Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

3:52 PM, Sunday March 29th 2020

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

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

Post with 54 views.

Lesson 1 completed.

I discovered DrawABox through a recommendation on Twitter and the second I dove into the website, I knew I would like it. I learned a lot.

My only criticism of the lesson is: When we're meant to do rotated boxes exercise, that is the part where we're thrown into the pool without knowing how to swim, and I get why is that. It was also enjoyable and the final piece is quite cool to look at, but the next exercise (2 pages of organic perspective) is again have us do something we're not ready for and that I didn't enjoy anymore. I think having one homework exercise we're not ready for is enough. I was quite frustrated with the second one and just wanted to be over with. I didn't feel like I'm learning anything and felt discouraged.

I'm sure there's a good reason for it, but maybe something to reconsider? I think that's a point where a lot of people would quit thinking either feeling overwhelmed or not having fun.

For me it was the first time I wasn't having fun, but I'm surely not quitting. ;)

2 users agree
2:34 AM, Monday March 30th 2020

Here is my critique...

In Superimposed Lines and Ghosted Lines, your lines are fine...but in the other parts of the lesson your lines are wobbly. This is also happening to your ellipses. You need to be confident in your muscle memory (which you can build up by ghosting) and draw your lines in one quick motion.

You failed to follow one of the directions you need to do in the plotted perspective, rough perspective and the organic perspective exercises. You need to do them within separate frames on the same page like so so you can get enough experience with the concepts the lessons introduce.

In the rotated boxes, you have 4 extra boxes drawn at the top, bottom, left and right, which are unneeded. Other than that it's fine.

The reason you need to do the rotated boxes and organic perspective exercises is to get you to think about the concepts introduced in them (which you are going to utilize and improve upon in the 250 Box Challenge).

Next Steps:

  • 1 page of plotted perspective

  • 1 page of rough perspective

  • 1 page of organic perspective

And then you can move on to the 250 Box Challenge.

Do ellipses in planes and table of ellipses as warm ups during the challenge and future lessons.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
5:44 PM, Tuesday March 31st 2020

https://imgur.com/a/fGCLETI

Thank you for your critique. I appreciate your time and input.

I wasn't sure if I had to reply to this with the 3 pages + the 250 box challenge, or only the 3 pages I failed to do the right way.

I went back and re-read the instructions and I truly missed the whole "2-3 frames on one paper" part for these exercises. Whoops.

This time I was more patient with organic perspective exercise and enjoyed it more.

Thanks again.

1:55 AM, Wednesday April 1st 2020

You are welcome!

The 3 pages are good. Now you should move on to the 250 box challenge to improve your boxes. It's going to be huge grind but persevere! It's worth doing!

Next Steps:

Move on to the 250 Box Challenge.

Do ellipses in planes and table of ellipses as warm ups during the challenge and future lessons.

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.
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.
Drawabox-Tested Fineliners (Pack of 10, $17.50 USD)

Drawabox-Tested Fineliners (Pack of 10, $17.50 USD)

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.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.