Uncomfortable

2015-07-03 22:15

So this took me quite a while, almost a week actually.

I'm glad to hear that! It is often the more patient people that end up developing greater skills in drawing, as it requires one to take the time and effort to consider what they're doing and to strive to do it well. They may not do it perfectly the first time, but by giving their full attention and focus, they will slowly push that skill level further and further.

You did very, very well. Everything looks very solid and well thought out. The only thing I noticed is that in your rough perspective boxes, you have a tendency to become less accurate with the lines going back to the VP as they move further horizontally from it. It may help to go back and with a different coloured pen, plot all of your lines back to the horizon and compare those against the ones you drew. You'll notice that some are off by a great deal. This is totally normal though, so don't be alarmed. It just helps to go back and specifically identify your tendencies so you can consciously compensate for them in the future.

Anyway, you did great. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-03 22:29

Not bad. I'll mark this as complete, because you generally seem to understand what to be aiming for. You do have a lot of room to grow though, so keep practicing these exercises as you move forwards.

Here are a few issues I noticed. Some are nitpicky, others are more significant, but try to keep them all in mind.

• I noticed that in your line exercises, you have a tendency to wobble. This is because you're attempting to be too careful while drawing. Being careful is good, but this should be invested in the preparing stage of mark making, before you actually draw on the page. Like in the ghosting technique, you need to spend that time ghosting through the motion to increase your comfort level with that particular stroke. Once you actually draw, your stroke should have a steady, persistent pace. You put all the thought and care in already, now it's a matter of making the mark. If you're too slow, if you're being too careful, your brain will have the chance in to make little microcorrections that will manifest as a wobbly line.

• Your ellipses-in-planes weren't drawn through, you should always draw through ellipses whenever you draw them. It gives you a more consistent form (because your pace is generally quicker and more confident because you have a bit more leeway) but it also gives your muscles more practice.

• Your plotted perspective's solid, though your hatching/shading is super sloppy. Never scribble like that. For a flat surface, you want to draw consistent, parallel lines that stretch all the way across the surface. Nothing criss-crossing, nothing back and forth, nothing floating in the middle and nothing at different angles.

• Your rough perspective was pretty good, though you did two point perspective instead of one. Ultimately you exhibited the same things I was hoping to see, so that's fine either way

• In those freehand box exercises though (rough perspective + organic perspective), those were prime opportunities to use the ghosting technique. That's a technique and generally a mindset you should apply to all drawing. First, identify a line - where does it start, where does it end, is it curved or straight or an ellipse or whatever. Then prepare - ghost through the drawing motion, try different angles of approach, find the most comfortable way to tackle it and ghost until it feels natural. Then finally, execute. Quickly, cleanly, leading right off the same motion you were ghosting, just pressing the pen to the page. It takes a lot longer, but it comes together and becomes second nature pretty quickly.

• Lastly, in your organic perspective boxes, you demonstrated something that I like to call "dramatic perspective". Basically, your perspective distortion is inconsistent. Check out these notes on the matter from the lesson... which most people skip ):

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson. If you feel like you want more practice with ghosting, take a look at the 250 box challenge.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-03 22:44

There's no such thing as too late, and there's no reason to be nervous. Even if I rip your homework to pieces and tell you it's terrible and that you're doing it all wrong, that's really great news. It means you'll have clear things to work on, and a path to move forward.

So, looking at your homework, I see some great things. I see a lot of patience and care, and willingness to work. I also see a whole lot of room to grow. I am going to mark this lesson as complete, but here's a few things you should definitely keep in mind moving forward - and you should also continue practicing these exercises as you forge ahead.

• Your ellipses - always draw through them. Always. Not only does this result in you drawing more confidently, because you have a bit more leeway to make mistakes (and that confidence often results in more even ellipses) but it also gives your muscles much more practice compared to drawing through an ellipse only once. The ones you drew through came out far better. Just remember that the evenness of the shape, and the proper elliptical curvature (rather than distorting just to fill a space) is what's most important.

• With perspective, remember that in the cases of two and one point perspective, the lines that do not go to any of the vanishing points are all parallel. For example, in two point perspective, all of your verticals go straight up and down (perpendicular to the horizon). In one point, your verticals are perpendicular to the horizon, and your horizontals are parallel to the horizon. There is no guessing - you know exactly how each line should work. Some go to the VPs, and the others act in very specific fashions. If you catch yourself guessing, you need to stop and think about where they should really go. No guessing, only knowing.

• Your rough perspective's kind of hit and miss because of the above point, but you definitely need to spend more time trying to visualize how a line might go back to the vanishing point. Your estimations vary considerably, and are sometimes way off.

• Lastly, your organic perspective boxes could definitely use some work, but this particular exercise was thrown in for me to gauge your comfort level with rotating these forms arbitrarily in 3D space without the safety net of a horizon and vanishing point. Most people are bad at it right off the bat, so I point them to the 250 box challenge as their next step. That challenge post has a video and some notes in it that will help you a lot, and the challenge itself will give you some well needed practice.

• Don't forget to use the ghosting technique in all your freehand line drawing, especially in the rough/organic perspective boxes. Be sure to use it and practice it in the box challenge as well.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-03 22:46

oops I'll put all the homeworks together next time.

I'm guessing you're referring to the bit on the lesson about posting all 3 parts of the lesson together. Glad you caught it first! I look forward to seeing the rest, I'll critique it then.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-05 16:38

Very nice! I can tell that you put a lot of time and patience into this. Most people who procrastinate are also guilty of rushing through parts - I'm quite glad that you do not fall into that category.

There's one main thing that I wanted to point out. In your earlier line exercises, you have a tendency of wobbling quite a bit. This is generally a sign that you need to quicken your pace a little. The wobbling comes from attempting to be too careful while you're drawing the mark, rather than taking the time to plan and prepare before actually putting the mark down. If you draw a little quicker, your brain won't have the opportunity to make little mini-corrections.

I did notice though that your line quality improved throughout the lesson, and I don't really notice any wobbling in your boxes. It seems to have straightened out after you had some practice with the ghosting method, which is great. That ghosting technique should be applied to any and all freehand drawing.

The only other thing I wanted to draw your attention to was these notes. I noticed in your organic perspective boxes that there's a tiny tendency to use inconsistent perspective distortion rates on individual boxes - basically, the far planes of the boxes are a lot smaller than the near planes, and it results in some visual confusion. Hopefully those notes do a decent job of explaining the problem.

Anyway, you did great so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-05 16:51

You generally did a great job. The only thing that really stood out is that some of your hatching/shading is a bit sloppy - you were really patient and careful with everything else, but the shading also requires a certain degree of care. You need to make sure that your lines are more regularly spaced, and generally more parallel to one another.

If you're having some trouble with the ghosting technique, it likely means that you need to spend more time ghosting through them. It definitely takes some time to really get used to the technique, but it's all about building up that level of comfort with the drawing motion. Keep at it, and you'll definitely improve at it. It's already pretty good though. Your lines in general are fairly solid.

All of your ellipses were fantastic, so I see no issue there. Your understanding of forms rotated in 3D space, as far as the organic perpsective boxes go, was solid as well.

Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-06 19:31

Nice work! Your ghosted lines are looking really nice. Just three things to add - extend the ghosting technique to all of your drawing, especially the freehand boxes. It'll help you diminish the natural urge to reinforce lines as soon as you've drawn them (a bad habit that comes from a lack of confidence), since you'll be mentally forcing yourself to go through all of these steps of preparation before each individual stroke/execution.

Also, when it comes to shading your boxes, be sure to apply hatching with as much care as you draw everything else. Don't be sloppy. Draw parallel, regular lines that stretch all the way from one side of a plane to the other. No scribbling, no quick random marks, no criss-crossing, and nothing floating in the middle of the plane.

Lastly, I will be marking this lesson as complete but I'm getting the impression that you're still somewhat less than comfortable with the idea of rotating simple forms (the boxes) in 3D space - as shown by the organic perspective boxes. This is by no means strange, and is more or less expected from most people.

You should definitely consider tackling the 250 box challenge next. There's a video and some notes in that challenge post that will help you out, and you'll also get added practice with rotating those forms arbitrarily, as well as applying the ghosting technique to general freehand drawing.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-06 19:43

Not bad at all! I'll mark this lesson as complete, but here's a few things that you can work on to continue growing:

• Your ghosted lines seem a bit wobbly and uncontrolled. This shows that you need to spend more time ghosting through the drawing motion (remember that the goal here is to become comfortable with the drawing motion) and increase your pace when actually drawing the mark. You need to draw swiftly enough to keep your brain from interfering and making little corrections as you draw.

• The above applies to drawing in general, really - i noticed that your ellipses show signs of heavy wobbling from being too careful while drawing, and not careful enough while preparing to draw. This throws your ellipses out of whack (most notably when you're trying to fit them into the planes). Always remember that you're after an even, rounded shape.

• Generally your rough perspective boxes are well done, though I do want to point out that your horizontals should always be parallel to your horizon. I noticed some taking some crazy slants - the thing about perspective is that if you stop to think about it, you should always know where your line is going to go. There's no guesswork when you're working with a simple one-two-three vanishing point system. In the case of our one-point rough perspective, your lines are either going parallel to your horizon (your horizontals), perpendicular to the horizon (your verticals) or converging towards the vanishing point.

• Your organic perspective boxes are getting there, though I think you could use some more practice in that area to improve your comfort levels. I encourage you to tackle the 250 box challenge next. The challenge post includes a helpful video and some notes, and the challenge itself should give you a chance to get comfy with the idea of rotating these boxes arbitrarily in 3D space.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-06 19:54

And thank you for joining us! Looking at your work, I think your sketchbook is giving you a great deal of trouble right off the bat. The pages don't lay flat because of how it's bound, so you have to fight with it while you draw. This is naturally going to mess some things up. So, I definitely recommend getting either a new sketchbook that can lay flat (ringed ones work well for this) OR even better, just work on loose sheets.

