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The demos here have been drawn in the course of a student's homework critique, but contain information that can be useful to all working through this material.
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This is something we look at more in the next lesson, but with certain structures - like cacti and some mushrooms - you may find yourself wanting to build more complexity on top of structures that are already 3D and voluminous, rather than the flat leaves and petals we introduced at the beginning of this lesson.
Unfortunately, using the same technique of altering the silhouette of that structure doesn't work. Instead, we have to build up new, complete forms onto the existing structure, making sure everything continues to read as three dimensional.
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Here you'll find some notes on issues I frequently see from students once you've broken free of the first two lessons. The bit about lines and the tendency to draw them with no real variation or liveliness to them is an especially common one. Remember that a line drawn confidently will always have a little bit of tapering where it touches down and where it lifts off the page.
If you're having trouble reading the handwriting due to the unfortunately small scale of the image, here's a transcription of it: https://pastebin.com/T9FAnStH
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All too often I have students who look at the leaf construction method and think, "this is for leaves, and therefore all leaves are inevitably constructed with these exact steps in this exact order".
Instead, think about what the steps are meant to achieve, and consider that a tool in your toolbox for approaching anything similar to a leaf. Sometimes a leaf is composed of multiple smaller leaves - so consider applying the technique to each smaller element, then merging them.
If you're having trouble reading the handwriting due to the unfortunately small scale of the image, here's a transcription of it: https://pastebin.com/niMEJiUD
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Poles - like what you'll find on the top and bottom of a globe - are extremely useful when it comes to taking a circle and making it feel like a sphere. They are essentially contour ellipses, but the key point here is that the whole thing is visible and does not go onto the opposite side of the sphere, since it is facing us.
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A simple demo of how I would have tackled the plant this student attempted. Notice how I draw the individual flow lines for the leaves with little arrow heads to really accentuate how they flow through space.
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I wouldn't recommend worrying about texture too much, but when you look at a leaf, it's not just a few lines implying veins - there's a lot going on if you look really closely.
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 $10.00/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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