Generally you're doing really quite well, especially in terms of construction and understanding how these complex objects are made up of a lot of simple forms stuck together in specific, interesting ways. Your planes are especially impressive, but even some of the simpler stuff - like the constructional lay-in on the first page for that pickup truck is really phenomenally laid out.
One thing I did notice - which is honestly me just being picky due to a lack of other things to talk about - is in your tank, the particular perspective you used is starting to tend more towards the orthographic. The angle at which we're viewing the tank (from up above, tilted down) really begs for a third vanishing point to be used for the verticals. As a result, using two point perspective ends up making things start to feel a little weirdly distorted, especially looking at the angle of the treads and wheels.
Additionally, for those wheels, inset ellipses are a great way to add a little interest to areas like that.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark the lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching lessons! I do have one question though - are you using an ellipse guide for these? I did mention that students were encouraged to do so, but I think you're one of the first I've seen who actually had one (assuming that is what you used).
I haven't had the chance to go through it yet, but Scott Robertson's 'How to Render' (a followup to his How to Draw) is probably a good place to look. It definitely looks like it'd be right up your alley, considering how natural and comfortable the plane drawings seemed to be for you.
Overall, I think you're definitely moving in the right direction. Your general approach, sticking primarily to rudimentary forms, following construction as far as it will take you and so on is definitely going well. Your grasp of boxes has definitely come along way.
There are a couple of things I'd like to point out though:
First and foremost, your cylinders need work. It's actually a specific issue that's giving you some trouble - drawing ellipses inside of planes. This video on the subject was included in the lesson, though I'm not sure if you had the chance to watch it. The important thing there is that in order for an ellipse to represent a circle in 3D space, it needs to meet two criteria.
Its minor axis needs to run perpendicular to the surface on which the ellipse sits. Basically what this means is that if your ellipse sits on a plane whose horizontal lines go off towards the right vanishing point in 2 point perspective, your ellipse's minor axis needs to intersect with the left vanishing point.
Your ellipse touches the plane that encloses it at four points, one on each edge. The top and bottom points must align to the vertical vanishing point. In two point perspective, this just means that those two contact points must be directly above/below each other.
If your ellipse does not meet one or both of these criteria, it cannot represent a circle.
Another related issue that I noticed is that you tend to have a bit of an issue in terms of aligning boxes to one another. Specifically when you're trying to position your wheels, you seem to be having trouble keeping it parallel with the main body of the vehicle.
Lastly, your golf cart raised the main issue that comes from plotting actual vanishing points on your page - you're forced to keep them no further apart than the width of the paper. In this case, it resulted in some pretty dramatic foreshortening. While it isn't wrong, it does look a little weird.
I think you're definitely moving in the right direction, but cylinders are still quite difficult for you so that's an area you'll definitely want to practice. That said, I think you've encountered a fair bit of success in this set - for example, I really like your dog sled. Unconventional choice, but really well executed!
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. There's definitely lots of room to grow, but you're on track. Considering that you only started four months ago, I think you've improved by leaps and bounds. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching material!
Thanks for the kind words! I hear what you're saying about the cylinders, I think I just need to more muscle memory. Looking forward to the next lesson!
[deleted]
2017-04-28 15:05
Can't reply to my previous submission, so hope it's OK if I post these here. I've re-done the 250 cylinder challenge here and my additional vehicles are here
I'm still having a bit of trouble with certain things. Especially motorcyles... I just don't know how to construct them properly as they are made up of lots of smaller parts all at different angles. :\
Your cylinders are generally looking good. I'm glad that you're playing with both constructing cylinders purely from a minor axis, as well as from a box. Just make sure you've watched those two videos in the lesson about ellipses-in-planes, as they can be a little tricky to get your head around.
I think your work has definitely improved - specifically in terms of your forms feeling more solid and more consistent. The forms seem to align to each other more appropriately, leading to fewer cases of disjointedness. That isn't to say there aren't minor alignment issues (like the airplane's engines), but they're less noticeable and will certainly improve with continued practice.
That's one thing to keep in mind - the amount of drawing I have students do through these lessons definitely seems like a lot, but ultimately it's a drop in the bucket in relation to what's necessary to really solidify one's grasp of all of these concepts. Effectively my goal here is to teach you how to think about drawing, and how to best spend your time when practicing.
I do have one tip that I want to offer though. So I noticed that in your drawings, you tend to do your construction, then you go over your drawing with a heavier pen, replacing your lines with 'cleaner' ones.
This particular approach is not a great idea, but the reason is a little confusing so bear with me. Basically the issue lies with the difference between replacing lines and emphasizing them.
When we replace our lines (like a clean-up pass),we're purposely trying to draw in new lines without the flaws of our old ones. Think like doing a rough sketch in pencil, then going over it with pen. When putting the ink down, by virtue of what we're trying to do, we naturally go slower, and draw with much less confidence. Our lines will waver more frequently.
When we emphasize existing lines instead (which is what we attempt to do when simply adding line weight to key areas), we do not go over the entirety of a drawing. We apply those weights strategically in order to emphasize overlaps (as explained here), and we don't fuss with the idea of trying to perfect the linework. We ghost those lines like any other, and draw them just as confidently - just as accepting of any mistakes that may result.
One thing you should look at in regards to all of this are your 'cleaned-up' cylinders. A good example of this is the mufflers on the back of your motorcycle. The original ellipses curve noticeably more than your cleaner lines do, so the resulting clean cylinder actually doesn't read as being nearly as solid.
As for your struggles with those motorcycles, there definitely are a lot of itty bits that complicate matters immensely. That's something you'll learn to deal with over time, but what's important here is that you accept that these things are in fact more forms that should be constructed. When we start tackling stuff like this, we tend to have a threshold for how significant in form and volume something has to be before our brain even thinks to include it as part of the construction, rather than as a decoration that can be pasted on.
As we continue to immerse ourselves in this, and continue to practice, that threshold decreases - we start to think of much more of the nitty-gritty tiny nonsense as being actual solid forms, and less as simply being stickers. One approach that may help to increase your development in this regard is to simply stop drawing things that one would classify as decoration, detail, or stickers. Basically draw only that which you are willing to construct, and push yourself to make the object as recognizable as possible. Usually you'll find that the decorations aren't necessary to make something look like, well, something.
Anyway you're moving along well so I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching material!
