I had the feeling of doing the same perspective over and over so I went for more extremes in some cases. I tried to push the perspective a lot, since I think that 3 point perspective is still one of my weakness but I see that i have still to master the two others.
Also sometime I find that i'm not doing my shoulder movement and ghosting and I set back myself to do it with ghosting.
I see a lot the 'front square/rectangle is bigger than the second' and many times it helped me visualise where the box was placed.
The line weight is still difficult and I want to train more to be able to do fine lines with the 0.5 point pen.
Pretty nice work. Your line quality is especially nice, as most of your lines maintain a consistent, smooth trajectory, and appear to be drawn with a fair degree of confidence. The biggest thing you can do at this point to help your growth is to apply the approach mentioned in the notes about extending your lines further back (during the correction phase) to help identify where the convergence of your lines is inconsistent. You should find this quite frequently, though it's the greater inconsistencies that are the bigger problems, that we definitely want to get used to identifying. I've pasted the method from the notes 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.
You don't have to do it for every page, but applying the approach to a couple is definitely worth your while. Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
Thank you very much. I think I had to do the extension phase as soon as I finished each page. I went back to it after I finished all boxes and it became a tedious task, and sometime I couldn't get the right lines.
Whew, that was a bit crazy but at the same time I think that I learned quite a bit. I pay attention to box edges in a different way now that I've seen all the possible ways to screw them up.
In parallel with this I actually wrote a training game for myself to develop my intuition. It throws incomplete boxes at you and asks you to click where the missing corner should be. I spent 1 hour each day playing it, before drawing the boxes. I've been graphing my error magnitude and it's about half of what it was at the beginning.
Nice work! You were definitely very conscientious about applying your corrections and extending back those lines, and your work certainly seems extremely confident throughout.
I'm actually very interested in this game you mentioned - it sounds like a brilliant idea, and I'm a little disappointed I didn't come up with it first. What state is it in currently, and what did you build it in?
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work!
I threw it together with Unity. It's pretty basic at the moment, I don't even have a main menu to select the various exercises (there are 3 at the moment).
I'll polish it up a bit over the next few weeks and throw it out into the wild to see how it does. I should also probably playtest it with a few people to sort out the UI design issues.
I think that there's a huge potential in this idea. The biggest obstacle to practice is getting quick and accurate feedback. For a lot of this stuff (like value judgement) we can have the computer throw thousands of examples at the player. I've also used what I know of learning psychology (spaced repetition) to speed things up, but there's probably more to be done.
I'm pretty excited to get to figure drawing. It should be reasonably easy to get mocap data off the Unity store and to make simple figure proportion exercises.
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing it. If there's anything I can help with, let me know. I'm sure you've got the development down, but as far as marketing and whatnot - I'd like to link to it from the drawabox site. Well, to be honest, I'd love to negotiate having some DaB branding on there but that's a conversation for another day :P
For sure, I'll drop you a message when it's presentable. It's a bit modest right now, but it's better to ship early rather than late with these things.
I took my time for these boxes and got a lot faster and more efficient towards the end . It still took me a very long time , however it was a good experience .
Thank you for providing me with the challenge dearest Uncomfortable
Looking good! I think you really took this exercise to its limit, with your different variations. Usually I'm not too keen on students taking their own liberties (and it's best to avoid that in the future), but I think yours here were definitely in line with the spirit of the exercise. I'm pleased to see that you definitely have demonstrated a considerable improvement with your confidence and construction.
I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Keep up the great work.
I thought correcting a box that was way off by ghosting a new better box over it was a fun way to acknowledge and work with my mistake.
Will now indulge in lesson 2, becoming a patreon is really paying off.
one quick or probably longer question :
Would you say thats its a viable path to become a concept artist or illustrator without going to a physical art school?
Would you also recommend going the online way through means like CGMA , New Masters academy , ctrl Paint and obviously your website?