I think it'd be best for you to take another stab at this lesson, since the sketchbook got in the way of a lot. I can point out a few things that you can keep in mind as you do so - it's tricky to see what's the sketchbook's fault and what is the result of your own techniques, but I'll do my best.

• When you're ghosting your lines, always spend lots of time in the preparation stage (ghosting through that drawing motion) and less time drawing. This goes for every individual mark you make. Never draw two marks in one go. Prepare, then draw. Prepare, then draw. If you make a mistake, don't bother to correct it - just move on. Corrections put more ink on the page, drawing a viewer's eye to your blunder rather than making it disappear. It's a totally natural desire to correct or even automatically reinforce a drawn line with another, but we must fight against this sort of reflexive behaviour. Every mark should be the result of conscious decision, planning and preparation.

• Always draw through your ellipses - you did this some of the time, but not all of the time. Also, if you're noticing that your line wobbles, you're not drawing quickly enough. This applies to the straight lines as well - drawing too quickly will cause your lines to be inaccurate, but generally ghosting and preparing will diminish this. Drawing too slowly/carefully will result in wobbling because your brain will have the opportunity to interject with mini-corrections, which ultimately manifest as wobbling.

• Fill the pages. Your planes/ellipses-in-planes were mostly empty.

• For the rough perspective boxes, don't draw the lines back to the VP. Try to visualize them instead.

• Also, use ghosting for all of your freehand line drawing. This is very much the case for the rough perspective and organic perspective box exercises.

• For the organic perspective boxes, be sure to watch this video on drawing boxes and also read these notes on overly dramatic perspective

Uncomfortable

2015-07-06 19:56

Very nice work! You clearly took your time and did not rush at all, and I'm glad to see that. Your ellipses are generally great - even when you only drew through them once, though I usually encourage people to draw through them at all times, I'll leave that decision up to you. If you ever find your ellipses coming out unevenly however, go back to drawing through them a couple times. It'll allow you to draw with more confidence, which ultimately leads to a more even, rounded shape.

Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-07 22:05

In terms of amounts, what you did is fine. The size of the sketchbook only becomes a concern to me in two ways. First off, a smaller sketchbook can often lead people to draw more from their wrist, generally restricting their ability to get their whole arm into it. Secondly, it can also cause people to draw relatively smaller - this causes the tip of the pen to feel larger relative to the drawing size, which makes the lines themselves feel really thick and clunky. If you feel any of that happening, definitely try drawing on larger pages. I am seeing some minor signs of that with your rough perspective and organic perspective boxes.

Your first two exercises are really solid. Your ellipses look especially confident, so keep that up. Your plotted perspective boxes are also fantastic, though things get a little tricky with the other two box exercises. Part of the issue is that you should be using the ghosting technique for any and all freehand drawing. The first opportunity to use it is with these two freehand box exercises. It takes longer, going through the process of preparing and ghosting through your line before each and every mark you put down, but it eventually becomes second nature and imprints a general mindset of thinking through every individual line that goes on the page.

Secondly, with your rough perspective boxes, there's a few deviations from one point perspective that I noticed. The great (and awful) thing about perspective is that it gives you very clear rules for how each line should behave. It can get overwhelming, but with the one point perspective we use here, there's three possible behaviours for your lines.

1. Horizontal lines are always parallel to the horizon.

2. Vertical lines are always perpendicular to the horizon.

3. Lines that go off into the distance always converge at the vanishing point.

If you take a step back while you're drawing and think about it, there's really no guesswork to be done. Every line will subscribe to one of these specific behaviours (setting aside things like tilting boxes, which we don't want to worry about right now).

Here's what I mean, drawn over one of your rough perspective exercises. You'll notice that not all of your horizontals run parallel to your horizon, and not all of your verticals run perpendicular to it. Now, some of these are very obviously just every-day mistakes. I don't expect perfection here, and mistakes where you wanted a line to go in a certain direction - but it just didn't - are fine.

In the lower right of the image I linked you to though, you'll see an instance where it looks like less of an accident and more of a conscious decision. That's the kind of thing I want to weed out. Just always remember, there's a limited selection of possible behaviours.

Your organic perspective boxes were mostly well done, which is great because I generally don't expect people to do well at this exercise. It tests one's ability to take a simple form and rotate it arbitrarily in 3D space. I did notice a few instances of your perspective distortion being a little inconsistent check out these notes to get a better sense of what I mean. I do also get a liiiiittle bit of a feeling that you're lacking a bit of comfort with that sort of exercise, which again is totally natural.

So. I'd like you to do a few things:

1. Do one more page of rough perspective boxes. Ghost through those lines, and also maybe consider drawing on a bigger page. It's not about amount, but rather that it looks like attempting to work within that cramped space may be giving you a bit of trouble. Once you've finished that, submit the result to me here and I'll mark the lesson as complete.

2. Once I've marked this lesson as complete, it'd be a good idea to check out the 250 box challenge next. The challenge post has a helpful video and some notes that are worth watching/reading. The challenge itself will also give you the opportunity to really get comfortable with rotating simple forms arbitrarily in 3D space, while also giving you a great deal of practice with ghosting lines. All of this will really help prepare you for the form intersections in lesson 2, which definitely get tricky.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-07 22:18

Drawing on flat sheets definitely looks to have helped a lot.

One thing that really jumped out at me is that your ellipses are showing a great deal of wobbling. This comes from attempting to be too careful while drawing the mark on the page. While drawing slowly, your brain is given the opportunity to make micro corrections to your pen's trajectory, which manifest as little wobbles in the lines.

The trick is not to be super careful while drawing, but rather putting that effort and focus into preparing to draw. Think about the ghosting technique. You identify what line you want to draw - is it curved, is it straight, where does it start and where does it end, etc. Then you prepare to draw it. You know where it goes, so you ghost through that drawing motion, getting your arm used to the movement required to make it. If the angle of approach isn't right, you rotate your page. Finally, once you feel comfortable with the motion, you touch your pen to the page and repeat the motion you've ghosted through so many times, drawing the mark. At this point, you're not thinking hard about it - you've given your muscles the instructions and the preparation, so you let them take over.

This applies the same way to the ellipses. Focus on the preparation stage, and execute the mark quickly and smoothly. It may not always fall exactly where you wanted it, but that will come with practice, and learning how to best prepare in a way that works for you.

The only other major issue I noticed was with your organic perspective boxes - and it makes sense that you found them the most challenging. I don't actually expect people to get this one right, it's there to give me a sense of where I should send you next.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - I do want you to continue practicing these exercises (they make great warm ups), and they're really things you should continue to do for years to come.

Next, before tackling lesson 2, I'd like you to take a stab at the 250 box challenge. There is a video and some notes in that challenge post that should be helpful. The challenge itself should help you increase your comfort level with the idea of rotating these simple forms arbitrarily in 3D space.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-08 19:58

Not bad! I like the confidence of your lines quite a bit. There are some issues, but I'm going to mark this lesson as complete anyway.

When you said that your linework was shaky, I immediately thought that I might see some wobbling. I'm glad to see that I didn't - it's just a matter of accuracy and arcing, which is easier to solve in the long run. You just need to spend more time ghosting through your drawing motion. You may also want to play with compensating for certain tendencies - that is, if when drawing a straight line it has a tendency to arc upwards, try to instead draw a line that arcs downward slightly. This should result in a somewhat straighter line.

One somewhat minor issue I noticed is that when your ellipses get large, you start to loose control of them. That is, when you draw through them multiple times (which is great) the different lines end up spreading out quite a bit. Focus on keeping them tightly together. After a certain point, when the lines separate too much, there ceases to be any sort of a useful elliptical shape there.

In both of your freehand box exercises (rough/organic perspective boxes), you should be using the ghosting technique when drawing your lines. This technique should be applied whenever you have to draw freehand lines. It applies to curving lines too, or ellipses. Right now without the ghosting technique, your lines come out too loose and not terribly well thought out. The boxes themselves end up lacking solidity, since the lines don't end up straight.

Also, when you're applying hatching/shading to the boxes, do so with care and thoughtfulness. On a flat surface, the lines should be parallel, separate and stretch from one edge to the other. Nothing scribbly, nothing loose, nothing careless and nothing zigzagging.

Last of all, the organic perspective boxes exercise is meant to give me an idea of how you are with rotating simple forms arbitrarily in 3D space. I by no means expect people to be able to do this perfectly, it just influences what kind of recommendations I give in terms of what you should tackle next. Yours weren't too badly done, but there does appear to be a little discomfort with the concept, so I do recommend that you take a look at the 250 box challenge next. There's a video and some notes there that should help solidify your comfort level and also help take your boxes to the next level with tips on the use of line weight. The challenge itself will also help you practice ghosting your lines in the context of drawing actual forms.

Also, in the organic perspective box exercises, I noticed that you were exhibiting a fair bit of inconsistent perspective distortion. Check out these notes on the subject. Basically, the rate at which the far end of a box was getting smaller than the near end were consistent across the different boxes.

Anywho! Tackle the 250 box challenge, and then move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-08 20:18

You should generally wait for my critique on one lesson before moving onto the next. That way I can pick up on certain mistakes before they trickle down into the next set of homework, ultimately saving us time and effort.

Anyway, your lines exercises are looking pretty solid, as are your ellipses. Your rough perspective boxes are generally fine as well, though you have a tendency to become less accurate as you move away from the vanishing point. As you get further to the left or right of the vanishing point, your lines don't actually converge at the VP - instead they hit other points on the horizon. You should make sure that you are more aware of your tendency to do this, so you can compensate for it in the future.

It appears that you did not complete the organic perspective boxes exercise, so I'm not going to be able to mark this lesson as complete.

