Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction
5:58 PM, Thursday March 16th 2023
Was a Pretty heavy lesson, by far the most satisfying to complete so far.
Hi FlamingCheeto. Good job making it this far. I'm going to split this critique up by task, so let's launch right into it.
Organic Arrows
Unfortunatelty, it looks like you haven't been applyin everything you learned in lesson 1, as quite a few of these lines show the wobble that occurs when lines are drawn without confidence. Remember that the ghosting techniques you learned in lesson 1 are to be applied to every line you draw for exercises. This takes time, but I promise your patience will produce results. The compression of your arrows is less consistent than I would like as well; sometimes it's very clear and the illusion of 3D space is created well, bat at other times it's very hard to make sense of your arrows as 3D objects. This isn't helped by the fact that your shadow crosshatching isn't always on the right side to show how the parts of the arrow overlap (though this does improve as you go on). The core skills are in place in this exercise, but your work could be improved a lot with a little more care.
Orangic Forms with Contour Lines
Some of the same issues as before are present here; many of your contour lines show the same symptoms as on your arrows, with a certain amount of wobble that tells me you could be ghosting them much more carefully. On the other hand, you have drawn through all of your ellipses twice, which is good. The positioning and angle of the contours also give a good sense of how the object works in 3D space with only a couple of minor mistakes. I do notice that you haven't stuck to the simple, consistent organic shape the exercise calls for, which seems to have caused you some trouble. You also haven't 'hooked' the contour lines on your second page (see https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/77f2ca1c.jpg for an illustration of the problem here). Again, you seem to be grasping the basic principles behind the exercise, but not taking the time to reflect them properly in your work.
Texture Analysis
Your transitions from light to dark are decently smooth, though the areas of total black and white stand out a bit more than they ought to. Your marks do, however, feel quite deliberate in just the way that we want to see in this exercise. The pockmarks in the second example felt a little less deliberate, and more intentional spacing and shaping there could have helped sell the transition, but overall this was satisfactory.
Dissections
First of all, you were quite consistent about wrapping the textures around the form. This is really good, and one of the key things to take away from this exercise. You also broke the silhouette to help sell some of your textures. Again, really good, though I would have liked to see a little more of it in places. Ice cream, for example, is rarely flat enough to be as smooth as it appears on your first page. There were also a couple of minor issues with 3D perspective (should we be abke to see the tomato? and is the cap at the bottom of the same form in front of or behind the ice cream?) but this is looking fairly good overall.
Form Intersections
Unfortunately, I'm seeing a lot of basic line issues here. Some are quite confident, but many show wobble or signs of redrawing. Remember, put confidence before accuracy. Accuracy will come with time but confidence can only come with purposeful movement and proper ghosting. It's also easier to sell the idea that these objects all exist in the same space if you stick to roughly equilateral shapes with fairly shallow foreshortening, as this is easier to keep consistent. The actual intersections are clear enough in some places, and less so in others, but certainly not at a level I would consider a problem at this stage.
Organic Intersections
Ah, the big ol' stack of weenies. This is an exercise that you seem to have become more comfortable with as you did it, and I want to praise the clear wau your shadows wrapped around the 3D forms. Regrettably, it wasn't always clear exactly what was casting those shadows, especially on your first attempt, and there were places on the second where a shadow seemed appropriate but was mysteriously absent. Your forms are nice and stable-looking, and they have a certain amount of weight to them. Again, a more consistent thickness for a nice, simple shape would have helped you (I'm looking at you, top right/centre sausage on page 2) but a decent attempt overall.
Next Steps:
While there is a lot you need to work on, you haven't misunderstood any of the homework tasks, and there are clear signs of improvement as you go along.
While I think it might be worthwhile for you to take another crack at certain exercises (including some from lesson 1) we aren't seeking perfection. Working through mistakes is part of the Drawabox way and you have clearly grasped the principles for creating the illusion of three-dimensionality this lesson is meant to impart, so I think you're ready to move on to lesson 3.
Thanks for the speedy response, Your critique of my lesson work is very helpful, thank you!
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