Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

8:37 PM, Monday April 20th 2020

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Imgur: The magic of the Internet: https://imgur.com/user/GuffCanyonComics/posts

I have a habit of hunkering down and working/studying on my own which isn't ideal. It can be hard to find thoughtful feedback sometimes so thanks and it's awesome that this community exists and I can't wait to get some feedback. I've also done the 250 box challenge but as I didn't realise it was considered a separate module so I haven't included it. Thanks so much :)

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3:17 PM, Wednesday April 22nd 2020

Hey, it seems like your imgur link is broken, it's taking me to your front page. Once you get that up I'd be happy to take a look posthaste. I'm gonna list it as a revision so I get pinged when you get that to me!

Next Steps:

Resubmit from imgur

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
6:23 PM, Wednesday April 22nd 2020

Thanks Qzhans. Sorry about that. This should work https://imgur.com/a/NgA4Trj

3:52 PM, Thursday April 23rd 2020

Howdy, TA qzhans here!

First, superimposed lines. In general, the confidence here is nice, keeping wobbling to a minimum. I do see some fraying at both ends on some of them however. Remember, no matter how long it takes, slowly and precisely place your pen before making that line.

Moving onto ghosted lines, there’s some good confidence here as well. My issue here would be the density. Always take a look at Uncomfortable’s examples as an idea of how many you should be fitting on the page.

Your ghosted planes show a little bit of dip in that smooth linework, with some wobbling creeping back in. Remember that the goal at this point is to knock that course-correcting side of your brain unconscious and make as straight of a line as possible, not worrying about whether you hit your mark just yet. I’m also seeing some places where you’ patched up or drawn-over some lines. Execute each line with one stroke, and execute it confidently. Laying down more lines to fix something will only create more contradictions and draw eyes to a mistake.

Moving onto your ellipse tables, I like that you're keeping your ellipses tightly packed within the bounds that you've set. There's expected room for improvement in getting your ellipses to be tight and tidy, but drawing through with confidence is more important at this stage, which you are.

Your ellipses in planes show an improvement in that tidiness. I’m also seeing minimal deformation here, focusing on drawing a smooth ellipse first.

Next, your funnels generally do a good job of aligning to the minor axis that you've set and I have no complaints.

No problems with plotted perspective in regards to technique, but again, take a look at Uncomfortable’s examples as an idea of how many you should be doing.

For your rough perspective, I’m pleased to see that you are applying the error checking method correctly, extending your lines parallelly back to the horizon line instead of directly to the vanishing point. In general, you kept your horizontal and vertical lines parallel and vertical to the horizon line respectively as well. The problem I do want to address is a little bit of degradation in your line work, with an extra line here and there, perhaps to correct some perceived mistake. There are some places where it was line weight, but the line you’ve used to reinforce is a little wobbly, which makes the linework look unclean.

And now, the one you’ve been waiting for: rotated boxes. Before anything, I wanted to congratulate you on its completion; it's not something you're really supposed to be ready for. The issue I see is you are not keeping the gaps between each box consistent, which has also caused not enough rotation with the boxes. You’ve also forgotten to draw through a lot of your boxes. It might be helpful to think about this exercise as a half sphere of squares in front, and a half sphere of squares in the back, that you connect. You can see this in Uncomfortable’s example, if you look at the back faces they also form sort of a half sphere. I do appreciate the effort from retrying it from the first time. In the future though, let us save you the hard work! We’ll let you know if you need to re-do something, and we’ll offer you the proper advice to help you do it correctly the second time, saving you time.

Finally, onto organic perspective. In general, your boxes do a good job of shrinking and growing as they move through space. I'm pleased to see a little bit of overlapping here and there as well (although I do think you could've done a bit more). There's work to be done in getting those parallel lines to converge to their shared vanishing point, but you can iron that out with the box challenge. The main issue here would be your linework; resist the urge to re-draw lines. It looks much cleaner overall if you just play around your mistakes, as extra lines give a sketchy impression that we don’t want.

Overall, there’s a good understanding of the lesson content, but I’m concerned about the quality of linework. It’s quite common for students to get a little tripped up by this linework issue as the exercises get tougher, as the perceived need for accuracy increases. I think you just need one more push to really solidify the “one line, one try” mantra of Drawabox. Thus, I’d like to see a page of rough perspective before I wave you on. Resist the urge this time to fix anything, and no matter how badly you messup just try and work around it.

Next Steps:

1 page rough perspective

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
10:47 PM, Thursday April 23rd 2020

Thanks qzhans. I've tried my best to do the one line, one try thing but it feels messier, haha. I'm in no rush to get to the next lesson, I'm more interested in getting things right, though I do value your time and don't want to be a pain.

Anyway, here's the link to the new organic perspective: https://imgur.com/a/R3r7imd

Thanks,

Ben

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