[deleted]
2017-04-28 18:47
Thanks for the feedback. I think I might have misunderstood the instructions in the lesson regarding applying the line weights which is why I drew over the whole drawing and I guess whenever I noticed lines that I wasn't too happy about I ended up trying to draw new ones instead.
I had a feeling that would be the approach for subjects like the motorcycle and in my drawing there is a lot of detail that I ended up ignoring as I didn't feel that it was significant enough to include. Actually I'm glad to hear that there's nothing wrong with doing that as I was worried about missing things... I feel like I should be drawing everything I can see but it can get kinda stressful when there are so many little parts that don't really add anything to the drawing.
I definitely get the sense that you're getting overwhelmed by the subject matter, and the very scale of it, and as a result you're losing grip on the basic principles and rules covered in the lesson. When dealing with much of this construction, that before you draw any given feature - like a wheel, for instance - you establish everything about the exact position and space it will occupy beforehand by subdividing your major box forms.
Take a look at this tank. Though you did your basic subdivision of the overall boxes, you positioned the wheels through pure guesswork. The smaller wheels overlap (which doesn't really make any spatial sense, since these things cannot occupy in the same space), and there's no clear grasp of how these different components relate to each other in space.
What I'm seeing is that you're generally drawing and subdividing a box, and then mostly just winging it from there. This car for instance - there's no relationship between the body or angle of the car to the initial box you constructed, and most of it was drawn from pure observation with little to no actual construction or consideration of rudimentary forms.
At least, that's for the first half of the lesson.
Now, this carriage is much, much better. The positions of the windows feel more solid, and while the ellipses of those wheels are quite uneven, the overall construction holds up much better and there seems to be considerably less guesswork, and much stronger understanding of the underlying forms.
This airplane also demonstrated a much stronger grasp of the principles in the lesson. And while your go-kart doesn't use much subdivision or anything like that, I must commend you on an excellent example of observation. Not really in line with the lesson, but still very carefully done, and a demonstration of a skill that does come into play in a big way once your construction is solidly determined.
Because of the uncertainty and weakness in the first half of the lesson, and the wide array of subject matter (where you could potentially understand how to apply the principles for some objects, but not for others), I'm not going to mark this lesson as complete yet. Instead I want to see another eight pages, where I hope to see much stricter adherence to the lesson's points on construction. Additionally, for those eight pages I don't want you to get into any detail whatsoever. Whenever you add an extra element to a drawing, consider whether or not you're thinking about it in terms of adding a new three dimensional form. If it's just something being pasted onto the surface of an existing form, leave it out. If it's something you really need to think about in terms of its occupying 3D space, draw it in using construction.
Cars, especially the curvy ones, were definitely the hardest vehicles for me to draw. I specifically had trouble drawing the curves and getting the right proportions of the wheels.
There's some good here and some not so good, so you're still kind of riding the edge of demonstrating that you understand, and not quite grasping the material.
I definitely think this page is going in the right direction in terms of your general grasp of boxy forms. This is effectively how all of your constructions should start - relying heavily on boxes to block everything out.
When it comes to curvy cars, what's most important to realize is that those curves are just a manner of interpreting straight edges. That is to say, a curve can be summarized as two or three straight lines - so if you are able to construct those straight lines and get them to sit right, you can then use them as the scaffolding for a curved line later on.
On the topic of the proportions of your wheels, I agree - you definitely need work on your observation skills there. Proportions are something that people generally do struggle with, but I can definitely see that the wheels even in your proportion studies are off. Take a closer look at your reference, as that three-wheel height you've got there definitely makes your wheels too small in relationship to the car.
Another issue I noticed is that in this page, the long plane you've used to situate your wheels does not line up to the lines of the box. If you looked at the top/bottom lines of the side plane of that box, those two lines should be going to the same implied vanishing point as the top and bottom of the wheel-plane. If you were to extend those four lines however, you'd find that the top of the wheel plane is going to a very different place. As far as your execution of straight lines go, they are very straight so I'm not actually sure if you're using a ruler or not - if you're not, you are allowed to. A ruler will help you gauge your lines a little more easily and keep things lined up better, since you'll be able to position your ruler and decide whether or not you want to commit to a line before drawing it.
Then there's the fact that in this tank, the wheels are just floating arbitrarily - their overall position is not based on anything that I can see. I had pointed this out in my last critique, that you're incorporating guesswork where there should be none.
Lastly, most if not all of these drawings are unfinished. That's not really what I'd consider to be a full extra 8 pages. The more I think about it, and the more I look over your work, I'm not seeing all that much of what I asked for - which was specifically more attention being paid to the content of the lesson itself. Read it over. Rewatch the videos. Then sit down and complete eight full pages - take each drawing to the completion of its construction, regardless of how you feel about how it's going. Don't just stop because it feels wrong, the point of the homework is not to produce pretty drawings, it's to learn. We learn by making mistakes and understanding those mistakes. If you just stop and move to the next page, you're not giving yourself the chance to understand what went wrong.
Thank you for the critique, I'll go back and reread and rewatch the material. I have a few questions though: For the tank how would I prevent the wheels from floating arbitrarily, by connecting them to the wheels on the other side? Like this: http://imgur.com/KJRPuPO
Also, I'm a little confused as to what you mean about the drawings being unfinished. Weren't the lay-ins supposed to be made up of basic geometric forms? Are you looking for something like this: http://drawabox.com/viewimage/lesson7/demo3_8.jpg
This new drawing is considerably better. In this case, those wheels are grounded due to being constructed around that center line of the larger plane. In the previous tank drawings, there was no clear relationship between any clearly defined proportional measurement to the positioning of those wheels.
As for your other question, these drawings are split up into construction and detail, with detail being the very last step of pasting additional markings onto the surfaces of your constructed forms as though they were stickers, and construction being quite literally everything else. So in the case of the car demo, I'm talking about this. Notice how everything is based on form, every element that's been added has clear consideration for how it sits in 3D space? The step after that (which is the last step for that drawing) is where I don't worry about space and form quite as much and tack on additional incidentals.
So for the other demos, we're talking about this stage and this stage (although in the latter, I never really went that far into detail so the last step of the cab-over truck could also be considered part of construction).
There's a lot of signs that your ability to think in terms of 3D space is improving. That said, you're still not putting enough effort into blocking your constructions out with primitive forms. Here's some redlining.
