7:27 PM, Thursday July 22nd 2021
Starting with your organic forms, these are coming along pretty well. The lines are confident but there are a few things to keep an eye on:
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I'm seeing alot of pinching and swelling here. Make sure you're sticking to the characteristics of a simple sausage as explained in the instructions. They're not that far off, but i think you're straying from them consistently enough that it looks like you weren't aware of this. Remember, sausages are supposed to be two balls connected by a tube of consistent width.
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Your contour curves have their degrees all the same. Remember that, as discussed in the lesson 1 ellipses video that these should get wider as it moves away from the viewer along the sausage form.
Moving onto your insect constructions, overall I think you've done a pretty good job on them. I'm pleased to see that you're building these solid three dimensional forms in phases, defining how these forms sit in space and their relationships among one another. There are a few things I want to call out though.
Starting with this ant you showed, I've marked in red where you attempted to extend the silhouette by adding flat open shapes on its head.
Instead, if we want to change what's already there, we should introduce other three dimensional forms and establish the relationships between the additional masses either by defining the intersection with contour lines (as mentioned in lesson 2's form intersections) or by having them wrap around one another, where the presence of one form displaces the other. You can see this in practice in this beetle horn demo and this ant head demo.
I also recommend you look at the two demos on the top of the informal demos page, specifically the shrimp demo and lobster demo. These show how we can build up the insects in stages and see how the additional forms sit in space. This is all about accepting that everything we see is three dimensional and getting the viewer to believe in the lie we are trying to create.
Moving onto the topic of legs, I noticed you seemed to employ different strategies here. While not uncommon for students to be aware about the basic properties of the sausage method, but instead they decide not to adhere to them because the legs they're looking at don't actually look like a chain of sausages to them. In your case though, it seemed like you were aware but simply strayed alot.
These are challenges we must deal with because usually we have situations that lean too far on one side or the other, either something being solid but stiff, or gestural but flat. The sausage method as a base structure allows us to capture the solidity with the gestural nature of legs. Once in place, we can lay in additional masses to convey the complexities as shown here, here, this ant's leg, and even in this dog's leg. This'll become relevant coming into the next lesson.
Lastly, there is an issue with your line weight. Specifically, on this beetle and on this fly. I'm seeing heavier marks along their silhouette. Remember that line weight shouldn't be used loosely like that. It's a tool with a specific use, meant to be applied locally to clarify overlaps of one object over another.
While there is a good deal to keep in mind here, i think it's fine if i marked this as complete. Just make sure you're applying these principles moving forward.
Next Steps:
Lesson 5