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3:31 AM, Tuesday April 12th 2022

Hi there, I'll be handling your box challenge critique.

Hope you're feeling better.

Not only does the challenge help deepen your understanding of important concepts but it shows your desire to learn as well. That being said I'll try to keep this critique fairly brief so you can get working on the next steps as soon as possible.

Things you did well:

  • Your construction lines are looking smooth and confidently drawn.

  • Seeing as how line weight is not a requirement of the challenge it's nice to see that you're applying it. It's a useful tool but one that most people need some mileage with before they feel comfortable applying it. Getting an early start like this will help you see better results sooner.

  • You're doing a good job of experimenting with orientations, and proportions. Experimenting is an important habit to build when learning any new skill, it helps form a more well rounded understanding. I hope you'll continue to display and nurture this habit in the future.

Things you can work on:

  • Your hatching lines could be tidier. Just like any other line we want to take our time planning them using the ghosting method, space them evenly and draw them confidently.

  • You tend to keep your line extensions really short which doesn't give you much information in terms of how to improve your future boxes.

  • Quite frequently you're placing your vanishing point between the viewer and your boxes (Boxes 276-279 are all later examples). This leads to you extending your lines in the wrong direction and your boxes becoming distorted because your lines are actually diverging from where the vanishing point would actually be. Here's a guide I wrote that will hopefully help you place your vanishing points and line extensions more consistently. Here some examples of what incorrect line extensions look like and how they can be corrected.

  • I'd like you to experiment more with rates of foreshortening. Currently you keep your vanishing points quite far from your box and attempt to make your lines as parallel as you can. Try bringing your vanishing points in closer so that your lines converge more dramatically. Remember that experimentation is important.

  • There are times when your lines converge in pairs or you attempt to keep your lines a bit too parallel which results in them diverging. This is an example of lines converging in pairs, and this shows the relation between each line in a set and their respective vanishing point. The inner pair of lines will be quite similar unless the box gets quite long and the outer pair can vary a lot depending on the location of the vanishing point. Move it further away and the lines become closer to parallel while moving it closer increases the rate of foreshortening.

The key things we want to remember from this exercise are that our lines should always converge as a set not in pairs, never diverge from the vanishing point and due to perspective they won't be completely parallel.

I won't be moving you on to the next lesson just yet, each lesson builds off concepts in the previous course material so if you move forward with un-addressed issues you end up just creating further issues on top of them.

I'm not certain why you drew so many extra boxes, usually if it's a case of someone submitting old work we ask for 50 additional boxes and since that's not the case I can only assume you chose to do so yourself. If this is the case (and you weren't instructed to draw these extra ones) then I'd like to encourage you not to draw more than you have to going forward. This doesn't mean don't fill your pages or put in your best attempt, but drawing more pages than necessary can lead to extra burn out, especially if those pages are done incorrectly and need revisions.

I'd like you to draw 20 more boxes please, focus on experimenting with different rates of foreshortening and placing your vanishing points/line extensions consistently in the correct direction.

Once you've completed your boxes reply to this critique with a link to them, I'll address anything that needs to be worked on and once you've shown you're ready I'll move you on to the next lesson.

I know you can do this and look forward to seeing your work.

Next Steps:

20 more boxes please.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
7:09 PM, Tuesday April 19th 2022
8:23 PM, Wednesday April 20th 2022

On the second page the top and bottom left boxes have red lines that are extending in the wrong direction and every box on the 3rd page has at least one set extending incorrectly as well.

Without any numbering I unfortunately can't tell if these were the first boxes you drew and you learned how to correct the issue as you progressed or if you possibly stopped paying as close attention and your quality suffered later on.

Either way there's still room to improve so I'll be asking you to draw 5 more boxes, hopefully all 5 of them have proper line extensions and if not we can address the issue further.

Next Steps:

5 more boxes please.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
8:07 PM, Wednesday April 27th 2022
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