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10:55 PM, Tuesday June 30th 2020

Thank you for your comment!

I believe the point of using a pen is to visualize and think through each stroke before setting them down. I can achieve that with digital by forcing myself to not using ctrl + z or the eraser and I also turned off line smoothing. The principles should be the same.

Since my time is very limited, I don't have a functioning scanner (I guess I could use my phone) and I'm more interested in gaining better control and speed over my strokes with my cintiq I decided to jump right to digital.

I do appreciate you spending the time to comment. Thank you!

8:29 AM, Wednesday July 1st 2020

Hey Kioki,

I can appreciate that :)

I've put my critique below, hopefully it helps! Thanks for being patient.

1. Lines

  • It looks like you are plotting your lines for all of the exercises before drawing. Keep this up.

  • I can see you aren't repeating/correcting/redoing any lines. Keep this up.

  • Your lines do look wobbly in some places, but I'm not sure if this is a wobbly line or just as a result of this being digital (or maybe you don't have enough room to use your shoulder when using your tablet). Since I'm not able to tell, I'll just say some general advice: make sure you're drawing from your shoulder for every line, plot your line and ghost so that it ends up as confident and as straight as possible.

2. Ellipses

  • I see a bit of overlapping in your tables of ellipses, but mostly these look OK.

  • I think some of your ellipses aren't drawn through enough (see your ellipses in tables exercise). Draw through 2 times preferrably (like you've done in the ghosted planes with ellipses), practice this and you'll get really clean ellipses over time. See this example: https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/a76a8906.jpg

  • Your best ellipses in my opinion are in the ghosted planes with ellipses exercise.

  • Once again there's some obvious line wobble here. See your funnels exercise in particular (specifically the smaller ellipses in the center of the funnels). This usually comes down to confidently drawing from the shoulder.

3. Boxes

  • In rough perspective your width lines are parallel to horizon and height lines perpendicular to horizon. Keep this up.

  • On rotated boxes, you've drawn this quite small. I think this exercise would be a lot easier if you started a bit bigger, just something to keep in mind for the future. However, I can see you've drawn your corners close together and each box is rotating. Keep this up.

  • I think your organic perspective is really well done. You've obviously learnt a lot from lesson one. The perspective is good, and you'll get even better at this when you do the 250 box challenge!

Another comment not related to your exercises:

  • Next time try to rearrange your imgur photos in order of the exercises (it just makes it a bit easier for ctitiquers to go through).

Next Steps:

I suggest you move on to the 250 boxes challenge!

If I can make a suggestion for improvement, use the exercises from Lesson 1 as part of your warm ups (about 10-15 minutes). Particularly the ellipses exercises - I think you can improve at these.

Also, now that you’ve completed Lesson 1, I encourage you to critique some Lesson 1 community submissions if you're able to. This helps the community, but it also reinforces your understanding of the material. Of course, this is optional (but we’d be especially grateful!). If you’d like to give it a shot, see this guide (https://pastebin.com/dYnFt9PQ) that was created by one of our community members on how to go about critiquing Lesson 1.

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.
10:54 PM, Monday July 6th 2020

Thank you so much! Your critique is awesome and very well organized!

Next time I will make my post a little better organized. Thank you for still going through it.

Using a tablet is introducing some wobble but my posture isn't great. I'll work on that. I've already completed the 250 box challenge and comparing the first set and last set the wobbling is significantly less.

Ellipses are very difficult but I'll add them to my warm-ups to get better at them like you suggested.

I have a question, should I post the 250 box challenge here?

Thank you so much for your critique and time! :D

9:41 AM, Tuesday July 7th 2020

Hi Kioki,

No problem.

You can submit your 250 box challenge if you like. Just click submit homework for review here: https://drawabox.com/lesson/250boxes

Just keep in mind some critiquers may again point out the fact you are doing the exercises digitally (and so may not want to critique).

I'd say keep pushing ahead though. Your goal is to get more comfortable using your cintiq, so just use the exercises going forward as a way to do that.

Also don't forget the 50/50 rule and do some fun/non-drawabox art on your tablet as well :)

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 I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Staedtler Pigment Liners

Staedtler Pigment Liners

These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.

Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).

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