Uncomfortable

2015-06-06 01:40

Generally, I'm quite pleased with your intersections. What I tend to focus on is people's ability to draw forms that exist within the same scene, and how those forms relate to one another. You did that quite well.

The only concern I have is with your dissections - on page 5, it does look like you looked at photo reference, but you focused a lot on form rather than the surface quality of those rose petals. What you need to learn to do is look past all of the external shapes and forms and study the surface texture itself. What makes it look smooth, rough, waxy, slick, wet, dry, etc.

Another thing I noticed was that your textures don't really wrap around the forms. Similar to the contour lines - which you did fairly decently - as they reach the edge of the form, they tend to compress. I explain this concept a bit in this video.

Anyways, keep what I've mentioned about textures in mind, as it will come up later. For now though, feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-07 16:19

Your form intersections are alright - though I did notice that your spheres tend to look a bit.. questionable. You should put more into drawing through those ellipses so you can achieve a more consistent shape.

Your dissection's cuts look pretty neat, but I would have liked to see more texture on the surface of the forms. I also noticed that you were struggling just a little bit with wrapping your contour lines around the forms. You'd get it sometimes, but other times it'd fail to accelerate around the curvature of the form as I describe in this video.

I think I'll have you redo one more page of dissections - focusing on first nailing those contour lines, and then pulling some nice surface textures from some photo reference and applying them to your forms. No banana this time, but you're not far off.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-07 16:39

Thanks for taking the time to complete lesson 1. I do have a few concerns about this one, but you're moving in the right direction. We'll get things sorted out and send you on your way.

I think one thing that stands out the most to me is that you're either drawing on a small piece of paper (which I'm not sure is the case) or you're drawing with a very heavy hand. I see this most with your organic forms and your form intersections. All the lines come out really quite dark. I think it would be worthwhile simply practicing making marks of different weight - try playing with the amount of pressure you place on your pen. If you do happen to be drawing on a smaller page however, that could be the cause - since the size of your drawings would end up being smaller (in order to fit on the page). A smaller drawing will make the lines look considerably thicker.

Your organic forms and dissections are decently done. They capture solid volumes and some interesting textures. I'd have liked to have seen more texture work across all of your dissections, showing more examples of how you study reference images and extract information, though.

Your form intersections are alright, but I do see a few issues. For the vast majority of your spheres, you avoid drawing through them. This results in uneven forms that do not really read as spheres. You should always be drawing through your ellipses. Once you nail the shapes regularly, then you have to move to working on tightening up the overlapping lines. You don't actually stop drawing through them until you've already been able to draw through your ellipses and have those lines overlap so tightly that they appear to be a single, perhaps thicker, line.

Another thing I noticed about your form intersections is that when you draw through your forms (which I commend you for doing, it really helps understand how a form sits in 3D space), you do so with timid lines - often dashed or broken. Don't do this. If you're going to draw a line, it should be a confident one, otherwise it will more than likely not come out straight.

There are two kinds of lines that you should be drawing - ones that contribute to the overall drawing, and ones that help you as the artist understand the forms and how they sit in 3D space (like drawing through ellipses, drawing through 3D forms, etc.) Both of these are integral, and should be drawn confidently. Forget about the fact that the latter group technically doesn't contribute to the final drawing, because we're not interested in making pristine works of art at this point.

Anything that does not fall into these categories - for example, the tendency some of us have to immediately, reflexively, draw two marks for a line where one will do - should simply not be drawn. Confidence or bust.

Anyway, I'd like you to do one more page of form intersections.

... Holy crap I was just about to hit save, but I hit cancel instead... Thank goodness I was able to go into chrome's devtools and get it back.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-07 19:00

Your form intersections are actually pretty good. Your dissections and organic forms are not so much though - but before I critique them, I really do need to see stuff from lesson 1. I understand that you lost the sketchbook, but could you redo one page from each of those exercises so I can be sure that you're doing them all correctly before moving on?

When you post that to the lesson 1 thread, just give me a little reminder that you posted this one, and I'll critique it then.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-10 21:59

H'okay, so your organic forms with contour lines and your dissections will have to be redone. Start off by watching this video. Your contour lines aren't really wrapping around the forms convincingly. It may help to draw a sort of center-line or spine that goes through your form, and then make all of your curves (which are really just sections of ellipses) perpendicular to that line. That'll help you improve your alignment, which is also off.

For your dissections, it doesn't look like you used much photo reference for your textures, as the exercise stipulated. Reread the exercise description and give it another shot.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-08 18:24

Generally, nice work. I only have two complaints. One is with some of the dissections - specifically the ones with the heads. When doing this exercise, it's important to ignore the actual forms and objects in your reference. You want to separate the surface textures from the forms themselves, so you can apply them to your own organic forms. You did this successfully in the rest of the dissections, so I just wanted to bring your attention to this to explain why some were better than others.

Also, in your form intersections, I would like you to refrain from drawing lightly first, then drawing the "clean" lines on top. This methodology really impedes the development of your confidence. Everything you put down should either be drawn confidently, or not at all. That isn't to say that you shouldn't be drawing through forms - you absolutely should, but do so with confidence. Don't worry about trying to hide lines that aren't supposed to be a part of the final drawing - we're focusing on understanding the forms and improving the quality of your lines, not making distinctly pretty pictures.

Once you've drawn through where you need to, you can go back and increase the line weights in some areas, but not in the sense that you darken all of the "final-drawing-lines". Rather, you can add line weight to demonstrate overlaps or to add dimension to some of your forms, as described in these notes.

Anyway, you did well, so go ahead and move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-09 00:21

Generally you did a solid job all around. Your linework and forms are quite confident, so that's good to see. Your textures are also varied and well executed. Page 9's a bit weird, not so much because of the strange experimentation, but more because of the way you applied a fairly heavy weight to some of the internal curves relative to the silhouette of the forms.

Anyway, solid work all around, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-10 19:55

Pretty solid work. I did notice that your textured dissections (whose texture work is fantastic) end up falling a little short in the form category. That's the reason I tried to emphasize that you should draw it much like an organic form with contour lines first, without any clear intention of what you want to do with it afterwards. You tried to think ahead, which ended up causing you to pay less attention to your forms.

I won't have you redo them though - I think had you followed those instructions, you would have done some really amazing work. Your textures are really phenomenal, after all.

What I will have you redo however is one more page of form intersections. I just want to see if you can do them without having to rely on blocking them in with blue ink first. From what I can see, the way you did it in blue was perfect. Just skip the step of drawing over them again.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-10 19:57

Your dissections and form intersections are solid. Great forms, great texture work. Your organic forms with contour curves are falling short however - you need to pay more attention to wrapping those contour curves around the forms to really communicate the volume of these objects. Be sure to watch/rewatch this video on the subject.

I'd like to see two more pages of organic forms with contour curves.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-10 20:11

Not bad. A couple things to note:

• In the form intersections, you did well, but in the future when doing that exercise, try not to divide it up into two stages (drawing the full forms then drawing on top). Just do that first step, and draw the lines confidently. You generally did that well, but often times splitting it up into two will nurture a lack of confidence.

• Some of your dissections were interesting, others gave me the impression that you may not have used photo reference. I'm not entirely sure here, but always keep in mind that pulling textural information from photo reference is a great way to train your eye for identifying the patterns and rhythms of various types of textures, while building your visual library so you can work from your imagination more easily when you need to in the future.

