Uncomfortable

2016-10-04 19:56

Congratulations on completing the challenge. You have definitely made a fair bit of headway and progress with this, but I have one very important thing to point out - you missed out on a big opportunity to make this exercise far more effective.

In my last critique, I mentioned,

Be sure to read through the notes on the challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space.

Unfortunately you didn't take this advice, as you haven't drawn through any of the boxes in your set. I'll mark this challenge as complete, as you have completed it and you have clearly benefitted from it, but know that you could have gained a lot more from it had you read the instructions more carefully.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-04 20:49

Looking great! Your boxes are looking really solid, and it seems that your sense of 3D space has definitely benefitted from drawing through your forms. Your use of line weight also goes a long way to help maintain a sense of cohesion in each box, giving each a sense of real weight and tangibility.

Keep up the fantastic work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-05 19:08

You definitely seem to be improving. Keep working on reducing that overshooting, of course, and on achieving straight lines. This will come with time and practice, so you're on the right track. Additionally, it'd be worth while in the future to spend some time on applying additional line weight - there are notes on how to use it effectively to emphasize the solidity of a form in the challenge page.

I'll mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-05 19:17

Your boxes do improve considerably over the set, and feel much more solid by the end. Your use of hatching is preeeetty terrible though, and that diminishes the overall the result. In the future, stick to tight, consistent parallel lines that stretch all the way from edge to edge. No scribbling, nothing floating in the middle of a plane. Also, you don't have to fill each front-facing plane with hatching - just filling in one of these faces will help distinguish and separate all of the front-facing planes from the rear ones.

As for corrections - you're supposed to do it at the very end, not while you draw. And you're right, you're being overly emotional - calling yourself stupid isn't going to help at all, and neither is being overly critical. You did a pretty solid job aside from the hatching, which ultimately wasn't the focus of this exercise.

Keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-07 23:15

These boxes aren't bad, all things considered, but you do have a point about perhaps keeping your boxes' foreshortening a bit too shallow. A little bit more foreshortening would have been ideal, and likely felt very natural and solid. As it stands, your boxes do feel pretty solid, and your use of line weight is pretty good, just try not to keep the lines quite so parallel in the future.

You're doing reasonably well though, so keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-08 19:47

Coming along well! My only concern is that your foreshortening is extremely shallow, leaning towards isometric perspective (where lines that are parallel in 3D space are also parallel when drawn in 2D, rather than converging towards a vanishing point). I definitely encourage people to stick to the shallow end of things, as dramatic foreshortening tends to be less useful in most cases, but you're taking it a little too far here. The danger is that it's very easy to slip into those lines separating rather than converging or remaining parallel, leading to a lot of very slight far-planes-larger-than-near-planes issues. Please keep that in mind as you continue to move forwards.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark the lesson as complete. Despite that issue, your line quality is quite confident and your boxes feel fairly solid, so keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-08 21:02

Pretty nice work! My only criticism at this point is that you are being just a little too timid with the rear lines of your boxes (the ones made by "drawing through" your forms). It's important not to become preoccupied with what marks you want to hide, and which ones you want to show, while actually constructing your forms, as it's going to undermine the confidence with which you draw those marks. You can always push the line weights just a little bit more to compensate.

Aside from that, you're doing quite well, and are constructed fairly solid boxes. You do have some room to improve of course, and I can see a few mistakes that you didn't quite catch (for example, 235's rear plane is at an odd angle), but generally you're heading in the right direction.

Keep it up and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-08 21:27

You definitely had a rough start with this, but you definitely started to hit your stride around the 100 box mark. From that point, the general sense of solidity and confidence, and your use of line weight all improved considerably. There's still plenty of room for growth of course - primarily with your use of the ghosting method (your lines do waver and arc slightly, so keep working on nailing those smooth, straight strokes. Don't forget to go over the whole set to identify mistakes (any issues with angles, or where your far planes come out larger than your near planes) and to mark in the correct lines with a different coloured pen. I see that you started to do it with your first few boxes, and then you seem to have forgotten.

Anyway, aside from that, keep up the great work and consider this lesson complete.

Oh, one other thing - it seems you've turned off your flair on this subreddit (the checkbox near the top of the sidebar that says 'Show my flair on this subreddit'). I'd really appreciate it if you turned it back on - I use it to keep track of both who's completed which lessons, and also so I know who is eligible for critiques, now that they're limited to patreon supporters like you. If you've got the flair turned off, I have to check my records which is kind of a pain.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-11 22:26

Generally your boxes are solid and your line weights add a lot to your boxes. That said, I do think you'd have gained a lot more from this exercise had you applied the tip about drawing through your forms, as it really helps to very specifically identify areas where far planes are larger than near planes, or angles are off slightly. Ultimately it's just easier to spot things when all the lines are actually drawn in, so you get a fuller sense of how those forms sit in 3D space.

You could actually still benefit from drawing through them with your red pen in your correction phase, but ultimately that's up to you.

Anyway, like I said - your boxes do look solid, and your line weights are well done. Consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-16 21:24

Nice work! Your boxes definitely improve over the set, and by the end they feel considerably more solid and well thought out. Your line weights also feel considerably more confident, which helps bring everything together. I'm also glad to see that you're double checking everything quite diligently. Feel free to consider this challenge complete.

You're welcome to move onto the 250 cylinder challenge - it's not required, but it definitely wouldn't hurt.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-18 21:40

Your boxes are looking pretty solid! Your use of line weight overall was pretty nice early on too - I suppose you did make the right decision, assuming having to budget your time, as the box construction is definitely more important. It's good to see that you're moving in the right direction with both however. For the most part you're doing a good job - keep an eye on the angles of your lines as you keep moving forwards. keep in mind that any given set of lines that are parallel in 3D space are going to have to go off towards the same vanishing point somewhere in space. This means that you're not going to have any one line that falls more steeply than the others. For example, look at 164 - the two lines near the center there going down towards the right should actually be more or less parallel on the page because they're heading towards the same VP. Little things like that are good to note, specifically that you can use existing lines that are parallel (in 3D space) to the line you're about to draw as guides and hints for what angle this new line should assume.

Anyway, keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-18 20:29

Add weight afterwards - when initially executing the mark, just focus on keeping your line straight and smooth.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-22 17:35

Nice work! Your sense of form and space, and the general solidity of your boxes has improved a fair bit over this set. The only recommendation I have is that it does help to fill in one of the front-facing faces with some tight hatching, just to clarify which side is which (since drawing through the boxes tends to make that a little confusing at times). It's not a big deal at all of course, just helps to keep that straight when coming back to do corrections.

