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250 Box Challenge

2:27 AM, Saturday January 29th 2022

250 Box Challenge - Album on Imgur

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If I had to say, I think the two biggest problems I notice with many of my boxes are that the back corner is misaligned with the rest of the perspective, and that when I thicken the lines it come out a bit messy. I think I got better with both of these things as I went on, but they're both still present by the end. I guess it is kind of inevitable that the lines will not match up without a ruler, but sometimes it gets severley misaligned, like pointing in an entirely different direction.

I also noticed a fair amount of wobbly lines, which is something in general I need to get better at. Especially on boxes that were long one way, the lines seemed to get wobbly, probably because I was concerned with making it accurate. I feel like I may have done better when being a bit more instinctual and not focusing so much on accuracy, although I still had difficulty with many of the long boxes. Those are just the main things I notice though.

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10:43 PM, Monday January 31st 2022

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

Congratulations on completing the box challenge, it's definitely a lot more work than most people expect. Not only does it help deepen your understanding of important concepts but it shows your desire to learn as well. Be proud of what you've accomplished and that desire you've shown. 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.

  • Seeing as how line weight is not a requirement of the challenge it's nice to see that you're applying it. It's a useful tool but one that most people need some mileage with before they feel comfortable applying it. Getting an early start like this will help you see better results sooner.

  • 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:

  • Your lines are still lacking confidence at times which results in wobbling. Remember that confidence is our top priority and accuracy will improve with time. (This applies to line weight as well.)

  • You tend to draw fairly small, I'd like you to draw larger in the future. Drawing large will help you become more comfortable working from the shoulder and allow you to see any misakes you've made more clearly.

  • 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.

Line quality is something that you can continue to work on in your own time and will improve as long as you continue to build mileage and follow the instructions provided in lesson 1.

The rear corner will nearly always be off so I wouldn't stress too much about it. Partly because as you mentioned we're not using tools that allow us to create perfect boxes easily but also because the rear line tends to be the one we draw last and it reflects every other mistake made up to that point. Meaning that if any other line is even slightly off it most likely will be as well.

Overall while you did make a few mistakes your boxes are improving so far and with more mileage you'll continue to become more consistent. That being said I'll be marking your submission as complete and 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.
10:57 PM, Tuesday February 1st 2022

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