Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

6:16 PM, Tuesday February 1st 2022

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I seem to have lost the original versions of my 'ellipsis in planes' and 'funnels' homework assignments, dug up my entire room and couldn't seem to find them.

I did redo these exercises the day after I originally did them as warm-up exercises, though, which is what I have included here. The pages unfortunately aren't quite as full as the originals, but hopefully these will be accepted, as redoing them now feels a bit disingenuous.

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9:09 AM, Thursday February 3rd 2022

Welcome to drawabox! That’s not a problem at all – in fact, it was the correct decision. Let’s take a look at them, then.

Starting with your superimposed lines, these are looking solid. They’re smooth, properly lined up at the start, and generally of a consistent trajectory. This isn’t always the case – you tend to lose the long ones halfway through (so I’ll recommend you make sure that you’re not drawing these with your elbow) – but it’s not a huge issue, either way. That said, do make an effort to draw some arcing ones, too, throughout your warmups. The ghosted lines/planes look solid, but their start/end points are a little too big – I’m pleased to see that you’ve fixed this down the line. By the way, your planes are missing their non-diagonal center lines. Always check your page against the example homework; then, if there’s any mistakes, you can fix them during the second.

The table of ellipses exercise looks mostly good, though I expect that you could push their confidence a little further, if you tried. There’s still a bit too much focus on accuracy, in other words. Also, you’ve quite a few instances of ellipses floating inside of the frame – to put it another way, not all of your ellipses touch all available sides of the frame, as they should (see page 1, row 2, column 2). You’ll recall our recommendation that they all have a clear goal. The ellipses in planes look good, if at times drawn through a little much. Remember that the recommendation is 2-3 times; ideally, 2. Save for that, the funnels look quite good, also. They’re occasionally a little uneven, so you do need to continue pushing in the direction of confidence, but for the most part they’re snug, and properly cut in half.

The plotted perspective exercise looks clean.

The rough perspective exercise starts off a little rough, but shows some solid improvement throughout the set. The last frame, in particular, is really well done, as far as its convergences go. Don’t be disheartened if you do make mistakes, however; the further you are from the VP, the more difficult it is to calculate the convergence.

Solid attempt at the rotated boxes exercise. The last layer is a little thin, but I suppose you had no choice but to commit to it, at that point. As for the boxes themselves, they’re snug, and properly rotating, though they do face the expected issues near the back. No worries, though, the box challenge will iron those out, and more.

Finally, the organic perspective exercise looks good. You’ve kept the foreshortening of your boxes consistently narrow, and, coupled with their increase in size, that does a solid job of conveying their flow.

Next Steps:

I’ll mark this lesson as complete, so you may head on over to the box challenge. Good luck!

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
1:29 PM, Thursday February 3rd 2022

Thank you so much for the detailed review!

I will make sure to continue practicing the areas that you have mentioned as warm-up exercises while I work my way through the 250 Box Challenge :D

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