Uncomfortable

2014-09-05 21:52

After around 150, I started to see a marked improvement, and an increased level of confidence. Congratulations! :D

Continuing to do exercises 1 and 2 from lesson 1 (the lines and ellipses) is something everyone should be doing as warmups - especially me. Continuing to do the lines exercise especially should help you slowly reduce the waviness of your lines.

Still, I'm really pleased with the progress I see in your boxes. You should be fine to move onto Lesson 2!

Uncomfortable

2014-09-06 22:32

Hmmm... So you are showing improvement - your boxes are better and your lines are more confident, though you still need to make sure that you're locking your wrist and drawing from your shoulder.

That said, I am still concerned about the shape of your boxes (things like this). So, I've come up with another exercise for you to do! Basically, I want you to do two pages of boxes in perspective, except this time, we're not going to use rough/estimated perspective - instead, I want you to actually plot the perspective out.

For each page, draw a single horizon line and two vanishing points. Then draw at least 25 boxes per page, and for each box, draw out the lines from the vanishing points. You can use a ruler or another straight edge for those perspective lines, but not for the boxes. This is also a good opportunity to practice your line weights.

Here's what I mean. Since I'm looking for at least 25 boxes per page, try not to make them too big, so they can all fit.

Uncomfortable

2014-09-10 16:44

Looking pretty good. I see a few that are off perspective-wise, but they're in the minority. Also it looks like you have a pretty good hang of using the 1mm pen, because your lines aren't looking too thick.

Two things that could be improved, and since I'm quite pleased with the way they turned out, these are nitpicky:

1. Work towards removing the little gaps between the lines. Aesthetically it's not too bad, but it does compromise the solidity of the object a little bit.

2. Your line weights are pretty consistent - try to vary them as covered in the original post for this challenge.

Uncomfortable

2014-09-22 15:25

Not bad! There are quite a few with perspective issues, but you're getting there, and there are just as many that look quite solid.

Uncomfortable

2014-09-22 21:17

I like that you're testing with the red pen to find the resulting vanishing points after you've drawn the box. That is a great way to self-assess, so keep doing that.

Looking at all your boxes, the most common mistake I see is the simple issue of planes further away being larger than those closer. That is the most basic and most common breaking of perspective.

It may help to draw through your boxes until you get comfortable - that is, draw the lines that are hidden as well, so you can see the far plane in its entirety (which would otherwise be occluded by the other planes that make up the box), so you can compare it with the near plane.

If you have specific questions, feel free to ask them here, but it's not always possible to make out all of the little comments you've written (and since there's so many, there's no way I'd have time to hit each one).

Uncomfortable

2014-09-23 17:07

I definitely see a steady progression through the pages - your first few (up to maybe 100) were pretty bad. The lines were wobbly and showed very little confidence, and your angles were often weird. As you went on, your mistakes became less significant, your lines became straighter, and you seemed more confident in general.

Keep it up!

Uncomfortable

2014-10-02 18:49

Very well done! The only ones that jumped out at me were... damn, the numbers are hard to read. The one under 108 (i think? top left corner on page 4). And the one directly beneath that. Those appear to be tapering. This is because the bottom/top face that is visible is smaller than the one opposite to it. The fact that it is visible implies to us that it is closer - but if those two faces were the same size, the closer one would be larger according to the rules of perspective. Therefore the only way for that to be possible is for the closer face to be smaller, and therefore the form would taper.

Still, everything else is awesome, and I love the exploration with the ellipses, curves and divisions. The only thing stopping me from putting this on the main post as an ideal example is that I don't want to send mixed messages about my emphasis on drawing in ink, and I'm afraid people might forget and end up using pencil to do these exercises.

Uncomfortable

2014-11-11 16:28

Man, I thought you DIED. It's good to have you back. I hope the mentorship was good!

Your boxes are looking great. I donno about messy, aside from overshooting lines a little bit (which at least in this context looks a bit charming), they look pretty good to me. Obviously there were a few hilariously bad ones (95, 154, 174) but it's not like that matters. I did notice though that it wasn't until the first page that it looks like you started to force yourself to start turning the form more and exploring different angles. That might actually be something I might suggest to people who are struggling with this challenge - to start off with very little variation, as a warmup, and then start turning things about.

