View Full Submission View Parent Comment
10:57 PM, Thursday July 8th 2021

Unfortunately I feel there are definitely some areas where you may not have fully understood my feedback, so I'm seeing a lot of similar issues coming up here. Perhaps you read through my critique when you initially received it, but then sat down to work at the revisions on a separate occasion - if that's the case, it's very important that you read the critique again and ensure that my feedback is fresh in your mind. Otherwise you're liable to just repeat the same mistakes, working off what you remember, rather than the actual specific issues I raised.

Starting with your organic forms with contour lines:

  • Your ellipses are a little uneven at times - this usually suggests that the student is drawing them more from their elbow or wrist, rather than their shoulder. Make sure you're engaging your whole arm while drawing, and employing the ghosting method to ensure a confident execution following proper preparation and planning.

  • You still tend to be drawing contour lines that are roughly the same degree throughout the length of your sausage forms. There is some variation on occasion but it seems more arbitrary and unintentional, rather than a sign that you understand the concepts explained in the lesson 1 ellipses video I linked you to previously.

You've got varying success at sticking to the characteristics of simple sausages (I meant to link this before, but forgot to include the URL - my apologies), but I noticed a few where one end was definitely notably larger than the other, and in general, keep working on keeping the ends circular in shape rather than stretching them out.

Moving onto your constructions, the main thing I'm looking for here is the point about avoiding altering the silhouette of forms that have already been constructed, or building upon your construction with flat or partial shapes. I can see that you're trying to fix this issue, but there are key ways you may not realize are breaking this rule.

Most notably, take a look at the wasp drawing, as it's a good example of an issue that comes up often. You've visibly drawn those initial masses to be much lighter, and then went back over them with darker lines. This act of tracing back over an existing form's silhouette is inevitably going to add little irregularities, because as you trace, your hand will wobble and hesitate, creating little bumps. This adds to the complexity of the existing silhouette - in effect, you're altering that silhouette even if you don't intend to.

Every single form you construct should be drawn to be a solid mass. Do not trace back over your construction, because that will flatten it out as it has done here.

Then there are areas where you've added partial shapes as shown here. Everything needs to be its own complete form.

There are definitely areas where you've shown a clear effort to improve these kinds of mistakes, of course - like in the wasp's head construction, you've obviously tried to attach the front of the head as its own separate form. That is indeed a move in the right direction.

When it comes to the segmentation along the insects' bodies - like the wasp's abdomen - I do generally think it's okay to approach it as you have, as long as you are confident in your ability to really wrap those structures around the existing abdominal form. In your case, however, I think it's best for you to actually construct those segments as complete forms as well, as you'll see in this shrimp demo. There I allowed them to overlap one another in order to better understand how they all interact with one another in space.

I think it might be best for you to take another swing at those revisions - the 1 page of organic forms with contour curves, and 3 pages of insect constructions. I am however going to add a couple things to that set of revisions in order to perhaps improve your overall changes of understanding how to approach these drawings best. You'll find them assigned below.

Next Steps:

Please complete the following:

  • 1 page of organic forms with contour curves - pay special attention to the degree of each contour curve.

  • Draw along with the lobster construction demo.

  • Draw along with the shrimp construction demo.

  • 3 additional insect constructions. Try to apply what you learned from the process of the lobster and shrimp demos - specifically how every single form we draw is constructed to be solid and believable, individually. We're not just putting down a bunch of lines on the page that will eventually become something complex and interesting. Every step has its own individual goals. To create a solid ball form, to create a solid sausage form, etc. Take your time and focus only on what you're doing at that moment - don't think ahead.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
7:15 AM, Friday July 9th 2021

Hi! The reason why I traced back over the silhoutte was to add line weight. Does this mean that I shouldn't be adding line weight, or at least very little?

Also, what constitutes something as its own complete, separate form? You said I added partial shapes. Are those shapes in the wasp diagram around the abdomen and thorax not their own complete and separate form?

5:36 PM, Friday July 9th 2021

Line weight as a tool, like many others we use throughout this course, and the best way to consider it is to use it towards a specific, consistent purpose. Line weight is quite effective in helping the viewer understand how different forms overlap one another, especially as we're drawing through them which can result in some confusing visuals to parse.

