Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

3:11 AM, Tuesday June 3rd 2025

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Second time trying drawabox (first time was over 8 years ago). Really enjoyed it this time around and felt like I learned more. The last two, rotated boxes and especially organic perspective challenged me the most.

Appreciate the feedback!

6:14 PM, Wednesday June 4th 2025

Welcome and congratulations on finishing the first lesson of Drawabox! I'm Mada and I'll be taking a look at your submission.

Overall you did a great job here, but I do have a bit to mention so let's break them down one by one. I'll write the most important things in bold.

Lines

Starting with your superimposed lines, these are looking good. Ghosted lines look correctly ghosted and confident too, and there are barely any arching. You've also demonstrated the same confidence in your ghosted planes with a great accuracy. Nothing much to say except keep up the good work!

Ellipses

Now with the tables of ellipses, you've demonstrated a great understanding of the concept in executing confident ellipses. The ellipses in planes are nice, you drew it confidently and snugly in their respective planes.

The funnels are also looking great; you've managed to fit them snugly and confidently, but somewhat misaligned to the minor axis (remember that you should try to split them equally in half; you can make this easier by rotating the paper as you align the ellipses). Otherwise, I have no complaints here as your ellipses will tighten as you get more practice. Also this is optional, but you can attempt the optional step of varying the ellipse's degrees as you move outwards in your warm ups, as mentioned here: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/18/step3

Boxes

You've shown a good understanding of how to make 2 point perspective in the plotted perspective. However, I did see tons of skewed back vertical lines here and there, which is usually caused by an accumulation of human error as you plot more and more lines. I assume that's the case and you understand that every vertical line is straight in 2 point perspective. Even if the points are not aligned correctly, try to find a middle ground and draw it as vertical as you can.

You've applied the ghosting method and lines extension correctly for the rough perspective. I've again noticed that some of the back faces of your boxes are not rectangular. By rectangular, we mean that they should be composed of horizontals that are parallel to the horizon line, and verticals that are perpendicular to it. While this could also be caused by the sometimes inaccurate lines, it's worth mentioning that there should not be any arbitrary guesswork or random angles. Don't forget that these rectangular front/back faces are the unique characteristics of 1 point perspective.

Also this is more of a reminder, but be careful of putting the VP of 1 point perspective way off to the side, as you risk skewing the boxes further from the VP (where 2 VP is more suitable for these boxes). Generally, anywhere around the center is fine for 1 point perspective.

As the notoriously most difficult exercise in this lesson, you've done a great job at doing the rotated boxes. You've rotated them pretty well (while making sure to move the converging lines) and used neighboring elements to deduce the next orientation of boxes, which is the whole purpose of this exercise.

Finally, organic perspective looks great as well. They look like they belong in the same page and the lines converge as they move farther away from the viewer. There are a few hiccups here and there where there are divergences that results in skewed boxes, but overall they're minor and they look pretty solid. I did see you trying to apply lineweight to indicate which box is in the front, but they look a bit too haphazard here and distracting with how bold they are. Try to apply lineweight subtly, by going over the preexisting line with the ghosting method. Lineweight shouldn't be screaming to maintain that illusion of depth!

This will get more relevant as you get to the box challenge, but any hatching from this point on should also be done with the ghosting method. It will make your stuff cleaner and more practice is always good! Try to cover the whole area of the box with consistent spacing.

One last thing I want to mention is do not correct your lines by going over it with more lines. This will make your mistake stands out even more with how bold it is, and generally is against the concept of executing planned confident lines throughout this course. Unless it's waaaaay off the trajectory, accept the mistake and trust your muscle memory that it will get better with time and practice.

Anyway, I think you've grasped the concepts of the whole lesson and ready to put them into practice in warmups. Remember to keep working on your lines & ellipses confidence. Again, congratulations and keep up the good work!

Next Steps:

Move onto the 250 box challenge.

Do the lesson 1 exercises as your regular warmup and don't forget your 50% rule art.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
10:29 PM, Wednesday June 4th 2025

Thanks so much for the detailed feedback.

I'll be sure to keep the points on perspective and ghosting lines without going over them for teh box exercise/hatching.

Will be sure to keep the points you've made about ellipses and other exerices in mind too as I do them in my warmups.

Best,

Adi

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Sakura Pigma Microns

Sakura Pigma Microns

A lot of my students use these. The last time I used them was when I was in high school, and at the time I felt that they dried out pretty quickly, though I may have simply been mishandling them. As with all pens, make sure you're capping them when they're not in use, and try not to apply too much pressure. You really only need to be touching the page, not mashing your pen into it.

On the flipside, they tend to be on the cheaper side of things, so if you're just getting started (beginners tend to have poor pressure control), you're probably going to destroy a few pens - going cheaper in that case is not a bad idea.

In terms of line weight, the sizes are pretty weird. 08 corresponds to 0.5mm, which is what I recommend for the drawabox lessons, whereas 05 corresponds to 0.45mm, which is pretty close and can also be used.

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