Uncomfortable mentioned he would go over these since this is my second time through these lessons.
I had tried to follow perspective as best I could but, things went poorly. The boxes are far less accurate than what I had thought. Hopefully I did this one correctly...
To start, I definitely appreciate the heavy emphasis on the use of the line extensions - extending them a healthy distance away can definitely help show us more about how those lines are behaving, or at least to make those behaviours much clearer to the naked eye. So for example, this box from this page was well done - it wasn't perfect, but you drew the box, then extended the lines correctly to give yourself ample information to analyze and ultimately to alter your approach for the next page.
That said, if you look at all of the other boxes on that same page, and those on the pages that follow, you're running into a critical issue in your line extensions - you're consistently extending one set of lines on each box in the wrong direction. So as a result, instead of analyzing the way in which each set of lines behaves as they move farther back in space (and whether or not they're actually converging in that direction as per the rules of perspective), you end up with some confusion, with one of those sets of lines coming towards the viewer. In most cases, it looks like that set of lines is converging in that direction, which looks correct, but if they're converging in that direction (towards the viewer), then that means they're actually diverging as they move away from the viewer, which is incorrect. As a result, you're left unaware of a key issue with your boxes.
Now, this is something I go over in these notes from the 250 box challenge page (where I go over exactly why this is incorrect in greater detail), there is an easy rule of thumb you can use to avoid making this mistake altogether. Given that we're using the Y method to construct our boxes, we can apply out first line extensions to the Y itself, ensuring that we extend from the center point of the Y (which usually represents the corner closest to the viewer, due to how the Y method works), then extend along each of the arms. This establishes the direction along which we extend all of the other edges. Here's a diagram explaining the approach.
When it comes to your linework, overall you've done fairly well - your individual edges are drawn to be quite straight for most of them (there's the odd instance of wavering where I think you may have gotten impatient, but generally the majority of them are straight and smooth), and your hatching is fairly consistent and you're getting better at limiting having them overshoot past the edge.
Unfortunately, since you have extended your lines in the wrong direction with the vast majority of these, we are going to have to do some revisions for you to demonstrate that you both understand how to extend them correctly, and how to analyze the results and apply that analysis to your next page. You'll find your revisions assigned below.
Next Steps:
Please submit an additional 30 boxes, being sure to extend your lines in the correct direction.
Another 30. I think the red lines are going in the correct direction bot the boxes seem less accurate (according to perspective) than I would like.
I really hope to correct this soon as it's causing some major issues with other kinds of drawing I'm doing.
When the line extensions are applied correctly, their purpose is to show us where our convergences are off. The analysis is one part of the battle, and applying it correctly is very important. Once we know they've been applied correctly (extending away from the viewer), we can trust in what they're telling us. From there, the second half of the battle begins - we have to consciously look at the pattern of behaviour, identify what we're doing (or more accurately, not doing) that results in our lines converging inconsistently.
In your previous submission, the majority of your boxes' lines were extended incorrectly, resulting in at least one set of lines going off in the wrong direction, and making the analysis unreliable. In this submission, your results are much better, but there are still some that are off. Here I have gone over your work, emphasizing what appears to be your starting Y and testing whether your lines were extended in the right direction (similarly to the technique I showed you last time to identify the correct direction). You are correct far more often than before, but there are still some mistakes. The mistakes fall into two categories:
When the test shows 1 set of lines being extended in the wrong direction, this shows me that you're not thinking back to that original Y and following its arms to determine your correct direction. Perhaps you got a little overconfident. Unfortunately the solution for this is to keep going back to that Y method-based technique for determining the correct direction, to go through the steps in the diagram I provided before each and every time.
There are a few others - on page 4 and 5 - where all the lines of a given box are extended in the wrong direction. This tend to coincide with you putting your hatching on the wrong side of the box - placing it on one of the faces that points away from the viewer. The box itself may be correct, with lines converging in the wrong direction, but you end up thinking about the box backwards. Correcting this goes back to first ensuring that you are using the Y method - specifically so that the center point of the Y represents the corner of the box that is closest to the viewer (perhaps you constructed those boxes backwards, starting with a Y representing the farther corner instead). Then, you need to make sure that your hatching is placed on one of the planes touching the original Y. Once the box's main edges have been drawn, you may not entirely remember what your original Y was, so you'll have to make a particular point to keep this in mind and not forget, in order to place that hatching on the correct side.
These are the points you need to keep in mind in order to ensure that your analysis is correct, reliable, and trustworthy. Once that is confirmed, it really comes back to what you're thinking about when deciding how to add a new edge to your box (and how to orient it). We have to think about not only the edge we're drawing, but also the three other edges that are meant to converge with it to a single shared VP - including those that haven't yet been drawn.
That means that as you're deciding on the angle for a single edge, you're actively thinking about 4 edges in total. Those that have been drawn are already locked in place, and so those that are yet to be drawn are the only ones whose orientation can be adjusted so all 4 converge together.
Another point that may be useful is to remember that each arm of the Y belongs to a different set, and points to the vanishing point to that set. If that arm were extended infinitely, then the vanishing point would exist somewhere along its length. From there, the second line you add to the set will pin down the specific location for your VP - it will be where these two lines connect.
No matter how you orient that second line, as long as it converges towards the corresponding arm of the original Y as it moves away from the viewer, it will not be incorrect. It is the third and fourth lines where the mistakes occur, where the lines can be converging in the correct direction, but where they fail to meet at a single point. In fact, given that we're not perfect machines, it's guaranteed that we won't do this perfectly, but the purpose of doing this exercise over and over is to bring those margins of error down, and to improve our overall accuracy.
Since you still do have some issues with your analysis, we are going to have to continue ensuring that you can do that correctly every time. Since this is a matter of the steps you take in determining the correct direction, and not a matter of skill/mileage, this is something I want to see you perform consistently before I let you move forwards.
Next Steps:
Please submit an additional 10 boxes with line extensions.
10 more boxes with a much greater focus on the originating "Y". I think they look more like real boxes but, somehow the inside of the box tends to look more broken unfortunately. Maybe there is something I've missed here.
These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.
Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).
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