Speaking of which, your corrections are coming along nicely as well! Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-25 20:11

Looking good! Your boxes, their general solidity, the confidence of your linework definitely improves considerably over the set. Your use of line weight in those last 50ish boxes also goes a long way towards really unifying and solidifying the forms, giving them a sense of weightiness. There's still plenty of room for improvement of course, and a few mistakes you didn't catch (240 for instance, the back bottom corner is a bit too high so the angles are off), but you're making great headway. Keep up the good work, and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-10-30 17:16

Looking pretty good! I have only one suggestion - it may help to clarify which side of the box faces the viewer and which side faces away if you fill in just one of the front-faces with tight, parallel hatching. This gives the eye the added visual cue that it needs to grasp what's going on. That said, you did a solid job with your line weights - this would just be a little added push.

As for your troubles with not being able to erase, that's the point - erasing implies that the resulting box is the goal. That is, to draw a pretty box. It's not. You could just as well burn every sheet of homework you do, and you'd still retain its purpose. We learn from those mistakes, and we grow from being forced to come to terms with our failures. Slipping up on the first hundred lines, so long as you reflect upon what made them incorrect, is what will make your next hundred lines just a little bit better.

Keep up the solid work and consider this challenge complete. As for your question, I don't have any limitations on how many submissions a student can make - I may add this if I find myself getting overwhelmed with the workload again, but I see no need to right now. That said, you really shouldn't submit work you've done before getting a prerequisite marked as complete. Completing lesson 2 before I review the box challenge is totally fine because it's not a prerequisite. Completing lesson 2 before having lesson 1 marked as complete is not, however. It means that a lot of the mistakes I may have brought to your attention in lesson 1 would not be reflected in your lesson 2 work. So keep that in mind when deciding what to submit, and what to redo.

Uncomfortable

2016-11-02 22:03

I really, really can't stress the importance of following directions enough. I totally get missing some of the content in those extremely dense lessons, but I made a very direct recommendation to you in my last critique, right when I told you to move onto the 250 box challenge.

I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next to get more practice with those arbitrarily rotated boxes. Be sure to read through the notes on that challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. That one in particular should help you get a better grasp on how each box sits in 3D space.

You mention getting confused by the 'form lines', I can only guess that you're referring to these particular lines. They can be quite confusing, but you should never ignore an instruction just because it poses a challenge or some difficulty. In this case though, there is a way to help reduce the confusion. By filling one front-facing plane with tight, parallel, clean hatching that stretches all the way across the plane from edge to edge, you can give your brain a visual cue, telling it which side is which. It'd look something like this: https://i.imgur.com/4RJOfwK.jpg

Additionally, notice how that student did their corrections by drawing the right lines in? This is also what you should be doing. Identifying mistakes is all good and well, but the real growth comes from figuring out what the correct mark should be, and putting it down on the page.

Before I mark this challenge as complete, I want you to try another hundred boxes - this time, follow the instructions to the letter.

Uncomfortable

2016-11-06 17:19

Congratulations on completing the challenge. That said, there's two significant issues in your approach to this challenge that I can see:

• First and foremost, you're drawing your boxes way too small. It's common for students to draw smaller when faced with a challenge that feels intimidating - unfortunately this results in far less room to think through the spatial problems involved in constructing 3D forms. Additionally, it has the negative effect of your pen tip being significantly larger relative to the overall size of the drawing, resulting in really thick, clunky and stiff-looking linework.

• You did not go back over your boxes to draw in corrections as instructed. With a different coloured pen, you should go back over the whole set, find mistakes (for example, near planes being smaller than far planes, then actually draw in the correct lines. You'll find that you exhibit a lot of issues like that. Ultimately correcting in this way (that is, separately from the initial drawing phase so as to avoid the bad habit of immediately correcting right after drawing a mark) will help you to learn from your mistakes, as it forces you to analyze each one. In order to grow, we must first fail a whole heck of a lot, and then review why and how we failed.

Since you did draw 250 boxes, I will mark this as complete. As you said however, it'll take much more for you to master boxes, but following the two points I outlined above will help you get there a little more efficiently.

Uncomfortable

2016-11-07 20:35

Nice work. I do think it would have been better though to draw through all of the boxes instead of alternating between pages. Generally your understanding of those boxes and how they sit in 3D space is improving to be sure, but when you don't draw through your boxes, you still have more of a tendency to draw your far planes too large. A good example of this is 232. This is the sort of thing that comes with practice - it does take a lot of boxes, but gradually drawing through them becomes something you internalize.

Anyway, congrats on completing the challenge!

Uncomfortable

2016-11-07 20:42

Nice work! Solid boxes, good corrections (even when they're off, it's all a process that improves over time with repetition), and I'm especially pleased to see that while you started off drawing your boxes quite small, you transitioned into drawing them larger. This is generally a good idea, as it gives you more room to think through the spatial problems.

Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-11-09 01:38

Pretty nice work. Your boxes are coming along well, and your line weights are nicely done. There is some room to improve of course when it comes to the quality of your lines (they're generally okay, but I do see a bit of wavering and wobbling here and there). Additionally, it does help if you fill one of the front faces with some tight hatching. This gives a visual cue as to which side of the box is facing the viewer.

Anyway, consider this challenge complete and keep up the great work.

Uncomfortable

2016-11-11 22:54

Not bad! One thing that does jump out at me though is the general quality of your linework. It's pretty well done, but I can see some signs that you're not necessarily applying the ghosting method to each one. For example, the first step of putting down points seems to be missing. As a result, I am noticing a few lines that are a bit wobbly, but more often it's more that your lines stop short of corners, or they're off in angle and trajectory. Putting more time and focus into ghosting through those lines before executing will definitely help.

Anyway, keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-11-12 00:19

The biggest thing that jumps out at me is that you're focusing more on meeting a certain quota of boxes, rather than actually executing each one with the utmost care and focus that you can muster. Ultimately, working with a mindset of quantity over quality will not get you terribly far.

On top of using the ghosting method for every mark (and not chicken scratching, as you seem to have been doing when adding line weight - this makes things look extremely messy), you're also being super sloppy with your hatching lines. I did mention this in my first critique of your work, but I do understand that you've done a lot of work since then so I understand your forgetting. Here's what I had said:

One last point about the rough perspective exercise - it's about your use of hatching for shading. Whenever you decide to use hatching, don't be sloppy about it - make sure the lines are tight, parallel and consistent, and that they stretch all the way from edge to edge. No lines floating in the middle of a plane, no zigzagging or anything like that.

That said, it is better to apply hatching to one front-oriented face just to clarify which side is which, but make sure you do it with more care. Each box should be a singular example of the best you can do. If I'm not critiquing the best you're capable of at this point in time, then my critiques can't help you that much.

I'd like to see you do just 25 more boxes, taking the utmost care with each and every one. Make sure you follow the ghosting method's steps, giving each one as much time as it requires). Also make sure you're drawing from your shoulder, not your wrist. It's just another 25, so make them as solid and fantastic as you can.

Uncomfortable

2016-11-12 23:11

Nice work! Your boxes and your general sense of 3D space certainly improves over the set. You've clearly approached each one with a great deal of care and focus. The only thing that I do want to point out is that right now your line quality is a little sketchy. Now this can be, and is at least in part due to you just trying to add line weight, which is fine. The lines you add when coming back to add weight to the otherwise completed drawing will improve in their accuracy as you continue to practice.

