Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

3:21 PM, Monday July 13th 2020

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/GYm8Bn3.jpg

Discover the magic of the internet at Imgur, a community powered enterta...

Hi. I'm sorry but, I don't have photos of ghosted planes without ellipses.

0 users agree
12:07 PM, Tuesday July 14th 2020

Hi! No need to worry about the planes- rarely anyone uploads them by themselves, so we’re quite used to judging them like that. Let’s get to it~

Starting off, your superimposed lines look great. They’re smooth, properly lined up at the start, and of a consistent trajectory. My one recommendation, and it’s a minor one, is to lift your pen off the page at the end of them, so that there’s not that visible dot there. It’ll, instead, give them a fine taper, making them look much more dynamic as a result. The ghosted lines/planes look equally good, and I’m especially pleased to see that you’ve plotted start/end points for their non-diagonal center lines, too- most students forget to. The next step is to spend a little longer considering them, so that they not only go through the center point of the plane (the intersection of the diagonal center lines), but also head to the same vanishing point as their adjacent lines.

Moving on to the ellipse section, I notice that, in the table of ellipses exercise, your ellipses are smooth and rounded, though sometimes a little stiff. Recall that the purpose of ghosting is to become comfortable in the built-up motion. If you’re not, simply continue ghosting. If you are, and choose to execute said motion, do so confidently- the time for hesitation is past. Outside of that, the only thing I’ll direct your attention to is the occasional pointy-ness of your ellipses: usually an indication that a student is using a lesser pivot, for the extra control it grants them during those sharp turns. To keep on top of it, often check back that your marks do indeed originate from the shoulder. Over time, you’ll not have to do this nearly as much. The ellipses in planes exercise looks nice. Your ellipses are still quite rounded, despite the added difficulty of having to touch all 4 sides of the plane, and even that aspect of them, which is by no means a priority of ours, is quite nicely done. Finally, the funnels exercise looks good, save for the occasional spacing issue. If anything at all, I’d just spend a little longer ghosting them- after all, there’s quite a lot of things to be mindful of, for this exercise.

Starting off the box section, the plotted perspective exercise is nicely done, save for 1, really minor, error (the leftmost box in the topmost frame has its far plane hatched.) Moving on to the rough perspective exercise, it is quite nicely done. The 2 sets of lines that should be at infinity are, and their quality is just as confident as it is in the earlier exercises, too. The converging lines are at times a little off, but this is expected. To improve them, I’ll recommend spending a little longer planning them. Don’t feel obligated to stick to the initial points- if you find them unsatisfactory, simply ignore them. Also, be mindful of the fact that, because of the rules of perspective, the back face of your box (that is, its far plane) is of the exact same shape as its front face (its near plane), except smaller. As such, if your points suggest its back face to be, let’s say, a rectangle, when its front face is a square, you know them to be incorrect, so, rather than commit to them, reconsider them. Fantastic job on the rotated boxes exercise. It’s big, the boxes are snug, and they rotate quite comfortably, too. I’m glad to see, by the number of unused points around them, how much time you’ve spent planning each box- that patience is to thank for your success, here, and it hope it’s something you’ll continue to exhibit. Finally, the organic perspective exercise looks really good, too. You’ve been mindful of the foreshortening of your boxes, and their increase in size is subtle, and believable. The boxes themselves are mostly correct, too, and the few mistakes that there are (the occasional divergence) will certainly be taken care of by the box challenge. Feel free to move on to it!

Next Steps:

250 Box Challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
5:06 PM, Tuesday July 14th 2020

Thank you :)

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.
The Science of Deciding What You Should Draw

The Science of Deciding What You Should Draw

Right from when students hit the 50% rule early on in Lesson 0, they ask the same question - "What am I supposed to draw?"

It's not magic. We're made to think that when someone just whips off interesting things to draw, that they're gifted in a way that we are not. The problem isn't that we don't have ideas - it's that the ideas we have are so vague, they feel like nothing at all. In this course, we're going to look at how we can explore, pursue, and develop those fuzzy notions into something more concrete.

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