Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

6:30 PM, Saturday February 13th 2021

Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/foAyAF0.jpg

Discover the magic of the internet at Imgur, a community powered enterta...

Hey! Completed lesson 1 and now its time for some critiques.

Here are some of my own notes:

-Super imposed lines: Definitely need more practice. I think i was doing them too fast and not planning enough. Also noticed that the second line i made was usually very off but the ones after were pretty decent.

-Ghosted lines: Did them too fast and didn't plan enough. My brain was also getting in the way and i concentrated too much on hitting the mark. Need to work on getting rid of the curving as well.

-Ghosted planes: Again concentrating too much on hitting the mark and not on getting a straight line. Lots of curves on the lines because my priorities were off.

-tables of ellipses: These gave me a lot of trouble. Did them too fast and didn't ghost enough. I think the turning point was kind of hard to get right and they ended up looking kinda bad.

-Ellipses in planes: Found it hard to hit all the edges. Didn't ghost enough. Should have taken my time.

-Funnels: Mostly the same stuff from table of ellipses. Some of the middle ones are too big.

-Plotted perspective: Not a lot to say about this one. The more lines i made the harder it was to know where exactly the VP was but other than that nothing to say really.

-Rough perspective: Since i have trouble making straight lines this was kind of hard. Also when doing the back of the box i focused too much on getting each individual line to the VP because some of them failed the box ended up looking like crap. I think i should have just done the lines based on the first line i made.

-Rotated box: Hard. The size of my boxes were really off. Don't know why one of them is really long. Should maybe have used the adjacent boxes more as a reference for my lines.

-Organic perspective: The boxes are kinda samey and they become too small too fast. Some of the boxes ended up too long as well.

All in all im pretty proud that i even managed to do all this. Just gotta stay motivated now and concentrate more.

Thank you for your feedback in advance! Im off to make a few boxes.

0 users agree
7:51 PM, Sunday February 14th 2021

Hello and congrats on completing lesson one. I'll be taking a look at your submission today. Starting with your superimposed lines these are off to a fine start. You are keeping a clearly defined starting point with all of your wavering at the opposite end. Your ghosted lines and planes turned out well. You are using the ghosting method to good effect to get confident linework with a pretty decent deal of accuracy that will get better and better with practice.

Your tables of ellipses is coming along okay. You are doing a good job drawing through your ellipses and you seem to be focused on getting smooth ellipse shapes even if you aren't achieving it all the time. This is carried over nicely into your ellipses in planes although you are still deforming your ellipses at times. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/12/deformed This is likely happening because you are too worried about accuracy and are probably slowing down your stroke to compensate. Try and rely a bit more on the muscle memory of the motion you build up while ghosting and almost make your mark without thinking. This will be less accurate at first. Although accuracy is our end goal it can't really be forced and tends to come through mileage and consistent practice more than anything. Your ellipses in funnels are having the same issues and you are also tilting your ellipses off the minor axis at times. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/13/notaligned This is something you should always consider when drawing your ellipses. Another thing you could have done with these is start with a narrower degree ellipse in the center and then widen the degrees of the ellipses as they move outwards in the funnel. Please check the example here. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/13/step3 There is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to your ellipses both in terms of overall consistency of shape and accuracy so make sure you keep practicing these in your warmups as they can take a while to get used to.

The plotted perspective looks great, nothing to mention here. Your rough perspectives turned out pretty good. It's great that you are keeping up with the confident linework on these. You are also doing a good job extending the lines back on your boxes to check your work. As you can see some of your perspective estimations were quite off but that will become more intuitive with practice. One thing that can help you a bit when doing a one point perspective exercise like this is to realize that all of your horizontal lines should be parallel to the horizon line and all of your verticals should be straight up and down. This will help you avoid some of the slanting lines you have in your constructions.

Your rotated box exercise turned out pretty well. I like that you drew this nice and big as that really helps when dealing with complex spatial problems. You also did a good job drawing through your boxes and keeping your gaps narrow and consistent. You are running into a pretty common issue of not actually rotating your boxes in some cases but instead simply drawing them moving back in perspective. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/notrotating This is a great exercise to come back to after a few lessons to see how much your spatial thinking ability has improved. Your organic perspective exercises are looking pretty good. You seem to be getting comfortable using the ghosting method and drawing from your shoulder for confident linework which is great. Your box constructions are a bit of a mixed bag. You are getting some decent box constructions along with quite a few wonky ones so the 250 box challenge will be a great next step for you.

Overall this was a solid submission that showed a nice deal of growth. Your line confidence and ellipses are both coming along nicely but keep up with that ellipse practice as those probably need the most improvement out of these pages. I think you are understanding most of the concepts these lessons are trying to convey quite well. I'm going to mark this as complete and good luck with the 250 box challenge. Keep up the good work!

Next Steps:

The 250 Box Challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
2:55 PM, Monday February 15th 2021

Hey! Thanks for the critique. I'll keep working on those ellipses!

The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
How to Draw by Scott Robertson

How to Draw by Scott Robertson

When it comes to technical drawing, there's no one better than Scott Robertson. I regularly use this book as a reference when eyeballing my perspective just won't cut it anymore. Need to figure out exactly how to rotate an object in 3D space? How to project a shape in perspective? Look no further.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.