The other reason however relates to students immediately reinforcing a line right after putting it down - that is, putting down a mark without actually planning its execution properly. It's a bad habit to get into, so if you catch yourself doing it at all, definitely try and force yourself to stop and consider your actions. Every line should be drawn with a single mark, and any drawing by reflex should be avoided entirely.

Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete!

Uncomfortable

2016-11-14 22:32

I'm honestly not seeing what you're seeing - your boxes are fine. There's plenty of room for improvement, but not a one is "beyond salvageable", and your last page is considerably stronger than - say - your third.

Drawing through your boxes naturally results in additional lines that make it sometimes more difficult to see the box itself, and perhaps this is something that is confusing you. These boxes can be interpreted in multiple ways (depending on which faces you see as facing the viewer), and some of those interpretations are flat out wrong - but they're not the interpretation that was used when the box was being drawn.

The way we usually solidify which interpretation should be used when viewing the box is to fill one of the front-facing faces in with tight, consistent hatching like this. This way, when you come back to the box some time later, you'll still know exactly which face is which.

When doing your corrections, the first thing you want to think about is your near/far planes, and how they relate to each other in size. If the far plane is larger than your near plane, that's the first and biggest clue that your lines aren't converging correctly as they move further away. If you're still struggling with understanding how those lines should be converging, your next step would be to actually extend those lines all the way back as far as you can (with a ruler) to get a better sense of where they all intersect with each other. Some of your lines won't intersect even if you take them all the way to the edge of the page - but by extending them, you will get a better sense of how they relate to one another.

The correction phase is extremely important, and should not be skipped, regardless of your reasons. That is where you actually concretely identify your mistakes, and where things went wrong. You can go as far as you need to, as far as plotting the actual perspective of each box. That is how you fix your ability to estimate - not that you seem to show any great deficiency in that area.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work - even if you don't seem to think it is so.

Uncomfortable

2016-11-14 22:44

Here's a couple things to keep in mind:

• When doing corrections, your focus should be on actually marking in the right line, rather than noting observations or circling things you think are wrong. Thinking about these things is certainly useful, but the most effective way to really train yourself to do it correctly is to actually put the correct line in. Focus particularly on issues like far planes being larger than near planes, as that is the most common issue people tend to have, and it isn't infrequent in your work as well (though in subtler ways).

• It can get a little confusing to interpret your boxes when drawing through them, so it can help to fill in one of the front-facing faces with some tight hatching like this.

• Always make sure you're applying the ghosting method to each and every line. Your line quality is improving, but here and there I can still see some lines that waver slightly, and that could have benefited from more preparation.

Anyway, keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-11-14 22:51

Nice work! I'd say the solidity of your boxes and the confidence of your linework definitely improves over the set. I am still noticing some issues where you're drawing a bit more by reflex (like where you've got those doubled-up lines, likely resulting from immediately reinforcing a line right after putting down the first stroke) - that's definitely something you'll want to work towards avoiding. Any kind of drawing without thought is leaning towards some bad habits, so definitely work on that.

Aside from that, keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-11-16 01:15

Congratulations on completing the challenge. You've done well to get through them all. I do agree with your self-assessment though. In terms of accuracy - yes, you should absolutely put the dots down before drawing your line, especially since that's in the instructions :P

Specifically, I say to use the ghosting method for every single line you draw, and the dots are the first step. It also helps to place the dots for the entire box before starting on your lines, so you can figure things out spatially before committing.

For your line weight, generally you apply it after a box has been constructed. It looks to me like for the most part, you perhaps tried varying the pressure used on your initial stroke. Think of it like an extension of the super imposed lines exercise from lesson 1.

I have one last recommendation - drawing through your boxes is great, though it can have the negative effect of making the drawings a little confusing (in terms of which side is facing the viewer). In order to alleviate this, try filling one of the faces oriented towards the viewer with some tight, clean hatching. This will give the appropriate visual cue that makes the whole thing much clearer and easier to understand.

Anyway, consider this challenge complete. You've got plenty of room to grow, but you're moving in the right direction.

Uncomfortable

2016-11-16 01:19

I'm sure the boxes you see are beautiful! As these here are quite wonderfully done. Confident linework, subtle line weights, and some reasonably accurate corrections. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-11-23 19:34

Ahaha, turns out it was my mistake. I was changing the flair of Occultist_Narath, not Occultist-Narath. Should be fixed now. Anyway, your boxes are looking really well done. The constructions are solid, you've made good use of line weight and your corrections are on point. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete!

Uncomfortable

2016-11-27 00:06

Nice work! The construction of your boxes is coming along well - your use of line is looking fairly confident, and your line weights help convey a sense of solidity. You also seem to be picking up a lot of the major issues when doing corrections, so good on you for keeping up with all of those.

I am sorry to say though, while you've done a great job completing this challenge, your 1 year old is going to need some more practice. Gotta start them on their boxes early.

Uncomfortable

2016-12-04 20:19

It's a good thing that your opinion doesn't really matter here! :D

You're doing fine. Line control, accuracy, and one's sense of space improves over time and as it stands you're moving in the right direction. I did notice however that you started to let yourself get kind of sloppy after your first 150 boxes, taking less care with the general planning and preparation of your lines. It's not a question of you not being able to do it right, since the earlier boxes demonstrated a stronger grasp of that technique. It's more likely that you were getting tired and weren't giving yourself enough breaks.

As for the line weight, it's probably fine for you to skip it for now - but when you do decide to start applying it, keep in mind that you add it in a subsequent pass. You draw the initial lines uniformly, then go back over the ones that need more weight.

One last suggestion - I noticed in a few places you put down the points for your start/end locations for each line. I'm not sure if you did this for all of your lines though, or if you got a bit lazy with that later on. Definitely keep that up across the board, and more importantly - try laying down the points for the whole box before committing to them with actual lines. This can help you get a sense of the form taking shape without necessarily putting all your cards on the table.

Anyway, keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-12-05 21:11

Your boxes are definitely improving over the set, so congrats on completing the challenge. I do want to point out that you definitely seem to have made the decision not to apply the whole draw through your boxes tip to all of them, and I'd say that you probably lost out because of it. I'm glad that you applied it to some of them, but you really should have done so across the board. Keep that in mind in the future.

Uncomfortable

2016-12-19 21:13

Your boxes definitely improve considerably over the set, but there definitely a lot of room for improving. One thing that jumps out at me early on is that you started off by using a pretty small notebook - I'm glad to see that you moved to something larger. Often times I find that working smaller tends to limit the amount of room you have to work through spatial problems like drawing boxes, so it inherently leads to mistakes and general clunkiness.

