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Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

8:02 PM, Tuesday May 31st 2022

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Lesson 1 Complete!

Please Critique!

This isn't self critque, but i will say what i struggled on.

Personally i felt i struggled the most on the Perspective and boxes parts and honestly if i hadn't taken a few weeks to understand the basics of perspective before starting this course, i would have been completely lost. I feel like this lesson did not explain the basics of perspective well enough. In the video, indeed even on the web page the definitions of vanishing points and horizon lines etc, even defining what they were, was not said in the lesson. Its a bit dissapointing to see from a course which is adverstised as absolute beginner friendly.

I also feel like the videos and the animated diagram on the boxes portion of the lesson was not well presented or explained enough, for example on the rotated boxes exercise it was demonstrated on a digital canvas and so i had no frame of reference for how big it should be, and as a result my own work came out small and compressed despite having plenty of paper left.

I also struggled on Organic perspective in regards to scale. No matter what i tried, they always seemed to come out at roughly the same size.

Any Critique is most welcome!

Thanks!

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1:09 AM, Wednesday June 1st 2022

Hi, Vennaya! I’ve broken down the homework critique below:

Lines

Superimposed Lines: Most of the lines look pretty good. The longer ones have slight arches on them, so take care to draw from your shoulder, not your elbow.

Ghosted Lines: These look pretty good.

Ghosted Planes: These look pretty good. There is some slight arching, but nothing too major.

Ellipses:

Tables of ellipses: In Tables of ellipses #1, some of the ellipses don’t fit snugly in the frame. In Tables of ellipses #2, the smaller ellipses tend to overlap the bigger ones. Whenever you do this exercise again, aim to keep all ellipses nice and snug in the frames, but not overlapping each other.

Ellipses in planes: Pretty good–the lines are mostly confident and the ellipses have been drawn through the appropriate amount of times. However, as with the table of ellipses, some of the ellipses don’t fit snugly within the planes.

Funnels Exercise: Pretty good. Some of the bigger ellipses on the edges are either overlapping or not fit snugly inside the funnel. And some of them have only been drawn through once, like the one on the edge on the bottom right.

Boxes:

Plotted Perspective: Nice work, but it may be beneficial to have more boxes in each frame. Is there a reason the middle frame’s boxes have hatching on different sides?

Rough Perspective: It’s normal for this exercise to come out looking a little rough, no worries. Just make sure that when plotting the lines back to the vanishing point, they should only extend TO the horizon line and not PAST it. Also, take care not to redraw a line even if it comes out wonky (frame on the right).

Rotated Boxes: As Uncomfortable says, he knows this exercise is above a lesson 1 student’s level so he doesn’t expect perfection. The boxes look pretty good here, but would benefit from hatching as Uncomfortable’s example homework displays.

Organic Perspective: Take advantage of the line weight in the big swoopy line, to help the viewer know which part of the line is closest to them; perhaps extending that line so it fills the frame would provide more space for boxes, so there’s a gradual shift from big to small boxes. To encourage the illusion of close/far boxes, perhaps draw some that have been cut off from the frame, like in the second frame of the first page. Don't worry too much about perspective, you'll have the chance to practice that in the 250 box challenge.

Trust in the process-there's a reason for everything Uncomfortable puts on the website. Hope this critique is helpful!!

Next Steps:

One page of Rough Perspective: Try making the boxes smaller so more can fit in a frame. Remember not to redraw lines and to only plot the lines back to the horizon line and no further.

One page of Tables of Ellipses: Make sure the ellipses fit snugly in their frames and don't overlap each other.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
8:45 PM, Wednesday June 1st 2022

Hey AbeanBerry! Thanks for the response!

Here is the link to the imgr for the two revisions you suggested i complete: Link

I certainly feel like i managed to not make the ellipses overlap as much, but i still can't get them snug in to the space. Any tips would be appreciated!

As for the Rough perspective, i managed to get some more in but i definately struggle with the smaller boxes. I feel like the bigger the box is, the more control and accuracy i have over it.

Superimposed Lines: Most of the lines look pretty good. The longer ones have slight arches on them, so take care to draw from your shoulder, not your elbow.