When I first glanced at your work yesterday when I added it to my backlog, I was seriously considering marking this lesson as complete. Upon the closer examination required to add all of the additional notes, I've decided against that. This does mean that you're close, but in general you're skipping too many steps and still not following my instructions to the letter. It's better for you to try again and to push yourself harder to follow the instructions.
As an additional restriction to hopefully force you to take some more time, I don't want you to resubmit until Saturday.
The only thing I had significant trouble with was constructing a box around the bicycle as the wheels look like they're from the side but the handlebars look like they could be encapsulated in a box.
Overall this is vastly improved. You've still got work to do as far as proportion goes, but you're effectively now on track to do so because you're using the tools and approaches from the lesson to much better effect. Rather than relying on guesswork, you're actually logically measuring things out.
I have just a couple of tips as you continue to move forwards, but I'll be marking this lesson as complete. Firstly, it helps when drawing your wheels to start them off as entire boxes. I can see that you're fleshing out the plane of one side of each wheel, but I'm noticing that you're still guessing a little at the opposite side. The more you limit guesswork, the better. Even when creating inset ellipses (within a larger ellipse), you can start them out by drawing an inset plane within the larger plane. I believe I do this in the barrel demo from lesson 6.
The other thing is just to keep an eye on how things are aligned. The jeep looks fantastic and solid, although it's a shame that the front wheels are totally misaligned from the body of the car (so the front left wheel ends up way further back than it should be).
Oh, and I did catch some signs that you may be freehanding some of your lines. Remember that the instructions do allow you to use a ruler for this lesson, since it's particularly complex. A ruler not only helps you keep your lines straight, but it also helps you plan things out a little better, and can help you to avoid alignment problems like this - at least to a degree.
As for that bicylce thing, I think you did a really good job with the handle bars. My bigger concern is that the wheels look flat, because you more or less built them into a flat plane, rather than into a 3D box.
Anyway, like I said - I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching material. You definitely had a bit of struggle near the end, but you pushed through and did a good job of it. Keep up the good work!
In general you're doing a great job leveraging construction along with measurement and the other techniques covered in the lesson. There is certainly room for growth, as there always will be. Specifically though, you'll want to focus on your estimation of the alignment of your lines (relative to the invisible vanishing point). Basically, drawing a line on a plane that goes off to the same vanishing point as the lines on either side of it. One exercise I recommend for working on this is described in this video.
In terms of other issues, always remember that every form you draw has thickness. Take a look at the cattle-catcher on the front of this train - notice how it's very flat, and hasn't been drawn with any thickness to it? This is the sort of thing that will naturally damage the believability of a drawing.
Conversely, I really love how particular you were with this car. It's true that the hood/trunk suffer from the same thickness issue, but the detailing on the front side of the car was really drawn with a degree of care and patience that it really shows that you understand how they all sit there as the result of solid forms of their own.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching material of drawabox!
Appart from your comments for those, I wanted to bring forward a couple questions and observations.
I feel like the most difficult thing in all of it was that, when creating your constructions it is very easy to commit errors, even if you are trying and thinking that you are plotting your lines perfectly, you need to watch out and check from time to time what you are producing, and not get caught in the proccess or you might end up dragging those errors to the final drawing. Damn, that is hard.
I used to try to work my construction perfectly and work out everything like mirroring stuff, etc, when I could get away with just eyeballing stuff, and saving some lines that if I put in migth only serve to add more noise to what is already there. I think I'm learning to discern more what lines are important to get in place and which ones I can sort of skip. It feels like to keep adding lines after a point its completely useless. What I used to do last year after a point in my drawing, (as I was studying Scott Robertson's stuff) was just trace over the drawing on a new sheat of paper. I suppose its the right thing to do if you get to the point where you muddled the drawing too much, but man, that is tedious, and sometimes I did a drawing and I ended up with like 5 pages for drawing a sausage with wings, or whatever.
Question #1: I wonder if you work in this sort of way, and up to what point is it common to end up with this kind of multi page drawings... Am I over working out stuff???
A point that you made about my previous stuff was about not being so heavy on my linework using markers and stick to the fineliner when posible. Its so hard for me to get a good range of thickness with the fineliner... sometimes, when it starts emptying a bit its easier, but when its full, I just feel like its not enough, specially when I try it in just one stroke. To get a good range it feels unavoidable to have to go back over the line 2 or 3 times and add thickness to the sides. I am afraid that if I try to make a thick line I need to push too much and I fear it might destroy my pen in a short term...
Question #2: Is that wrong? Up to what point should we try to push... I'm just curious about what range of thicknesses can you personally get out of a fineliner... Could you show me an example of the range that you can get out of a 0.5 pen to see to what should I aim for???
Thanks for your help, I look forward to your feedback.
As always, your drawings demonstrate an impeccable grasp of form, an incredible degree of patience and care, and a deep understanding of the lesson content. There isn't a whole lot to offer in terms of direct critique that you didn't clearly already determine for yourself (like the front wheel of this motorcycle being better off started as a box). The only issue I did notice is that every now and then, the lines you add after the fact, to increase line weight, sometimes were less stable and smooth than the underlying strokes. Always remember to apply the ghosting method to every mark you put down - it's especially easy to lose track of this when adding line weight, because we're actively trying to match an existing line, and don't want to mess things up (especially since the drawing is already so close to completion). You've got a lot of cases where you're doing it just fine though, so I think it's a matter of mental state, and just continuing to remind yourself of the confidence required when executing each stroke, and the insignificance of mistakes.
I'm glad you asked a few additional questions though, as it gives me a little more to offer as a part of my critique.
So in terms of skipping lines, while it's not something I recommend in earlier lessons, it is technically moving towards the ultimate goal that we are aiming for (eventually shedding the need to explicitly draw every constructional line), and in the case of these vehicle constructions, you're right - you end up with SO many lines that you can usually fairly easily infer certain information from the lines that are already present, rather than adding yet another one to the mess.
Personally I haven't drawn things with multiple pages as you described in ages (I did it once for a perspective assignment when I was in class), but that's due to my choice of tools being primarily digital for any professional work. When I'm doing these exercises, my focus is not on a clean and pristine constructionless result, so I'm fine doing it all on one page. Although as you can see on this page that I did for work a little over a year ago, when I'm doing ideation, I only bother to include the instruction lines I absolutely require. I'm not super focused on everything being perfect. That's actually one of the reasons I push for a more organic understanding of perspective without worrying so much about vanishing points - the more of that business that I'm forced to include, the more it hampers my ability to think creatively. The more I worry about perspective, the less I can actually think about the design I'm creating.