Uncomfortable

2014-11-18 18:29

The type of perspective you use is not a decision you make - rather, it's governed by the orientation of the object you are drawing. If an object is exactly perpendicular to your view (looking at a box straight on, for example), and is not rotated up or down, it is drawn in one point perspective - because the horizontal lines are automatically parallel to the horizon, and the vertical lines are automatically perpendicular to it. The only lines left to converge anywhere are those going off into the distance.

If your object starts to rotate horizontally, however, and none of the horizontal lines are now parallel to your horizon, you are now introducing another convergence. Now you've got two point perspective.

If you start rotating it vertically, the verticals are no longer perpendicular to your horizon, and they start to converge as well, either above or below the horizon depending on its orientation. Now you've got three point perspective.

This exercise is all about exploring different rotations and orientations of boxes, so you'll definitely see a lot of 2 point and 3 point perspective, but the goal of this is not to actually plot out your perspective. You're drawing it freehand, keeping in mind the different sets of "parallel" lines (of which there should be 3) and the fact that they either converge or remain parallel, depending on their orientation relative to how they're being viewed.

After writing all this, I decided a diagram would be better - but what I ended up drawing became more of a mini-lesson, so I uploaded it as its own thread. When to use 1, 2, 3 point perspective.

Uncomfortable

2014-11-21 16:23

You're getting there. There's definitely improvement between the first boxes and the last - though later on, as you start to improve, you also start to make things sketchier. I'm still glad to see the improvement, but now you have to work on bringing back the sense of intent from the ones where you were drawing only a single stroke per line.

Another thing I noticed is that early on, your lines weren't always connecting. Be mindful of that.

There is one other thing I noticed - most of your boxes are oriented very similarly. It looks to me like you had a bit of a mental block that was stopping you from spinning them around too dramatically.

I'd like to see one more page of the organic/varied perspective boxes, in proper rectangular frames. Push yourself to explore all different sorts of orientations for the boxes. You may want to take a look at /u/Whirly123's work on lesson 1 to give you a rough example of the different kind of orientations and compositions you can create.

Uncomfortable

2014-11-20 02:20

Very, VERY nice. You can see a clear progression and improvement from the first pages to the last. I love the corrections that you're doing, they show a lot of focus and care, and gives me a real sense of your motivation to improve. Edit: Woops, I totally forgot that I actually said to do this - but whatever! I'm still really glad to see it.

I do notice that early on you have in some cases a tendency to accidentally make your 3d parallel lines (that is, on the page they're not actually 2d) converge in the wrong direction. If you've got them converging towards the front face, then the object is getting smaller as it comes closer to us which is wrong. You missed these in your corrections, but I don't actually see them at all in your last page so I think you caught on - at least subconsciously.

Another great improvement I see is with that confidence you were worried about previously. You're no longer drawing over the same line a dozen times, your boxes are clean, direct and full of intent.

I am really proud of your progress, and I look forward to seeing how you do in the next lessons.

Uncomfortable

2014-11-23 17:15

I am seeing overall progress. Your general box-forms are starting to look more like boxes (as opposed to having awkwardly slanting, non-90-degree sides). Usually the angles are the biggest issue. One thing thing you may need to work on though is to focus on making each line as straight as you can. Sometimes thy arc a bit. It's possible that for those you got a little sloppy and went back to drawing from your wrist, instead of your shoulder?

Anyways, as I said, I'm definitely seeing progress.

As for your questions - yes, going over lines to thicken them is generally the approach I use to increase line weight. This, as with all things, takes practice in order to be able to do it evenly. It is indeed easier to show different line weights and values with a pencil - that's exactly why I push people to do it in ink. It's harder, but the practice you get from working with ink is far more valuable. The work you submit from these lessons are all about practice and training, not necessarily about creating something that looks beautiful.

If you feel like doing another 250 boxes when you feel better, feel free to post them here when you're done. Still, you did technically finish the challenge, so you'll have the badge either way. It's definitely not a bad idea though to do another set! More practice is always better.

Uncomfortable

2014-11-29 22:16

The variety's good! I like that you tried to tackle them from all sorts of angles.

I have a few concerns throughout, though you seem to be improving your sense of 3D space, which is the main goal of this exercise.