I'll mark this lesson as complete. As for your question, the human figure lessons only require the basics as a prerequisite - which you just completed with this lesson. So you are free to move onto those if you so wish it. Either way, it's still in your best interest to complete the dynamic sketching lessons as well at some point, as they are very useful for any type of drawing, but I'll leave that up to you.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-14 18:30

Nicely done! Your dissections were especially interesting with all of the care and time you put into experimenting with all different kinds of textures. The only thing I want to point out is that you should be drawing through your ellipses more when doing the form intersections. Generally they were still well done, but it'll help even out the roundness of your shapes. You should also continue to draw through your forms as you did in your first page of intersections. That page comes out much better than the subsequent ones because you have a fuller understanding of the forms you've drawn.

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-15 22:14

You generally did pretty well. When it comes to the intersections, I'm more interested in seeing how you handle putting lots of different forms, rotated arbitrarily, in the same scene. You handled that quite well. As for the intersections, I only gave them a cursory look, but I don't see anything that really jumps out as being horribly incorrect.

Your arrows and organic forms are solid. Your dissections are alright, though I can see where you struggled with ideas. You did a nice amount of experimenting though. I think my favourite is the weird insecty thing in the top left of page 5. It's got a nice balance of empty space and detailed space.

Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-17 19:52

Generally really strong work. The only section that comes out a bit weaker are your form intersections - which generally aren't too bad.

The first thing that jumped out at me is that the shading/hatching you applied looks really sloppy, especially in the first couple pages of form intersections. The last two are a little better in that regard.

I also noticed that the angles of the lines in your boxes aren't always consistent - they don't necessarily look like they're always at 90 degrees to one another, that's something you'll have to work on. You'll also have to focus on ghosting more before putting down a mark so the lines don't get quite so wavy.

In general though, I'm pleased with the rest of your work, and your form intersections are okay. I'll mark the lesson as complete, and just ask that you continue practicing that execution on your own.

As for your question, in lesson 1 when I spoke about the use of your wrist/elbow/shoulder, I explained that each has its purpose - so it is absolutely situational as to whether or not you should be locking your wrist. Fine details will require very specific control - you'll want to draw those from your wrist. Longer lines will require a greater radius (going back to your elbow or shoulder), or else you simply won't be able to draw a continuous line without lifting and repositioning your pivot.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-17 20:02

I think I just don't have that part of the brain that understands physical objects.

Hah, certainly would be easier if that were true. Unfortunately, it's something everyone struggles with. As far as the form intersections go, it's not your understanding that is lacking, it's your execution. Some of your intersections are off (especially when it comes to curved surfaces), but the more significant thing is that you're not following a lot of the things I outlined in the lesson.

First off, draw through all of your forms - you do that early on, but you stop doing it afterward. Secondly, don't draw in two steps - roughing them in first, then drawing on top to "refine" the forms. Don't bother with the second step. Every mark you put down should be one that you are confident in. That means that you need to think through each mark - identify where it starts and ends, if it should curve. Then ghost through that motion - this will increase your accuracy and general comfort with the drawing motion. Finally, put down the mark.

When it comes to ellipses, draw through them a few times. Don't go wild with them, always think about what kind of shape you're trying to achieve, but that shape is what's most important. The fact that you're going back to darken the "correct" lines shows me that you're too preoccupied with your drawing being clean rather than actually being right. If you notice in all of my examples, I'm not super clean. I'm thoughtful, and everything is planned, but I'm not worrying about making a drawing my parents will put up on the fridge.

Lastly, while I did mention that some of your intersections aren't right, don't worry too much about them. I recently added something to the lesson itself:

Before tackling this exercise, there's something I want you to acknowledge: The specific aspects of how to handle intersections outlined here and in the video linked below are not entirely correct. I have vastly simplified them, and this is completely intentional. This is for two reasons:

• Proper intersections can get very complicated. A student at this stage could easily become overwhelmed.

• This exercise is, in all honestly, not really about the intersections. It's about being able to arrange forms together in 3D space. Ultimately that is what I gauge when critiquing homework submissions, though general intersection mistakes would also be pointed out. Still, that should not be your focus.

So, while some of you may feel the desire to open up a 3D modeling program and test out the intersections yourselves, know that the results may be different, and you may end up confusing yourself far more than you need to.

Anyway, the other area where you need work is your organic forms with contour lines. The contour ellipses are solid - they wrap around the form very nicely. When you transition to using curves however, your shapes flatten out completely. They don't wrap around the forms, and you stop treating them like 3D forms. Instead, you go back to seeing them as 2D shapes, drawing the contour lines as lines that simply stretch from one edge to the other. If you don't believe that they're 3D, then that will not come through in your drawing.

If you haven't watched this video yet, do so. Otherwise, watch it again.

Your dissection's textures were pretty good, and your arrows were fairly organic (though the diamond-shaped heads were a bit weird). Please redo the organic forms with contour curves (2 pages) and the form intersections, and beforehand, reread those sections of the lesson. My lessons tend to be very wordy (I can't really help it) so reading the lessons over sometimes helps catch things that were missed initially.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-17 20:14

Generally quite good. Your dissections were very interesting, so your hard work definitely paid off. The one thing I noticed in your form intersections that came off as a little weird was your attempt to add hatching/shading lines to your cylinders. Those lines were flat, but your cylinder's surface is curved - hatching lines end up working as little contour curves, so they give contradicting information. I'm glad you only experimented with that in one place and seem to have decided that it wasn't the best route to take.

Another thing you should keep in mind moving forward is that when you're scanning in your homework, you should set your scanner's setting to "photo" rather than "drawing". Drawing tends to boost the contrast and get rid of a lot of the subtler nuances, resulting in something that looks especially harsh.

Anywho, lesson's complete. Onto the next one.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-18 01:23

I'll keep this short, because my arms feel like putty after helping my roommate take boxes to the post office. ... And bring them back because they were too heavy to ship.

Your arrows are solid.

Your organic forms with contour ellipses are okay, but there are two notable issues. First off, the ellipses aren't always filling out the entire form. Rather than sitting inside the form, you need to visualize these lines as wrapping around this 3D form, so they should sit on the surface and go all the way around. Secondly, you should be drawing through them to get a good curved shape. Right now the ellipses are uneven, bumpy and wobbly. This will be the case for a good long time, and drawing through your ellipses will both help you get a better shape (though messier) and will also help you build the muscle memory required to not have to draw through them all the time.

When you draw only the contour curves (not full ellipses), the curves don't wrap around the forms properly. They show me that you see the organic forms as 2D shapes rather than 3D forms. As such, in your mind's eye you are not trying to wrap the lines around a 3D form that warps in space, but rather simply drawing them from one edge to the other. I'm exaggerating of course, but that's the idea. This video talks about the idea.

Your dissections' textures were pretty cool. I like the tree bark one quite a bit. You did however miss the part in the exercise description where I said you should start this lesson out as an organic form with contour curves/ellipses. You jumped right into the dissection. You should draw a random organic form first, add the contour lines, THEN consider which textures you should add to it. I don't want you thinking ahead.

With the form intersections, in principle they're not bad. I do want to see you drawing through those ellipses though, and drawing through the forms as well. Each form should be drawn in its entirety, not just the parts that would be visible after the intersection. You're missing a lot of things I say in the lesson - I know my lessons are wordy, but you've gotta try and pay closer attention!