As far as lesson 2 goes, I'm not going to go into an indepth critique since lesson 1 isn't completed, but I will mention the following: Your arrows are fine, but your organic forms with contour curves are not done correctly. The contour curves do not give the impression that they are wrapping around the form, rather that they simply stop abruptly. Remember that you are drawing 3D forms so you need to convey that illusion of volume. I discuss this common issue in this video, which was included in the lesson.

Your dissections suffer form the same problem, and you once again missed an exercise - the form intersections.

I'm getting the impression that you might not be reading the lessons as carefully as you should. It would be in your best interest to go back and read both lessons in greater detail.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-09 16:38

That's something everyone generally needs to face when they start drawing. It's perfectly natural, and will decrease with time and practice. Right now your homework generally looks very strong. You clearly took your time and thought through every line you drew.

I did notice that you're showing some discomfort with the organic perspective boxes - this is kind of expected. I don't really intend for people to be able to do this perfectly right off the bat, rather it's a way for me to see what the best next step would be. So, I'll mark this lesson as complete but I'd like you to take a look at the 250 box challenge. The challenge post includes a video and some helpful notes on various related topics. Give them a watch/read, then do the challenge. It should help increase your comfort level with that general concept of rotating simple forms arbitrarily in 3D space.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-09 19:51

Not bad! The only thing I noticed that needs a fair bit of work is your use of the ghosting technique. As it stands, I think you're not spending enough time in the ghosting stage, and are in turn attempting to be too careful and going too slowly when you actually draw the line. This carefulness causes your lines to wobble to varying degrees. Remember that you must wait until you feel entirely comfortable with the drawing motion before making the mark - and the process of making the mark should be relatively quick so as to let your muscles take over.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I think you should tackle the 250 box challenge next. Usually I point people to that challenge when their box forms are weak. Yours are generally fine (though everyone can benefit from more practice), but this exercise will give you a chance to practice that ghosting method. The technique, after all, should be applied to all freehand drawing, including the freehand box exercises from this lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-10 19:00

There is no clear answer to this question, because it differs from person to person. What's most important is that you do not attempt to complete the exercise quickly. Rushing won't allow you to complete the exercises to the best of your ability, with the utmost care.

Take the time to read through the lesson carefully - the same goes for each exercise description. Then strive to fill each page with the exercises. Only stop when you yourself are satisfied with your own productivity.

I do not expect any one lesson's homework to be completed in one sitting - it's important to take breaks, and know when you're getting tired. If you try to push yourself too hard, your work will be sloppy, and won't be of much value.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-10 22:21

Very nice! Your first two parts - the lines and the ellipses - are very well done. Your line quality is quite confident, and you clearly took your time to make each mark with forethought and planning.

Your plotted perspective boxes are well done too, but things start to fall apart a bit when we hit the rough perspective boxes. It's very clear that you don't fully understand how to use 1 point perspective, so I'll try and explain it briefly.

When it comes to drawing things in perspective - especially simple, aligned boxes, we always know where each line will go. There's absolutely no guessing or uncertainty. If you step back and consider the basic rules that govern the scene, it is straightforward to figure out how a line will behave.

Each of these scenes has three sets of parallel lines. In two point perspective (like your plotted perspective boxes), two of those sets have their own vanishing points, and they converge to those points on the horizon. All that's left are the vertical lines. Instead of converging to a point, they are always perpendicular to the horizon line. In most cases, your horizon line goes straight across left to right, so all your verticals go straight up and down.

In one point perspective, only one set of lines converges to a vanishing point (the lines going off into the distance). This leaves two more sets of lines - the horizontals and the verticals. Just like two point perspective, your verticals run perpendicular to the horizon (so straight up and down). The horizontals always run parallel to the horizon, straight across left to right. These sets of lines do not converge.

Look at this. The blue lines represent the horizontal lines, and the green represent the verticals. So, always remember that when you're doing one of these strictly 1 point, 2 point or 3 point perspective type of drawings, every line goes to a specific place. There's no guesswork. It's inevitable that you'll mess up a line here and there when actually drawing it, but there's no reason to mess up the intent.

Now, I specifically said that this applies to one point/two point/three point perspective drawing exercises. If you look at the organic perspective boxes, it pretty much takes these nice, reliable rules and sets them on fire. But first lets get these nice strict systems settled, then we'll worry about what comes after.

I'd like you to redo the two pages of rough perspective boxes. When you're done, submit them as a response to this comment, and I'll mark the lesson as complete.

THEN, once I've marked the lesson as complete, I want you to go over to the 250 box challenge - there's a video there and some notes that should help you understand that next stage. The organic perspective boxes exercise showed me that you're not entirely comfortable with arbitrarily rotating boxes in 3D space, which is totally okay. I frankly don't expect people to be okay with it at this point, so I use that exercise as a gauge. Watching the video, reading the notes, and doing the exercise will help you increase your comfort level with that sort of fundamental skill. But again, don't worry about that until we've settled the rough perspective box business.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-10 22:33

Generally very nicely done! Your lines are fairly confident, and I'm quite pleased with how you ghost your lines. That is a fundamental technique, and should be applied to all freehand drawing. It's an important shift to make, thinking and planning, then executing a mark quickly to maintain the smoothness of the stroke. You're doing it quite well.

I do want to remind you that you should be drawing through all of your ellipses regularly, not just for that one exercise - right now the ellipses you didn't draw through often turn out uneven. What's most important as far as an ellipse goes is achieving an even, rounded shape with a smooth consistent stroke. Drawing through the ellipse gives you the leeway to be more confident with your drawing - that confidence often leads to a greater increase in quality. Drawing through a few times also gives you the added benefit of giving your muscles extra practice with every ellipse. Ultimately the goal is to be able to make a consistent, smooth and even ellipse in one go, but in order to work towards that I always recommend focusing on tightening the ellipse, bringing those multiple lines closer together until they fuse into a single stroke. You're well on your way to achieving that, so just keep at it.

Your rough perspective boxes are quite well done, but I do want you to be more careful when applying crosshatching. Don't be sloppy - make sure that the lines are parallel (which yours are), but also make sure they stretch from edge to edge, without having any starting or ending in the middle of the plane. If you're going to add something to a drawing, make sure it is not sloppy. The perspective here was well done however.

Secondly, in all of your box exercises - and any sort of composition-based exercise - it's VERY important that you draw within a frame. Since this relates to composition, I won't explain why just now, but trust me on that. Always enclose your shots in a frame.

Your organic perspective boxes were generally quite well done, but I did sense a hint of discomfort with the idea of rotating boxes arbitrarily in 3D space. It was only slight, but I do think that you should check out the 250 box challenge next. There's a video and some notes there that should help, and the challenge itself should give you the added practice you need to solidify your comfort level.

Anyway, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. Nice work!

Uncomfortable

2015-07-12 14:51

Your lines and ellipses are looking fairly solid, as are your plotted perspective boxes. Things start to get a little weaker when we venture into the rough perspective boxes though. One thing that's important to remember is that the ghosting technique is not merely another exercise - it's an approach to drawing that you should apply to all of your mark making. Identify the line you want to make (position, length, start, end, angle, etc), prepare to draw it (find a comfortable angle of approach, ghost through the motion of drawing until your arm becomes accustomed to it), then draw the line in a clean, smooth motion driven by your muscles and not your brain.

The other issue with your rough perspective boxes is that the rules of perspective make it such that each line follows a very specific behaviour, which you can identify by stepping back and thinking about what kind of line it is.

In one point perspective, it's only the lines that go off into the distance that converge at a vanishing point. Generally you got this right, although you definitely need to work on visualizing those lines going back to the VP - if you plot where your lines intersect with the horizon, you'll find that many of them are off.

That leaves two other sets of lines - your horizontals and your verticals. In one point perspective, the lines of each of these sets do not converge with one another. They remain parallel. Your horizontals run parallel to the horizon (all of the horizons here run straight across left to right, so as should all of your horizontal lines). Your verticals run perpendicular to the horizon - so in these cases, it should run straight up and down. If you take a closer look, you'll notice that the angles of your lines don't always match these rules.

Whenever you draw a line and catch yourself guessing, stop and take a step back. Consider the nature of each line and how it should behave.

The organic perspective boxes are definitely challenging, and they're intended to be. I don't expect people to do them perfectly, or even fully grasp them in this lesson. Rather, it's a gauge for me to decide where to send you next. It tests one's ability to rotate simple forms arbitrarily in 3D space. Yours definitely need some work, and we'll get to that.

First, I'd like you to try two more pages of rough perspective boxes. Once that's complete, submit them as a response to this comment. I'll mark the lesson as complete at that point.

Then, once it's been marked as complete, I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. There's a video on drawing boxes and a bunch of notes on other related concepts that should help you out. The challenge itself will allow you to practice drawing boxes in isolation, letting you focus on the specific pitfalls that are common to this sort of task, without having to worry about a bunch of boxes existing within the same scene.

Sugarfight

2015-07-12 13:41

I'm just going to pre-empt here that you should probably look over the lesson again because it doesn't look like you did all the homework. You're missing the planes exercise from part 1, and all homework from part 2 (ellipses) and part 3 (boxes).

In order to help reduce the workload, /u/Uncomfortable will no longer be writing critiques for homework that does not follow the requirements (medium, quantity, completion of previous lessons etc) stipulated in the lesson notes (which can be found in the comments section of every lesson). You will be asked to do it again.

If you want a critique and some direction, you can submit your homework for review as a comment on this lesson's post on /r/ArtFundamentals. If you do choose to submit, please be sure to complete the homework in its entirety (all three parts as prescribed: lines, ellipses and boxes) in the required medium/media. While I am happy to help out, it does take a lot of time, and I'd greatly appreciate it if the time is taken to fully read and digest the material.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-12 14:29

Yeah, as /u/Sugarfight said, you didn't quite complete the lesson. Your pen is probably broken though if it's leaking all over the place.

Also, looking at your homework, I'm getting a serious sense of two things- first, you're rushing way too much. In your super imposed lines, you're not taking the time to line up the tip of your pen to the start of your lines, and your fifth page (which could count as the the ghosting lines I guess?) is very chicken-scratchy.