Most noticeably, your lines are a little wobbly. Make sure you practice the line exercise from lesson 1 as a warmup every time you sit down to draw. Also, you may want to try ghosting your lines before you draw them, instead of carefully trying to draw them straight in a slow motion (which usually results in that wobbliness). Ghosting basically involves drawing a point at the beginning and end of the line you want to draw, then going through the motion of drawing the line reasonably quickly without actually touching the pen to the page. Ghost once, twice, thrice, as you steadily get more used to the motion itself. When you feel comfortable, follow through the same motion but this time gently press the pen to the page.

The other thing that I noticed is that your line weights are going on the wrong lines. In the notes that I included in the post, I go over the importance of not putting the weights on the internal lines (that is, if you picture the cube as a 2D shape, the internal lines would be the ones that sit inside that shape). Thicker lines automatically make us think they exist on the outside edge of the form - so if you're putting them on the inside, the viewer's eye doesn't know which part is inside and which part is outside.

Still, good work! I'm sure you learned a lot from this challenge.

Uncomfortable

2014-12-03 03:43

Looking good! And pace yourself however you feel is best. We don't always have hours to draw every day, so whatever time you can gather to draw a few boxes here and there is good enough for me.

Keep in mind the whole near-plane-bigger, far-plane-smaller thing, though. I can see a few boxes where that's going a bit awry (like 25, 24, 16, 34, 40, 35, etc). Nice line weights on 37, though! It looks good with the thicker lines along the outside, though play with the idea of keeping them thicker on one side (almost like pseudo-lighting, where the lines are thinner on the side a light might be hitting them).

Uncomfortable

2014-12-06 03:32

I definitely see considerable improvement throughout the set! The latter half of the last page is looking especially sharp. Good work! Feel free to move onto lesson 2, and keep in mind what you've learned here for when you approach the form intersections assignment.

Uncomfortable

2014-12-20 14:55

Well done! Your boxes were pretty solid to begin with, but they've still shown improvement in some small ways by the end. Your lines are quite confident and steady.

The only piece of critique I can think to give is in regards to your line weights. They're generally quite pleasing (I like that you've thickened the lines outside of the boxes, it does a good job on emphasizing the idea that the box is a single cohesive object rather than a series of connected lines). Lines of the same weight, however, going all around an object will start to flatten it out. Keeping this in mind, it might be better to thicken some of the lines on one side just a little bit more. Think of it like lighting - the lines that your light source don't hit can be a little bit thicker.

You did do this perfectly on a few occasions - for example, 184. Even 112's going in the right direction.

Anyways! Great work overall, you've earned your badge.

Uncomfortable

2014-12-20 19:14

Haha, tedious, isn't it? But worth it. Comparing the first page to the last, your lines become far more confident. You've definitely earned your badge!

That said, there are still a few issues that you seem to be missing with your red corrections. Most significantly, in a lot of cases your far plane is coming out bigger than your near plane. It's a problem you seem to have fairly consistently, so it may take some effort to consciously think about that whenever you draw a box. Over time, it should correct itself, as long as you are aware of the problem. A more concrete way of trying to fix it is to draw through your boxes completely - including the lines that are hidden by the rest of the form.

Anyways, you definitely showed me that you can take your time with each box, and draw them fairly cleanly. I think you should be ready to tackle the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2014-12-22 18:08

Definitely a marked improvement between the first and last pages. The first page showed a handful of weird boxes - especially around the bottom (33, 32, 34). By the end you get a lot more confident, for the most part. 237 still looks off, though.

What you've got to keep in mind is that there is a horizon, and your horizontal vanishing points will sit on that line. If we're dealing with 2 point perspective, the verticals will always be perpendicular to your horizon. So, if your horizon is tilted, the verticals will tilt as well.

The viewer's eye will look subconsciously compare the angle of the verticals and where each vanishing point seems to lie. You can form a line between those two vanishing points, and the brain automatically checks if the angle between the vertical and this line between the VPs is around 90 degrees.

It's a little different with 3 point perspective, but similar enough. Take a look at this overdrawing. In 237, your VPs are sitting on totally different horizon lines, relative to the verticals.

Anyways, keep an eye out for that. 33, 32 and 34 have similar issues. The vast majority of your boxes are still pretty good, though.

Uncomfortable

2014-12-26 01:16

Scott Robertson's books are amazing. I have the How to Draw one sitting on my shelf.. Definitely haven't looked at it as much as I should. It just sits there, leering at me, calling me names.

