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7:44 PM, Friday November 5th 2021

As a whole, I'm quite pleased with your results here. The linework is at times a little sketchy (I can see you going back over your linework with shorter scratchy strokes, like on this dog head). That kind of hesitation is something you can ultimately control - you think about the mark you want to make, what role it's meant to play, and what it should be doing, then when you figure out the specific nature of the mark you wish to draw, you execute it in a single stroke using the ghosting method. It may be off from where you intended, but it will at least be confident and smooth - accuracy itself will improve with practice, as long as we leave ourselves vulnerable to those kinds of mistakes by avoiding hesitation.

Aside from that, you're doing quite well, and are leveraging the use of additional masses and gradual, additive construction nicely. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, but if you've got questions, feel free to ask.

Next Steps:

Move onto the 250 cylinder challenge, which is a prerequisite for lesson 6.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
12:48 AM, Thursday November 11th 2021

Thanks for the feedback, and I apologize for some of the more blatant breaking of the rules. The dog head was more of a spontaneous exercise, but I should have treated it with better care.

The parts I felt I struggled the most on were anything to do with the legs and the head.

Working through these, I noticed that I have a hard time visualizing how a stroke will look until it is actually down, regardless of my ghosting attempts, but I may just not be thinking far enough ahead. This was evident in my leg forms and masses. Most intersections I used on the legs and feet made them present the illusion of coming out towards the viewer, when they should have appeared to have faced the direction of the animal's body.

This also applies with the head, where I would try to plan out my eye sockets, ghost and place them, and then realize they looked so awkward or offset that it pretty much made further construction a lot more difficult. Usually, I think the I placed sockets were just too small or I couldn't really detect them in the reference well.

I think I've answered some of these points just writing this all down, where I wasn't considering the leg intersections like I would an ellipses' minor axis in space, but if you have any additional pointers there, I will gladly accept.

Do you have some strategies for determining intersections in organic forms on heads? Probably just requires me to plan harder and put more practice in, but tips are always appreciated.

Also, when putting in the sausage for the main body, is these ever a time where pinching the sausage is acceptable? Or is it just better to plan for a cut into the form if absolutely necessary? There were some references that I avoided simply because I was worried about having to cut into the form later where I felt I could avoid a pinch or cut.

7:38 PM, Friday November 12th 2021

I might have missed something, but from what I can see, your questions are as follows:

  • Do you have any strategies for determining intersections in organic forms on heads. Drawabox isn't really about providing strategies for dealing with specific one-off problems, but rather providing exercises one can do to help develop the skills that underpin a broader set of issues. So unfortunately I don't really have anything of much use to offer to this, but I can say this - remember that the drawings you're doing throughout this course are themselves the exercises. The end result of each of these drawings doesn't really matter - what does is the process your brain is actively going through as you try to solve these spatial puzzles. To be completely honest, I'm not really sure what exactly you're asking about in terms of "intersections in organic forms", but I suspect the answer will simply be a matter of applying the exercises and continuing to develop your underlying understanding of how these different forms relate to one another in 3D space.

  • When putting in the sausage for the main body, is there ever a time when pinching the sausage is acceptable. Not really, no, at least not in the context of this course. Constructional drawing, as an exercise, is all about building up from as simple a structure as possible (meaning sticking to the characteristics of simple sausages in this case, with no pinching through the midsection), because it's that simplicity which makes those forms feel solid and three dimensional. When working organically - again, within the context of this course - you shouldn't be planning to cut into the forms you've laid down. Instead, starting smaller/narrower and then building up around it to add bulk along either side is the better approach - effectively doing the opposite of pinching the original structure or cutting into it, always try to work additively, at least for the time being.

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