2 users agree
7:25 PM, Sunday October 31st 2021

Hello, Mikka:

Congratulations! Finishing these 250 boxes is tough, and it's a great step towards your learning just walking through it. Comparing the earlier boxes and the latest ones, I have noted an improvement in your lines (better accuracy and smoothness) and your overall boxes structure. However, I also note a problem that I had in the past too, and I will try to help you avoid it:

Back lines and structure planning. This is a common problem I have seen on students, don't worry too much about it because it seems easy to fix. It appears because of how the exercise is told, so you can learn from it but it's also a hidden trap for some of us. It's the way of marking how to construct the back of the box that causes the problem and the fix is as simple as avoiding the central back vertex until it's the one left. After that, you can mark the point, see if it has the right convergences and if it does not, you can place another mark correcting any mistakes. Finally, you can join the central dot and enjoy your almost perfect converging box. Scylla has this approach explained in detail in this video. I'm sure that video will help.

Talking about structure, I want to touch this topic on depth because you also missed some convergence lines on the front ones. Back lines are tricky because of the central back vertex, but front lines are just limited to a good planning phase and that's what I want to tackle here. Everything you draw will have 3 phases: planning, marking and executing. Executing is just the mechanical movement of your arm, and I think you are doing great on that one. You don't have problems repeating marks if necessary so marking is not a problem neither. Planning is when your box falls apart mos of the time. It could be related to the previous problem because of the vertex you are constructing first as you seem to be remarking always one single vertex and that indicates that all the planning problems accumulate on the last front vertex every time. Try to remark points early, because the later you fix them the bigger the problem will be and the easier to spot will be too.

The last thing I want to comment is line weight. If you are afraid of it, start confronting that fear because you will be needing that skill on the following lessons. It is really important to communicate the hierarchy of lines to the viewer and one of the best tools for it is line weight. It is as simple as passing another time (or a couple of times) over your existing lines if they need to stand out from the lines under them. Use this to show which are the front lines while leaving the back lines as you have been doing them.

I'm going to request a revision for you to practice those problems because I feel they could slow you down in the long run on following lessons.

20 boxes more (ideally 5 pages with 4 boxes per page, I propose this so you can do them bigger).

All boxes must apply the back vertex last strategy.

At least 8 boxes must have line weight.

I hope it helps and feel free to reach me on discord if you have any doubt. You can also ask anything on this review and i will try to answer as soon as possible.

Next Steps:

20 boxes more (ideally 5 pages with 4 boxes per page).

All boxes must apply the back vertex last strategy.

At least 8 boxes must have line weight.

Answer this message (and only this message or i won't be notified correctly) when you are finished.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
9:20 AM, Wednesday November 3rd 2021

Thank you for taking the time to review my submission.

I used scylla's approach and apply lineweights on the 20 boxes as you said ^^

Sorry it took a while.

20 boxes : https://imgur.com/a/zaEANf6

5:22 PM, Wednesday November 3rd 2021

Great job! I think you got the point. You can also use line weight on lines that cross over others to communicate with line is on top. That is a useful skill you will use in the future.

Good luck with lesson 2 and keep that hard work! Don't worry too much about the time it takes to complete the material, you will have to let it sink while you sleep anyways. There is no hurry when learning.

Next Steps:

Continue to lesson 2

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
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Staedtler Pigment Liners

Staedtler Pigment Liners

These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.

Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).

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