So! Your boxes are looking very clean. I like the line weights around each one, it emphasizes the cohesiveness of each box as a single form rather than a bunch of connected lines. You could take it further by making the lines on one side just a touch thicker, to help add some dimension. Treat it as though there is a light source - the lines facing away from the light source get just a little bit thicker.

At first glance, your boxes look great, though upon closer inspection I am noticing similar mistakes across a lot of your boxes - moreso with your earlier ones, so it seems like you might be picking up on it, but I figured I'd bring your attention to it anyways.

We all know the basic rule of closer - bigger, further - smaller. I'm noticing a lot of situations where the far plane of your box is ending up bigger than your near plane. Here's some over-drawings to better explain what I mean. Always remember that the plane you can see is closer than the one you can't. Therefore, if both of these planes are the same size in 3D space, once drawn in 2D the further one should be a bit smaller.

You are also having some trouble with your angles - the planes of the box should be perpendicular to each other, so beyond a certain leeway, the viewer's eye will pick up on awkward slants to your planes.

As I said before though, this becomes less and less the case as you go through the boxes, so the later ones are really quite well done (save the odd instance of the mistakes I mentioned). Also, the confidence and cleanliness of your drawings is really striking. Definitely keep that up! The weights definitely look more attractive than your work from Lesson 2, which was already pretty damn good.

Have a Merry Christmas, and enjoy the badge you've earned!

Uncomfortable

2014-12-26 06:48

Well done! It's a good sign that you were testing your own limits more and more by the end. It does look like you were tackling more complicated constructions.

Just be aware in the future that the more you try and correct your mistakes, the more ink you put on the page, and the darker your lines get - specifically where you made your mistakes. This draws the viewer's eye. Basically, the more you try and fuss and correct, the more attention you're giving your mistakes.

Successfully dealing with mistakes is a skill that takes time and experience to develop, but eventually you will learn how to best handle a line that goes off a little bit in a way that effectively makes it disappear. That's one of the reasons I push people to work in ink!

I am glad to hear that you're noticing the times you accidentally reverse your perspective and make your near planes smaller than your far planes. Awareness is definitely half the battle, so continue to keep your eye out.

I hope I'll be seeing you tackle some of the lessons soon!

Uncomfortable

2014-12-26 20:44

Well done! Early on, you have a bit of a tendency to draw the near plane of the box smaller than your far plane - you do this less and less as you progress through the challenge, but I did want to bring it to your attention because it still happens every now and then (#242 - though you did correct i, so I'm guessing you're aware).

Still, I see a lot of great progress, and the corrections are on point. Good job!

Uncomfortable

2014-12-28 00:01

I'm glad to see that you're catching many of your mistakes. Also, after comparing the first few pages to the last few, your drawings are definitely coming out much more confidently by the end. Just keep an eye out for situations where the angle-relationships between the planes of a box don't seem entirely perpendicular. You seem to have caught a good deal of them, so keep that up.

Uncomfortable

2014-12-29 19:46

101, 225, 82, 47, 34

92, 14, 35

I think I like your second page best (page 3 in the imgur album). You seem to have found your stride at that point, your boxes come out a little more confidently, and a little more correct. By the time you hit 140ish, you seem to get a little tired, a little sloppy. Past the 160 mark, you clearly have had your fill.

Kudos for sticking with it and completing the whole thing, but I think it would have come out much nicer had you taken more breaks, and tackled it in smaller chunks. If you ever end up tackling this challenge again (and that might not be a bad idea), you'll probably benefit from drawing the boxes a little bigger. It tends to be easier to make things look cleaner when they're at a more considerable size. Maybe twice the size of the boxes you drew this time around.

I noticed that you caught several mistakes (92, 14, 35) where you were making the far plane of the box larger than the near plane, which would contradict the rules of perspective (since those two planes are the same size in 3D space, the farther one should appear smaller when drawn in 2D). Good job on catching those, though there were several others that showed the same problem as well (101, 225, 82, 47, 34 to name a view). Always keep that in mind when drawing forms - the face you can see is always closer than the face it is blocking, so that closer one should never be smaller (assuming they're the same size in 3D space).

Anyways! You drew a hell of a lot of boxes, so you've earned your badge. If you ever feel you want to do another set, feel free to submit again!

