Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction

4:44 AM, Wednesday January 24th 2024

Lesson 2 - Google Drive

Lesson 2 - Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Z47fRc89SrnRtZC98oFuQvtElVB6HYyv?usp=sharing

Some notes:

  1. I accidentally started the Dissections exercise before I took a picture of the Organic Forms exercises, so I had to re-do one of them. This is why the Organic Forms with Contour Ellipses doesn't match its Dissections exercise.

  2. I don't have a brush pen, so by the time I was doing the Form Intersections exercise, my fineliner was low on ink and would not show up properly. This led to a few repeated lines in the Form Intersections exercises (I got another fineliner for the Organic Intersections).

Thanks in advance for the critique.

2 users agree
12:24 AM, Tuesday March 12th 2024
edited at 12:16 PM, Mar 12th 2024

Hello Dargonfyl, I’ll be critiquing your submission today; if you have any questions, feel free to ask below. With that said, I’ll go ahead and review your submission.

Organic Arrows

Your lines prove to be smooth and consistent within both pages, and the principles of mark-making from lesson 1 are adhered to properly. The direction of compression on your arrows is clear; the width of the arrows gets smaller as they grow further away, which conveys proper perspective. However, I would like to point out that the width of the arrow sometimes becomes uneven near the end points, pulling away from the illusion of depth. From personal experience, transitioning the depth smoothly is quite difficult, so I would suggest rearranging up the steps so it's a little more comfortable when matching the first curve. In the future, some line weight could also be applied to the overlapping sections to help clarify which parts are in front.

Organic Forms with Contour Lines

Starting on your forms, sausages clearly show the intent of a tube with two spheres on opposing ends, but they still have some bulging or pinching at the ends. Try to aim for the width of sausages to remain consistent throughout the entire length and to round off the ends as much as you can.

Ellipses on sausages are clearly drawn through at least 2-3 times, and the degree shift is correctly made relative to the viewer. Just be careful when placing the small ellipses that represent which side of the sausage is facing the viewer. Ellipses made within the sausage contradict the poles on the ends.

Contour lines made on sausages are well made here; degree shift is still properly applied when possible, as well as hooking over the form. But the stiffness on a few of the contour lines makes the roundness of the form appear less convincing. It's entirely fine to slightly overshoot the sausage in the attempt to draw the curve, but smooth lines should be a first priority.

Texture Analysis & Dissections

Overall, you seem to have done a great job translating only the cast shadows from the source image. Maybe the dark gradient for the bark could have been pushed a bit farther, but aside from that nitpick, I don’t see any major issues.

Once again, no glaring mistakes here, but I think one issue that's being raised is that the transition from the cast shadow is quite sudden. A couple examples that jump out the most are the cattail, orange, and coin textures. Inherently, it makes sense for a relatively smooth texture to encompass a large form shadow, but it also becomes that much harder to communicate the texture itself. All I can really recommend here is to enlarge the reference photos and closely observe how cast shadows affect the smaller forms. By gaining a deeper understanding of the texture, it's easier to gradually transition from dense to sparse knowing how it will interact as it draws closer to the light source.

Form Intersections

As stated in the lesson, the main goal of this exercise is to create a page on which the forms appear to exist in the same space. The foreshortening was handled well, and all forms seem to follow the same convergence rate. Nice work.

Organic Intersections

Forms drawn look consistent, and the usage of contour lines appropriately describes the 3D aspect. But the structure of a few forms gives away the illusion that they could balance on top of each other. For instance, in the small pile on the first page, one end appears to stiffen in the air rather than wrap around the sausage below. If we think of these forms as water balloons, it's much easier to judge how the masses will behave against one another. Cast shadows are also done appropriately.

All in all, I think you understand the Lesson 2 concepts well, so I’ll go ahead and send you off to Lesson 3. Keep up the good work.

Next Steps:

Remember to take these exercises into your warm-ups (10–15 minutes), and you can move on towards Lesson 3. Good Luck!

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 12:16 PM, Mar 12th 2024
1:58 AM, Wednesday March 13th 2024

Thanks for taking the time to write a critique, I really appreciate it. I'll definitely incorporate some of these exercises into my warm-ups.

0 users agree
12:37 AM, Tuesday March 12th 2024
edited at 12:13 PM, Mar 12th 2024

.

Next Steps:

Remember to take these exercises into your warm-ups (10–15 minutes), and you can move on towards Lesson 3. Good Luck!

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete. In order for the student to receive their completion badge, this critique will need 2 agreements from other members of the community.
edited at 12:13 PM, Mar 12th 2024
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