Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

4:12 AM, Monday February 10th 2025

Lesson #1 - Submission [1] - Album on Imgur

Imgur: https://imgur.com/a/lesson-1-submission-1-Nv1Hv6D

Discover the magic of the internet at Imgur, a community powered enterta...

Hi! Thxx so much for looking over my work!! I've never used imgur before so I'm really sorry if I didn't upload that properly or something. I found the process of completing lesson one challenging, but rewarding too. I guess I'm eager to hear ur thoughts!

Here's the imgur link again in case I screwed up above: https://imgur.com/a/lesson-1-submission-1-Nv1Hv6D

Thanks again!!!

7:20 AM, Tuesday February 11th 2025

It was fine above, no stress! Let’s take this one exercise at a time, then~

Starting with your superimposed lines, these look great! They’re smooth, properly lined up at the start, and of a consistent trajectory (even the longer ones!) Your arcing lines are solid, also, though they’d be easier on your shoulder if they were a little bigger. Don’t worry about taking too much space, in cases like this! – so long as you fill the 2 pages, we’re satisfied. The ghosted lines/planes are quite confident, also, but your start/end points here are too big. Remember that the idea is for a perfect line to be able to swallow them both. Them being as big as they are, however, has shows me that you haven’t actually plotted any for the non-diagonal center lines of your planes! Remember that all of your marks need start/end points (because to draw a mark, you need to ghost between them!) It’s a small thing however, you’re looking solid otherwise!

The table of ellipses exercise is looking good. You’ve got a very light hand, a good variety of shapes and sizes, and all of your ellipses are smooth, rounded, and properly drawn through. I’d stick to 2 rotations moving forward – easier to see your own mistakes, like that. The ellipses in planes, too, are nicely done. This is quite the accomplishment considering how ambitious some of these frames are – you’ve done well! In some cases, however, you’ve had to draw through them about a thousand times more than instructed, so I suppose that’s part of it. Generally, we want our number of rotations to be set. Not ‘few if I get it right, more if I get it wrong’, but rather something that you decide on ahead of time. I don’t see the funnels exercise…

The plotted perspective exercise starts the box section off well. Your boxes here are well constructed, and their back lines properly drawn. The rough perspective exercise is a little mixed. Your convergences here are nicely done – they start off strong and show some good improvement throughout the set. The linework, however, is a little hairy. Normally I’d think that this is lineweight, but given how inconsistent it is (some boxes don’t have any!), I doubt it. Could it be that your pen was running out? Either way, you’re not meant to draw a line more than once. Even if – especially if! – it comes out wrong. We call that automatic reinforcing, and discourage it, because all it does is draw attention to your mistakes. The rotated boxes exercise is small (in an exercise with so many lines, in particular, we want to draw big to be able to tell what’s going on), but nicely done. Your boxes here are snug, and they do a good job of rotating both up front and in the back. Linework is as before, but we’ve discussed that so I won’t bring it up in every exercise :P Finally, save for you-know-what, the organic perspective exercise looks great. You’ve got a good number of boxes, and a great variety of them too. They’re all well constructed (I see those unused points on the page!, I see them and nod my head to them!), and flow well as a result of their increase in size – even extreme size! – and consistent, shallow foreshortening. Great work here.

Next Steps:

Consider this lesson complete, and feel free to move on to the box challenge. GL!

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
8:30 PM, Wednesday February 12th 2025

Thank you so much! I'm so sorry about the funnels exercise! I totally completed it but when I was having some trouble with the imgur upload I believe I accidentally deleted it before my final submission. Should I upload it as I turn in the 250 box challenge?

Anyway I also super appreciate your detailed critique its honestly a huge help to hear what I'm doing right and what needs improvement. I'll keep an eye on my linework, my points, and the way I draw ellipses going forward. Thank you so so much!!

6:16 PM, Thursday February 13th 2025

No, if Benj didn't assign any revisions asking for you to include it, then you needn't worry about it.

Below this point is mostly ads. Indie projects, and tool/course recommendations from us.
This section is reserved for low-cost advertising space for art related indie projects.
With how saturated the market is, it is tough for such projects to get eyes on their work.
By providing this section, we hope to help with that.
If you'd like to advertise here, you can do so through comicad.net
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 we've used ourselves, or know to be of impeccable quality. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Sketching: The Basics

Sketching: The Basics

A lot of folks have heard about Scott Robertson's "How to Draw" - it's basically a classic at this point, and deservedly so. It's also a book that a lot of people struggle with, for the simple reason that they expect it to be a manual or a lesson plan explaining, well... how to draw. It's a reasonable assumption, but I've found that book to be more of a reference book - like an encyclopedia for perspective problems, more useful to people who already have a good basis in perspective.

Sketching: The Basics is a far better choice for beginners. It's more digestible, and while it introduces a lot of similar concepts, it does so in a manner more suited to those earlier in their studies.

We use cookies in conjunction with Google Analytics to anonymously track how our website is used.

This data is not shared with any other parties or sold to anyone. They are also disabled until consent is provided by clicking the button below, and this consent can be revoked at any time by clicking the "Revoke Analytics Cookie Consent" link in our website footer.

You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.