View Full Submission View Parent Comment
8:50 AM, Sunday June 25th 2023

Hello, no problem, I'm happy to hear that the critique helped to clear a few things up for you.

Thank you for responding with an additional page of organic intersections.

Unfortunately the two main issues I called out in my critique of this exercise are persisting here, albeit less frequently.

Let's analyse the form I've traced over in red here. The end on the right is fine, it is clearly being supported by the form below it. The end on the left is poking up in the air, unsupported. There are other forms below it on the 2D space of the page, but these forms are not beneath it in the 3D space you have created.

Probably the most straightforward way to make the red form appear supported would be to assert it as resting on top of the form I've traced over in blue here. To do this I've removed the shadow the blue form was casting on the red form.

One thing that can help is that when you start the exercise, don't imagine that you're working in an empty void. Imagine that there is a ground plane there, and that the first sausage you're placing in the world actually falls on this surface. Think about how gravity is pushing down on it, and when you add the next sausage, continue to think about how gravity is trying to push this new sausage down, but the first one is getting in the way.

In addition to this, rather than thinking of looking down at the pile like it's sitting on the floor by your feet, think about sitting at a table, and looking at the pile of sausage forms sitting on the table in front of you. Placing the pile closer to eye level makes it a bit easier to draw the forms wrapping around one another in 3D space.

I have some advice that should help you to get these forms to wrap around one another more convincingly. When drawing forms over one another try to avoid overlapping them at the peak of the lower form. This helps prevent your forms from looking like they're just drawn over one another as well as helps create the illusion that they're wrapping around each other. It sounds trickier than it actually is, here is a visual example.

If you have not already done so, I encourage you to review the exercise instructions and re-watch the video demonstration for this exercise, which you can find here.

Your shadows are more consistent here, although you're still encountering the issue of some forms casting multiple shadows in different directions, as highlighted here.

Please review the exercise instructions and this feedback carefully and complete another page of organic intersections, once again sticking to no more than 7 forms in the pile.

Next Steps:

One page of organic intersections.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
12:30 AM, Monday June 26th 2023

Organic Intersections:

https://imgur.com/a/xm81Cck

Hey DIO,

I completed another page of the Organic Intersections after reading your advice and reviewing the exercise instructions. Although I believe this page was much better, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around adding more interesting relationships between the sausages. As a result, the sausages are very similar in terms of layout. Not sure if that's necessarily an issue, but I would like to add more variety and couldn't figure out how to add sausages that are jammed into each other or spilling out.

Please feel free to let me know if any additional pages are required, I'm having a lot of fun working on this exercise and would be more than willing to submit 2 or 3 pages, if need be.

Kind regards,

Jonathan S.

9:42 AM, Monday June 26th 2023

Hello Jonathan, thank you for getting back to me with this additional page.

This is much better!

Each form has a sense of weight to it and is obeying gravity. The shadows are more consistent too.

It is fine to keep your arrangements simple at first, as you get used to applying gravity consistently to all the forms, and you can begin to explore more interesting arrangements gradually as you gain experience and confidence (this is why I asked you to stick to up to 7 forms, to keep things simple.) This exercise isn't neccessarily about getting the forms to cut through each other, but more about how they wrap around one another, and you're doing this pretty well.

You're showing a solid understanding of the exercise now, and I'll leave you to keep practising and experimenting in your warm ups. Feel free to move on to the 250 cylinder challenge, which is a prerequisite for lesson 6.

Next Steps:

250 cylinder challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
2:53 PM, Monday June 26th 2023

Hi DIO,

Thank you very much! I was having a lot of fun thinking with this exercise and ended up doing some extra practice in my sketchbook with really weird and unique shapes.

I look forward to starting the 250 cylinder challenge!

The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens

Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens

Like the Staedtlers, these also come in a set of multiple weights - the ones we use are F. One useful thing in these sets however (if you can't find the pens individually) is that some of the sets come with a brush pen (the B size). These can be helpful in filling out big black areas.

Still, I'd recommend buying these in person if you can, at a proper art supply store. They'll generally let you buy them individually, and also test them out beforehand to weed out any duds.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.