brownsummer

2017-02-22 05:46

Thank you!!

I'm going to repeat some of these exercises in Lesson 1 before attempting Lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2017-02-24 20:47

Very nice work! I can see your confidence improving through the set, and your constructions and use of line weight develop quite a bit as well. That attempt at compound boxes was definitely a good call - looks like an interesting exercise to approach, I might steal that from you at some point. Your corrections also seem to generally be on point, so you're definitely heading down the right track.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-03-01 00:13

I definitely see some clear improvement over the set. Overall, while many of your angles are still a bit off, the solidity of your forms is definitely there, as is the confidence of your linework. I do however have a big recommendation in terms of how to go over your work during the corrections phase.

It's a two-part suggestion:

1. Firstly, actually draw in the correct lines, rather than simply circling lines you feel are incorrect. It's one thing to point out a mistake, but something else entirely to actually pinpoint how things should be. The latter is considerably more useful.

2. Here's a tip for helping you identify your mistakes more easily - with your different coloured pen, take each line that makes up a box and extend it back towards its implied vanishing point. You only need to really extend it back to about twice its original length, but you'll quickly start to get an idea of how those lines are behaving. If you remember, each box is made up of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own VP. By extending lines back, you can often find areas where two or three lines within a set seem to be converging together, but one or two lines aren't quite matching up. This is a strong indicator that your angles are off. From there you can take yet another colour pen and draw in lines that would converge together a little better.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. I do however feel that you should take another stab at doing your corrections, applying that second approach to at least one page of the boxes you've already drawn to help identify issues you may have missed.

Uncomfortable

2017-03-01 23:22

Nooooooo! You ignored my specific instructions! From my last critique:

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

Because you didn't draw through any of these boxes, you missed out on a hell of a lot from this challenge. Your corrections do seem to be pretty decent and you're catching a lot of your errors (of which there were many), but when it comes to embarking on the task of drawing so many boxes, you cannot allow yourself to waste time by not reading the instructions.

I am going to mark this challenge as complete, but I strongly recommend that you do it again and resubmit, if only to make amends for not paying attention.

I will however leave you with an additional approach that can help towards identifying mistakes. Like I said before, you're doing a good job of it, but this can really give you a clearer sense of why certain things are wrong and others aren't. This is actually pulled from a critique I gave someone else recently:

Here's a tip for helping you identify your mistakes more easily - with your different coloured pen, take each line that makes up a box and extend it back towards its implied vanishing point. You only need to really extend it back to about twice its original length, but you'll quickly start to get an idea of how those lines are behaving. If you remember, each box is made up of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own VP. By extending lines back, you can often find areas where two or three lines within a set seem to be converging together, but one or two lines aren't quite matching up. This is a strong indicator that your angles are off. From there you can take yet another colour pen and draw in lines that would converge together a little better.

Uncomfortable

2017-03-03 20:48

Nice work! Your boxes are looking quite solid and well constructed, and your corrections appear to be on point. I also appreciate the particular approach you use here and there - extending your lines to see how they behave as they move closer towards their intended vanishing point, tracking whether or not they're converging at the same rate. Extending your lines a little further towards that implied VP can help a little more, but you seem to be using the approach quite well.

Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-03-06 19:29

I think you've improved considerably over this set, and it really shows. I was a little disheartened by that first page, as I figured you'd skipped reading the notes on the challenge page, and went through all 250 boxes without drawing through them. I was very pleasantly surprised, however.

Overall you're doing quite well, but I do have a couple suggestions as you continue to move forwards:

• Firstly, when doing corrections, don't worry about lines that have been overshot, or anything like that. Only focus on areas where a line you've drawn was ultimately incorrect - the sort where you can actually draw in more correct lines, like box 230.

• Here's a tip that you can use to help identify mistakes when they don't necessarily jump out at you, but it may require an extra colour of ink. Basically, try your hand at extending the lines of your boxes back towards their implied vanishing point. Even extending them back to be about twice their original length can really tell you a lot about the behaviour of those lines. Remembering that each box is composed of three sets of four parallel lines, we can see the rate at which the lines of a given set converge. While ideally we want them all to be converging at roughly the same rate, ultimately towards more or less the same point, more often than not we'll find areas where two of the four lines of a set converge much more quickly, leading to that set having several points of convergence - which is fundamentally incorrect, as it means that those four lines are not all parallel.

• Also, for line weight, try to refrain from being too heavy on your internal lines. One of the benefits of playing with the thickness of those lines is that it allows you to build a greater sense of cohesion for a given form. Think of it like wrapping that form in a shell - because they're held together this way by thicker lines along the outside, we feel that the form is more than just an arbitrary arrangement of lines that happen to stick together. When the internal lines compete with the external ones in this way, this breaks that sense of cohesion apart. Also, subtlety is important when working with line weight - while we talk about thick and thin lines, the difference should be pretty slight. When things start to get too thick, we can fall into the trap of flattening out our forms instead of making them more dynamic.

• I know that you were likely using some heavier lines on the sides of the box closest to the viewer to serve as a visual cue (since drawing through boxes can make a box more difficult to understand). Another way you can do this that doesn't compromise the cohesiveness of the form is to fill one of the front-facing faces with some tight, consistent, parallel hatching.

You'd mentioned a concern with varying the rate of foreshortening of your boxes. Variation is definitely important, but if you had to choose between 250 boxes of dramatic foreshortening vs. 250 boxes of purely shallow foreshortening, I would choose the latter. Reason being, we use shallow foreshortening more often. The foreshortening of a box says a lot about its scale. Think about having a tissue box, or some other similarly boxy object that you can hold in your hands. The far plane and the near plane are pretty similar in their relationship to one another, as you perceive them from a given position. Forms that are smaller and of a more relatable scale tend to be shallower in their foreshortening. Conversely, a tall building that reaches far into the sky, seen from the ground level will have a far plane that is considerably smaller, and therefore will use much more dramatic foreshortening.

So while practicing both is definitely important, some will be used more frequently than others.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. I hope you'll start working on lesson 1 next!

Uncomfortable

2017-03-09 20:54

While it's unfortunate that you missed the instruction about drawing through your forms initially (especially considering that I mentioned it when pointing you to this challenge), I'm glad that you went back over many of your boxes to draw those in while applying your corrections. It definitely helped, and overall I can see that your sense of 3D space has improved through this exercise.

The only other recommendation that I have for now is to play with drawing your boxes a little bigger. Overall this isn't too big of an issue right now, but in the future when you're drawing more complex things, you'll find that drawing small will really handicap you when it comes to thinking through spatial problems, so it's good to get in the habit of drawing larger now. This will help counteract the natural tendency we have to draw smaller whenever faced with something particularly daunting.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2 when you feel ready - but make sure that you keep the principles of drawing through your forms in mind as you move forwards.

