Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

11:22 AM, Tuesday July 12th 2022

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/i7TmIXu.jpg

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Hi! First of all, I want to thank you for creating this web site. I've always wanted to become a better artist so I could create my own comics/manga. I'm self taught, and I've strugled over the years to find useful content on the internet, and I've never get my drawings critiqued by artists that are better than me, so I'm pretty excited to start this drawabox's lessons. Just so you know what my goals are, I basically want to be able to draw everything, from creatures to enviroments, so if you could recomend me some books, online courses, etc, or any useful resource for me to keep studying and getting better everyday, I would be really grateful!

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7:10 PM, Wednesday July 13th 2022

Hello and congrats on completing lesson one. I'll be taking a look at your submission today. Starting with your superimposed lines these are off to a fine start. You are keeping a clearly defined starting point with all of your wavering at the opposite end. I'm noticing that you are getting quite a bit of wobble in your ghosted lines and planes. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/9/wobbling This is also quite present in some of the later exercises although I am seeing another issue regarding added line weigh that I will discuss then but I still want to mention this advice here so you can understand what the problem likely is.

This is the important part we need to be focusing on and the real problem I'm seeing:

You're hesitating as you execute the line, rather than drawing with a confident motion. Finally committing to a mark can definitely be quite daunting, but it's integral that you get used to accepting that mistakes do happen. Things go wrong - you can prepare as much as possible (and you should) but the moment your pen touches the page, any opportunity to avoid a mistake has already passed. Now you must commit yourself, push through with confidence, and execute your line. It's also worth remembering: we can still work with a line that is smooth and even, but there's not much that can be done with a wobbly one.

What's most likely happening is that you are worrying about accuracy too much while making your mark and it's causing you to slow down your stroke to compensate which is giving you quite a bit of wobble in your lines. That hesitation because of your concern for accuracy while making your mark is what is reintroducing the wobble into your lines. Try and rely a bit more on the muscle memory you build up while ghosting your mark and almost make your mark without thinking. This will be less accurate at first but will give you consistently smooth and confident linework which is our first priority. Accuracy will come with mileage and can't really be forced.

Your tables of ellipses are coming along quite well and your linework for your ellipses in general is much more confident than your other exercises. You are doing a good job drawing through your ellipses and focusing on consistent smooth ellipse shapes. This is carried over nicely into your ellipses in planes. It's great that you aren't overly concerned with accuracy and are instead focused on getting smooth ellipse shapes. Although accuracy is our end goal it can't really be forced and tends to come with mileage and consistent practice more than anything else. Your ellipses in funnels are having some slight issues with tilting off the minor axis. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/14/notaligned Not a big problem but this is something you should always start considering when drawing your ellipses. Your ellipses are off to a great start but there's still room for improvement when it comes to accuracy so keep practicing them during your warmups.

The plotted perspective looks great, nothing to mention here. Your rough perspective exercises turned out pretty good. You are getting a mix of confident linework here along with some wobble creeping back into some of your lines. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/9/wobbling This is probably happening because you are more concerned with accuracy now that you are constructing boxes and you are slowing down your stroke to compensate. The more concerning issue I'm seeing here and in some of your later exercises though is your added line weight. If you want to add line weight that's fine but the issue is that you appear to be reverting back to using your wrist to do so which is introducing a lot of wobble into your linework. You also appear to be "feathering" your lines by making them in multiple strokes in some places. If you want to add line weight you simply need to treat it the same as every other line you would draw for these lessons. Ghost it multiple times and then draw from your shoulder with confidence. You are doing a good job extending the lines back on your boxes to check your work. As you can see some of your perspective estimations were quite off but that will become more intuitive with practice. One thing that can help you a bit when doing a one point perspective exercise like this is to realize that all of your horizontal lines should be parallel to the horizon line and all of your verticals should be perpendicular(straight up and down in this case) to the horizon line. This will help you avoid some of the slanting lines you have in your constructions.

Your rotated box exercise turned out pretty well. I like that you drew this nice and big as that really helps when dealing with complex spatial problems. You also did a good job drawing through your boxes and keeping your gaps narrow and consistent. You are running into a pretty common issue of not actually rotating your boxes in some cases but instead simply drawing them moving back in perspective. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/17/notrotating This is a great exercise to come back to after a few lessons to see how much your spatial thinking ability has improved. Your organic perspective exercises are looking pretty good. Your line confidence here is still a bit concerning. The issues with added line weight are still present so as a revision I'd like you to do one more page of this exercise. I want you to focus on confident linework. No adding lineweight or redrawing lines. Put down a single confident line and stick with it. Your box constructions are looking quite good for the most part and you already seem to have a good sense of how box lines need to converge to vps. That said I'd like to get this issue with line confidence under control before you move on to the 250 box challenge.

Overall this was a pretty solid submission. Your ellipse are coming along quite well but your line quality took a dip with the rough perspective and organic perspective exercises partially because of the added line weight issue and also partially because of a bit too much focus on accuracy. Once you get that revision submitted and I take a look you can most likely move on to the 250 box challenge. In terms of an added course recommendation one of the best selections of drawing and painting course online is from Drawabox's sponsor New Masters Academy so defnitely check them out as they have a huge selection of drawing and painting courses taught by industry professionals that can supplement your learning here.

Next Steps:

One page of the organic perspective exercise - Focus on confident linework. No redrawing lines or adding line weight

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
12:21 PM, Saturday July 16th 2022

https://imgur.com/a/bpbscyK

Hello, I did the revision as you suggested. I tried my best to keep my lines confident

2:09 PM, Saturday July 16th 2022

Alright this is definitely more confident throughout. You are still redrawing lines here and there so keep working on this during your warmups and the 250 box challenge. I'm going to mark this as complete and good luck with the 250 box challenge!

Next Steps:

The 250 Box challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
1:02 AM, Saturday November 19th 2022
hey, i finally completed the 250 box challange! must i submit all of the 250 box to imgur, or should i just proceed to lesson2?
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