Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

1:58 AM, Thursday December 23rd 2021

DAB - Lesson 1 Homework - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/P6nrfaT.jpg

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Well, here it is! My lines are still inaccurate sometimes -- but sometimes I hit that magical "level 3". I also seem to have trouble drawing small lines and ellipses from my shoulder. The smaller the shape, the more wobbly it seems to get. Hopefully as I keep practicing that improves.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any feedback! I'm looking forward to the 250 box challenge... sort of...

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6:41 AM, Thursday December 23rd 2021

Hi! It’s normal to have difficulty with small lines, yes. You’re also correct that continuing to draw them from the shoulder, rather than taking the path of least resistance, is the way to get better at them – keep that up! With that out of the way, onto your submission.

Starting off, your superimposed lines look good. They’re smooth, properly lined up at the start, and of a consistent trajectory. Some arcing lines would’ve been nice to see (they’d have helped you with your ellipses, too!), but they’re optional, so no harm done. Your ghosted lines/planes look solid, save for a little course correction at the end. This seems to improve in their second page, but just to be safe, I’ll recommend that you be a little less conscious of the end point (and, particularly, be mindful that you’re not slowing your approach, in an effort to stop at it). More so than accuracy, what we’re concerned with here is confidence – in other words, that the resulting line is smooth, and straight; prioritize that.

Moving on to the ellipse section, the table of ellipses exercise looks good. Your ellipses are smooth, mostly rounded, and properly drawn through. I say mostly rounded because, occasionally, they’ll come out a little pointy. This is generally an indication that a lesser pivot (elbow/wrist) is getting involved, so see if you can check back, from time to time, to make sure that your marks are still originating from your shoulder. The ellipses in planes look alright. I see that you hesitate a little, during the first rotation, so be sure that you’re not committing before you’re ready. Also, see if you can aim for 2 rotations (not 3), from now on – it’ll make your mistakes easier to spot. The funnels look solid. The smaller ellipses struggle a little, as you said, but they’re snug, and properly cut in half by their respective axes.

The plotted perspective exercise looks clean.

The rough perspective exercise starts off strong, and shows some solid improvement throughout the set. Your convergences, in particular, are nicely done. Lineweight is confident, though a bit scratchy, at times. Remember that each line is to be drawn once, and only once, regardless of how it turns out. Learning to live with our mistakes is another goal of this course, after all (and this also means that we don’t cross things out! See everything through to the end.)

The rotated boxes exercise is a little small (drawing big is something we encourage – it’s effective in giving your brain some room to think), but nicely done, nonetheless. Your boxes are snug, and they rotate quite comfortably; the hatching does a lot to clean it up, too.

Looking at the amount of overshooting, in the organic perspective exercise, I’d say that you haven’t plotted start/end points for all of your lines, here. Please do – all lines need these, as all lines are drawn using the ghosting method. Aside from that, however, everything looks good; the size, and foreshortening, of your boxes do a solid job of conveying their flow.

Next Steps:

I’ll be marking this lesson as complete, so you may head on over to the box challenge. GL!

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
5:24 PM, Thursday December 23rd 2021

Thank you so much for the quick, thoughtful, and incredibly helpful reply! I'll work on incorporating your advice as I move forward :D

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