But that's me. John Park however (i'm assuming you've heard of him, but in case you haven't, he was one of my instructors at CDA, and he's extremely well respected in terms of vehicle/mech/prop design), does things exactly as you discussed. That is, using several layers of tracing paper. He actually used that method several times when giving us critiques and demonstrations. So it's a totally valid approach, and is in no way overworking. It is actually another way to deal with what I mentioned before, about perspective getting in the way of your creativity. By laying down those basic construction lines separately, you have more freedom to do what you want on your next sheet of vellum or tracing paper.
There's actually a greatsketchbook that I have and have made very little use of from Cottonwood Arts. Every alternating page is vellum, so if you're okay with using using two pages (rather than three or four), it makes for a great sketchbook.
When drawing with those pens, I wouldn't recommend ever pushing hard on them, as this will damage your tips. Generally controlling line weight is more about pulling back and trying to make less contact with the page in order to create thinner lines. This also plays into what I've probably mentioned before about line weight being something that should be quite subtle. Here are the ranges I get out of my pen.
I do really enjoy a lot of the bold shadow shapes you've got going on in your drawings though. I'm assuming you're moving onto brush pens for that, as that's what I'd usually use in that case.
As I mentioned before though, I'd sooner go over a line two or three times than trying to push too hard, as this would force you to go slower and perhaps end up with a wobblier line. But again - it's best to be a little more subtle.
In general, I do also recommend that line weight should be applied to sections of lines, rather than the entire length, specifically to clarify overlaps in particular areas. In your case, that becomes somewhat trickier, since you're doing your construction in blue, so you kind of do have to go back over it with your black pen. In this case, I'd probably separate the process of recreating my lines with a smaller, uniform strokes, THEN adding line weight to key areas. Combining separate steps will usually result in things getting a bit muddy and sloppy.
Anyway, congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching curriculum, and thank you for doing so in a way that has definitely inspired other people on this subreddit. I know you came in with a fair bit of previous knowledge, so I'm uncertain of how much my lessons actually helped, but I do hope that they helped fill in some gaps and gave you the opportunity to formalize your understanding of capturing form and constructing complex objects.
Feel free to let me know if you have any other questions, and I'll do my best to answer them.
These are coming along very nicely. I think I like the boxy, un-detailed constructions the most, as they demonstrate most strongly your grasp of 3D space, of the rudimentary forms, and of how the whole constructional approach really works. Each of those are effectively exactly what you should be doing, but simply not taken far enough along the same path.
Although admittedly, while they are my favourite, you have a lot of excellent work here. The only thing that still requires a fair bit of practice and TLC are your ellipses. They're understandably loose and vague, and you do need to devote some time to tightening them up. Lesson 1's obviously great for that, specifically the ellipses in planes exercise (although where that one was just arbitrarily "put some roundies in these squaries", now you'd actually apply the understanding you've gained of how those planes and circles exist in 3D space).
Something about this one really stands out to me. Not entirely sure what it is (a submarine?) but I love the combination of cylinders alongside more planar faces, all mixed together with a great understanding of how they relate to each other. The smaller cylinders coming out the bottom are a bit rough, but the core of the construction is very satisfying.
I also love the tail of this helicopter. Specifically, how the surface bumps out rather than remaining entirely consistent - you captured that very nicely with your contour curves, and that goes a long way to reinforce the illusion you're producing. Those rotors must have been a pain in the ass though. Your approach to capture their motion was very clever!
Overall, you're doing great, and I see a great deal of improvement over the set. With the full drawings, you still appear to be figuring things out at the beginning, but the last several pages seem much more confident and self-assured.
As I mentioned, those ellipses are a killer, so they're definitely a good place to focus your attention. Aside from that, excellent work. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so a big congratulations to you on completing all of the dynamic sketching material.
ok, thanks so much for the lessons and critiques! i really liked the pace and clarity of the lessons. i guess the other lessons are sort of deprecated, though -- at least for beginners? i'm planning to take a look at proko's stuff, but if you have other suggestions i'd love to hear them!
The other lessons do have value to offer (that is, 14 and 15), but they're kind of... misplaced, for lack of a better word. I'm going to revise how they fit into all the material when I start exploring topics related more to design and form language.
The composition lesson is still worth reading through though, so it's a good idea to do that at some point (not necessarily immediately). As for figure drawing, proko's definitely a good place to start. Alternatively, if you're ever looking for actual classes, 'Analytical Figure Drawing' is something to look for, as opposed to the standard stuff you'll find at most fine art schools.
Uncomfortable
2017-04-09 16:55
Old thread got locked, those eligible for critiques from me can post their homework here.
Zofferro
2017-04-09 17:31
Here's my submission for Lesson 7: http://imgur.com/a/PIiVq Thank you!
Uncomfortable
2017-04-10 20:35
Generally you're doing really quite well, especially in terms of construction and understanding how these complex objects are made up of a lot of simple forms stuck together in specific, interesting ways. Your planes are especially impressive, but even some of the simpler stuff - like the constructional lay-in on the first page for that pickup truck is really phenomenally laid out.
One thing I did notice - which is honestly me just being picky due to a lack of other things to talk about - is in your tank, the particular perspective you used is starting to tend more towards the orthographic. The angle at which we're viewing the tank (from up above, tilted down) really begs for a third vanishing point to be used for the verticals. As a result, using two point perspective ends up making things start to feel a little weirdly distorted, especially looking at the angle of the treads and wheels.
Additionally, for those wheels, inset ellipses are a great way to add a little interest to areas like that.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark the lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching lessons! I do have one question though - are you using an ellipse guide for these? I did mention that students were encouraged to do so, but I think you're one of the first I've seen who actually had one (assuming that is what you used).
Zofferro
2017-04-10 21:19
You're right. Of course I use ellipse patterns.
My tools: http://imgur.com/a/S7vjL
And another question: Tell me how to better learn the tone (light and shadow) ? Which video or course recommendations?
Thank you.
Uncomfortable
2017-04-10 21:21
I haven't had the chance to go through it yet, but Scott Robertson's 'How to Render' (a followup to his How to Draw) is probably a good place to look. It definitely looks like it'd be right up your alley, considering how natural and comfortable the plane drawings seemed to be for you.