When making a mark, you should be putting much more time into preparing - lining up your pen correctly, finding a comfortable angle of approach, and ghosting through that drawing motion. Then, when you draw the line, the execution itself should be fairly quick to maintain a smooth line. Your lines often wobble, so I'm getting the sense that you're not putting much time into the first part, and then compensating by attempting to be too careful while actually drawing the mark.

I think you should definitely reread the lesson in greater depth, and try this part of your homework again. Then complete the other two parts before submitting again.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-13 20:05

Pencil is definitely out of the question. 0.3 is okay for now, though you'll find that the super imposed lines exercise will be more challenging. However, on the flipside, with a 0.3 you'll probably find it a little easier to do the later lessons, because it's much easier to control your line weight with a thinner pen. This means you'll get less practice as far as pressure control goes.

Ultimately you should keep on the lookout for some 0.5s, but I won't hold the 0.3 against you. I'll still critique your work (whereas I won't accept work done in pencil).

Uncomfortable

2015-07-15 19:45

Great work. Everything generally looks fantastic, though if I had one thing to say, it'd be to ease up on how much you draw through the ellipses in the ellipses-in-planes. Drawing through them is great, but after a certain point you lose track of what you're aiming for. Try to draw through them two or three times tops.

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-15 20:13

Your homework is very well done. Your lines are confident, and you seem to have a strong understanding of perspective and how to manipulate form in 3D space. I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

As for your question, moving forward onto something more complicated doesn't mean you'll be leaving these basic exercises behind - you should really be continuing to do them as warmups. You do them quite well as it is, but we always get rusty if we don't keep up.

I generally insist that people should complete the first two lessons here before moving onto more complicated things, just because it covers a lot of general skills that I feel are necessary. Once that's done, there's no reason you couldn't move onto figure drawing, observational studies, etc.

That said, I think you should consider what tools you would need to do something successfully. I don't mean physical tools - rather, in your example, if you think about what you would need to be able to practice character design, figure drawing comes to mind as a solid requirement. If you can't draw a figure to save your life, then there's no sense in tackling character design just yet. You don't have to be perfect at it, but you have to have some knowledge in that area so that you're not attempting to learn too many things all at once.

It's kind of like considering this lesson - we tackle drawing straight lines first, before we worry about drawing boxes. If we can't draw straight lines but rush into drawing boxes, we'll be forcing ourselves to learn both simultaneously, and will more than likely fail at both. Take things one step at a time.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-16 19:53

I have had a couple people mention this to me in the past. Some people have a tendency to press very hard on the page, I'm thinking that might be the case here. Try and ease up on the amount of pressure you're using to draw.

Are you using a felt tip pen?

Uncomfortable

2015-07-17 19:31

Generally quite well done. I did notice that you spent a couple pages of ellipses not drawing through them - based on your ordering, those seem to have been the later pages. I want to remind you that you should make a habit of drawing through your ellipses for some time - work towards getting those individual lines to come together tightly to keep them clean, but don't stop drawing through them until you can confidently nail a proper elliptical shape. This won't be for some time, however.

Generally everything else is pretty solid. Your lines are confident and your forms are well done. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-17 19:51

Not bad. I am going to mark this lesson as complete, but I did notice that your super imposed lines are showing some signs of wobbling. This often happens when you draw a little too slowly. Your brain interferes, making small microcorrections which manifest as a wobbly line. Take the time to prepare to draw the line (line up your pen correctly, ghost over it a few times) but once it is time to draw, let your muscles take over and do so with a smooth motion. It may not come out accurately, but that will come together with practice.

You should definitely continue practicing all of these exercises as warm-ups, you'll see the best results from them over a long period of time.

I also noticed that there was a little bit of discomfort with your organic perspective boxes. This is totally normal, and I expect to see it from most people. I'd like you to give the 250 box challenge a shot next. There's a video and some helpful notes in the challenge post that you should watch/read, and the challenge should give you the practice that will help you increase your comfort level.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-18 15:01

It must be a lot of work, are you still having fun with it?

BAHAHAHA. No, not particularly. It's rewarding at times, but it takes up way more of my time than I'd like.

As for your homework, you generally did well. Just a few things to keep in mind:

• In your super-imposed lines exercise, take the time to line up your pen correctly at the start of the line. You often do, but then there are other times where I see fraying on both ends of the line, which shows me that you were getting impatient. If you get tired, take a break, but don't allow yourself to do sloppy work.

• In any and all freehand drawing, you should be using the ghosting technique. I noticed many situations in the rough/organic perspective exercises that you used chicken-scratchy lines, or didn't take the time to think before drawing. The ghosting technique will take you more time, but it will ingrain a habit of thinking, planning and preparing before every mark you make.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, though I'd like you to tackle the 250 box challenge next. It'll give you the opportunity to practice your ghosting, while increasing your comfort level with the idea of rotating boxes arbitrarily in 3D space. You're not too bad at that, but the extra practice should help solidify your skills in that area.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-18 15:33

Everything looks pretty solid. I noticed the issue you mentioned about your rough perspective, and that's fairly common. I generally recommend that people do exactly what you said - check with a ruler after you've finished drawing and plot the lines back to the horizon with a different coloured pen. That way you can concretely compare where they intersect with the horizon with the actual VP, making yourself more aware of what you're doing wrong. Then when you do the exercise next, you'll do so keeping that in mind, consciously attempting to compensate for the issue.

Everything else looks great though, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-20 03:21

I'm glad to hear that. Always remember that if your lines are wobbly, it's because you're drawing too slowly. You'll either go too slow and wobble, or go too fast and simply be inaccurate. The inaccuracy can be dealt with by spending more time preparing before actually drawing the line, and also through practice, though the wobbling is caused by giving your brain the chance to make micro-corrections as you draw. You've got to trust in your muscle-memory.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-20 19:55

Your work is pretty solid. It's expected that you'd make some mistakes here and there, I'm not interested in seeing perfect work at this stage. All I want to see is that you understand the purpose and goal of each exercise, and that your homework demonstrates this understanding. Ultimately you are expected to continue doing these exercises as warm-ups on your own time, as they're the sort of things that will help you over the long-term.

As for the boxes, yours were actually quite well done. You seem to have a decent sense of how to rotate simple forms in 3D space, which is what I was hoping to see from that exercise. Most people struggle with it, in which case I send them to the 250 box challenge for extra practice and instruction. You may want to check it out as well if you personally feel that you are not comfortable with the concept of rotating the boxes arbitrarily in 3D space. At the very least though, it'd be beneficial to watch the video and read the notes. At the beginning, it's all about understanding the material (so you aim for the right thing, even if you can't quite reach it just yet), and then it becomes more about practicing, sharpening your skills so what you intend to draw and what comes out on the page become one and the same.

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-20 19:57

I'm glad that you pushed through it with patience and care, despite finding it difficult. Often times when people struggle, they have a tendency to start rushing out of frustration. It's key to keep a calm mind and take your time.

Generally you did quite well. Your line quality is quite confident, your ellipses are looking good, and you did each exercise to the letter. Your organic perspective boxes aren't bad, but you're right - I do sense some discomfort with the idea of rotating these boxes arbitrarily in 3D space. I agree with your decision to move onto the 250 box challenge, and encourage you to do so.

Once you feel more comfortable with that, you may move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-20 20:08

I'm glad that you've decided to submit your homework. I do think there's a lot of things you missed from the lesson, or things that you may have misunderstood, but now that you've taken the first step of submitting your work, we can iron those issues out.

1. Superimposed lines - generally these aren't bad, but you're definitely not taking the time to place your pen at the beginning of each line before drawing. Patience is very important, and there are many signs of rushing across all of your homework. You need to slow down and relax. Take the time to do what you can to prepare to draw, before actually drawing. I am glad to see that your lines don't wobble, however, so your actual speed when drawing the lines seems to be good.

2. Whenever you draw any marks, use the ghosting technique. You didn't do too badly on this exercise, but I want to reiterate the process - first, you identify the line you want to draw. Figure out where it needs to start and where it needs to end, the angle of the line and whether or not it curves or arcs. Then find a comfortable angle of approach (rotate your paper if you need to) and start ghosting through the motion. Do this as many times as you need to until your arm becomes more comfortable with the motion. Then, while you continue to ghost, when you feel ready, put the tip of the pen to the page and repeat that same motion with a confident, steady and smooth pace. Don't go too slowly or you'll wobble - you've done all the preparation you can at this stage, so now you must let your muscles take over and do as they are told. Do this for every line you draw freehand, in every drawing you do from here on in. It'll take much longer than you're used to, but it will be worth it and will gradually become second nature to you.

3. Your ellipses completely missed the part in the lesson about "drawing through/truing up" a couple times before lifting your pen. Go back and read that entire section of the lesson, especially figure 2.9.

4. Your rough perspective boxes definitely need work - for the most part, it's a matter of taking your time and ghosting through those lines. But to start with, as was described in the lesson, draw your frames with a ruler. If you start off with wobbly lines, your whole mindset for doing the exercise will be off. Next, don't try and shake things up with vertical horizons or angled compositions. You don't have this down solid yet, so if you try and spice it up, you may miss out on key concepts. Remember that this is one point perspective, so you need to focus on following three rules - all of the lines that go off into the distance MUST converge at the vanishing point. Many of yours intersect with the horizon quite a ways away from the VP. Secondly, all of your horizontals must be parallel to the horizon. Thirdly, all of your verticals must be perpendicular to the horizon. Three simple rules that define the behaviour of every single line in this exercise. There should be no guesswork, and the only mistakes should occur when you attempted to do something, and simply drew it wrong. Your intent, however, should be correct.

5. Your organic perspective boxes need work as well, but this one I totally expected. I didn't include this exercise expecting people to do it perfectly, but rather to get an impression of how they handle the idea of rotating boxes arbitrarily in 3D space. We'll talk about that a little more later.

