I'll be the TA handling your Lesson 2 critique.

You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson and hopefully this critique will help you in your future attempts.

• Starting off in the arrows section your lines are looking smoothly and confidently drawn. There are spots where your arrows bulge/narrow suddenly, this is an issue because it gives the impression that your arrows are stretching which hurts their solidity. Remember that as our arrows move closer to the viewer we want them to widen consistently. This is a good exercise to experiment with line weight but when applying it we want to make sure we do subtly to key areas like overlaps to give clarity to our forms. Here are some things to look out for when applying line weight, and here are some reminders on how to apply it subtly. I'd like you to experiment more with foreshortening in your future attempts, by utilizing it in both the arrows themselves as well as the negative space between their curves we can create a stronger illusion of an object moving through 3D space as demonstrated here.

• Moving into the organic forms with contours exercise your forms are getting a bit too complex. We want to create our forms with both ends being the same size and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form's length as discussed here. You're keeping your line work confident here which is great, if you feel uncomfortable working with contours still don't stress with more mileage it'll become more natural. Speaking of contours I'd like you to try and shift the degree of your contours more. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.

I'll be addressing your texture and form intersections after organic intersections.

• While wrapping up your submission with the organic intersections exercise you show that you need a bit more time becoming comfortable with thinking of how these forms interact in 3D space and how they'd wrap around one another. You're keeping your forms simple and easy to work with which is a good strategy to help produce good results. When drawing your shadows you don't push them far enough to cast, instead they mostly hug the form creating them, try pushing them further. It appears like your shadows aren't following a consistent light source, I recommend pushing your light source to the top left or right corner of the page to start with, it's easier than working with a light directly above your form pile.

At this point there's something that needs to be discussed and it's going to come off as a bit harsh so I apologize. Just keep in mind it's a critique of your work presented and not your personal character.

After critiquing your box challenge and this lesson I've noticed a bit of a pattern occurring. There tends to be instructions that seem glossed over like you're rushing to get to the work itself rather than giving yourself enough time to absorb what the lesson is trying to get across. While likely not intentional it bleeds into how you name your submission as well, you include that it's your first attempt which makes it seem like you're expecting to get revisions. It feels like you may be trying to get the general idea of what the lesson teaches, then you make your attempt at the exercises and wait to see what your critique points out as mistakes for you to fix rather than putting in your best attempt to begin with. This is not only a tad bit frustrating for the people critiquing your work but also a hugely inefficient use of time for everyone if it is the case.

While we don't expect perfect work and needing some help is completely fine, relying on revisions to fix issues that shouldn't really exist to begin with isn't.

Keep in mind that Drawabox requires one thing of its students. It's not that they do perfect work, or even good work, but that they do the best of their current capacity. At the very least, that means familiarizing yourself with the instructions in their entirety, but it also means investing as much time as you require to do your current best. This course requires that, because it's designed around it - it allows our critiques to be more efficient (and thus, cheaper), by putting the onus on you to do as much of the work as reasonably possible before coming to us.

When it comes to your texture exercises however you're not creating a gradient from dark to light as instructed. You're drawing from memory rather than giving yourself enough time to work from your reference as well as focusing on outlines and negative space rather than attempting to draw cast shadows.

In the form intersections exercise you completely filled your page with forms, but didn't actually draw any intersections themselves. While the idea of filling the page as densely as this is certainly a noble one, it honestly just risks burnout, and more importantly can cause people to fixate on spending their time in one area, completely missing other instructions as a result of their tunnel vision. Limiting yourself to fewer forms but ensuring that they are drawn as solidly as they can be while also including their intersections is definitely a much better use of your time. You're also skipping steps when creating forms like your cylinders and cones, neglecting to draw the minor axis which was something mentioned in the lesson.

Ultimately learning any skill will take time, I can't say for certain that you're going through the lesson too quickly but it does feel that way. While it's great that you may be excited to learn I can't stress enough that nothing will slow you down more than trying to go faster than you should and skipping over steps.

With that being said I'd like you to please re-read and complete:

• 1 page of the texture analysis exercise

• 4 pages of the form intersections exercise

  I will also quickly note that while it may seem harsh, if it continues to appear like you're skipping instructions then the number of revisions you receive will double.

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

I look forward to seeing your work.