I am still having challenges to draw the "hidden" line correctly after finishing 250 boxes. My ghost method line drawing does not seem to improve too much either, but these are the best I can do so far. Thank you for your time to provide critique comments.
Hi there, I'll be handling your box challenge critique.
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:
Good work drawing your construction lines confidently, this keeps your lines smooth and prevents wobbling.
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.
Line weight isn't a requirement of the challenge so it's nice to see you're applying it anyways. I will quickly point you back to the instructions however, you're not outlining the whole silhouette and you do apply it a bit heavily at times. Most people need to build up some mileage before they feel comfortable applying it so I always recommend starting early. The sooner you feel comfortable the sooner you see better results.
You're doing a great job of experimenting with orientations, and rates of foreshortening. Experimenting is an important habit to build when learning any new skill, it helps form a more well rounded understanding. I hope you'll continue to display and nurture this habit in the future.
Things you can work on:
I'd like you to experiment with proportions more, currently most of your boxes are fairly similar in this regard. Try mixing in some longer/thinner/wider boxes to see how your lines behave in different scenarios.
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.
You mention struggling with the "hidden" line which I assume is the line connecting the 2 rear corners. This is something I wouldn't stress too much about as it's rarely going to be perfect. This line in particular tends to be drawn last so it will be off if any other line in the box is off, definitely try to improve and make it more consistent just don't stress if it appears off more so than the others.
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 moving you on to lesson 2.
Keep practicing previous exercises and boxes as warm ups, and good luck
Next Steps:
Move on to lesson 2.
Thanks very much for your time reviewing the submission and providing the critique comments.
It was my misunderstanding in reading the line weight instructions, so I didn't line weight the two edges on the hatching side. Thanks for pointing it out.
I did notice a lot of the inner pair lines created diverging instead of converging. I mostly made VPs far off the paper so the inner pair lines run like parallel. That's a really hard struggling point for me. I will definitely try to practice more on the side and take your suggestion to mix in different longer/thinner/wider boxes!
Very much appreciated.
Like the Staedtlers, these also come in a set of multiple weights - the ones we use are F. One useful thing in these sets however (if you can't find the pens individually) is that some of the sets come with a brush pen (the B size). These can be helpful in filling out big black areas.
Still, I'd recommend buying these in person if you can, at a proper art supply store. They'll generally let you buy them individually, and also test them out beforehand to weed out any duds.
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