I want you to try this entire lesson over again, keeping in mind everything I've said above. I strongly urge you to reread each section of the lesson right before doing the relevant exercises - don't read it all at once, then do all the exercises, rather, do them in chunks. Also, be ready to spend many, many hours on this. Take your time and be patient. Take lots of breaks when you get tired, and don't let yourself work while you're getting sloppy. Feel free to spread it out over several days.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-21 19:45

It certainly is a lot of work, but homework submissions like these make things a little easier. You seem to have nailed just about every exercise.

I have only one concern - your lines for the rough perspective and organic perspective assignments were done freehand, right? They're really goddamn straight, it's perplexing. I'll assume that you are just very good at drawing steady, straight lines, but if you misread the exercise brief and did them with a ruler, be sure to give those another shot.

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson!

Uncomfortable

2015-07-21 19:52

Your lines look fairly solid - I noticed that you wrote a little question of whether you should be ghosting the in-between lines. The fact of the matter is, you should be ghosting all of your lines. From here on in, all of the lines you draw freehand should utilize this technique. It definitely takes more time as you are getting used to it, since it requires you to pause, think, prepare and ghost before actually drawing the line, but it trains a mindset that will result in a significant improvement in your overall control. We have a tendency of thinking right on the page, making marks without thinking through them, and this breaks us out of that habit.

For your ellipses, you seem to have not read the lesson as carefully as you should. You missed the part around Figure 2.9, talking about drawing through your ellipses a couple times before lifting your pen. This is extremely important.

Your plotted perspective exercises were done well, though your rough perspective and organic perspective boxes missed the part in the lesson about ghosting all of your lines.

I'm going to ask you to redo the ellipse exercises. Once those are done, I'll mark the lesson as complete, but then I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge. The challenge will help you in two ways - first off, it'll help you increase your comfort level with the idea of rotating boxes arbitrarily in 3D space (like in the organic perspective exercise, which I suspect was quite challenging). It'll also give you the chance to get used to ghosting all of your lines.

Still, do the ellipse first so I can mark the lesson as complete before you move onto the challenge.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-23 00:16

It's a bit odd, but I was just doodling something and it occurred to me that you asked a question along with your homework submission, and I didn't answer it. It's.. really odd that I remembered out of the blue. Anyway, I tend to critique a lot of submissions all at once, so sometimes I miss questions. Sorry about that!

To be honest, I haven't given too much thought about pulling and pushing until I read something about it quite recently. It was because I saw this article linked on facebook. Personally, I'm inclined to agree with the article (my lines go a bit nuts when I pull my straights, and my curves do appear to be somewhat better when I pull them), but a lot of the comments on the facebook post suggested that you should never push your lines. Ultimately I think you should experiment with both and find out what works best for you.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-21 19:54

Aaaaabsolutely not. There's no expectation of you executing each exercise perfectly at this point. That sort of thing will take a considerable amount of practice stretched over a long period of time. The lessons here serve to teach you how to approach certain exercises or certain subject matter, and they are marked as complete only when you show that you understand what you should be aiming for. Then it is up to you to continue practicing that material on your own time, while moving through the subsequent lessons. It's all about giving you a sense of direction for your journey.

Of course, I do expect you to try your absolute best on each exercise - taking your time and showing patience and care.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-22 19:48

Not bad. Your lines are fairly well done, though your ellipses are looking quite wobbly at times. I know it can be daunting, but it's important to push past your own timidness and draw through those ellipses with a consistent, persistent pace. Drawing too slowly will allow your brain to interfere and make micro-corrections that manifest as wobbling. Letting your muscles draw based on their muscle memory will result in smoother lines, even if it is less accurate at times. The accuracy can then be gradually fixed by ghosting your ellipses before drawing them and also through good old fashioned practice.

One thing I'd like to stress is that you should absolutely be using the ghosting technique on all forms of freehand drawing. Here, a prime opportunity to put it to work would have been the rough perspective and organic perspective boxes. The technique is designed to help improve the accuracy of your lines without sacrificing the line quality. Definitely keep that in mind and put the technique to use in the future.

Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-23 19:22

Your lines were done decently, and your box exercises were fairly solid. Your ellipses however tell me that you could have definitely read the lesson more carefully. You missed the part about drawing through your ellipses a few times before lifting your pen from the page. I did see that you did it a few times, but for the vast majority of the ellipses you drew, you only went through them once. It's very important that you get used to drawing through them.

For your lines, as I said before they were generally pretty decent, but I am seeing some wobbling with your super imposed lines. If you catch your lines wobbling, it means you need to speed up your drawing a little. Wobbling is caused by your brain having the chance to make microcorrections as you draw. Rather than trying to be careful and slow as you draw the line, you should invest the time into preparing to draw the line (similar to the ghosting technique, to do what you can to get used to that drawing motion and get comfortable with it before drawing). Then when you actually execute the line, draw it quickly.

For your boxes, your forms are generally quite good. You should, however, be using the ghosting technique to draw your freehand lines here. In fact, you should be applying that methodology to all your freehand drawing from here on in. It'll take you more time, but it'll force you to get used to thinking through your intentions before drawing, resulting in fewer wasted marks, straighter lines, and generally a cleaner result.

I'd like you to take another stab at the ellipse exercises - once you submit that, I'll mark the lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-23 20:00

I'm glad you've decided to start these lessons! I'm sure you'll gain a lot from them. My critique may come off as somewhat harsher than you may expect, but stay with it and follow my instructions, and you'll see massive improvement in no time.

So overall, I'm seeing a lot of sloppiness. This is pretty normal, and it's one of the things my lessons strive to fix.

1. Your super imposed lines are actually pretty solid.

2. Your ghosted lines are looking rather wavy. When you do this exercise, try putting more time into ghosting through the motion, getting your arm comfortable with it - then, when you finally decide you're ready to make the mark, draw more quickly, more persistently, more confidently. You've already done all the thinking and planning, now all that's left is to execute.

3. Your ellipses aren't too bad, but you may be taking the 'drawing through' thing too far. It's important to draw through them, so I'm glad you are, but you're losing track of the ellipse you should be aiming to draw. While you draw through the ellipse, you should strive to keep the lines more tight and together. At times you succeed at this, at other times they end up being more loose. Also, when you're drawing your table/rows, use a ruler. If those lines are wavy and sloppy, that will impact how your mind behaves and treats the exercise.

4. On a similar vein to the ruler thing, with the funnels, try laying them out more consistently on the page. Draw through these (and all) ellipses as well - basically, don't let yourself draw an ellipse in one go anymore.

5. Use a ruler for the plotted perspective exercise. Read the lesson more carefully, this was explained in the exercise brief. Secondly, keep your vanishing points on either side of the page - the closer they are together, the more distortion you'll get, and that'll just add more confusion. The verticals should be 100% perpendicular to the horizon. That generally means going straight up and down. Be careful and conscientious about this. Don't try to do it quickly, take your time.

6. Three things for the rough perspective boxes AND the organic perspective boxes- one, do each one inside a separate frame, drawn with a ruler. Then, when drawing the boxes, use the GHOSTING method. Any and all freehand drawing from here on in should use the ghosting technique. First, identify the line you want to make (where does it start, where does it end, is it curved or straight, etc). Then find a comfortable angle of approach (rotating your page if you need to) and ghost through that motion until your muscles and arm get used to it. Then, make the mark with confidence. Thirdly, when you apply crosshatching, don't be sloppy. Apply consistent, parallel lines that stretch all the way across the surface from edge to edge. Nothing at inconsistent angles, nothing floating in the middle of the plane or stopping too early.

I'd like you to take another shot at this lesson. It's going to take a lot of time, so I don't want you to try it in one sitting. Take as many breaks as you need, do a bit each day if you have to. Focus on putting your all into each exercise, not on getting it done. And if you get tired, don't push yourself. Pushing yourself when you're tired will only result in sloppy work again.

I could tell from looking at your homework that it was definitely not your best, and that you're capable of much better. Prove me right.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-24 20:13

Not bad! There's only two things that I want to bring to your attention, but the lesson was generally done quite well, and I'll be marking it as complete.

The first thing is that whenever you draw ellipses from here on in, I want you to draw through them, as you did in the table of ellipses exercise. Don't attempt to draw them in one shot any longer. Drawing through them allows you to draw them more confidently, which results in a better line quality, curvature and general elliptical shape. When you draw them in one shot, it tends to come out uneven and awkward. This is totally normal though - drawing through them will give your muscles more practice, and will make you better at hitting them in one shot in the long run.

Secondly, your organic perspective boxes show me that you're a little less comfortable with the idea of rotating forms arbitrarily in 3D space. This is totally normal, and I mainly included that exercise to gauge your abilities in that area. I'd like you to try doing the 250 box challenge next. It's got a helpful video and some extra notes. The challenge itself will give you the chance to practice more and increase your comfort level.

There's one other thing I want to mention, actually. When you do any freehand drawing - like in the rough perspective and organic perspective box exercises, use the ghosting technique. It's not just an exercise, but rather a whole mindset that forces you to think and prepare before every individual mark you make. This reduces the number of wasted lines, and generally cleans up your drawings and keeps them more accurate.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-24 22:33

Very impressive work! It's very clear that you spent a lot of time on it, and I'm glad thought hard about how you were approaching things and decided to redo what you had rushed through. Fantastic work, fantastic work ethic, it'll all take you very far.

I do agree that you could develop more comfort with the organic perspective boxes - those aren't easy, and I don't expect people to do them perfectly here. I'm glad you found your way to the 250 box challenge and the video/notes there. Doing the challenge is a great idea, and I think you'll gain a lot from it. Still, you actually did pretty well at this exercise, especially on your second page.

