Lesson 7: Applying Construction to Vehicles

5:01 PM, Tuesday January 10th 2023

Drawabox lesson 7 - HIFLOW - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/EzNXKQ3.jpg

Post with 134 views. Drawabox lesson 7 - HIFLOW

That was quite a ride! ;)

Some important notes:

  • I mostly struggled with the initial boxes, as I've noticed even a tiny misalignment can snowball into huge problems later.

  • I found the vehicles with the base box form located somewhere inside the bigger bounding box space, like the old car model and tractor, very difficult. The base box isn't aligned to the wheels so I had very little to go off, as far as locating it in 3D space. What I did is, I tried to project measurements from the bounding box onto the base box, and it ended up being fairly accurate but very messy - I had to start relying on guesswork to not overwhelm myself with construction lines. I also dabbled a bit with the "constructing the base box from the mid plane outwards" method, but it seemed less accurate so I dropped it.

  • I switched it up for some of the later vehicles and tried to make them without any rulers and ellipse guides. I think the boat, the car and the garbage truck were done freehand.

2 users agree
11:22 AM, Thursday January 12th 2023

First of all, congrats on finishing drawabox! Only a handful of people ever make it to the end. (also note that this is my first lesson 7 critique so don't hesitate to ask questions if you're feeling confused about something.)

Starting with your form intersections, your work is pretty well done with a few minor issues. First this isn't really an issue but more of a suggestion, you should try to keep your forms the same size because that will help you see the intersection more clearly and will allow you more room to think in 3d space. I also noticed that some of your cones are stretched https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/8/stretched which should be avoided due to added complexity. Finally the cylinder in the middle should be converging instead of diverging.

Your cylinders in boxes is looking good, the only thing I would point out is that if you have the room to draw bigger you should absolutely go for it because it will allow you to think in 3d space better.

Continuing onto your vehicle form intersections ( which I'm going to assume are the less detail vehicles ) you've done a bit more than what was asked for. This exercise was just to remind you that the vehicles we are drawing are in the end just simple forms as a sort of warmup to the actual vehicles.

Moving onto your actual vehicle constructions, I'll start by addressing some of your notes. First of all there is no reason not to use a ruler and ellipse guide especially if you have used it previously. Doing these freehand takes away from the learning experience and instead forces us to focus on the accuracy of the line. On the point of using a ruler it can be used as sort of a guideline when setting up your initial bounding box so that you can see how the line converges with others. Also, if the initial bounding box is misaligned slightly you can account for that when you draw additional guidelines and go off of them instead of the misaligned line.

For your 2nd point it definitely is a pain in the ass to draw the vehicle inside of another box within the bounding box, but you shouldn't rely on guesswork because the whole reason we painstakingly plot every single line down is so that it trains our brain to use those invisible guidelines for the times when we actually use guesswork. Therefore the more precise we are during this lesson the better. I feel like you used a solid amount of precision, slightly more than the demos but I feel like you could have taken this a little further. For example on the garbage collection truck you could have maybe plotted where that middle indent was or maybe even the outline of the collection arm instead of relying on observation to do so. The reason we do the orthographic studies beforehand is so that we can fully focus on understanding how the vehicle sits in 3d space rather than deciding where to draw certain features while drawing it. By deciding where everything is going to go and how long and wide the vehicle is we can dedicate all of our attention to drawing the object.

Anyway, most of your constructions are very solid and it looks like you focused more on the end product by making it look good which certainly isn't a bad thing but I feel like with everything you've said so far I'm sort of torn on whether or not to assign a revision.

So here's the deal, I'll give you an optional challenge instead. If you choose to do this challenge I'd like you to choose a car or bus and subdivide it as much as you see fit. If you do this, make sure to include an orthographic view of the front and side which is subdivided as well. Also if possible I want you to avoid drawing on the reference and purely decide the proportions based on observation on the orthographic studies kind of like what you did on this except make each part clearly defined so that it's replicable on the bounding box like this. The point of this challenge is so that you can fully test yourself to be as precise as possible. Also don't add any detail to it after you're done just focus purely on the construction (but if you really want to just make sure to take a picture of it before you go in and add everything). Take as much time as you need and make sure to use a ruler and ellipse guide.

The reason I didn't make this a revision is because you clearly understand the lesson from what I see from the plane and the vehicles done with a ruler. So after deliberating for a couple hours I decided it would be best to make this optional. If you really want to test your patience you should go for it and reply to this critique if you do decide to do it. I've only done this once and it was during lesson 7 and it took me about 20 hours so I didn't want you to be held back by my distorted expectations.

Anyway, you've done really well and should be proud of what you've accomplished!

If you need further clarification on anything don't hesitate to ask! Good luck!

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Congrats on finishing drawabox!

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3:54 PM, Thursday January 12th 2023

Thank you for the detailed critique, I understood everything! I'll do the challenge (typing it here so I can hold myself accountable :>)

Just to be clear about the challenge, what do you mean with "no detail"? Could you provide an example pic of what I should be aiming for?

Also is it bad that I drew on the references? I saw Uncomfy do it in his demos, so I did it as well, however I know they're outdated so...

12:36 AM, Friday January 13th 2023
edited at 12:37 AM, Jan 13th 2023

So with no detail I mean it should be the construction only which you've done on the bus and plane. I consider detail to look like this vehicle.

If you want an example, this vehicle is the one I challenged myself on and to be honest it completely drained me because it required so much focus and attention and I did it over only 2 sittings (something I would strongly not recommend). This would also be considered no detail (except for the rope) because it's just a crazy amount of construction lines.

Also it's not bad to draw on the reference I've seen plenty of other people do it as well, but I think it's better if you do side / front view orthographic plans instead. You can still do it if you'd like if it helps you understand the vehicle better but if you do the o.plans you'll soon realize that you won't need to.

Anyway, good luck on the challenge!

edited at 12:37 AM, Jan 13th 2023
7:12 PM, Friday January 20th 2023

All right, I'm done! https://imgur.com/a/flZFC4Q

Tracking the construction lines was difficult, but I managed somehow. Idk how you managed it on yours, that really looks like hell lol. Honestly, even with all of the precise measuring I find the previous method more reliable. I mean dividing a plane anything beyond 1/3 of its size feels pretty pointless as the "good enough" bar for a line can be reached by eyeballing it (unless it's a really large plane).

Another problem I was faced with is; all the construction lines diverted my focus away from "adapting to inevitable mistakes" in the sense that I couldn't just "cheat" and move stuff around a bit since everything was so planned out. Moving a line a few millimeters would mean the rest of the construction would had to move with it to keep the believability. Previously I could "correct the course" earlier in the construction I feel like.

But all in all, still glad I did it. Even though I got impatient near the end >.<

Feel free to tell me what you think!

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