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5:36 PM, Thursday April 29th 2021

Looking at your revisions, there are a number of issues I addressed previously that are still present, giving me the impression that you may not have read through my critique as carefully as you should have. While I am sure this is not intentional, there are a lot of distinct points I raised that simply haven't been corrected, as shown here

A and B: You're still altering the silhouettes of your forms after they've been constructed. Every single addition to your construction should be through the introduction of a new, complete, solid, 3D form. You also cannot redefine/alter forms you've already drawn to make small tweaks in order to make them match your reference better. Treat the things you've drawn as though they're 3D, and they'll appear 3D to others. As soon as you treat them like they're just lines on the page, you'll remind the viewers of that fact as well.

C and D: You're still misusing line weight. The biggest issue here is that your use of line weight is basically resulting in you redrawing the silhouettes of your forms. Do not apply line weight so excessively - keep it limited to localized areas, and make sure you're using the same ghosting method to execute those marks. Don't trace hesitantly back along the length of your existing lines.

Additionally, I can see that you're trying to use the sausage method, although you end up redrawing the silhouettes of those sausages as well. Instead, draw the sausages larger, while maintaining the characteristics of simple sausages, and then build up new forms on top of them that wrap around those structures as shown here and here. You can also see this in action in this ant leg demo and this dog leg demo. The main issue I'm seeing stems from the fact that you're making the sausage structures so skinny that they don't actually play any role, you end up redefining their silhouettes anyway by engulfing them inside a totally different shape/form.

Lastly, I noticed a couple things to point out for your organic forms with contour curves:

  • You seem to be placing contour ellipses on both ends of your forms, which suggests to me that you're not really aware or considering what they're actually supposed to represent. This exercise is just like the one with contour ellipses, except we're not drawing as though we have x-ray vision. So, while there's a full ellipse wrapping around the form for every contour line, for most of them we can only see a partial curve. It is only on the tips that face the viewer that we can actually see a whole ellipse - therefore you need to consider which end faces the viewer, and draw an ellipse there, rather than just putting an ellipse on each tip. Here are some examples of configurations where one end is fully visible to the viewer, both ends are, or no ends are.

  • You're still not drawing through the ellipses you do draw. I raised this issue previously.

  • Keep working on sticking to the characteristics of simple sausages - you're close, but you tend to have ends that are more stretched out rather than having them remain entirely circular, and you've got many that get a little wider through their midsection.

  • As explained here, the degree of your contour lines should be shifting wider as we slide along the length of the sausage, away from the viewer. This is also explained in the Lesson 1 ellipses video, using props to explain why this occurs.

You have a lot of things to address, and I think you may be rushing a little and not quite giving yourself enough time to absorb what is being conveyed to you in the critique. As such, I'm going to ask that you complete the revisions that were assigned previously again, and that you submit them no sooner than one week from now.

Next Steps:

Please redo the revisions that were assigned previously, and submit them no sooner than 1 week from now.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
4:17 AM, Thursday May 13th 2021

Hello!

So I went back over both critiques, and rewatched some demos to try again. I couldn't complete a drawing nor a pager of organic forms without mistakes. I started getting very in my own head about getting everything correct, and grinding on pages (which I realise isn't the point). Whilst I realise the pages I'm submitting contain errors, I'd rather get feedback to see if what I'm doing is actually improving and how far I am from understanding what's being taught.

Thank you!

https://imgur.com/a/2mzT2hU

5:57 PM, Thursday May 13th 2021

I'm glad you forced yourself out of that pattern of behaviour - if the goal was for you to produce perfect work, then I wouldn't really serve any role here. We assign a specific number of pages specifically so students don't take it upon themselves to do more. If you've made the attempt to do it to the best of your ability, and things come out wrong (even if you can identify those mistakes yourself), then that means there may be additional advice that'll help you along. Or, perhaps more commonly, you may be focusing on the wrong things and being hyper critical of yourself for no good reason.

All things considered, your work is mostly fine. Your organic forms with contour lines are generally sticking to the characteristics of simple sausages, and your contour lines are wrapping around them decently. There are some cases where the contour lines are a touch sloppy - but continuing to use the ghosting method should help you improve on that front.

Your insect constructions are considerably more in line with what the lesson expects. You're more mindful of building things up additively, and are treating your construction more like a series of solid forms in a 3D world.

The main thing that caught my eye was that your use of the sausage method does encounter mixed results, and you do have a tendency to go about it your own way instead of sticking to the core points from the diagram. Always remember to do the following:

  • Stick to the characteristics of simple sausages. You're doing this pretty often but there is the odd place where you end up drawing more of an ellipse instead of a sausage, or where you end up with one end larger than the other.

  • Reinforce the joint between the sausage segments with a contour line. It's these joints where I think you tend to have the most trouble. Remember that you want your sausages to overlap/intersect, and then you define the intersection. In a lot of cases it looks like you're trying to do both it all at once, and so it gets muddy.

  • Do not place contour lines along the length of your sausage forms. This is mentioned in the diagram. Only place them at the joints to define the relationship between the forms.

Anyway, all in all this is a big step in the right direction. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. You'll have ample opportunities to continue practicing this in the context of your animal constructions.

Next Steps:

Move onto lesson 5.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
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