Check Out NMA    Learn More About our Partnership
Close and Enjoy Drawabox Ad-free

Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

12:43 AM, Sunday June 7th 2020

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/70tSooo.jpg

Post with 30 views.

Hey, I'm on a graphic tablet (with a screen), so zoom is weird & the distance between lines in the drawings are kind of wacky. I will also admit that I used CTRL+Z unconsciously more than a few times during the later exercises instead of ghosting my lines. In the future, at least for these exercises, I'd like to get out of this habit and instead rely on ghosting as I believe it would help increase line accuracy more if I did.

I'd also like to ask if I could switch to more familiar pens than the fineline one, since it sometimes just stops working, for some reason. I can probably configure my usual pen to behave like the fineline one, perhaps even adding a teeny bit of pressure sensitivity since uncomfortable alluded to it in one of his exercise videos (drawing thicker, darker lines in order to denote foreground)

Anyways, am I ready for lesson 2 or should I do the 250 box challenge? I'll probably do it regardless cause it's kinda fun, not gonna lie. Oh no, stockholm syndrome has already taken hold of me...

Report
2 users agree
1:09 PM, Sunday June 7th 2020

Hey Kizylle,

I think using the ctrl Z instead of ghosting is valid as well since you're practising the lines mulitple times :)

I would suggest that you would benefit from the 250 box challenge, as the perspectives of the boxes in the "organic perspective" exercise are not entirely correct. :) Especially if you're having fun anyways!

I wish you a wonderful day and good luck :)

1:45 PM, Sunday June 7th 2020

In practice, yes ctrl+z is the ghosting equivalent for digital art, but in terms of learning art it's far closer to erasing which is one of the reason we are using feltline pens, not to erase. It puts more emphasis on taking into planning ahead of time what marks you're going to make, which god knows I need to practice.

Good day to you too!

2 users agree
3:34 PM, Monday June 8th 2020

Hey Kizylle,

I'm not too familiar with drawing on graphic tablets, but overall your submission looks very nice.

Just wanted to offer a few tips: Don't overdo it with ellipses. Drawing through them 2-3 times is enough.

Also your superimposed lines are fraying a bit. These will be important later on when adding line weight.

Good job though.

Next Steps:

250 Boxes

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.
5:18 PM, Monday June 8th 2020

Yeah, the superimposed lines had to be drawn on a weird angle I'm not used to in order to not shrink the image (which would be missing the point of making lines longer)

2 users agree
5:00 PM, Monday June 8th 2020

If you can you should really switch to ink as explained here: https://drawabox.com/article/ink

Plus if you continue in digital, there's a very high chance your future posts won't get critiqued. I'll give you some feedback but I won't mark your lesson as complete, since I'm not sure if I should because there may be digital mistakes here that I'm not seeing since I'm unfamiliar with the medium.

I looked through your work and I it's a little hard to judge your actual skill level since the lines are all of the same width. Line weight can reveal quite a bit as to what mistakes you're making so I would recommend that if you're going to continue to use digital consider drawing with a little pressure sensitivity. Also since that you said you sometimes did Ctrl+Z out of habit

P.S. I have no experience with digital media btw

Anyway here are some stuff I noticed:

Line work:

Your lines are pretty nice. They're smooth and confident, though you're lacking in accuracy that's perfectly normal. With more mileage you'll get much better at it.

Elipses

Your ellipses are also pretty good. They're drawn with confidence and I can see you made a good effort to keep your ellipses centered around the minor axis in the funnels exercise. When drawing ellipses though only do 2-3 passes (2 times preferably). In your submission you go over them 3 or more times.

Boxes

The boxes themselves look good, but it looks like you aren't plotting your lines (placing a start and end point), especially for the organic perspective exercise. Don't forget to do this as plotting out your lines is important for applying the ghosting method. Also if you are to continue to use digital for Drawabox, never do Ctrl+Z. If you do Ctrl+Z then do Ctrl+Y hehe.. This way you're able to better mimic the preferred medium to be used for this course (ink), and thus get closer to the same benefits that you would have gotten if you used ink. Also it's only a very minor issue as it seems for your case but don't try to correct a wrong line. Don't repeat lines. No matter how off a line is keep it as if it were correct and move on.

Anyway good luck! I still recommend you do the exercises in ink though. Draw a Box has 50/50 rule anyway where you're supposed to spend the other 50% of your time drawing for fun. I recommend that you spend the 50% of your fun time drawing by doing it digitally and the other 50% by doing DaB with ink. Rather than doing 100% digital.

If you're really dead set on doing only digital though then.. ok. move on to the 250 box challenge, and don't forget to keep doing the previous exercises as 15-20 minute daily warm-ups. Don't neglect your warm-ups! If you're consistent with your daily warm-ups you'll be surprised by how much you'd have improved in the future.

Next Steps:

I can only confidently mark this lesson as complete if you do the following in ink:

1 page of superimposed lines

1 page of ghosted planes

1 page of ellipses in ghosted planes

You can choose to ignore this though if you really are dead set on only doing digital and nothing else. Just be aware of the risks you'll be taking by doing DaB digitally and be prepared for them. Move on to the 250 box challenge and keep your previous exercises as warm-ups.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
5:44 PM, Monday June 8th 2020

Sadly it's not a matter of me not wanting to do these exercises in ink, but me not having the materials nor money nor space to do them in ink (My tablet was a gift given to me for my birthday a few years ago, and even then it was purchased at a huge discount.)

As for space, I've had to remove part of my graphic tablet's stand just so it would fit on my desk.