My desire to become a concept artist is burning like a wildfire and I very much believe that i have the discipline and will to practice on my own. However your opinion on this matter would still interest me.
i'm not sure if i'm even supposed to be posting this here but you could check out this video if you haven't seen it already, it has some advice on successful self-teaching/online learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Al7QAS89s
Hello. It took me a while, but I've managed to finish the challenge. I definetely feel the progress as drawing 10 boxes at once was much less time consuming. I also feel like having better understanding of the space. Here are the results: http://imgur.com/a/280YQ
Very nice work! Your constructions feel solid, and your use of line weight really kicks each one up to the next level. I'm also pleased that you went through the process of marking in your corrections. As you improve beyond a certain point, you'll find that your ability to identify those mistakes will need to catch up somewhat - so subtler mistakes will go unnoticed.
In that situation, the method I mention about extending your lines (I'll paste it again below) comes in very handy, as it allows you to get a better sense of what your lines are doing, and highlights issues you may not have otherwise noticed. It is time consuming of course, but it's a good idea to apply it broadly to an entire page or two of your later boxes (as those are the ones more likely to have the kinds of minor mistakes we miss).
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 and feel free to move onto lesson 2.
These are definitely a big improvement over your previous attempts. While there are still mistakes (which is expected), you're identifying a lot of them, and appear to be learning from them and improving over the set. I'm glad that you stuck through it until you got a hang of the boxes - I think you should be good to move onto the next lesson. Just be sure to continue applying the principles that you've learned here, and working some boxes into your warmups is always a good idea.
Damn.. This took me way longer than i expected. But i skipped my drawing sessions for some days because of lacking motivation. Today i finally made it!
Based on my records, I don't have this account down as being eligible for private critiques. If you are a patreon supporter, make sure you check your patreon message system inbox, as I always reach out to get information like one's reddit username. If you're not however, you're welcome to submit your work to the subreddit itself to receive a critique from the community.
That said, your boxes are looking pretty good. The double checking for mistakes you did near the beginning is definitely great, I'd recommend trying that on the last few pages as well. Also, I noticed a lot of your boxes tend to have pretty dramatic foreshortening on them (due to the vanishing points being quite close). Be sure to practice shallower foreshortening as well, as this will come up more often.
Alright, i'll do lesson 2 now! Thanks for the reply. I checked my Patreon and it seems that everything was fine, i just didnt sent u my reddit name. U should have a mail with it on Patreon!
Yup, I've given you the badge for the box challenge and for lesson 1. The only things I want to mention in regards to your lesson 1 work is as follows:
For the funnels, remember that the far ends of the funnel should have ellipses that have the highest degrees (more circular), and the middle of the funnel should have a lower degree (narrowest).
For your rough perspective boxes, be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.
Your organic perspective boxes' foreshortening is definitely way too dramatic. By this I mean the vanishing points are too close, resulting in the far end of the boxes being waaay smaller than the close end, despite not having that much distance between them. As I mention in these notes, this throws off the sense of cohesion between all the boxes in the scene, and messes with the sense of scale. This is why it's a good idea to put a fair bit of practice into drawing boxes with shallower foreshortening, where the difference between the near/far planes is more subtle.
Be sure to continue working on that, but feel free to move onto lesson 2 as I mentioned before.
Excellent work. Your line quality is very self-assured and confident, your box constructions are solid and I'm very pleased to see the extent to which you double checked your boxes afterwards. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
I came close to quitting so many times -- and maybe you'll wish I did after seeing these. :-) It may not look it, but it took me a long time to get through these boxes. After a few false starts and a couple weeks, I realized that I would never get through 250, nor would I learn from any mistakes, if I kept starting over. I feel like I hit a sort-of stride after a near breakdown around 100, but subsequently lost it and gained it over and over again. I submit these 250 boxes, ugliness and all. I feel like I accomplished something, though not what I thought I would have back at the beginning. I'm definitely not as far along as I had previously thought. Pretty humbling experience. Anyways. Enjoy!
I think you're being a bit rough on yourself, and definitely overdoing it with the self deprecation. Your work here is quite strong. Your constructions feel sturdy, your line weights do a great deal to add solidity and cohesion to each form, and your corrections are ample and conscientious. I'm not sure what you're referring to as 'ugliness', but the corrections are not something to be ashamed of. That's what you learn from - of COURSE you're going to make plenty of mistakes, that is a given. The point is to identify them, even when they're not obvious, and to grow from them.