The other thing I wanted to point out was your rough perspective boxes - on the surface, they look fantastic. Clean, well plotted out, nice consistent cross-hatching. There's only one issue that you should be aware of. If you plot your lines back to the horizon (it'd be a great idea to do this, with a different coloured pen, on top of the rough perspective exercises you've done already), you'll see that they don't actually intersect with the horizon at the VP.

This is a common problem that people have, and it's just important to be aware of it - if you know exactly what you're doing wrong, you can consciously compensate for it when you attempt a similar exercise in the future. Just knowing and remembering that you tend to make that sort of mistake will help you fix it.

Anyway, like I said - great work. Feel free to move onto the next lesson when you're comfortable with those 250 boxes.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-24 22:46

Not bad. I noticed that you started off with your super-imposed lines in pencil. Based on the fact that everything else is in ink, I'm sure you know my stance on doing these exercises in pencil, so I won't lecture you about it.

Your ellipses progress throughout the lesson, and it's great that you're doing a lot of them. I think the biggest thing is that early on, you're focusing less on getting the shape right, and are compensating by drawing through them a bunch of times. Instead of doing that, draw through them two or three times max, and before doing so, ghost through the drawing motion and think about what kind of ellipse you want to draw. The position, size, angle, etc. You do this much better by the end of the lesson, and I can see that you're already reeling yourself in, keeping yourself from going as crazy with the ellipses as you were initially.

For the rough and organic perspective boxes, you did pretty well - the only thing I want to recommend is to spend more time on ghosting through those lines. If you put more time into the preparation stage (ghosting through the lines, getting used to the drawing motion) and then draw the lines fairly quickly, you will find that the lines come out smoother (because of the drawing pace) and more accurate (because of the time spent preparing). It'll take longer, but it's definitely worth it and will develop good habits.

Anyway, your stuff's looking pretty good. If you feel you want more practice drawing boxes and ghosting through lines, check out the 250 box challenge. Otherwise, feel free to move onto lesson 2 when you're ready.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-25 21:12

Generally you did quite well. There's just two things I want to bring to your attention. First off, make sure you used the ghosting technique whenever you have to do any sort of freehand drawing. The first instances where you got to practice that in this lesson outside of the ghosting exercise itself is the rough perspective and organic perspective boxes. It's important to get used to this whole mindset of preparing to draw and thinking through what kind of mark you want to make before drawing it on the page, though it takes more time. On that same note, if after using the ghosting technique you make a mistake, don't try to correct it. This will only add more ink to the area you want people to ignore - but doing so draws their eyes to it. Just leave it alone.

Secondly, it looks like you missed the part in the ellipse exercise about drawing through your ellipses a couple times before lifting your pen. This is extremely important and is something you should be doing whenever drawing ellipses, in these exercises and in those in the future.

I'd like you to reread the ellipse section of the lesson, and then redo the ellipse exercises.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-26 15:29

I'm glad that you're so enthusiastic!

So your lines were done quite well. I can see one reason why you may have struggled with the ellipses - you missed the part about drawing through them a few times before lifting up your pen. This is extremely important, as it tends to allow you to draw them with more confidence, which results in a better more consistent and even shape. It also gives you extra practice towards developing the muscle memory required to draw ellipses in one shot. Definitely go back and reread the ellipse section of the exercise, paying special attention to the area around figure 2.9. This drawing-through/truing-up thing should be applied to all of your ellipses for a good long time to come.

One thing I really liked was the confidence with which you drew your boxes. Your lines came out smooth and steady because of this. There are some issues in the organic perspective boxes with the forms themselves (drawing those forms rotated arbitrarily is quite challenging, and I mainly include this exercise to gauge your abilities rather than expecting you to nail them perfectly). I definitely encourage you to do the 250 box challenge next - there's a video and some helpful notes in that challenge post that should clarify some things, and the challenge itself will help solidify your comfort levels.

One other thing I wanted to mention was that when you apply shading, like in the rough perspective boxes, don't be sloppy. The hatching should consist of consistent parallel lines that stretch across a surface from one edge to the other. Nothing floating in the middle of the plane. The shading isn't necessary, but whenever you add anything to your drawings, be sure to commit to it and spend the time on it required to make it as tidy as the rest of your drawing.

Anyway, I do want you to try the ellipse exercises once more. Once you complete that, submit them as a response to this comment, and I'll mark the lesson as complete. Then you can move onto the 250 box challenge.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-27 22:08

Excellent work. The only issue I see, and it's a minor one, is your accuracy in your rough perspective boxes. They're generally good, but you should keep an eye on your tendency to stray from the VP as your lines move further away from it. That is to say, if you plot your lines back to the horizon with a different coloured pen, you'll notice that many deviate. This is pretty normal, but it's important to keep that in mind as you move forward, so you can consciously compensate for your tendencies.

Still, your work was very well done, and generally I see great confidence and strong spacial skills. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-27 22:13

Generally very well done. Your line and ellipses are quite solid, and your boxes are generally okay, but there are two things I want to bring to your attention.

First off, your crosshatching in the rough perspective boxes exercise is sloppy. It's not that you can't do it well (obviously), but you need to take the time to do anything you choose to do exceptionally. In this case, your hatching lines should be separte, parallel, consistent, and stretch across the entire surface from edge to edge. Nothing floating in the middle of a plane, nothing scribbly or zigzagging.

The other thing I wanted to point out is that while your organic perspective boxes are pretty good, I am getting a sense of some discomfort with rotating boxes arbitrarily in 3D space. This is totally normal, and I mainly threw in this exercise to catch this problem so we can work towards fixing it.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete but I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. The video and notes in the challenge post should help solidify some of the understanding, while the challenge itself will give you the practice needed to really drive it home.

Also, always remember to use the ghosting technique when drawing any freehand lines. It'll take you more time (since you have to really think and prepare and practice before every single mark you draw) but it's an important mindset to get into.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-27 22:27

Generally not bad. There are a few things I want to stress though.

Firstly, in the super imposed lines exercise, take the time to line up your pen with the beginning of each line. I see a lot of signs of rushing, where the beginning of the lines appear frayed because each time you drew on top, you'd start at a slightly different position. Don't rush! Take your time with each exercise.

In the ellipses, I noticed that you often jumped between drawing through your ellipses and trying to hit them in one attempt. It is important that you continue drawing through them all the time. Ultimately the goal is to be able to draw a clean ellipse without having to draw through it, but that is a long ways off. Drawing through them will allow you to get used to the feeling of drawing the ellipses with more confidence, which will generally result in more even shapes - which is our main priority.

For the boxes, where you appear to have struggled with drawing straight lines, I want to stress the importance of the ghosting technique. It's not just an exercise, but rather a process you should apply to every single mark you want to make from here on in. Every line you draw should be preceded by thought, consideration and preparation. Consider where each line starts and ends, whether it curves or is straight. Then find a comfortable angle of approach, rotating your page if necessary, and ghost through the motion until it feels comfortable. Then, lastly, draw the mark quickly and confidently.

Doing this for every single line will require patience, but it's an important habit to develop.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. It'll help you grow accustomed to the ghosting technique, while letting you practice the construction of solid and convincing boxes.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-27 22:59

One thing is definitely jumping out at me - you need to practice the ghosting technique. From the looks of it, you're not spending enough time identifying and preparing to draw (by ghosting through that motion until it feels comfortable) and you're probably putting too much time into actually making the mark.

If you draw slowly, your line will wobble, because you're giving your brain the chance to interfere and make little corrections along the way. If you draw too quickly, your line will go wildly off the mark. You can reel in that inaccuracy however by spending more time ghosting through the drawing motion, getting your arm used to what you want it to do. Then, when you draw, you will be able to draw quickly and confidently without as much sacrifice in the way of accuracy. Of course it won't be perfect, but it'll improve with time.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I want you to tackle the 250 box challenge next. The ghosting technique is not simply an exercise - it is a methodology to mark making that should be applied to everything. This challenge will help you practice your ghosting.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-27 23:02

Ahaha, wow, that's my mistake. When these lessons were first written, they were just handwritten images, so I slowly developed a collection of notes over time, addressing problems people were facing. With the new version of lessons, being long written articles, the need for those extra notes was removed. I just forgot to remove that bit from the sidebar!

Uncomfortable

2015-07-29 22:17

I'm sure it's tough being isolated. Thank goodness for the internet! It definitely looks like you'll find plenty that you can put to good use in the lessons.

BioAndy1

2015-07-31 03:44

Just finished with Lesson 1 (Lines, Ellipses, Boxes). I already feel an improvement just by doing these. I'll be doing variations of these exercises now as my daily warmup!

Here is my homework submission - http://imgur.com/gallery/WcP31

Thanks again!

Uncomfortable

2015-07-30 00:28

So after looking at your homework, I gathered a few things. First off, you have a pretty solid sense of space - your organic perspective boxes demonstrated that you do a decent job of rotating boxes arbitrarily in 3D space, which is a good skill to have.

There are a few issues that I'd like to draw your attention to however. First off, you didn't do the super-imposed lines exercise correctly (the very first one). The exercise requires you to draw a line, and then draw directly on top of it eight more times, doing your best to match the line perfectly.

Secondly, with your ellipses, I'm glad to see that you're drawing through them - that's definitely good, but you may be taking it a little bit overboard. Draw through them two or three times max. Doing it too much will cause you to lose track of the ellipse you intended to draw. Focus on what your goal is (the angle/size/degree/position of the ellipse), ghost over it to get comfortable with the arm movement and then draw.

Lastly, you did pretty well with your ghosted lines, but this is not simply an exercise - it's the very crux and core of the whole drawing methodology behind all of the lessons. You stop, identify what kind of line you want to draw. Then you find the most comfortable angle of approach and ghost through the motion until your arm gets comfortable with it, preparing as best you can. Then finally when you draw, you do so quickly and confidently, trusting that you prepared enough to let your muscles take over and nail the line, drawing a single mark.

It takes a lot of time, doing this for every single mark you want to make, but it's well worth it and eventually becomes second nature. This technique and approach should be used for all of your mark-making. In this case, the organic perspective boxes and the rough perspective boxes were your first opportunities to do so.