While your later boxes are considerably better, there are still a lot of problems where your angles tend to go a bit wacky - so while they obey the basics of perspective, the resulting form would not really be a box (where all angles in 3D space are 90 degrees). You are catching many of these, but there are still a lot of situations where you don't seem to have added any corrections. For example, 229, 221-227, 204, etc. There's others, and it happens to varying degrees, but this is definitely something you'll want to work on.

So I'll mark this challenge as complete, but definitely keep practicing this stuff. I also added more recently a more advanced version of this exercise that may help moving forwards: https://youtu.be/y9DRITQ-HpA

Uncomfortable

2016-12-22 01:45

Very nice work! Your boxes are looking solid, and your use of line weight is very effective in terms of making each form feel cohesive. Box 250 also looks very pleased with himself...

Now that you've completed this challenge, you have two choices - you can go straight to lesson 2, or you can go onto the 250 cylinder challenge. You can choose to do either - or you can even do them both together. The cylinder stuff will help with the form intersection exercise in lesson 2, so you should at least read over those notes before attempting that exercise.

Uncomfortable

2016-12-23 01:59

So I want to start off by making one thing clear - you definitely improved a fair bit over the set. The boxes at the end are generally more consistent and solid than those at the beginning.

The downside is that one of the big downsides to having a life, having children, and ultimately having to put things off for 7 months is that the initial instructions tend to get lost along the way. Now since giving up your kids in favour of drawing boxes will probably get you a lot of scowls from your neighbours, the solution is that every time you sit down to do the work, review the information you've received thus far. Reread the instructions for the given exercise, and reread the last critique you received.

One major thing you missed is something I pointed out when marking the previous lesson as complete:

The challenge page itself includes a lot of helpful notes on the topic, so be sure to read it in full before moving onto the work. Focus especially on the tip about drawing through your forms - this will help you gain a better understanding of how each box sits in 3D space, and will allow you to identify more easily mistakes where your near/far plane size relationship is reversed (which is a fairly common one).

I'm absolutely marking this challenge as complete, as you've learned a fair bit from it and can always draw more boxes for yourself, but I do want to point this out as something that could have made your use of your time a little more effective. It's that much more important when you don't have a lot of time to begin with.

Additionally, when doing corrections, stick primarily to drawing in the correct lines rather than writing down notes, as it's going to be the most effective use of your effort. We generally learn best from doing, and drawing in the correct lines is the method that aligns closest to that notion.

Anyway, as I said - congratulations on completing this challenge. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2016-12-25 17:52

Nice work! Your linework definitely looks considerably more confident by the end of the set, so you're applying the ghosting method quite well. As for the foreshortening, I think it's generally good that you practiced some with more dramatic perspective and others with shallower foreshortening - regardless of how dramatic the foreshortening is, whether or not it's an actual box will depend on the context it's placed in. Since all of these are in isolation, we have nothing else to compare them against, so they're all boxes. That said, you'll find yourself applying shallow foreshortening far more often, so make sure you're comfortable with that.

Anyway, keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-12-27 19:38

Your confidence definitely improves over the set, and you're doing a good job with your line weights. I believe you're showing signs of missing some issues during your correction passes though. Before we get to that though, I want to mention one thing - since I'm encouraging you to draw through your boxes, it's normal to be a little confused when looking at the end result, since it can be at times difficult to tell apart which faces point towards the viewer and which ones point away. An easy way to get around this is to fill one of the front-facing planes with tight hatching lines. This gives the appropriate visual cues to clear up this sort of illusion.

Anyway, as I was saying, I'm seeing quite a few issues with near/far plane size relationships, and issues with the angles of your lines being somewhat off, that you're not catching in your correction pass. For example: http://i.imgur.com/M3Ah1pR.png.

Lastly, it does look like you should be spending a little more time with each line, making sure you apply the ghosting method properly and executing each one with a smooth, confident pace.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. You are showing improvement, so keep at it. Make sure you keep up with practicing this stuff, but you may feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2016-12-28 17:48

Looking good! Overall you've done great - your lines are very confident and your boxes are generally well constructed. There's just two things I want to point out - firstly, you do a bit of experimentation with line weight on your first page in a few of the boxes, but for the most part the others tend to be pretty uniform. Definitely continue to play around with that more in the future. Secondly, I noticed that a lot of your boxes tend to skew more towards the dramatic perspective end of things - you should be practicing shallower perspective as much, if not more, as this is what you'll end up using more often. Dramatic perspective (where the far end of a box is noticeably smaller than the closer end) generally signifies a larger scale (like seeing the top of a tall building from the ground floor). Shallower perspective will give you a more relatable scale, like something that can be turned over in your hands, or something not a lot bigger than you. Since most of the things we draw are of this scale, practicing shallower perspective is definitely important.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-02 19:05

Nice work! You're definitely improving in terms of construction as well as confidence, across this set. I would have liked to have seen more work in terms of line weight (rather than just on the front page). One suggestion I have on that front is not to make any of the internal lines overly thick, as this becomes rather visually confusing. The heavy line sitting in the center of the form breaks the cohesiveness of the whole set of lines and makes them read more as individual marks rather than as a single form. You generally want your internal lines to be slightly less heavy than your lightest external line. Overall this should be quite subtle (so as to avoid huge chunky external lines).

Also, I did want to mention that when it comes to corrections (which, as you noted that there were plenty of mistakes, so you should have continued doing them through the entire set), focus more on actually correcting the mistake by drawing the correct line in a different colour, rather than simply pointing them out with notes. Theoretical understanding is fine, but you'll benefit the most from actually drawing the lines themselves.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. You're free to move onto the 250 cylinder challenge next (which will help with your form intersections exercise in lesson 2), or straight to lesson 2. Leave the texture challenge for after lesson 2 is complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-02 21:06

Excellent work! Each one of these boxes demonstrates patience, forethought and clear consideration. Your use of line weight establishes clear cohesion within each form (though it's a bit heavy - subtlety is your friend!) and taking the time to draw through each form definitely helped you to grasp how each one sits in 3D space.

Keep up the excellent work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-06 00:38

Wow, the new ones are infinitely better. Drawing through your boxes more or less is mandatory - at least to the extent that I'll look at anyone who doesn't with scorn and derision whilst marking their challenge as complete by virtue of "well you did draw 250 boxes... shitty boxes, but boxes all the same". You've redeemed yourself with the last page however - you're demonstrating a much more solid grasp of form here, so I will go ahead and mark the challenge as complete - without the scorn :P

Uncomfortable

2017-01-07 20:06

Nice work! Your constructions definitely improve over the set, and I see fewer near/far plane issues closer to the end. Your use of line weight also works well to maintain a sense of cohesiveness over each box, and generally your approach seems to be quite confident. Keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete. And by the way, thanks for increasing your pledge!

Uncomfortable

2017-01-07 21:30

I definitely see considerable improvement over this set, and while there is plenty room for more, you're very clearly approaching it in the correct manner. Early on you were rather sloppy, even with hatching lines that weren't neatly arranged within a given face, but by the end your attention to presentation and more importantly, the attention to your corrections were definitely quite impressive.

