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Am I doing the 250 Box Challenge correctly?

12:53 AM, Saturday June 25th 2022

https://imgur.com/a/dajafXe

Hey everyone,

I'm in the middle of doing the 250 box challenge. It takes me roughly 45 to 50 minutes to do a single page and I only do 5 boxes each session. I prefer it this way as it helps keep things organized with consistent multiples of 5. I've been using the Y generator provided to make the first 100 boxes, I plan to start to make my own after 100 as instructed by Comfy.

I honestly don't feel like I'm getting better at ghosting and getting my strokes to correctly line up with the end points. I feel like I'm just blindly moving my arm and hoping to get it right. When I ghost, my arm almost always undershoots or overshoots even before I commit to a stroke. I basically have no idea what I'm doing. Whenever I make a stroke correctly end at an end point, it wasn't because I intended to do so, it was just pure luck. I honestly don't feel like I'm any more competent at this than I was 3 years ago when I wasn't consistently practicing ghosting.

I'm also really struggling figuring out where to put the corner that is in the back of each box. The one that is furthest from the viewer.

Also, it is instructed to go over the outside edges of the boxes with extra strokes. Am I doing it wrong? I struggle with accurately superimposing the lines without it being messy.

Another thing to note, at times when I miss my endpoint for a stroke, I redo the stroke until I correctly get it to line up. I do this so I can get the perspective to be correct. I don't remember the instructions saying you shouldn't do this.

I've included my latest 2 pages. One doesn't have colored guides since I like to make those when beginning a new page. I feel it helps me better absorb what corrections I need to make. I've also included the first page I made when starting the challenge.

Basically, I just want to make sure I'm doing this challenge right. Like Comfy says, don't draw in a void.

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4:12 AM, Saturday June 25th 2022
edited at 4:07 PM, Jun 26th 2022

Will leave quotes here about the back edge, they might be useful to someone.

Good luck.

=====

Aha! Found it! WooHoo! Two of the quotes I was looking for. They are both from Uncomfortable. Hopefully they'll be useful. :)

"Ultimately, while it's easy to get caught up in the whole 'back corner' conundrum, it's more of a distraction than anything else. It's the convergences within individual sets of parallel lines that matters - get that right, and the back corner will fall into place."

And this one with a bit more detail.

"I do want to really emphasize one thing - it's normal for students to preoccupy themselves with, say, the back corner and how those "interior" lines converge to it, but that isn't what you should be focusing on while drawing your lines. Though it's counter intuitive, there's not a lot to be gained from that. Instead, when you put a line down, rather than thinking of how that line shares a corner with two others, or how it shares a plane with three others, think instead about the lines with which it shares a vanishing point. Think about how they all converge towards that singular point - including the lines that have not yet been drawn - and focus on making that happen. Think about the angles at which those lines leave the VP, and the angles that fall between them. The smaller the angle, the more parallel those lines will run to one another by the time they reach the box itself."

edited at 4:07 PM, Jun 26th 2022
0 users agree
4:29 AM, Saturday June 25th 2022

Hi Aubiter,

First let me just say, I just finished the 250 Box Challenge and passed. I can relate with many of the issues you are facing, so here's what I learned and helped me:

-In terms of time, my I did exactly what you did, 5 a page and each of those took me an hour+ at the beginning. As I got to the end ended up doing about 5 in about 20ish minutes. Take your time and break it up over different days and as you progress you will start getting faster because you will understand more. Also its good you stopped using the Y generator as it helped me quickly visualize the box before I made a single stroke.

-As for your strokes and ghosting. Every day I would do about 15 minutes of warm ups and that helped me SO much! I needed to work on my line work and ellipses so I would vary the lessons of Lesson 1. It takes time, I'm not perfect yet but I really see what a months worth of warm up exercises every day did for me. Also I tended to get more accurate when I slowed down, maybe that would help you?One thing I did notice that you didn't mention is that you lines are arcing. Uncomfortable talks about it in Lesson 1 I think. I would try to fix that as it might be one of the issues of you inaccuracy (which I don't think you are btw.)

-The back lines are also a pain point for me. I'm going to copy paste the feedback from Tofu (a TA) and hope it helps you.

"The rear lines (the ones you wouldn't see if the box wasn't transparent) tend to be off because they're the ones we draw last and any mistakes we've made up to that point are reflected in them. While you should try your best don't stress if your boxes aren't perfect (we have tools for that), the main goal of the challenge is to improve your understanding of 3D space which you've accomplished."

-For the superimposed lines. I think you are doing it correctly, they are quite good actually (imo). As for redoing the lines, I did that too, but I tried to limit the amount of times so it doesn't get messy. If they were some of the first set of lines. I would leave it and just work with it.

Overall I think you are doing pretty well. I think the reason that this challenge is such a high number is because it should take time, and as you are practicing you get better, you start realizing mistakes while you are doing it, realizing way to cope with mistakes, etc...

Hope that helped and good luck on the next 180ish boxes :P

(p.s. Looking at other peoples sketchbook and reading the critiques they got helped me understand some of my weakness.)

1:10 AM, Sunday June 26th 2022
edited at 1:27 AM, Jun 26th 2022

Hi Agroobi, thanks for your feedback.

I just finished a new set right now. I wasn't thinking and worrying about my lines arching until you pointed it out, I appreciate you doing so. I don't know how I can correct my arching lines. It is almost impossible for me to make them perfectly straight without the slightest arch, especially for boxes that are smaller. Its impossible to move my whole arm when making smaller strokes. This planted the seed of doubt in my mind that I feel like I did worse than I was doing before because I wasn't worried about this. (I don't mean to guilt you, I appreciate your feedback). I don't know how I can work around this...

I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm blaming you for something. You did absolutely nothing wrong. Thank you for letting me know about this. I'm just filled with constant self doubt and a lot of the time that self doubt hinders me when I draw.

edited at 1:27 AM, Jun 26th 2022
7:11 AM, Sunday June 26th 2022

Not at all Aubiter :)

We are all a community that tries to help each other. Overall I think you are doing great, and if I didn't make that clear, I hope I am now. All these points are going to get better with practice, I'm sure of it. Every single established artist said so, so there has to be some truth to it right? (lol) Keep at it and don't doubt yourself, You seem to have the determination, and all it's going to take is time. At least thats what I say to myself and I can see with the hours that I put in that its true. Might be small improvements but those add up.

As for the small boxes. I use my elbow or even my wrist when in those rare occasions. I try not to draw small when doing the DaB exercises and practice my wrist work in my warmups or 50% rule work.

Good luck :)

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