Uncomfortable

2017-03-11 23:43

I definitely see a fair bit of improvement over the set - both in terms of construction, but also (and perhaps more importantly) in terms of confidence. On that note, I do have one recommendation. It looks to me that you approach drawing lines differently, depending on whether or not they're the primary visible lines of the box, or if they're the ones you've "drawn through" (which would otherwise not be visible if we didn't have magical x-ray vision). Try to avoid approaching any of your lines with any desire to hide or mask them. If something goes down on the page, draw them with full confidence. By being more timid, you'll find that things will go off the rails a little more often, and the solidity of your forms won't quite be up to scratch.

We always have the line weight phase to emphasize and bring forward the lines we want to draw others' attention. You'd be surprised at how far it goes towards pushing back the lines that you'd rather weren't there.

Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2017-03-20 03:44

Hey, just wanted to let you know that your homework submission hasn't been missed. Sorry for the delay - I'm swamped at work and haven't been able to get through my backlog. Things should be back to normal in a day or two.

Uncomfortable

2017-03-21 21:42

Looking pretty good. I see a lot of careful corrections, amongst solid linework and reasonably steady construction. You're going about this just fine, and I can see improvement in your general confidence over the set. One thing that you could explore in order to kick your boxes up to the next level would be the use of line weight. You can find notes on that topic within the box challenge page.

Additionally, you may have found that drawing through your boxes leads to an unfortunate visual illusion where we can perceive each box in two different ways depending on which side we determine to be the front-facing side. One thing to help with this can be to fill one of the front-facing faces with some clean, tight hatching to serve as a visual cue and clear up any potential misunderstandings. It also... well, it also looks kinda nice.

Anyway, consider this challenge complete. Keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable

2017-03-23 19:39

You're progressing nicely, and I definitely see improvements over the set. One thing that does jump out at me though (more towards the beginning and towards the end) is a tendency to have lines that arc somewhat, rather than being solid and straight. This may be due to lack of focus, though it may also be a natural tendency in how you draw that would have to be dealt with. I explain how to handle this sort of thing in these notes.

I'm glad to see that you're playing with extending your lines further back to see how they behave in terms of perspective, in your correction phase. This is definitely very helpful in terms of identifying where things are going wrong, as not all mistakes really jump out. Keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-03-25 21:02

It's definitely a mistake to ever think in terms of whether or not you're progressing too slowly, because there is no "just right". The only mistake you can make in this regard is rushing - and worrying that you're going too slow will drive you to rush. Just move along at your own pace.

Your boxes are definitely looking good. Their solidity and your general confidence seems to improve over the set, and your corrections are generally on point. I noticed that you're playing with line weight in a few areas, but doing so more consistently will help push your boxes to the next level.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-03-25 21:08

Overall your lines are looking okay - the only issue I can see is the sort of arcing that doesn't come from drawing too quickly, but rather is a natural tendency in your arm. You can correct this however, and I explain how to approach it in these notes.

Aside from that, a few things to keep in mind:

• Work on your ability to draw lines between two points without overshooting.

• You certainly have been pretty light on your corrections. I see a few here and there, but I assure you that there are more mistakes. They may be harder to identify, but one way to help pick them out is to extend your lines back towards their implied vanishing point. You don't have to extend them all the way, but extending them to two or three times their original length can really help you see issues with their convergences. Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, and each set has its own vanishing point. It's likely that you'll see that within a given set, some lines converge more quickly than others - which implies that they'd have multiple points where two or three members of the set converge, but not one single point where they all meet. This implies a mistake.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, but it's definitely a good idea to apply that line-extending error checking approach to a couple of the pages you've done here.

Uncomfortable

2017-04-01 00:00

Wow, the improvement from the first few pages to the last is significant. You can definitely see how much your confidence has increased, and how much your grasp of 3D space has improved. The nuance of your line weights also kicks those boxes up to the next level.

As you probably noticed, as your boxes hit a certain level, it can become quite a bit more difficult to identify your own mistakes. One approach that can help to do this is to extend the lines of a completed box back towards their implied vanishing points. If you remember, a box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. If you extend those lines back two to three times their original length, you'll likely see some of the lines of a given set converging together more quickly than other members of the same set. By definition, if the box is correct, all of those lines will converge towards the same point at the same rate.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-04-04 23:38

On one hand, you definitely demonstrated a lot of enthusiasm about this exercise. On the other, you did not follow the instructions on the challenge page, or the instructions I gave you in my last critique. Specifically:

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

This is what I was referring to. You should be drawing all of the lines that make up each box, including those that cannot be seen. Approach it as though you have xray vision. This will give you a better sense of how each form sits in 3D space, and will also allow you to more easily understand the relationship between the near planes and the far planes.

It isn't to say that you didn't improve over this set of boxes, but your growth was slowed considerably by this mistake, and the time spent practicing was rendered considerably less efficient. You'll find that taking the time to absorb the instructions is no less important when learning to draw as it is with anything else.

I am going to mark this challenge as complete only because you did fulfill the requirements of drawing 250 boxes. That said, it would be in your best interest to try it again.

Uncomfortable

2017-04-05 01:04

I do think you improved a fair bit over the course of this challenge. There is definitely room to grow though, as I'm seeing a lot of boxes where your near/far plane size relationships aren't quite right. Keep in mind that the challenge did suggest that you go over your completed work with a different colour to make corrections - that is, marking in the correct line wherever you feel your original line was off. This can help immensely to reflect upon where you tend to make mistakes, as we generally have patterns rooted in what we understand, and what we haven't yet fully grasped yet.

Additionally, make sure you're applying the ghosting method to each and every mark you put down. While it's somewhat understandable considering the boring nature of the exercise, and the vast number of boxes I asked for, you've really got to push yourself to plan out every mark you put down. While in many areas, your lines are decently executed, they do get sloppy in others so keep an eye on that.

One last point - I noticed that you experimented a fair bit with line weight. There were situations where you tried putting your darker lines on the inside of the box. I'm not sure if you gathered this on your own, but this tends to break apart the cohesion of the box. It's best to keep internal lines a lighter, instead adding that extra weight to the lines that define the silhouette. Of course, all of these variations in weight should be fairly subtle. You'll also find that changing to a felt tip pen instead of a ballpoint will help you ease into the use of line weight a little more easily.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, but be sure to go over them for that correction phase for your own benefit.

