1 users agree
5:19 PM, Sunday August 9th 2020
edited at 5:56 PM, Aug 9th 2020

Hey, and congrats on completing this lesson! Let's go through it one exercise at a time~

Starting off, the superimposed lines look okay. They're, for the most part, smooth, and properly lined up at the start, though you will occasionally alter their trajectory. This is also, unfortunately, the first, in a long list of exercises where you haven't followed the instructions to the letter. In this one, the recommendation is to try varying lengths of lines (a few inches, then double that, then half a page width, then a full page width), and some arcing lines, too, but all the lines here are straight, and of roughly the same length. You've missed out on a lot of practice here, and, from a quick glance at the rest of the submission, it has definitely put you at a disadvantage, so I'll mention it now, once: try to follow the instructions to the letter, please. Moving on, the ghosted lines/planes are, for the most part, fairly confident, but, in the non-diagonal center lines of the planes, especially, i notice that your line will often stop short of the end point, and, instead of leaving it off there, you'll have it limp to the finish line, which is not recommended (as it causes it to become wobbly.) As for why this is happening, I'm sure you can guess. One more thing I'll recommend is to actually have some start/end points for the non-diagonal center lines. It's common for students to think that they're not needed, because the plane is already telling you where the line needs to start/end, but that's incorrect. The purpose of these points isn't just to tell us where the line starts, and where it ends, it's to split the work into two steps: planning, and execution. Trying to accomplish two things at once is a good way to accomplish neither, so its highly recommended to go about it this way.

The table of ellipses exercises looks a lot better in its second page. That said, despite being confident, and circular, the ellipses are poorly spaced, so be a little more mindful of that. Their positioning in relation to the frame, as well as the other ellipses is determined in the ghosting stage, so spend a little longer there, if you need to. The ellipses in planes exercise looks decent. The ellipses are, for the most part, circular, and they do a good job of touching all 4 sides of the plane. Finally, though there's 2 funnels that don't quite follow the instructions (their frames arc inwards, instead of outwards), the funnels exercise looks nice. The alignment issues seem to be as a result of the construction of the funnel (which, by the way, shouldn't be free-handed), more so than the ellipses themselves, but, just the same, see if you can spend a little longer ghosting these, too, rotating the page as necessary.

The plotted perspective exercise looks clean, though you've neglected to frame your compositions, as per the instructions. This is the case for the rough perspective exercise and the organic perspective exercise, too, so be careful in regards to that. Starting off with the rough perspective exercise, there's a few instances where lines of the 2 sets that should be parallel/perpendicular to the horizon are not, so be mindful of that. We know for a fact that this is how these lines should behave. If they don't, then there's been a mistake, so we should re-check our points. In regards to that, actually, i don't notice many of them. I'd like to quickly confirm that you are, in fact, placing points down, and extending your lines to them, rather than arbitrarily. If you're not, you absolutely should be. Solid attempt at the rotated boxes exercise, though I'd have much rather seen a single, finished attempt, than 2 incomplete ones. It'd have allowed you to draw a lot bigger, too, which is always a plus in this course. That said, the boxes themselves are fine. They're snug, both in the front, and in the back, though their rotation is a little slight. Finally, the organic perspective exercise looks fine. The foreshortening of your boxes is a little too dramatic, for this exercise, but that's alright. What's important is that they follow the flow line, and increase in size as they do, pushing the illusion of them getting closer to the viewer.

Overall, there's a lot of flaws in this submissions, most of which arise from a general neglect towards the instructions, but the general concepts are there, so I'll pass you onto the 250 box challenge. I'll recommend being a little more attentive to the text, however, taking notes as necessary- these lessons are fairly dense, so don't expect that you'll be able to remember everything. Good luck.

Next Steps:

250 Box Challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
edited at 5:56 PM, Aug 9th 2020
5:52 AM, Monday August 10th 2020

Agree with the completion marking.

Some additional comments and emphasis:

I appreciate the confidence demonstrated in many of your lines.

Beware the doodles. Even on page one you start getting doodl-y with your arrow off the R. The instructions are pretty clear about not doodling on your assignments. That's why you are to spend at least 50% of your time drawing for pleasure in conjunction with Draw A Box. It can be repetitive and drab, so you can get those doodles out on other pages and keep your learning time focused on the concepts in the lesson.

Also, most key, as the critique pointed out follow the instructions. Your work looks pretty good, but it's also not really what was asked for which means if you continue to do it you won't really be working on the skill the assignment is meant to sharpen.

Best of luck, and I hope you also share some of your 50% work. Your doodles are nice so I'd love to see your other work. They just don't belong on the assignment page.

10:21 AM, Monday August 10th 2020

Thanks you for the friendly words, I will definitely be more ensuing to the instructions and keep the doodling off the box - pages :)

10:16 AM, Monday August 10th 2020

Thanks for the harsh but honest review. Ill defenitely revisit some of the exercises now that I know what I have missed because for the most part I thought that my way of doing the exercises was just as effective but now I can clearly see that I was a bit too conceited going into this.

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