I'm fairly certain i was but i will try and be more concious of it in the future.

And some of them have only been drawn through once, like the one on the edge on the bottom right.

I'm pretty sure that was a fluke. I'm fairly confident i drew through it twice but evidently the indent on the paper from the first stroke guided the second pass. But i will keep that in mind in the future.

Plotted Perspective: Nice work, but it may be beneficial to have more boxes in each frame. Is there a reason the middle frame’s boxes have hatching on different sides?

The hatching was mostly a mistake. I wanted to have the hatching on different faces for each segment, to better differentiate between them but i quickly realised that would not be feasible as the box in the middle did not have its top face visible.

As for the having more boxes...I will try. However, i feel like splitting the page in to thirds gives me much less space to work with, it feels like im drawing on a scrap of paper instead of an actual page. As a result, i just try and get a few moderately sized ones in. I also did not want to make it messy if i was going to hatch one of the faces, as i feel like what was suggested i do would leave me with a confusing mess, but i will endevour to put in some more in the future like what i did in my revised Rough perspective i linked above.

Rotated Boxes: As Uncomfortable says, he knows this exercise is above a lesson 1 student’s level so he doesn’t expect perfection. The boxes look pretty good here, but would benefit from hatching as Uncomfortable’s example homework displays.

I did want to apply some hatching but by the end of it, i barely even knew where half of the faces were or which face they were supposed to be, as it was just a mess of lines owing to the fact, i think, that the drawing itself was too small as i did not have a proper frame of reference for scale as the video did it on a digital canvas. Until i started drawing it, i barely even knew what the boxes on the outside were for as i felt it was poorly explained, so that certainly did not help. I will endevour to make it a little bigger the next time i do it, and to apply some hatching.

Organic Perspective: Take advantage of the line weight in the big swoopy line, to help the viewer know which part of the line is closest to them; perhaps extending that line so it fills the frame would provide more space for boxes, so there’s a gradual shift from big to small boxes. To encourage the illusion of close/far boxes, perhaps draw some that have been cut off from the frame, like in the second frame of the first page. Don't worry too much about perspective, you'll have the chance to practice that in the 250 box challenge.

I tried to apply line weight. At its heaviest, i was pushing down on the page pretty hard and let go of pressure as i went before finally lifting it off the page instead of stopping. However...I don't know whether its becuase the pen is using has bad ink flow or if i was holding it at too steep an angle, but as you said, the line weight barely changed. I did honestly try - I just don't know how or why it turned out like it did.

Your critique was most helpful, yes! Thank you very much for taking the time to review my work!

If you have any further feedback about my revised exercises i linked above, i would welcome it!

Thanks again!

1:48 AM, Thursday June 2nd 2022

Looking better! As for tips on overlapping, I can only suggest ghosting, ghosting, ghosting. With practice, accuracy will come over time.

Next Steps:

I would suggest moving on to the 250 Box Challenge - this will definitely help with boxes and perspectives. In addition, make sure to practice the Tables of Ellipses sometimes in your warmups; doesn't have to be a full page, just so you get more comfortable drawing ellipses in confined spaces. This is just advice ofc, not something you have to do :)

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3:34 PM, Wednesday June 1st 2022

Hi Ven,

here's a bit of critique, hope it's helpful!

Lines

Superimposed

As Abeanberry said, some of the lines arch a little. And some of the beginnings, especially on page 1, look a tad frayed. Remember to take your time! It looks like you were aware of these issues and tried to correct for it on page 2. The arching is the main thing that persists throughout.

Ghosted

With the exception of one or two lines, they look confident, good work!

Planes

I'm starting to see a bit of course-correction here as you curve the ends of the lines to join up with the dot you placed. Remember, confidence over accuracy!

Ellipses

Table

Some of the ellipses looke very smooth and tight, so good job. There's quite a bit of overlapping and empty space, especially in your 'infill' ellipses. It seems like you're falling back on drawing ellipses in a similar size and shape as previous ones you've drawn, regardless if that's actually the most appropriate shape for that space. Remember to ghost first, even if you're near the end of the sheet and just want to move on.

