This one's really straight forward, though not as easy as it looks - remember those planes you drew as part of the lines section of this lesson? Find those pages (hopefully you didn't toss them out, burn them, or use them as nest materials for your pet bird), because we're gonna need 'em.
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So, you've got your plane. Or as the case probably would be, a page full of them, but here we're going to focus on just the one. It's kind of an awkward shape to work with - this one's not too bad, but they can definitely get a bit crazy on account of being arbitrary quadrilaterals.
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Put an ellipse in there. That's all.
It may look simple, but there are some pitfalls to watch out for. Don't worry about anything aside from getting the ellipse to be smooth and evenly shaped, and having it touch all four edges of the plane as snugly as you can manage. Of course, draw through your ellipses (as mentioned in the table of ellipses exercise).
Be sure to make use of the ghosting technique - this should of course be applied to every mark you put down, but it will especially help you here. Don't worry if you mess up - you'll have plenty of planes to practice with.
This exercise is just the beginning of something much more complicated. In the future, we'll be tackling constructing cylinders inside of boxes, and other similar challenges, and these will come with additional criteria that will need to be met. The purpose of this exercise however is just about maintaining the smooth, even shape above all else. That is your first priority. Second to that is, as mentioned above, fitting it snugly within the plane, touching all four edges. Given that these are generally awkward shapes to work in, I frequently have students who start deforming their ellipses, getting generally overwhelmed by the difficulty of the task.
More than anything, it's an exercise in calming down. The difficulties faced here are generally more of one's own making. Take it easy, and just try your best to drop a nice, even ellipse in there.
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This is a mistake I see frequently. See how the ellipse is bumpy and wobbly, and it kind of reaches out to touch the edges rather than maintaining an evenness to its shape? Avoid this. As mentioned several times above, maintaining a smooth elliptical shape is critical and above all else is your first priority.
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I also see this every now and then, though less frequently. While getting the ellipse to touch all four edges is your second priority, it is still something you should strive to do. It's pretty clear that with this example, no attempt was made to achieve that goal, and the ellipse - though evenly shaped - was just plopped in the middle rather unceremoniously.
Here's what your page should look like once it's done.
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This page has student-made readings/recordings
They can be helpful for those of you who cannot follow along with the text, or who need live examples for the exercises to follow along with.
Just keep in mind that as the lessons themselves are continually being updated and adjusted, the audio recordings may not be completely up to date.
This is another one of those things that aren't sold through Amazon, so I don't get a commission on it - but it's just too good to leave out. PureRef is a fantastic piece of software that is both Windows and Mac compatible. It's used for collecting reference and compiling them into a moodboard. You can move them around freely, have them automatically arranged, zoom in/out and even scale/flip/rotate images as you please. If needed, you can also add little text notes.
When starting on a project, I'll often open it up and start dragging reference images off the internet onto the board. When I'm done, I'll save out a '.pur' file, which embeds all the images. They can get pretty big, but are way more convenient than hauling around folders full of separate images.
Did I mention you can get it for free? The developer allows you to pay whatever amount you want for it. They recommend $5, but they'll allow you to take it for nothing. Really though, with software this versatile and polished, you really should throw them a few bucks if you pick it up. It's more than worth it.
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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