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

Not only does the challenge 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 trying to keep your hatching lines evenly spaced which shows you're thinking about how they're placed rather than just rushing them.

• It's nice to see that you're attempting to apply line weight. It's not a requirement of the challenge but it's a helpful tool to learn. Most people feel like they need a bit of mileage with it before they feel comfortable so getting an early start is a good idea. There are some issues with your applications here and I'll go over them in the things to work on section.

• You're experimenting with proportions, orientations and rates of foreshortening. Experimenting is a great habit to build and it'll lead to a lot of really good progress in the future. It helps us form a more well rounded understanding of the concepts we're tackling so I hope you continue to nurture this habit in the future as well.

• Your convergences do appear to be getting more consistent and you're creating fewer distorted boxes overall which is a good sign that your sense of 3D space is developing.

Things you can work on:

• At times you draw quite small, drawing large helps us become more comfortable working from our shoulder and allows us to see our mistakes more clearly.

• There is some noticeable wobbling occurring in your lines, this is a sign that you're hesitating and not drawing as confidently as you could be.

• When hatching your lines do get messy which is something you mentioned in your submission, this is partly due to confidence issues as well as the fact that you're redrawing once you make a mistake. Whether it be the lines you're creating your box with, your hatching lines or your line weight lines you want to be ghosting and then drawing the line confidently in one smooth motion. If you overshoot your stopping point or aren't completely accurate that's totally fine at this point, accuracy will come with mileage.

• 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 may also be a sign that you're losing track of your vanishing point. 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.

If I may be honest I think the thing holding your work back the most currently is your mindset and how you're tackling your work. You mention that it's absurd that this took you 5 months, and while it's definitely a lengthy time if that's how long it took for you to get the most out of the challenge then that's much better than you rushing it and gaining nothing from it. I can't comment on your life responsibilities but sometimes we have things we have to prioritize, or maybe we just aren't used to being productive and it can take a while for us to build up a healthy work flow. While it's good that you recognize that there is work for you to do in regards to working more consistently, don't beat yourself up to the point you discourage yourself in the process. This mindset can be reflected in your work as well, you're redrawing over your mistakes which is something that most people struggle with because of their inner critic not accepting anything other than "perfection". Mistakes are how we learn and nothing to be ashamed of, everybody makes them and we just become more consistent as we improve. Part of the reason we use ink is so that we are forced to work with our mistakes rather than just sitting there and grinding for the "perfect" line, so if you make a mistake just learn and work with it.

You mentioned you were concerned about wasting another credit, I'm not sure if this in regards to the month passing and a credit expiring (in which case you shouldn't be rushing either, take your time and get everything you can from your work) or if it's in fear of possible revisions costing a credit. If it's the latter know that unless we ask for a total redo of an assignment revisions are still under the submission's credit. Now this doesn't mean that you should rush through your work, submit it, and get feedback in the hopes that you'll feel like you understand the material better, because not following directions or putting in any effort is how someone gets assigned a total redo. Instead just realize that there isn't pressure or expectations of you submitting perfect work the first time, you're learning, there will be mistakes. Sometimes you may be asked to redo exercises but that doesn't mean you failed it just means that you may need a bit more work to understand a concept before adding more complex ones on top of it.

That being said I won't be moving you on to the next lesson just yet, each lesson builds off concepts in the previous course material so if you move forward with un-addressed issues you end up just creating further issues on top of them.

I'm going to be asking you to draw 15 more boxes, you're largely on the right track we just need to address your line quality issues before moving forward. Remember to draw large and not to let your inner critic take control and cause you to hesitate. You're drawing boxes not works of art, if your lines aren't completely accurate it's not the end of the world so just do your best to draw confidently. You don't need to beg for forgiveness because you made mistakes either, everyone does and everyone will, that's life. While your mistakes may determine the outcome of your work, they don't determine who you are or what you're capable of, you're here to improve and you will as long as you want too and put in your best attempt at doing so.

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

I know you can do this and look forward to seeing your work.