Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

4:29 AM, Tuesday March 30th 2021

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Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/jg0WAeF.jpg

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My first submission! My apologies for the first ghosted planes picture being out of frame, you should be able to view it in its entirety in the first planes in ellipses picture.

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7:32 AM, Wednesday March 31st 2021

First off, your superimposed lines look alright. However, it looks like sometimes your line goes off in a direction you don't like, and then you course correct to get it "back on track". For the time being, you should be concerned with making confident strokes which flow smoothly. This should be your number 1 priority. You will develop accuracy as you work through the lessons. Heck, you'll get 3000 lines of practice when you make your way through the 250 box challenge.

This lack of confidence and flow continues into your ghosted lines and planes. There is a little bit of wobbliness in your lines because you're so focused on making sure your line passes through that far point. Remember to ghost your lines until you've practiced the mark enough that you are confident enough to commit, then execute. But once you've committed to the line, there's no turning back. You want to build the habit of only putting a line down once you've given it some thought and you are ready.

Your tables of ellipses look mostly good. Some of them don't look quite as smooth and rounded as the others. It may help to try drawing some ellipses at different speeds during subsequent warm-ups. When I started out, I would draw my ellipses way too fast, and this would make it very difficult to control the marks I would put down on my paper. Slowing things down a bit may help you get smoother, tighter ellipses. Another thing you may want to try is lifting your pen off the paper at the end of the ellipse. This will help prevent producing those little tails you have on several of your ellipses.

Your ellipses in planes are much better.

Your funnels exercise is pretty good; however, there you have small issue aligning the minor axes of your elipses. This would be a good thing to continue practicing during your warm-ups.

Your plotted perspective is good.

The rough perspective has the same issue with your lines lacking confidence. This is a common problem. People can experience cognitive overload when they attempt this exercise because they try to juggle too many things at once. Don't lose sight of the fact that these are still just lines. They're no different from the ones you drew in the previous exercises. It will make things easier to manage if you break it down into separate steps. First, plot your perspective as accurately as possible. Second, build up your muscle memory by applying the ghosting method and execute the line with confidence when you're ready. In addition to line quality, some of your lines significantly miss the mark. Make sure you take as much time as you need to plot things out. You should check and then double check. Remember, once you put a mark down on your paper you won't be able to take it back.

Your rotated boxes look ok. There could be a bit more rotation in there. It might be worth coming back to this exercise once you've completed the 250 box challenge.

Your organic perspective also looks good. The line quality is also a bit better here.

Next Steps:

Before you move onto the 250 box challenge, you should do a single panel of the rough perspective exercise just to make sure you understand what's expected from you for this exercise and the 250 box challenge.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
2:05 AM, Friday April 2nd 2021

Thanks for the detailed critique! I have done another panel of the rough perspective exercise: https://imgur.com/a/Rul62cp

6:10 PM, Friday April 2nd 2021

Looks better! Make sure you keep practicing drawing your lines with confidence. I had a similar problem when I originally did the rough perspective exercise. I was so worried about getting the perspective wrong that I was forgetting to draw my lines with confidence. Both my lines and perspective were significantly improved after completing the 250 box challenge. Keep at it. You're making great progress.

Next Steps:

Move on to the 250 box challenge.

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.
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