Uncomfortable

2014-12-29 22:52

Nice work. I definitely see a big difference between your first and last pages (which are usually the ones I focus on). I liked the approach you took halfway through to increase your comfort level, with the big grid of perspective lines. Its impact was very obvious.

Your boxes are way more confident now, and your line weights are pretty solid.

As for your question, I use the steadtler pigment liners, the 0.5mm. I wouldn't go with a 0.38mm, just because they tend to be way too thin and lack the versatility. With a 0.5 it's still reasonably easy to make a thin line (with some pressure control, of course), but you can also make some pretty heavy lines too.

Uncomfortable

2014-12-31 17:39

1 is cheap! >:

The rest are pretty solid. A few of your angles were out, but I'm guessing that was more because you lost control of the pen a bit, which is normal. You forgot to go over the boxes to mark out your mistakes, but since there weren't many it's fine.

I really liked a lot of the fun variations you did. Ellipses, warped boxes, smoother forms, etc. Very neat!

Uncomfortable

2015-01-06 03:37

Great work! I see a lot of progress, and you seem to have a good eye for catching your own mistakes. They say hindsight is 20/20, but it's a great skill to have none the less.

Here's something that might help with the line control. It's a technique I've explained to many others til now, but I just drew it up as some proper notes. I'll be adding it to the collection on the challenge post.

Uncomfortable

2015-01-07 02:04

Now now, there's no sense in berating yourself. Your boxes do show a steady improvement, and you have a fair number of strong candidates there.

There's one major issue that is of concern to me however, and it's the same one I mentioned in my last critique.

Maintain straight lines, and always keep the basic rules of perspective in mind. Most importantly, if two objects are the same size in 3D space, when drawn in 2D the one that is closest will always be bigger. This applies the same to the different planes of a box - most notably, the near and far planes. At times you draw the further plane as the larger one.

Look at number 32. You did this a lot, but I'm going to pick on that one. Look at the plane closest to the viewer, and the one furthest away. Which one's bigger? the farther one! Which means that it's converging towards the viewer, which is wroooong.

This is a common mistake (I actually did this overdrawing for another person half an hour ago, you might want to take a look), but I did tell you to watch out for it. Think while you're drawing. Don't zone out.

Anywho! You toughed through the 250 boxes, and have earned your badge. If you want to do another set, feel free. I'm still a little discomforted by your looseness, but I will mark that first lesson as complete. If, while doing lesson 2, your form intersections start falling apart on you, DRAW MORE BOXES.

Uncomfortable

2015-01-07 03:38

Overall, you did well. Your boxes look solid, so your main priority was certainly met. About the corrections - it's natural to try and 'correct' a mistake by piling on more ink, but ultimately all that accomplishes is drawing more attention to your mistake. Fight the urge to correct these mistakes, and simply leave them alone. At best, once you solidify your line weights, the mistakes will become far less apparent.

Now that your boxes are solid, and more or less correct, the next thing you need to focus on is applying line weights correctly, like so (these are new notes I added fairly recently).

Anywho- you've drawn your boxes, and earned your badge. Well done.

[deleted]

2015-01-08 18:45

i decided to just push through it the best i can and see how it all turns out.

Uncomfortable

2015-01-08 19:22

Yup, that would be perfectly fine. You should try to move away from it after a bunch, to avoid using it as a crutch, but that's up to you.

Uncomfortable

2015-01-09 03:26

You did pretty well. The vast majority are more or less correct as far as perspective goes, and you seem to be aware of the ones that weren't.

One thing that I did notice is that your lines are rather wobbly. Be sure to read over the notes included in the challenge post - especially the one about the ghosting technique. That should help smooth our your lines, and improve your drawing ability in general.

Anywho, good work. You've earned your badge!

Uncomfortable

2015-01-10 00:10

Wet cat is allowed to sleep wherever it wants. You will shame me if you upset the kitty.

I definitely see a major increase in your confidence throughout your boxes. Initially you're timid and uncertain, but you gradually pick up momentum.

What you need to work on most is fighting the natural urge to 'reinforce' your lines as you draw them. A lot of us (myself included) do this reflexively. Draw a line, then draw over it again once or twice. It's a holdover from a lack of confidence. Draw one mark per line. The ghosting technique may help with this. Once you've drawn your line, then you can go back to add line weight. Then it becomes a conscious decision, rather than a subconscious action.

