Hello Szitasbence, I'll be the teaching assistant handling your lesson 5 critique.

Starting with your organic intersections these are generally working well, you're keeping your forms simple and you've got your forms wrapping around each other with a sense of gravity. They feel stable and supported, like we could leave the pile alone and nothing would topple off.

On your second page it looks like you've tried to add forms going underneath forms that you've already drawn. This exercise it really about piling forms on top of each other. When you try to add forms underneath what you've already drawn, either there won't be any space for the new form to go, and it will get cropped, like you have here, or you'll end up lifting the forms you've already drawn up off the ground plane and accidentally destabilise the whole pile.

In future you will get more out of this exercise if your draw each form in its entirety, instead of allowing some of them to get cut off where they pass behind something else. Drawing the parts you can't see will help you to develop a stronger understanding of the 3D space you're trying to create.

Your pushing your cast shadows far enough to project onto the form below, and they appear to be obeying a consistent light source, nicely done.

Moving on to your animal constructions I can see that you have strong observational skills and that you've been attentive to picking up a lot of information from your reference images and transferring them to your drawings with a degree of accuracy and sensitivity.

There are a few pages where I think you may have put more priority on the end result- trying to make the finished drawing look good- than on what you learn from them as exercises. Remember, this lesson isn't "How to draw animals" it is " Applying Construction to Animals." We aren't to focus on reproducing the reference image at all costs, but rather to treat is as a source of information that helps us determine the direction of our goal. The idea here is to use these constructions as 3D puzzles to help develop your spatial reasoning skills.

• For constructional drawing you need to maintain tight, specific relationships between each stage of the construction. Show that you understand how the pieces of your construction connect together in 3D space. If we take this shark for example, it seems to feature two distinct structures, which appear to occupy the same space, but seem to be fundamentally separate. This distinction exists between those initial masses you start with (the cranial ball, rib cage and pelvis masses, and some bendy cylinders connecting them,) which are clearly three dimensional structures, and the silhouette of the shark's head and body, which is a 2D shape copied over from the reference image. Note in particular how with each of those early masses, if they were removed from this drawing, it would not have any impact on the end result's completeness. We can see a less obvious example of this in this horse where the torso sausage is floating arbitrarily inside the much thicker darker lines you've used to draw the visible silhouette of the body. Long story short - always treat those initial forms as though they are establishing real, tangible, solid forms in the world, and as you move forwards, do not change your approach. Don't press harder, don't switch to a different pen, just introduce every next element as another solid, complete form, focusing on establishing how one wraps around the other in 3D space.

• For constructional drawing we never add more complexity than can be supported by the underlying structures at any given point. The simpler a form is, the easier it is to keep it feeling solid and three dimensional. The shark also serves as an example of this. By trying to add all the complexity of the head and body in one step (save for a couple of fins) the viewer isn't really provided with enough information to understand how all of this exists in 3D space, so the result feels flat. So, don't skip steps, as this only undermines your efforts to learn from these exercises.

There are a few things here that have been brought to your attention in previous critiques, I'll attempt to keep my discussion of them relatively brief and ask you to reread past critiques for a more through explanation.

• Draw through your forms wherever possible. By this I mean draw each form in its entirety, even if it is partially obscured by another structure. This will help you to develop your spatial reasoning skills, by figuring out how the entire form exists in 3D space, instead of allowing it to get cut off where it passes behind something else. We can see one of many examples of not drawing through your forms on this horse where the top of the back just ceases to exist where it passes behind the head. Think of drawing these constructions like you have X-ray vision. This was discussed in both your lesson 3 and lesson 4 feedback.

• On some of your pages you appear to be tracing back over large sections of your silhouette to add extra line weight. As discussed in your lesson 3 critique, the most effective use of line weight - at least given the bounds and limitations of this course - is to use line weight specifically to clarify how different forms overlap one another, by limiting it to the localised areas where those overlaps occur. You can read more about this here. What this keeps us from doing is putting line weight in more random places, and worse, attempting to correct or hide mistakes behind line weight. You also appear to be using additional line weight to describe a form shadow on the tail of this cat which was something I specifically called out in these notes on your lesson 4 work.

• In your lesson 4 feedback I went over the virtues of the sausage method of leg construction, provided several diagrams and demos to help you use it, as well as applying corrections directly onto your work. I stated that we'd like you to use the sausage method for animal constructions too, and provided you with this dog leg demo. It looks like you either forgot about this section of my critique, or treated it as a vague suggestion, as on many of your pages you don't seem to be attempting to use this method at all. Fortunately there are some constructions, such as your horses and your lizard, where you have made a clear attempt to use the sausage method. When you do use the sausage method, you're not applying the contour curve for the intersections at the joints, which I specifically asked you to in your lesson 4 feedback, including this demonstration. I've redrawn one of your horse legs for you to show you how to use the sausage method correctly. In red I've redrawn the sausage forms, partly so that there is more overlap between them, and partly to make the top one stick to the characteristics of simple sausages that are introduced here. I also added a third sausage to replace the 2D shape you had for the pastern. In blue I've drawn the contour curves for the intersections at the joints. In green I've drawn additional forms to build any bulk and complexity that cannot be captured with the simple sausage armature. Note that all 6 additional forms have their own complete fully enclosed silhouettes.

