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11:47 AM, Saturday September 18th 2021
Hey there! Congrats on completing Lesson 1! It's a great achievement! I'm Ennui, and I'm here to give you feedback today!
Let's take it section by section, shall we?
Lines:
Great attempt on the Lines section here! Your Superimposed Lines exercise has fraying only on one end, which is good, and your lines are smooth and have a consistent trajectory. Even the curved lines show little deviation from the guideline. Good work!
Your Ghosted Lines show good accuracy and flow! There are a few places where I can see some undershooting (in general, its better to overshoot than undershoot), but the vast majority of your lines are steady, smooth and flow well. They also line up well with the guide points. Well done!
Your Ghosted Planes exercise seems to have been merged with the Ellipses in Planes exercise (perhaps you didn't take photos of the planes before adding the ellipses in?) but that's fine. I'll tackle them as individual exercises. Once again, I like that your lines are smooth and mostly accurate (I do see some undershooting, but honestly it's just a nitpick), and your planes look great. Great work!
Ellipses:
I like that you've continued to keep your smooth lines even with the ellipses! Your Tables of Ellipses show neat ellipses, and they adhere to the boundaries well. I do see some areas where it looks like you've only gone over them 1 and a half times instead of 2, but that's alright. An easy way to remedy this is to act as if you're drawing over it three times if you have the tendency to stop in the middle. Always better to draw through them more rather than less. Still, good job!
Your Ellipses in Planes have the same feedback. I like that you've varied your planes enough to provide you with a good challenge with the ellipses. They largely adhere to the boundaries as well, which is very good. Just make sure to draw through the ellipses twice or thrice, if that's more comfortable for you. Good going!
Your Funnels exercise shows good control over your ellipses. They align to the minor axis and to the boundaries of the funnel well. Also good job on varying the degree of the ellipse! Good work!
Boxes:
Your Plotted Perspective exercise is neat and done well. Great job!
Great job on the Rough Perspective exercise as well! You seem to have gotten the idea of convergence down pat, which is a great accomplishment! Good going on having practically all your boxes converge near or at the vanishing point! It's definitely not an easy feat!
I love how neat your Rotated Boxes are! Honestly, its really great work! Keep it up!
I do appreciate how you attempted to add line weight to the guide curves in your Organic Perspective exercise! Another good job on these! They are clean, well planned, and rotated well. Also good job on varying the sizes well!
Final Critique:
A job well done! You've got the basics down well! I wish you luck in your art journey! Do approach me if you have any questions!
Next Steps:
Go on ahead to the 250 Box Challenge! Take two or three of these exercises to use as warmups before you start drawing for about 10-15 minutes! Keep drawing, and good luck!
12:36 AM, Monday September 20th 2021
Hey there, jumping in to say that I agree with this feedback, however I do have a comment about ellipses:
While your ellipses adhere very well (extremely well even) to each other, you have them often floating quite far from the frame boundaries. That suggests to me that you are over-focused on making sure your ellipse adheres to certain edges and you may tend to forget the others, so whenever you make any ellipses in your warm-ups/future lessons - make sure that you think of all the edges before you start ghosting.
It seems like you have encountered that issue during the funnels exercise (with the ellipses far at the edges) and did a very good job at fixing it, but I point it out since it's important.
Other than that, I agree - amazing work, keep it up, move on to the 250 box challenge.
4:01 AM, Monday September 20th 2021
Oh! Thanks for pointing that out! I had trouble articulating that xD
5:12 PM, Monday September 20th 2021
Thank you both for feedback; guess in have to work on undershooting lines and ellipses lmao. For warmups, would I just go through a page or two of all the exercises in Lesson 1, or collapse them all into the ghosted planes exercise?
5:20 PM, Monday September 20th 2021
The lesson 0 page "On the subject of grinding and warmups" provides a pretty good base for warm-ups - take 2/3 exercises and spend about 10-15 minutes on them. I personally find that about a third/half a page of warm-ups is enough for me to get the feeling of "Alright, I'm in it now", but how much exactly depends on you.
I'd suggest start with just ghosted planes+ellipses in those planes as warm-up, do about half a page/full page, and pay attention to how you feel. If you feel like you haven't warmed up enough, do more. If you feel like you're ready - go and do whatever you were warming up for.
Eventually you'll start noticing that some exercises will work better as warm-ups than others for you, and you'll be rotating exercises more frequently.
Ellipse Master Template
This recommendation is really just for those of you who've reached lesson 6 and onwards.
I haven't found the actual brand you buy to matter much, so you may want to shop around. This one is a "master" template, which will give you a broad range of ellipse degrees and sizes (this one ranges between 0.25 inches and 1.5 inches), and is a good place to start. You may end up finding that this range limits the kinds of ellipses you draw, forcing you to work within those bounds, but it may still be worth it as full sets of ellipse guides can run you quite a bit more, simply due to the sizes and degrees that need to be covered.
No matter which brand of ellipse guide you decide to pick up, make sure they have little markings for the minor axes.