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8:34 PM, Tuesday October 10th 2023

Hey Dio, thanks for great feedback again. Regarding the eyes having 5 side, I feel bad saying this, because you already gave me so much material to explain this, but I have to admit, I still struggle to comprehend it. The reason I gave some of these constructions 4 sided eye planes is because I thought it would work best for that specific reference. I can see on the finished pieces that that was not the case, since the ostriche head is probably that best construction and I used 5 sides for that one, so I don't necessarily need convincing that 4 sides don't work as well as 5, but I think it would help me see that in the reference better if you try to explain it again. Sorry if I'm being difficult, but you know how it is - if I don't ask now, it might grow to a bigger problem later :P.

P.S. This is completely unrelated and probably a question for the community, so you don't have to answer, but out of curiosity; I noticed something that seems strange to me and I was wondering if this is normal or maybe there is an obvious reason for it. When I was trying to redraw the same animals as I did before the feedback, but implementing the feedback you gave me, I found it almost impossible to do. All my attempts somehow came out way worse than the initial ones. Then I did some from new references and you saw that there was a noticeable improvement. I found it odd that I seemingly got worse when trying to work on same subjects, but when trying new ones, I felt like I could apply the methods much more easily and better. Is this something that others experience too, or am I freak? xD.

12:48 PM, Wednesday October 11th 2023
edited at 1:05 PM, Oct 11th 2023

Hello Scopov, no problem, I'd much rather you ask for clarification than walk away from the lesson confused.

I totally get where you're coming from. Having done some studies of human skulls, I'd agree that the eye sockets are fairly rectangular (for humans, at least, I can't speak for all the variety of animal skulls). Keep in mind that the construction methods we teach at Drawabox aren't necessarily anatomically correct, but are tools to help students develop their spatial reasoning skills.

The pentagonal eye sockets used in the informal head demo method aren't perhaps going to be something directly observed, but that pentagonal shape is really useful for wedging the base of the muzzle and forehead plane against. This is considerably more awkward with rectangular eye sockets as shown here. This is all part of the exercise Uncomfortable wants students to go through when constructing heads- transforming the round cranial ball into a series of planes. I hope that shows why the pentagonal shape is helpful, even though it may not be anatomically accurate.

As for your other question. I don't know if your attempts at redoing your constructions were objectively worse, but I can tell you from my own experiences that I often find redrawing the same reference frustrating as I feel like I should be able to learn from the first attempt and do better, which doesn't always happen. So I would say that your experiences are normal, though I'd encourage you to ask about it over on Discord to hear a wider variety of other students' experiences, and open up a discussion on why people think it happens.

edited at 1:05 PM, Oct 11th 2023
7:00 PM, Wednesday October 11th 2023

Ahh yes, this explanation does actually make sense. Looking at my less successful constructions with rectangular eye sockets, there was an awkward gap because of the shape of the muzzle and trying to fill it messed up a lot. That diagram is great, thanks! :D.

8:24 PM, Wednesday October 11th 2023

No problem at all, happy to hear that it makes sense now.

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