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7:34 AM, Saturday November 20th 2021

Hi there, I'll be handling your box challenge critique.

Not only does the challenge help deepen your understanding of important concepts but it shows your desire to learn as well. 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 looking mostly confident. There is the occasional bit of wobbling which shows that you may still be hesitating, this is likely from you trying to keep your lines accurate. Just remember confidence is our top priority and accuracy will improve with mileage.

  • You're experimenting wh orientations, and proportions which is nice to see. Experimenting is an important habit to build when learning any new skill, it helps form a more well rounded understanding. I hope you continue to display this habit in the future as well.

Things to work on:

  • Your hatching could be a bit tidier. When applying it be sure to plan every line with the ghosting technique and then draw them confidently. Try to have each end of the line touch an edge of the box as well rather than just leaving them floating in the middle of the plane.

  • It's not a requirement of the challenge but I suggest trying to implement line weight in your future work. Most people need a bit of mileage before they feel comfortable applying it so getting an early start will help you see positive results sooner.

  • You're not experimenting much with rates of foreshortening and tend to keep your vanishing point far from your box. This results in you making most of your lines as parallel as you can, be sure to mix it up more b ybringing your vanishing points closer and seeing how your lines react. Remember experimenting is important.

  • Quite regularly (all of the boxes on the last page for example) you extend at least one set of lines in the wrong direction. This is caused by you imagining your vanishing point between the box and the viewer which results in you lines actually diverging from where the vanishing point would be and your boxes becoming distorted. Here's a guide I wrote that will hopefully help you understand how to place both your vanishing points and line extensions consistently.

  • There are times when your lines converge in pairs or you attempt to keep your lines a bit too parallel which results in them diverging. This is an example of lines converging in pairs, and this shows the relation between each line in a set and their respective vanishing point. The inner pair of lines will be quite similar unless the box gets quite long and the outer pair can vary a lot depending on the location of the vanishing point. Move it further away and the lines become closer to parallel while moving it closer increases the rate of foreshortening

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.

I won't be moving you on to the next lesson just yet, each lesson builds off concepts in the previous course material so if you move forward with un-addressed issues you end up just creating further issues on top of them.

I'd like you to draw 25 more boxes please. Focus on getting your lines to extend towards a consistent vanishing point and be sure to keep experimenting with rates of foreshortening as well. You may want to get some hatching and line weight practice in as well to help see improved results with these useful tools.

Once you've completed your boxes reply to this critique with a link to them, I'll address anything that needs to be worked on and once you've shown you're ready I'll move you on to the next lesson.

I know you can do this and look forward to seeing your work.

Next Steps:

25 more boxes

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
5:31 AM, Monday November 22nd 2021

Here are the extra 25 boxes:

https://imgur.com/a/eVEXO4J

Thanks for the feedback. It is helpful. I probably have been conservative with the foreshortening because it still does not feel intuitive to do it in a more exaggerated way even though that could be more accurate. The converging in pairs was just really annoying because I kept trying to correct it but it kept showing up.

I tried to improve the crosshatching. I was a little lax on that.

The first three pages are 3 point perspective and the other two are in 2 point perspective. Some of the boxes are pretty good but a others are still a problem. I am having trouble with drawing through the box and getting the back lines correct. I am thinking of getting out a ruler and making some boxes using vanishing points just to get a better feel for how a correct box should look.

If I didn't mention it on my first post, the boxes were draw on letter size paper with a Sharpie ultrafine marker. Quick question, how would I achieve line weight using the ultrafine marker? Would I just go over the line again to thicken it?

Let me know if there is anything else I need to do. Thanks again.

6:00 PM, Monday November 22nd 2021
edited at 1:55 AM, Nov 24th 2021

Hey there, so the top left box of the first page and all of the 2nd page have lines extended in the wrong direction but after that it looks like you figured out how to extend them properly which is great.

Your lines are looking more confident, there is a bit of wobbling still occuring in your hatching lines probably from trying to keep them from overshooting. Remember that confidence is our top priority so if you need to overshoot your mark in the beginning do so to keep your work confident.

Experimenting with foreshortening isn't as exaggerated as you may think, you definitely can exaggerate it a ton to get a really stylized look but it's something to keep in mind when creating a scene.

The rear line of the box will reflect all the mistakes you make up to that point so it's very rare that it ends up being perfect since we're doing these freehand. Just remember it's not about trying to creating perfect or even pretty boxes, it's all just learning fundamentals and developing your understanding of 3D space.

With line weight you just draw over the line again once. It'll take a while to build up accuracy so don't stress too much if your lines are off to start.

Anyways I'll be 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.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
edited at 1:55 AM, Nov 24th 2021
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Staedtler Pigment Liners

Staedtler Pigment Liners

These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.

Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).

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