Don't get me wrong -- I completely 100% agree that I would get much much more mileage from doing it with traditional methods, and if I had the materials I would switch to it in a heartbeat, but I am just currently unable to. If it is absolutely necessary, however, I may be able to scrounge up a few pieces of paper and a office ball point ink pen if I look hard enough.

As for CTRL-Z, yes I am already trying to fix this habit. I have been drawing extremely pale lines since childhood, erasing until my drawings became blotchy messes, this is a nasty habit I am working towards getting rid of for these lessons ASAP.

As for your uncertainty on digital mistakes - There are no real tangible mistakes that can be done digitally that aren't done traditionally. At worse, using incorrect canvas resolutions, zooming (Which I avoided altogether by unbinding my scroll wheel), etc.

The biggest difference I can see is that the pen doesn't have as much friction as regular drawing tools, leading to more overshoots.

It is up to you to mark my lesson as complete or not, and while I would personally think it's a little silly to not mark it as complete over something you yourself said you are "unfamiliar with", it's not up to me to make these decisions. Also thanks for the heads up, if I do run into a hurdle and don't get critiques due to using digital, I'll ask the discord instead.

Oh, and sure. I'll switch my pen settings so the pen pressure is more apparent. I could swear uncomfortable said to use fineliners and not ink pens and to just go over a line again to make it more apparent, though.

3:52 AM, Tuesday June 9th 2020
edited at 7:52 AM, Jun 9th 2020

Hello! It's is not at all necessary for you to do DaB in ink just highly recommended. It's only necessary for patreons who get official critiques. Ballpens are also pretty good btw, if in case you want to use them. In fact for lesson 6 onwards their use is actually encouraged. Also you don't need anything fancy for paper. I've used the back of old test papers, old letters, school print-outs, and the back of the papers from my calender for the exercises.

The main reason I encouraged you to switch to ink is that when you go to discord, I thought that people won't be willing to critique your work in the lesson channels. Since I saw someone a while a back who did one of the lessons in digital get told off by some people in the lesson channels to post their work on #art-share instead. I was worried that you might not get any critique even if you posted your work on Discord. And feedback/critique is really important. Once you get it you can practice on your warm-ups knowing you aren't repeating mistakes. Checked again though and yeah you can definitely still get feedback again just with a lower chance though.

Regarding pen pressure. Fineliners or felt tips pens, which are the pens recommended for Lesson 1-5, can give you a variety of line weights depending on how slow or fast you draw, and with how much pressure you put into it. I recommended you use a pen with pen pressure as this is what I saw people in the Discord who did DaB digitally do to better mimic a fineliner pen. Here's an example. Additionally you can see in the video demos that Uncomfortable uses a brush that mimics a fineliner pen. The line thickness isn't even all throughout. It's very subtle but it's there.

Join the Discord btw! The community is nice! I only joined around 4 weeks ago and I've learned so much just by.. existing there hehe

I didn't mark your lesson off as complete because I initially intended for my comment to be taken more of us general feedback rather than an actual critique. I'm sorry, now that I think about it, it is silly that I didn't mark your lesson as complete, seeing as to how you did your best to follow the instructions, and since I approached your submission much like an actual critique. I'm not a teaching assistant btw or anything just a regular dude who's also doing DaB.

Anyway goodluck!!! If your only choice is to do digital then do it!! YOU HAVE MY 100% FULL SUPPORT!!!!!!! Coz in the end what matters most when it comes to leveling up your art skills is the amount of time and effort, and focused practice and study you put in, rather than the medium that you're using. I did some digging and found that there's a few people who did DaB digitally. In the subreddit if you search up the user CrapDepot, he did DaB and he's doing amazing work right now.

Oh yeah one last thing, since you're doing digital I recommend you check out Ctrl+Paint.

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.
edited at 7:52 AM, Jun 9th 2020
3:56 PM, Tuesday June 9th 2020
edited at 4:01 PM, Jun 9th 2020

If I could afford ctrl+paint I wouldn't be doing these exercises digitally, haha.

I scrounged up a single piece of sketchbook paper & an office ballpoint ink pen made out of recycled cardboard that I got a few years ago at a fare. Hopefully they'll be enough to show that I've learnt this lesson even if I did it digitally. Just as a heads up, the only table with enough space to work on is made out of chipped wood, so a few lines are a bit wonkey.

Anyways, here are the exercises you requested to see done traditionally. I think it's fairly easy to see that they're more or less the same as the digitally done ones.

https://imgur.com/a/eTzspne

If you look closely on the ghosted planes, there's a little arrow pointing to a double line. My cheap ink pen stopped inking like 1/5th through the line so I had to do a pass over. But I believe it's the only time the pen died on me, so it's the only line that I had to pass over.

Hopefully this digital / traditional comparison will help you in the future when it comes to critiquing people who are using digital!

Edit, Oh and sorry for bad quality on the images. I'm not exactly a photographer, so my phone's camera leaves a lot to be desired.

edited at 4:01 PM, Jun 9th 2020
View more comments in this thread
The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
The Art of Brom

The Art of Brom

Here we're getting into the subjective - Gerald Brom is one of my favourite artists (and a pretty fantastic novelist!). That said, if I recommended art books just for the beautiful images contained therein, my list of recommendations would be miles long.

The reason this book is close to my heart is because of its introduction, where Brom goes explains in detail just how he went from being an army brat to one of the most highly respected dark fantasy artists in the world today. I believe that one's work is flavoured by their life's experiences, and discovering the roots from which other artists hail can help give one perspective on their own beginnings, and perhaps their eventual destination as well.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.