Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction

1:59 AM, Sunday April 21st 2024

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Took a bit but it is now done. I was actually excited to start doing the textures, and boy did those humble me. However, the thing that caused me the most trouble were the organic forms. Something in my mind just does not let me click with it. Ironically this made the organic intersections exercise the most frustrating to me.

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2:12 AM, Wednesday April 24th 2024

Hi there, I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.

Currently your submission just leads to a single page, reply to this comment with a corrected link to the rest of your work and I'll take a look at it as soon as I can.

Next Steps:

Submit the rest of your work please.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
3:02 AM, Wednesday April 24th 2024

My bad, here ya go

https://imgur.com/a/pOXRQOz

1:16 AM, Thursday April 25th 2024

This link works, thanks.

You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson and hopefully this critique will help you in your future attempts.

  • Starting off in the arrows section your lines are looking smoothly and confidently drawn. You're doing a good job maintaining a consistent width as your arrows widen while moving closer to the viewer and with more mileage you'll become more consistent. This is a good exercise to experiment with line weight but when applying it we want to make sure we do subtly to key areas like overlaps to give clarity to our forms. Here are some things to look out for when applying line weight, and here are some reminders on how to apply it subtly. At times you don't overlap your edges when you should, this results in your arrows flattening out as you can see here. I'd like you to experiment more with foreshortening in your future attempts, by utilizing it in both the arrows themselves as well as the negative space between their curves we can create a stronger illusion of an object moving through 3D space as demonstrated here.

  • Moving into the organic forms with contours exercise your forms are getting a bit too complex. We want to create our forms with both ends being the same size and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form's length as discussed here. You're keeping your line work confident here which is great, if you feel uncomfortable working with contours still don't stress with more mileage it'll become more natural. Speaking of contours, you're often placing your contour ellipse on the wrong side of your forms, it should be on viewer facing end which you can determine via your curves. You want your ellipse to be on the open side of your curves rather than the closed side (if O is an ellipse and C is a curve, you want it to be like CO rather than OC). I'd like you to try and shift the degree of your contours more as well. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.

  • In the texture exercises you're focusing largely on outlines, form shadows and negative space rather than cast shadows created by forms along the texture itself. This makes it difficult to create gradients with implied information which we could then use to create focal points in more complex pieces, by doing so we can prevent our viewers from being visually overwhelmed with too much detail. For more on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here. I'd also like to quickly direct you to this image which shows that when we're working with thin line like textures if we outline and fill the shadow we will create a much more dynamic texture than simply drawing lines.

  • It's quite common for people to feel like they don't fully grasp the form intersections exercise, if you feel like you may fall into this category try not to stress too much. This exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page. We'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons. That being said, you're currently highlighting existing edges rather than creating new ones via your intersecting forms, here's a diagram that will hopefully make the task a bit clearer.

  • While wrapping up your submission with the organic intersections exercise you do a good job demonstrating that your sense of 3D space is developing as your forms begin to wrap around each other believably. You're keeping your forms simple and easy to work with which is a good strategy to help produce good results. When it comes to your shadows you're pushing them enough so that they cast rather than just hugging the form that creates them which is a great start. Your shadows appear to be following a consistent light source, be sure to experiment with different angles and intensities when trying this exercise again in the future. I recommend pushing your light source to the top left or right corner of the page to start with, it's easier than working with a light directly above your form pile.

I won't be moving you on to the next lesson just yet, each lesson builds upon each other and I'd like to make sure you understand a few of these concepts a bit more before potentially creating more problems down the road.

With that being said I'd like you to please re-read and complete:

  • 1 page of the organic forms with contour curves exercise

  • 2 pages of the form intersections exercise

Once you've completed the pages mentioned above reply to this critique with a link to them, I'll go over them and address anything that needs to be worked on and once you've shown you're ready for the next lesson I'll move you on.

I look forward to seeing your work.

Next Steps:

  • 1 page of the organic forms with contour curves exercise

  • 2 pages of the form intersections exercise

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
1:42 AM, Wednesday May 1st 2024

Here are the extra pages

https://imgur.com/a/e8pyrd0

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