250 Box Challenge
1:41 PM, Monday November 29th 2021
Hello,
Thank you in advance for all the feedback.
Hi there, I'll be handling your box challenge critique.
Congratulations on completing the box challenge, it's definitely a lot more work than most people expect. Not only does it help deepen your understanding of important concepts but it shows your desire to learn as well. Be proud of what you've accomplished and that desire you've shown. That being said I'll try to keep this critique fairly brief so you can get working on the next steps as soon as possible.
Things you did well:
Your lines are drawn smoothly and confidently.
When hatching you're keeping your lines evenly spaced which shows you're taking the time to plan them rather than just rush them out on to the page. This helps your boxes appear solid and keeps them looking tidy.
It does appear like you're trying to apply line weight which is great. It's not a requirement of the challenge but it's a useful tool that's worth learning and most people need some mileage before they can apply it comfortably. Getting an early start like this will help you see better results sooner.
You're doing a great job of experimenting with orientations, proportions and rates of foreshortening. Experimenting is an important habit to build when learning any skill, it helps form a more well rounded understanding of new concepts. I hope you'll continue to nurture and display this habit in the future as well.
Overall your boxes are looking solid, while they weren't bad to begin with they're becoming much more consistent at you progress through the challenge.
Things you can work on:
The key things we want to remember from this exercise are that our lines should always converge as a set not in pairs, never diverge from the vanishing point and due to perspective they won't be completely parallel.
Overall while you did make a few mistakes your boxes are improving so far and with more mileage you'll continue to become more consistent. That being said I'll be marking your submission as complete and moving you on to lesson 2.
Keep practicing previous exercises and boxes as warm ups, and good luck
Next Steps:
Move on to lesson 2.
Hi Tofu,
Thank you for taking the time to look at my homework and for all your feedback. It means very much to me. I will keep in mind your advice and try to apply it while I continue practicing.
Once again, thank you for clear and supportive feedback, and for approving me to lesson 2!
Let's be real here for a second: fineliners can get pricey. It varies from brand to brand, store to store, and country to country, but good fineliners like the Staedtler Pigment Liner (my personal brand favourite) can cost an arm and a leg. I remember finding them being sold individually at a Michael's for $4-$5 each. That's highway robbery right there.
Now, we're not a big company ourselves or anything, but we have been in a position to periodically import large batches of pens that we've sourced ourselves - using the wholesale route to keep costs down, and then to split the savings between getting pens to you for cheaper, and setting some aside to one day produce our own.
These pens are each hand-tested (on a little card we include in the package) to avoid sending out any duds (another problem with pens sold in stores). We also checked out a handful of different options before settling on this supplier - mainly looking for pens that were as close to the Staedtler Pigment Liner. If I'm being honest, I think these might even perform a little better, at least for our use case in this course.
We've also tested their longevity. We've found that if we're reasonably gentle with them, we can get through all of Lesson 1, and halfway through the box challenge. We actually had ScyllaStew test them while recording realtime videos of her working through the lesson work, which you can check out here, along with a variety of reviews of other brands.
Now, I will say this - we're only really in a position to make this an attractive offer for those in the continental United States (where we can offer shipping for free). We do ship internationally, but between the shipping prices and shipping times, it's probably not the best offer you can find - though this may depend. We also straight up can't ship to the UK, thanks to some fairly new restrictions they've put into place relating to their Brexit transition. I know that's a bummer - I'm Canadian myself - but hopefully one day we can expand things more meaningfully to the rest of the world.
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