Uncomfortable

2017-04-06 02:20

Looking good! I think your confidence definitely improves over the set, though you were already pretty decent when you started so from there the improvements end up becoming more subtle. Don't forget to go over them with corrections though! At this stage, it can be a little more difficult to identify where things are going wrong, so here's a helpful technique:

With your differently coloured pen in hand, try extending the lines of your boxes back two or three times their original length, towards their implied vanishing point. If you remember, boxes are composed of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. By extending the lines back, you'll find that within a given set two or three lines may be converging more quickly than the other(s), implying that they do not all converge neatly at around the same point. This shows that there's been a mistake, and by identifying it, you'll slowly catch onto the kind of mistakes you tend to make, and gradually reduce its frequency. This kind of reflection is definitely a very helpful and efficient way to nurture your own growth.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-04-07 22:40

Your improvement across this set is phenomenal. As you get through the first 100, I can really see things beginning to click. As you start experimenting with line weight, your confidence also begins to improve, and the general cohesion and sense of solidity comes along with it.

Long story short, you've done great. One thing that I want to recommend though is more about how you approach your corrections. As you reach the stage you're at, you end up dealing less with obvious mistakes and more with subtler ones that can't always be caught with a glance. In this case, it can help considerably to try extending your boxes' lines back to be two or three times their original length, towards their implied vanishing point (when approaching it with your correction-pen). If you remember, each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When extending the lines back, you'll start to notice that of these sets - to varying degrees - will have some of their lines converging more quickly than others, rather than all four converging at roughly the same rate towards roughly the same point. This tells you that there's a mistake.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-04-10 19:06

Congratulations on completing the challenge. Here are a few things you can improve upon that stood out to me in particular:

• Your application of the ghosting method is often times a little sloppier than it could be, resulting in lines that waver and wobble. Make sure you're drawing from your shoulder, and investing your time in the preparation phase instead of the execution phase. Each mark, after all your planning is done, should be drawn with a persistent, confident pace relying on the muscle memory developed by ghosting through the motion repeatedly.

• You have a tendency to focus on the wrong things when doing your corrections. 239 is a good example of what you should be doing. Don't worry about the stuff you circled - focus on finding lines that are not going in the right direction, and then draw in the correct line with your red pen. It's true that you do need to work on having your lines meet more cleanly (you have a lot of gaps, which you circled), but that's more a matter of adjusting how you apply the ghosting method. The correction phase is more about your understanding of 3D space.

• Give the section on line weight another read through. You have a tendency to apply your line weight to your internal lines, which you really should not be doing. This breaks apart the illusion that all of these lines fit together to make a form. Instead, your internal lines should be on the lighter end of the spectrum, with more weight going to the external lines that make up the box's silhouette. If you're doing this to help differentiate which lines are in front and which lines are behind (as drawing through forms can cause a bit of a double-sided optical illusion), a good way to differentiate them is to fill one of the front-facing faces with some tight, consistent hatching to serve as a visual cue.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-04-14 01:52

Looking good! The thing about the whole drawing through your boxes thing is that it is practicing this specifically that gradually allows you to build a three dimensional mental model of these boxes in your mind. By continuing to practice this - and just as importantly, going back with your red pen to pinpoint and correct your mistakes - you will refine and reinforce this mental model, which will ultimately help you to consider more of what you draw in three dimensions rather than just the two dimensions afforded by the page.

So while there's no tips or tricks to nailing it in a given drawing, there is something you can do to help identify mistakes (and therefore correct those mistakes more effectively). Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work!

Uncomfortable

2017-04-14 01:55

Nice work, I can definitely see your confidence and your use of line weight improving. I did notice however that as your mistakes became somewhat less extreme, your ability to identify where some of your angles were a little off dropped off as well. Here's something you can do to identify areas where the alignment of your lines aren't quite right:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, but be sure to try this method out on a few of your pages.

Uncomfortable

2017-04-17 16:33

Looking pretty good! Your general confidence and your understanding of 3D space definitely improves over the set. I did notice however that as you push through, your mistakes become somewhat more subtle and more difficult to detect. In this case, the following approach should help:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-04-18 20:03

Your boxes are coming along well. As you continue to progress with these, you may find that the mistakes you make end up being somewhat more subtle and harder to detect. As this becomes the case, here's an approach you can use to help identify where things are going wrong in less obvious ways:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

Anyway, consider this challenge complete. In the future, you may want to also consider playing with the line weight of your boxes to really kick them up to the next level. You'll find notes on how to tackle line weight in the 'other tips' section of the box challenge page.

Uncomfortable

2017-04-18 20:20

I think the steadiness of your hand definitely improves after the first couple pages. Overall, you're doing well, but there still is room for progress. While it's great to see that you're definitely pushing yourself to identify and correct mistakes, here's an approach you can use to find those that are a little less obvious:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

Also, another recommendation I have for you is to draw your boxes somewhat larger. Constructing these forms is very much a spatial problem and especially as we start getting used to this it can help a lot to give yourself more room to think and sort things out. We actually have a tendency to draw smaller when we're not confident in our ability to do something (like drawing small will hide our blunders), though it actually causes us to make more mistakes.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-04-20 20:32

Oh I wouldn't say that at all. Looking at these, your line quality seems to be fairly consistent across the board. Your lines flow pretty well, and as a result your boxes feel fairly solid. One thing you could try however to kick your boxes up to the next level is to play with your use of line weight. There's notes in the 'other tips' section of the challenge page that talks about this.

Another recommendation I have is to draw your boxes a little bigger. This will help you further explore your mental model of 3D space. Often people draw things smaller to remain in a sort of comfort zone where fewer things can go wrong - this can have the negative effect of causing lines to cramp up however. I don't see this to any significant degree from you, but it would still be beneficial to vary the sizes of your boxes more.

Lastly, here's an approach you can use to help identify perspective mistakes. They can definitely become more difficult to detect by eye as they become subtler, so this should help you find mistakes that may otherwise go unnoticed:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-04-21 23:38

Nice work completing the challenge. Here are a few areas you can focus on:

• First and foremost, your lines are definitely still somewhat wobbly. There's two different kinds of lines you've got here - your basic construction lines, and the ones you used to add line weight. Both should be approached with more confidence upon execution, relying on the ghosting method to build up muscle memory, and then relying on that muscle memory to drive your hand (instead of going slowly and hoping your brain will keep you on track). If you let your brain drive your drawing motion, the line will wobble, because that's effectively what you're asking it to do - to have your brain course-correct as you go if you ever end up going off track. Instead, even if you're not fully accurate, you want to train yourself to be confident enough to maintain the same trajectory your line started out with. This means that once you start drawing the line, you're basically locked in - you need to be willing to make those mistakes, rather than being too afraid to stumble. Remember, the ghosting method is all about planning and preparing as much as you need, then committing to a course of action.