Zofferro
2017-04-10 21:33
Thank you!
Jackson622
2017-04-11 13:19
Hey random Q: the little ruler in your "tools" image. Does this have a name? I'm assuming that back piece allows it to roll on the page vs. sliding?
(Awesome job on the lesson, by the way :) )
ClutchFPV
2017-04-13 10:19
Rolling ruler/parallel glide. Indeed it does
Zofferro
2017-04-14 20:17
Yes, it is very convenient
adamzhang
2017-04-22 20:48
Here's my lesson 7 homework, thanks in advance!
Uncomfortable
2017-04-23 00:56
Overall, I think you're definitely moving in the right direction. Your general approach, sticking primarily to rudimentary forms, following construction as far as it will take you and so on is definitely going well. Your grasp of boxes has definitely come along way.
There are a couple of things I'd like to point out though:
First and foremost, your cylinders need work. It's actually a specific issue that's giving you some trouble - drawing ellipses inside of planes. This video on the subject was included in the lesson, though I'm not sure if you had the chance to watch it. The important thing there is that in order for an ellipse to represent a circle in 3D space, it needs to meet two criteria.
Its minor axis needs to run perpendicular to the surface on which the ellipse sits. Basically what this means is that if your ellipse sits on a plane whose horizontal lines go off towards the right vanishing point in 2 point perspective, your ellipse's minor axis needs to intersect with the left vanishing point.
Your ellipse touches the plane that encloses it at four points, one on each edge. The top and bottom points must align to the vertical vanishing point. In two point perspective, this just means that those two contact points must be directly above/below each other.
If your ellipse does not meet one or both of these criteria, it cannot represent a circle.
Another related issue that I noticed is that you tend to have a bit of an issue in terms of aligning boxes to one another. Specifically when you're trying to position your wheels, you seem to be having trouble keeping it parallel with the main body of the vehicle.
Lastly, your golf cart raised the main issue that comes from plotting actual vanishing points on your page - you're forced to keep them no further apart than the width of the paper. In this case, it resulted in some pretty dramatic foreshortening. While it isn't wrong, it does look a little weird.
I think you're definitely moving in the right direction, but cylinders are still quite difficult for you so that's an area you'll definitely want to practice. That said, I think you've encountered a fair bit of success in this set - for example, I really like your dog sled. Unconventional choice, but really well executed!
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. There's definitely lots of room to grow, but you're on track. Considering that you only started four months ago, I think you've improved by leaps and bounds. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching material!
adamzhang
2017-04-23 15:11
Thanks for the kind words! I hear what you're saying about the cylinders, I think I just need to more muscle memory. Looking forward to the next lesson!
[deleted]
2017-04-28 15:05
Can't reply to my previous submission, so hope it's OK if I post these here. I've re-done the 250 cylinder challenge here and my additional vehicles are here
I'm still having a bit of trouble with certain things. Especially motorcyles... I just don't know how to construct them properly as they are made up of lots of smaller parts all at different angles. :\
Uncomfortable
2017-04-28 17:47
Your cylinders are generally looking good. I'm glad that you're playing with both constructing cylinders purely from a minor axis, as well as from a box. Just make sure you've watched those two videos in the lesson about ellipses-in-planes, as they can be a little tricky to get your head around.
I think your work has definitely improved - specifically in terms of your forms feeling more solid and more consistent. The forms seem to align to each other more appropriately, leading to fewer cases of disjointedness. That isn't to say there aren't minor alignment issues (like the airplane's engines), but they're less noticeable and will certainly improve with continued practice.
That's one thing to keep in mind - the amount of drawing I have students do through these lessons definitely seems like a lot, but ultimately it's a drop in the bucket in relation to what's necessary to really solidify one's grasp of all of these concepts. Effectively my goal here is to teach you how to think about drawing, and how to best spend your time when practicing.
I do have one tip that I want to offer though. So I noticed that in your drawings, you tend to do your construction, then you go over your drawing with a heavier pen, replacing your lines with 'cleaner' ones.
This particular approach is not a great idea, but the reason is a little confusing so bear with me. Basically the issue lies with the difference between replacing lines and emphasizing them.
When we replace our lines (like a clean-up pass),we're purposely trying to draw in new lines without the flaws of our old ones. Think like doing a rough sketch in pencil, then going over it with pen. When putting the ink down, by virtue of what we're trying to do, we naturally go slower, and draw with much less confidence. Our lines will waver more frequently.
When we emphasize existing lines instead (which is what we attempt to do when simply adding line weight to key areas), we do not go over the entirety of a drawing. We apply those weights strategically in order to emphasize overlaps (as explained here), and we don't fuss with the idea of trying to perfect the linework. We ghost those lines like any other, and draw them just as confidently - just as accepting of any mistakes that may result.
One thing you should look at in regards to all of this are your 'cleaned-up' cylinders. A good example of this is the mufflers on the back of your motorcycle. The original ellipses curve noticeably more than your cleaner lines do, so the resulting clean cylinder actually doesn't read as being nearly as solid.
As for your struggles with those motorcycles, there definitely are a lot of itty bits that complicate matters immensely. That's something you'll learn to deal with over time, but what's important here is that you accept that these things are in fact more forms that should be constructed. When we start tackling stuff like this, we tend to have a threshold for how significant in form and volume something has to be before our brain even thinks to include it as part of the construction, rather than as a decoration that can be pasted on.
As we continue to immerse ourselves in this, and continue to practice, that threshold decreases - we start to think of much more of the nitty-gritty tiny nonsense as being actual solid forms, and less as simply being stickers. One approach that may help to increase your development in this regard is to simply stop drawing things that one would classify as decoration, detail, or stickers. Basically draw only that which you are willing to construct, and push yourself to make the object as recognizable as possible. Usually you'll find that the decorations aren't necessary to make something look like, well, something.
Anyway you're moving along well so I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching material!
[deleted]
2017-04-28 18:47
Thanks for the feedback. I think I might have misunderstood the instructions in the lesson regarding applying the line weights which is why I drew over the whole drawing and I guess whenever I noticed lines that I wasn't too happy about I ended up trying to draw new ones instead.
