Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

4:22 PM, Tuesday July 20th 2021

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Currently using ballpoint but looking to get fineliner for the next lessons.

Critiques on what to improve on would be greatly appreciated.

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11:35 PM, Tuesday July 20th 2021

Hi there.

Congratulations on finishing the first lesson.

So starting from superimposed lines, the lines are well done, though on the curved ones there seems to be a lack of confidence and to have sacrificed some of it for accuracy has even though some lines start and end at the same place the middle is slightly wobbling. Though this is more of a nitpick.

Usually drawing faster helps since it doesn't let you have time to doubt yourself.

On the ghosted lines exercise, there is a tendency to overshoot and I think even though the lines are arching, that you have been using your shoulder since it’s curving inwards, and that it’s just overcompensation to keep it from arching to the other side.

Lifting your pen right at the end can help you with overshooting and. For the curving since you are already trying to compensate for it by curving it, I think it’s just a matter of practice which you will get over time.

In the ghosted planes i can see that the overshooting and arching is happening, but that some lines are wobbling which demonstrate lack of confidence at least in comparison to the superimposed lines exercise, it’s also important to not repeat a line once put down, where i can see in some of the boxes that there are 2 parallel lines. One small nitpick is that one of the boxes are incomplete and does not have a cross,

In drawabox confidence in the line is valued much more above accuracy, so even in more constructive exercises, it should still be your number one priority.

The tables of ellipses are well done overall, but some of them seem to have been circled more than the 2 times indicated by the exercise. Has a small nitpick it seems most of seem to touch the top but not the bottom, thought the second circle seems to touch the bottom more consistently,

I think that they would improve if you took more time ghosting the lines and feeling out the ellipses before putting them down.

On the ghosted planes exercise, it was stated to reuse the ghosted planes exercise for this one. Though aside from that I see no consistent mistakes being made, more so that some individual ones have some slight problems like deformation, though I think that is caused by inconsistency, which will get better with time, rather than anything noteworthy to point out.

In the funnels exercise they seem to be very well executed if not for some of them being passed more than 2 times, and there is a small problem with the funnels coming from the straight lines on the top left of the page though, that is more of the middle line being placed incorrectly.

Please do keep to only 2 passes with the ellipses since yes it will make the mistakes easier to spot, but that’s kinda the point.

The plotted perspective looks like it was well executed but could be made better by shading one of the front sides and by adding some extra line weight to the boxes. Like shown here(https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/15/step7)

In rough perspective on the technical side, the frame doesn't seem to have been drawn has required here(https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/step1), and most of the line extensions don’t seem to be touching the horizon line has instructed here(https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/step6) . On the execution side, it seems to suffer from lack of confidence just like the ghosted planes exercise, though I think these lines were drawn a lot slower than the ones in that exercise since the problem with overshooting seems to mostly have gone away. The accuracy of where the lines ended in the horizon seems good and getting closer to that dot is a matter of practice.

In the rotated boxes the overall estimations and execution seem to be good but the middle box should have been bigger than the sides ones has shown here(https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/0fa240d2.jpg) , though there are repeat problems from previous exercise, arching seems to also be more apparent, there also seems to be the problem with repeated lines, all this combined makes me think that you might have tried to do it all in one go but slightly lost focus towards the end.

If you ever feel tired or losing focus, you can pause at any time during the lessons and challenges and try to tackle them later. It’s always more worth it to take your time and learn the lesson rather than rushing it and not having learned it at all.

On the organic perspective even if some are still wobbly you seem to be drawing them more confidently which did lead to more overshooting but that’s normal.

Overall a very good job, I think that in your warm up routines you should focus more on the ones like rough perspective to gain and try to be as confident as you can even when doing things that make you think twice about where you are placing your lines, Your ellipses seem to be doing very good though it’s a bad habit for drawabox to draw over 2 times.

I think you are ready to move on to 250 boxes though.

(here https://drawabox.com/lesson/250boxes)

If you are interested here is a video on it https://youtu.be/mteUPdCHn4s.

Have a good day.

Next Steps:

Move on to 250 boxes challenge

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.
2:22 AM, Wednesday July 21st 2021

hey, thanks for the incredibly ample critique, it helped a lot!

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