• For your corrections, you focused your attention in the wrong place. At this point, your wobbly lines are irrelevant - what you want to look at is whether or not the lines you've drawn appear to be correct in terms of perspective. If they're off, draw in the correct mark. It is by reflecting upon these mistakes that you can gradually develop your understanding of 3D space.

Here's an additional trick you can use if you can't quite identify what's wrong with a given box:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

Anyway, while you certainly do have room for improvement, but you're making good headway. Keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable

2017-04-23 00:38

Pretty nice work. The only issue I'm seeing here is that your corrections phase wasn't terribly useful. When going back over your completed boxes, what you should be looking for is instances where your lines are, quite simply, not correct. Wherever you find this, actually draw in the correct line with your red pen.

If you're having trouble identifying these kinds of issues (they can be obvious in some areas, and quite subtle in others), here's a technique you can use to identify them:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, but it is definitely in your best interests to go back over these pages and try to do your corrections again. Keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable

2017-04-23 00:44

Pretty nice work! I especially like that you're not afraid of drawing your boxes quite large. This definitely has a tendency to help our brains think through spatial problems, so it's good to see. The only issue I see is that while you clearly put a lot of thought into your corrections, there's certainly a better way to approach that.

Basically, in this phase all you should really be doing is identifying lines that are wrong, and drawing in a different colour, what the line should have been. This doesn't relate too much to wobbly lines or anything like that, but rather focuses on where your perspective is off. You certainly wrote a lot of notes, but ultimately just going through the process of actually figuring out what the correct line in that situation would be will likely help much more.

If you have trouble identifying areas where your perspective is off, here's a method you can use to make it a little clearer:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-04-26 19:15

So when it comes to speed, we're not really looking for a compromise between accuracy and flow - what we want is to find the lowest speed possible where your brain is unable to interfere and cause your lines to wobble. This means that even if you're overshooting or arcing your lines, that's perfectly fine. Those are problems that will be dealt with later by practicing. Wobbling and wavering is the first thing you want to get out of the way. Not all problems need to be dealt with simultaneously, and since wobbling is more a matter of technique, that's the first thing to resolve.

Additionally, take your time - you submitted this roughly eight hours after you received my critique, so either you started beforehand (in which case you missed my advice) or you really tore through them. The ghosting method really demands a lot of time for you - taking care with each and every stroke, finding the correct angle of approach, ghosting through the motion to properly build up muscle memory, and so on. If you rush, or if you don't take breaks when you need them, you will be sloppy. So even if this sort of thing takes days and days, you need to give each mark as much time as it requires.

Usually I'd mark the challenge as complete, as the criteria really only requires the completion of the 250 boxes, but you still need work in this area so instead I'd like you to try the 250 boxes again. Additionally, when it comes to the correction phase, you corrected a small fraction of the issues in your perspective. If you're having trouble identifying those mistakes, try the following method:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

It would be a good idea to go over this set again with your red pen, trying to identify mistakes, before attempting the challenge again.

Uncomfortable

2017-04-27 22:28

Nice work! Your boxes are pretty solid in terms of their construction, and your use of line weight is generally pretty good. I do see a few cases (188, 189 stand out) where you made the internal lines a little darker (from the looks of it, making the point that comes out closer to the viewer heavier), but I'm glad that you did not continue with that. Experimentation's fine, so I'm glad that you tried it out, but this did have the negative impact of breaking up some of the cohesion that having slightly darker lines enclose the silhouette of a box tends to give.

Since your boxes are generally coming out pretty well, you will naturally have more difficulty identifying mistakes (as they're going to be much more subtle now). Here's a method you can use to help pick them out:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-04-28 17:09

Looking pretty good! Your line weights are definitely solid, your constructions are coming along very nicely, and it seems that you're catching a lot of your more significant mistakes and correcting them properly.

Just a couple things to think about as you continue to move forwards:

• Work on that overshooting of your lines. Confidence is definitely the most important part of the ghosting method and mark making in general, but once you've got a handle on that, you definitely want to start working on improving the control of where your line ends (ideally without decreasing the confidence of your strokes).

• As your mistakes become less frequent, you'll find that they're somewhat harder to detect due to their subtlety. Here's an approach you can use to help identify them: Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-04-28 17:13

Your work's coming along well! I'm glad to see the plethora of corrections as well, you definitely pushed yourself to hunt your mistakes down and correct them to the best of your ability. As you continue to move forwards, it's worthwhile to start exploring line weight, as it can definitely help give your linework a little more dynamism. You'll find more information about that on the challenge page, in the other tips section.

Additionally, as you continue to improve, your obvious mistakes will decrease and you may find it more difficult to find things to correct. Rest assured, there still will be mistakes, but they'll just be harder to find. Here's an approach you can use to help identify them:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-05-01 20:15

Generally you're doing well, though I have a few concerns. I noticed that your lines are looking somewhat sketchy a lot of the time. I know you're using the ghosting method, but I think the sketchiness is coming from when your lines go off-track. It's important that you break the habit of correcting those mistakes by drawing another line on top - you need to leave those things alone, as it's a nasty little habit to get into.

That's why I encourage you to do your corrections with a different colour, and after you've completed the boxes. That way the whole process of reflecting and correcting is distinct and separate from the process of actually drawing. Additionally, I wanted to point out that using such a thick pen for your corrections (the orange one) isn't terribly effective, as it's difficult to see where the correct line would have been. If you can find a red or blue ballpoint pen, that would be much better.

Lastly, if you're having trouble identifying mistakes (there's almost always going to be mistakes on most of your boxes - as they get less significant and less noticeable, it'll be harder to pick them out), here's an approach you can use to find them:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-05-08 00:09

Nice work! Your constructions feel fairly solid, and you're doing a good job with the line weights to reinforce that illusion. I'm also very glad to see that you're extending those lines to get a sense for how your lines behave as they move towards their implied vanishing point. By looking at those, you seem to have caught your tendency to draw lines that diverge ever so slightly, and are correcting them nicely in green. Keep up the good work, and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-05-08 00:13

Very nice work! Your constructions are looking solid, and your use of line weight is very effective. The only thing I noticed is that you don't seem to have gone over them to do much in the way of identifying mistakes and correcting them. If you're having trouble finding mistakes, I recommend going over a page or two as described here:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

That should help you identify the particularly hidden or hard-to-find mistakes, and will allow you to keep progressing rather than plateauing. This is a natural thing people tend to face at this point.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-05-09 20:23

Pretty decent work. In general you're doing pretty well, but I've got a few things I'd like to point out. Firstly, it looks like you're only identifying a few mistakes. This is generally okay, as looking at your work I can understand that you've reached a point where your mistakes become more subtle and less noticeable. In this case, it may help to apply the following technique (copied from the challenge page) in order to better identify where things are a little off:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

The other thing I wanted to mention was in relation to your use of the ghosting method. Looking at your lines, there are some cases where your lines waver somewhat and stray from being entirely smooth. This is, in my estimation, due to the approach you're using, and the question you asked kind of lines up with that.

