250 Box Challenge

7:20 PM, Monday July 5th 2021

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The first Link only leads to boxes 1-156 and the next to 156-250 boxes

Unfortunately Imgur was acting up and would only let me post it like this.

First part https://imgur.com/a/R0FjoRK

Second part https://imgur.com/a/15HkeDt

The entire challenge was done with fineliners, although the first part with a 0.3 which was all I had available, and then I got some Microns for the rest of the challenge.

Any feedback is really appreciated! Thanks in advance for anyone who looks over my work

2 users agree
8:36 PM, Monday July 5th 2021

Hi there! I'll be reviewing your boxes today;

Overall these boxes look decent; you've been extending your lines in the correct directions, you've been attempting to find the appropriate vanishing points (instead of just drawing them parallel without much thought for convergence as some students do), and you're able to get selections of three (and occassionally 4) lines to converge mostly correct with a decent degree of accuracy in the later boxes.

Two things I'd like to point out however;

In the later boxes in the excercise I see a preference for dramatically foreshortened boxes (presumably because it's easier to visually see the vanishing points as they're close to the box's lines as you draw them). The frequency of these dramatically foreshortened boxes gradually picks up until the vast majority of boxes in your second part seem to be dramatically foreshortened.

I point it out as a word of caution, as focusing too heavily on these types of boxes may A. stunt your ability to draw lightly foreshortened boxes (which are extremely important.), and perhaps B. stunt your improvement overall, as since you can see where the VP is going to be, you develop a reliance on measuring and plotting out VP's instead of intuitively understanding where they should be.

It's probably not a huge issue, but I'd like to make mention if it regardless just so you don't end up neglecting shallow foreshortening.

The other point of note is that you seem to consistently have a single corner line veer off dramatically compared to the other three in the box. Of all the types of errors in your convergences (just getting them wrong primarily, nothing outwardly concerning), this is the most common one I see. This is often the result of accumulative mistakes in each line, causing the final line to be significantly inaccurate. This can be a difficult error to overcome as it requires you to understand the convergences as a whole set, instead of pieced together pair by pair (or in other fragmented ways).

This approach may help you here: https://imgur.com/a/DHlA3Jh

One last note on lineweight is that you should be applying it to all of the outer lines in the box as so: https://drawabox.com/lesson/250boxes/1/lineweight

Note this to be the exterior lines, not nessecarily the front facing lines. You're emphasising the silhouette here, not communicating the direction of the box, that's what the hatching is for.

Next Steps:

You're doing pretty well all things considered, you're on the right track here.

Try to pay more attention to shallow foreshortening, and try to think of the boxes as full sets of 4 when you draw out each line. This may be difficult to do at first, so be kind to yourself.

Move on to Lesson 2 now

See you there

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
1:31 AM, Tuesday July 6th 2021

Thank you very much for your critique, I didn't even realize that I was focusing too much on dramatic foreshortening, I thought I had a pretty good variation of boxes, but you're right, a lot of my VPs are inside the page, which makes it easier to ghost towards them and/or guess where the lines will go.

I'll make sure to try in future warm ups boxes with very shallow foreshortening to make up for this.

And thank you for the reminder on lineweight, I did try to apply it for a part of my first 150 boxes or so, but the extremely fine tip just made it look like I was trying to correct mistakes if I didn't apply it correctly. I think the frustration due to this might have led me to neglect lineweight later on even when I had the proper pen size, which I shouldn't have done regardless of previous experiences.

I'll keep practicing boxes in my warm ups ( for my poor, tortured soul's dismay ) applying the advice you've given me. Once again, thank you very much for your critique!

2:04 AM, Tuesday July 6th 2021

No worries. Best of luck on your art journey.

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