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. 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 smoothly and confidently. Your lines are looking straight rather than wobbling all over the place.
It's good to see that you're taking the time to plan each of your lines, even when hatching you keep them evenly spaced and tidy.
Good work experimenting with orientations and proportions. Experimenting is important when learning any new skill and helps us form a more well rounded understanding of the concepts we're tackling. I hope you'll continue to experiment as you continue through the course.
Things you can work on:
It's not a requirement of the challenge but I do recommend that you practice applying line weight in your future warm ups at the very least. It's an incredibly useful tool but one that most people need some mileage with before they feel comfortable applying. Getting an early start will help you build up that comfort and see better results sooner.
In the first half of the challenge you regularly placed at least one vanishing point between the viewer and your box. This lead to you extending your lines in the wrong direction and your lines diverging from where their actual vanishing point would be and your boxes becoming distorted as a result. It looks like you realized what was going on but I'll inclued this guide I wrote that will hopefully help you understand how to place your vanishing points and line extensions consistently.
Something I'd like you to experiment more with is rates of foreshortening. You tend to keep your vanishing points as far from your box as you can and your lines as close to parallel (unless you shift into 1 or 2 point perspective rather than 3 point). By bringing your vanishing points in closer you'll see your lines begin to converge more dramatically. Remember experimenting is important or else we only improve at one method.
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.
I unfortunately 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. Based off your album name I can only assume you didn't enjoy the challenge, but know that it will help and you're almost across the finish line.
I'd like you to draw 20 more boxes please. Focus on trying to experiment with rates of foreshortening and placing your vanishing points/line extensions consistently. Trying to apply some line weight and more hatching will help you in the long run as well.
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.
Next Steps:
20 more boxes please.
Thanks for the critique. The guide you sent really helped.
Ill be honest, I didnt revise the line weight notes and for the first 7 was done exclusively on the corner, which after reading the lesson notes see that was very wrong. So ahh.. yeah.
Heres 20 more boxes.
Definitely taking steps in the right direction here, good work.
I think you're on the right track now and will have no problem improving as you build up more mileage so I'll be moving you on to the next lesson.
Keep practicing previous exercises and boxes as warm ups and good luck!
Next Steps:
Move on to lesson 2.
Where the rest of my recommendations tend to be for specific products, this one is a little more general. It's about printer paper.
As discussed in Lesson 0, printer paper (A4 or 8.5"x11") is what we recommend. It's well suited to the kind of tools we're using, and the nature of the work we're doing (in terms of size). But a lot of students still feel driven to sketchbooks, either by a desire to feel more like an artist, or to be able to compile their work as they go through the course.
Neither is a good enough reason to use something that is going to more expensive, more complex in terms of finding the right kind for the tools we're using, more stress-inducing (in terms of not wanting to "ruin" a sketchbook - we make a lot of mistakes throughout the work in this course), and more likely to keep you from developing the habits we try to instill in our students (like rotating the page to find a comfortable angle of approach).
Whether you grab the ream of printer paper linked here, a different brand, or pick one up from a store near you - do yourself a favour and don't make things even more difficult for you. And if you want to compile your work, you can always keep it in a folder, and even have it bound into a book when you're done.
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