Hi there, I'll be handling your box challenge critique.
In the future if you could limit yourself to a single pager per image it'd be appreciated. Having multiple in an image like this means we have to spend time opening up each image to try and notice smaller details when we could just see them if each page was the whole focus.
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.
It's good to see that you're taking the time to plan and evenly space your hatching lines. This helps keep your boxes tidy and makes them look more solid.
Line weight isn't a requirement of the challenge so it's nice to see you're applying it anyways. Most people need to build up some mileage before they feel comfortable applying it so I always recommend starting early. The sooner you feel comfortable the sooner you see better results.
You're doing a great 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:
You tend to draw fairly small, I'd like you to draw larger in the future. Drawing large will help you become more comfortable working from the shoulder and allow you to see any mistakes you've made more clearly. We did recommend 5-6 larger boxes per page in the instructions as well.
I'd like you to experiment with rates of foreshortening more. Currently you tend to keep your lines close to parallel and push your vanishing points far from your boxes or you rely on shifting to 1 or 2 point perspective to bring some of the points in closer. Try bringing all 3 of your points in closer so that your lines have to converge more dramatically. Remember that experimentation is important.
At times you're placing your vanishing point between the viewer and your boxes (boxes 145, 186 and 218 are examples of this). 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. If you need some more examples you can find them here and a simplified guide below.
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'll be asking you to draw 30 more boxes please, focus on experimenting with different rates of foreshortening and extending your lines consistently in the correct direction. For the first 15 I'd like you to draw all 3 of your vanishing points explicitly on the page after you've drawn your initial Y shape, this will force you to work with vanishing points closer to your box. For the latter 15 you can go back to the original method which should hopefully be easier an easier task after the first 15.
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:
30 more boxes please.
Thank you! This was very helpful. I apologize for the multiple pages per image; I will refrain from doing that in the future. Somehow I missed the "5-6 boxes per page" both times I read the instructions. Sad.
Question: for the first 15 boxes with which I use a set of vanishing points, am I to use a ruler for those? Or still just eyeball it?
For the boxes with explicit vanishing points you'd first draw your starting Y shape, then draw all 3 vanishing points free hand (remember that each of the 3 lines in your Y will eventually extend to these vanishing points so you're mostly just determining the distance) and then construct the rest of your box with these points in mind.
Hope that clarifies things, if not let me know and I'll go more in-depth if needed.
Here are the additional images. I added the vanishing point lines on the 2nd set of boxes, as per the original exercise, but not the first. From a distance they look pretty tight, but not so much close up, haha.
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