This wasn't short at all. I'm not sure I have it in me to be brief... Anyway, give the lesson another stab. You're pretty close to having it done really well, but you're missing a few key points that are keeping you from that.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-18 21:21

I took much longer on than I should have. Not good. :(

Wrong! It's perfectly fine to take as long as you need, as long as you do the tasks to the best of your ability. There is absolutely no timelimit, nor any benefit to finishing this stuff quickly. Speed comes with practice, and we've only just begun. I'm very glad that you did put in the time instead of rushing because you felt you weren't quick enough.

That said, your work is very, very well done. I especially loved the dissections, your textures were fantastic. The only critique I have to give you is that you should draw through your ellipses in your form intersections. Generally you actually did the ellipses fairly well, but you'll notice with your spheres that the ellipse/circle often came out somewhat uneven or at least not entirely circular.

Anywho, fantastic work. Go ahead and move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-19 23:06

Your arrows are looking good. Your dissections are pretty well done too. Your organic forms are a little hit-and-miss, though you get better as you go along. Sometimes your contour lines don't quite wrap around the forms, though here and there you get it right and accelerate the curve around the form instead of stopping abruptly at the edge. Here's what I mean. Keep practicing them, but I think you get the idea so I won't ask you to redo them and resubmit.

Your form intersections though are a little off. It's hard to put my finger on what's wrong, but one major issue that I see often are your boxes. Your angles are sometimes a little off (to the point where it doesn't necessarily look like the edges are perpendicular to one another) and more importantly, your far planes are almost always larger than your near planes. Your boxes in the 250 box challenge came out somewhat better, so it might be because you did them at the same time rather than doing the box challenge first.

I'd like you to redo the form intersections - first do one page using ONLY boxes, then do another page with other forms included. You may also want to reread the section of the lesson on form intersections and rewatch the video on them as well.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-21 16:27

Nice work! You struggle at first with the organic forms with contour curves (getting those curves to wrap around the forms) but your second page of them is much better. Your dissections are alright at first, but again, you show a marked improvement by the second page, shifting your focus more to surface texture than the forms you might see in your reference image (it's common to get distracted by the forms).

Your first page of for intersections are a bit iffy as well, but your second and third are really quite well done. I like the boldness of your lines, it shows great confidence. While you should work towards not overshooting your lines in the future, I think allowing yourself to do that here was a good decision, as it allowed you to carry through the energy without worrying too much. Confidence is always key.

Anyway, nice work, and I'm glad to see the marked improvement all across the board. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-22 21:46

Your arrows are alright. I did notice that in your organic forms, you only drew each ellipse once, rather than drawing through them. In general though, I'm noticing that they're a little too.. approximate. Here and there they don't fit within the organic form - it looks to me like you drew each one rather quickly and attempted to make up for it by drawing a lot of them. I'd prefer it if you took more care with each one, even if that meant you drew fewer ellipses. That doesn't mean to draw the mark slowly - instead, it means you should put more time into planning your approach before drawing the mark.

I also noticed that you didn't do a full page of the second section of that exercise - drawing the contour lines as curves rather than full ellipses. You didn't a few attempts at the bottom of page 3, but from what I can see, they're not great. Your contour curves are not wrapping around the forms. Watch this video if you haven't already to get an idea of what I mean.

Your dissections aren't bad. A little rushed - in general you shouldn't be rushing forward to finish everything quickly - but in principle they're alright. At this point I would like to discourage you from trying to include form detail from your reference (like the mouse ears/legs). Just focus on the surface texture.

Your form intersections aren't terrible. They are somewhat rushed, however. You should be drawing through all of your ellipses, like the ellipse exercises from lesson 1. Furthermore, rather than a bunch of independent intersections, I want to see one large scene on the page, where all of the forms are connected. Start with something in the middle, and then just branch off from it in all directions until you fill the page.

As for the rushing - again, take more time preparing to draw each mark. Follow the ghosting method - identify the mark you want to make, ghost through it to get used to the motion, and then after enough time is spent to make the motion comfortable, draw the line in one quick, smooth execution.

I'd like you to do one page of organic forms with contour curves (not ellipses), and two more pages of form intersections. Don't rush.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-23 20:21

I... don't really follow. Are you referring to how when you transition from contour ellipses to contour curves, you have to pick one half (approximately) of the ellipse as being the visible part of the contour? And how it seems somewhat arbitrary which side you choose?

I talk about that in the video that's linked in the lesson - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U17SG8eYX6Y - specifically when I talk about the metaphor of turning a disc/CD in space. I also go into it in these notes.

The best way to wrap your head around it though, once you've watched that video and read the notes, is to jump in and start drawing. It may come to you more intuitively than more theoretical explanation.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-28 16:58

1. Your arrows are generally fairly well done. The lines do show a little hesitation (likely from being drawn a little slow) but it is generally quite difficult to draw two lines that run along each other as is required to draw the arrows, so that is just something that will go away with practice.

2. Your organic forms read as very, very flat. This video was included in the exercise description - if you haven't had the chance to watch it, you absolutely should. Hell, if you have watched it, watch it again. In the video I explain the idea of wrapping your contour curves around the forms, accelerating your curves as you come close to the edge. Looking at your work, it does not seem to me that you yourself are convinced that you are drawing 3D objects. The contour curves you've drawn stop very abruptly at the edge, rather than wrapping around a voluminous form. This is something you will need to work on.

3. Your form intersections are going in a good direction, but due to the fact that you're not drawing through your ellipses as explained in lesson 1, they tend to come out very uneven in shape. You should always be drawing through your ellipses - you and everyone else at this stage are far from having had enough practice to nail an ellipse in the first try, and drawing through them not only improves the shape of the ellipse you're working with at the time (despite making it somewhat messier), but it also gives your muscles a greater deal of practice with each ellipse. Just be sure to try and keep the ellipses tight, rather than wildly drawing around the ellipse over and over. Another thing I noticed is your approach in the last page, where you drew with a red pen, then cleaned up with black. Don't do this - I want you to have confidence in your first lines, even if it means that your drawing comes out a little messier. We are more focused on the integrity of your shapes and forms, and the confidence of your lines. When people tend to draw over rougher lines to 'clean them up', they have a tendency to be too hesitant and timid. Learning to be confident in your first set of lines will work towards fixing this in the long run. Oh, and yes - absolutely ghost your lines, all the time. Spend most of your time thinking and preparing to draw the mark, then execute relatively swiftly.

I'd like you to take another stab at this lesson. You don't have to redo the arrows, but you should try the organic forms, dissections and form intersections again.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-28 17:38

You actually did a pretty solid job of the intersections. Attempting to draw your ellipses in one shot is risky business though, since it will make your ellipses come out wonky at times. Yours aren't too bad, but there are a few that were somewhat more compromised than others. I'm still a big proponent of drawing through your ellipses, as it gives you a more consistent shape and far more training for your muscles.

Your dissections are... whoa. There's a whole lot going on. Sometimes you get a little too scribbly - try to avoid any sort of randomness - but I see a lot of great stuff going on. Nice work overall.

Your organic forms with contour curves, however, leave something to be desired. The contour curves do not wrap around the forms - they reach the edge and instead of giving the illusion of wrapping around, they stop abruptly. This causes us to read the forms as being flatter than they should be.

On page 9, you've got an upside down Y. The arm of the Y that comes out towards the left is actually quite well done. Those contour curves feel like they're running along the surface of a large bulbous mass, and they're wrapping around, curling under it and continuing on. Actually, in general the curves on that page are better. The previous pages don't have that wrap-around. If you're still unsure of what I mean watch/rewatch this video on the subject.

Your arrows are fairly solid too.