Lastly, you definitely improved over the set. Keep up the great work, and don't fuss over whether or not your work is up to scratch - because there's no standard to be comparing yourself against. That's all in your head. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
[deleted]
2017-09-08 02:23
Thank you! I'll move onto Lesson 2 (and ease up on the self-deprecation).
Nice work! Your line quality definitely improves over the set, as well as your general confidence. I'm also very pleased to see that after a point, you become quite dedicated to applying that line-extension method to help identify the mistakes that may not be entirely obvious to the naked eye. This clearly helps quite a bit, as your box constructions become a fair bit more consistent throughout.
Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
I felt a greater control toward the end, but felt like I got more sloppy as well. I don't know if I was slack at certain points or just able to notice my mistakes more. Should I go on to the next lesson or another challenge?
Really nice work. Your boxes look solid, and your use of line weight goes a long way to help improve the sense of cohesion. You're also doing a good job of applying the ghosting method to your lines, so they tend to be quite confident and smooth.
The only advice I want to offer is that as your boxes improve, the nature of the mistakes you'll make will change. You'll still be making mistakes, but they'll be more subtle and difficult to detect. This is where extending your lines to make them more obvious comes into play in a big way. It's probably a good idea to take your last couple pages and apply the approach across the board, just to see where things are still a little bit off. It's tedious, but it's necessary to continue making meaningful gains once you've reached a certain point.
You're welcome to move onto lesson 2 - the 250 cylinder challenge is also there if you'd like to try it, but you're by no means required to do so at this point (it'll be a prerequisite for lesson 6, but that's a ways off). That said, it will help with the form intersections in the next lesson, so at least reading through the notes is definitely worthwhile.
https://imgur.com/a/2HmD3 Finally done. I tried to be concise with my lines and not to be sloppy, but I feel like most of them ended up that way. I did find towards the end i would pick up more quickly if one line wasn't obviously in perspective or parallel with another, more or less; so I feel as if I at least got better at noticing that. I definitely gave it my full effort though, took a while.
Excellent work, the fact that you put forward your full effort really comes across in these. The constructions are solid, and your line weights do a great job of reinforcing the cohesiveness of the forms. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you're clearly taking the time to identify even minor mistakes, and to apply the extension method to find those that may not be obvious.
Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
Congratulations! Great work pushing through and completing the entire challenge. I especially appreciate how conscientious you are about applying your corrections, and extending those lines to find errors for the first 200 or so of them. The last 50 are admittedly less so, but I can certainly understand that you definitely wanted to get through them by that point.
I do however recommend that you do the same for those at some point. You certainly deserve a break for now. There are mistakes there that I can see, and at the end of the day the best way to improve is to identify them so you know what kind of mistakes you tend to make. Of course it's a lengthy process, and you're certainly on the right track.
Keep up the good work, and consider this challenge thoroughly complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.
Excellent work. It's great to see the tenacity with which you approached this exercise, taking the time to extend all of the lines of all of your boxes, applying your corrections, and so on. You're generally doing great, but the only recommendation that I have is in terms of the degree to which you extend those lines. At the moment the extension is quite minimal, because of how packed the pages are, and so the benefit is equally slight. You'll definitely pick up on much more if you extend them to half, or even the full length of the original line. Also remember that you only really need to extend towards where the implied vanishing point is going to be, as it is the convergence (not the divergence) that tells us where we may have messed up.
Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
Finally finished, overall I'd say that it was great practice and that I improved over the course of the exercise. That being said, I think I still have a ways to go with everything. Thanks in advance for taking a look!
Congrats on completing the challenge. I do have a few observations to point out that should help you moving forwards:
Be sure to continue working on your use of the ghosting method. Right now I do sense a hint of stiffness in your linework, which suggests to me that you may be executing your marks a little slowly, rather than doing so confidently with a persistent pace. The steps of the ghosting method are important, as by investing your time in the preparation stages instead, you can maintain a reasonable degree of accuracy while continuing to execute your marks with confidence.
