Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction

2:56 PM, Saturday February 1st 2020

Lesson 2 - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/LlwUAfv.jpg

Post with 76 views. Lesson 2

Submitting for completion (again)

2 users agree
10:15 PM, Tuesday February 4th 2020
  • The linework on your arrows is definitely scratchy. The flow pretty well through the scene but you need to be drawing those lines with more confident strokes. Don't get chicken scratchy here just becuase you're afraid you can't draw a line that long accurately.

  • Your organic forms' sausages aren't following the characteristics explained here in the instructions. I also think the degree of your ellipses and curves don't suggest that you understand how that degree corresponds to the orientation of the cross-section (which is a circle) to the orientation of the viewer. It kind of looks like you've got that relationship reversed. Like if you look at the top right of this page, the contour ellipses towards the top should be way narrower than those towards the bottom, rather than vice-versa.

  • Good work on the texture analysis, focusing on your shadows and avoiding the use of outlines.

  • The linework on your form intersections are definitely a bit hairy. Seems like you might be reflexively reinforcing your lines after drawing the first stroke, trying to correct mistakes, etc. These are bad habits.

  • Your first page of organic intersections is definitely showing an improvement with the general understanding of organic forms. Your cast shadows on that page are inconsistent though, in terms of where your light source is supposed to be. Second page is better in that regard.

Next Steps:

I'd recommend doing a few more pages of organic forms with contour ellipses/curves.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
6:37 AM, Friday February 7th 2020

https://imgur.com/a/9QJWeTk

Hey, I'm back!

I did 2 pages of ellipses and curves. I will admit that I've a slightly better understanding of these things thanks to lesson 3. But otherwise, I'll admit, my sausages still suck. I'll need to practice these over a long period of time.

Thanks again for your time!

4:13 PM, Tuesday February 11th 2020

Sorry for the delay in my response.

So there's just one issue I noticed. You're definitely trying to apply the whole degree-shift thing, so that's good, but there's a mistake. If you look at the bottom right of this page, your curves basically look like this:


) ) ) | ) ) ) )

It's true that if we picture these as full contour ellipses, their degrees are indeed getting narrower, then wider again. But the problem is that they portion of the ellipse we see (the curve) should reverse after it gets to its narrowest point, like this:


( ( ( | ) ) )

I'm still going to mark this as complete, but make sure you understand this moving forward. Remember how the contour lines actually exist as lines along the surface of a three dimensional form.

Next Steps:

Move onto lesson 3.

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
4:45 PM, Tuesday February 11th 2020

Ahh intersting, that makes sense! I'll bear that in mind. Thank you!

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