250 Cylinder Challenge
6:43 AM, Saturday September 11th 2021
I usually use Imgur but I've been having trouble uploading the picture. Hope a google link suffices!! thank you so much
So starting with your cylinders around arbitrary minor axes, this is a bit of a weird set. There are enough examples here that suggest to me that you know what you're doing (for the most part), but there are a lot of cylinders that have the relationship between the ends of the given form reversed (at least in terms of their overall scale). For example, if you take a look at 28, 27, 43, 45, 74, and even 136, 137, 143 147 right near the end, you've got a ton of cylinders where the end closer to the viewer (where you've filled it out with hatching to denote which end it is) is smaller in overall scale than the end farther away, resulting in those side edges of the given cylinder diverging as they move away from the viewer.
In some cases, it could just be a matter of filling the wrong face with hatching (though that is a concern of its own), but there are two different "shifts" in which the ellipses change from one end to the other to demonstrate how much foreshortening is being applied to the form, and therefore how much that form's length exists in the depth dimension of the scene (which cannot be conveyed directly as distances on the page itself). One of those shifts is of the scale, where the end closer to the viewer should be larger than the end farther away, and the other shift is in the degree of the ellipses - where the one closer to the viewer should be narrower, and the end farther away should be wider, as demonstrated in the Lesson 1 ellipses video.
Both of these shifts - of scale and of degree - operate in tandem, because they both tell the viewer how foreshortened the form is. So if we have a dramatic shift in scale (with the far end being much smaller) then it should also be proportionally much wider than the end closer to the viewer. This doesn't have to be exact, just a rough level of consistency in the two different kinds of shifts. This is something that also helps the viewer's brain understand which end is facing them - in 136 for example, we can tell that the far end (without hatching) is wider, and therefore despite being so much bigger, it's still probably the farther side, which is consistent with the hatching on the other ellipse. Thus the only way the viewer can make sense of 136 is by assuming that this is not a cylinder - that it's actually getting physically larger in 3D space as it moves away from the viewer, making it more like a cone whose tip has been chopped off.
138 is similar, but more exaggerated, with the end with hatching also being the narrower end, but being much smaller in scale - so it comes out looking like another cone, where it's been cut off much closer to the tip.
Now I'm kind of perplexed as to why this mistake has come up as frequently as it has. It definitely decreased as you pushed through the set, suggesting that you were learning from these mistakes, but these kinds of mistakes are generally either a sign of misunderstanding (that you were purposely drawing these scale/degree relationships incorrectly) or that you were not making appropriate use of the ghosting method's planning and preparation phases to ensure that what went on the page was closer to what you intended.
In order to pin that down, I am going to have to ask for some limited revisions - a shorter set so you can demonstrate clearly that you can maintain these relationships consistently, without issue. You'll find them assigned below the critique.
Moving onto the cylinders in boxes, your work here has some similar issues towards the beginning (adding hatching to the wrong faces, or extending your lines in the wrong direction) but it appears to correct itself as you move through the set. You also do appear to be taking a fair bit of care in applying the line extensions, though I can see one small issue I want to call out.
This exercise is focused on developing students' capacity to estimate the proportions of their boxes, such that they feature two opposite faces which are proportionally square in 3D space. We do this by taking the line extensions from the box challenge and adding to them 3 more lines for each ellipse - the minor axis and 2 contact point lines. In checking whether they align to the box's own vanishing points, we can see how far off we are from having those ellipses represent circles in 3D space - and in turn, how far off the planes that enclose them are from representing squares in 3D space. Doing this over and over builds an instinctual understanding of space that allows us to judge these proportions in a more general sense regardless of how the given form is oriented in the world.
Now, as far as all that goes, you've made good progress but there is one key thing I want to draw to your attention. From what I can see, you're very fastidious in extending the box's lines, as well as the contact point lines for each ellipse, but when it comes to the actual minor axis lines, it looks like you're only extending the farther ellipse's, and leaving the closer ellipse alone. Be sure to extend the minor axis for both of them, and do so all the way back so you can judge whether they converge with the box's lines.
So! As mentioned before, I am going to assign some revisions for the first section. You'll find them below.
Next Steps:
Please submit an additional 15 cylinders around arbitrary minor axes.
Hi Uncomfortable
Thanks for pointing it out my mistake! I think I definitely did not realise the differences between the closer and further ends of the cylinders when initially drawing them. I think it only kicked in when I progressed into the second exercise. These 15 additional cylinders definitely helped to remind me that the the face more tilted towards the viewer and with lines diverging toward it, is the further face!
Here are my additional cylinders for your critique!
These are definitely looking much more consistently correct. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
Next Steps:
Feel free to move onto lesson 6.
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