Those corrections seem to be highlighting the main issues (for example, extending the lines showing them meeting at different vanishing points quite far from each other), and this kind of exercise will help you become more aware of what you need to compensate for. This is definitely the best way to make your hours of practice as effective as possible.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-07 21:27

Hey, it looks like when the patreon pledges were being collected on the first of this month, yours was declined. I'm sure this isn't intentional (since you're rather active on the subreddit), but this does mean that you won't be eligible for critique until that is sorted out. Feels a bit petty saying that for three whole dollars, but oh well. This does mean that I won't be tracking this submission anymore (I only just realized the charge was declined), so if you get it resolved, let me know and remind me of this submission.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-07 21:47

Very nice work. Your linework is confident, your lines are straight and smooth, your constructions are solid and your line weights help maintain cohesion for each individual box while remaining quite subtle. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete. Just don't forget to go over the set with a different coloured pen and actually draw in the correct lines where you've made mistakes. Sometimes it's unclear where things are off, so extending your lines towards their intended vanishing points can help identify places where certain lines of a set converge much quicker than the others (like the one on the right side of this page).

Uncomfortable

2017-01-09 23:03

Pretty nice work. I'd definitely rethink the whole heavy outline thing, though. The line variation does help, but ultimately outlining your boxes with such a thick line tends to flatten the whole thing out. When it comes to line weight, you want to have variation to make it look dynamic, but try and keep it relatively subtle.

Other than that, things are looking good. Keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-09 23:17

Nice work. Your linework is looking confident and smooth, and your corrections are on point. One thing that can also help to identify mistakes is to extend your lines towards their implied vanishing point, as demonstrated on the right side of this page.

As for your warmup there, it's looking pretty good. My usual recommendation is for students to pick two or three exercises from the first lesson (and once completed, the second lesson as well) to do for 10-15 minutes at the beginning of a sitting. So while right now your warmup consists primarily of lines and ellipses, you'll want to expand them to include boxes and organic forms as well. Kind of makes sense that you didn't include boxes in this one though, since.. you know. box challenge and all that.

Anyway, consider this challenge complete and keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-10 23:26

I think overall your general confidence with your linework improves over the course of this set. There's definitely more work to be done in regards to really working out that wobbling completely, but you're definitely moving towards that. Just always remember that you're splitting the process of drawing each mark into two parts - the first part is where your brain is involved. Identifying a comfortable angle of approach, determining where you want your line to start, and ultimately ghosting through it over and over to communicate your orders to your arm muscles. The second part requires you to fully trust that your muscles understood their task - to draw with a confident pace, accepting that your accuracy may suffer for it, and doing pushing through anyway.

As for your box constructions, again - you're moving in the right direction, but there certainly still are issues with your near/far planes, many of which you're not always catching. One approach to corrections that really tends to help is to extend your lines towards their implied vanishing point to see how that convergence behaves, similarly to how this student does towards the right side of this page. You can even do this part with a ruler.

Anyway, you're moving in the right direction, so I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Just be sure to continue to work at it.

As for your question, honestly that's all you need. The most important thing is that you keep at it over time, rather than doing then in big spurts of energy and motivation, then leaving it alone. These exercises will improve with time, so long as you continue to push yourself to practice them regularly - so basically, doing them as warmups as discussed before.

So go ahead and move onto lesson 2, and always remember that we're not after perfect work, we're just looking to make sure that the concepts are understood on a theoretical level, and that you're moving in the right direction.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-13 00:41

I definitely have a few things to note that should help you in the future:

• It's very important to read through all of the notes and material provided before starting on something. There's a lot there, so it can be difficult to digest all at once, but it'll help you put that time to the best possible use. In this case, you missed one major point - the tip about drawing through your forms. This is especially important, as it helps you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space, and highlights a lot of the most common issues, which aren't always clear otherwise.

• When doing your corrections, focus on finding lines that you've drawn that you felt were correct at the time, but weren't. With your differently coloured pen, draw in the correct line so that you can help rewire how your brain understands that form. As mentioned before, drawing through your forms can help you identify these sorts of things.

You'll definitely benefit from following the points mentioned above. That said, you have completed the challenge, as you've drawn all two hundred and fifty boxes.

Moving forwards, I definitely recommend that you submit your lesson 1 work in the lesson 1 thread, so I can give you a proper critique for it when I get the chance.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-14 01:22

Looking great! I can see that your confidence with your linework improved considerably over the set, and that you seemed to get the hang of applying line weight in a way that conveys solidity and the cohesion of the overall box. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete!

Uncomfortable

2017-01-16 21:58

Personally, I think you're doing great here. Your constructions are looking quite solid, and your line weights really do a lot to bump up the dynamism of each drawing. Through the set, your boxes start to feel considerably more tangible and weighty. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete!

Uncomfortable

2017-01-18 21:25

Definitely looks like your confidence is improving! You're also quite diligent with your corrections, which is good to see. I do want to point out that when you use hatching lines, you're still being sloppy, which is something I pointed out in my critique of your lesson 1 homework. Remember to make sure each line stretches across the plane from edge to edge, nothing floating arbitrarily in the middle.

Anyway, congratulations on completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-19 21:52

To start with, congratulations on completing the challenge. It's a lot of boxes, so be proud that you toughed all the way through.

I do agree however that a lot of your linework here is quite sloppy. You mention ghosting, drawing smoothly, etc. but I see a lot of stiffness and wobbling in your lines. You may be applying the ghosting method, but when you execute the mark, you need to do so with confidence, relying fully on the muscle memory developed by ghosting rather than letting your brain lead your hand. If you do this correctly, there are two possible outcomes:

• Either your line will be smooth and accurate, or

• Your line will be smooth and inaccurate

If you draw a confident mark, with enough speed to avoid your brain's desire to micromanage everything, the mark will be smooth. It is your wish to control that accuracy that throws you off - you seize up in your desire to hit the nail on the head.

Ultimately once you've reached the point where you're actually making the mark, there is nothing more that can be done about fixing your accuracy. You've either built up that muscle memory, or you haven't. Accept that. If you make a mistake, there's nothing wrong with that. There are many boxes yet to go.

Another thing I noticed is that you seem to be in the bad habit of correcting your mistakes as soon as you make them. If you make a mistake, leave it alone. In this challenge, I encourage you to come back afterwards with a differently coloured pen and mark in your corrections then, drawing the correct lines and reassessing the construction of your forms. By doing this separately, you gain the benefit of reflecting upon your mistakes without falling into the habit of reflexively fixing things immediately afterwards, which results in really messy linework.

For your line weight, return to the super imposed lines exercise. Just like everything else, you want to draw those lines confidently, and you will make mistakes. You will also get better, so just remember that the beauty of each individual box does not matter. They're all just exercises focused on making you improve overall.

