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6:08 PM, Thursday May 30th 2024

As a whole this is an improvement, mainly in terms of ensuring that you're following the instructions and applying the line extensions more correctly this time around. The only issue in regards to that is that you appear to only be marking out your minor axes in a limited fashion, more similarly to the first section of the challenge. Looking at the instructions you'll note that we want them to be extended all the way back, so we can more effectively compare them to the other line extensions, identify more easily how far off they are from converging consistently, and apply that information more directly when tackling the next set.

In terms of the work in general, there are two main things I want you to focus on going forwards:

  • I noted your linework as a concern previously, and it continues to be one. A lot of these lines are longer, which makes me think that you may not have developed a level of comfort with drawing from your shoulder - something that at this point in the course would usually be due to either forgetting to push yourself to draw from your shoulder and allowing yourself to slip back to the elbow more frequently without correction, or neglecting to keep up with the exercises we introduced that help develop those skills as part of your regular warmups. More likely it'd be a combination of the two. The other side of this is that you may simply not be giving yourself enough time - I noticed that you submitted within a little over 5 days, which means that you were doing 20 boxes + cylinders + line extensions each day, which is a lot. Back in the box challenge, we generally advise students that 5 per day, even 10 per day is fine, but exceeding that can result in more rushing. That rushing tends to manifest most of all in your linework.

  • The other point that stood out to me is that your boxes tend to have sets of edges that diverge very frequently. That is, cases where the 4 edges of a given set feature at least one edge that is dramatically diverging from the others. This usually comes about when the student is not paying enough attention to how the edges of a given set should be behaving when figuring out a corner, and relies more on guesswork. If you take a look at the 250 box challenge material currently, you might find that it has been updated since you last tackled it - the single video's been broken up into 3, and the challenge itself is more broken up as well into distinct sections. I'd advise you to review the videos, and potentially review the video discussing the Y method that is currently part of Lesson 1's Organic Perspective section to better understand how to go about "resolving" your corners.

As you've largely addressed the points I raised previously, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Do be sure to review the material I've referenced here however, as allowing those issues with divergence and linework to continue without adjusting how you're approaching this work will result in larger issues going forward.

Next Steps:

Review the sections I called out, adjust your approach (more generally in terms of warmups, and specifically in terms of how you're executing your linework and planning out your forms), and then continue onto Lesson 6.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
10:28 PM, Thursday May 30th 2024

Thank you! I'll review the new material and you're definitely right that I haven't been pushing myself to use my shoulder enough. I'll make sure to change my warmups and exercises to make up for it.

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I haven't found the actual brand you buy to matter much, so you may want to shop around. This one is a "master" template, which will give you a broad range of ellipse degrees and sizes (this one ranges between 0.25 inches and 1.5 inches), and is a good place to start. You may end up finding that this range limits the kinds of ellipses you draw, forcing you to work within those bounds, but it may still be worth it as full sets of ellipse guides can run you quite a bit more, simply due to the sizes and degrees that need to be covered.

No matter which brand of ellipse guide you decide to pick up, make sure they have little markings for the minor axes.

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