Hey! How is doing?
Feel free to check out my work so far. If you have any advice to give, I'd would really appreciate it. Feel free to be as honest as possible. I don't have as much experience as a lot of the other people here, so any advice in general would helps me a lot.
Much thanks!
Hi Perkfever! I'll be reviewing your homework. Let's see:
Organic Intersections: You're missing those :P
Animal Drawings:
Your initial constructions look good. Taking some rudimentary proportions would help them "look better", but that's not the point of the exercise anyway. A thing that I notice a lot of the times though is a lack of contour curves, which would reinforce the threedimensionality of the forms. Don't abuse them either, but a couple of them would help a lot to sell the illusion.
Adding the intersections between forms would go a long way as well. These have to follow the contour of the forms they're being drawn on, because on drawings like the donkey, you tried that on the legs, but since the intersections don't really follow the contour of the forms, they feel flat. Most of the time, the union between neck and thorax looks good because you did draw the intersection between those forms.
On your heads, be very careful when adding masses and dividing the sections like the muzzle. Look really close at your reference, and pay attention to the way the masses are interacting with the original construction.
On a lot of your added masses, there are corners present, which create complexity and suggest the idea of something existing besides them. Try to make them flow smoothly, like this Think of them as bags of flour falling onto your forms, or sticky gum, when they're upside down, no corners visible. Unless of course, there are things beside them, but that would be like shells on the insects, that kind of thing.
Be careful with your lineweight, apply it only when necessary, and try to be subtle about it too. And if you're going to add detail, go all the way, or don't apply any detail at all.
Finally, your line appears really sketchy at times, but it looks to me like your pen is running out (I've had similar lines too, and it was because of that). Change your pen, and remember to always ghost your lines and draw them with confidence. These sketchy lines make the drawings seem more flimsy than they would be with more confident ones.
I think you're on the right path, but there are things that need correcting. So I'll ask for the following revisions:
Two pages of Organic Intersections
5 drawings of animals:
1 bird
1 non-hooved quadruped
1 hooved quadruped
1 random animal
1 hybrid
No detail on them. Draw big, one animal per page, and add the reference photos to the submission as well. Take your time, if you feel overwhelmed, take a break and you can come back to the drawing later. It's better if the drawing takes a little more time, than if the drawing ends up rushed and flimsy.
Once you're done, submit them here and I'll take a look. If you have any question I'll be around too. Good luck!
Next Steps:
Two pages of Organic Intersections
5 drawings of animals, with no detail on them:
1 bird
1 non-hooved quadruped
1 hooved quadruped
1 random animal
1 hybrid
Sorry for taking so long to reply! I only saw the notification pop up today. I'll get the all the steps in tomorow or the day after.
Thanks so much for responding! It helps a lot. I'll get back to you soon.
5 Animals
Animal References
2 Organic Forms
Hey again!
Thanks for replying. This feedback really helps me improve, and it means a lot that you went out of your way to help me. I forgot to add in the organic forms in my last post, so thanks for reminding me.
What I took note to work on was the:
lack of contour curves
adding intersection between forms
taking initial proportions
be careful with adding masses to the head
ridding the corner on additional masses
careful with line weight
be less sketchy with linework
If I missed anything besides that, feel free to tell me, also if I forgot anything, feel free to ask for anything.
Again, thanks a lot!
Hi! So, starting with the organic intersections, here's a demo on your first page, the corrections there apply to the second page as well.
As for the animal drawings, the following corrections apply to all of them:
1: your line is way too wobbly and insecure. You have to make those lines flow, from your shoulder, ghosting them and executing the line with confidence.
2: Your curves on the legs are arbitrary, they don't follow the contour of the sausage they're being drawn on, and the feet have no dimension to them at all. For the feet, start with simple forms, then add masses to them and break them apart as is needed. You can look at the donkey demo for a better reference.
On my demo, when I added curves without adding masses, I could've done that cutting into the box itself too. If you look at the demos, sometimes we cut into the forms, other times we add the curves outside, like I did here, the important thing is that we keep in mind how the lines we're adding relate to the main construction and the forms they're being drawn too. In the end, I'm not just adding a curve to make the feet rounder: I'm implying a mass there, but it's one that's so small that just implying it in that way, works good enough.