I would like you to do two more pages of the organic forms with contour curves, just to make sure you have a handle on them. Yours in this submission definitely improve by that last page, but I still want to be certain.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-30 19:50

You generally did a rather good job. In your first page, your lines were kind of loose and timid, but you got much bolder and more confident by the second. I still do see situations however where you get timid, and this messes with your lines. Don't be afraid to make mistakes - if you do, just move along all the same. Worrying about making a mistake will cause you to be timid - and it takes confidence to draw things that look solid and convincing.

Your arrows were very well done, and your second page of organic forms with contour lines were pretty solid. I did notice that you did two pages of organic forms with contour curves rather than one with ellipses and the other with curves. I'll let it slide this time, but you should be aware of the value of starting off with ellipses - it helps you get used to the idea of wrapping those lines around the contour of the form.

Your dissections were fairly well done, form-wise. Where you did apply texture, it came out fairly well, but you didn't seem to do that too often.

One thing that did jump out at me though was the size of your drawings. Often it is better to draw somewhat larger on the page. When you draw small, the tip of your pen will end up larger in relation to your drawing, so the lines will end up looking overly thick, and will have no subtlety to them. If you draw larger, it'll give you a greater degree of freedom.

Your form intersections are pretty good - but there's one thing I want to point out. You approached them by roughing them in very timidly, and then going back over with 'cleaner' lines. I don't want you to do this, as it allows you to get away without developing your confidence.

Instead, I want you to draw those first rough-ins as though they are your final lines. I still want you to draw through your shapes and forms completely, but don't draw them timidly. They should not be faint scratches on the page - they should be full lines that you put thought and consideration behind.

Some people get concerned when I say this - that the final resulting drawing ends up having a lot of extra lines, and may potentially look messy. The fact of the matter is that we're not attempting to make clean and beautiful drawings. This is an exercise to help you understand how to draw solid and convincing forms.

Besides, while we're not after pristinely clean images, we are going after a different kind of presentation - one that shows forethought and planning behind every mark. Every mark made on the page should be the result of consideration and thought. Each mark should fall into one of two categories - a mark that would be a part of what we'd consider that final, clean drawing, OR a line that helps you as the artist understand the forms you are drawing. That includes contour lines, drawing through forms, etc. If a line does not contribute to either of these categories, then it should not be drawn. If it does contribute to one of these, then it is perfectly valid and should be drawn with confidence.

Anyways, you still did fairly well so I will mark this lesson as complete. As you move forward onto the next lesson, make sure you keep in mind what I've said above.

Uncomfortable

2015-06-30 20:17

There's a couple issues that I'm noticing here.

The most significant of the two is the quality of your linework. It's all very sketchy. Rather than drawing one mark per line, putting thought and planning behind every single one and using the ghosting method to identify, prepare and execute your marks, you're being very rough. You're essentially thinking right on the page instead of planning as a separate step.

That is absolutely something you're going to have to work towards fixing. It is most apparent in the form intersections, and honestly, I can fully understand why. That exercise can easily be overwhelming, so it makes sense that you'd go back to a method of drawing you feel more comfortable with, even without thinking about it.

The second issue is your contour lines. What a contour line essentially does, is it follows right along the surface of a form to quite literally tell the viewer, "this is how the surface of this form warps through 3D space." Because of this, when you've got rounded surfaces (like all of the ones we draw for this exercise), it's integral that the contour line wraps around the form completely. It's a very common mistake for the contour line to end abruptly once it reaches the edge of the form, without giving the illusion that this line actually exists in 3D space, and is simply wrapping around back to where we can no longer see it.

I made a video about this - it was linked in the lesson, and if you have already seen it, you should watch it again.

Some of your dissections have some interesting surface textures, but I do think that at times you are getting a little confused between what constitutes surface texture and what constitutes form information. Often times you try to include entirely separate forms in the same way you'd apply surface texture, so it ends up looking all strange. Surface texture wraps around a form, while new forms will protrude out into 3D space independently. For example, the lion was primarily form - the snout and all was applied as texture, but they really contain their own forms. When looking at a lion, the main texture you'd pull is the fur.

Your first page of arrows was done fairly well, though the couple subsequent pages were a little less confident. Keep in mind that when you apply hatching-lines to an object, they work as little contour lines. So, when you put straight hatching on a cylindrical form (like the one you've got an arrow wrapping around), it tells the viewer that the surface of that cylinder is in fact not round, but flat. It gets confusing to the eye, and doesn't read well.

I'd like you to take another stab at the whole lesson, taking into consideration everything I've explained here. Be sure to watch that video as well. Also, I wanted to point out that your form intersections - line quality aside - were actually done quite well. You understand how the forms work in 3D space (mostly) but it's the execution of the lines that leaves much to be desired.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-02 19:28

Rather than guessing at what it is that isn't quite clear (which is totally natural, everyone learns in different ways), it's much easier for me if you make an attempt at the lesson and show me your work. That way I can very clearly point out what you did wrong so we can get things straightened out.

That said, since you haven't yet completed Lesson 1, please go back and submit that set of homework before moving onto Lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-02 19:38

Pretty well done for four hours. Generally I see that you understood the purpose behind the exercises, so I'll mark the lesson as complete.

There are a couple things I'd like to point out though.

• On your arrows, your line quality was a little wobbly. These are especially tough for sure, because you have to match up two lines, but that is an area where you should continue to practice - specifically putting more time into planning/preparing, and then executing more quickly so your brain doesn't interfere in the drawing motion and cause your hand to wobble.

• Your dissections were pretty good, though I did see a lot of instances of you thinking of what you wanted the dissection to be before actually drawing it. Remember that the exercise starts off with a random organic form, as you'd draw it in the previous one, and then once that's done you start thinking about what kind of textures you could add to the surfaces

• For the cat-sausage, consider how your eye handles that drawing when you look at it. Where does your eye go? What parts stand out, and which parts recede? Right now it doesn't really have a clear focal point - instead, there's a lot of contrast all over, because of how each individual strand of fur is drawn. This is what makes fur remarkably difficult to draw. Instead, it'll often be drawn in clumps, forgoing the individual strands altogether. Often you can get away with just breaking up the silhouette of the form. This might help a little bit. You won't have to worry about this much for the next couple lessons though.

• In your form intersections, you seem to be a little bit stiff, worrying too much about nailing all of your lines. I often see this when people use an underdrawing, and then draw on top of it with a darker line to "clean things up". This generally doesn't do much to help one's confidence. Rather, I find it's more effective to attempt to do these kinds of exercises in a single stage. Draw through your forms in confident lines, and don't worry about the fact that there will be lots of extra lines when your drawing's done. Rather, when you are drawing, consider whether or not your next mark will contribute to the final drawing. It can contribute by being one of those 'clean' lines, or by helping you as the artist understand the forms you're drawing (like contour lines, drawing through forms, etc.)

Uncomfortable

2015-07-05 17:32

Very nice work! Despite your fears, your dissections came out very nicely. I'm not noticing any of the common pitfalls here - your contour lines generally wrap nicely around the forms, your dissections have explored a lot of great textures without resorting to any sort of randomness or scribbling, and your form intersections are looking nice and solid. Just be sure to draw through your ellipses in the intersections, it'll help keep your elliptical shapes more even.

Right now I haven't moved ahead with developing the drawabox site further. The designer I want to work with is currently busy with other things, and I'm caught up in some other projects as well. Actually building those features into the site won't take long at all, but if it so happens that we haven't made much headway in that area by mid-august, I'll just repost the lessons like I did last time.