Anyway, as I said - congratulations on completing the challenge. Hopefully the points above will help you as you continue to move forwards.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-22 01:20

Your constructions are looking pretty good! The angles of the lines, and the size relationships between the different planes are looking fairly consistent. I can see a few areas you can continue to work on however:

• Make sure you keep pushing yourself to apply the ghosting method to keep your lines as straight as possible - I definitely seem some lines that waver a little where you likely got maybe a little bit too eager to finish up. Applying the ghosting method can be very time consuming and taxing, but the habits it builds up are extremely valuable in the long run.

• Also, I noticed that you were being a little more timid with the lines on the opposite side of the form - likely because in the back of your mind, you wanted to hide them so that you could read the form more easily (it's pretty easy to get the sides facing the viewer and the sides facing away confused). Make sure all of your marks are drawn confidently - you can come back afterwards and fill in one of the front-faces with tight hatching lines to show the viewer which side is facing them, if you're concerned about that.

• I definitely noticed what you mentioned about your line weight - it looks like you were chicken scratching those a little, which is definitely something you should avoid. Always remember that these are just exercises, so while attempting to draw the whole line with a single continuous stroke can be more difficult and can result in mistakes, this is your main opportunity to get used to them. Just think of it in the same way you treated the super imposed lines exercise from lesson 1.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-25 22:24

I'd say things start out somewhat weaker and less certain, but you definitely show considerable growth through this set, both in the construction of your forms, but also in the confidence of your linework. By the end you seem far more sure of your choices, whereas early on you give the impression of being a little puzzled as to why you're drawing a bunch of boxes for some crazy stranger on the internet.

This occurred to me more for your earlier boxes and seems less necessary in the later ones, but one thing I recommend to keep things clear while drawing through your boxes is to fill in one of the front-facing faces with some tight, consistent hatching. This gives a visual cue as to which side of the box is facing us, which immediately makes it much easier to understand spatially, and in turn makes it much easier to notice mistakes. This is less necessary in the later ones because the line weights make things a little easier to read - still, it is a tactic a lot of people use anyway for the sake of clarity (and because it tends to make things look nice).

Anyway, keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2 when you're ready, or you can also consider taking a look at the 250 cylinder challenge.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-27 00:17

Looking good! I can definitely see the issues you're working through in terms of adding line weight from your shoulder rather than from your wrist, but there are definite signs of that accuracy improving. Just make sure you keep doing it from your shoulder - ultimately the more you practice it, the more control you'll find you have when drawing from your shoulder, while maintaining the same kind of flow and smoothness.

As far as your corrections go, they seem to generally be on point to me. I don't exactly go through each one to point out mistakes unless there are some that a student missed that are ridiculously obvious, of which there are none here. Just make sure that whenever you do this exercise, you continue coming back to them to mark out corrections like this, as reflecting upon your work after it's completed is a great way to identify where you have room for growth.

I'm also very pleased to see the advanced boxes - I can definitely see how they've helped improve your sense of 3D space, and this will definitely come in handy in later lessons when we start looking at more geometric and hard-surface objects.

So, consider this challenge thoroughly completed. You don't need to move onto the 250 cylinder challenge next - you can head right on over to lesson 2, as most people do. My only recommendation as far as the cylinders goes is to read through the notes on that page, and at least complete the challenge by the time you start lesson 6. That should give you plenty of time.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-27 20:37

Your boxes are certainly coming along well. As far as corrections go though, I have a strong recommendation that should help. When going over your completed boxes, try extending the lines towards their intended vanishing point (the direction they should be converging), as demonstrated here. This will help you identify areas where your lines aren't converging properly.

For instance in this particular example,

• You can see that the red lines converge in pairs instead of all four converging roughly towards the same point (which should be waaay off in the distance, more similar to the behaviour of the blue lines)

• Same thing goes for the green lines

• Your blue lines are better, but you can see that the two ones in the middle there are actually diverging the further down they go. Since they're so close to each other, I'd actually make them run more or less parallel to one another, since their vanishing point is so far away.

Anyway, keep that in mind when you practice this in the future. Aside from that, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

batgirl13

2017-01-28 17:21

Hehe, I just want to say that I really enjoyed your little comments amongst your boxes :)

Uncomfortable

2017-01-27 20:48

I definitely see improvement in construction, line quality/weight and general confidence as you go through the set. One thing that I am very sad to see however is that you barely applied the tip about drawing through your forms, especially considering that I pointed that out pretty explicitly in my lesson 1 critique. Now you certainly have benefitted considerably from this challenge, but you missed out on the opportunity to really push that much further.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2. Make sure you apply this drawing-through matter to your form constructions in the future, and consider doing it in red to these boxes as well in order to help identify other areas where there are slight discrepancies in how each set of lines converges to their own particular vanishing point.

Uncomfortable

2017-01-30 01:37

I'm definitely glad to see that you started drawing through your boxes some way through, I think you benefited considerably from that choice, as the boxes before that shit seemed to be a bit repetitious of the same kinds of mistakes. Through the rest of the set, your confidence definitely feels a little more solid, so I see clear improvement over the set.

That said, the greatest improvement really comes from going through and marking in your corrections with a differently coloured pen. I see you did some with a highlighter, but you left quite a bit untouched. One great way to test if there are issues with a box is to extend its lines towards its intended vanishing point. Each box consists of three sets of four lines - one vanishing point for each set, towards which all four lines should converge.

By extending the lines, we get a better sense of whether or not some lines are converging together a little more quickly than the others, which is a big sign that something's off. Now, in an exercise like this, something's going to be off the vast majority of the time, but we want to be focusing on the kinds of discrepancies that start to become more apparent with the naked eye.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2, but I definitely hope that for your own sake, you try doing the corrections on those once more, as there are many little hitches to be found. Building an awareness of them will help you improve much more quickly.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-01 21:13

You're definitely improving with your box constructions through the set. One thing I noticed though is that your corrections aren't terribly useful. Instead of circling your perceived mistakes, actually draw in the correct lines. Additionally, extending lines towards their vanishing points (given what space you have) is a great way to identify errors you may not have noticed previously - especially when you catch two lines out of a given set of four converging much faster than the other two, when in fact they should all ultimately meet at the same vanishing point far off into the distance.

One last suggestion - since drawing through your boxes can sometimes make it a little confusing as to which side of the box is which, it can help to fill in one of the sides that faces the viewer with some tight hatching to give a visual cue and clarify that issue. This can also make spotting mistakes a little easier as well.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2 or the 250 cylinder challenge, though I do hope you take another shot at marking out corrections first, for your own benefit.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-05 22:36

Excellent work! Your linework is looking extremely confident and smooth, which adds to the overall solidity of the boxes. Your corrections are definitely looking on point, though the mistakes are minor enough that most of them wouldn't be noticed at a cursory glance.

Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete!

