Hello mati, I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.
Arrows
Starting with your arrows your lines are looking fairly confident and smooth, which helps communicate a nice sense of fluidity in your arrows as they move through the world.
You're making good usage of the depth of the page by experimenting with the rates of foreshortening in your arrows, but your arrows do sometimes look a bit unnatural as it seems to me you become a bit unsure of how their edges should overlap. So don't be afraid of letting your edges overlap and to ensure that you're constructing a solid structure, try to construct your arrow in segments with the ghosting method, in this manner you can gauge whether your bends would look natural and overlap the way they should before committing to a mark.
Your usage of hatching helps you establish how your arrows twist and turn in space and further your own understanding of the tridimensional space these objects occupy, but do remember that your hatching lines must still follow the principles of ghosting and mark-making, they must have clear end and start points, be carefully planned and executed and not end at arbitrary points.
Still speaking of hatching, there are a couple of times where you've placed it incorrectly, making it seem like your arrow is getting bigger the further away it is, and getting smaller as it gets closer to the viewer which goes against the rules of perspective.
Leaves
The fluidity present in your arrows is translating quite nicely into these new structures, you're not only trying to capture how leaves sit statically within space, but also how they move across the world from moment to moment.
It's good to see that you're also experimenting with some more complex types of leaf structures, and doing so by following the instructions for the most part which allows you to create a much tighter and more solid looking structure that still feels flexible and energetic, just make sure that any later leaf structures respect the boundaries you've laid out, they must touch it, they shouldn't go past it or not even reach it, otherwise the boundary may as well not exist.
Outside of a single instance you're not making use of edge detail in your pages, be it in here or in your plant construction pages. Edge detail would have greatly helped you further communicate the form of your structures and how they move through space, but by not adding it they're left very simple, so make sure to add edge detail whenever possible, and remember that only the last step of leaf construction - texture - is optional.
In the place where you have made use of edge detail it needs some work, it's good to see that you're not trying to capture more than a single piece of edge detail at a time, and that you're drawing it with roughly the same line thickness as the initial construction, but remember that edge detail must be approached additively whenever possible, so as to avoid cutting back into the forms you've already drawn.
Branches
For your branches you're deviating from the instructions for this exercise which affects the quality of your work and stops you from getting the most out of this page.
While it's good to see that you're drawing your edges in segments, when you start a new segment you do so around the point where your last mark ended, instead of starting it at the previous ellipse point and superimposing your new mark on top of the preexisting one, this effectively removes the healthy overlaps we want to achieve between marks, causing you to lose control over your marks more easily.
So remember how branches should be approached, by having your segment start at the first ellipse point, extending it past the second ellipse and fully up to the halfway point to the third ellipse, afterwards you'll start a new segment, making sure to place your pen at the second ellipse and repeat this pattern until your entire branch is complete.
For your ellipses I've noticed you're not drawing through your them two full times, which is a mistake that stiffens your ellipses. Don't forget to always draw through your ellipses at least two times for every one of them you make in this course.
When it comes to your application of the ellipse degree shift to your branches it can be improved. Your degrees hardly change, and when they do they're not always in line with how the ellipse degree shift works. This flattens your structures, so remember to look over the page explaining the degree shift again, and always keep in mind that as a form shifts in relation to the viewer, so will the degree of the ellipses within that structure also shift.
Plant Construction Section
And lastly let's take a look af your plant construction pages, which are generally coming along really well made. You're following the construction methods and techniques introduced in the lesson which allows you to construct some really solid looking and believably tridimensional structures, you're demonstrating a strong, developing sense of spatial reasoning in these pages.
There is not much to say about your work as it's looking really good, so here are simply some small pointers you should keep in mind when tackling them again.
Firstly, don't forget to always follow the instructions to the letter, only submit the amount of homework that was requested, you have sent in 12 pages for review, when only 8 plant constructions were requested. If you wish to include your attempts at the demos alongside your submission then they must not make up more than less than half of your total homework pages, as mentioned in the homework section of this lesson.