Also, an ultrafine sharpie should be okay, just be careful with how much pressure you use. Worse cast scenario, you can draw bigger so the lines themselves end up thinner in relation to the size of the whole drawing.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-05 17:55

Well, to start with, your arrows are really solid.

Your organic forms with contour curves are exhibiting a very common issue though. The contour curves aren't wrapping around the 3D forms - they look as though they simply go from one edge straight to the other, without giving the illusion that they continue on around. Because of this, they look flat. Check out this video, which was included in the lesson.

Because the dissections extend directly from this exercise, they exhibit similar issues. Some of your textures were interesting though, although somewhat simplistic - which leads me to believe that you didn't look at much photo reference to find interesting textures to use.

Lastly, your form intersections are getting there, but there's a couple things I'd like you to do differently.

First off, the exercise stated that you should draw a single network of connected forms per page, rather than individual clusters. Secondly, draw through your forms and ellipses completely. For the ellipses, you're only drawing through them once, so the shapes are often uneven. This especially messes up your spheres. For your forms, drawing through all of them completely will give you a better sense of how they sit in 3D space.

Lastly, watch this video on form intersections, which was also included in the lesson. Follow the step-by-step process that I outline there for drawing the form intersections.

I'd like you to take another stab at this lesson. You can leave the arrows out, since you already did those quite well, but I'd like to see two more pages of organic forms with contour curves, two pages of dissections, and two pages of form intersections. Be sure to watch the videos!

Uncomfortable

2015-07-07 20:00

Your arrows and intersections are well done (though for the intersections, I generally prefer to see people drawing through their ellipses). Your dissections are alright, though they look a little more stylized/cartoony - you should spend more time studying your photo reference (or if you didn't use photo reference to inform the textures, do so!). There are subtler details and rhythms there in the textures that come with a greater degree of focus and attention.

Your organic forms with contour curves need work, however. The contour lines don't give the illusion that they go beyond the edge of the form and continue to wrap around it in 3D space. Looking at them right now, they read as flat 2D shapes, with contour lines that simply go from edge to edge and stop abruptly.

This video, which was linked in the exercise (though lots of people seem to miss it) discusses that common pitfall. Be sure to give it a watch or two.

I'd like to see two more pages of organic forms with contour curves (as opposed to ellipses) .

Uncomfortable

2015-07-09 18:48

Your arrows are fairly well done, but I am a bit put off by the light, somewhat timid touch with which you draw some of your lines. In the organic forms, the outer shape has a nice confident line (which is great), but your ellipses are timid and often half-drawn. Don't think in terms of, this line should be rough/light, and this line should be dark and prominent. All of your lines should be confident and apparent. We can apply extra weight afterwards, but there should be no lines that you do not confidently present as part of your drawing. So, the ellipses and the contour curves should be complete and continuous. You may make mistakes, but that's fine. These are just exercises, after all.

Your dissections are alright, though they do suffer from the same problem. The contour lines are wrapping well around the forms, giving a sense of volume, but those timid lines really undermine their solidity.

In your form intersections, there's only really two things that are off - it's general roughness/sloppiness. Use the ghosting technique when you're drawing your lines, and don't use more than one mark per line. Don't let it get chickens-scratchy. If you want to add weight after the fact, that's fine, but when you're drawing the forms initially, it's just a single, clean, ghosted mark per line. Using the ghosting technique here will also help straighten your lines.

Secondly, you don't have to apply hatching, but when you do you should be much more thoughtful and conscientious about it. Strive to be tidy and neat, don't let your presentation suffer where it could simply be improved by taking more time with it.

Your forms generally do show improvement over the boxes from the last lesson, but I'd still like you to complete the 250 box challenge. Once you've done that, please redo the organic forms/dissections/form intersections. It'll be nice to see the degree of improvement after the challenge.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-10 19:06

Not bad! Your exercises are generally well done. There's just a couple things I want to point out, but I will mark this lesson as complete and let you move on.

First off, in the dissections, try to avoid any textures that deal in randomness. The main example of this would be the sides of the eyeball, where you've got a lot of randomly squiggly lines. Instead of relying on randomness, try to identify the rhythms that are present in the surface textures you are studying. You generally did this well, but I wanted to draw your attention to that specific case.

Secondly, while I like how you generally executed your form intersections - you drew confidently and did not think too hard about trying to be overly tidy (being clean is important, but it is secondary to understanding your forms) - you need to keep an eye on your boxes. There are many situations where the near plane/far plane size relationships are reversed, and the far plane ends up larger than the near plane. These are things you should be very mindful of.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-12 15:26

Ah yeah, it looks like you submitted your homework just a few hours after the challenge thread hit 6 months of age, and got automatically locked by reddit. I'll have to make a new one.

Anyway, your cylinders aren't bad, but I don't really see a whole lot of what I talked about in the how-to-draw-a-cylinder video. I talked about using the minor axis and constructing cylinders within boxes, but you didn't do any of that. Did.. you watch the video?

Anyway, since you did the challenge I'll mark this as complete, but it's important that you watch/read the material included in the challenge post instead of just charging forward.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-12 15:39

There's a couple things I'm noticing overall. Most significantly, your linework is very wobbly and shaky. This tells me that you're not using the ghosting technique - which you should be using whenever making any marks. This includes ellipses, lines, curves, etc.

In your organic forms with contour ellipses, your ellipses are kind of all over the place. You will definitely need to practice being able to fit ellipses to a specific angle/location/size.

That said, your organic forms with contour curves were generally well done. Still wobbly, but the curves wrap around the forms nicely, creating the illusion of 3D form.

Your dissections, as you said yourself, are fairly weak. There's two major issues I see.

• This exercise starts off as just a random organic form from the previous exercise. You did this correctly for the most part, but with the seal and the bird-head, you got too wrapped up in capturing a specific form. That's not what this exercise is about - we deal with things like that much later, but by attempting that now, you're distracting yourself from the actual goal of this exercise.

• If you did use photo reference for your textures (to be honest it doesn't really look like you did, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), you didn't pay very close attention to them. This is a common issue amongst beginners, so it's not particularly abnormal. The thing about our brains is that the second we look away from our reference image, we forget 50% of what we observed, and oversimplify another 40%. Because of this, we need to constantly look back to our reference, studying the little patterns and rhythms in the details and carrying them over one by one to our drawing. It is a difficult skill to learn, and it takes a lot of time, but it is integral.

Aside from the lack of ghosting, your form intersections were pretty decent. Don't forget to draw through your ellipses though, you're often being rather loose with them, resulting in uneven shapes.

Now, this is going to sound excessive, but I'd like you to do 8 pages of organic forms with contour ellipses, so you can really practice getting your ellipses to fit snugly within the organic forms. Once you've done that, I'd like you to do another 1 page of dissections, paying special and careful attention to your photo reference. Focus on the surface detail only, not on the forms. Surface detail is the information that wraps around the form, while forms themselves will protrude out into 3D space.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-13 20:10

The solidity of your intersections is pretty good, though the forms themselves leave something to be desired. Your boxes often come out skewed and your cylinders have issues as well. I'd strongly recommend that you take a look at the 250 box challenge and the 250 cylinder challenge. Each of those has videos in the challenge post that should help you better understand the forms themselves. I don't think you absolutely have to do the full challenges (obviously it's to your advantage to do so), but you should at least give each a little more practice.

