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250 Box Challenge

10:13 PM, Thursday November 11th 2021

billy morris 250 boxes - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/oSiVSe3.jpg

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Here is my 250 boxes. Looking at some of my boxes from the very begining to the very end I do think there is some improvement I made but there arent many that i would think have maked the mark, and in terms of understanding 3d space I'm not really sure if I really got it in the way that I should of. I used the Y method of construction that is recommended in the lesson notes throughout (First 100 with the y generator), and tried a few different aproaches to making sure that my lines converged properly. At first (maybe the first 2 pages or so) I was just going by what looked right to me. After that, I started to rely on ghosting to the convergence for each line made. I think i was only thinking about the line i was currently drawing at this time, which led my convergence on the line closing off the side of the box too be way off. I think I may have gradully fixed this, but another problem i noticed was that I tend to bring the angle farthest from the viewer too far back. Around box 150 is where I think I began to stagnate. From this point on I began to make my lines by rotating the page so that the line I am trying to converge with is pointing straight up. For each new line I would check all three convergences. This seemed to be the best method of approach so that is what I stuck with towards the end. One last thing, still unsure where the front of the box should be for alot of these there are some like box 241 where there could be 2 spots that could be considered the front.

Thanks in advance,

                              Billy
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12:55 AM, Saturday November 13th 2021

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

Not only does the challenge help deepen your understanding of important concepts but it shows your desire to learn as well. 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:

  • Good work keeping your lines smooth and confidently drawn.

  • When hatching you're spacing your lines evenly which shows planning and thought is going into each one rather than just rushing them on to the page.

  • It's nice to see you're applying line weight. It's not a requirement of the challenge but getting an early start is something I always recommend because while it's a useful tool, most people need some mileage before they feel comfortable applying it. As you continue to build up mileage you'll continue to become more consistent but you're off to a good start already.

  • You're experimenting with orientations, proportions and rates of foreshortening. Experimenting is important when learning any new skill and is an excellent to build. I hope you continue to demonstrate this habit in the future because it will help you develop a more well rounded understanding of the new concepts you'll be facing.

  • While there is still room to improve when it comes to your convergences you are improving and demonstrating that your sense of 3D space is coming along. There are fewer diverging lines occurring and your boxes aren't looking as distorted as when you started.

Things you can work on:

  • You manage to place your vanishing point between the viewer and your box on boxes 227, 249 and maybe a few others. This results in your lines diverging from their actual vanishing point and your boxes becoming a distorted. Here's a guide I wrote up that will hopefully help you place your vanishing points and line extensions a bit more consistently. It may also address some of the other issues you mentioned in your submission

  • 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.

In the future when submitting your work if you could limit your self critique it would be appreciated, it just takes us a while to read through it all and we don't want it influencing our own thoughts. If you have questions definitely feel free to ask them, it can just be a bit tedious having to read through multiple paragraphs (especially when we deal with multiple submissions a day) to get to a question (if there are any to begin with).

With that said I'll try and address some of the issues you brought up.

  • There's no problem ghosting towards the vanishing point, in fact it's what you should be doing. Ghost before every mark you make, take your time to plan each line and then draw it confidently and smoothly. The saying "measure twice cut once" applies here as well, but instead measure (ghost) as many times as it takes until you feel comfortable applying your line.

  • As mentioned in my guide earlier, as soon as you draw your Y you have 3 vanishing points implied just not completely set in place. By adding another line those vanishing points have concrete positions and you can use your previously drawn lines to determine the rate at which your lines converge. Always think of your line in relaton to the set it's in, not in pairs or as a single entity.

  • If you look in the guide I linked (it's here if you closed it) and take a look at the third step's drawing you'll see 3 implied faces. These 3 faces can all be the "front" face, they're the faces closest to the viewer and will have faces further away that our lines converge too. Therefore any of those 3 faces can be the one you hatch.

Hope that answers your questions, if not feel free to ask for more clarification.

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.

I won't be moving you on to the next lesson just yet, each lesson builds off concepts in the previous course material so if you move forward with un-addressed issues you end up just creating further issues on top of them.

I'd like you to draw 10 more boxes, you're on the right track but I want to make sure you know how to extend your lines in the right direction consistently and hopefully this critique provided some clarity and you'll see some more consistency in your convergences overall.

Once you've completed your boxes reply to this critique with a link to them, I'll address anything that needs to be worked on and once you've shown you're ready I'll move you on to the next lesson.

I know you can do this and look forward to seeing your work.

Next Steps:

10 more boxes please.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
10:51 PM, Wednesday November 17th 2021

https://imgur.com/a/VvmzL0N

Here's my 10 boxes following the guide you have given. Still ghosted, but didn't rotate the page as much because I tried to focus more on angles as they are explained in your third link. I'm still a bit confused as what you meant by my vanishing points for 227 and 249 are between the viewer and the box. If it isn't too much a hassle would you mind clarifying that one?

Thanks again,

                            Billy
7:08 AM, Thursday November 18th 2021

These are looking better, good work.

To clarify what I meant about your vanishing point being between the viewer and your box let's look at 227 and 249 again.

Your red and blue lines are extending correctly, but your green lines are extending towards the viewer. It isn't super noticeable because in both of these cases you kept your lines fairly parallel but if you were to converge these lines more rapidly you'd find that your box would become distorted quite quickly. You can see an example of this at the bottom of the lengthy guide I included (it's here if you'd like another look). In that example the blue lines would be your green lines.

Hopefully that helps, but if not just let me know and I'll try clarifying it some more.

I'll be moving you on to lesson 2 now, 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.
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