In the future, try to avoid the scratchy, rough linework that you demonstrated there. Strive to draw each line in a single mark. You'll make mistakes, and you won't nail everything, but it'll come together in time.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to tackle the 250 box challenge next. It will give you the chance to really practice your ghosting, and also has a video and some notes on how to push your boxes to the next level.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-30 00:44

Everyone's gotta start somewhere! And looking at your homework, you're not off to a bad start. There are some issues, but we'll iron them out in time.

I noticed that when you started off with your ellipses, you were drawing them in one shot, rather than drawing through them a couple times before lifting your pen. I'm glad to see that you transitioned to drawing through them - this is definitely the more effective approach. Your ellipses end up a little messier, but they allow you to draw with greater confidence. When you do this, however, I noticed that you still draw a little too slowly. This causes your lines to wobble a little, because your brain gets the chance to make little micro-corrections as you draw. These manifest as wobbling.

When you draw an ellipse, stop for a second and consider the position, angle and size of the ellipse you want to draw. Then, ghost your pen over the paper, getting your arm used to the motion required to draw that ellipse. Do this until your arm becomes comfortable with the movement. Then, when you feel ready, touch the pen to the page and repeat the motion, drawing through the ellipse two or three times before lifting the pen. Draw confidently and quickly enough to keep from wobbling - trust that your preparation was enough to keep your ellipse fairly accurate, and that your muscles know what to do.

This whole approach is essentially the same as the ghosting line technique. Identify the mark you want to make, prepare to make it, then make the mark confidently and quickly, trusting that your muscles know what to do. It takes more time, but it quickly becomes second nature and results in greater confidence and generally smoother, straighter and more accurate lines.

When you're drawing ellipses though, always draw through them. The goal is to ultimately be able to nail them in one shot, but that is a long way off. Drawing through them for the foreseeable future when doing these exercises will help give your muscles that extra practice.

Your rough perspective boxes were decent. There are some minor issues (if you take a different coloured pen and plot the lines back to the horizon, you'll find that not all of them intersect at the vanishing point), but at first glance it could pass for roughly correct. It's important to be aware of your mistakes so you can compensate for them when you next try that sort of exercise. Still, it's good for where you stand right now.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes do need work. This one is completely natural - I didn't include this exercise expecting anyone to get it perfectly, because it's actually a very challenging thing to do. It requires one to have a strong sense of spatial awareness, and the ability to rotate forms arbitrarily in 3D space.

The reason I included it was to gauge what step you should take next.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - you should continue to practice these exercises as warm-ups, but I'd like you to look at the 250 box challenge next. It has a helpful video and some notes on tackling the specific challenge of rotating boxes. The challenge itself should give you the practice you need to really get comfortable with the concept.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-31 20:13

Pretty solid work! Your lines and your ellipses are very well done. Your rough and perspective boxes could use some work, though.

With the rough perspective boxes, I don't think it's a matter of understanding - you seem to know what to aim for (all horizontals should be parallel to the horizon, all verticals should be perpendicular to the horizon, and all depth lines converge at the vanishing point). The problem is your ability to freehand-draw the lines you mean to achieve.

That brings us to the ghosting technique that you practiced earlier in the lesson. It's not just an exercise - it's an approach to drawing that you should apply to all freehand drawing from now on. First identify the line you want to draw - how long is it, where does it start, where does it end, does it curve, etc. Then prepare to draw it by finding a comfortable angle of approach (rotating your page if you need to) and ghosting through the drawing motion. Finally, you make the mark quickly and smoothly.

It takes a lot longer to draw when using that technique, but the results are vastly better. Looking at your ghosting exercise, you did it very well - apply that method to drawing the freehand boxes, and your lines will come out far more accurately.

The same applies to the organic perspective boxes, but I also see some discomfort with the idea of rotating boxes arbitrarily in 3D space. You're not doing too bad, and in general I expect to see a fair bit of struggling with that at this point. I mainly included that exercise to gauge where I should send you next.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I think you should look at the 250 box challenge next. There's a helpful video there and some notes, and the challenge itself will help make you more comfortable with rotating those boxes, while giving you the chance to practice ghosting your lines in the context of drawing actual forms.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-31 20:17

Generally very well done. The lines and ellipses are solid. Your organic perspective boxes are generally pretty good, though I do think you should watch for instances where you make the closer plane of a given box smaller than the farther plane. Since you're going to be practicing ghosting your lines, take a look at the 250 box challenge at the same time. It'll help solidify your boxes while giving you a more relevant context in which to practice your ghosting.

The other thing I wanted to mention was that in your rough perspective, or any sort of perspective drawing, you should draw a horizon line. This becomes even more relevant when you don't have clear vanishing points, but even when you do, it gives a very helpful point of reference. In one point perspective, you have to keep your horizontals parallel to the horizon, and your verticals perpendicular to it. If your horizon hasn't been marked out, it can be a little more challenging to get those angles right.

Anyway, you did quite well, so I'll mark this lesson as complete. Once you're comfortable with your ghosting and your boxes, go ahead and move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-31 22:30

Your lines and ellipses are very solid. Your plotted perspective is also well done. With your rough perspective, there's two things I want to draw your attention to. The first is a bit of a tendency to be less accurate with how your lines go back to the vanishing point, the further away you get from it. So, the lines further out to the side of the page have a tendency to intersect with the horizon a ways away from the VP. A good exercise is to go back to your rough perspective work and, with a different coloured pen, plot each line back to the horizon. It'll make you more aware of your particular tendencies, so when you do the exercise again in the future, you'll know what to compensate for.

The other thing I wanted to point out about that exercise was that your hatching/shading is sloppy. This is something I stress a lot - when you add anything to your drawing, never half-ass it. Every mark should be the result of thought, consideration and planning. Many of those shading lines are floating in the middle of the plane, aren't really parallel, etc. Take the time to draw each one from edge to edge, parallel and consistent. Or, the other option is - don't draw them. Basically, if you're going to do something, don't half-ass it. This is a pretty common issue that I see though, and is something we usually work hard to weed out at this stage.

The organic perspective boxes are looking like they need work. This is to be expected - it's a really challenging exercise, and it's not one I expect people to nail. Instead, I include it so I get a better sense of what you need to work on, so I can send you to do the exercises that will help you the most.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I want to encourage you to do the 250 box challenge next. There's a video on tackling boxes, some helpful notes on perspective and the use of line weight, and the challenge itself should give you the added practice you need to really get this stuff down. Essentially, the big concept at play here is figuring out how to rotate simple forms arbitrarily in 3D space.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-31 22:38

Generally very solid work. Your lines, ellipses, plotted and rough perspective boxes are well done.

Your organic perspective boxes are fairly good, but not all the way there. You're still doing better than I expected - I included this exercise to gauge one's ability to rotate objects on 3D space. This is not something most people can do, so I usually send them for extra practice at the 250 box challenge. Yours are almost there, but you may still benefit from at least watching the video and reading the notes included on that challenge post.

A more relevant concern however is that on page 1 (so I assume your last page of organic perspective?) you're demonstrating some inconsistent perspective distortion. That is, some boxes are affected by perspective more dramatically than others. Since all the boxes exist within the same scene and space, they should be affected consistently across the board. These notes explain the concept.

Anyway, once you feel comfortable with the boxes, feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-02 15:15

Normally you would post them here, as a comment in the lesson thread.

Unfortunately, I made an announcement about critiques in august being limited to patreon supporters only, since I'm totally swamped with work from my full-time job this month. Regular free critiques will resume on September 1st.

If you do happen to be a patreon supporter though, send me a message via Patreon with your Reddit username so I know to associate the two accounts.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-02 15:19

Unfortunately, I recently made an announcement about critiques in August being limited to patreon supporters only, since I'm totally swamped with work from my full-time job this month. Regular free critiques will resume on September 1st.

If you do happen to be a patreon supporter though, send me a message via Patreon with your Reddit username so I know to associate the two accounts.

That said, that'll give you a chance to hunt down some felt tip pens - or worst case scenario, some ballpoint pens. I understand your enthusiasm and eagerness to get on this, but there are several reasons that I limit my critiques to those who work with specific tools. The tools themselves are part of the exercises, as working with them forces you to build up a level of confidence that pencils simply would not. Enforcing this also makes things much easier on myself, as I would have to take many other things into consideration when critiquing work done with different tools. By imposing this limitation, I am able to handle a much larger number of critiques each day, since they force everyone to demonstrate the same skills, often resulting in the same mistakes.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-02 19:32

Generally you did quite well! Your ellipses are solid - drawing from all three points (wrist, elbow, shoulder) are acceptable in different contexts. Your longest lines will definitely require you to use your shoulder, while middle-length lines will be better done from the elbow, and fine detailed lines that require a high degree of control will be best done from your wrist. It's not a matter of everything having to come from the shoulder. The longer radius gives you smooth gestural lines, while the shorter radius gives you a stiffer line, but much better control.

Your rough perspective is coming along nicely, but there are a few problems that I want to make you aware of. The further you move away from the vanishing point, the less accurate you are with approximating the angle of your lines as they go off into the distance. The best way to fix this is to go back over your homework and, with a different coloured pen/pencil and a ruler, plot your lines back to the horizon like this. You'll see that many of the lines further out to the side intersect with the horizon at points fairly distant from your VP. A bit of leeway is to be expected (since this is approximated) but you can tell that some of them are getting too far out.

By making yourself aware of this, you'll know what to compensate for the next time you attempt an exercise like this - and you should keep up with all of these exercises. They make great warm-ups, and will show considerable impact when done over a long period of time.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, though before you move onto the next lesson, I'd like you to do the 250 box challenge. The organic perspective boxes could use some improvement. This is to be expected - the exercise was quite challenging, and was included more as a way to gauge where I should send you next. The exercise focuses on the ability to rotate simple forms arbitrarily in 3D space. The 250 box challenge includes a video on the subject and some helpful notes, and the challenge itself will give you the chance to really get comfortable with it.