I really liked your organic forms with contour curves. Great volumes, great forms. Your dissections were certainly lacking however - not in the forms, but you didn't do much at all as far as surface texture goes. Right now I'm mostly concerned with form, but I think it is greatly to your benefit to practice applying different surface textures that you've pulled from observing reference images (or from life).

The arrows were solid as well.

Though I'm disappointed in what was missing from the dissections, I'm still going to mark this lesson as complete, as my focus lies primarily with your understanding of form.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-14 19:49

Congratulations on getting into art school!

Looking at your work, I did notice some issues with the organic forms with contour curves - those contour curves aren't producing the illusion of wrapping around the forms. Rather, they look to be stopping abruptly when they hit the edge. I talk about this a lot in the video linked in the exercise.

Your dissections suffer from the same issue, though your texturing was fairly well done. In the future however, consider how you might go about implying a particular texture without using a lot of line/contrast. Right now your knitted texture is very busy - which is great for a focal point, but when actually using it in an illustration, it's important to consider how you'd want to be able to render that texture in areas that are not focal points.

For your form intersection, there's one thing that I think you missed in the exercise description:

There's one thing to note here, though, and it's important. Since this exercise is complicated enough as it is, we don't want to make it harder. So, to simplify things, I urge you to avoid forms that are "stretched" in any one dimension. Long tubes, long boxes, etc. These will make your life hell, because they bring a lot of perspective distortion into the mix.

Look at figure 3.3, and note how the form I chose is fairly equilateral; it's the roughly the same size in all three dimensions. These forms are going to be easier to manipulate.

You've got a lot of forms that are highly stretched, which really complicates the scene. This is causing you to falter at times. Rather than exploring each resulting problem individually, it's generally easier to have the exercise done without the extra perspective complication. Once you get a handle on doing it the simpler way, it actually becomes much simpler to tackle more complicated situations.

Another issue I noticed is that you're not drawing through your ellipses. Because of this, they're coming out fairly stiff and uneven.

I'd like you to redo the organic forms with contour curves (2 pages) and the form intersections (2 pages).

Uncomfortable

2015-07-15 19:52

Your form intersections are generally done quite well. My only concern there is that you appear to be drawing in two stages - first, roughing in the lines more faintly, then drawing the cleaner lines with a heavier mark. I want you to draw only the first stage, doing so with confidence rather than expecting to be able to clean up in the next step. Continue to draw through your ellipses and your forms (that's great), but every mark you make should be drawn with confidence, because it belongs there. If a mark does not contribute to the drawing, or to your understanding of the forms, then it should not be drawn at all.

Anyway, that exercise was still done well. That's just something to keep in mind.

Your dissections were alright as well, though they suffer from a problem that is rooted in your organic forms with contour curves. Your contour curves do not wrap around the forms, they stop abruptly at the edges. You need to focus on producing the illusion of a rounded form. This video, which was linked in the lesson, talks about this in greater depth. Be sure to watch it.

I'd like you to do two more pages of organic forms with contour curves.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-15 20:03

The dissections weren't bad. It's more of a matter of your textures being a little simplistic. That'll improve as you expose yourself more to drawing from photo reference, rather than your imagination. Just remember to spend a lot more time studying your reference photos rather than drawing. We have a habit of immediately simplifying whatever we see within seconds, so it's important to look back at the reference and refresh your memory very often.

There are two exercises however that you will need to work on. One is the organic forms with contour curves - your contour lines don't wrap around the organic forms, rather they stop abruptly when they hit the edge. I talk about this at length in this video, which was linked in the lesson. Be sure to watch it if you haven't already - and if you have, watch it again.

Your form intersections are the other part that need work. It's not that the forms are bad, but rather your approach shows a lot of bad habits. The forms themselves are fairly well drawn.

I do not however want you to get in the habit of drawing very faintly, and then 'cleaning up' with another pass. I want you to think before each mark you make - consider whether or not it is going to contribute to the final drawing or to your understanding of the forms you're drawing (like drawing through ellipses and forms, which you should absolutely be doing). If a line you want to make doesn't contribute to either of these two categories, then it should not be drawn. But if it does contribute to either of these two things, then it should be drawn confidently. Do not expect to go back over it again to clean things up, and do not worry about being very clean. Instead, be thoughtful and draw with purpose. This exercise is not about drawing an arrangement of forms, but rather about exploring and understanding the forms in a scene.

It's hard to tell, but it does kind of look like you may have done an underdrawing with pencil and then erased it afterwards. If that's the case, I want to remind you that you should not be using pencil.

I'd like you to do two more pages of organic forms with contour curves, and two more pages of form intersections.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-20 20:15

Generally very solid work! Confident lines, nice textures and constructions. I do want to remind you to draw through your ellipses in the form intersections, though. And as for going over your work, I generally don't encourage it. It's not that it's bad, it's just that people have a tendency to use that as an excuse to think less about what they draw with the thinner pen, because in their minds, they're going to "clean up" in a second step. I always emphasize drawing in a single step only, for that reason.

Ultimately from the looks of it, you only added line weight, and you thought through that initial construction quite well, so you didn't suffer from this common issue. Still, don't worry too much about that sort of thing - they are just exercises after all.

Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-21 19:34

Pretty solid work. The only thing I want to warn you against is drawing your form intersection constructions in two stages (roughing things in lightly, then 'cleaning' it up with another pass. It's the second step that I don't recommend, as it often undermines a lot of the lessons we learned in the previous lesson about how to attack drawing things like ellipses. Furthermore, having the option to clean up after the fact tends to make us think and plan less while drawing in the first stage. It's still very important to think before putting down any mark about whether or not it will contribute to the drawing, or your understanding of the forms you are depicting (like drawing through forms and ellipses). If the line contributes to either of those two categories, then it should be drawn confidently. If it does not, it should not be drawn at all.

That said, your rough pass looks very solid - it's just faint. It'd have been perfect if you'd have done the same thing, just with the pen you used for the clean-up pass.

As for your question, you seem to be doing a pretty decent job with textures as it stands. What I always stress about conveying textural detail is to take the time to study and observe your subject matter. Every texture has a specific rhythm and arrangement to it, even those that seem random and overwhelming. Take the time to study and identify that rhythm, separating the major elements from smaller, less integral bits of information.

It's always important to spend more time than you expect you'll need, actually looking at your reference material. Our memories have a tendency of being very weak, forgetting and oversimplifying information the moment we look away from the reference image. Because of this, we need to train ourselves to look back at it constantly, spending only a second or two between glances.

Like I said though, as far as texture goes you seem to be on the right track.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-23 20:08

Your form intersections were pretty solid - I'm not really focusing here on the intersections themselves (the name's kind of misleading) but rather your ability to draw many forms together in the same scene without having them look all wacky in relation to one another. You nailed that, especially in the last two pages.

Your organic forms and dissections definitely need work though - first off, for your organic forms I can see that you struggled with getting your contour lines to wrap around the forms. After a while, you were able to do it a little better with the full contour ellipse done in pencil underneath, but you're still not quite getting it when you're doing it without that extra help. I'm sure you've watched this video already, but I want you to watch it again. Focus on the part where I talk about the curve accelerating around the form.

I see what you mean when discussing the dissections. When doing them, I don't want you to worry about creating objects. Don't fuss with making a snake, or a fish, or something that exists. You've made an unidentifiable organic form with no texture on it. That's step one. Now, you have to place texture on it.

Looking at your photo reference, you'll see two types of information. You've got form information - that's the stuff that has its own volume, that extends out into 3D space. Then you've got texture information, which wraps around forms. It might extend a little into 3D space (think bumpy surfaces) but it generally just follows another form.

