Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction

7:46 PM, Friday March 29th 2024

DrawABox - Lesson 2 - Album on Imgur

Imgur: https://imgur.com/a/dLDyBMJ

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Thanks in advanced for any feedback!

I definitely made some mistakes on the form intersections and the dissections could have gone better, but I feel like I learned a lot from going through these exercises.

2 users agree
7:16 PM, Sunday April 14th 2024

Hi Cornball, Congratulations on finishing lesson 2. I'll be giving you feedback, pointing out mistakes you've made as well as thing you did good.

Organic arrows

  • Your linework looks mostly fine. Some of the longer lines you've drawn in multiple parts. Try to place them as one continuous line. This may be difficult because of how long these lines get but you'll get better at it with practice.

  • The increased linethickness is very scratchy with multiple small lines. These should also be just one additional line, placed using the ghosting method.

  • The arrows get smaller towards the back properly.

Organic intersections

  • The sausage shapes have a consistent thickness.

  • The ellipses are drawn properly going through each one 2-3 times.

  • The contours don't have varying degrees as described in this picture. Some of them also have a flat section in the middle. When drawing these use the ghosting method as if you were drawing an ellipse but only put you pen down for the front part.

Texture analysis

  • There is a nice gradient from light to dark in the textures.

  • The black bar on the left blends a bit with the texture but it is still noticeable just like the white bar on the right. See this picture for reference.

Dissections

  • Your textures wrap around the sausage shape nicely. Most of them also get darker towards the edges.

  • You've mostly drawn cast shades. However for some of the textures you've drawn contours like the watermelon and sunflower textures.

Form intersections

  • Your linework on the base shapes looks good. The hatching lines are a bit arched sometimes which is often a result of rushing these. Take your time when hatching and use the ghosting method and you'll be fine. For the added lineweight the same applies as I said in the organic arrows exercise.

  • I don't see major mistakes in the intersections. You look like you have a good understanding in how shapes interact in 3D space.

Organic intersections

  • Both pages look like they are solid piles of sausage shapes.

  • The shadows wrap nicely around the shapes.

  • Same as before applies to the lineweight.

Overall very nice work. You are ready to continue with lesson 3.

Next Steps:

  • Continue with lesson 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.
8:05 PM, Sunday April 14th 2024

Thanks for the feedback Fable! All very valid criticisms - I definitely do tend to add line weight in segments on curved lines because whenever I try in a single line it always ends up diverging and looking like a separate line rather than line weight, even with ghosting. That's not a justification, just my reasoning - I understand that this is a bad practice and that I should try adding weight to curves in single strokes, even if they end up looking like separate lines (these are exercises, not finished drawings).

I didn't even think to vary the degrees of my contour curves - I did for the ellipses but for some reason thew that away for curves! Thanks for pointing this out - I did ghost through the entire ellipses for the curves, but failed to vary the degrees properly. I will pay attention to this in the future.

My gradients definitely leave something to be desired - I hope to improve on blending them more with the 25 texture challenge. Some of the textures for the dissections I found difficult to draw with purely cast shadows, but I probably should have just picked a different texture then.

Overall very helpful feedback - thanks again!

7:27 PM, Monday April 15th 2024

Mistakes in the textures are not really a problem. As stated in the lesson, this is the first time practicing textures which is a very difficult subject and mistakes are very common. It's commendable that you try difficult textures and you should continue doing so. Just be aware of the possible mistakes and when you finish a texture look back at it critically and if you spot a mistake, like drawing contours, think to yourself what you could improve next time.

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