Hi! I'll give you a critique.
Arrows
Your lines are done nicely, confident and consistent! The arrows themselves are fine, but they're mostly going across the 2D surface of a page rather than backwards in 3D space. Try compressing the part of the arrow that goes back in space. Don't be afraid of overlaps, and I don't just mean the ones when the arrow turns but rather a huge chunk of the back side of the arrow covered by the front if needed. Example. Think of how clouds would look going further away from you towards the horizon line. You wouldn't see the entirety of each cloud, would you?
Also, some of the overlap shadows are confusing. Make sure to give each individual stroke the same amount of care and make the shadow lines parallel to the edge of the arrow corner.
Leaves
Really great job here! The construction feels solid, especially on the top two leaves. The only thing I'd critique here is be careful how you draw the silhouette for the bottom right 2 leaves. I suggest following the construction line with your pen a bit more before each silhouette spike. Also, the silhouette spikes seem to be going in random directions - I don't know which leaf you referenced but from my experience they usually seem to be consistently pointing to the top of the leaf. Recall this section from lesson one.
Branches
A lot of your ellipses are flat out circles, meaning the branch is pointing straight towards the viewer in those sections. Be mindful of how the branch exists in 3D space. It's ok to stop drawing and think for a bit before putting the pen down on the paper. I'm also noticing a lack of thin ellipses, it's a waste to not use them when you have them in your arsenal. Sometimes it's correct to even use a line, that is when the branch is pointing exactly perpendicular to the camera.
Plants
They look good to me, good job! I recommend posting the reference pictures next time as well so people can have an easier time spotting mistakes.
Here are some minor critiques:
Some of the main branches look very thick. It's fine if it's like that on the reference, but most of the plants I've seen have thinner branches.
I think you could use some line weight since there are areas where it's confusing to determine what's in front of what.
I could be wrong here, but I think we're supposed to have this edge align with the construction ellipse, not the bottom of the leaves in the back as you've put it. Ok I've checked and this is how it's done in the hibiscus demo. I think the reason is, when you're drawing the ellipse, you're copying the visible perspective angle of the petals, not accounting for the ones in the back. But I guess it can be done either way, so do what works best for you.
Ok, that's it. Your accuracy is not perfect in some areas, but that will come with time.
Next Steps:
You've understood the core principles of this lesson, so you can go onto the next one. I do think you can improve in the arrows exercise, so please do 3 more pages of them before starting lesson 4. They're easy and fast so it shouldn't be a problem.
There's a guy who critiqued my lesson 2 and I learned a lot from studying his arrows, it's a great reference point for how the exercise should be done. Take a look! I do wanna note that even in his work, the arrows could be compressed more as they go back into space, I think someone critiqued him on this.
The points you raised in the critique are pretty accurate I'll definitely take them into account as I move to the next lesson. Thanks for your time, I really appreciate it.
The linework is good, but you may want to look back at your brach practice, they look off, mostly because your ellipses aren't the same size or angle along the tube.
Next Steps:
Try to practice your branches until you can get all the ellipses along the length to be the same size, and have better control of the angles.
okay thank you for your time
While we're always thrilled when students want to try to lend a hand and offer feedback to others, remember that good feedback does require an investment of time, in order to really provide a more thorough analysis of one's work. If you're unable to invest that time, especially if the submission hasn't received any other feedback, it's best to leave it to someone else, as even a short comment will make the system think that the student has received a critique and thus should be dropped to a lower position on the submission list, making it less likely that they'll receive further feedback.
If it's simply that you're new to critiquing and aren't sure how to structure your feedback, you can refer to Elodin's unofficial guide to critiquing Lesson 1. There's also one for the box challenge and Lesson 2.
While I have a massive library of non-instructional art books I've collected over the years, there's only a handful that are actually important to me. This is one of them - so much so that I jammed my copy into my overstuffed backpack when flying back from my parents' house just so I could have it at my apartment. My back's been sore for a week.
The reason I hold this book in such high esteem is because of how it puts the relatively new field of game art into perspective, showing how concept art really just started off as crude sketches intended to communicate ideas to storytellers, designers and 3D modelers. How all of this focus on beautiful illustrations is really secondary to the core of a concept artist's job. A real eye-opener.
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