When applying the ghosting method, the fact that your arm blocks your view of the line you're drawing is largely irrelevant. Reason being, the ghosting method splits drawing up into separate phases. First you identify a comfortable angle of approach, turning your page as necessary. Then you repeatedly ghost the drawing motion in order to build up muscle memory. These first two steps require you to be able to (mostly) see the line you're trying to draw.

The last step - execution of the mark - does not require you to have an unobstructed view, as the point is not to rely on your conscious brain to drive the motion of your hand. It is your muscles that drives your hand as you draw, repeating the same motion you've ghosted several times over. The point is to draw confidently, with a persistent pace, so as to keep your brain from interfering (as this causes one to wobble). So, when the ghosting method is applied correctly, your question becomes less of a concern.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-05-09 21:25

I can definitely see significant improvement over the set. At the beginning you were definitely struggling a fair bit, but by the end you seem to have grasped a good sense of how your boxes sit in 3D space. Here's a few things to keep in mind as you continue to move forwards though:

• A lot of your boxes feel like they're more or less positioned in the same way. I feel like you were aware of this yourself, especially later on, but I do want to stress the importance of varying your angles and trying to mix things up.

• As you moved through the set, you seemed to find fewer and fewer mistakes. If you find that you're having trouble identifying where your estimation of perspective is off, there's a method that was described in the challenge notes that may help. Try applying it to one or two of your completed pages. I've pasted it below:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2017-05-11 23:31

Congrats on completing the challenge. Here are a few recommendations that should help you as you continue to move forwards:

• Try drawing bigger. The construction of boxes is definitely taxing to one's spatial awareness, and spatial problems tend to benefit a fair bit from having more room to think. Conversely, I do see a tendency for students to draw smaller when they're less confident with a specific subject matter. In turn, drawing smaller also makes it much more challenging for them (since they're restricting the amount of space they have to think).

• I noticed that as you went through the set, you were drawing a lot more boxes with particularly dramatic foreshortening. I often see this, because it tends to be easier if you bring the vanishing point much closer to your box (as those that are farther away are much harder to estimate). You definitely want to vary this a lot more, between having a good number of boxes with shallow foreshortening. Shallower foreshortening is something that will tend to be much more useful, as it implies a much more relatable scale, and will be found in most objects you end up drawing. Dramatic foreshortening speaks more to a massive scale - like looking at the top of a building from the ground.

• I saw your last few boxes where you tried to add some line weight. Make sure that in the future, when you attempt this (which you absolutely should play with more), you try to be more subtle with that extra weight. If you make your lines too thick, it will really start to flatten your drawing out. Just a little extra weight is really enough to make something pop. Additionally, make sure you apply that weight with the ghosting method, just like with all other lines you put down. Draw the lines confidently, don't go slow-and-steady, or this will cause your lines to wobble. Just make sure that you compensate for the inevitable loss in accuracy by investing lots of time in the preparation phase, ghosting through the drawing motion and so on.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-05-16 20:49

I definitely see a fair bit of improvement throughout this set, especially as you reach towards the ends. You've got a lot of great corrections in there as well. Over time you will find that your mistakes become somewhat harder to identify though, so when that happens, try applying the following method:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

Also, I encourage you to play more with your line weights as you practice these, as they'll really help to push your boxes to the next level by reinforcing that illusion of solidity.

Keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-05-18 01:01

Looks like you're doing pretty well! I definitely think it would have been better had you drawn each box independently rather than in scenes, but ultimately there's not much you can do if you happened to forget. I mean, aside from drawing another 250 :)

Ultimately the reason drawing individual boxes is better is because it allows you to focus on the construction of each one. When drawing a bunch within the same scene or space, there's a lot more to worry about, and it will generally cause you to split your attention. Getting the hang of them individually will allow you to deal with certain problems and sort them out before moving onto having more together, which will introduce its own challenges.

So your constructions are generally looking pretty good, but I do have a couple suggestions about how you approach the corrections phase. Firstly, don't worry about little aesthetic issues, like lines fraying or separating. Instead, focus on lines that throw off the construction of a box - where their angles were incorrect. From there, you can actually draw in the correct line with your red pen.

If you have trouble identifying those kinds of mistakes, you can use the method mentioned in the challenge notes:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-05-23 00:12

Very nice work! I'm very pleased to see the lengths you went to in order to identify mistakes and ensure that your angles are generally correct. Over the course of this set, you've definitely improved on many fronts - your general sense of 3D space, your confidence, and your ability to convey the illusion of solidity. Or at least, through the first 150-200. After that I think you probably lost your steam a little bit, but that's understandable.

Near planes are technically not always bigger, and when those planes get particularly skewed that rule falls apart. That said, it's still a good rule of thumb for beginners that suggests the rule that is more complex, but also more reliable - all lines parallel in 3D space converge at the same rate towards a single point when drawn in 2D. That's effectively the principle you demonstrated when extending the lines of your boxes back to check their alignment and convergence.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-05-25 02:04

Very nice work! Your constructions and line weights are looking very solid. I did notice though that you haven't gone through the correction phase of the challenge, which is highly recommended (as it is by identifying our mistakes that we really learn from them). At this point, it's likely quite difficult to identify mistakes in your boxes by eye, as you've reached the stage where they end up being very subtle things.

So in that case, I recommend taking a page or two and applying the following method (which was also mentioned in the challenge page):

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Those corrections are really for your own benefit, so you don't need to submit them. Feel free to move onto lesson 2 when you're ready.

Uncomfortable

2017-06-08 02:05

Congratulations on completing the challenge. I think you're generally showing some improvement with the confidence of your linework, but I see a lot of places where your boxes are skewed, or where your far planes are notably larger than your near planes. When going through to apply your corrections, I recommend applying this method mentioned in the challenge page notes:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

It especially helps when you're not able to pick up on mistakes merely by looking at them. Sometimes this is because your eye simply isn't used to it, and later on it'll be because the mistakes themselves will be less noticeable in general.

Uncomfortable

2017-06-07 22:08

Nothing is out of the ordinary here - by drawing boxes, making mistakes, identifying and correcting those mistakes, you gradually build up this mental model of how 3D space works. You're supposed to be making those mistakes, and from the look of things your mistakes are growing more and more subtle thus far, so they seem to be doing their trick. Just keep going and don't think that because you're making mistakes, you're doing something wrong. Sometimes failure is planned and expected, just make sure you're identifying the nature of those mistakes by extending the lines as you have been.

