250 Box Challenge
10:01 PM, Saturday February 8th 2020
my soul has broken.
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3:00 PM, Monday February 10th 2020
Oh no! I'm sorry, but we're not liable for broken souls. Only broken boxes. :(
But yours aren't broken - in fact, they're looking quite solid! Congrats getting through the whole challenge. It seems to have done you quite well!
At the beginning, your linework is somewhat feathery and wobbly but your mark-making at the end of the challenge appears smooth and confident - exactly what we like to see.
Likewise, your convergences improve quite a lot. They were already pretty good at the start, but as you moved towards the end of the challenge, the correction lines quickly became pretty consistent, with very few stray or diverging lines. Really nice work there.
A few small notes for future practice: try to give your boxes some breathing room on each page. I've noticed you're really packing them onto the page. This may have the effect of confusing your brain and giving you less space to learn where you make mistakes. Likewise, try to fight the urge to go back over a mistake with an additional mark. This actually has the effect of drawing the eye rather than covering up the mark.
Finally, we link these notes at the end of every challenge as a matter of course. They go over the angle of each line as they approach the box and how keeping an eye on this could improve your convergences. Also, considering each line in relation to the lines with which it shares a vanishing point rather than the lines with which it shares a plane or a corner could do the same.
Next Steps:
Really nice work here! Your boxes are looking solid and your mark-making improved quite a lot over the course of the challenge. I'm marking this as complete and sending you on to Lesson 2. Good luck!
8:01 PM, Monday February 10th 2020
Thank you for the feedback! Yes, towards the end when my soul broke I started to pack the boxes in, in an attempt to finish before madness set in. I want to draw some more boxes as warm ups now that I can move on to the next lesson.
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Sakura Pigma Microns
A lot of my students use these. The last time I used them was when I was in high school, and at the time I felt that they dried out pretty quickly, though I may have simply been mishandling them. As with all pens, make sure you're capping them when they're not in use, and try not to apply too much pressure. You really only need to be touching the page, not mashing your pen into it.
In terms of line weight, the sizes are pretty weird. 08 corresponds to 0.5mm, which is what I recommend for the drawabox lessons, whereas 05 corresponds to 0.45mm, which is pretty close and can also be used.