That will ultimately make lesson 2 - specifically its form intersection exercise - less painful.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-03 17:16

So there's a couple things here that stand out to me, and generally it's various signs of rushing.

First off, when we look at the super-imposed lines, I see a bit of fraying on the starting end of the line. It's totally expected to see the lines separating on the far end, but at the beginning you should be taking the time to line up your pen correctly at the starting point. So, what I see is that you need to stop and think before rushing to put a mark on the page.

This leads us to the next point - the ghosting technique. It's true that it's an exercise in this lesson, but it's not just that. It's more than a exercise, it's a whole mindset to be applied to how you make marks on the page from now til the end of time. Instead of thinking on the page, exploring and figuring out your shapes by actually drawing, you should be stopping yourself and considering what kind of mark you want to make.

Start by identifying the mark you need to make - where does it start, where does it end, does it curve, what kind of angle does it require, etc. Then prepare to draw the mark - find a comfortable angle of approach (rotating the page if necessary) and ghost through that drawing motion until it feels comfortable. Based on your ghosting exercise, I think you might not be ghosting through the motion enough.

Finally, the last step is to draw the mark - repeat the same ghosted motion and draw the mark with persistence and confidence, doing so swiftly so as to avoid any wobbling. From the looks of it, your drawing speed seems to be okay, it's just a matter of spending more time ghosting through it.

Now, this process should be applied to all of your drawings. This is going to take a lot more time than you're used to, but it will quickly become second nature. The first opportunities to use this technique were in the rough perspective and organic perspective exercises. It would have helped reduce the inaccuracy of your lines, and the tendency to automatically reinforce your lines with another mark. Always remember - one mark per line, and every mark should be driven by thought, planning and consideration.

In the rough perspective boxes, there's another point I want to raise, and that is with your shading. The hatching lines you used were sloppy. I'm sure you're aware of this, it's very clear you did not put your full effort into them. What I want to emphasize here is that if there is anything in a drawing that you are not willing to put your full effort into, you simply should not draw it. In this case, for instance, you could either take the time to draw consistent, parallel lines that stretch from edge to edge all the way across the surface, or you could choose not to include shading at all. Either would have been an acceptable choice. Falling in between, adding a few sloppy lines that float in the middle of the plane, really brings down the quality of your overall aesthetic. Consider that in all of your future drawings. Nothing should be rushed or sloppy and ill-considered.

Lastly, you're right - your organic perspective boxes aren't great, but that is through no real fault of your own. That exercise is very challenging, and is one that I added not expecting people to nail immediately. Instead, it serves as a gauge, letting me know where I should be sending you next. The main skill it tests is the ability to rotate simple forms in 3D space - which sounds simple, but really isn't.

As you stated, you will need to do the 250 box challenge next. The challenge post contains a video that explains the concept, as well as some other helpful notes. Furthermore, the challenge itself will give you the chance to work on applying the ghosting technique to your drawings, as well as the opportunity to really push yourself to be more patient and rush less.

Since that pretty much covers all of the issues I had with this homework submission, I'll mark the lesson complete. I assume you'll be able to work out those problems in the 250 box challenge.

Don't try to complete the challenge in a single sitting - get used to spreading things across several days, and don't let yourself work on it while you're tired.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-04 23:59

You generally did a very solid job. The only thing that I want to bring your attention to is that it seems your ghosted lines may be a little bit wobbly.

This is usually caused by attempting to draw the stroke itself a little too slowly, so as to increase your control and accuracy. Unfortunately, it allows your brain the chance to make little microcorrections as you draw, which manifests as a wobbly line.

Instead of drawing the line slowly, put more time into ghosting through the motion and getting your arm and muscles familiar with the task at hand. Once they are comfortable enough, draw the stroke swiftly and confidently, and trust that your muscles can take over. This is a concept you can also apply to your ellipses, which are looking a little wobbly as well.

Aside from that, I'd also like to emphasize the importance of using frames in your box exercises. No composition should be left floating without clear definition as to its edges.

Generally however you did quite well - your execution of your box exercises was fairly strong. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-06 01:12

Sorry about missing it last time.

Anyway, your lines are looking great - they show good confidence and a lot of patience and care.

With your ellipses, I see two issues. First off, you're not drawing through your ellipses - which is something I stressed during the lesson (definitely reread the ellipse section, paying special attention to the area around figure 2.9.

I also notice this other weird thing that you're doing - you seem to be drawing your ellipses in two distinct strokes, one half at a time. This results in a broken shape, rather than one that is continuous and even. Never break a continuous line, be it an ellipse or a straight line. As soon as you break it, it's almost guaranteed that you will not be able to pick up the flow of it with another segment.

Your plotted perspective was done fairly well, but there is something I want to bring to your attention. As soon as parts of boxes start falling outside of the space between the two vanishing points, you start getting a lot of distortion. It's a good idea to keep both vanishing points on either end of your page, to limit that distortion.

Your rough perspective definitely needs a lot of work. What I'm seeing is that you seem to be forgetting the purpose of the vanishing point. Try going back over your rough perspective homework with a different coloured pen and a ruler - try plotting your lines back to the horizon and see where they intersect with it. You'll notice that many of them stray very far from the VP.

When doing this exercise, it's important to visualize the line going back all the way to the VP. This will allow you to figure out where the line you're going to draw should start and end, so that it aligns to that angle.

Lastly, the organic perspective exercise needs work as well - however, that's totally fine. I did not include this exercise expecting people to do it properly, but rather as a gauge to see where I should send you next.

So. First, I'd like you to redo all of the ellipse exercises, after rereading that section of the lesson. Then, redo the rough perspective exercise, after going over your last attempt with a different coloured pen and a ruler, plotting those lines back to really be aware of what you did wrong.

One you've done that, resubmit them as a response to this critique, and I'll mark the lesson complete. Once I've marked the lesson as complete, I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge. That will help iron out some of the major problems you experienced with the organic perspective exercise. It's all about learning to rotate simple forms (specifically boxes) arbitrarily in 3D space. The challenge post includes a video that explains that, as well as some helpful notes.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-06 16:50

Nope, the page size is up to you. If you're planning on submitting your homework for review/critique however, make sure you read the most recent announcement.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-07 14:41

The worst! Also, in all likelihood, they aren't coming out better when you chicken scratch them. It's more likely that you're not evaluating them on the correct criteria.

An ellipse needs to flow smoothly, and have an even shape. Chicken scratch breaks the flow by using several different independent strokes. You best achieve an even shape by drawing with a single continuous line.

Instead of chicken scratching, try ghosting over the ellipse a few times, getting your muscles used to that elliptical motion. Then draw the ellipse, and continue drawing through it two or three times before lifting your hand. This will allow you to draw it with greater confidence. The second and third times will generally compensate issues from the first. Don't draw through more than that though, or you'll lose track of the ellipse you're intending to draw.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-08 15:10

Very nice work. I was going to chastize you for your plane/funnel ellipses, because you didn't draw through them, though generally your ellipses are quite strong. I think you'd still benefit from drawing through them a couple times each in all situations, because there is some minor unevenness to your shapes here and there, though.

The only other thing I wanted to pick at is your boxes in your organic perspective exercise. They're generally not bad, but there's a little bit of inconsistency to your angles and rate of perpsective distortion. I think taking a look at the 250 box challenge would be beneficial to iron out those minor kinks. Also, take a look at these notes on consistent perspective distortion.

Your lines were excellent - they're very confident and remarkably accurate.

Anyway, I'll mark this as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-09 16:14

Unfortunately, I recently made an announcement about critiques in August being limited to patreon supporters only, since I'm totally swamped with work from my full-time job this month. Regular free critiques will resume on September 1st.

If you do happen to be a patreon supporter though, send me a message via Patreon with your Reddit username so I know to associate the two accounts.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-09 19:43

Generally your work is pretty solid. Your super imposed lines are done really well, they show a lot of patience and care. Your ellipses are fairly well done as well, though in your funnels you start to get a little loose. Always remind yourself of what kind of ellipse you're trying to draw - its degree, its position, its size, etc. Strive to make it fit snugly in the space it's given.

In your rough perspective exercises, you do fairly well, but at times the angles of your lines will become less accurate. This is often with the lines of your boxes that are further away from the vanishing point - their angle has them intersecting with the horizon line a little further away from the VP than they should. I recommend going back over your rough perspective homework with a different coloured pen, and plot all the lines back to the horizon like this. You'll see which ones are correct and which ones are starting to stray. Being aware of your own tendencies will help you compensate for them the next time you tackle an exercise like this.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes do show that you need some work in that area. This is to be expected - the exercise itself is a tough one, and was included so that I would know where to send you next.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to tackle the 250 box challenge next. It includes a video and some helpful notes, and the challenge itself will help increase your comfort level with the idea of rotating simple forms arbitrarily in 3D space.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-09 16:18

You are absolutely being too hard on yourself. The vast majority of this is very well done. The organic perspective boxes are mostly decent, though here and there I still see a bit of discomfort with the idea of rotating those forms arbitrarily in 3D space. Still, that'll go away pretty quickly with practice. You may want to try practicing drawing through the boxes completely though (drawing all the lines, as though the box were transparent) to get a better sense of how all the planes of the box are defined.

Anyway, you're doing quite well. Try not to get into the habit of underestimating yourself - it's good to be humble, but a lack of self confidence will impact your work in the long run. For now it doesn't seem to be, but it's best to shake it off early.

Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-13 00:02

Unfortunately, I recently made an announcement about critiques in August being limited to patreon supporters only, since I'm totally swamped with work from my full-time job this month. Regular free critiques will resume on September 1st, so you should resubmit your homework then.

If you do happen to be a patreon supporter though, send me a message via Patreon with your Reddit username so I know to associate the two accounts.