It's that second category of information that you want to pull.

Now, we have a natural tendency to simplify what we remember - and the moment you look away from your photo reference to draw what you saw, your brain immediately starts simplifying that information. 90% of the information you captured in that glance is now useless. Most people don't realize this - they remember a simplified version, so they'll just draw that. What you've got to do is force yourself to look back an instant later, and refresh your memory.

When looking at the photo, focus on what you see. What elements are there? Bumps? Fuzz? Is it smooth, is it porous? If there are little spots, are they applied regularly across the whole surface, or do they cluster in little groups? What is the rhythm of these details? Every texture has a rhythm, even the ones that seem random. It may be hard to see, and it make take a while to discern, but what you're really carrying over into your drawing is that rhythm.

Anyway, I'd like you to take another shot at the organic forms with contour curves (without the pencil ellipses) and the dissections.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-25 21:38

If you want me to critique your work, you've got to start at the very beginning, and not move on until I've marked each prerequisite lesson as complete. You can't start off in the middle, unfortunately.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-25 21:56

Nice work! I agree with much of your assessments, and was quite pleased with your dissections as well. You definitely have room to grow, but it's just a matter of practicing these exercises as you move forward. You seem to know what to aim for, and are making the right steps to move towards it.

As I am quite satisfied with your homework, I'll mark this lesson complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-26 15:18

Aha, so you accidentally posted on the wrong account. Sorry for not critiquing yesterday then, but you know how it goes.

Your arrows are pretty decent. Interesting dramatic curves and twists.

Your organic forms do need some work however. You're close to getting them down, but a lot of your contour lines fail to really wrap around the form properly. Instead of wrapping around, they have a tendency of just hitting the edge and stopping, without creating that illusion of continuation. Some of yours were better than others, so I think it's just a matter of pushing yourself a little harder. Here's a breakdown of which ones were done correctly hand which weren't. You'll notice that sometimes one was partially done correctly, and partially incorrectly. Definitely check out this video if you haven't already - and rewatch it if you have. It goes over this very issue, and talks about how to accelerate your curve so it feels like it continues on behind the form.

Your dissections suffer from the same problem, so the volumes themselves are not terribly convincing. Extra practice with the previous exercise will help with this. Furthermore however, while your textures weren't necessarily bad, they could be done better. When you study a reference image, the moment you look away, the vast majority of what you have seen will immediately be simplified in your mind. It's an evolutionary skill we've developed that's helped keep our species going for hundreds of thousands of years, but when it comes to drawing, it's a big hurdle we all need to conquer. So, if most of the information you gleaned from your reference in a glance is now useless, the solution is to look back at the reference after drawing for a second or two. Most beginner artists are unaware of this problem, so they'll continue drawing for some time, recording the information in its simplified form. It's extremely important to look back over and over, carrying over tiny bits of information at a time and spending a lot of time really studying your reference. Focus on how the elements are organized, their rhythms and patterns. Sometimes you may see a texture that has a lot of little pores and spots - the beginner thing to do is to recognize this and then draw a bunch of pores and spots on your form. Instead, consider how they're grouped together, whether they are uniformly covering the surface, evenly spaced, or if they exist in small clusters.

You're not too far off the mark here either. It's just a matter of pushing yourself just that little bit harder.

Lastly, the form intersections - these are definitely challenging. There's a bunch of things I'm noticing here that you could change technique-wise to improve your results.

• First off, draw through your ellipses a few times - don't try and nail them in one shot. If you do, your form will either be uneven, or in this case, the lines will be chicken-scratchy and bumpy.

• Secondly, don't attempt to draw these in two stages. You know that common method of drawing that involves roughing things in first, then cleaning up with a darker line. In this case, that second clean-up stage is something you need to set aside. All of the focus needs to be on that first step. Feel absolutely free to draw through those ellipses and draw through those forms, and do so confidently - don't worry about the fact that you're adding extra lines, so long as those lines really contribute to either that final drawing or your understanding of the forms you're drawing. If the line you wish to draw doesn't contribute, then don't draw it. Otherwise, draw it with confidence. We're not trying to make clean and tidy drawings here, we're trying to understand the forms and how they exist in relation to one another.

• Use the ghosting technique from lesson 1. This should be applied every time you need to draw anything freehand. It applies to both straight and curving lines, and even ellipses. It forces you to think and plan before drawing every single mark, and also makes you consider whether or not a given line should really be drawn, or if it doesn't actually contribute anything.

• In the lesson, I emphasized the need to avoid forms that are stretched in any one dimension - long tubes, long boxes, long cones, etc. The problem with these is that they bring too much perspective distortion into the mix, and that adds more complexity to an already difficult exercise. Instead, use forms that are more equilateral - whose all three dimensions are roughly equal, and that could roughly fit within a cube.

• Lastly, I think you would benefit immensely from tackling the 250 box challenge. I am noticing that many of your boxes show some level of discomfort when it comes to rotating them arbitrarily in 3D space. The challenge includes some helpful notes and a video, and the challenge itself will help give you the practice you need to really solidify your comfort level with that concept.

Anyway, I'd like you to try the organic forms, dissections and form intersections again, and before tackling the form intersections I strongly encourage you to try the 250 box challenge. I feel that you're very close to getting these things, but just needed a bit of extra direction and a firm push.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-27 22:20

I think you're being a bit too hard on yourself. Humility is good, but self-deprecation leads to a lack of confidence, which will hinder your progress. That said, I'm glad to say that I see a lot of confidence in your line work!

Your work here is very strong. The form intersections demonstrate a great sense of spacial awareness, and your dissections' textures are nicely varied and complex. Your contour lines wrap convincingly around all of your organic forms, creating a strong illusion of volume, and your arrows/ribbons give a good sense of a flat object moving through 3D space.

I really have no criticisms to give, and am saving this one to my collection of exemplary submissions. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-07-29 22:22

Not bad. I noticed early on that your organic forms with contour lines seem to demonstrate some issues with wrapping the contour lines around the forms, but by the time you reach the dissections, you seem to improve dramatically on that front, drawing forms that seem to really convey a strong sense of volume. Your textures are also a fairly decent start, that will be expanded upon in the next few lessons.

With your form intersections, they're alright - I can definitely see a sort of nervousness that keeps you from drawing bigger. Drawing small can present problems, as the tip of your pen ends up being larger relative to the drawing, so it comes out clunkier. You didn't seem to suffer from this too much, but it is something to generally be aware of. Draw bigger if you can, and don't just tuck into a corner of a page. You've got the whole thing, fill it up.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but you do seem to have some discomfort with drawing your boxes - your angles aren't always correct (sometimes the boxes seem skewed), and at times you draw your far planes larger than your near planes. Check out the 250 box challenge next - there's a video on that post that should explain the concept, and the challenge itself will give you some much needed practice.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-06 01:12

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

2015-08-06 02:51

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

2015-08-07 02:37

You did a pretty solid job. Your arrows are very nice - extremely fluid and they give a good sense of flat shapes moving through 3D space.

Your organic forms with contour lines were very well done as well - the contour lines wrap very confidently around the forms.

Your dissections are alright as well, though I think they got a bit weaker than they could have because you jumped too early into texturing. The exercise was outlined as starting with the organic form with contour lines, just as the previous one. Then, once that's complete, you apply textures. Your forms ended up somewhat flatter because you rushed forwards. The textures themselves came out pretty nicely though. I definitely do want to recommend however, when dealing with hairy textures, be careful of generating too much contrast and noise. Instead of drawing every individual strand of hair, aggregate them into clumps. Like this

Your form intersections are pretty good. There is one habit you're demonstrating here that I want you to break, however. In drawing these, you approached them in a two stage process. First you roughed them in, then you went back over with a darker line to 'clean up'.

