Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

10:02 AM, Wednesday May 19th 2021

Drawabox Lesson 1 [Crosmere] - Album on Imgur

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Made the (late) decision to start posting my progress here after finishing my 250 boxes. Big thanks to anyone who takes the time to critique this.

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7:18 AM, Thursday May 27th 2021

Welcome to Draw A Box! Thanks for submitting your homework. I've noticed that you've been writing notes in your homework- I'd suggest doing them on post its or in a journal as those notes take up valuable practice space. Make sure to check if you're following the example shown in the homework pages to avoid grinding.

Lines

Ghosted lines - In your notes you've written accuracy as something to aim for. This resulted in wobbly-ness in many of your lines. Next time, just focus on getting smooth lines. Accuracy will gradually improve as you continue the course- when we focus on accuracy our brains will try to interfere with our process.

Also no matter how badly a line turns out, don't redo them. Just move on to the next one. (First Ghosted planes page)

Ellipses

Refer back to what I said about writing notes in homework.

Your ellipses are very good- it seems like you've been critiquing yourself on that. A small percentage of your ellipses are wobbly and intersect but those can be improved as you do these exercises for warmups. I'll link Uncomfortable's video on things to remember when going through the tables of ellipses homework.

Ellipses in planes:

A very minor amount of your ellipses are deformed to try and meet all the sides. If that happens I'd suggest continuing anyways when you know your ellipses aren't going to meet all four sides- we want smooth ellipses as our first priority.

Funnels:

Your ellipses have become less confident because you are trying to reach the sides of the funnel. This homework is notoriously difficult- just be aware that the funnel in the bottom left corner is not aligned.

Boxes

Refer back to what I said about writing notes in homework.

Please follow the homework example in the articles to prevent accidental grinding.

Quick note on line weight: Messing up on it is normal, just don't redo the same line. (Plotted perspective)

Rough perspective:

Refer to the lines section of my critique.

A common mistake is not keeping the width lines parallel to the horizon and the height lines perpendicular to the horizon. This can be a sign of guessing because you don't know what the box should look like.

Rotated boxes:

You used hatching as shading- in Dab, we use hatching to denote the side we're looking at. Hatching the gaps between the boxes would make it easier to read.

Your boxes is showing rotation, this exercise is hard so good job on this! Be careful of converging towards the same vanishing point - this is easier to spot in the upper rows if you look at the bottom edges of your boxes. When boxes converge to the same VP the bottom edge will line up to form a straight line.

Organic perspective:

Refer to the lines section of this critique.

You show understanding of depth and my eyeballs have been tricked to see that- nice!

Usually I have people resubmit pages if they didn't follow instructions but you show understanding of the concepts- I'll let it pass.

Next Steps:

Thanks for submitting lesson 1! You can continue onwards. Welcome to DAB :)

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
8:23 AM, Thursday May 27th 2021

Thanks very much for your comments! Good point on the notes taking up a fair bit of space, ha

You mention a couple of times being sure to reference the example pages to avoid grinding: just checking I'm interpreting correctly, that's to do with knowing how much to put on a page?

9:16 AM, Thursday May 27th 2021

Yes! Sometimes students will feel like they have to do a little bit more because "it's extra practice" / "it doesnt look good" and they end up straying from the purpose of the homework. The goal is for students to grasp the concepts and not to make excellent looking homework- that part is when you set out to make your own art. I was just worried for you since I was reading your notes- thanks for asking me to clarify! You are doing really well for lesson one as it's notoriously difficult.

Uncomfortable has an article on grinding here

11:11 AM, Thursday May 27th 2021

Great! Thanks very much!

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