Lesson 7: Applying Construction to Vehicles

6:36 PM, Sunday May 17th 2020

Drawabox Lesson 7 - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/6V8ovPc.jpg

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Hi, here is my submission for lesson 7!

A few notes, on the Form-Intersection part, once i had my construction layed out, i kept drawing till it was a completed since we can break down as much as we can. I hope that it isn't a problem. Also, complementary reference images where added, but it's easy to know which one is the actual reference.

Thanks in advance!

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8:56 PM, Sunday May 17th 2020

Starting with the form intersections and cylinders in boxes, you really knocked these out of the park. I'm especially pleased with the spatial reasoning skills you're demonstrating there with the intersections. You're demonstrating a level of comfort with manipulating those forms and determining how they'd cut into one another that suggests a great deal of growth over the course of the lessons. Very well done.

Moving onto your vehicle constructions, I think you've achieved a great deal across the board, although there was definitely a good deal of struggling along the way. This is, of course, normal. This lesson is exceptionally difficult, and the cars especially (which were the primary focus of your difficulties) are considered the "boss fight" of Drawabox for a good reason.

One thing that did stand out quite a bit was that you only appeared to take fairly limited advantage of the permission to use a ruler, ellipse guide, ballpoint pen, etc. Instead from what I can see, it looks like you used those tools when creating an underlying breakdown, and then went back on top of them with a fineliner for a freehand "clean-up pass". I'm not sure why you did this, but it was specifically mentioned that you should not at the beginning of the lesson:

Ballpoint pen for your linework (don't switch pens to do any sort of "clean-up" pass - use the same pen through all your lines, including construction/box subdivision/etc)

Imposing further difficulties like doing the 'final drawing' freehand aren't really going to serve you particularly well as far as learning what the lesson is conveying to you goes. If you're allowed to use certain tools to make things easier, do so. The purpose is to make the actual execution of the marks easier so it doesn't further expend your cognitive capacity, which should otherwise be focused on where the lines should be going.

Also, when you do go over lines that have already been established (to add line weight for example), don't trace over it slowly and carefully. "Tracing" as an approach is something that focuses entirely on how a line exists on the page, and ignores how it moves as an edge through 3D space. I can see a good deal of that early on, where many of the darker lines of your cab-over truck appear to waver and wobble quite a bit. This in turn undermines the solidity of the resulting form.

Another point I did want to mention was that your solid black areas should be reserved almost exclusively for surfaces that receive cast shadows. The only exception would probably be the interior of the vehicle, when seen from outside. In your cab-over truck, you used the solid black shapes to colour in the windows, and also to apply what effectively is form shading to the wheels. Remember that cast shadows are specifically where a form casts a shadow onto the surface of another form. If the form in question is the one being filled in, then you're confusing it with form shading, which as explained back in Lesson 2 should not be included in these lessons' drawings. This diagram can help you distinguish the difference between form shading (on the left) and cast shadows (on the right).

Looking at a lot of your later drawings, I think that what gets most in the way is a matter of patience. The cars especially are extremely time consuming. Even when drawing the mustang demo myself - and I understandably have a good deal of experience already - it took me upwards of two hours to complete the whole thing. Often times when students feel something is taking too long, they'll start skipping steps. They'll observe their reference a little less carefully. They'll avoid features and details that could be constructed, but would end up demanding even more of them. And as a result, the cars come out feeling somewhat half-baked.

Now, I still believe that what impacted your cars most negatively was the need to freehand-trace everything for whatever reason - and as I said before, that was a bad call. I'm seeing fairly limited use of the ghosting method in those freehanded lines (a lot of lines that waver quite a bit, and a number of places where you've got back over them multiple times). But as far as the proportions go, those were determined ahead of time with the subdivisions and such you'd laid out. What I'm not seeing on your pages however - though they may well simply not have been included in this submission - are the kinds of orthographic proportional studies you see in the camaro demo. I also do something similar with the mustang demo, though more directly on top of my reference image.

Taking the time to pin down the specific proportions is quite important. Another element that you may want to try in the future is pushing the vanishing points a little farther away to make the foreshortening somewhat less dramatic, and lead to less distortion overall. And lastly, of course, taking more time to study your reference more carefully, and making a point to continually look back at your reference over and over is critical. There are a lot of really deviations between your reference and your drawings that you've missed. It's understandable, as you're being faced with a lot of visual information here, but the only way to approach that is to steady your mind, and to really take your time. The drawings in this last lesson can legitimately take several hours each, so don't be afraid to really invest your time. You can even split them up over multiple sittings if necessary.