Uncomfortable

2017-06-22 13:27

Overall, you're doing great. You're at the point where the mistakes are much more subtle and more difficult to identify at the first glance. At that point, extending your lines back during the corrections phase becomes very important, as it helps to make those hidden mistakes much more obvious. I noticed that you did that here and there, but definitely make a habit of doing it more frequently, and doing so for all three sets of parallel lines, rather than just some of them.

That issue about drawing small is a common one - people tend to do that out of fear, though it actually causes more problems. Our brains benefit considerably from getting more room to think through these spatial problems, so when we limit the amount of space we're giving ourselves, we end up fumbling a lot. Of course with practice, we get better at dealing with smaller spaces, but we kind of have to work back to that.

Anyway, like I said - great work. I'll mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2 (or the cylinder challenge, if you'd prefer to do that first).

Uncomfortable

2017-06-23 20:03

You're doing a pretty good job, but I distinctly noticed that you didn't quite get into the correction phase of the challenge. It's particularly important, as the whole process of learning really does rely on being able to go back and identify one's mistakes. After a certain point, it does start to get much more difficult to identify mistakes as they become more subtle (and as your understanding of 3D space hits a particular plateau). In order to push beyond that, I recommend using this approach when marking in your corrections, which was mentioned in the challenge page notes.

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

I think this should help clarify the issue that you're encountering with not quite being able to figure out how to make sure the perspective is correct.

Anyway, that recommendation is primarily to help you make better use of the exercise. As far as the challenge goes, you've drawn 250 boxes, so I'll go ahead and mark it as complete. Make sure that you do apply the extending-lines approach to at least a couple of your pages of boxes, so you get a good sense of where things are going wrong.

Uncomfortable

2017-06-26 00:46

Nice work! I can definitely see your struggles in certain areas, but I'm very pleased to see the care with which you went over with corrections, and that you applied the extending-lines approach to finding where your mistakes were. As your box constructions are certainly improving, I'd definitely recommend also experimenting with adding line weight to help solidity your forms. Be sure to read the notes about how to approach this on the challenge page, in the 'other tips' section.

About fighting with your wrist, remember that most of your linework should be done from the shoulder, with your wrist locked. This includes the lines you're drawing here, as our main focus when drawing them is on their flow and smoothness. The wrist is used on a fairly limited selection of lines, as explained here. Our shoulders are also able to sustain much more drawing without cramping (once you've gotten used to it, that is), and stand up more effectively to repetitive stress injuries. Drawing too much from your wrist can be quite dangerous.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-07-03 23:21

I can definitely see a considerable improvement over this set. You started out with a great deal of hesitation and uncertainty, but by the end there's a clear intent behind every line, and a growing grasp of how things sit in 3D space. There's no need to send me any follow-up work from lesson 1, though be sure to practice that on your own (you should be incorporating those exercises into a warmup routine, as mentioned in the introduction section of lesson 1).

What I do recommend however is that you apply the approach outlined in the challenge page notes to help better identify mistakes that aren't always entirely obvious to the naked eye:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

As we get a better handle on this type of exercise, our mistakes will basically just get a lot harder to notice, so tricks like this can definitely help us to better grasp where we still tend to make mistakes. Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work!

Uncomfortable

2017-07-06 14:09

Congratulations on completing the challenge. You definitely stuck with it, and that's great to see. When it comes to ghosting your lines, if you catch yourself needing to see where your pen is as it goes across the page while drawing, that's a sign that you're not applying the method correctly. Generally it points to you needing to ghost through the motion a little more, but overall it can imply a misunderstanding of what the goal really is.

The point of ghosting is to communicate your intent and goals to your muscles, developing the muscle memory so you don't really need to interfere with your brain once you're actually making the mark. If you're still relying on your eyes to know when to stop the mark, then that implies that you're not 100% confident in your muscle memory.

Don't get me wrong - you will make mistakes, that's totally normal. This may well just be a matter of confidence, of allowing yourself to make those mistakes and continue on, rather than fretting too much about them. It takes time to develop a solid level of comfort with the ghosting method, so as long as you understand what you should be aiming for, keep at it and it will improve.

One thing that I want to recommend, in regards to going over your boxes with corrections, is to apply the method described on the challenge page, which I've pasted below:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

This should help you catch the more subtle mistakes that you may not be able to see on your own just yet. It's a nature progression - we start out making obvious mistakes, but as we improve on those, what's left are the mistakes that aren't quite so easy to notice.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-07-11 02:25

Nice work! Your linework is very confident, and I'm pleased to see the extent to which you went with your corrections. Ultimately that is what will continue to refine your mental model of 3D space - making mistakes, and then reflecting upon them. Don't forget though, that if you feel uncertain about what exactly is wrong with a given box, you can use this method, mentioned on the challenge page:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

Additionally, I would recommend playing with line weight to help kick your boxes up to the next level. There are some notes about that in the 'other tips' section of the challenge page. I actually noticed that you did try it in a few places, but you applied it somewhat in reverse. You darkened the internal lines. This has the unfortunate effect of making a box appear less cohesive, since the major borders are defined inside of the form. If instead the heaviest weights are reserved for the lines that make up the box's silhouette, they will enclose the overall form, making it feel like all of these lines are grouped together.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-07-11 17:41

Congratulations on completing the challenge. I do have a couple things to comment upon however:

• Your line quality definitely seems to be a bit inconsistent here. Be sure to take care in applying the ghosting method to every single mark you put down. Invest all of your time into the preparation phase, then execute each mark with a confident, persistent pace. No hesitation, no room for wobbling.

• I can see that you applied the extending-lines approach to identifying where your angles are off, or where your far planes are larger than your near planes. What I don't see a whole lot of however is actually correcting the mistakes that you identify. It's important to do this as a part of the learning process.

• While I can't quite put it to words, I feel in my gut that separating each box into its own isolated little frame wasn't the best of ideas. I really can't give you a reason as to why, but if you look at how others approach their 250 box challenges (just pages filled arbitrarily with boxes, no borders or anything separating them), I'd recommend approaching it that way in the future.

• Be sure to experiment with using line weight to kick your boxes up to the next level in the future. There are notes on this subject in the 'other tips' section of the challenge page.

Uncomfortable

2017-07-13 23:54

Very nice work. The quality of your boxes and the general confidence of your constructions definitely improves over the set, and you're demonstrating a well developing grasp of 3D space. The only thing I want to mention about the boxes where you started playing around a bit is that while it's fine to challenge yourself in certain ways, it's important to always give your full focus to the main aspects of the exercise. In your particular case, the boxes where you got a little more interesting, there was a notable decrease in the quality of those lines. So keep that in mind.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-07-16 20:14

Nice work! I'm particularly pleased to see how dedicated you've been to going over your completed boxes with corrections. Over time it is natural for these mistakes to become less and less noticeable. At this point, applying the approach described below (and in the notes) will definitely be useful, so keep it in mind for the future:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

Additionally, I think another way to kick your boxes up to the next level is to play with your use of line weight to help make the boxes feel more solid and cohesive. There are notes about this in the 'other tips' section of the challenge page.

