I've been doing some of my boxes fairly flat almost like pizza boxes or fairly tall like short columns with the idea that I'd apply what I'm learning to these box types. I feel like it's helping me immensely but does it conflict with Uncomfortable's goals for the challenge? Is there a reason for keeping all the boxes close to cuboidal?
While you are not required to have all your boxes match any particular proportion, I would be weary about specifically making all of your boxes so flat. Just be sure to include lots of variety to the kinds of boxes you're drawing, rather than limiting yourself only to such a specific set of proportions for all of them.
Yes, variety is what I am going for. When I was still using a Y generator, most Ys I got were for something fairly cuboidal and it got to a point where it just felt repetitive. So once I was making Ys on my own I decided to introduce some pretty flat boxes as well as tall narrow ones into the mix and now I feel like I'm being adequately challenged once more. I also figured out how to think up Ys for boxes I am looking up at, so that's adding challenge and variety as well. I really am being creative with this and enjoying coming up with as many boxes and views as I can.
On another note, what are your thoughts on re-attempting a box I seriously struggled with? It acceptable to try again when drawing the next box? If not, how about doing a few other boxes then coming back and taking another crack at it? Thoughts?
In the context of the challenge, each individual box doesn't matter. What matters are patterns and targeted efforts over a larger quantity. An individual box coming out mangled isn't really a concern, because the end result isn't really relevant. What matters is that you keep pushing yourself to focus on maintaining consistent convergences over all 4 lines of a given set of parallel edges.
I think it's preferable to just draw boxes randomly for each one, worrying less about the boxes as individual boxes you're ticking off (in terms of, yes I can draw a box of this proportion in that orientation, which would be more of a memorization problem, rather than one where the exercise is rewiring the manner in which you think through the problem in general).
When you say draw boxes randomly, do you mean put down random Y's without any thought to if the three lines make sense together? Just throw them down on the page, draw the rest of the lines, and see what you get?
A pizza box is a cuboid so maybe you're misunderstanding something you've heard people say about the box challenge? I did have another look and I don't think it says anything about aiming for cubes in the challenge's lesson material. As long as you're constructing the boxes as described you should be good.
Yeah I don't think it is mentioned anywhere in the lessons. I have just looked at a number of people's box submissions and noticed that few people pushed themselves to create the variety in height, width, and length that I've been making since box 125. I wanted to make sure I'm not getting into territory that could make me fail the challenge before I've completed all of my boxes--65 to go. I saw one person--albeit who broke very obvious rules like extending their lines the wrong way--get asked to create 50 more boxes and I was like, "Oh no! What if I've gotten too creative with this challenge and I'm no longer doing it according to Uncomfortable's vision?" So I figured I should check.
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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