I'm glad to see that you did apply corrections in some areas, but I do think you'd benefit from being a little more thorough in that area. Specifically using the line-extension method described in the lesson (which I saw you apply a few times) is quite important, and following it up with specific corrections to the box itself.
It's best to do the corrections immediately after completing a page (rather than doing them at the end of the full set). This allows you to learn from those mistakes during the challenge, and also gives you a much smaller set to tackle at any given time. This in turn makes it easier to be conscientious when doing them.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
Hi! First off, I would greatly appreciate if you read this post even though it is long and give your thoughts/advice but Ill post what I feel like I have learned first just in case you dont want to read my rant aha. (also note what I am about to say is a criticism of myself not of the challenge at all, I understand the usefulness of the challenge)
What I learned first off, I feel like after about 100 boxes I really started to understand how to draw the boxes in perspective even if my lines didnt show it sometimes and it also taught me to take my time as well (well on the ones that I did take my time on, see below) and doing so would yield better results
I had the odd stab at line weights but no real good attempt due to my issue below I believe.
The rant bit (also it was after 100 or so that really felt like this)
I absolutely hated this challenge, while I feel like I learned a lot from this task, I found it so boring that it made me not want to even bother picking up the pen to draw the boxes and for a fair few of them past 100 I feel like I was just rushing through them even though I knew that it was better to take it slowly because in my head at the time I just wanted to get 250 done just so I could stop (I didnt do them all in one sitting, I just found it so dull spending my time drawing them). My ghosting was poor for a lot of them as I wasnt taking loads of time to nail it either just so I just get the box drawn.
I feel like if I had to draw 150 boxes instead of 250, I would have spent more time on each one (and probably yielded a better result) as I knew the end was much closer.
I did go through bits of motivation and I feel like that is clear when some of the boxes look quite good and thats because on those ones I did take my time etc and it really showed imo in both my ghosting and my perspective
My main question Do you have any advice for giving me the motivation to keep giving 100% through the super boring bits like this that are also so long and repetitive? (I think the repetitiveness of just drawing a box was also the issue maybe) (preferably without saying just get on with it as I tried to tell myself that)
Also, if you want me repeat this task due to my poor performance I totally understand but is there any side task that you would be able to give me that I could work on at the same time to break up the dullness of drawing the boxes again?
Thank you so much again and sorry that I am coming across as someone that is just moaning about this, I 100% view this as my own flaw that I must get over rather than me blaming the challenge
What you've struggled with here - finding the motivation and the patience to carry on - is definitely something everyone faces, and the way we start out these drawabox lessons definitely brings that to a whole new level. It's not something I hide. The exercises, especially at the beginning, can be as boring as all hell. They're repetitive and uninspired at their very core.
This aspect of it is a lesson in and of itself, and it's a tough one to conquer. Being forced to do things that are boring, that aren't interesting, and that are repetitive and despite all that, to give them your full attention and your full focus, is a skill one develops over time, and is a skill that pays itself back several times over.
A big part of this is learning to focus on what you're working on at a given moment, and not to look ahead. Doing so leads to distraction, and we cannot do our best when we are distracted. Whether you're assigned ten boxes, twenty, a hundred or five hundred - what matters at a given moment is the box you are drawing right then. Again, that's a mindset that takes time to develop, but it is a necessary goal to move towards. Giving you 150 instead of 250 in order to cater to that distraction would not solve the problem, but rather encourage it.
Instead, when given a body of work that seems excessive, you can conquer it by simply spreading it out. You submitted your lesson 1 work about four or five days ago. Let's say it was five, and that you chopped away at the challenge every day. That makes for 50 boxes per day.
The first thing that comes to mind is that there is no deadline - you're welcome to spend as many days as you wish, though it is of course recommended that you work fairly regularly. Let's say you took ten days instead of five - you're down to 25 boxes a day, a much more manageable number. When not drawing boxes, you might draw other things, letting the exercises take up only a portion of however much time you've given yourself for drawing in a given day. Drawing things that make you happy is definitely an important part of keeping yourself from burning out.