• This ties into my next point. In your lesson 4 feedback you were introduced to the following rule: Once you have put a form down on the page, do not attempt to alter its silhouette. I explained how this undermines the 3D illusion of your constructions and that instead you should be building on your constructions with complete 3D forms. You were provided with a number of diagrams and examples to help you to apply this concept. I am happy to see that by and large you've mostly done a good job of avoiding cutting back inside the silhouettes of forms you have already drawn. You are however very prone to attempting to extend the silhouettes of your forms with one-off lines and partial shapes. I've marked some of these extensions in blue on this horse. This is exacerbated by the earlier points on drawing through your forms and proper use of line weight. Wherever you don't draw through and complete your forms, you draw a partial shape instead, which doesn't provide the viewer with enough information to understand how that addition exists in 3D space. Wherever you trace back over your silhouette to add extra line weight you make small alterations to your forms' silhouettes- particularly when your line weight jumps from the silhouette of one form to another making a little bridge or extension.

Okay, we're 1500 words and 50 minutes into this critique and I haven't actually got to the specifics of lesson 5 yet. It is often necessary for students to take their own steps in ensuring that they do what they need to in order to ensure they're addressing the issues that have been called out. It's very easy to simply come back from a break and continue forwards with the next lesson without consideration for what issues may have been called out (or perhaps having them more loosely in mind, but without specifics), and each student needs to decide what it is they need to apply the information they're given as effectively as they can. For some that means reviewing the past feedback periodically, for others it means taking notes, and for yet more it's a combination of the two or something else entirely.

Moving on, one of the key areas I look for in lesson 5 is to see if students are using additional masses to build onto their basic constructions, and how they're going about designing the silhouette of these additional masses.

One thing that helps with the shape here is to think about how the mass would behave when existing first in the void of empty space, on its own. It all comes down to the silhouette of the mass - here, with nothing else to touch it, our mass would exist like a soft ball of meat or clay, made up only of outward curves. A simple circle for a silhouette.

Then, as it presses against an existing structure, the silhouette starts to get more complex. It forms inward curves wherever it makes contact, responding directly to the forms that are present. The silhouette is never random, of course - always changing in response to clear, defined structure. You can see this demonstrated in this diagram.

So, if we take this horse as an example again, I've made some edits to show how to use additional masses more effectively.

1- I started by redrawing the shoulder masses. The near side one I just made a bit bigger, using it as a simplification of some of the bulky muscles that allow the horse to walk. This structure is very useful for helping to anchor additional masses to the construction. See how the green mass over the shoulder area pushes up against the shoulder mass and forms an inward curve where it wraps around it. The more interlocked they are, the more spatial relationships we define between the masses, the more solid and grounded everything appears. I also "drew through" the far side shoulder to make it a complete form instead of a partial shape.

2- I redrew that huge extension under the belly, using 2 complete 3D forms instead of a single line. Notice that these forms don't abruptly stop existing where they pass between the legs, I've drawn through and completed them.

3- The extension on top of the neck has also been converted into additional masses.

4- I've redrawn the mass on top of the rump, so that where it meets the large green mass on top of the back it wraps around it in 3D space.

I noticed on some of your constructions, such as this dog you're piling quite a few contour lines on to your additional masses to try to make them feel more solid. Unfortunately however, this is actually working against you. Those contour lines serve to help a particular mass feel 3D, but in isolation. With additional masses, our goal is actually to make the forms feel 3D by establishing how they wrap around and relate to the existing structure - that is something we achieve entirely through the design of their silhouette. While adding lines that don't contribute isn't the worst thing in the world, there is actually a more significant downside to using them in this way. They can convince us that we have something we can do to "fix" our additional masses after the fact, which in turn can cause us to put less time and focus into designing them in the first place (with the intent of "fixing" it later). So, I would actively avoid using additional contour lines in the future (though you may have noticed Uncomfortable use them in the intro video for this lesson, something that will be corrected once the overhaul of the demo material reaches this far into the course - you can think of these critiques as a sort of sneak-peak that official critique students get in the meantime).

The last thing I wanted to talk about is head construction. Lesson 5 has a lot of different strategies for constructing heads, between the various demos. Given how the course has developed, and how Uncomfortable is finding new, more effective ways for students to tackle certain problems. So not all the approaches shown are equal, but they do have their uses. As it stands, as explained at the top of the tiger demo page (here), the current approach that is the most generally useful, as well as the most meaningful in terms of these drawings all being exercises in spatial reasoning, is what you'll find here in this informal head demo.

There are a few key points to this approach:

1- The specific shape of the eye sockets - the specific pentagonal shape allows for a nice wedge in which the muzzle can fit in between the sockets, as well as a flat edge across which we can lay the forehead area.

2- This approach focuses heavily on everything fitting together - no arbitrary gaps or floating elements. This allows us to ensure all of the different pieces feel grounded against one another, like a three dimensional puzzle.

3- We have to be mindful of how the marks we make are cuts along the curving surface of the cranial ball - working in individual strokes like this (rather than, say, drawing the eye socket with an ellipse) helps a lot in reinforcing this idea of engaging with a 3D structure.

Try your best to employ this method when doing constructional drawing exercises using animals in the future, as closely as you can. Sometimes it seems like it's not a good fit for certain heads, but as shown in in this banana-headed rhino it can be adapted for a wide array of animals.

Here are a couple of quick edits to get you off on the right foot. I've redrawn the base of the muzzle in red to wedge it tightly against the edge of the eye socket instead of leaving an arbitrary gap. In green I've given the cheek mass a complete silhouette instead of having a partial shape. I've also drawn the brow ridge/ forehead plane wedged up against the top of the eye sockets. I hope that helps.

I don't doubt that you have the ability to do a fantastic job with this lesson, but due to not applying past feedback you've fallen short of what you're really capable of here. Please thoroughly reread your lesson 3 and 4 critiques and the relevant lesson material, then complete an additional 4 pages of animal constructions, addressing the various issues that have been called out here. Of course, if anything said to you here, or previously is unclear or confusing you are allowed to ask questions. Best of luck.