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7:16 PM, Wednesday August 10th 2022

In regards to your question, there are a couple things to keep in mind:

  • Firstly, critiques from other students still require 2 agrees for the very reason that we cannot guarantee that any student's feedback is going to be without issues.

  • Secondly, out of all the advice we give, some of it is inevitably going to be inaccurate and incorrect. Even when I started Drawabox, I was pretty open about the fact that what I was teaching was my understanding - and more likely, my misunderstanding of the material I had been taught. But if 75% of my advice is useful, and 25% is not and might be misleading, that's still a net positive.

  • Thirdly, it's very common for students to have self-doubts, but to actually provide no solid basis. They'll come into a submission and say "oh i know this is terrible" but when you ask them to provide the specific aspects they have more trouble pointing at specific things. They may well have plenty of areas of weakness, but they're not considering specifics, they're only shielding themselves with self-doubt in a general sense. But, if you genuinely don't feel confident about giving advice in a certain area, you are not required to do so. Give advice on what you're confident about, and allow others to step in where you aren't.

Now, looking at your revisions here, while there's definitely improvement in regards to how you're approaching your additional masses, and I can clearly see that you're trying to apply aspects of what I mentioned in my previous critique in that regard, I think there are still some important points you're missing. One of the big ones, as I've shown here on your rhino, is that you still tend to use a lot of outward curves where we need more complexity (in the form of a sharp corner and inward curves) to establish how the mass we're drawing wraps around the existing one. When you fall back to using outward curves everywhere, it ends up reading more as a flat sticker rather than a 3D mass.

It's excellent that you're making such extensive use of additional masses, but you do need to take more time and refer back to the diagrams/explanations I provided previously more frequently as you think through the design of each one. Also, always avoid making a single mass do too much. For example, the two big masses on this camel's back have a ton of arbitrary complexity to them, with inward curves that are not occurring in direct response to pressing up against existing, defined structures. Along with ensuring that any inward curves are occurring in response to pressing up against existing structures, you should also be keeping an eye on situations where you're trying to make a mass do too much on its own, and break those into multiple masses that pile atop one another.

Lastly, I should mention that in my points in regards to head construction in my original critique, I provided a pretty detailed demonstration on how to apply that specific approach to a rhino - but in your own rhino construction, you appear to have made no attempt at applying it at all. In general, it does seem like you're still just trying to wing it when approach head construction - perhaps keeping some of the points I raised in the back of your mind, but not applying that approach it directly, step by step, as I requested.

I'd like you to go back over the feedback I provided previously, and give yourself all the time you require to apply it consistently and completely to your work. I'll be asking for the same revisions once again.

Next Steps:

Please submit another attempt at the same revisions I assigned previously.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
5:37 PM, Thursday September 15th 2022

https://imgur.com/a/mCx4cvf

Lesson 5 Revisions 2

8:33 PM, Friday September 16th 2022

These are definitely looking better. The main thing I want you to keep in mind going forward is that when you add seemingly small bumps to a structure - especially along the back/spine, like these as well as this one - try to extend how far along the sides of the animal they grip. While the intended height of the bump is fairly small, that doesn't mean that the mass as a whole needs to be tiny. This can come from us thinking more about how that bump exists as a 2D element of the silhouette, and can result in diminishing how strongly the mass "grips" the whole structure - so don't be afraid to extend it further down.

That said, you're very much headed in the right direction. I would still strongly recommend revisiting the previous feedback now and again to refresh yourself on it, but as it stands you should be able to continue moving forward and practicing this stuff on your own. As such, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

Next Steps:

Move onto the 250 cylinder challenge, which is a prerequisite for lesson 6.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
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