Jumping in with your cylinders around arbitrary minor axes, while overall you're following the instructions correctly and appear to be showing improvement over the course of the set, there is one area in which during the step where we identify the true minor axis of our ellipses is incorrect, resulting in a particular set of mistakes that does not get corrected.
The issue is that when your ellipses' alignment is off by a significant margin, for some reason you don't notice it as being wrong at al, often resulting in you marking out what would be your major axis (the widest span across the ellipse) rather than the minor axis (the narrowest span across the ellipse). This occurs across the set, but to name a few examples, we can see it in 39, 43, 73, 103, 117, 124, 138, 143.
Given that this always happens for the far end of the cylinder, it makes me wonder if you may be trying to push the degree of the ellipse so far that it widens beyond becoming circular, turning into an ellipse that's been rotated 90 degrees from where it was previously. If that is the case, it is unfortunately still incorrect - the degree of an ellipse cannot widen beyond a circle. And of course, the definition of the minor axis will always be the narrowest span, so for the error checking portion, you'd still be drawing a line through the narrowest part of the ellipse.
Assuming that is the reason, I think just having explained that it's not how things work is sufficient, so I won't assign any revisions on that front - but if that doesn't line up with why you ended up approaching it in that way, let me know and we can try to discuss it further to identify the problem at hand.
Continuing onto your cylinders in boxes, you appear to be approaching this exercise correctly, in terms of the cylinders, the line extensions, and so forth, but one core area where you are admittedly running into issues is with the boxes themselves. As noted in Lesson 0, every exercise we're introduced to as part of this becomes part of our regular warmups, so we can continue sharpening the related skills. The freely rotated boxes (plus line extensions) of the 250 box challenge is certainly included in that, although I do get the impression that you may not have practiced these as much as you could have, which may be the reason that you have a lot of cases of divergence throughout the set. Additionally, this video by ScyllaStew may help provide a strategy that'll help you better direct your time when constructing your boxes.
Aside from that, the only other point I wanted to call out is that your linework, especially for the ellipses, does come off a little stiff. This suggests to me that you may not be applying the ghosting method as consistently as you should be. The ghosting method is all about breaking the process into multiple steps, so that when your pen touches the page you're free to execute the mark as confidently as you can, without the kind of hesitation that results in uneven ellipses. Be sure to reflect upon how you're making your marks, and whether you might be slipping away from the core principles of the ghosting method as explained back in Lesson 1.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete - you've demonstrated an understanding of the concepts covered here, although there are definitely concepts from earlier in the course, specifically from Lesson 1 and the box challenge, which you will want to review and work at to ensure that you're well equipped to tackle what comes next.
Next Steps:
Move onto Lesson 6.
Hello,
thank you for the critique. As for the first issue, that's exactly what I was trying to do. I will keep in mind that the degree of an ellipse cannot go beyond a circle.
As for the line work I agree. I found it difficult drawing an ellipse using the ghosting method. Most ellipses went way off the plane unless I slowed it down when placing the pen after ghosting. I will make sure to increase the number of ellipse exercises in my warm-ups.
Regarding the critique of the second part of the exercise, I thought I was doing a better job at the box part than with ellipses. I actually refreshed my understanding of the exercise with that exact video. I will revisit lesson 1 to regain the core concepts. Could you help me out specifying which parts of my boxes construction could be improved so I can focus on those?
Thank you.
I was referring to cases like 222 on this page, 203 and 204 on this page, 166 here, and so forth. They're mainly cases where the inconsistent convergence of your edges causes those boxes to end up reading rather strangely. You're generally much better with boxes whose vanishing points are closer, but when they get pushed farther away for shallower foreshortening, you're more prone to issues.
This is another one of those things that aren't sold through Amazon, so I don't get a commission on it - but it's just too good to leave out. PureRef is a fantastic piece of software that is both Windows and Mac compatible. It's used for collecting reference and compiling them into a moodboard. You can move them around freely, have them automatically arranged, zoom in/out and even scale/flip/rotate images as you please. If needed, you can also add little text notes.
When starting on a project, I'll often open it up and start dragging reference images off the internet onto the board. When I'm done, I'll save out a '.pur' file, which embeds all the images. They can get pretty big, but are way more convenient than hauling around folders full of separate images.
Did I mention you can get it for free? The developer allows you to pay whatever amount you want for it. They recommend $5, but they'll allow you to take it for nothing. Really though, with software this versatile and polished, you really should throw them a few bucks if you pick it up. It's more than worth it.
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