Something that's more prominent in your early pages, like this cat but is still worth noting, is the tendency to avoid certain kinds of complexity (like sharp corners and inward curves) when designing your masses, leaving their silhouette soft and rounded all the way around. This does not explain how your new form connects to the underlying structure in 3D space, which can leave the additional masses feeling like they have been pasted on like flat stickers. This diagram shows how we can take a flat blob and redesign it to attach to the underlying structure in 3D space.

When it comes to your feet, I have some advice on how you can tackle the construction of the base foot structure, and then the toes. As shown here on another student's work, we can use boxy forms - that is, forms whose corners are defined in such a way that they imply the distinction between the different planes within its silhouette, without necessarily having to define those edges themselves - to lay down a structured that reads as being solid and three dimensional. Then we can use similarly boxy forms to attach toes.

Continuing on, I wanted to discuss head construction a little. Remember that for constructional drawing we never add more complexity than can be supported by the underlying structures at any given point. There are a couple of pages such as this chameleon where it looks like you established the cranial ball, then did something akin to "draw the rest of the owl." I can see that you're leveraging your understanding of 3D space to achieve this, but it isn't quite following the constructional process shown in the lesson. This isn't a problem across the whole set though, I can see you clearly taking a more constructional approach for your deer and your horses, for example.

Lesson 5 has a lot of different strategies for constructing heads, between the various demos. Given how the course has developed, and how Uncomfortable is finding new, more effective ways for students to tackle certain problems. So not all the approaches shown are equal, but they do have their uses. As it stands, as explained at the top of the tiger demo page (here), the current approach that is the most generally useful, as well as the most meaningful in terms of these drawings all being exercises in spatial reasoning, is what you'll find here in this informal head demo.

There are a few key points to this approach:

1- The specific shape of the eye sockets - the specific pentagonal shape allows for a nice wedge in which the muzzle can fit in between the sockets, as well as a flat edge across which we can lay the forehead area.

2- This approach focuses heavily on everything fitting together - no arbitrary gaps or floating elements. This allows us to ensure all of the different pieces feel grounded against one another, like a three dimensional puzzle.

3- We have to be mindful of how the marks we make are cuts along the curving surface of the cranial ball - working in individual strokes like this (rather than, say, drawing the eye socket with an ellipse) helps a lot in reinforcing this idea of engaging with a 3D structure.

Try your best to employ this method when doing constructional drawing exercises using animals in the future, as closely as you can. Sometimes it seems like it's not a good fit for certain heads, but as shown in in this banana-headed rhino it can be adapted for a wide array of animals.

I have one more thing to talk about before I wrap this up. In future, please avoid filling large areas in with solid black, as seen on this page and quite a few of your far-side legs. This hides the underlying construction, so we can't really give you any advice for improving these areas. I think perhaps you filled the far side legs with black in an effort to push them back and flatten them out. While it certainly does flatten them, these solid areas of black really stand out from the white of the page so at a glance it actually brings more attention to these areas, which I don't think is what you intended. Not a huge deal, given that our focus with these exercises is construction, not composition, but something to be aware of in your art practise in general. A better approach would be hatching the far side legs, as you did on this cat. This allows whoever critiques your work to assess your underlying construction, as well as being less distracting.

Okay, I think that covers it. Overall your work is progressing well, so I'll mark this lesson as complete and leave you to apply the points discussed here independently in your own time. Feel free to move on to the 250 Cylinder Challenge, which is a prerequisite for lesson 6.