Hello Spiiderbait, I'll be the teaching assistant handling your lesson 4 critique.

Starting with your organic forms you're doing a pretty good job of keeping your sausage forms simple as explained here. There is some subtle bulging in the middle of a couple, and sometimes one end is a little bigger than the other but you're clearly headed in the right direction.

Looking at your contour curves it's great that you're executing these with confidence, and I'm happy to see that you're varying the degree of your curves. Just remember that as a general rule of thumb these curves should get wider as we slide further away from the viewer along the length of a given cylindrical form. This concept is shown in this diagram and is explained in the ellipses video from lesson 1, here. In the two forms in the upper right corner of this page you have your degree shift reversed, so keep that in mind when you practise this exercise in your warmups.

Moving on to your insect constructions You're doing a good job of starting your constructions with simple forms and building complexity onto your structures where you need it. You're showing a good understanding of how the forms exist in 3D space and connect together with specific relationships.

I do have some points that should help you get more out of these constructional exercises in the future.

The first of these relates to differentiating between the actions we can take when interacting with a construction, which fall into two groups:

1 Actions in 2D space, where we're just putting lines down on a page, without necessarily considering the specific nature of the relationships between the forms they're meant to represent and the forms that already exist in the scene.

2 Actions in 3D space, where we're actually thinking about how each form we draw exists in 3D space, and how it relates to the existing 3D structures already present. We draw them in a manner that actually respects the 3D nature of what's already there, and even reinforces it.

Because we're drawing on a flat piece of paper, we have a lot of freedom to make whatever marks we choose, but many of those marks would contradict the illusion you're trying to create and remind the viewer that they're just looking at a series of lines on a flat piece of paper. In order to avoid this and stick only to the marks that reinforce the illusion we're creating, we can force ourselves to adhere to certain rules as we build up our constructions. Rules that respect the solidity of our construction.

For example - once you've put a form down on the page, do not attempt to alter its silhouette. Its silhouette is just a shape on the page which represents the form we're drawing, but its connection to that form is entirely based on its current shape. If you change that shape, you won't alter the form it represents - you'll just break the connection, leaving yourself with a flat shape. We can see this most easily in this example of what happens when we cut back into the silhouette of a form.

For example, I've marked on your insect head in red where you cut back inside the silhouette of forms you had already drawn. Admittedly this is fairly minimal, and it is not something you do often, but I still need to highlight it and stress the importance of avoiding this in future. In the past where we've neglected to point this out to a student (with it being so minimal) it has gone on to become a bigger issue in the next lesson, which is why I'm being a little pedantic about the point now.

On this image I marked in blue where you attempted to extend your silhouette without really providing enough information for us to understand how those new additions were meant to exist in 3D space.

Instead, when we want to build on our construction or alter something we add new 3D forms to the existing structure. forms with their own complete silhouettes - and by establishing how those forms either connect or relate to what's already present in our 3D scene. We can do this either by defining the intersection between them with contour lines (like in lesson 2's form intersections exercise), or by wrapping the silhouette of the new form around the existing structure as shown here.

This is all part of understanding that everything we draw is 3D, and therefore needs to be treated as such in order for both you and the viewer to believe in that lie.

You can see this in practice in this beetle horn demo, as well as in this ant head demo You can also see some good examples of this in the lobster and shrimp demos on the informal demos page As Uncomfortable has been pushing this concept more recently, it hasn't been fully integrated into the lesson material yet (it will be when the overhaul reaches Lesson 4). Until then, those submitting for official critiques basically get a preview of what is to come.

You're actually doing a really good job with building your constructions in 3D. My main concern right now is that you may not be taking as much time as you need with your markmaking. Every form, every line, every mark you add to these drawings needs to be the result of a conscious decision. If you choose to add a line, it must serve a purpose, and you must draw it to the best of your current ability. That means taking as much time as you need at every stage, from observing your reference, planning your line, ghosting it, and then executing it with confidence, to give yourself the best possible chance of drawing a smooth confident line where you intend it to go. Because we are not robots, sometimes a line won't come out perfect. When this happens don't automatically redraw it to correct it, this makes your work messy and confusing. I suggest you give the principles of markmaking from lesson 1 another read. Lines must be smooth, continuous and unbroken, so don’t use little scratchy marks where one smooth line would be possible.

Sometimes I think you may be redrawing your lines to add line weight. Some of this is appropriate, and in some places it is unnecessary. Line weight should be reserved for clarifying overlaps as explained here. I know ThatOneMushroomGuy shared that diagram with you previously, so maybe this example applied to a simplified insect construction might make more sense to you than the standard one.

As well as looking messy, sloppy line work also harms the 3D illusion that you're trying to achieve with these constructional drawings. For example where you leave gaps in the silhouette of your forms like this it reminds the viewer that they're just looking at a bunch of lines on a flat piece of paper.

Another aspect that would benefit from you investing a little more time is your textural work. Remember that once you have identified the shadow shape you are going to draw, you draw the outline of the shape, then fill it in carefully, as shown here. Looking at this section you don't appear to be following this process. You're either skipping drawing the outline of your shapes or filling them in haphazardly. Looking at your texture analysis I can see that you are aware of this process. Make sure you use each tool that you know to the best of your current ability. If you're going to add texture, (which is optional in this lesson) be prepared for it to take more time, and don't sell yourself short by skipping steps or cutting corners.

Some other pointers for your textural work. Make sure that you focus on cast shadows. Don't outline highlights, as seen here and don't use form shading as identified here. Remember adding texture in this course is not about copying what you see. It is about understanding the smaller forms on an object's surface and using carefully designed cast shadow shapes to imply those small bumps or protrusions. I recommend giving these reminders from the texture section of lesson 2 another read.

The last thing I wanted to talk about is leg construction. I can see you're making a good effort at applying the sausage method. It's not uncommon for students to be aware of the sausage method as introduced here, but to decide that the legs they're looking at don't actually seem to look like a chain of sausages, so they use some other strategy.

The key to keep in mind here is that the sausage method is not about capturing the legs precisely as they are - it is about laying in a base structure or armature that captures both the solidity and the gestural flow of a limb in equal measure, where the majority of other techniques lean too far to one side, either looking solid and stiff or gestural but flat. Once in place, we can then build on top of this base structure with more additional forms shown in these examples here, here, and in this ant leg demo and also here on this dog leg demo as this strategy is the one we would like you to use for animal constructions too.

You're reasonably good at drawing the sausage forms for your legs, and you're even working on adding extra forms to them, which is great. However you're really inconsistent with adding the contour curve to reinforce your the intersection where two sausage forms join, as seen here. These little contour curves might seem insignificant but they do tell the viewer a lot of information about how the forms are orientated in space as well as reinforcing the structure of your legs by establishing how the forms connect together. So try to remember to include them in future.

Conclusion You're showing a strong understanding of the core concepts of this lesson, so I'll be marking this as complete. Do make sure that you take the time to read, understand, and apply the feedback I've given you here, as these points apply in the next lesson. Take your time every step of the way to get the best result possible, use every tool that you have learned so far in this course consistently to the best of your current ability. Of course if anything that has been said to you here, or previously, is unclear, you are welcome to ask questions. Best of luck.