I had a feeling that would be the approach for subjects like the motorcycle and in my drawing there is a lot of detail that I ended up ignoring as I didn't feel that it was significant enough to include. Actually I'm glad to hear that there's nothing wrong with doing that as I was worried about missing things... I feel like I should be drawing everything I can see but it can get kinda stressful when there are so many little parts that don't really add anything to the drawing.
curlosm
2017-05-12 21:21
Here's my homework: https://imgur.com/gallery/Wud3U
Uncomfortable
2017-05-13 19:22
I definitely get the sense that you're getting overwhelmed by the subject matter, and the very scale of it, and as a result you're losing grip on the basic principles and rules covered in the lesson. When dealing with much of this construction, that before you draw any given feature - like a wheel, for instance - you establish everything about the exact position and space it will occupy beforehand by subdividing your major box forms.
Take a look at this tank. Though you did your basic subdivision of the overall boxes, you positioned the wheels through pure guesswork. The smaller wheels overlap (which doesn't really make any spatial sense, since these things cannot occupy in the same space), and there's no clear grasp of how these different components relate to each other in space.
What I'm seeing is that you're generally drawing and subdividing a box, and then mostly just winging it from there. This car for instance - there's no relationship between the body or angle of the car to the initial box you constructed, and most of it was drawn from pure observation with little to no actual construction or consideration of rudimentary forms.
At least, that's for the first half of the lesson.
Now, this carriage is much, much better. The positions of the windows feel more solid, and while the ellipses of those wheels are quite uneven, the overall construction holds up much better and there seems to be considerably less guesswork, and much stronger understanding of the underlying forms.
This airplane also demonstrated a much stronger grasp of the principles in the lesson. And while your go-kart doesn't use much subdivision or anything like that, I must commend you on an excellent example of observation. Not really in line with the lesson, but still very carefully done, and a demonstration of a skill that does come into play in a big way once your construction is solidly determined.
Because of the uncertainty and weakness in the first half of the lesson, and the wide array of subject matter (where you could potentially understand how to apply the principles for some objects, but not for others), I'm not going to mark this lesson as complete yet. Instead I want to see another eight pages, where I hope to see much stricter adherence to the lesson's points on construction. Additionally, for those eight pages I don't want you to get into any detail whatsoever. Whenever you add an extra element to a drawing, consider whether or not you're thinking about it in terms of adding a new three dimensional form. If it's just something being pasted onto the surface of an existing form, leave it out. If it's something you really need to think about in terms of its occupying 3D space, draw it in using construction.
curlosm
2017-05-18 17:35
Hi, here are the extra 8 pages: http://imgur.com/a/5BNmS
Cars, especially the curvy ones, were definitely the hardest vehicles for me to draw. I specifically had trouble drawing the curves and getting the right proportions of the wheels.
Uncomfortable
2017-05-18 21:41
There's some good here and some not so good, so you're still kind of riding the edge of demonstrating that you understand, and not quite grasping the material.
I definitely think this page is going in the right direction in terms of your general grasp of boxy forms. This is effectively how all of your constructions should start - relying heavily on boxes to block everything out.
When it comes to curvy cars, what's most important to realize is that those curves are just a manner of interpreting straight edges. That is to say, a curve can be summarized as two or three straight lines - so if you are able to construct those straight lines and get them to sit right, you can then use them as the scaffolding for a curved line later on.
On the topic of the proportions of your wheels, I agree - you definitely need work on your observation skills there. Proportions are something that people generally do struggle with, but I can definitely see that the wheels even in your proportion studies are off. Take a closer look at your reference, as that three-wheel height you've got there definitely makes your wheels too small in relationship to the car.
Another issue I noticed is that in this page, the long plane you've used to situate your wheels does not line up to the lines of the box. If you looked at the top/bottom lines of the side plane of that box, those two lines should be going to the same implied vanishing point as the top and bottom of the wheel-plane. If you were to extend those four lines however, you'd find that the top of the wheel plane is going to a very different place. As far as your execution of straight lines go, they are very straight so I'm not actually sure if you're using a ruler or not - if you're not, you are allowed to. A ruler will help you gauge your lines a little more easily and keep things lined up better, since you'll be able to position your ruler and decide whether or not you want to commit to a line before drawing it.
Then there's the fact that in this tank, the wheels are just floating arbitrarily - their overall position is not based on anything that I can see. I had pointed this out in my last critique, that you're incorporating guesswork where there should be none.
Lastly, most if not all of these drawings are unfinished. That's not really what I'd consider to be a full extra 8 pages. The more I think about it, and the more I look over your work, I'm not seeing all that much of what I asked for - which was specifically more attention being paid to the content of the lesson itself. Read it over. Rewatch the videos. Then sit down and complete eight full pages - take each drawing to the completion of its construction, regardless of how you feel about how it's going. Don't just stop because it feels wrong, the point of the homework is not to produce pretty drawings, it's to learn. We learn by making mistakes and understanding those mistakes. If you just stop and move to the next page, you're not giving yourself the chance to understand what went wrong.
Lastly, I recommend you also take a look at this.
curlosm
2017-05-19 03:10
Thank you for the critique, I'll go back and reread and rewatch the material. I have a few questions though: For the tank how would I prevent the wheels from floating arbitrarily, by connecting them to the wheels on the other side? Like this: http://imgur.com/KJRPuPO
Also, I'm a little confused as to what you mean about the drawings being unfinished. Weren't the lay-ins supposed to be made up of basic geometric forms? Are you looking for something like this: http://drawabox.com/viewimage/lesson7/demo3_8.jpg
Uncomfortable
2017-05-19 03:24
This new drawing is considerably better. In this case, those wheels are grounded due to being constructed around that center line of the larger plane. In the previous tank drawings, there was no clear relationship between any clearly defined proportional measurement to the positioning of those wheels.
As for your other question, these drawings are split up into construction and detail, with detail being the very last step of pasting additional markings onto the surfaces of your constructed forms as though they were stickers, and construction being quite literally everything else. So in the case of the car demo, I'm talking about this. Notice how everything is based on form, every element that's been added has clear consideration for how it sits in 3D space? The step after that (which is the last step for that drawing) is where I don't worry about space and form quite as much and tack on additional incidentals.
So for the other demos, we're talking about this stage and this stage (although in the latter, I never really went that far into detail so the last step of the cab-over truck could also be considered part of construction).
curlosm
2017-05-20 16:19
8 new pages: http://imgur.com/gallery/Bzwrl
Uncomfortable
2017-05-21 17:52
There's a lot of signs that your ability to think in terms of 3D space is improving. That said, you're still not putting enough effort into blocking your constructions out with primitive forms. Here's some redlining.
