hello ive been nearing completion of the 250 box challenge at 230 boxes and i feel like i havent improved a single bit, i get more of the theory behind the boxes but my hands cant catch to my minds eye. im honestly not sure what do since i used alot of stuff to try and fix the boxes, my only hope is that when i put them ill be able to get some critique sorry for the doom and gloom but im honestly little dissappointed in myself just a little
What helped me a lot with the things I was not seeing clear and my recurrent mistakes was reading and seeing the examples from the 250 box challenge feedback list I hope it can help you too :)
Yep, boxes are challenging. At the end of the box challenge I mostly felt like only my line quality had improved. It takes a long time to remap how your brain works. I did 20-30 a day and rushed it, which I feel was part of my problem.
I'm sure others have come out with a feeling of more progress but 250 was only ever just a good first milestone. Nobody comes out at the end of the challenge with boxes mastered. Everybody has to keep boxes in their practice rotation to keep improving and to stay sharp.
Don't be disappointed in yourself. If nothing else, get satisfaction at completing a goal you set yourself. If it were an easy skill to acquire we wouldn't admire it like we do.
Here is some advice I have saved for myself from Jake Spicer's figure drawing book because I think they can help you going forward:
Be patient. Most people overestimate how much they'll improve in the first six months, but underestimate how good they can get in five years.
Date all your drawings and store them away, without looking at them too much. Return to them three months later. Regularly look at those three+ months drawings.
The strongest ones help boost confidence.
The weakest ones show you how far you've come.
The average of the drawings will help you gauge your progress.
Your best drawings will often stand out as better than anything else you make for a while.
Your very worst drawings will always be terrible - in fact, they'll often become worse as you get better and start to take more risks.
Again, it is your average drawings that you should use to measure improvement.
indeed i also feel like my line quality had improved more than my boxes and ill try to be more patient with myself ,thank you so much for the thoughtful advice!
I am in exactly the same position. I have 210 done and I feel like not much has improved. But when I analyze the process I realize that what has changed is very subtle. I am more confident making lines. While my boxes aren't great, I can at least get those lines down with assurance. It is easier to see where the errors are now, and easier to see where to put the dot at the end of a line. I think there are several points to doing so many boxes. One is that even 250 of the little suckers doesn't make you a master--progress is slow and almost not noticeable. Another is that it is easy to be disheartened. We have grown accustomed to gratification and in terms of boxes, it is very delayed. 250 is just a drop in the bucket of how many you will draw over your drawing career, but you have to start somewhere. Chin up!
Don't get discouraged that you feel you haven't improved! The biggest reason why you feel you haven't improved is probably because you don't fully understand a concept well and in that state you are repeating the same mistakes.
Maybe try re-doing some excercises from Lesson 1 and watching/reading the instructions closely. For me it took about 2 or 3 times to fully understand certain concepts(like rotating a box) and even more repetition to get it right.
This a journey and it's bound to have some bumps in the road. Use the time to reflect on the mistakes who might've made and learn from it.
Hope this helped a bit! You can do it!
Let's be real here for a second: fineliners can get pricey. It varies from brand to brand, store to store, and country to country, but good fineliners like the Staedtler Pigment Liner (my personal brand favourite) can cost an arm and a leg. I remember finding them being sold individually at a Michael's for $4-$5 each. That's highway robbery right there.
Now, we're not a big company ourselves or anything, but we have been in a position to periodically import large batches of pens that we've sourced ourselves - using the wholesale route to keep costs down, and then to split the savings between getting pens to you for cheaper, and setting some aside to one day produce our own.
These pens are each hand-tested (on a little card we include in the package) to avoid sending out any duds (another problem with pens sold in stores). We also checked out a handful of different options before settling on this supplier - mainly looking for pens that were as close to the Staedtler Pigment Liner. If I'm being honest, I think these might even perform a little better, at least for our use case in this course.
We've also tested their longevity. We've found that if we're reasonably gentle with them, we can get through all of Lesson 1, and halfway through the box challenge. We actually had ScyllaStew test them while recording realtime videos of her working through the lesson work, which you can check out here, along with a variety of reviews of other brands.
Now, I will say this - we're only really in a position to make this an attractive offer for those in the continental United States (where we can offer shipping for free). We do ship internationally, but between the shipping prices and shipping times, it's probably not the best offer you can find - though this may depend. We also straight up can't ship to the UK, thanks to some fairly new restrictions they've put into place relating to their Brexit transition. I know that's a bummer - I'm Canadian myself - but hopefully one day we can expand things more meaningfully to the rest of the world.
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