So, when it comes to line weight, reserve your line weight to specific, localized areas, where those overlaps actually occur. Execute it with confidence (using the ghosting method) - this will help the ends of your segments taper a little more, and blend a bit more seamlessly into the existing linework. The main thing you want to avoid is trying to add line weight all over, and doing so with a slow, hesitant stroke. Tracing like this tends to focus way too much on how the line you're following runs along the flat page, rather than how it represents an edge that moves through three dimensions. Hesitating will also make your lines more wobbly.

Here's an example of line weight being used in this more limited, but more effective fashion.

There are two things that constitute a shape as its own complete form. The easiest is just keeping your form's silhouette fully enclosed, with its own outline - meaning, don't use existing lines to close it off, it should stand on its own with new edges.

When it comes to creating the segmentation along the abdomen of your wasp, or other similar situations, you can get away with just drawing partial shapes here (where one cuts off the other where they overlap) primarily because they're relatively simple and just wrap around the existing structure in one direction, but as you can see in the shrimp demonstration, you can also draw them in their entirety. I think you should be drawing them as fully enclosed forms for now, just so you can stick to a more consistent set of rules as you develop your understanding of this concept.

The second thing is that in order for a form to read as being three dimensional, when it's added to an existing construction, we have to define how it relates to that existing structure. That means either defining how it intersects with the existing structures (like with one of the contour lines from the form intersection exercise, which define the intersection itself between two complete forms), or by designing the silhouette of a form such that it actually wraps around the existing structure, as shown here.

7:31 AM, Tuesday August 3rd 2021

Here is my second revision: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hmg_XJLtwq1k7bcJpCzs-32er8c8zGf2/view?usp=sharing

Thanks again for your feedback. Ill redo this as many times as necessary until I get it right. I also realized for the contour curves that I cusp the ending lines pretty terribly since they dont really align well with the entire shape. I can redo those if you think I should.

6:22 PM, Tuesday August 3rd 2021

Your insect constructions certainly are moving more in the right direction. While there is still plenty of room for improvement and growth, it's very clear that you're trying to apply the points I raised, and that you're thinking much more about how the forms you add to the construction exist in 3D space, and how they wrap around the existing structure.

One thing I noticed when it comes to the leg constructions was that you didn't appear to make use of the techniques I shared with you from this demonstration, which I used extensively in the ant leg demo. You may want to take another look at those.

Looking at your organic forms with contour curves though, while you're definitely trying to shift the degree of your contour lines, you're doing it in the wrong direction. As we slide away from the viewer, the contour curves should be getting wider, not narrower. There are a few where you do this correctly, but you're pretty inconsistent, and I think you have the shift reversed more often than not. As I mentioned before, this concept is explained in the lesson 1 ellipses video.

While I am satisfied that the insect construction work is progressing in the right direction (though of course, you'll continue working on applying these concepts into the next lesson and in your own practice), I do want to make sure that you can handle these organic forms with contour curves correctly. I'll assign a couple additional pages of them below.

Next Steps:

Please submit 2 more pages of organic forms with contour curves.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
9:20 PM, Wednesday August 4th 2021

Hi! Thanks for the feedback. I am confused on how we know when a form is sliding away from the viewer? If we are the ones constructing a form (essentially the illusion) on 2D paper, then can't any side of an organic form face the viewer?

Also, if I make an organic form and it is facing the viewer but turns around in space, then can't the organic form have a wide contour curve and then as it turns have a narrower one? Like for example a half donut? Both ends will have wide contours, but the middle would be narrow since that is the point where it turns.

View more comments in this thread
11:29 PM, Saturday August 7th 2021

Thanks for the feedback! Your apartment flooded?! I am sorry. I hope youre doing okay. Your content is still really amazing even if some of it is outdated. Anyways, here is my third revision. I tried setting the viewer to directly look at the contour ellipse at the pole. I understand what you mean now by varying degrees:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jredKnjht_RVhJ_YXPTlUZ2FUj1xcvx1/view?usp=sharing

View more comments in this thread
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.
Cottonwood Arts Sketchbooks

Cottonwood Arts Sketchbooks

These are my favourite sketchbooks, hands down. Move aside Moleskine, you overpriced gimmick. These sketchbooks are made by entertainment industry professionals down in Los Angeles, with concept artists in mind. They have a wide variety of sketchbooks, such as toned sketchbooks that let you work both towards light and towards dark values, as well as books where every second sheet is a semitransparent vellum.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.