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This exercise is similar to the others, but throws a couple curve balls along the way and leads into an exploration of how the minor axis can be used to align our ellipses.
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Start out by drawing a long line with a shorter one across it marking out its middle (roughly). This long line is going to be the minor axis we use to align the ellipses we draw later.
It's worth mentioning that you should use a ruler or straight edge to draw these two lines. The ellipses will be freehand, and we want to focus on one thing at a time.
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Along either side of the long line, draw an arc. This can actually be pretty difficult - it may be easier at first to just draw the arcs first and then place a line in between them. Alternatively, if you can find a large circular object, or something else to help you draw those curves, by all means, go ahead. Again, we're not practicing our freehand curves right now.
You'll find that in between these two arcs, we've created a sort of funnel shape.
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In the space inside of the funnel, draw your ellipses. Strive to keep them aligned to the central minor axis line, such that each ellipse is cut into two equal, symmetrical halves down their narrower dimension by it.
Optionally, you can try to get the degree of your ellipses to increase as you move outwards from the center - keeping the middle one at a low degree (very narrow), and towards the outside, much more circular. Again, this is optional - you don't need to worry about this if you're still struggling with the alignment of your ellipses.
This exercise is really about getting used to the use of the minor axis line, as well as continuing to work on getting those ellipses to fit snugly within a set space. These are both principles that are used heavily in lesson 2, so we want to start getting a firm grip on them now.
In this video, we look at the main issues that come up when students attempt this exercise, so you'll know what to try to avoid.
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This is easily the most common mistake I see in this exercise. As mentioned above, one of the core elements of this exercise is getting used to your ellipses aligning to the central minor axis line. You want to make sure that the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves, down their narrower dimension. Here you can clearly see that they're slanted and cut unevenly.
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Keep your ellipses snugly against one another - don't leave large spaces between them (or any space at all for that matter). If nothing else, it's a missed opportunity to get more practice in with your ellipses.
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Do your best to keep your ellipses snugly within the funnel shape. Here many of these ellipses are spilling out beyond the funnel.
As we get into organic forms in lesson 2, this is going to be rather important, as we'll be using similar techniques to simulate the illusion that we have curving lines running along the surface of forms to make them look more three dimensional. If those lines spill out of the form however, that illusion will be easily broken.
This is what your work should look like upon completion.
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Whew, I'm almost done. Just one exercise left before I can move onto.. boxes? Damnit.
Come watch me struggle through this last bit of nonsense.
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.
Having your work reviewed by others is critical, as those who are just starting out aren't in a position to properly judge their own work, and won't be for quite some time. Don't be afraid to show your struggles - it's by analyzing your mistakes that we can help you grow. Perfect homework is not what we're looking for; we just need it to be complete.
There are currently two places you can get your work critiqued by the community - Reddit and our Discord Chat Server.
Both of these are completely free.
If you are interested in receiving extra help, I critique the work of those who support Drawabox on Patreon.
All of these private critiques are done through reddit, in specific threads where students post their work as a comment, including a link to their work (often hosted on Imgur, though most image hosts are okay).
My requirements are more strict than the free community critiques:
The minimum pledge for this lesson is $5.00/month. The orange button above will take you to the reddit thread for this lesson, you can post a link to your work there and I'll be notified. Once I catch the submission, I'll add it to this backlog spreadsheet.
Pledges are collected at the beginning of the following month, but you may start submitting your work immediately. If you're a new patron, I'll be reaching out to your shortly to collect your reddit username.
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