Lesson 5: Applying Construction to Animals
10:37 PM, Thursday August 25th 2022
Animals. This lesson was fun. Much better then the bugs
This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.
0 users agree
9:52 PM, Saturday September 10th 2022
Hello I’ll be handling the critique for your lesson 5 homework
Organic Intersections
-Starting with the organic intersections, the first thing I am noticing is that you are letting your sausages get too complex, some of them get too long and they vary a lot in terms of size. The best strategy is to keep them equally sized, do not let them get too long, also try to avoid the technique where you draw a big initial sausage and then add a bunch of smaller ones on top of it.
When it comes to the cast shadows, they seem to be hugging the form that is casting them, instead trying to push them further and give them a nice curvature. You can read more about this in these notes, https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/9/shadows.
Animals
-Moving on to your animal constructions, you are making good use of the methods taught in the lesson, although there are many ways in which you can improve them.
-First I like to see that you are using the additional masses, but the way you apply them is quite limited, usually you will just add one for the hump on the back and that’s it. Instead I want you to add more additional masses, one thing that can help is to start thinking about the internal masses, the ones that don’t necessarily affect the silhouette. There's value in exploring these inner masses - like a missing puzzle piece that helps hold together the ones that create bumps along the silhouette's edge. Here's an example from the dog's leg demo http://imgur.com/97hS0XF , as you can see, there's blocked out masses along the masses including the one fitting in between them all, even though it doesn't influence the silhouette. Thinking about it this way will help you further push the value of constructional exercises and puzzles.
-ON the leg construction side of things you are also falling a bit short, I do like to see that you’ve laid down a simple structure that captures both the flow and solidity of these limbs, however, you can still push them much further.
Keep in mind that the sausage chain is not meant to capture the shape of the legs precisely as they are, in order to appropriately capture the shape of the legs you must keep adding more masses, as shown in this demo https://imgur.com/7b9rc9e and on the other demo I showed you above.
On a smaller note, when it comes to the feets or paws it is better to capture them with boxier forms, to capture their sides, front and back planes. Then you can add further details by following those planes, here a little explanation that can help
-I also want to talk a little about head construction. When it comes down to head construction, Lesson 5 as a ton of different strategies in the informal demos section. Given how the course is developing new more effective ways to construct heads so not all approaches are created equal. As it stands, the tiger demo and the demo from the informal demos is what's generally most useful. This approach relies on a few key elements:
-the specific pentagonal shape found in the eye sockets, which allows for a nice wedge in which to place the muzzle into as well as the flat area found in the forehead
-this focuses heavily on everything fitting together- no arbitrary gaps or floating elements. This allows all the different pieces to feel grounded against one another like a three dimensional puzzle
-we also have to be mindful as to how all the marks carve along the surface of this cranial ball, working on the individual strokes instead of using an ellipse for the eye socket.
Here are some good examples with the head of a rhino https://imgur.com/fUIEAu0 , though I’ll admit that it is a very complex process, but it should help you to move in the right direction.
-And lastly let’s talk about texture, it appears to me that you are pushing it a bit too far, keep in mind that it is better to keep those details subtle as they can easily become too distracting. Also take your time to design the shape of each tuft of fur, in order to keep things dynamic. All of this is explained here.
https://drawabox.com/lesson/5/6/fur
Okayy so that’s about eerything I wanted to address, I’ll have to assign some revsions so you can tackle some of the things I raised here. Best of luck!!!!
Next Steps:
Please do the following
-1 page of organic intersections
-4 pages of animal constructions of your own choice
12:18 AM, Monday September 19th 2022
I did my best to add more masses to the construction and take into account what you said. Thank you!
5:17 PM, Monday September 19th 2022
starting with the organic intersections you are doing a much better job, and I think you had a better time controlling the size of those sausages, there is still a lot of room for improvement so keep practicing.
Moving to your animals they are turning out well, it seems to me however that sometimes you will keep working with 2D marks rather than forms. Remember that each additional mass must have its own self enclosed silhouette, as it helps to keep things more grounded and reinforces the illusion of solidity that we are looking for. You can take a look at this diagram which illustrates this point more clearly. https://imgur.com/t6oz7Tv
Another important point is that you are cutting into the silhouette of forms, on your animal number 4, you are cutting into the pelvis shape and it ends up looking off. Try to avoid this at all cost, cutting into forms requires a good spatial awareness which you may have not developed yet. Here are some notes that explain this in more detail. https://imgur.com/VdwbRuU
Okay so you need to keep working on some things, just keep revisiting the feedback I provided here and take your time to digest it. For now I’ll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete so you can move on.
Next Steps:
250 cylinder challenge
4:01 PM, Wednesday September 21st 2022
Thank you for your feedback! I will try to take this into account in the future.
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.
PureRef
This is another one of those things that aren't sold through Amazon, so I don't get a commission on it - but it's just too good to leave out. PureRef is a fantastic piece of software that is both Windows and Mac compatible. It's used for collecting reference and compiling them into a moodboard. You can move them around freely, have them automatically arranged, zoom in/out and even scale/flip/rotate images as you please. If needed, you can also add little text notes.
When starting on a project, I'll often open it up and start dragging reference images off the internet onto the board. When I'm done, I'll save out a '.pur' file, which embeds all the images. They can get pretty big, but are way more convenient than hauling around folders full of separate images.
Did I mention you can get it for free? The developer allows you to pay whatever amount you want for it. They recommend $5, but they'll allow you to take it for nothing. Really though, with software this versatile and polished, you really should throw them a few bucks if you pick it up. It's more than worth it.