Also, when you make a mistake, don't try to correct it by laying on more ink. This will only put up a sign saying "HEY LOOK AT MY BIG BLACK BLOTCHY MISTAKE ISN'T IT GRAND?" Usually it's best to leave it be, unless you can fix it discretely. Once you apply your line weights it'll disappear on its own anyway.

Anywho, congrats on completing the challenge!

Edit: I just realized that I had already told you about the ghosting technique, in response to your wobbliness. It does look like it helped.

Uncomfortable

2015-01-10 06:54

You certainly put a lot of effort into the challenge. There's nothing wrong with taking a break before moving forward with your next lesson. It's important to give yourself a chance to recuperate, so you're able to focus and work efficiently when you go back to training yourself.

I think your best pages are 9 and 13. The boxes are cleaner, and generally there are fewer mistakes. They're marked improvements over your earlier stuff.

Good job!

Uncomfortable

2015-01-11 20:41

Nice work! And congratulations on the baby girl. Good work on your corrections, it seems that you understand what the boxes should look like, it's just a matter of getting control over your pen.

One thing you may want to change is how you're applying your line weights. Reading these notes which were added to the challenge post fairly recently, might help explain the concept. Right now I'm seeing a lot of instances where the internal lines are looking thicker than the lines that define your box's silhouette, so you've got that a little reversed.

Uncomfortable

2015-01-12 23:39

Your later pages are definitely coming out a lot cleaner, and therefore a lot more confidently. You've still got to work on fighting the urge to attempt to fix your mistakes by piling on more ink (and making them way more noticeable), but you do it less and less as you move forward. That's definitely great to see!

Uncomfortable

2015-01-16 23:28

Not bad! Your corrections are generally accurate, and your drawings are nice and clean. I did see a few where you made the farther plane a little larger than your near plane though (231, 214, 148, etc). That contradicts the rules of perspective, so be sure to keep an eye on that.

While I'm glad to see you worked on drawing lines only once, that's a separate issue from the line weights. Once the box is drawn, you go back and consciously, purposefully, thicken some of the lines. The issue where you should only draw one mark per line is more about the natural reflex that many of us have. Conscious decisions are good, involuntary responses are not.

Anyways, good work on drawing all 250 boxes! You've earned your badge.

Uncomfortable

2015-01-18 03:07

Looking good. Good idea to do several series' of boxes that gradually rotate in space. Definitely a great way to practice.

Uncomfortable

2015-01-20 00:19

Congrats on completing the challenge.

Just a few things to note:

• I'm not entirely sure you read over all the notes included in the original post. They covered things such as line weight (yours were very uniform, which makes things a little bit boring) and what generally makes a box look solid and weighty instead of flimsy and unsubstantial (you've got some slightly arcing lines in a bunch of the boxes, which undermines the solidity).

• Your perspective seems to have mostly been correct, and where it wasn't, you caught the mistakes. Good work there.

• The challenge is specifically about boxes. I'm being picky here, but I think that veering off the path and drawing curved forms starts to undermine the principle of the challenge itself in many ways. On one hand, I'm a strong proponent of boxes being a great tool to learn how to capture a form and make it appear solid and convincing. Secondly, having to draw this many boxes is a test of patience and focus. When people get bored and allow themselves to lose focus, they tend to start putting twists on the exercise - as you have done, with the various curving boxes. That means you need to work on your patience!

Uncomfortable

2015-01-20 23:41

It's tough to see the improvement in this set largely because you already seem to have a solid grasp of the concepts involved. That isn't to say that the challenge is useless - it's just that the improvement ends up being much more subtle. You'll see a lot more visible improvement for those who are complete beginners.

The only thing I wanted to be sure you noticed was on box 13 - you circled a line there, but it seems you didn't mark out the fact that the far plane (on the top of the box) is much larger than the closer plane (at the bottom, the plane whose right side line you circled).

Anyways, congrats on completing the challenge!

Uncomfortable

2015-01-27 00:11

There definitely is some improvement. What I noticed most is that your lines are straighter. Before they had a tendency to bend or arc.

You do have a ways to go, though - but progress is definitely good. One thing you may want to pay attention to with your boxes is what I mentioned before about the near and far planes of a box.

