Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes
2:25 AM, Tuesday June 2nd 2020
I just finished lesson 1 and I am looking for some critique.
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2 users agree
3:29 AM, Tuesday June 2nd 2020
this is a pretty strong submission, but i have a few things i wanna note
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you need to work on having each of your superimposed lines starting at the exact same point, as you have fraying on both ends
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your ellipses are coming along well and improved greatly, however you need to work on taking your time drawing them, not rushing, and ghosting as much as you feel you need
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rotated boxes are great, however you need to work on having the gaps between each box just a little more narrow and consistent, especially as the boxes come out towards the edges, and on making sure that with each box coming out from the center, you rotate inwards just a little more
Next Steps:
feel free to move onto 250 boxes! :)
1 users agree
6:13 AM, Wednesday June 3rd 2020
Good job on finishing your first lesson!
Although I can't see the ghosted planes without ellipses on them (remember, you were supposed to submit ghosted plains, then ghosted plains with the ellipses drawn on top as two separate assignments), I can still tell that you did a great job with the ghosted planes, and you seem to have understood the assignment quite well. The ellipses on top are where I would give my first critique.
It appears that your ellipses are quite messy, both in the ellipses in planes exercise as well as the tables of ellipses. Of course, you aren't expected to be able to draw perfect circles at this point - I sure can't. However, it does appear to me that you may not have fully grasped the intent of the ellipse exercises. It looks more like you're drawing spirals rather than proper ellipses in some cases. Also, it looks as though you may be rushing them. By that I mean it looks like you might just be moving the pen too fast. Usually the problem is with drawing too slow so that it comes out wobbly, so I understand the choice to go fast to avoid that. However, the best thing is to find a balance so that you can still maintain some ellipsoid shape. One issue that results of this is that many of your ellipses have a very long "tail." That is, your ending point is way off the edge of where you were aiming. Also, many of your ellipses, even without tails, look like they're ending on the opposite side of the ellipse. The goal is to draw a full ellipse, and to draw through the whole thing once or twice more for good measure; not to draw 1.5 or 2.5 ellipses. That's like drawing your ellipse, but then only drawing through half of it, which isn't so useful when you're trying to build up the muscle memory of drawing an ellipse.
Another issue that I notice is that you're often drawing through the ellipses too much or too little. Many of them look like you've gone around four or five times (especially on the ellipses in planes exercise) while quite a few of them aren't drawn through at all (especially on your first page of ellipses in planes). You're not supposed to draw through an ellipse more than three times, and two is best if you can help it - but you should be going around at least one more time for every single ellipse. There were also a number of empty spaces in your ellipses pages where you could've fit another ellipse. It is good to fill those in, even if you need to use a much smaller ellipse to do so, because it helps you practice drawing ellipses within tight boundaries.
Your rough perspective pages weren't too bad overall, although the boxes a little further away from the vanishing point appear to consistently miss the mark by a wide margin - usually by aiming too low. Those more distant angles can definitely be difficult, but they are also going to be important for helping us draw straight and accurate boxes in general. The idea with this exercise was that you'd try to draw an accurate box without a ruler or other guideline, and you trace it back to the vanishing point so that you can see how far off you were. This is useful so you can try to adjust it for next time to get closer to the mark. However, it still appears that you never do really adjust those further away lines much, as they all still tend to aim quite a bit too low all the way through your submission. My tip here would be to try to aim too high instead, higher than you think you need to go, and you might find that you end up much closer by doing that. If you don't, it'll still be easier to pinpoint where you need to aim to land close to the vanishing point.
My last critique would be on your organic perspective exercise. This is pretty well done overall, although I notice that you didn't vary the sizes of the boxes very much. One of the challenges of this exercise was to test your ability to draw perspective with very large and very small boxes as well as the regular sized ones. This is at least in part due to the fact that extra large and extra small boxes may present challenges that aren't as pressing in a box of a more comfortable size. It is not only acceptable, but expected of you to draw boxes that are so big that only part of it can be seen on the page, with the rest of it implied to be outside the frame. Take a look at the example homework for that assignment to see that concept in action. Also, I noticed on your last frame that you only draw four boxes, all pretty close to the same size. I understand at this point it is tempting to hurry and finish up that last assignment so you can submit everything already - I felt the same way - but the point of Drawabox is not to get to the finish, but to really learn these concepts. I've had to tell myself that as I often felt the desire to just get it done so I can move on to the next thing already.
Overall, I can see that you've done a great job ghosting and practicing those straight lines, and you definitely have shown great improvement between the beginning of this lesson and the end. In the interest of ensuring that you maximize your learning throughout this process, I'm going to suggest a bit of review for some problem areas. It's always good to ensure we have a solid grasp of all the concepts we've learned before moving on, as future lessons depend heavily on the things we learn here. I hope you can continue to improve as you make your way through the next lessons, and good luck!
Next Steps:
My request is that you try to get a little more practice with the issues I noted above. To that end, I recommend two more pages.
Try doing tables of ellipses again for the first page. This time, you can slow down a bit when drawing and try to focus more on the ending point of your ellipses. Try to see if you can end them in the same place you started, or at least close. It doesn't need to be perfect, but it should look like that's what you're aiming for at least. If it helps, draw a dot on your starting point so you can see easily where to aim for your ending point. Also, try to draw through each ellipse exactly two times. Try to fill the page to capacity. And don't forget to ghost every time!
On the second page, split it into three frames. On the first two frames, redo the rough perspective exercises. You should be trying to hit the vanishing point as closely as you can with those further away boxes, and remember to try to aim above the vanishing point as all your attempts ended up going way below the vanishing point last time. It's okay if you don't do very good on the first one, as it can be extra difficult to do an assignment that you haven't done in a while. However, I'd like to see if you can show some improvement by the second one. If it helps, you can try tracing each line you draw back to the vanishing point as soon as you draw it rather than after you finish the whole frame. This might be useful so you can immedeiately see where you went wrong and try to adjust your angle next time to get closer. Also, try to put your boxes as far away from the vanishing point as you can this time. Putting a box right on top of the vanishing point is fine sometimes for the homework, but you're already pretty good at those. What we're trying to work on here is not aiming so far below the vanishing point on all your further away boxes, so try to only draw boxes that are some distance away. Maybe put one box all the way in each corner, if you like.
For that last panel, do another organic perspective. Try to fit at least eight boxes in the frame this time. Also, try putting some of the larger ones halfway outside the frame, like what you see in the example homework. This time, try to make the size of your boxes vary more. Don't worry if they don't turn out great; the point is to practice with weird sizes, not to perfect them. Start with a very small one and work your way up to one that is way too large to fit on the page. If you like, you can do your first box first and your last box next, then just fill in all the ones in between to help ensure you get a greater variety of sizes. I don't think the order we do the boxes is very important, as long as you get all those different sizes in there.
I hope this helps you improve on these concepts, and good luck!
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