Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

8:38 PM, Saturday November 7th 2020

Lesson 1 - DrawaBox - Album on Imgur

Imgur: https://imgur.com/gallery/EbuLxhj

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I'm looking forward to reading your critiques!

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8:59 PM, Saturday November 7th 2020

Hey, welcome! I’ll be looking through this~

Starting off, your superimposed lines look good. They’re smooth, properly lined up at the start, and of a consistent trajectory. I do wish you’d tried out some longer ones, as per the instructions, but that’s alright. Also, I notice the occasional stiffness in your arcing lines. Try not to stress about the guideline. It’s far more important for your lines to be smooth, than it is for them to be accurate. Your ghosted lines/planes look decent, though I have 2 things to point out. First, try to be a little less conscious of the end points. I notice that your lines will often stop short, and instead of leaving them there, you’ll force them to the end, usually adding a lot more ink in the process, or altering their trajectory. This is not necessary, and, more than that, it stands out in a bad way. Second, related to this, try to resist the urge to correct your lines, if you can. Draw each line once, regardless of how it turns out.

The table of ellipses exercise is on the right track, your ellipses being as smooth/rounded as they are. Remember that drawing confidently doesn’t mean that we don’t care about accuracy, however, we still do our best to ensure it, just in a different step (the ghosting step.) Be sure to ghost each ellipse properly, so that they may fit snuggly into their frames, and have their rotations match up. In regards to the latter, be sure to rotate around them a minimum of 2 times (not 1 and change), and no more than 3. Your ellipses in planes exercise looks great. Your ellipses are nice and rounded, despite the added difficulty of having to fit in their respective frames. The funnels exercise looks good, too. Save for the aforementioned looseness (ghost until comfortable, not forgetting to rotate the page as needed), your ellipses are snug, and properly cut in half by the minor axis.

The plotted perspective exercise looks good, though you should’ve used a ruler for the hatching here, too. The rough perspective exercise is a bit of a mixed bag (not knowing which page is the first one doesn’t make this any easier, by the way…) The convergences improve over the set, though they’re still not quite there. Be sure to plan each line properly, ghosting each point all the way to the horizon, to see where it intersects it. Don’t feel obligated to stick to your original points, either- it’s perfectly fine to replace unsatisfactory ones. The linework is unfortunately a little lacking. There’s no reason for it to be, however, because what you’re doing here is no different from what you were doing in the ghosted lines/planes exercise: drawing a single line, from point A to point B. If it can be confident there, it can be confident here, too. Try not to get overwhelmed by the big picture. The rotated boxes exercise looks decent. I’d like to start by confirming that you are indeed plotting start/end points for these lines. Not only do I not see any, but your linework here is a bit scratchy. This is the case for your organic perspective exercise, too. It’s very important that, as per the instructions in the ghosted lines section, all lines are drawn using the ghosting method (place 2 points down, ghost, execute.) Outside of that, however, and the fact that 4 boxes (the corner-most ones) are missing…, the exercise looks good. Your boxes are snug, and rotate nicely- the far planes, too. The organic perspective exercise looks good, as well. Your boxes flow nicely as a result of their consistent increase in size, and shallow foreshortening. Their convergences are pretty on-point, too, though they’ll get even better as you progress through the box challenge. I’m marking this lesson as complete, so feel free to move on to it.

Next Steps:

250 box challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
10:44 AM, Monday November 9th 2020

I didn't see I could reply to you!

I'm not going to waste your time since I don't have any questions, you were very clear in your critique. I just want to say thank you for answering so quick and being so precise in your response! I love the way you go straight to the point and it was exactly what I was hoping for.

Have a great day!

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