I want you to avoid cleaning up in the future. Reason being, those cleaner lines are not drawn confidently, because you're too worried about getting the line right. The rough lines, however, are much more confident. You should keep to those, but just draw them in darker the first time around. It's totally fine if you end up with a lot of lines on there (what with drawing through your forms and whatnot). We're not after clean drawings, we want to be able to draw confidently, while making sure we fully understand the forms we're drawing.

Anyway, you generally did very well, and your forms all look quite solid (aside from the dissections, and I know you're fully capable of doing that correctly). So, feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-07 01:56

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

2015-08-08 22:33

We're glad to have you! Just a few things I want to outline about how this subreddit works, and one restriction that's active during the month of August.

You are of course welcome to tackle these lessons in any order and any quantity with whatever medium you choose, but if you would like your homework reviewed and critiqued, you are expected to start from the beginning, and only move on when the lesson's been marked as complete. Also, all of the lesson's homework should be completed when you submit, not just part of it. Lastly, it must be completed in the medium the lesson prescribes (which you did, I'm just pointing that out for posterity).

Now, unfortunately this month I'm totally swamped at work (hurray for crunch time), so I've temporarily limited my critiques to those who support drawabox through patreon. You can read more about this in the announcement. Regular open critiques will resume on September 1st.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-09 16:13

It all depends on your comfort level with cylinders. If you don't feel like you have a solid understanding of how they work, do the challenge. Otherwise feel free to tackle the form intersections. I'd still recommend that you watch the video in the cylinder challenge post, and read through the notes.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-09 19:35

Looking pretty solid! Your arrows flow nicely through 3D space. Your organic forms with contour lines are pretty well done, though you should continue to remind yourself about wrapping your contour lines around the forms. You have pretty much achieved this, but at times you are just short of really nailing that illusion of the line continuing around the form instead of stopping at the edge. This will improve with practice, as long as you keep yourself aware of it.

Your dissections were quite strong - lots of great texture experimentation. Your form intersections were also really quite good. I love the complexity of your arrangements. The only thing I want to stress - remember that the under drawing (where you drew through everything) is what's important, not the cleaned up final drawing. You did a good job, so I'm not admonishing you for anything, it's just that people have a tendency of getting distracted by the clean-up phase. Usually I just discourage people from cleaning things like this up at all, asking them instead to focus on laying in the forms and drawing through them.

Anyway, again, great work. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-19 20:43

Not bad, but there's a couple things I want to point out.

For one thing, you need to draw through your ellipses. All of them. For the foreseeable future. When you don't draw through your ellipses, they come out slightly bumpy at times, or uneven. It doesn't allow you to capture a solid shape, and the shape is what is most important. This applies to all of your organic forms and your form intersections.

Secondly, your organic forms with contour curvesare generally pretty good. The only problem is that nearing the edge of the form, they curves need to accelerate just a bit more to convincingly wrap around the form. You're definitely on the right track, you just need to push it a little further. Keep that in mind when you practice these exercises in the future.

For the dissections, you missed one aspect of the exercise - you were supposed to start off with an organic form with contour curves, just like the ones done for the previous exercise. You focused too much on jumping straight into drawing a specific object, rather than applying textures to a miscellaneous form. I mean, you did do that as well, and it was done well, I just want to emphasize the importance of forgetting about form and focusing only on wrapping the texture around the random organic form with contour curves.

Your form intersections were pretty solid by the end as well, aside from the need to draw through your ellipses. One thing I did catch though is that if you apply crosshatching - or really anything extra - to a drawing, you need to take the time to apply it cleanly and neatly. Don't be sloppy with anything, or it'll take your whole drawing down several notches in terms of quality.

Anyway, fundamentally you did fairly well so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. I do want you to pay special attention to all of the points I mentioned above however. They are important, and will bite you in the ass later.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-19 20:57

It definitely needs work, as you pointed out.

With your arrows, you may want to start off with arrangements that are less challenging. Your main concern here is getting the two lines to line up properly so they form a plane between them. Always be sure to close off the shape (you're leaving the ends open in a lot of places), and try to start off with smaller ribbons. Ghost through the lines as well, trying to put more thought and preparation behind each line.

Your organic forms with contour ellipses are pretty good - you're drawing through the ellipses nicely, and capturing some nice volumes. When you try to work with contour curves instead however, it becomes a bit more hit-and-miss.

Some of the curves do a good job of wrapping around the form, while others do all but become a straight line from edge to edge. Lets look at page 4, the Y organic form to the left side of the page.

The section that jutts out to the right side is done really quite well - the curves wrap around the form, giving us a sense that it really warps in 3D space, going back around the form and continuing on. We get a strong impression of volume and form. The part that jutts out towards the top however - those curves are barely curves at all. That section reads as being completely flat, like a piece of paper.

Your dissections aren't bad. The first page is pretty simplistic, but the second page is much better. Your textures are pretty nicely done - you've simplified them where necessary to reduce the contrast (though you may not have so intentionally). This keeps them from being distracting, which is a very good thing. The comment you had, "drawing every cell was the dumbest thing.." was right on the money - instead of drawing every individual instance of a thing, try and group them into clusters. Including every individual one will create more linework and more noise. It'll also make you look sloppy unless you draw each one really carefully. Clustering them gives you a more manageable number of items to draw, and reduces how distracting that area will be. You might increase the number and density of detail in that area if it's a focal point, but in most situations that is not an issue.

The form intersection exercise is a challenging one. There are a few tips I left in the exercise description to make them a little less difficult, though you seem to have missed them.

There's one thing to note here, though, and it's important. Since this exercise is complicated enough as it is, we don't want to make it harder. So, to simplify things, I urge you to avoid forms that are "stretched" in any one dimension. Long tubes, long boxes, etc. These will make your life hell, because they bring a lot of perspective distortion into the mix.

A lot of your forms are long and stretched, and that's definitely making that lesson hell. In general, I strongly advise you not to put very much perspective distortion on any one form - keep it nice and shallow. Not only does it simplify the exercise, but it also makes the perspective in the scene generally more consistent, making it all more believable.

Now, another thing I'm noticing is that your boxes aren't always looking too solid. You may need to practice these more. Be sure to ghost through your lines to keep them straight (you probably are ghosting through them, you'll simply need to spend more time in the ghosting phase to make sure your arm is comfortable), and do your best to maintain the size relationship between the near and far planes of the boxes. Near is always bigger, far is always smaller - though since we're keeping a shallow rate of perspective distortion, these differences are not going to be very large. Just a little smaller, just a little bigger - but NEVER the reverse.

Lastly, you're doing a good job with drawing through your ellipses. Still, try to draw through them only a maximum of two to three times. If you do it too much, you'll lose track of what the ellipse you're trying to draw is.

I'd like you to do two more pages of organic forms with contour curves (your contour ellipses were fine), one more page of dissections (to make up for the first one, which was too bare and simple), and two more pages of form intersections.

Uncomfortable

2015-08-21 01:12

Your second page of organic forms is considerably better than the first, so you're definitely improving. Your form intersections are also looking much better than before. You've got room to improve for sure, and over time your confidence will build up - but for now, you're moving at a good pace.

Feel free to move onto the next lesson.