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:

• You're doing a good job of drawing the lines constructing your boxes smoothly and confidently.

• It's nice to see that you're taking the time to plan each of your hatching lines and space them evenly. This helps keep your boxes looking tidy rather than looking like they were rushed on to the page.

• Line weight isn't a requirement of the challenge so it's nice to see you're applying it anyways. Most people need to build up some mileage before they feel comfortable applying it so I always recommend starting early. The sooner you feel comfortable the sooner you see better results.

• You're doing a great job of experimenting with orientations, and proportions. Experimenting is an important habit to build when learning any new skill, it helps form a more well rounded understanding. I hope you'll continue to display and nurture this habit in the future.

Things you can work on:

• You tend to draw fairly small, I'd like you to draw larger in the future. As mentioned here a good balance is 5-6 forms per page. Drawing large will help you become more comfortable working from the shoulder and allow you to see any mistakes you've made more clearly.

• I'd like you to experiment with rates of foreshortening more. Currently you tend to push your vanishing points as far back as possible and try to create parallel lines. Bring your vanishing points in closer more frequently to build up more experience working with lines that converge more dramatically. Remember that experimenting (within reason, which I will go over shortly) is important and was also encouraged here.

• Quite frequently you're placing your vanishing point between the viewer and your boxes. This leads to you extending your lines in the wrong direction and your boxes becoming distorted because your lines are actually diverging from where the vanishing point would actually be. Here's a guide I wrote that will hopefully help you place your vanishing points and line extensions more consistently

• 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.

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 30 more boxes please. Focus on extending your lines in the correct direction towards consistently placed vanishing points. Be sure to experiment with rates of foreshortening as well.

Before wrapping this critique up I'd also like to address some of the things you brought up in your submission.

Notably this section:

I understand the strict rules and the need to abide by them, in no way do I consider myself in a position to just overrule them and do it in my way. I understand they serve a purpose, but at the same time being so inflexible was just not cutting it, it was stifling and making my drawings worst. I will keep strictly to the rules in the next lessons and try my best not to break them too much since I realize that a lot of my current struggle is due to my lack of experience, but I wonder, would that be a problem? Or is it allowed as long as it is not too much?

As mentioned in this critique we not only encourage but expect experimentation within reason. The challenge wasn't draw 1 box 250 times, there's plenty of room to experiment with rates of foreshortening, proportions, and orientations. That being said problems do arise when you're experimenting against the instructions themselves (not drawing from the shoulder or using the ghosting method as examples) and it will only slow your own progress down because you're not focused on what the material is trying to teach you. Not only that but it can be frustrating on our end when something like this is said:

I understand they serve a purpose, but at the same time being so inflexible was just not cutting it, it was stifling and making my drawings worst.

It wasn't the lack of flexibility that made your drawing worse, nearly all of the issues mentioned in the critique above were described in the instructions but intentionally or not those instructions weren't followed as closely as they could have been and that's why those issues exist. You mentioned seeking outside resources for help, which is fine and we aren't arrogant enough to say that only our explanations are valid but I can't help but wonder what your results would have been if you had slowed down just a bit and read the instructions a bit more thoroughly, as well as gave the video some extra attention.

Remember that the instructions given here function like an ecosystem - they have to work together. You may initially find that they give you worse results in the short term (for example, drawing marks from your shoulder is difficult, and takes getting used to, and so it may first cause your linework to get worse before it gets better). It's for this reason that students should not be choosing which instructions to follow, because they are not fully equipped to understand the role those instructions play, nor the outcome of their own choices.

Hopefully that helps clear things up a bit more.

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.