Lesson 7: Applying Construction to Vehicles

8:32 AM, Monday March 1st 2021

Drawabox Lesson 7 - Album on Imgur

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

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I made it! It feels good to be submitting homework for lesson 7. ????

I felt like my constructions were decent in this homework, but I need to study rendering in ink to make more progress in this style of drawing. I still don't know which cast shadows to include, which to leave out, where to hatch, etc. I also started to get tired toward the end, so I got a bit sloppier. I need to get better at free-handing the constructions; using all the tools to get them accurate makes the process feel painful.

Anyway, thanks for all your helpful critiques as I've worked through these lessons! I'd appreciate any advice on ink rendering that you might have, as well as anything else you notice, of course.

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10:36 AM, Tuesday March 2nd 2021

Lesson 7! That's big stuff - so let's get right into it.

Starting with your cylinders and form intersections, these are all looking very solid, though I did notice while your intersections all appeared to demonstrate a really solid grasp of 3D space, you didn't add an intersection for the sphere towards the left side. I'm assuming it just got forgotten, but in case you were unsure of how it might be drawn, I've marked it in here.

Moving onto your vehicle constructions, honestly you've really knocked this one out of the park. Your work is fantastic. You've tackled a wide range of vehicle types across the set, and I can't think of a single one you didn't knock out of the park. The cessna stands out, I suppose - and to be fair, there's not much to be said about "getting impatient with the rulers and guides", but at the end of the day while the wheels were noticeably flumsy looking, you did nail the proportions and the core structure was still well built.

I really have just one complaint, and it is the most minor of things - remember back in Lesson 2, I mentioned that we won't be using any form shading in our constructions throughout this course. While where were certain areas - like on the locomotive - where it was used acceptably (mostly to emphasize the roundedness of the cylinder), the use of hatching across your drawings definitely held your end results back. To put it simply, working in ink (particularly fineliner with the rich, unyielding blacks) works best when you work with clear, purposeful decisions. Keeping things consistent and using filled areas of solid black for only a single purpose (like representing cast shadow shapes) is ideal, but regardless keeping to solid, flat, filled shapes is key to making your drawings stand out. Whe you start incorporating hatching however, you start undermining the biggest strengths of the tool, in effectively visually hedging instead of taking a firm stance.

As far as the course goes, none of that matters - your constructions are incredibly solid, with your ford mustang particularly blowing me away. The construction of the front of that car is so well laid out that it feels like I could reach out and touch it. You've captured the character of the car so well - and I'll say this with complete confidence - you've blown past me, at least in this area, by quite a bit.

Now, in the spirit of nitpicking some kind of useful analysis here, I did notice that in your APC, the wheels felt like they were a little wider than they should have been, so I pulled it into photoshop and checked. As shown here, it does appear that the contact points are a little misaligned from the vertical vanishing point. Now the obvious thing here is that you're working with a limited range of ellipse guides (actually your set seems to be pretty thorough, if you've got 5 degree steps). I think the correct tactic here would be to simply turn the body of the vehicle itself to match the wheels.

The only other thing that catches my eye is that the form intersection tank's gun appears to be inclined pretty sharply upwards. Given that the horizon line is fairly low, and we're definitely looking at it from the ground, it is correct to have it angled upwards relative to our position a little bit, but here it was definitely exaggerated a bit much. But again - nitpicking, and nothing more. These mistakes happen, and I'm glad you didn't make any effort to change it, once you'd committed to that construction.

Anyway! All in all, I am incredibly pleased with your results, and I am more than happy to mark this lesson - and with it, the entire course - as complete. Congratulations. Best of luck on whatever you intend to pursue next!

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
4:07 AM, Wednesday March 3rd 2021

Thank you! You're a fantastic teacher and I'll be recommending Drawabox to anyone who wants to learn.

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Staedtler Pigment Liners

Staedtler Pigment Liners

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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