When I first glanced at your work yesterday when I added it to my backlog, I was seriously considering marking this lesson as complete. Upon the closer examination required to add all of the additional notes, I've decided against that. This does mean that you're close, but in general you're skipping too many steps and still not following my instructions to the letter. It's better for you to try again and to push yourself harder to follow the instructions.
As an additional restriction to hopefully force you to take some more time, I don't want you to resubmit until Saturday.
curlosm
2017-06-03 16:34
Here are another 8 pages: https://imgur.com/gallery/7sxfK
The only thing I had significant trouble with was constructing a box around the bicycle as the wheels look like they're from the side but the handlebars look like they could be encapsulated in a box.
Uncomfortable
2017-06-03 18:10
Overall this is vastly improved. You've still got work to do as far as proportion goes, but you're effectively now on track to do so because you're using the tools and approaches from the lesson to much better effect. Rather than relying on guesswork, you're actually logically measuring things out.
I have just a couple of tips as you continue to move forwards, but I'll be marking this lesson as complete. Firstly, it helps when drawing your wheels to start them off as entire boxes. I can see that you're fleshing out the plane of one side of each wheel, but I'm noticing that you're still guessing a little at the opposite side. The more you limit guesswork, the better. Even when creating inset ellipses (within a larger ellipse), you can start them out by drawing an inset plane within the larger plane. I believe I do this in the barrel demo from lesson 6.
The other thing is just to keep an eye on how things are aligned. The jeep looks fantastic and solid, although it's a shame that the front wheels are totally misaligned from the body of the car (so the front left wheel ends up way further back than it should be).
Oh, and I did catch some signs that you may be freehanding some of your lines. Remember that the instructions do allow you to use a ruler for this lesson, since it's particularly complex. A ruler not only helps you keep your lines straight, but it also helps you plan things out a little better, and can help you to avoid alignment problems like this - at least to a degree.
As for that bicylce thing, I think you did a really good job with the handle bars. My bigger concern is that the wheels look flat, because you more or less built them into a flat plane, rather than into a 3D box.
Anyway, like I said - I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching material. You definitely had a bit of struggle near the end, but you pushed through and did a good job of it. Keep up the good work!
pruffins
2017-06-10 15:45
I submit my homeworks below:
Lesson 7
Uncomfortable
2017-06-11 23:50
In general you're doing a great job leveraging construction along with measurement and the other techniques covered in the lesson. There is certainly room for growth, as there always will be. Specifically though, you'll want to focus on your estimation of the alignment of your lines (relative to the invisible vanishing point). Basically, drawing a line on a plane that goes off to the same vanishing point as the lines on either side of it. One exercise I recommend for working on this is described in this video.
In terms of other issues, always remember that every form you draw has thickness. Take a look at the cattle-catcher on the front of this train - notice how it's very flat, and hasn't been drawn with any thickness to it? This is the sort of thing that will naturally damage the believability of a drawing.
Conversely, I really love how particular you were with this car. It's true that the hood/trunk suffer from the same thickness issue, but the detailing on the front side of the car was really drawn with a degree of care and patience that it really shows that you understand how they all sit there as the result of solid forms of their own.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching material of drawabox!
pruffins
2017-06-12 23:45
Thanks again for the critique. Some things just appear very flat on the reference image but aren't really I guess. Will be moving on to lesson 8 soon.
Juanmilon
2017-08-30 16:51
Hi Uncomfortable, here's my entry for the last DS lesson:
First part: http://imgur.com/a/DNB7G
Second part: http://imgur.com/a/Zc6M4
Appart from your comments for those, I wanted to bring forward a couple questions and observations.
I feel like the most difficult thing in all of it was that, when creating your constructions it is very easy to commit errors, even if you are trying and thinking that you are plotting your lines perfectly, you need to watch out and check from time to time what you are producing, and not get caught in the proccess or you might end up dragging those errors to the final drawing. Damn, that is hard.
I used to try to work my construction perfectly and work out everything like mirroring stuff, etc, when I could get away with just eyeballing stuff, and saving some lines that if I put in migth only serve to add more noise to what is already there. I think I'm learning to discern more what lines are important to get in place and which ones I can sort of skip. It feels like to keep adding lines after a point its completely useless. What I used to do last year after a point in my drawing, (as I was studying Scott Robertson's stuff) was just trace over the drawing on a new sheat of paper. I suppose its the right thing to do if you get to the point where you muddled the drawing too much, but man, that is tedious, and sometimes I did a drawing and I ended up with like 5 pages for drawing a sausage with wings, or whatever.
Question #1: I wonder if you work in this sort of way, and up to what point is it common to end up with this kind of multi page drawings... Am I over working out stuff???
A point that you made about my previous stuff was about not being so heavy on my linework using markers and stick to the fineliner when posible. Its so hard for me to get a good range of thickness with the fineliner... sometimes, when it starts emptying a bit its easier, but when its full, I just feel like its not enough, specially when I try it in just one stroke. To get a good range it feels unavoidable to have to go back over the line 2 or 3 times and add thickness to the sides. I am afraid that if I try to make a thick line I need to push too much and I fear it might destroy my pen in a short term...
Question #2: Is that wrong? Up to what point should we try to push... I'm just curious about what range of thicknesses can you personally get out of a fineliner... Could you show me an example of the range that you can get out of a 0.5 pen to see to what should I aim for???
Thanks for your help, I look forward to your feedback.
Uncomfortable
2017-08-30 17:58
As always, your drawings demonstrate an impeccable grasp of form, an incredible degree of patience and care, and a deep understanding of the lesson content. There isn't a whole lot to offer in terms of direct critique that you didn't clearly already determine for yourself (like the front wheel of this motorcycle being better off started as a box). The only issue I did notice is that every now and then, the lines you add after the fact, to increase line weight, sometimes were less stable and smooth than the underlying strokes. Always remember to apply the ghosting method to every mark you put down - it's especially easy to lose track of this when adding line weight, because we're actively trying to match an existing line, and don't want to mess things up (especially since the drawing is already so close to completion). You've got a lot of cases where you're doing it just fine though, so I think it's a matter of mental state, and just continuing to remind yourself of the confidence required when executing each stroke, and the insignificance of mistakes.
I'm glad you asked a few additional questions though, as it gives me a little more to offer as a part of my critique.
