250 Box Challenge

7:49 PM, Sunday April 18th 2021

250 Boxes - Google Drive

250 Boxes - Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-4RMP6u7_EOj7ttXOQ-p_gQD4ysnv0Yo?usp=sharing

My discord tag is Dino0#3412 if you need to find me!

2 users agree
8:58 AM, Thursday June 3rd 2021

Hello Dino, congrats on finishing the 250 Box Challenge, time for some feedback.

linework and markmaking

The ghostng method- I can see you have taken the time to plot the start and end points and plan your lines throughout the set, great work. On the whole your lines do look to get straighter and more confident as you progress through the set. There are still a few wobbly lines though, and considering how straight your hatching lines are, I think it may be an issue with confidence. https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/98d7b3a3.jpg Once you've planned your stroke and ghosted it to your satisfaction, try to execute it confidently from your shoulder. Always prioritize confidence over accuracy, the accuracy will improve with practice. You certainly do make a good number of smooth confident lines though, so I can tell you understand the process and are heading in the right direction, good job.

I noticed a significant number of your lines overshoot the end points slightly, so I'm going to paste in this little tip from Uncomfortable here: *"A lot of students struggle with overshooting their lines, and as a result they tend to hesitate more as they reach the end point, causing them to undershoot and waver slightly as they slow their pen to a stop.

Here's an alternative: Try lifting your pen off the page the second you hit that end point. Lifting it up is a much more reliable action you can perform far more responsively, and it avoids the hesitation you get from slowing down.

In general, overshooting isn't that big of a deal right now. You'll get better at it, and it's always better than hesitating. Still, this approach can solve two problems at once."*

Lineweight- It looks like you've done a good job using super imposed lines to reinforce the silhouette of your boxes, well done. There are a few places where I can see you went over your lines multiple times, just remember that one super ipmosed line is enough.

Hatching- As I mentioned earlier, your hatching lines are pretty straight and parallel. You've done a great job of neatly applying hatching to a front face of your boxes throughout the set, nice one!

Box Construction

Line extensions - You've done a good job of making your error checking extension lines. There were a couple of hiccups with lines extended the wrong way for example the blue lines 224 and 221. A way to make sure you do this correctly 100% of the times, is to always extend the lines away from the center dot of the Y, as shown here: https://imgur.com/iNpIubA also double check this explanation from the challenge page here: https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/bc7fcf51.jpg

Convergences - A box in 3 point perspective will ALWAYS have their lines converge. They can never diverge, or be parallel. There are some boxes where you've got all 3 sets of lines converging, (even if the back corner is slightly off) for example 168, 230, 227, 235. However there are a large number of boxes with clearly diverging lines, even towards the end of the challenge (eg. 247, 243, 242, 231, 232) which is honestly quite concerning.

It is perfectly normal for the inner edges connecting to the back corner of the box to be troublesome throughout the challenge. What I find unusual is that you seem to struggle with getting the outter edges of your box to converge, too. If you take a look at this example from the challenge page https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/f717b0fd.jpg you can see that the outter edges of the box all get closer together as they are extended away from the inital Y. That's what you should be aiming for, throughout the challenge.

There's a fair number of boxes where you seem to have used a different method of construction to the Y method shown in the challenge instructions, along with what looks like a concerted effort to keep certain sets of lines parallel. It's okay to experiment a bit, but I think that you may have distracted yoursef from the core focus of this exercise by drawing so many boxes in 1 and 2 point perspective, instead of 3 point.

Variety of boxes - On a more positive note, you have done a fantastic job drawing boxes with a variety of foreshortening and from lots of different angles too, bravo!

Size of boxes - It's great that you stuck to the reccomended 5 boxes per page accross the challenge, but I thought I'd mention that there are a few pages where you've drawn your boxes pretty small. Drawing them biggerhelps encourage students to draw from the shoulder, and can also help with thinking through spacial problems. The majority of your boxes are a good size though.

Conclusion

Given that this challenge is over a month old and I know you've already finished lesson 2 and made a lot of progress since you posted this, I'm just going to ask you for 2 more pages of boxes, to show what your current ability looks like. Make sure you draw all of them in 3 point perspective using the Y method. I'll be looking specifically at your convergences. Feel free to mark your vanishing points on your page and ghost your lines towards them, if you feel it will help. (This will give you dramatic forshortening, because you'll have to place your vanishing points fairly close to the box) If you have any questions about anything I've said feel free to message me on Discord. (I'm DIO)

Next Steps:

2 More pages of boxes, paying particular attention to how your lines will converge.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
3:28 AM, Saturday June 19th 2021

Hi, thanks for taking the time to critique my box challenge! When I first submitted it I rushed through (because I was impatient & wanted to finish) and missed some core concepts the challenge was trying to teach me. The two pages you had me do was really eye opening and tells me I should do some more practice. Hoping these two are able to show better understanding of the challenge concepts. ^^ I've linked the pages below via imgur link but if that doesn't work let me know.

2 pages of boxes

7:11 AM, Saturday June 19th 2021
edited at 7:12 AM, Jun 19th 2021

Hello Dino,

Thank you for getting back to me with your revisions. I appreciate you taking the time and effort.

These new pages are a big improvement on your previous work! I can see you analysing what your extension lines show you with your boxes and it looks like you are showing a stronger understanding of what you are aiming for with this exercise. Even over just two pages I can see you making great progress.

I really proud of you, and happy to mark your challenge as complete. Please add this exercise to your pool of warmups and feel free to move on to lesson coughs lesson 3?

Good luck, and have fun on your drawing journey!

Next Steps:

Move on to lesson 2 3

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
edited at 7:12 AM, Jun 19th 2021
The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens

Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens

Like the Staedtlers, these also come in a set of multiple weights - the ones we use are F. One useful thing in these sets however (if you can't find the pens individually) is that some of the sets come with a brush pen (the B size). These can be helpful in filling out big black areas.

Still, I'd recommend buying these in person if you can, at a proper art supply store. They'll generally let you buy them individually, and also test them out beforehand to weed out any duds.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.