Alternatively, even splitting your boxes into multiple sittings throughout the day (what about two sittings, 25 boxes per sitting, over five days?) can break up the monotony. Ultimately, this is about being faced with a challenge and conquering it within its stipulated terms. You cannot negotiate your obstacles away, but there are other things you can change.
Drawabox is a lot of work. That's pretty much what you signed up for, so expect more of that ahead. Don't, however, go forward thinking that you need to get it out of the way - the point is not finishing the lessons and reaching the finish line, because you're running laps around a circular track. Recently someone asked me what they should do after completing 7. My honest answer was that it wouldn't be a bad use of their time to go back to lesson 1 and revisit all of it. I have a student who's currently doing just that (well, they completed lesson 5, then decided to go back and start over), and they're doing vastly better now with this material than they had been previously.
The repetition, and the iteration is key. Each exercise is not about drawing something that looks pretty, but rather about what the exercise itself teaches you about controlling your arm, about understanding 3D space, and about constructing complex objects from simple forms. This is inevitably going to arise from doing it a lot, and it's for that reason that I always remind my students that having a lesson marked as complete does not mean you're done. That you should expect to continue practicing these exercises for a long time to come.
Anyway, onto your boxes - congratulations on completing all 250. That is certainly a big feat. Some of your boxes are better than others, perhaps where you were able to focus more, but others do show signs of distraction. There's several strewn about where you haven't drawn through the forms (though I'm glad that you did it for most).
I'm pleased to see that you tried to apply the extending-lines method for identifying mistakes, though there's two things I'd like to recommend on that front. Firstly, it's best to apply that method to all of your boxes. A good pattern to get into is to fill a page each sitting, then upon completion of that page, go back over it to mark in your corrections and identify your mistakes. I wouldn't say any of your pages are really full (technically doesn't matter to me, but it tends to be far more motivating to have a page filled to the brim at the end of a sitting rather than several pages with large open spaces and gaps - it's remarkable the impact a filled page can have on your psyche). Avoid scratching out your mistakes as well - if something goes wrong with a box, it doesn't matter, just keep trucking forward with it and complete it anyway.
The other point about the extension method I wanted to make is that the point is to extend those lines as they move further away from the viewer, rather than closer. I think there's a lot of cases here where you did the opposite, and tracked their behaviour as they move closer to the viewer and diverge. You really want to note their behaviour as they move towards their implied vanishing point, as it's their convergence that can tell you where things have gone wrong.
Lastly, I'd recommend filling one of the near-facing planes with some tight hatching lines to help give a visual cue as to which side is facing us. Drawing through your boxes, as good as it is in terms of helping us to better understand 3D space, can lead to an unfortunate illusion where we can perceive the box in a few different ways.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. There is certainly room to grow here, but you're moving in the right direction. Oh, on the topic of motivation, it may not be entirely related to the particular troubles you were facing, but this short bit on the topic is worth reading.
Thank you so much for the detailed reply, I will bear all of it in mind when tackling the future exercises :) is it okay if I do 10 boxes a day on top of my warm up before I start my lesson 2 work for that day? Just so I can get more practice of them in but also so I can try implement the things you said.
I do think I got better as I went along. I found myself thinking a lot more about how to make it look 3D rather than just thinking about what it should look like (if that makes sense...), so more focussing on parallel lines and VPs than I have been previously.
Oh crap, sorry for missing this! My backlog failed me for once - I think I was critiquing a crapload that day, and I must have thought I'd critiqued yours and marked it completed.
Anyway, your work is looking great! You're clearly very patient, with every stroke being prepared for, thought out, and confidently executed. Your use of line weight is also well done, for the most part. Lastly, with all of your careful correction, I can see considerable improvement over the set. You started out with a good sense for how to make your forms feel solid, but over the course of the challenge, you definitely made big strides towards improving the alignment of your lines.
Anyway, consider this challenge complete and keep up the great work!
Please note that I've marked some of the biggest errors using a red pen, but I've not tried to correct the mistakes. I only used the red pen to point out where the perspective and the lines are off.
