Took me way longer than expected - still struggle a lot with accuracy and wobbly lines
In the rotated boxes exercise my inability to draw accurate really confused me with all those lines and points...
And I feel like I really rushed the Organic Perspective exercise... But it said I should just move on so here I am
Thanks in advance for feedback!
Welcome to drawabox. Let’s take this one exercise at a time.
Your superimposed lines look solid, but they’ll sometimes start off wobbly. Try not to overthink them. Trust the built-up motion, rather than spending so long on the lining up phase that you lose that rhythm. Outside of that occasional exception, they’re smooth, properly lined up at the start, and of a consistent trajectory- nicely done. The ghosted lines/planes have a similar issue, in that there’s some visible hesitation on them, so continue pushing for them to be confident. You’re on the right track, however, so don’t stress.
The ellipses seem to start off a little stiff, before stabilizing in a following rotation. Remember that you’re meant to ghost an ellipse until comfortable with the built-up motion, then commit. If you do so any earlier, it’ll be apparent in your linework. Also, even if you are ready, if you’re at all concerned with a mark’s accuracy, as you’re drawing it, its confidence will suffer. So: ghost properly, and, when you commit, focus on confidence, and nothing else. By that point, the accuracy is set in stone. Ultimately, a confident ellipse is ‘correct’, regardless of how inaccurate it is, whereas a stiff/wobbly one is incorrect, regardless of how accurate. The ellipses in planes look a little better in this respect, though they’re not quite there yet, either, so be mindful of your priorities, next time. Save for that, the funnels look solid; your ellipses there are snug, and properly cut in half by their respective axes.
The plotted perspective exercise looks clean- nicely done.
The rough perspective exercise is mostly good. Looking at the correction lines, it’s clear that you’re taking your time, planning each point, but the line quality seems to have been a bit of an afterthought. Remember to do your best on each aspect of each exercise.
Solid attempt at the rotated boxes exercise. You’ve seen it through to the end, to the best of your ability. The boxes do a good job of rotating, though, as you get further from the center, they’re not quite as snug as we’d like them, and a few of them haven’t been drawn through completely. This is understandable, however. Still, try not to get too overwhelmed by the big picture, if you can. Think of it as nothing more than a set of lines, that you handle one at a time.
The organic perspective exercise is definitely a little rushed, but it shows a good understanding of the concepts, what with the boxes properly increasing in size, and maintaining a consistent, shallow foreshortening. Please, though, take your time on each exercise. You’re not helping yourself by rushing.
Next Steps:
There’s a couple of things to improve, but they’re small enough that they can be taken care of over time. After taking note of them, feel free to move on to the box challenge.
Let's be real here for a second: fineliners can get pricey. It varies from brand to brand, store to store, and country to country, but good fineliners like the Staedtler Pigment Liner (my personal brand favourite) can cost an arm and a leg. I remember finding them being sold individually at a Michael's for $4-$5 each. That's highway robbery right there.
Now, we're not a big company ourselves or anything, but we have been in a position to periodically import large batches of pens that we've sourced ourselves - using the wholesale route to keep costs down, and then to split the savings between getting pens to you for cheaper, and setting some aside to one day produce our own.
These pens are each hand-tested (on a little card we include in the package) to avoid sending out any duds (another problem with pens sold in stores). We also checked out a handful of different options before settling on this supplier - mainly looking for pens that were as close to the Staedtler Pigment Liner. If I'm being honest, I think these might even perform a little better, at least for our use case in this course.
We've also tested their longevity. We've found that if we're reasonably gentle with them, we can get through all of Lesson 1, and halfway through the box challenge. We actually had ScyllaStew test them while recording realtime videos of her working through the lesson work, which you can check out here, along with a variety of reviews of other brands.
Now, I will say this - we're only really in a position to make this an attractive offer for those in the continental United States (where we can offer shipping for free). We do ship internationally, but between the shipping prices and shipping times, it's probably not the best offer you can find - though this may depend. We also straight up can't ship to the UK, thanks to some fairly new restrictions they've put into place relating to their Brexit transition. I know that's a bummer - I'm Canadian myself - but hopefully one day we can expand things more meaningfully to the rest of the world.
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