Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

1:25 PM, Monday March 22nd 2021

Drawabox homework 1 - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/hm8UEGm.jpg

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First time trying this, in the middle some of my pens ran out of ink, so some lines had to be drawn several times.

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6:33 PM, Monday March 22nd 2021

Welcome to drawabox, and congrats on clearing the first hurdle. I’ll be looking over your submission today. In regards to what you said, I’d, in the future, much prefer it if you saved running-out pens for your warmups, and switched to a new one for your drawabox work. Scratchy lines aren’t great at communicating solidity. Anyway, let’s take this one exercise at a time.

The superimposed lines look good. They’re smooth, properly lined up at the start, and of a consistent trajectory. I don’t see any arcing lines, however, which is a bit of a shame. The ghosted lines/planes look solid. If I had to pick at anything, it’s the occasional hesitation near the end. Try to be a little less conscious of the end point, if you can; it’s far more important for the resulting line to be smooth, and straight, than accurate.

For the table of ellipses exercise, you’ve uploaded the same page twice. I’ll reserve critique until I’ve seen page 2, in case there’s any improvement. The ellipses in planes look fairly good, if a little thick. I’ll assume that this is the thing mentioned in the intro, and remind you that it makes judging your linework really difficult, so it’s not something I recommend you stick to. The funnels are a little mixed. There’s plenty of them that are good, their ellipses being snug, and properly cut in half by the minor axis, but plenty of them that are misaligned, also. P.S. try not to change the exercises, if you can – all you do is put yourself at risk of misunderstanding the material.

The plotted perspective exercise looks solid, but I’d have rather seen the whole page filled – there’s a little too much empty space there, right now.

The plotted perspective exercise is mostly good, though, given how small the frames are, not particularly challenging, anyway. Despite that, what I assume is the last frame you drew has some significant errors (with 2 out of 3 boxes), so I’ll recommend you spend a little more time planning, if you can. Remember that there’s no obligation to stick to your first guesses. Unlike how it was with your lines, you’re allowed to alter your points as many times as you wish.

For the rotated boxes exercise, part of me thinks that you got so overwhelmed that you completely blanked out, and did your own think, but another part of me thinks that you never intended to stick to the instructions in the first place. One of the first, and easiest steps, the one where you draw 4 flat boxes, one on each side, is missing. I’ll remind you not to follow the instructions to the letter, regardless of how boring, or dry. All of these exercises have a point, and in changing them, you risk missing it.

The organic perspective exercise looks good. The boxes properly follow the flow line, increasing in size, but maintaining a consistent, shallow foreshortening as they do. As a result, they convey the illusion of flow quite well. Some more overlaps, and some lineweight to clarify them would’ve helped, too, but that’s alright.

Before you move on, I’d like to see:

Next Steps:

The missing table of ellipses exercise page, 1 page of rough perspective, 1 page of rotated boxes.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
3:51 PM, Saturday March 27th 2021

Hello, i've (tried to) redo the necessary exercises. Here's the link https://imgur.com/a/5WZYKaJ

5:23 AM, Sunday March 28th 2021

Hi! The second page of ellipses looks quite a lot better, but still, be mindful of their roundness – they shouldn’t be bumpy, nor pointy. To that end, feel free to have them go over the frame, as that’s not as important as them being smooth/round. The rough perspective exercise looks solid, though try to ditch the automatic reinforcing habit. If that’s meant to be lineweight, know that there’s no need for it in this exercise. The rotated boxes exercise shows a solid attempt. My only recommendation is to draw a little bigger next time.

Next Steps:

Move on to the box challenge.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
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