In Planes

The confidence is good!There's some that are quite accurate, but one or two seem rushed. Ideally the all the ellipses should touch the edges of their planes.

Funnels

If the ellipse is going to go off the page, try putting another scrap paper under the one you're using so that you can still draw the full ellipse. The alignment of the ellipses seems pretty good.

Boxes

Plotted Perspective

Not sure what's going on with your shading - there seems to be a mistake on the top left when you were giong on autopilot perhaps? (The L-shaped shading). Otherwise it seems like you understood this exercise pretty well, good job.

Rough Perspective

  • Ideally all the farther-faces of the boxes should be made of horizontal and vertical lines. I can see you've angled these lines in an effort to link the corners together. Try placing all four corners first, using ghosting to approximate their placement, before drawing the remander of the converging lines and the edges of the distant face. That way, you'll be able to plan to make then horizontally and vertically aligned.

  • Also, consider attempting a few more boxes in which the top face is above the horizon line and the bottom face is below the horizon line. (There are only 2 such boxes on your sheets thus far and I think it makes for a very valuable learning opportunity).

Rotated Boxes

It's a tough exercise and it looks like you tried your best. I think that's all that's necessary at this stage, so good job!

Organic Perspective

  • Remember that in perspective, all parallel lines need to converge. There are quite a few boxes here where you've just used non-converging lines to draw your boxes.

  • You said you struggled with varying the scale - to do that, pay attention to the Y-shape you draw at the beginning. If the lines you ghost for the Y-shape seem to be a similar length to the previous box you drew, draw them longer or shorter instead. (I find drawing each spoke of the "Y" to a similar length also helps me plan size better. Since you often draw one spoke of the "Y" twice as long as the others, it's harder to control for size. Hope that makes sense.).

  • Also, consider adding more overlap. You drew a few overlapping boxes in the first sheet of this exercise, but this along with scale will heighten the illusion of depth.

-Sky

Next Steps:

One Page Organic Perspective

(the other sheets I would have suggested, Table of Ellipses and Rough Perspective, were already pointed out by Abeanberry, so I won't request them again. Other than that, most of the corrections can just be part of your warm-ups moving forward).

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
9:01 PM, Wednesday June 1st 2022

Hey Sky! Thanks again for reviewing my work!

Here Is the revised exercise you suggested i complete, but you have already seen it from my discord message to you in the Drawabox Discord.

As i mentioned in our conversation on Discord, I feel like they didn't come out right this time either but the next time i do it, i will try and focus on making the lines a similar length to try and get a more cube like shape, as that might help me with scale, i hope. As i mentioned, my lines were getting shorter by about 0.5cm each time i drew the next, smaller line to start the next form but it certainly didn't feel like there we getting shorter, perhaps due to the length of the other lines of the Y shape. I will try and work on this. I definately feel like i struggled a little when it came to drawing the extra converging lines as my hand was often in the way of the existing line and so i had to do even MORE guessing than i might have otherwise wanted.

As Abeanberry said, some of the lines arch a little. And some of the beginnings, especially on page 1, look a tad frayed. Remember to take your time! It looks like you were aware of these issues and tried to correct for it on page 2. The arching is the main thing that persists throughout.

You mean the arching on the longer lines? How might i fix this? The line is so long that the shoulder phyiscally can not extend that far without the elbow getting involved atleast a little in the process. How might i resolve this?

I'm starting to see a bit of course-correction here as you curve the ends of the lines to join up with the dot you placed. Remember, confidence over accuracy!

That was entirely unintentional. I don't think i even noticed them curving. I can only barely even see it on a few of them even now. Would a faster stroke resolve this?

Not sure what's going on with your shading - there seems to be a mistake on the top left when you were giong on autopilot perhaps? (The L-shaped shading)

This was an atempt at occulsion. I did not want to hatch the face, or in this case the part of the face, that was not visible as i was not sure if it would be clear if i had done so.

Thanks again for your critique! You've been very helpful!

10:32 PM, Wednesday June 1st 2022

Yep, as I mentioned in the Discord I can already see the improvement. Good job and keep practicing!

Next Steps:

250 boxes let's goooooo

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