Uncomfortable

2017-02-06 20:09

I'm glad to see your diligence as far as your corrections go. Reflecting upon your mistakes is a great way to continue improving. One approach that can help you in this regard is to try extending your lines back towards their implied vanishing point (which may be way off the page). By extending the lines somewhat, you can see where some of the lines start converging together more quickly than they converge with others. Keep in mind that each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, one for each vanishing point. If two of the lines in a set start converging together more quickly than the other two, you know there's something wrong.

Additionally, keep working on nailing that use of the ghosting method, and make sure you use it for every mark you draw. Your lines are coming along, but I do see signs of wavering and hesitation. Applying the ghosting method means planning and preparing as necessary beforehand, but also executing the mark with a confident pace, trusting wholly in your muscle memory. This leaves no room for hesitation.

Overall you've definitely improved relative to your last attempt. I'll go ahead and mark the challenge as complete (again). Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-06 20:19

Your line quality definitely improves here, compared to the end of the last lesson. Your box constructions improve as well, and while I'm pleased to see that you're diligently correcting your boxes, many of your boxes still have some spatial issues (specifically with near/far plane size relationships). They definitely do improve through the set though.

One great way to go about identifying these mistakes is to take the lines of your boxes and extend them back towards their implied vanishing point. By extending these lines to even twice their original size, we can start to see how those lines behave in relation to one another.

Remember that a box consists of three sets of four parallel lines - if, by extending those lines, we start to notice that two lines start converging much more quickly than the other two lines in their set, then it becomes quite clear that they are not going off towards the same VP.

I'll be marking this challenge as complete, but I strongly recommend that you take a page or two (perhaps the second last and the third last pages) and extend the lines of your boxes back in the manner I just described.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-06 21:54

I definitely agree that your boxes waver here and there, and that generally you demonstrate a strong upwards trend, with a fair bit of improvement by the end. I'm also pleased to see that you're playing with extending your lines afterwards to identify areas where some lines converge together more quickly than others, signifying something being wrong with your estimation of perspective (for example, #42). This is definitely something worth doing more frequently.

One thing I noticed is that you do have a tendency to draw a lot of boxes with particularly dramatic foreshortening, where the vanishing points are quite close to the box. I do see boxes of both sorts (shallow and dramatic foreshortening) but I feel that you should definitely lean more towards shallow foreshortening, as this is what you'll be dealing with more frequently.

Dramatic foreshortening tends to imply much larger scale (like seeing the top of a building from the ground floor), while shallower foreshortening implies a more relatable, human scale.

You did mention that you were experimenting with line weight - to be honest, I don't really see it. Keep in mind that line weight is something you should be adding after a box has been constructed (similarly to the super imposed lines exercise). I'm not sure if you were perhaps trying to press harder while drawing your initial lines, which is why the different line weights aren't too noticeable. Those initial lines should be drawn with a fairly consistent, confident weight (focusing on drawing straight, smooth lines rather than controlling their weights).

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-08 02:51

Well done! Your line quality and general execution is very confident, which helps convey the illusion of solidity and cohesion. I did however notice that there are certain spatial problems in many of your boxes. Some of which you catch, others you seem to miss. Your linework still, however, manages to establish these forms as being solid and believable, even if they don't always read as being boxes specifically.

When it comes to identifying these particular kinds of problems, it can help considerably to take your red pen during the correction phase and extend your lines back towards the implied vanishing point - even if just doubling the length of the original lines. By extending them in this manner, we can see a little more of how they behave as they move off into the distance. Specifically, we can see how they relate to one another - how quickly they converge, or whether they are diverging instead.

Keep in mind that every box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, with each set going off towards the same vanishing point. Often when extending the lines further back, we start to see that two lines in a particular set are converging together faster than the other two - this is a definite sign that something's wrong, since all four of them should be heading at roughly the same rate towards roughly the same point.

I'd say pick a page of your boxes and try applying this methodology to help pick out some more errors. This kind of reflection will help you start to realize what you might be doing wrong, so you can compensate for them later on.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-08 21:40

Not bad! Your boxes are coming along pretty well. As for your misreading, it's not a big deal - end of the page, end of the set, what's important is that you're not correcting them immediately after drawing each box. We really want to be separating the process of correcting from the process of drawing, so you don't develop the habit of correcting mistakes by reflex, since this usually results in a lot of extra ink drawing the viewer's eye to your mistakes.

One recommendation I have is that when you do your corrections, one great way to identify mistakes you may not have realized were present is to extend the lines of your boxes back towards their implied vanishing point. Even doubling the length of each line can give you a considerably better sense of how those lines behave relative to one another.

Keeping in mind that each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines (each set sharing a vanishing point), extending the lines will show us situations where within one set, two lines start converging more quickly than the other two. This tells us that they aren't converging at roughly the same vanishing point, so something's off.

That's definitely worth doing for a page or two that you've already done, just to get used to the approach and to help identify issues you may have missed.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-09 21:40

Great work! Your linework is looking quite confident and your box constructions are definitely feeling solid. Though I do see that you're struggling here and there when applying line weight (keeping the lines together can definitely be tricky) but you're approaching it correctly. It'll just take time and practice for that to come together. Overall though, your line weights go a long way to emphasize the cohesion of all your lines, making your boxes feel like solid forms, rather than a collection of individual lines.

Lastly, great work with most of your corrections. I'm glad to see that you're extending your lines back towards the implied vanishing point, to help identify where things may be off.

Keep up the fantastic work, and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-12 00:08

Pretty nice work! Your constructions are coming along well, and your use of line weight does a good job of establishing cohesion across the form. I do feel that there's a lot of potential corrections that you missed however - one tip for identifying areas where things may be a little off is to extend the lines of your boxes back towards their implied vanishing points. Extending them to be about twice the length of their original line is usually more than enough to give you a sense of how those lines are behaving.

Remember that each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, with each set having one vanishing point (towards which all four within the set converge). This means that you should see that as you extend those lines back, they all head towards the same point at roughly the same rate. What you will find instead however is many cases where two lines converge more quickly together, while others are more gradual. This implies that the four lines of a given set converge at several different points, rather than a single vanishing point - which is a clear sign that something's wrong.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. I do encourage you to go back and double check your work again, but when you feel ready, go ahead and move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-14 00:08

Don't worry about the order - I usually don't pay attention to the changes from box to box, but rather compare the different pages to identify trends. Your work here is fairly well done. I'm especially pleased with the fact that your ghosted lines are looking considerably straighter and somewhat more confident - you don't seem to be hesitating much anymore, resulting in much smoother strokes.

Your box constructions are generally well done too, though I want to recommend an additional approach for catching more subtle, less noticeable mistakes. When you've reached the corrections phase, take your different coloured pen and try extending the lines of a box towards their implied vanishing points. Keep in mind that each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point to which all four lines should be converging at roughly the same speed.

By extending those lines - maybe somewhere around twice their original length - certain cases where two lines in a set start converging more quickly than the other two become much easier to spot. This is a common issue, and having two lines converge more quickly shows us that all four of those lines are not converging towards the same vanishing point as they should be.