Your pages have a lot of blank, empty spaces and your constructions don't make the most use out of the spave available to them. So make sure to start drawing bigger, as this will allow you not only more room to work through the spatial reasoning challenges that arise when tackling these exercises, but also give you enough space to fully engage your entire arm when drawing.
It's good to see that you're making use of a minor axis when drawing plant pots, but you may find that making use of it for other cylindrical structures such as mushrooms will also help you keep your ellipses aligned for those constructions.
Speaking of plant pots, try to construct the outer rim that's present in most types of vases and plant pots in order to further communicate the complexities of the structure.
Making use of lineweight to clarify the distinctions between overlaps would have helped you give the finishing touch your constructions and tighten your spatial reasoning skills.
And lastly let's take a look at your usage of texture, which can certainly be honed down a little. You're approaching it very explicitly, focusing on large areas of black, confusing form shadows and areas of local color for cast shadows, which stops you from communicating texture in the way it's approached in this course.
So let's revisit how texture in Drawabox is approached, by looking back at this page we can refresh our memory and see that texture through the lens of Drawabox is communicated through the use of cast shadows.
It is not used to make our work aesthetic or pretty, instead every textural form we draw is based on what's physically present in our reference. Our focus should be on understanding how each individual form sits in 3D space and how that form then creates a shadow that is cast onto that same surface. Only after analyzing all of this information present in our reference will we be able to translate it to our construction. This means that the shape of our shadow is important as it's the shape that defines the relationships between the form casting it and the surface it's being cast on, which is why we need to consider carefully how to design a shadow shape that feels dynamic.
This approach is of course much harder than basing our understanding of texture on other methods that may seem more intuitive or basing it on the idea that texture = making our work look good, but in the long run this method of applying texture is the one that enforces the ideals of spatial reasoning taught in this course. By following these ideals, you'll find yourself asking how to convey texture in the most efficient way possible, with less lines and ink, focusing on the implicit mark-making techniques introduced in Lesson 2. Make sure to go over these reminders in order to solidify your understanding of texture further.
Final Thoughts
In general your work is moving in the right direction, you're usually following the instructions to the exercises and your work is starting to look tridimensional do to that.
I believe you're ready to tackle the spatial reasoning challenges found in the next lesson, as such I'm going to be marking this submission as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.
Next Steps:
Don't forget to add these exercises to your list of warm ups.
Move on to Lesson 4.
Thank you.
I always have trouble executing texture and can't seem to make it look right, even with the given statements. Is there a method I'm not understanding?
Texture is a very complex subject, it's completely normal to struggle with it as it requires a strong grasp of not only spatial reasoning skills but also of light and shadow.
At the start it will require a lot of active thought as you focus on applying the instructions, always ask yourself what each and every mark you're putting down is meant to communicate, how does it come to be? Does it help you communicate what it feels like to run your hands through the surface of that object? What is the angle of the light that hits it in order to cast this shadow? Are the other shadows in your reference also caused by this light source? Do the shadows that you're putting down respect the light source? How can you use detail density to redirect the viewer's eye where you want it?
Besides revisiting the materials on the website regularly the best way to strengthen this knowledge is to apply it. The 25 textures challenge is a great opportunity to get more practice in, you're also supposed to do it alongside other lessons over a long period of time, this will allow you to spread your practice and ensure the knowledge will stick with you for longer than if you tried to cram it all at once.
ok got it, i'll try my best, thanks
Here we're getting into the subjective - Gerald Brom is one of my favourite artists (and a pretty fantastic novelist!). That said, if I recommended art books just for the beautiful images contained therein, my list of recommendations would be miles long.
The reason this book is close to my heart is because of its introduction, where Brom goes explains in detail just how he went from being an army brat to one of the most highly respected dark fantasy artists in the world today. I believe that one's work is flavoured by their life's experiences, and discovering the roots from which other artists hail can help give one perspective on their own beginnings, and perhaps their eventual destination as well.
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