12:38 PM, Sunday December 31st 2023
Hello Eduardo, thank you for replying with your revisions.
"P.S.: Loved your cow abduction drawing!"
Thank you! It is great to see that you took some time away from your studies to participate in the promptathon.
General Approach
I do see the improvement in your observations here, particularly in your wolf construction. It is something you'll have to keep reminding yourself about, until it becomes a habit to observe the reference before each line you draw.
Using a dot to plan where you want a line or form to go (as introduced in the ghosted lines exercise) can be quite helpful, as having something on the page to aim for can make the ghosting process easier. However, you must still prioritise making a smooth, confident stroke first and foremost, which brings me to the next section.
Core Construction
Some of the larger ellipses for the rib cage and pelvis masses are quite deformed and I think this may be due to prioritising hitting the dots you've placed over executing a smooth ellipse. Deforming your ellipses undermines their solidity, so it is important to prioritise smoothness even if it means the ellipse doesn't quite come out as intended. Remember to engage your whole arm, and that you should rotate your page as needed.
In general, I feel you could stand to review my previous feedback more carefully, as I'm seeing the following:
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You're drawing the rib cage as a sphere, so it tends to be a little too short. We're aiming to have it occupy roughly half the torso length.
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The elephant has no neck construction, which was something I specifically corrected for you previously on this frog.
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You've pinched the middle of the torso sausage on the horse. The elephant and springbok are missing the slight sag in the torso sausage discussed in my previous feedback and in this section of the lesson intro page, which makes these constructions stiff.
Leg Construction
Most of your constructions are missing the shoulder and thigh masses.
Previously I gave you points for remembering them, and advised you to make them larger.
I'm happy to see that you've used ellipses to define how the legs connect to the body in 3D. Right now these connections are very small, and very low down on the body. It looks like you're treating these ellipses as holes to plug the leg into. Instead, think of them as large rounded masses that we use as a simplification of some of the bulky muscles in the shoulder and thigh area that allow the animal to walk. So for most quadrupeds they should be larger, and attached to the sides of the body.
I also demonstrated this on your springbok here.
The blue ellipses represent the large shoulder and thigh masses discussed earlier. The shoulder and thigh masses provide very helpful structures for anchoring additional masses to the construction. You can see this in action with the two additional masses on top of the back.
I would like you to construct shoulder and thigh masses, using ellipses as shown in my draw-over. You can find an additional explanation of this in the wolf demo in case you missed it. If something about this is confusing to you, let me know and I will find another way to explain it.
Your leg forms are getting closer to simple sausages, good work. There are cases where they are a little stiff, particularly where you allow them to continually swell through their midsection like an ellipse. Focus on keeping their width consistent along their length, and study your reference for opportunities to include a subtle curvature to your limb segments, even if it is not obvious.
The majority of your feet seem to be drawn using partial shapes. Remember we want to draw complete new forms with their own fully enclosed silhouettes wherever we build on our constructions.
Here are visual examples of the above points applied to your horse.
Additional Masses
I can see you've taken strides towards building your constructions in 3D by drawing complete forms to build on your constructions rather than working with individual lines (aside from the previously mentioned feet, and the neck of the elephant and wolf) so things are definitely heading in the right direction here.
When it comes to how we design these additional masses, I have a couple of points to bring up that should help you to reinforce the 3D illusion more effectively.
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There's a general tendency for some of your additional masses to have a very minimal overlap with the underlying structures, with the silhouette of the additional mass running almost parallel to that of the form it is attached to. This can make the form feel flimsily attached, like it might wobble off if the animal were to move. This is particularly prominent where you have a single mass running over a long distances, try keeping your masses more limited in scope, so each one can achieve a specific purpose. Think about how you might wrap the additional mass around the underlying structures to give it a firmer grip.
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Think back to this diagram I shared with you previously, how when masses first as they exist on their own, in the void, as a ball of soft meat. Here they have no complexity, being made up only of outward curves with no corners or inward curves to their silhouettes. This means that where your masses are exposed to fresh air they should remain simple. There are some places where you're pushing inward curves into your additional masses where they are exposed to fresh air and there is nothing present in the construction to cause such complexity. This unexplained complexity will make the masses appear flatter. I've pointed to one such example under the neck of the horse and made a diagram to show how if we need to build an inward curve with an additional mass, we can do it by layering multiple masses, allowing each one to stay simpler where it is exposed to fresh air.
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I'd also redrawn the long mass on top of the back, pulling it down from on top of the spine, around the sides of the body, and pressing it against the top of the thigh.
Head Construction
I'd like you to review the informal head demo and my previous explanation on the key points of this method.
On your elephant you've got the correct pentagonal shape for the eye socket, and on your wolf you've made an effort to wedge the base of the muzzle snugly against the eye sockets, but none of your constructions have both of these elements working together.
I've put together a rebuild of your horse head here.
1- Eye sockets are larger than what you'd used here. Pay attention to the pentagonal shape.
2- Drawing the footprint for the muzzle, the lines curve across the rounded surface of the cranial ball. Notice how it is wedged snugly against a full edge of the eye socket.
3- Next we extrude the muzzle, and start wedging other pieces against the eye sockets, such as the brow ridge/forehead area.
4- We keep building more complete forms to arrive at a construction that represents the animal we're drawing. Here I've added forms for the cheek, chin, eyeball, ears.
You can see the informal head demo being applied to an elephant construction here.
I discourage redoing your constructions several times, as indicated by your comment under the horse construction. Drawing more itself isn't a bad thing on its face, but it's about how it impacts the manner in which we engage with the work. You will always have more opportunities to practice these exercises in your warmups - the quantity we assign is not with the expectation of seeing growth and improvement over the set, but just to judge whether your understanding of what you're meant to be doing with the exercise is correct, or whether it requires clarification. Can't really judge that too well if you're spreading the time, energy, and effort you could have dedicated to a single construction over several attempts. To that end, I suggest you review this video which explains how to get the most out of Drawabox.
Conclusion I'm happy to see that some aspects of your constructions are being more carefully observed, and you're taking more of your actions "in 3D." There are however some fairly substantial points from my previous feedback which have not been applied here- such as shoulder/thigh masses and using the informal head demo method of head construction as requested. If there is something in the feedback provided that is unclear or confusing, you are allowed to ask for clarification. Otherwise, you may want to consider taking further measures to ensure that the feedback is applied. This may mean referring to the feedback more frequently, taking notes in your own words, a combination of the two, or something else entirely.
I will be assigning some further revisions below. I'd like you to continue to stick to only working on one construction on a given day, and making a note of the date(s) and time spent on each one.
Please complete the following:
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Draw along with the informal head demo following each step exactly as shown, as closely as you can.
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One stand-alone head construction of your choice, using the method shown in the informal head demo. You can use the rhino, elephant, and horse examples I have shared with you to help.
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Three additional pages of animal constructions.
Next Steps:
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Draw along with the informal head demo following each step exactly as shown, as closely as you can.
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One stand-alone head construction of your choice, using the method shown in the informal head demo. You can use the rhino, elephant, and horse examples I have shared with you to help.
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Three additional pages of animal constructions.