I subitted this once already and in the thumbnail image for the link it said the images could not be found but when I clicked on it, it would take me to box images on imgur.
To eliminate confusion, I am submitting again. If the thumbnail says the images cannot be found, please click anyway.
Hi there, I'll be handling your box challenge critique.
Imgur links do that from time to time, that being said since it's nothing new there's no need to be concerned (it's likely something that happens when they're working on something). We're aware of it and check regardless so there's no need to stress in the future if it happens again.
Not only does the challenge help deepen your understanding of important concepts but it shows your desire to learn as well. That being said I'll try to keep this critique fairly brief so you can get working on the next steps as soon as possible.
Things you did well:
You're doing a good job of drawing the lines constructing your boxes smoothly and confidently.
It's nice to see that you're taking the time to plan each of your hatching lines and space them evenly. This helps keep your boxes looking tidy rather than looking like they were rushed on to the page.
You're doing a great job of experimenting with orientations, proportions and rates of foreshortening. Experimenting is an important habit to build when learning any new skill, it helps form a more well rounded understanding. I hope you'll continue to display and nurture this habit in the future.
Things you can work on:
Line weight isn't a requirement of the challenge but I do recommend practicing it in your future attempts. It's an incredibly useful tool but one that people often require a fair bit of mileage before they feel comfortable applying it. The sooner you start to build up that mileage the sooner you'll see better results.
At times you're placing your vanishing point between the viewer and your boxes (boxes 207, 235, 243, and 249 are examples of this). This leads to you extending your lines in the wrong direction and your boxes becoming distorted because your lines are actually diverging from where the vanishing point would actually be. Here's a guide I wrote that will hopefully help you place your vanishing points and line extensions more consistently. If you need some more examples you can find them here and a simplified guide below.
There are times when your lines converge in pairs or you attempt to keep your lines a bit too parallel which results in them diverging. This is an example of lines converging in pairs, and this shows the relation between each line in a set and their respective vanishing point. The inner pair of lines will be quite similar unless the box gets quite long and the outer pair can vary a lot depending on the location of the vanishing point. Move it further away and the lines become closer to parallel while moving it closer increases the rate of foreshortening.
The key things we want to remember from this exercise are that our lines should always converge as a set not in pairs, never diverge from the vanishing point and due to perspective they won't be completely parallel.
I won't be moving you on to the next lesson just yet, each lesson builds off concepts in the previous course material so if you move forward with un-addressed issues you end up just creating further issues on top of them.
I'd like you to draw 20 more boxes please. Focus on extending your lines consistently in the correct direction as well as reducing the amount that your lines end up diverging. You have some inconsistent results when it comes to how wildly your lines converge or diverge which shows that you may need to slow down and think about how your lines behave as a set some more.
Once you've completed your boxes reply to this critique with a link to them, I'll address anything that needs to be worked on and once you've shown you're ready I'll move you on to the next lesson.
I know you can do this and look forward to seeing your work.
Next Steps:
20 more boxes please.
Hello there Tofu.
I'm going to need a little more guidance before I can start the re-dos because every time I honestly attempted to make all the vanishing points be going away from me but sometimes I would get confused thinking my box was going away from me in one direction then realize later that I'd got it backwards. This was more of a problem with the boxes we are looking up at. I think I overcame it with the looking-down-at boxes.
On the topic of parallel lines, I'm not sure what to do differently unless you want me to use a lot of foreshortening every time. When I'd try to make it more subtle, somehow I would often end up with parallel lines. It was a frustrating problem but I thought if I kept trying, I'd get where I could get the convergance just right. It has yet to resolve itself, though. I don't know what to do.
Hello,
In the section I commented on your lines being extended incorrectly I provided a guide that goes through the process of how to create a box and understand how to extend your lines step by step (there's also a simplified guide below the examples I linked to as well). If there's some confusion after working through that feel free to ask some more specific questions. Working with feedback is a partnership of sorts, I've given you lots of information so I need more in return to help you.
As for parallel lines it seems you may be overthinking things a bit. It's not the end of the world if you create an imperfect box but you should be actively understanding and aiming to create them the best you can. If you create a box that converges a bit more than you'd like it'll still be valid and correct, if the lines are overly parallel and diverging they're breaking 3D space. Play it safe, think of your lines as a set, don't try to create parallel lines, make sure they're at least converging somewhat.
I apologize if my confusion is causing hassle for you. I felt it reasonable to understand the instructions before attempting to follow them. I agree with you completely that we should always aim our our lines aimed at vanishing points going away from us and the guide you linked to makes perfect sense to me. Same with parallel lines being a no-no. I agree totally. This wouldn't be perspective if if we made parallel lines actually look parallel. Things get smaller as they go away from us. The parallel would happen when I tried to have just slight foreshortening. I'd THINK they were coming together at a really gentle slope but somehow I'd always be fooled when I went back to extend the lines and found they were parallel. However when I would go to a lot of foreshoretning, sometimes I would get a ridiculious amount with vanishing points like an inch or two from the box, but at least the lines weren't parallel. I'm assuming the latter is more desirable.
What I don't know is if I'm interpreting correctly how I am supposed to act on this information. I'm thinking that I should play it safe with the foreshortening and always use lots of it and stick to Y's orientations I'm good at, so I won't get confused and think the lines are converging one way when it's actually the opposite--the up views get me the most with this. I often converge them thinking we are looking down.
If I can get this confirmed, I am will start on the revisions immediately. And if you find more problems with this time, happily do more revisions so long as I understand what is being asked of me.
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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