Keep up the fantastic work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-07-17 19:45

Congratulations on completing the challenge. Here's a couple of things to keep in mind as you continue to move forwards:

• Your line quality is a little inconsistent at times - sometimes it's fine, other times it gets a little wobbly. Remember to apply the ghosting method to all of your mark making, which effectively forces you to invest all of your time in the preparation phase, before executing with a confident, persistent pace.

• If you have trouble identifying mistakes in your boxes (which will naturally happen more and more as your skills improve, as the mistakes will become less noticeable), you'll want to apply the method I mention in the notes. I've copied it below:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

• Also, consider playing with line weights a little to kick your boxes up to the next level. There are notes about this in the 'other tips' section of the challenge page.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Both moving onto the cylinder challenge as well as jumping right into lesson 2 are perfectly viable options. In your particular situation, I may lean towards the cylinder challenge, as it will give you the opportunity to continue working on your line quality.

Uncomfortable

2017-07-17 20:23

Excellent work. Your boxes feel solid, and you've done a great job of applying line weight to increase the general sense of cohesion. The only thing I noticed is that you were pretty sparse on corrections. Identifying where you've gone a little wrong and marking in the correct line in its place is an important part of learning from this kind of exercise. At your level, I'd say it's quite difficult to identify mistakes with the naked eye, so this approach mentioned in the challenge page notes is definitely worth looking into:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-07-27 16:11

You certainly are tenacious, having reached 500 boxes. I think you're making progress, but the biggest issue that's holding you back is perhaps the amount of time and focus you put towards each individual box. I could be wrong, but looking over this set it looks to me like you're in a bit of a quantity-over-quality mindset.

The result of this is:

• Your lines are sometimes solid, but frequently they end up wobbling considerably. Are you applying the ghosting method? Are you investing the majority of your time in the preparation phase and following through all of those steps, before executing with a smooth, confident pace?

• You've definitely got to push that extending-lines approach to checking the angles of your lines. There are a lot of boxes that are very obviously skewed, but there's no attempt at figuring out what's wrong or correcting them. While drawing more boxes is definitely good, it's the correcting of them that is going to teach you the most. By facing your mistakes, you force yourself to think more about how your lines need to behave in order to convey a form that feels solid. After you complete a page of boxes, you should go back over it and be meticulous. Use a ruler if you have to.

• Draw bigger. Our brains require a great deal of room, especially early on, to deal with spatial problems. If your boxes are primarily cramped in a limited amount of space, you're really shortchanging yourself.

• I definitely like the fact that you explored a wide variety of types of foreshortening, from shallow to dramatic. That said, I think shallower foreshortening (where the far end of a box isn't that much smaller than the near end) is going to be much more useful to you, and so you should lean more towards that. Reason being, dramatic foreshortening (where the far end is considerably smaller than the near end) conveys a very large sense of scale (like looking up at the top of a building from the road). As such, most of the objects you'll find yourself drawing will be much smaller, so you'll want to nail those down.

If you're getting kind of bored with simple boxes, you may also want to look into the advanced box exercise.

Uncomfortable

2017-07-29 03:11

Looking pretty good! Just a couple things to mention:

• As far as line weight goes, remember that you should generally be quite sparing with the internal lines, and focus most of your weight on the external ones. More weight on the inside will start to undermine the sense of cohesion and make the box feel more like a series of lines rather than a solid, enclosed form. I do understand that you're likely trying to differentiate the lines oriented towards the viewer against those that you've 'drawn through', but in that case I'd recommend filling just one forward-face of the box with some tight, consistent hatching lines to serve as a visual cue.

• If you find that you start catching fewer and fewer mistakes as you go, don't forget about the following method mentioned in the challenge page notes. As you get better, mistakes will become harder to detect - that doesn't mean they're not there, but it does mean you're on the correct path. To continue improving, you'll have to try other ways to identify where things are slightly off:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-07-29 03:41

I definitely think you've improved over the course of this set, and I believe you've been quite conscientious with your identification of your mistakes. As far as your line quality goes, I think the reason you may struggle more with shorter lines over medium length ones isn't exactly what you say. What I'm seeing is actually signs that you may be relying more on your wrist in those areas than your shoulder. This results in a less stable arc of motion, and causes lines to get quite wobbly.

Overall, while your line quality is also improving steadily, that is definitely going to be what you want to focus on most. The application of the ghosting method is very important, as we use it for every mark we put down. That said, you clearly know what to aim for, and already understand that confidence in one's execution is paramount. It can take time to get used to the ghosting method, but with continued practice it will become second nature.

Don't forget that as you improve, you will find it more and more difficult to identify where things are off, as the mistakes will become more subtle. In that case, it's always helpful to apply the following approach, mentioned in the challenge page notes:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

I'd say one thing that would help kick your boxes up to the next level is to play a little with line weight. You'll find notes on that in the 'other tips' section of the challenge page.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2 next. Keep in mind that as with all of the previous material you've tackled thus far, it's important to keep up with all of it as part of a warmup routine to keep sharpening those skills, and ultimately to keep them sharp.

Uncomfortable

2017-07-29 03:52

Congratulations on completing the challenge. You are certainly making some progress with these, but there are a few important points I'd like to mention that should help you along:

• Line quality is very important. Make sure you're applying the ghosting method from lesson 1 to every mark you make. This means investing all of your time in the preparation phase, setting out points for where you want your lines to start/end, ghosting through the motion several times, and executing your marks with a confident, persistent pace. Your results may not be entirely accurate, but as long as you're executing them confidently, they should maintain the same trajectory throughout and come out smoothly with no visible wobbling. This can take a little time to get used to of course, but the biggest problem with line quality is usually that students hesitate, due to a fear of being inaccurate.

• There are a few pages where you crammed a whole lot of very small boxes in. The issue here is that when you drastically limit the room you have to work on each box, you also limit the amount of space your brain has to work through spatial problems. A lot of students tend to have a bad habit where they'll draw smaller if they're not feeling confident about something. This has the side effect of actually making their work worse, because it ends up coming out stiff and awkward. Boxes especially are susceptible to this, as they're at their very core a spatial problem.

