Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

4:53 PM, Tuesday March 3rd 2026

Drawabox lesson 1: leunamanuelgc - Album on Imgur

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I started the drawabox course a few weeks ago. I did a lesson per day more or less because I don't have too much time to dedicate. I don't think I've achieved the 50% rule but I tried to draw a bit more apart from the lessons.

In my case, I think I'm more of an intermediate level artist, so I think that I didn't struggled a lot with these exercises. Some things can be better tho. I sometimes just forget about doing the ghosted method but when that happens, I just correct it in the next line.

I'd like to know any tip, specially for the organic perspective one. I think I had enough understanding of basic perspective before starting the course, but I'm open to suggestions.

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1:29 PM, Wednesday March 4th 2026

Hello! Congrats on finishing lesson 1, I'll be reviewing your homework.

Before I get into it, good job on catching yourself not applying the ghosted method and correcting it in the next line, that's exactly what you're supposed to do!

Superimposed lines

There is fraying only on one side, showing that you're taking care to position your pen correctly at the start of the line. I don't see any significant wobble so you must be drawing your lines confidently.

Ghosted lines

I don't see any wobble or arches, and your lines are pretty accurate already! I have nothing to point out here.

Ghosted planes

Your line execution is pretty similar to the previous exercise. However, I noticed you made a mistake in the first page that you tried to correct by re-drawing the line. In this course, we don't redraw any lines. If you make a mistake, you leave it as-is and take care to prepare your next line more carefully. Only consider redrawing if the direction of the line is so off that it would prevent you from continuing the exercise.

Tables of ellipses and ellipses in planes

For both exercises, you drew through most of the ellipses and it looks like you were trying to have them touch the sides of the plane and table, as well as each other. There are some ellipses you didn't draw through fully, especially the smaller ones in tables of ellipses, so keep in mind that you should draw through all ellipses in these exercises.

Funnels

You drew through your ellipses, kept them touching the sides of the funnel and aligned them to the minor axis. You even tried the "extra" exercise of varying the degrees of the ellipses in a few funnels. Well done! Your accuracy with under or over shooting the sides of the funnels will increase with time.

Plotted perspective

You plotted the horizontal edges to the vanishing points correctly, and kept most of the vertical lines perpendicular to the horizon. Some of the back vertical lines weren't completely perpendicular. I assume this is due to the accumulation of error, and in these cases, try to find a middle ground where you draw these lines as vertical as possible, while keeping to the intersection of the lines.

Rough perspective

You drew the line extensions correctly to the central VP, and it looks like you're using the ghosting method correctly. Most of the faces of the boxes are rectangular, however there are some back faces that look a bit deformed in the first frame. It looks like you caught on and managed to fix it in the next few frames, with the 2nd page especially being really good!

Rotated boxes

You did the initial setup correctly, kept the gaps consistent and drew through your boxes. You drew almost all of the boxes, but you missed the 4 corners farthest. I don't think this warrants a revision of this piece of homework, but I highly encourage you to draw those corner boxes before starting the 250 boxes challenge.

Organic perspective

It looks like you're using the ghosting method correctly, and most of the edges are converging slightly. There are a few boxes where the edges look a bit too parallel in my opinion, and it seems to happen more in the larger boxes than the smaller ones. When you do this exercise as warmup, consider converging the lines a bit more on the large boxes.

Another thing to point out is that, while you correctly didn't draw the back corner of the boxes, when you have a box partially cover another, you are supposed to draw all the lines of both boxes, as you can see in the example homework here: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/organicperspective/example

You mentioned that you'd like tips for this exercise especially - What did you have trouble with that you need some help? From your execution, it looks like you understood the exercise pretty well.

Next Steps:

As I mentioned, I encourage you to finish the last 4 corners of the rotated boxes exercise.

It looks like you understood the exercises and are ready for the 250 boxes challenge. Remember to use the exercises from lesson 1 as warm up, and take some breaks from the challenge to work on some 50% fun art. Good luck!

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.
3:20 PM, Tuesday March 10th 2026
edited at 3:25 PM, Mar 10th 2026

Thanks for your critique!

Ghosted planes - Yeah, you're right, I shouldn't have repeated that line. It won't happen again o7.

Tables of ellipses and ellipses in planes - I'll correct my bad habit of not drawing through completely in small ellipses.

Rotated boxes - I overlooked the 4 corners by mistake. I'll do that.

Organic perspective - Also, I forgot about drawing the lines that are partially covered. I'll fix that too in next exercises.

About the tip I asked for: I understood the exercise but, is there any recomendation with the estimation of the convergence of the parallel lines to the VP? How other people do it? In my case I try to do something similar to the ghosting method, plus a bit of faith in what I'm seeing in that moment its correct. I guess this is something that I will improve with time.

Thanks again for the critique and I'll dive into the 250 box challenge after your suggestion of finishing the rotated boxes.

edited at 3:25 PM, Mar 10th 2026
3:24 PM, Tuesday March 10th 2026

"In my case I try to do something similar to the ghosting method, plus a bit of faith in what I'm seeing in that moment its correct" - that sounds pretty close to what I was doing during this exercise tbh. Don't worry too much about it at this stage as you'll be drawing plenty of boxes soon!

3:55 PM, Tuesday March 10th 2026

Fine! Thanks!

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