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10:30 PM, Tuesday September 20th 2022

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

In the NMA course recommendation right below this section Uncomfortable recommends the Art Anatomy for Beginners course, it lines up quite well with how this course approaches things.

Let's get started with the 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 construction lines are looking smooth and confidently drawn.

  • It's good to see that you're taking the time to plan and evenly space your hatching lines. This helps keep your boxes tidy and makes them look more solid.

  • 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 new skill, it helps form a more well rounded understanding. I hope you'll continue to display and nurture this habit in the future.

Things you can work on:

  • Line weight isn't a requirement of the challenge but I do recommend practicing it in your future attempts. It's an incredibly useful tool but one that people often require a fair bit of mileage before they feel comfortable applying it. The sooner you start to build up that mileage the sooner you'll see better results.

  • At times you're placing your vanishing point between the viewer and your boxes (boxes 209 and 247 are examples of this). This leads to you extending your lines in the wrong direction and your boxes becoming distorted because your lines are actually diverging from where the vanishing point would actually be. Here's a guide I wrote that will hopefully help you place your vanishing points and line extensions more consistently. If you need some more examples you can find them here and a simplified guide below.

  • 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 20 more boxes please. Focus on extending your lines consistently in the correct direction and working on converging your lines as a set rather than in pairs.

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:

20 more boxes.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
6:03 AM, Tuesday October 4th 2022

Hi Tofu,

Here's my assignment:

https://imgur.com/a/sTXDDMK

Let me know if there's something else to tackle.

Cheers

8:35 PM, Wednesday October 5th 2022

In box 9 your red lines are extended in the wrong direction, other than that you did a good job overall.

Your lines are converging more consistently now as well which is nice to see, I have no doubt as you continue you'll grow more consistent so I'll be marking your submission complete.

Keep practicing boxes and previous exercises as warm ups and best of luck in lesson 2.

Next Steps:

Move on to lesson 2.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
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