250 Box Challenge

4:44 PM, Monday April 11th 2022

250 Boxes - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/2e0OOLP.jpg

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Hello Reviewer(s)!

This exercise was difficult for me - not so much because of the actual drawing, but because it took a lot of willpower and some planning to complete because it was so boring. I stopped early on (70ish?) and restarted some time later. In any case, I was very glad to reach the 250th box, and also quite proud. Even if my boxes are still a bit wonky in some places, I think I at least have developed some willpower for the next challenges. Each page of five boxes took about 20 minutes, so that's 1000 minutes or almost 17 hours invested.

One thing I struggled with was ghosting over the existing borders to make them thicker. In the beginning my lines often veered off, which is why many of them are quite a bit thicker, but I think I'd improved on that a lot by the end. I'm certainly happy with how my spatial understanding of what makes a realistic-looking box developed throughout the drawing. I feel much more confident in that regard.

Anyway, let loose with the critique and tell me where I can still improve! (Each page is A3, so there's two pages per photo really.) And thank you for reviewing.

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1:12 AM, Thursday April 14th 2022

Hi there, I'll be handling your box challenge critique.

Before getting into your critique I will point out that we're aware the box challenge isn't the most exciting but it is helpful. It's also why we stress the importance of the 50% rule in lesson 0 so much, efficient focused learning often isn't fun (neither are scales when learning music as another example) so it's important to supplement it with drawing for fun without pressure. I'll also just quickly mention that 20 minutes for 5 boxs is actually quite a bit faster than we typically see or expect, it doesn't appear like you were rushing necessarily so I'm not too worried in that regard but it wouldn't be surprising if each box took you 10 minutes to draw.

Congratulations on completing the box challenge, it's definitely a lot more work than most people expect. Not only does it help deepen your understanding of important concepts but it shows your desire to learn as well. Be proud of what you've accomplished and that desire you've shown. That being said I'll try to keep this critique fairly brief so you can get working on the next steps as soon as possible.

Things you did well:

  • You're doing a good job of drawing the lines constructing your boxes smoothly and confidently.

  • When hatching you're taking the time to space each line evenly which shows that care and thought is being put into each line. This helps your boxes appear solid and tidy rather than rushed.

  • Seeing as how line weight is not a requirement of the challenge it's nice to see that you're applying it. It's a useful tool but one that most people need some mileage with before they feel comfortable applying it. Getting an early start like this will help you see better results sooner.

  • Excellent work experimenting with orientations, proportions and rates of foreshortening. It's important to experiment when learning any new skill, it helps form a more well rounded understanding of new concepts. This habit will serve you well in the future so I hope you'll continue to build it as you move forward.

Things you can work on:

  • There are times when your lines converge in pairs or you attempt to keep your lines a bit too parallel which results in them diverging. This is an example of lines converging in pairs, and this shows the relation between each line in a set and their respective vanishing point. The inner pair of lines will be quite similar unless the box gets quite long and the outer pair can vary a lot depending on the location of the vanishing point. Move it further away and the lines become closer to parallel while moving it closer increases the rate of foreshortening.

The key things we want to remember from this exercise are that our lines should always converge as a set not in pairs, never diverge from the vanishing point and due to perspective they won't be completely parallel.

Overall while you did make a few mistakes your boxes are improving so far and with more mileage you'll continue to become more consistent. That being said I'll be marking your submission as complete and move you on to lesson 2.

Keep practicing previous exercises and boxes as warm ups, and good luck.

Next Steps:

Move on to lesson 2.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
12:40 PM, Thursday April 14th 2022

Hi Tofu, thank you for the critique! I'm surprised to hear 20 minutes for five boxes is fast. It felt achingly slow while I was doing it. I'll make sure to keep up the practice with the next lessons.

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