It's a good idea to try applying this approach to some of your pages - the last two would be a good choice, since they're your most recent attempts.

The only other thing I wanted to mention is that as you continue to move forwards, toying around with the application of line weight is a good way to bump your boxes up to the next level. This is another one of those things you do after having constructed a box - similarly to the super imposed lines exercise from lesson 1.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto lesson 2 once you feel you're ready.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-14 00:21

Experimentation is definitely always worth doing. That said, I think trying to cram 125 boxes into each day may have been pushing yourself a little too hard. It's not necessarily super rushed, but I definitely feel that you may have benefitted from taking more time on each box.

Here are a few tips:

• Don't scribble out or cross out your boxes. It's a waste of a perfect opportunity to see what went wrong.

• When doing your corrections, don't just circle a line that you think is incorrect - draw in the correct line. You did this sometimes, but I see a lot more cases where you've merely circled things.

• Try to avoid drawing your boxes too small - this kind of construction is very much a spatial problem, and as we just start to develop these skills, our brains need a lot of physical space with which to think through spatial problems.

• Filling in one of the planes that face the viewer (one of the near planes) with some tight hatching is a great way to provide a sort of visual cue as to which side is which, since drawing through our boxes can make that a little confusing.

• You mentioned that you were constructing most of your boxes differently from how I instructed in the video. When you say that you then went onto work strictly front to back, I hope that means that you were then applying the Y method that I mention there. This method is specifically much better for constructing arbitrarily rotated boxes because it gets you in the habit of thinking about all three dimensions together, instead of building your box in one dimension, then another, then another. This latter approach leads to more inconsistencies and mistakes.

Additionally, here's another approach that you use to help identify some of the less obvious mistakes. When you've reached the corrections phase, take your different coloured pen and try extending the lines of a box towards their implied vanishing points. Keep in mind that each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point to which all four lines should be converging at roughly the same speed.

By extending those lines - maybe somewhere around twice their original length - certain cases where two lines in a set start converging more quickly than the other two become much easier to spot. This is a common issue, and having two lines converge more quickly shows us that all four of those lines are not converging towards the same vanishing point as they should be.

Your work overall has improved over the set (especially with your line quality), though there's plenty of room to grow and I think you'll benefit considerably from going back over your work and applying the approach I described above, in regards to extending your lines to find mistakes.

Either way, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep at it - you're on the right track, but you've got to keep pushing.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-15 02:01

Decent work. I do have a few suggestions though:

• Some of your lines have a bit of a tendency to arc. Make sure you're applying the ghosting method, and if you find this arcing continues, try the solution described here

• Keep your hatching lines straight and parallel. Curving or wavy lines tend to look kind of sloppy.

• For your corrections, don't just circle and identify issues - specifically the kinds of mistakes you seemed to focus on really aren't that important. What you want to look at is the behaviour of your lines, and where those behaviours are incorrect.

Here's an approach you can use when marking in corrections:

Take your different coloured pen and try extending the lines of a box towards their implied vanishing points. Keep in mind that each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point to which all four lines should be converging at roughly the same speed.

By extending those lines - maybe somewhere around twice their original length - certain cases where two lines in a set start converging more quickly than the other two become much easier to spot. This is a common issue, and having two lines converge more quickly shows us that all four of those lines are not converging towards the same vanishing point as they should be.

It would be worth while to take a page of two of your boxes and try to apply this method.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2 when you feel you're ready.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-16 22:24

Pretty nice work. I'm also pleased to see that you were playing with extending your lines back towards their implied vanishing points - this is a great way to identify areas where your lines aren't behaviour correctly (especially where any given 4 lines that should be going off towards the same vanishing point are converging in different directions). A good example of this is 8, though there are plenty of others.

I did want to mention though that once you use this approach to identify where things are going wrong (and do this more, I noticed that you did this less frequently after your first page), actually take the time to then correct your mistakes with yet another colour if you have one.

Anyway, keep up the good work. There's still plenty of room for improvement, but you're moving in the right direction. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2 - I know you already did some of the work for that lesson, but consider whether or not there are parts you feel you can now do better, as my critiques are only useful if they're on the best you have to offer.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-19 19:10

Nice work completing the challenge! I noticed that in a few cases you applied hatching to one of the viewer-facing faces of some of your boxes. This is a great way to help give a visual cue as to which part of the form is oriented towards us (since drawing through our boxes can make this a little confusing), so good on your for that. That said, you applied your hatching particularly sloppily - those lines should be stretching all the way across the plane from edge to edge, rather than floating arbitrarily in the middle. Any action you choose to undertake should be executed with your full focus and attention. Nothing should be half-assed.

Additionally, I'm not seeing a whole lot of corrections, just a few here and there. I'm not sure if this is because you didn't go through them yet as directed, or if you couldn't identify those mistakes. If it's the latter, here's a method that can help you better identify where things are going wrong:

Take your different coloured pen and try extending the lines of a box towards their implied vanishing points. Keep in mind that each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point to which all four lines should be converging at roughly the same speed.

By extending those lines - maybe somewhere around twice their original length - certain cases where two lines in a set start converging more quickly than the other two become much easier to spot. This is a common issue, and having two lines converge more quickly shows us that all four of those lines are not converging towards the same vanishing point as they should be.

Yes, everything mentioned in this critique demands more time and effort, but ultimately that's the way things are. That said, it's about using your time as efficiently as possible - properly reflecting over your work and identifying where things went wrong is a great way to make the very act of drawing a bunch of boxes several times more effective.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. In the future, you may also want to look into playing with line weight as discussed in the challenge page notes, as it will help kick your boxes up to the next level.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-19 19:18

Nice work! I definitely see some improvement in your construction and overall confidence over the course of this set. I do however notice quite a few mistakes that you did not seem to catch in your corrections.

Early on, I noticed you trying to extend your lines all the way back to their vanishing points (where those VPs were really close), which is actually similar to an approach to correcting/identifying mistakes that I've recently been recommending to students. The difference however is that the methodology I'm about to describe is more about understanding how those lines relate to one another as they move further back, rather than having to explicitly take them all the way back to the VP.

Here's the approach:

Take your different coloured pen and try extending the lines of a box towards their implied vanishing points. Keep in mind that each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point to which all four lines should be converging at roughly the same speed.

By extending those lines - maybe somewhere around twice their original length - certain cases where two lines in a set start converging more quickly than the other two become much easier to spot. This is a common issue, and having two lines converge more quickly shows us that all four of those lines are not converging towards the same vanishing point as they should be.

I recommend doing this for the last two pages of your work, just for the sake of wrapping your head around how it works, and identifying mistakes you previously missed. One that stands out to me is 249, but there's quite a few. These kinds of mistakes are totally normal of course - it's just important that you get used to picking them out, and extending the lines back in this way will help train your eyes.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. As for your other question, the 250 cylinder challenge can be completed at any point between now and just before the beginning of lesson 6.