It is worth mentioning that while the back of the mustang you drew got really stretched out, I feel the construction of the front with its headlights, grill, hood, etc. was really well done. The sense of solidity there is remarkable.

So, here's what I'd like you to do. I'd like to see 2 drawings of cars. One of them should be an old style car like a model T or something similar like this one, but make sure you get a much higher resolution image to work from. The other one can be something of your choosing.

Do not trace over your lines freehand. Use rulers, ellipse guides, etc. wherever possible so you can focus purely on where the lines need to go instead of whether or not you can get them there on your own. And of course, try to identify the proper proportions of your cars beforehand. Use multiple reference images if necessary to give yourself all the information you need.

Also, set the fineliners/brush pens aside. Use only a ballpoint pen. And of course, take your time. Based on when you submitted your wheel challenge work (May 1st), you've barely given yourself two full weeks to complete this lesson. Given just how much time each individual drawing can take, in combination with the 50% rule from Lesson 0, I find it hard to imagine you gave each drawing as much time as you could have.

Next Steps:

2 more car drawings, as mentioned above.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
11:04 PM, Sunday May 17th 2020

Thanks for the correction.

I went to revise my submission and realized, that i was indeed doing the clean-up pass. I didn't notice earlier, and I will be more careful. Also, being patience was actually a problem, I end up rushing the end on most drawing. I try to end the drawing in one go, so when i'm 40 min i start to rush since I'm tired. I will try to change that.

Also, at the start of the drawing, I tend to use rulers, ellipse guides (unless the ellipse is big, since it doesn't fit), but as you said, i end up cleaning-up free handing.

On a side note, I really like the way you teach and your methodology. The 50-50 rule mentioned in lesson 0 shocked me when I first saw it. I really found it really good, so good that I even applied it in my work as a basketball coach. From time to time i go back and revise that lesson to don't forget the keys of my methodology.

So I've been following the 50-50 rule and the warm ups. But, I really wanted to move forward and improve, so this month I've been grinding like 2-3 hours everyday, which was more less 2 wheels or 1 vehicule a day, to fit the 15 days limits, along side the daily dose of cute anime girls to enjoy drawing. I will take things with more calm and dedicate every drawing the time it deserves.

I'm really glad i found Drawabox, you are doing a great job, thank you so much!

Moving on those 2 cars!

11:35 AM, Wednesday May 20th 2020

The 2 cars requested. Link: https://imgur.com/a/nCwrWsP

I made a constructional analisys of those and all the previous vehicles, but during the drawing I take notes and scribble over it, so usually I discard them. I couldn't find the one I used on the Model T.

I tried to follow all your advices, specially about free handing. I also feel that I fell short expanding my VP and overall I'm not happy with how the Hyundai came out. Not filling the inside of the car with black was a decision made to not lose focus on construction.

Anynway, i did really put time on those to drawing, and I'm starting to confortable drawing for long periods and taking breaks.

5:17 PM, Wednesday May 20th 2020

This is a huge improvement - both technically and in terms of your patience and the conscientiousness with which you've approached the drawings. I am especially pleased with the Model T. The only significant issue there that stood out to me was that the wheel wells definitely felt as though they were placed lower, and closer to the wheels than they should have been. Also, the wheels themselves were probably a touch wider than they ought to have been - the wheels on the model T are much more like bicycle wheels, with tires that are narrower and more rounded. Still, overall very well done.

I agree that your Hyundai wasn't as strong, but it still showed a considerable improvement over your previous drawings, and as a whole still demonstrated a great deal of care and attention to every step of construction. Funnily enough, the relationship between the wheel-well and the wheels stood out here too, though instead of the spacing being too tight (it actually is quite tight in your reference), I think it's more the relationship between the wheel itself (its rims) and the tire that make it all feel very cramped. The rims should have probably been smaller, giving more room for the tires.

One last thing in both of these - you still have a tendency to overdo those filled black shapes in the wheel areas. Remember that it's not about fillng voids - it's about determining how the shadows of one form would fall upon another surface, and maintaining a consistent implied light source.

The Model T's cast shadows were better, though you should not have filled the inside of the wheel wells (that's form shading as discussed in my previous critique). In the Hyundai, the cast shadows falling upon the wheel don't match the light source angle of the shadow cast by the passenger side mirror. You'd be hard pressed to find cast shadows on the face of the wheel, aside from maybe right up at its top.

Anyway! All in all your work is still looking great, and you're showing an overall strong grasp of the material covered in the lesson. I'll happily mark this lesson - and with it, all of the required lessons of Drawabox - complete. Congratulations!

You can move onto the 100 treasure chest challenge if you like, but that is entirely optional. From this point on, you are considered a Drawabox Completionist.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
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