Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

2:27 AM, Wednesday May 24th 2023

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/DLF8O3i.jpg

I ran out of ink so I had to switch to a mechanical pencil, also for some reason no matter what I do Imgur won't arrange the pictures in order so sorry about that

2 users agree
1:42 AM, Monday May 29th 2023
edited at 1:55 AM, May 29th 2023

Hello, i'll be critiquing your work today. i saw you post on the discord so i thought why not.

to start off i reccomend that you number your exercises (on the page). this isn't an obligation, but it would be really helpful for critiquing nonetheless.

LINES:

-superimposed lines:

good job on this, i can't comment much on them as you did a pretty good job

-Ghosted lines

good job on these too, minimal arching. almost all of them hit at least 1 point, and drawn with confidence!

-Planes

missed the mark for a lot of these as in undershooting and overshooting. but that's okay, what matters for this lesson is that they are drawn confidently! and you did just that. you hit at least 1 end, you have some minor arching here and there, try to give a an opposing arching force to create straighter lines. 

but you did do 1 mistake in this exercise, which is that you didn't plot out the + shape cutting the planes into 2 halves. you should always plot out the lines because it is essential to the ghosting method.

Overall good job on the lines exercises, you did well very confident lines! you also had the courage to not do any takebacks.

Elipses

-Planes

i'm going to assume that the one in the top of the imgur album is your second attempt. Good job on this elipses are drawn confidently and through, plus you definetly paid attention to the bounds.

i will comment that they are a bit "egg" shaped, it is to be expected at this stage, you'll improve as time goes, so it's okay, just make sure you keep it in mind. important to also note that you should draw your elipses only 2-3 times over, preferably 2, i see that you've drawn your elipses 4 times over on some of those tho, they are exceptions and most of them are drawn correctly, so it's alright.

-Panels

great job on this, elipses are drawn confidently, wide varrying elipse shapes, and they are maintained within the bounds. 

however i do see some common mistakes relating to the small "fill-in" elipses. you should draw and treat these just as you would for the big elipses, draw through them twice (or thrice) and use the ghosting method, they should also hit at least 3 sides, being as big as you can fit in a small gap as opposed to as much as you can fit https://imgur.com/a/lMBhfRY lastly there is a panel where you have your elipse missed the mark on the bottom end, remember, they should always hit 3 sides, be it 2 of the panel and 1 of another elipse or all 3 sides of a panel https://imgur.com/a/PAxvVgE however your mistakes are very minimal, and overall you did good

-Funnels

a lot of tilting i will say, the elipses minor axis should be paralel to the guideline that is placed. https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/58039837.jpg  but nothing major i belive, just keep in mind that when drawing elipses to a line, they should be parael to it. you also respect the bounds enough, and you draw through them. good job!

    overall, splendid job, confident and through elipses, a bit messy but completely understabdable

Boxes

straight off the bat, these are not looking very good

  • Plotted

    why did you hatch these so much? they just ended up making them look very messy and i'm struggling to see through them. on any given box, use stronger outlines or a single sided shade, this is overoverkill. but it's not detrimental to the lesson, overall you did well here. just try to a bit more patient when pulling lines with a ruler.

  • rough presepctive

    i'll be honest, there are pretty bad. not only did you not draw through them for 2 of the panels, you also did not draw any correction lines, after the inital boxes, you should draw extra lines with the help of a ruler that extends your lines to see how off you were with your mark, to top this off you also did a lot of take backs for your lines. you also do this very weird thing to prevent yourself from drawing the further box. https://imgur.com/a/E68Db3r

Once you're done a whole page, grab a pen of a different colour, or a pencil, or something you can visibly separate from the rest of your work. Using a ruler, take all of your depth lines (those that are meant to converge towards the vanishing point) and extend them to where they intersect with the horizon.

i very stongly suggest that you re read and go through this exercise again

-Rotated boxes

these are not any better. again with the over amounts of shading and hatching, which, by this point, looks a lot more like scribbling, here is a demo https://imgur.com/a/seMvSlK . you also skipped over a lot of boxes, 6 i counted. on top of this you are definetly not ghosting any of these. and even if you did nothing that remains here show so. this looks very much rushed and unfinished in your haste to get it over with and move on. i beg you take your time, and be patient, the next 250 box challange should not be done without the core concepts of the previous lessons understood.

-Organic prespectives

The boxes themselves are okay, good even, varrying size and angles, very cool! 

however everything else is worth the note. for one, you used pencil, but you did note that you did run out of pen ink, and some other students also do this, so that is okay. HOWEVER i see some light marks, that to me, indicate that you plotted them out with a thinner stroke and then overlapped them with a stronger stroke, if this is the case, refrain from it, you also reverted to doing "chicken scratches"  which is not part of the lesson. your second image is also very blurry. 

all lines, regardless of tool, should use the ghosting method. https://imgur.com/a/s8eluy6 i don't expect you bring the same level of accuracy, just the same level of tidiness and confidence.

Overall, i assume that you rushed a lot of this in the hopes of moving on to the next part quickly. the shading is done through scribbles, you had a lot of takebacks and drew over your lines and your boxes are invariably messy. i don't think you did a very good job on this section, not because you aren't "skilled" or any other factor, but just because you didn't take the time to read through the lesson.

you did very well for the first two sections but really fell short on the boxes. don't worry it's all part of the process, what matters is that you keep it up!

i want to end off this critique with some advice. please take your time, a big part of this lesson is also to learn to be patient, and accept that you will mess up, that your lines will miss the mark, that you will make a foobared box, but that is part of the lesson and you WILL grow from it.

if you ever feel burnt out, don't brute force your work, take a break, it's a lesson, not a race, we're looking for quality not efficiency.

Next Steps:

i do not belive that you are fit to do the 250 box challange yet. so i suggest doing revisions as follows:

-1 page of rough prespective

please take the time to watch the video, and read through the lesson, otherwise you won't gain anything out of it.

-at least 1 half of the rotated boxes exercise (preferably a full page if possible)

i hate to have to ask you to do this, because i hated this exercise myself. but i don't think you can move forward without having done it properly. again, take your time, and watch the videos.

undershooting or overshooting is completely okay for these, just don't do takebacks and draw over the lines. also please be refrain from doing far too much hatching, sometimes a single layer of thin, well spaced hatching can be enough.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
edited at 1:55 AM, May 29th 2023
12:36 AM, Tuesday May 30th 2023

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to help me out, I really appreciate it, when I got to the boxes I really started to rush because I was so close to finishing the lesson, but my results sre the consequences for not listening to the course, I wont do any homework as of tonight since I am burnt out from studying algebra but I will take the time this afternoon and tomorrow to practice drawing with patience, outside of this course I tend to rush my artwork, never stepping away from it even if I don't know what to do next, I'll try to beat down that habit.

To end this off, I have Just one question, I spend about an hour or so drawing a day, would it be reasonable for me to take a day-long break inbetween each page of homework? I don't want to rely on

critiques as much as I do for improvement, I'd want to use that day to rewatch the lesson video and look over my work before I start again the next day. I'm asking because I tend to have bad habits.

2:53 AM, Wednesday May 31st 2023

i'm happy to hear that you have the courage to acknowledge your shortcomings and are willing to improve on it.

to answer your question, that is completely okay! half of the lesson IS the videos and texts themselves, the exercises are also only a part of it, exercises serve to "apply" what you've learned.

take as much time as you need, go at your own pace. there is no deadline to the lesson itself, but staying enough so the habbit doesn't go away should also be kept in mind.

take it easy, you're doing fine.

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