Hullo, thanks for taking a look at my submission! As I have completed lesson 2 before signing up for patreon, this is my second go on it. Anyway, I'm looking forward to anything I'm fine with and stuff I can improve on, thanks again.
Hi there I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.
You're making good progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson, below I'll be listing some things that will hopefully help you in your future attempts at these exercises.
Your arrows are off to a good start. There's a few spots where they don't flow as consistently as they could either because of your confidence wavering which creates some wobbling as well as some spots where the width of your arrows widens or narrows when they shouldn't. These are things that will improve with mileage however so I'm not overly concerned, just try to keep them in mind while you do this exercise again in the future and you should see improved results. Be sure to keep experimenting with foreshortening as well, remember that by utilizing it in both the arrow itself as well as the negative space in between curves of the arrows you'll create a stronger illusion of your arrows moving through 3D space as shown here.
In the organic forms with contours exercise you're close to keeping your forms simple, but do get a bit too complex at times. Remember that our goal in this exercise is to create forms where both ends are the same size as well as avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form's length as discussed here. Some of your contours are looking quite stiff and wobbly at times showing a lack of confidence, remember that confidence is ultimately our first goal and accuracy will come with time. There are some spots where you're trying to shift the degree of your contours but also spots where you fail to do so or could push it further. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.
In the texture exercises you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows created by forms along the texture itself. This makes it difficult to create gradients with implied information which we could then use to create focal points in more complex pieces, by doing so we can prevent our viewers from being visually overwhelmed with too much detail. For more on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here, I'd also like to quickly direct you to this image which shows that when we're working with thin line like textures if we outline and fill the shadow we will create a much more dynamic texture than simply drawing lines.
If you feel like you don't fully grasp form intersections just yet don't worry, you're on the right track but right now this exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page, we'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons. Your forms here are looking quite solid and like they belong in a single cohesive space, good job.
In the organic intersections exercise you show that your sense of 3D space is growing, but I have a few suggestions. Like in the earlier box exercises I'd like you to draw through all of your forms. I recommend this because like when we were working with boxes drawing through our forms helps us build up our understanding of the space we're working in faster. Your lines here do wobble quite a bit and part of that may be due to the fact you're trying to slow down so you don't draw through your established forms, so drawing through your forms may help in this regard as well. Finally I'd like to suggest experimenting with different lighting positions, your shadows aren't always consistent and this is a great exercise to build up your sense of light and shadow. I find that working with a light in the top left or right corner is much easier than directly above so you may want to start off with one of these positions before experimenting with others.
Overall this was a solid submission, you do have a few things to work on but I have no doubt you'll improve with more mileage. I'll be marking your submission complete and moving you on to the next lesson.
Keep doing previous exercises as warm ups and good luck in lesson 3!
Next Steps:
Do previous exercises as warm ups.
Move on to lesson 3.
Here we're getting into the subjective - Gerald Brom is one of my favourite artists (and a pretty fantastic novelist!). That said, if I recommended art books just for the beautiful images contained therein, my list of recommendations would be miles long.
The reason this book is close to my heart is because of its introduction, where Brom goes explains in detail just how he went from being an army brat to one of the most highly respected dark fantasy artists in the world today. I believe that one's work is flavoured by their life's experiences, and discovering the roots from which other artists hail can help give one perspective on their own beginnings, and perhaps their eventual destination as well.
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