1 users agree
7:37 PM, Saturday October 29th 2022

DanielDraws, congratulations on completing all 250 boxes, it’s a lot of work and you should be proud of what you have achieved.

Starting with your Mark Making, some of your lines are a bit wobbly. If we think back to the principles of mark making as explained in lesson 1 https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/3/smooth the most important thing to focus on first is keeping your lines smooth and consistent. Prioritise confidence over accuracy, and make sure you’re drawing using your shoulder as shown in this section https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/2/video Take as much time as you need to plan and prepare every line before executing with confidence as explained in the ghosted lines exercise in lesson 1 https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/ghostedlines

If you’re not already doing so, it helps to do warm ups before you start your homework. The usual strategy is to pick 2 or 3 exercises from lessons you have already completed and practice those for a total of 10-15 minutes at the start of your session. Super Imposed lines are very useful for building confidence.

It may also help you to read this comment from Comfy where he talks https://drawabox.com/community/submission/VQH7VG0J/C4CM0EXQ more about hesitation.

I can see some places where you’ve redrawn a line to correct it. Resist the temptation to redraw lines, as it has the potential to make your work look messy and confusing, as well as highlighting attention to where you feel you made a mistake. If a line is a bit off just leave it as if it were correct and move on. If a line has missed the second dot you can run your extension line through your planning dots when you come back to check your convergences.

It’s good that you chose to hatch one of the front faces of your boxes, and many of your hatching lines are looking smoother and more confident than your box construction lines. They have a tendency to arch though, which suggests you may have been drawing them with your elbow or wrist, instead of your shoulder.

It looks like you applied line weight to some of your boxes. Seeing as how line weight is not a requirement of the challenge it's nice to see that you're applying it. It's a useful tool but one that most people need some mileage with before they feel comfortable applying it. Getting an early start like this will help you see better results sooner.

Moving on to your Box Constructions, you’ve done a good job of extending your lines away from the viewer. Some of your extensions are really really short though, in this part of the video https://youtu.be/jlJ6rwj3PKg?t=927 Comfy reccomends making them at least twice their original length and in the text instructions he says "You don't have to extend it all the way (usually this will be impossible due to vanishing points falling way off the page), but extend them as much as you reasonably can.” It’s not a mistake per se, but it is easier to judge your convergences if you make them as long as you reasonably can.

Your convergences are coming along nicely, though 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 https://imgur.com/KSHwTwo is an example of lines converging in pairs, and this https://imgur.com/8PqQLE0 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.

I can see you experimented with some different orientations and proportions for your boxes, that good. Something I would like to see you do more of is varying your foreshortening. Most of your boxes have fairly shallow foreshortening.

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 complete one more page of boxes please. I’d like you to use more dramatic foreshortening with these boxes. Please prioritise the confidence and smoothness of your lines, using your shoulder and the ghosting method, and do not repeat any lines to correct them.

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:

I’d like you to complete one more page of boxes please. I’d like you to use more dramatic foreshortening with these boxes. Please prioritise the confidence and smoothness of your lines, using your shoulder and the ghosting method, and do not repeat any lines to correct them.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
1:00 AM, Wednesday November 2nd 2022

Thank you so much for the critique, I really appreciate it!

Heres the extra page you asked for:

https://imgur.com/a/q7AdLAZ

2:58 PM, Wednesday November 2nd 2022

Oh that is much better! You've definitely shown that you're ready for lesson 2.

You've demonstrated that you can vary your foreshortening when you need to, with the bottom right box in particular being quite dramatic, just like I asked for, thank you!

Your mark making looks better too, I can see you took your time to draw every line with clear intention, even your hatching lines look better, evenly spaced, going all the way accross the face of the box and with less arching. Keep the principles of mark making discussed in lesson 1 in mind as you move forward through the course as they're important for all drawbox exercises.

Add this box exercise to your pool of warm ups and head on to lesson 2. Well done.

Next Steps:

Feel free to move on to lesson 2

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete. In order for the student to receive their completion badge, this critique will need 2 agreements from other members of the community.
The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens

Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens

Like the Staedtlers, these also come in a set of multiple weights - the ones we use are F. One useful thing in these sets however (if you can't find the pens individually) is that some of the sets come with a brush pen (the B size). These can be helpful in filling out big black areas.

Still, I'd recommend buying these in person if you can, at a proper art supply store. They'll generally let you buy them individually, and also test them out beforehand to weed out any duds.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.