Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

9:46 PM, Saturday August 8th 2020

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Drawabox Lesson 1 for Critique.

Adding any sort of line weight with the ghosting method is super difficult, especially if I'm darkening a line that's already on the page. I usually miss the mark entirely and add unnecessary noise. Is this something that just gets better with time, and maybe the superimposed lines exercise? or should I rely more on controling line weight with a single stroke?

Any notes on what to work on in the future, or even retry before moving onto the 250 box challenge, would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

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10:37 PM, Saturday August 8th 2020

Hello and congrats on completing lesson 1. I'll be looking over your submission today. So yeah adding line weight is very difficult because it requires a good deal of finesse and control and using the ghosting method is what I would recommend for now. Unfortunately it's something that there really isn't a quick fix for. You just need to build up your hand eye coordination and hand dexterity with consistent practice over a long period of time. Even controlling line weight with a single stroke is something that will require copious amounts of practice to do accurately. So your superimposed lines are looking good. You are keeping a clear starting point on these and are only getting significant tapering on the opposite end and with more complex curves. Good stuff. Your ghosted lines and planes are very nicely done. I can see you are really sticking with the ghosting method and it's getting you some really smooth and confident linework. Your accuracy isn't always there but once again that is something that just gets better with mileage.

Your table of ellipses exercise looks excellent. Great job drawing through all of your ellipses and you are achieving some really solid ellipse shapes for the most part. This is carried over very nice into your ellispes in planes. It's good that you are sticking to getting a smooth ellipse shape and not trying to accurately cram your ellipse into the plane which usually ends up destroying ellipse integrity unless you have a high degree of control and accuracy which is something you are building towards. Not seeing any problems with your ellipses in funnels either. Your ellipses are looking very good overall and while there is still room for improvement I think you are already doing quite well with them.

Plotted perspective looks good nothing to mention here. So I can see what you are talking about when it comes to adding line weight when you were doing your rough perspective boxes. Like I was saying just keep at it and practicing it. On the plus side your convergences are very good and you did a great job extending the lines back on your boxes although you were getting quite a bit of slanting on your vertical lines on that first page. That seems to have sort of worked itself out by the second page of exercises though. Great job overall.

Your rotated box exercise is probably the weak point although this is pretty typical for most people as this is a very hard exercise. You did a great job drawing through your boxes and keeping your gaps narrow and consistent. You were struggling with getting the rotations right which is a pretty common problem people have. This would be a good exercise to come back to after you do the 250 box challenge. Your organic box exercise is having more line weight issues but like I said that will probably work itself out over time. Your convergences already seem quite good but you are going to get a lot of practice with that during the 250 box challenge.

This was an excellent submission overall with a lot of work put into it. It's clear that you are really trying to learn this stuff and I think you are taking away most of the concepts these lessons are trying to convey very well. I'm going to mark this as complete and good luck with the 250 box challenge. Keep up the hard work!

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
11:05 PM, Saturday August 8th 2020

Thank you very much for the detailed notes! :) I'll definitely try the rotated boxes again after I've done the 250 challenge. Would it be alright to show that second pass at the rotated boxes when I submit the 250 box challenge? I'm still a little confused about why the boxes don't feel like they're rotating. So getting more eyes on it again might be helpful.

Regardless, thanks again for the help! :D

12:22 AM, Sunday August 9th 2020

I'm sure if you show it in the discord someone would be willing to help you out. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/notrotating This part of the lesson notes typically describes why people struggle with that.

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