• While you definitely put some effort into identifying mistakes, there are quite a few that you didn't quite catch. For these, I recommend using the following method to help identify where your lines don't quite behave correctly, but you're not sure what's wrong:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

I'd recommend picking a couple pages of your boxes on which to apply this method, just to see where the convergence of your lines tends to be inconsistent. The biggest part of improving one's skills is actually identifying one's mistakes so they can be learned from.

While I will be marking this challenge as complete, as you certainly did achieve the main goal, keep in mind that there is plenty of room for improvement on this front.

Uncomfortable

2017-07-30 19:10

There definitely is a notable difference by your fourth page - I assume those first three were done on your steering wheel. After that point, I think your sense of 3D space and your ability to manipulate these simple forms while maintaining the illusion of solidity improves a fair bit. On that note though, it's important that you do the exercises in an environment that is conducive to you being able to move your arms, and keep your paper stable. I talk about this a little in this point from the FAQ: Is it okay if I do my lessons on the bus, laying on my bed, on the couch, or in other similarly less-than-stable positions?

Here are a couple extra things to keep in mind:

• Try to draw your boxes a little bigger. Overall you don't seem to have run into any significant issues due to the size of your drawings, but as a rule of thumb, it helps to give your brain a little more room to think through spatial problems.

• For this exercise in particular, it's best to keep the boxes from overlapping. As soon as they overlap, they relate to each other in a direct way and that immediately increases the complexity of what we're tackling here. Also, where your boxes did overlap, you didn't draw each one in its entirety, which takes away from some of the understanding of how each box sits in 3D space.

• I noticed that you applied corrections in a few places, but not a whole lot of them. It's understandable if this is because you simply couldn't identify other issues (which makes sense, because you're doing fairly well already, and are more or less at that point). In this situation, I'd recommend using the technique mentioned on the challenge page, which I've pasted below:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2017-07-30 20:26

Generally you're doing very well. Your lines are smooth and confident, and your line weights are well placed to give each box a greater sense of solidity and cohesion. There is one thing I noticed however with your particular use of the ghosting technique, when I watched your video.

Every now and then you'll ghost towards your body several times, then execute away from it. As they are in two different (opposite) directions, the ghosting wouldn't help the execution all that much. It's important to ensure that your ghosting is done exactly as you would execute the motion. Also, I've found that most people do find drawing away from the body to be much more feasible than drawing towards it.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Agrees_withyou

2017-08-04 18:27

Hey, you're right!

Uncomfortable

2017-08-05 18:34

Nice work! I can definitely see the construction of your boxes improving over the set, and I think a lot of that has to do with how conscientiously you're applying those corrections. That said, as you improve, you may find that you'll notice fewer and fewer mistakes, because they naturally become more subtle (since you're already more aware of the obvious ones). In this case, it becomes extra useful to apply the following method, which was mentioned in the challenge notes:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

It's definitely time consuming, but it'll help you keep from plateauing, as you'll have a more concrete way of identifying where (and why) things appear to be a little off.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-08-05 18:43

Nice work! I'm especially pleased to see that you extended most of your lines back for all of your boxes. It's certainly time consuming, but it definitely seems to have helped as your constructions and general grasp of 3D space does seem to have improved over the set. I'm also quite pleased with all of the corrections you marked in.

Overall, I don't have much to offer in the way of critique. I noticed that you were playing with line weight early on, but seemed to give up on that later on. Nothing wrong with focusing on one thing in order to really nail it, but it would be good to play with line weight a little more in the future, as it helps kick solid boxes up to the next level, as far as the illusion of cohesion and solidity goes.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-08-07 02:53

Nice work completing the challenge, and the last part of lesson 1. Those rotated boxes are looking very nice. The only issue I want to raise in regards to your boxes though is about how you're actually executing your lines.

I see a lot of signs that you're (for some of these boxes, moreso later in the set) drawing lines more lightly as a sort of rough sketch, then going back over them with a darker, but more hesitant line. I want you to avoid this two-stage approach entirely.

Instead, as you seem to have done for other boxes here, draw all of your lines with confidence, applying the ghosting method. You can use the first step of the ghosting method to place start/end points for each line before you actually commit to a stroke, but ultimately when executing a mark, you need to only be concerned with drawing with a confident, persistent pace, in order to maintain a consistent trajectory and a smooth line. If you're caught up in drawing a line lighter, or following the path you laid down previously, you are going to end up burdening your brain with too many concerns.

Similarly, instead of drawing a lighter line for the "drawn-through" portions of the box, you can draw them with the same kind of confidence you'd use elsewhere, but then fill in one of the front-facing faces of the box with some tight hatching lines to serve as a visual cue for separating front faces from back faces.

Anyway, feel free to move onto lesson 2, as I'll be marking both lesson 1 and the box challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-08-11 20:34

Very nice work! Your overall construction certainly gets better, but more importantly your general sense of confidence improves considerably over the set. The only thing that I'd like to point out is your approach to the corrections phase - from the looks of it, you're focusing largely on pointing them out, circling them, and generally making notes. What's most important is somewhat lacking - that is, actually marking in the correct lines.

Additionally, I've pasted below an approach to identifying mistakes that was mentioned in the challenge page that should be useful, in case you missed it during your first read through:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

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

Uncomfortable

2017-08-13 21:45

Excellent work! I'm very pleased to see how conscientious you were with the corrections for each box, and the fact that you applied the extension method to each one. Your line quality is also looking solid, as are the box constructions in general. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2017-08-18 20:06

Pretty nice work! Your line quality is looking pretty solid, your constructions are well done and you've got a lot of careful corrections spread out across the set. You're doing great.

The answer to your question is a little indirect - it's not so much about tricks and techniques that will help you figure things out on a particular box. What's important is building up your mental model of 3D space, and figuring out where you tend to do things incorrectly (especially the subtle mistakes that often go unnoticed when analyzed by the naked eye). As you improve more and more, you'll find that it becomes harder to identify the mistakes that are present, because they become much less significant in scope.

In that case, it becomes important to use the extending-lines approach mentioned in the challenge page (I'll reiterate it at the bottom of this comment as well). You have to get used to being able to see how lines that are parallel in 3D space converge with one another when drawn in 2D. The inside of the box consists of one line from each set of such parallel lines, and each has to abide by the same convergence of the other lines within its own set. This is where we tend to make little mistakes, having some lines within the set converge more quickly than others. This kind of incongruity results in the inside lines falling out of whack, because they're usually the last lines we draw.

So in order to improve our ability to notice these mistakes (both after they've happened, and before we actually make them), we need to incorporate this method of extending the lines back to identify where they've gone wrong.

Here's the method from the challenge page:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

I recommend that you take a page of boxes you've already drawn, and try extending the lines back to see where things are roughly correct, and where you've got outliers that stray much further from the rest of the lines within their own set.