Each plane on the box corresponds to the other plane opposite to it. For example, the top plane of the box corresponds to the bottom one. One of these is usually visible, while the other is generally blocked by the rest of the box. For example, 184 - we can see the top plane and the right plane. The bottom plane and the left plane are blocked. Because of this, we know for a fact that the top and right planes are closer to the viewer than the bottom and left planes. They have to be in front in order to block them.

Now, if you look at the left plane of 184, you can see that it is actually quite a bit larger than the right plane. If you can't tell, it would be a good idea to draw through the box (that is, draw the lines that would otherwise be blocked). In perspective, if two objects are the same size in 3D space, when you draw them in 2D, the closer one is always larger. Always remember this. 184 does not follow that core rule. Hopefully keeping that in mind will help you in the future.

Anyways, good job on drawing all 250 boxes and completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable

2015-01-28 23:16

Do whatever you can to make yourself feel comfortable and help digest the concepts. If that means writing out your thoughts on the page, then more power to you. It looks like your methods worked - the last several pages are looking far more confident, and generally correct. You've made a lot of progress!

Uncomfortable

2015-01-31 18:39

Nice work! Your confidence and comfort seems to be increasing throughout.

Uncomfortable

2015-01-31 21:58

I see some improvement as well. In general, they seem more confident by the end, and though they're a little wavy, the lines seem straighter than they were initially.

I'm guessing you're using the ghosting technique for drawing your lines - keep that up, and when you feel your lines getting wobbly, experiment with quickening your pace a little. It should steadily help make them straighter.

Uncomfortable

2015-02-04 23:10

Looking good. Your confidence definitely seems to improve. I do believe your best page is the second last though. After that, some of the angle relationships in the boxes start going a little bit off the rails (like #245, #240, etc.). I'm guessing that you may have gotten tired at that point. Don't forget to take breaks!

Uncomfortable

2015-02-06 14:40

You're getting there. I think drawing them as overlapping boxes definitely made things much more difficult for you, though. It's always better to do the lessons and challenges as I describe them, rather than putting your own spin on them. Doing so sometimes results in making things harder, or even leaving out important concepts.

The only thing I want to draw your attention to right now is a common mistake you seem to be making fairly often. I think you're aware of it, as you seem to mark it out, but I figured I'd point it out anyways.

The issue is that sometimes you draw your rear plane larger than your near plane. On box 200 and 180, you seem to point this out, with marks that seem to be comparing the sizes of the lines. Good work. You're also marking out the mistake on 192, where you've written "OK shape".

Anyways, congrats on completing the challenge. I would however recommend that at some point you try it again, drawing each box individually instead of making them overlap.

Uncomfortable

2015-02-12 23:09

Good progress. Whenever you finish a box though, always be sure to see if the far planes are larger or smaller than the near planes. If they're larger then something's wrong. For the most part, you're definitely on the right track, so keep it up.

Uncomfortable

2015-02-15 05:33

Looking good. Nice line weights and confident strokes. Need to work on that overshooting problem though, but in general, very nice!

Uncomfortable

2015-02-17 17:31

Not bad! Definitely put a lot of work into it. The only thing I'd recommend is to avoid drawing the boxes together (in the same space, overlapping). When you do this, the boxes start looking a little off because the perspective between the two isn't consistent. That just adds another layer of complication that the challenge doesn't really require. Instead, focus on thinking through each box in isolation.

Uncomfortable

2015-02-18 22:52

I still think you're making steady progress. Some things to keep an eye on:

• Don't be sloppy with your crosshatching. Individual, parallel, consistent lines from one end of the surface to the other. No scribbling, nothing half-assed. 217, 183, 168 are examples of sloppiness.

• Drawing through forms is great, but the way you did it in 145, 146 should be avoided. Broken lines very quickly go off the rails - a single, straight solid line is far better and will maintain the integrity of your forms.

• Might want to reread the notes about line weights (I do hope you read the notes in the challenge post!), where you do apply line weights you seem to be darkening the wrong lines. You want to be reinforcing the silhouette, not the internal lines.

Anyway- congrats on completing the challenge!

Uncomfortable

2015-02-19 22:12

Looking good! Your confidence definitely seems to be increasing, to the point that in the later pages it looks like you're starting to play a bit with line weight in subtle ways. Nice progress.

Uncomfortable

2015-02-26 23:40

Looking good! Solid boxes, solid progression, and good experimentation with line weight. Nice work.