View Full Submission View Parent Comment
11:25 PM, Friday June 17th 2022

Leaves:

  • I can see that you're building up your edge detail with individual segments now, although you need to take a lot more care in the execution of these marks. As we build up these edge details, each stroke is essentially an extension of the leaf's silhouette. If however those marks are drawn quickly, we can end up with situations where our marks overshoot beyond the edge of the leaf's silhouette (as we see here), or where we end up with little gaps, which undermine the solidity of that structure. I get that there are a lot of little bumps you're adding here, but you still need to take as much care as you can with each stroke you draw. Having more to draw doesn't mean we can rush individual marks.

  • The more complex leaf you attempted on the far right is incorrect - you jumped too far in complexity at your first step, as explained here. There's actually a demo for this kind of leaf in the informal demos page which you can check out as well, you'll find it here.

Branches:

Unfortunately you are still not following the instructions I specifically pointed you to previously. Each segment is extended halfway to the next ellipse (which you are now doing), but each segment also starts at the previous ellipse, NOT where the last edge stopped. As I explained in my previous feedback, this is to achieve a healthy overlap between the segments, to help create a smoother, more seamless transition from segment to segment. You still have no overlap.

Plant Constructions:

I have a few concrete tips here, but like what I mentioned in regards to your edge detail in the leaves exercise, you are rushing your linework and need to slow down. While we still need to execute each mark confidently, you need to be investing your time into the planning and preparation phase for each individual stroke, making use of the ghosting method as described in Lesson 1.

Additionally:

  • When constructing any cylindrical flower pots, be sure to build them around a central minor axis line, to help you in aligning those ellipses.

  • Use the ghosting method when drawing any and all of your ellipses, and be sure to draw through them two full times before lifting your pen. Right now you're inconsistent with this.

  • Include as many ellipses as you need to flesh out the entirety of a given flower pot structure - at minimum that's going to include another ellipse inset within the opening to establish the thickness of the rim, and another to establish the level of the soil.

I think you are falling far short of what you are capable of, because you're not giving yourself enough time to tackle the work to the best of your ability. Furthermore, remember that the exercises from previous lessons are to be done as part of a regular warmup routine, so you can keep those skills sharp and keep developing them as you move forwards - based on the linework here, and perhaps in part because of the month and a half that has passed since you received your initial critique and your submission of these revisions, I suspect you may have allowed things to backslide somewhat. It is unfortunately common for students not to keep up their warmups when they're forced to take breaks from the material.

I'd like you to do the same revisions again.

Next Steps:

Please complete the same revisions I assigned previously. Give yourself as much time as you need for each form you construct, every shape you draw, and every mark you execute, using the ghosting method as discussed in Lesson 1.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
6:13 AM, Monday June 27th 2022
5:41 PM, Friday July 1st 2022

These are coming along quite well - just don't forget the degree shift in regards to the ellipses in your cylindrical structures (like branches). If you're unsure of what I mean, you can review the Lesson 1 ellipses video. This is an issue I mentioned in my original critique and in your first round of revisions.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

2:01 AM, Tuesday August 2nd 2022

Woops, looks like I forgot to toggle the "Mark as Complete" option. Doing it now so as to mark this lesson as complete, then I'm going to go into the database and manually change your L4 submission to the correct lesson, and handle the critique.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
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.
PureRef

PureRef

This is another one of those things that aren't sold through Amazon, so I don't get a commission on it - but it's just too good to leave out. PureRef is a fantastic piece of software that is both Windows and Mac compatible. It's used for collecting reference and compiling them into a moodboard. You can move them around freely, have them automatically arranged, zoom in/out and even scale/flip/rotate images as you please. If needed, you can also add little text notes.

When starting on a project, I'll often open it up and start dragging reference images off the internet onto the board. When I'm done, I'll save out a '.pur' file, which embeds all the images. They can get pretty big, but are way more convenient than hauling around folders full of separate images.

Did I mention you can get it for free? The developer allows you to pay whatever amount you want for it. They recommend $5, but they'll allow you to take it for nothing. Really though, with software this versatile and polished, you really should throw them a few bucks if you pick it up. It's more than worth it.

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