As for the legs, it's better that you use the contour curves on the basic construction and on some places where it could be needed afterwards (like horns or things like that), but the legs work better with just the intersections drawn on them. That being said, those intersections have to be drawn with care, following the contour of the forms they're being draw upon.
Rhyno: Demo
The ears can be treated as a thick petal, as they flow in a similar way in 3D space. As you drew them here, they look stiff and without any dimension.
The spheres are way too overdrawn. We're overdrawing ellipses (and masses by extension) two to three times. The excessive lineweight on the initial construction undermines the rest of it, and prioritizes thing in the wrong order, visually.
The legs and feet have the same problem as the camel, and you also hatched the backlegs. Don't: that comes from older demos. Draw through your forms every time.
The boxy mass you added on the head, while I totally get your way of thinking there, could've been improved working with a smaller cranium to start, and wrapping the form better around the sausages; you'll notice that you ended up with some innecesary corners. When the boxy form reaches the hump, it creates a little corner: that's totally fine because you're interacting with another form. However, the way the boxy form wraps around the hump should be softer, as that form is rounder.
The eyes are not spherical when they should be, and so, the eyelids don't wrap around them as they should.
The horn reads fine, but if you want to be more accurate to the reference, you could add a contour curve that describes the planes on the horn, as it is not totally rounded.
Bird: The bird looks good enough; the intersections on the legs are missing, but all other mistakes here have already been adressed.
Frog: Same issues: line too wobbly, basic construction spheres too overdrawn, intersections missing and/or inaccurate. Watch out for the sausages, those are made on a single stroke, we don't build them like we do with the branches.
Hybrid: Looks better as well, while having a lot of the same issues mentioned before. I really like the boxy head and the planes of the horn being suggested without using contour curves, which is great too. Would've liked to see you break apart the head a little more and add some additional masses to make it closer to a rhyno's head.
So, there's that. Trying to condese it, here are the main points:
Wobbly line; intersection curves don't follow the contour of the forms, some sausages are not being drawn in one stroke.
Basic ellipses/spheres are being overdrawn.
Additional forms could be wrapped better around the basic construction, on occasion the feet are not broken down into planes, the ears tend to be stiff instead of flowing through space.
And a final one:
There's a lot of progress, but you still have some things to improve. So, taking in mind all previous corrections, I'll ask for 3 more drawings:
One hooved quadruped
Two non hooved quadrupeds
And a final page of Organic Intersections. Here, remember that your sausages are resting, not floating or in the process of falling. Be careful with your cast shadows, think of how those are actually being cast and why.
Again, work big, 1 drawing per page, take your time, and think about how every line you're making relates to the forms they're being drawn upon.
Don't forget to warm up before drawing. If you have any questions, I'll be around to answer them. Good luck!
Next Steps:
One page of Organic Intersections
Three more animal drawings:
Two non-hooved quadrupeds
One hooved quadruped
Thank you a ton for replying!
Although this may disapoint you, I will not be completing the next steps that you have assigned. I do not feel that recompletting the Steps a third time will be worth the time spent, when I could move onto the next part in the lesson. DrawABox recomends that we "follow the instructions to the letter". And while that may sound like an excuse, I genuinely believe that feeling nonemotional with my work being far from perfect is part of improving. I don't plan on perfecting my fundamental with DrawABox, but learning them now, so that I can improve on it when I apply it to real work.
Again, I'm sorry for the bad news. However, I will make sure I take everything you said into this review with importance. I've written as much as I can in my notes.
Draw Shadows running along the form underneath
Draw the outline of the shadow carefully to not suggest additional forms
Be more careful with wobbly lines
Make sure that the contour lines are placed with intent
Treat the feet as a 3d form
Wrap all additional forms
Treat the eyeball as always spherical
Treat the ear as leaves
Don't forget contour curves in feet and horns
Don't forget intersection between forms (legs)
Add Lineweight were appropriate
Although I'm going against what you asked, thank you so much for all the work you've put in so far. It really means a lot to me. I wish the best of luck in your studies and hope we meet again!
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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