The demos listed here have no written counterpart, and are only available in video form.
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Lesson 3: Applying Construction to Plants
Video Only Demos
Hibiscus Demo
This one focuses on what you may encounter when drawing flowers in general, especially the necessity of focusing on how the petals themselves flow through space.
Cactus Demo
Not all plants are going to have components that focus primarily on the flow of flat forms through space. Some have mass and solidity of their own, like cactuses and mushrooms, and are all perfectly valid topics to attempt when working through this lesson.
This 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.
Alvin TD1267 Even Ellipse Master Template
This recommendation is really just for those of you who've reached lesson 6 and onwards.
I haven't found the actual brand you buy to matter much, but most of those that I've seen are produced by Alvin. This one is a "master" template, which will give you a broad range of ellipse degrees and sizes (this one ranges between 0.25 inches and 1.5 inches), and is a good place to start. You may end up finding that this range limits the kinds of ellipses you draw, forcing you to work within those bounds, but it may still be worth it as full sets of ellipse guides can run you quite a bit more, simply due to the sizes and degrees that need to be covered.
No matter which brand of ellipse guide you decide to pick up, make sure they have little markings for the minor axes.
Getting Your Work Critiqued
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.
Private Patreon Critiques
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:
- You must complete the lessons in order, in their entirety, starting from lesson 1
- All work for the lesson must be completed - that means all exercises in the lesson, not just those in a given section
- You may only move onto the next lesson once the previous has been marked complete
- The work must be done in the tools recommended in the lesson
The minimum pledge for this lesson is $7.00/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.