So in terms of skipping lines, while it's not something I recommend in earlier lessons, it is technically moving towards the ultimate goal that we are aiming for (eventually shedding the need to explicitly draw every constructional line), and in the case of these vehicle constructions, you're right - you end up with SO many lines that you can usually fairly easily infer certain information from the lines that are already present, rather than adding yet another one to the mess.
Personally I haven't drawn things with multiple pages as you described in ages (I did it once for a perspective assignment when I was in class), but that's due to my choice of tools being primarily digital for any professional work. When I'm doing these exercises, my focus is not on a clean and pristine constructionless result, so I'm fine doing it all on one page. Although as you can see on this page that I did for work a little over a year ago, when I'm doing ideation, I only bother to include the instruction lines I absolutely require. I'm not super focused on everything being perfect. That's actually one of the reasons I push for a more organic understanding of perspective without worrying so much about vanishing points - the more of that business that I'm forced to include, the more it hampers my ability to think creatively. The more I worry about perspective, the less I can actually think about the design I'm creating.
But that's me. John Park however (i'm assuming you've heard of him, but in case you haven't, he was one of my instructors at CDA, and he's extremely well respected in terms of vehicle/mech/prop design), does things exactly as you discussed. That is, using several layers of tracing paper. He actually used that method several times when giving us critiques and demonstrations. So it's a totally valid approach, and is in no way overworking. It is actually another way to deal with what I mentioned before, about perspective getting in the way of your creativity. By laying down those basic construction lines separately, you have more freedom to do what you want on your next sheet of vellum or tracing paper.
There's actually a great sketchbook that I have and have made very little use of from Cottonwood Arts. Every alternating page is vellum, so if you're okay with using using two pages (rather than three or four), it makes for a great sketchbook.
When drawing with those pens, I wouldn't recommend ever pushing hard on them, as this will damage your tips. Generally controlling line weight is more about pulling back and trying to make less contact with the page in order to create thinner lines. This also plays into what I've probably mentioned before about line weight being something that should be quite subtle. Here are the ranges I get out of my pen.
I do really enjoy a lot of the bold shadow shapes you've got going on in your drawings though. I'm assuming you're moving onto brush pens for that, as that's what I'd usually use in that case.
As I mentioned before though, I'd sooner go over a line two or three times than trying to push too hard, as this would force you to go slower and perhaps end up with a wobblier line. But again - it's best to be a little more subtle.
In general, I do also recommend that line weight should be applied to sections of lines, rather than the entire length, specifically to clarify overlaps in particular areas. In your case, that becomes somewhat trickier, since you're doing your construction in blue, so you kind of do have to go back over it with your black pen. In this case, I'd probably separate the process of recreating my lines with a smaller, uniform strokes, THEN adding line weight to key areas. Combining separate steps will usually result in things getting a bit muddy and sloppy.
Anyway, congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching curriculum, and thank you for doing so in a way that has definitely inspired other people on this subreddit. I know you came in with a fair bit of previous knowledge, so I'm uncertain of how much my lessons actually helped, but I do hope that they helped fill in some gaps and gave you the opportunity to formalize your understanding of capturing form and constructing complex objects.
Feel free to let me know if you have any other questions, and I'll do my best to answer them.
em_rowan
2017-09-03 04:38
http://imgur.com/a/nnem2
¯_()_/¯
_YOU_DROPPED_THIS_
2017-09-03 04:38
Hi! This is just a friendly reminder letting you know that you should type the shrug emote with three backslashes
to format it correctly:
Enter this - ¯\\\_()_/¯
And it appears like this - ¯\_()_/¯
^If ^the ^formatting ^is ^broke, ^or ^you ^think ^OP ^got ^the ^shrug ^correct, ^please ^see ^this ^thread^.
^Commands: ^!ignoreme, ^!explain
Healer_of_arms
2017-09-03 04:38
¯\_()_/¯
Uncomfortable
2017-09-03 21:51
These are coming along very nicely. I think I like the boxy, un-detailed constructions the most, as they demonstrate most strongly your grasp of 3D space, of the rudimentary forms, and of how the whole constructional approach really works. Each of those are effectively exactly what you should be doing, but simply not taken far enough along the same path.
Although admittedly, while they are my favourite, you have a lot of excellent work here. The only thing that still requires a fair bit of practice and TLC are your ellipses. They're understandably loose and vague, and you do need to devote some time to tightening them up. Lesson 1's obviously great for that, specifically the ellipses in planes exercise (although where that one was just arbitrarily "put some roundies in these squaries", now you'd actually apply the understanding you've gained of how those planes and circles exist in 3D space).
Something about this one really stands out to me. Not entirely sure what it is (a submarine?) but I love the combination of cylinders alongside more planar faces, all mixed together with a great understanding of how they relate to each other. The smaller cylinders coming out the bottom are a bit rough, but the core of the construction is very satisfying.
I also love the tail of this helicopter. Specifically, how the surface bumps out rather than remaining entirely consistent - you captured that very nicely with your contour curves, and that goes a long way to reinforce the illusion you're producing. Those rotors must have been a pain in the ass though. Your approach to capture their motion was very clever!
Overall, you're doing great, and I see a great deal of improvement over the set. With the full drawings, you still appear to be figuring things out at the beginning, but the last several pages seem much more confident and self-assured.
As I mentioned, those ellipses are a killer, so they're definitely a good place to focus your attention. Aside from that, excellent work. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so a big congratulations to you on completing all of the dynamic sketching material.
em_rowan
2017-09-03 22:39
ok, thanks so much for the lessons and critiques! i really liked the pace and clarity of the lessons. i guess the other lessons are sort of deprecated, though -- at least for beginners? i'm planning to take a look at proko's stuff, but if you have other suggestions i'd love to hear them!
Uncomfortable
2017-09-03 22:48
The other lessons do have value to offer (that is, 14 and 15), but they're kind of... misplaced, for lack of a better word. I'm going to revise how they fit into all the material when I start exploring topics related more to design and form language.
The composition lesson is still worth reading through though, so it's a good idea to do that at some point (not necessarily immediately). As for figure drawing, proko's definitely a good place to start. Alternatively, if you're ever looking for actual classes, 'Analytical Figure Drawing' is something to look for, as opposed to the standard stuff you'll find at most fine art schools.
em_rowan
2017-09-03 23:54
Noted. Thanks again and good luck with reorganizing/expanding the content!