Nice work - I definitely see a considerable improvement in your confidence and the execution of your linework between the first page and the last. I do have a couple recommendations to make however:
When doing this kind of exercise in the future, try not to have any overlaps between your boxes. The reason for this is that in doing so, you're adding an extra dimension of complexity to the exercise, which in turn could potentially distract you from its main goal. Keeping each box a little more isolated from interacting with its neighbours (just spacing them out on the page, no need to quarantine them with their own frames) allows you to focus on its construction in a vacuum.
I also noticed that when you had your forms overlap, you did not draw the sections of a given box where it would be occluded by its neighbour. In general when doing these lessons, it's a very good idea to draw through your forms whenever possible - this includes drawing each form in its entirety even when it's blocked by its neighbours. This helps you keep in mind that the form is three dimensional, and not just a flat drawing on a flat page.
Correcting with red pen after drawing them is perfectly fine, and moreover it's encouraged in the instructions. We use a different colour to help distinguish the correction phase from the drawing phase, so there's little risk of building up any sort of habits involving reflexive correction. I do however recommend that you apply the line extension method to your corrections as well - this is described on the challenge page notes, and I'll paste it below as well. It helps to better grasp where your lines are off, especially if it's not entirely clear to your eyes. We often run into these less-obvious mistakes when we improve past making the more obvious ones.
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.
I've tried to mark most mistakes in orange. Earlier on I extended lines while on later pages I tried to just mark in a correct line. I also experimented with line weight more in the later boxes. Thanks!
Very nice work! Your confidence and general construction improves considerably over the set, and your end results come out looking very solid. It's great that you were applying the line-extension method earlier on, though it would have been beneficial to apply it all throughout. I find it's best to finish a page, then go over it with that approach and mark in your corrections. Maybe one page a sitting or something like that. Ultimately as you improve, the mistakes you make tend to become more subtle and less noticeable - they're still there though, so this approach is important to continue improving in those smaller ways.
Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete!
Thank you for the critique! I will keep going over them - I find it is nice to warm up a bit with some boxes and lines each time I sit down so I can keep checking for mistakes then.
Alright so the major problem I noticed during the challenge was... patience and focus. I'm working really hard to make a habit of ghosting my lines, but I currently have to fight the urge to go on autopilot about every 5 minutes...
Anyway I'm sure the issues with focus reflect in the boxes, but I do feel I've learned a lot and I'll continue using the exercise in my warmups.
You've definitely improved considerably over the set. The boxes near the end are considerably more confident and much better constructed, in terms of the angles and relationships between the planes. I did notice however that while you're very conscientious in applying the line-extension method to your boxes, you definitely became less active in marking in your corrections closer to the end. Make sure you keep on top of it in the future! It's definitely worth it.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work.
Well that went a lot faster than I thought it would. As in, I thought I'd take a month or so and ended up taking 9 days because I just got into the habit of drawing 1 to 3 hours a day. I did not rush through anything, although in the beginning I probably should have extended more the lines. But I did start doing it more consistently halfway through and it helped with spotting mistakes.
This was actually a great exercise not in drawing but in discipline, which historically has been one of my worst skills. I'm really glad that I'm finally pushing through that laziness and tendency to procrastinate and just get down to business.
Also, even though I used the same 0.5 fineliner for all of these, I was so happy to see how much better my line weight got, and my pen pressure control.
As always I'm really grateful to you for taking the time to look through these 250 boxes, and giving detailed feedback. And for testing my discipline.
Excellent work! I can really see an increase in your general confidence, and a sort of subtlety and nuance that increases in your boxes over the set. You're also clearly very conscientious and patient about extending your lines to identify and mark in your corrections. Great work all around.
I gotta say - when I assigned this challenge for the first time, it was largely because I didn't want to deal with someone who was struggling with the organic perspective boxes exercise. I figured I'd give them some busy work and then deal with it later. Turned out the exercise was hugely useful, and the student came back having a considerably stronger understanding of 3D space, along with a greater tolerance for some of the monotony of these exercises.
Anyway, well done. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work!
Thank you so much, I'm so glad my work paid off! :D
I definitely came out of it understand 3D space better, and being a lot more confident in my lines, so it was definitely worth the time and monotony :)
Damn that was painstaking, got a bit of improved shoulder control and also figured out some perspective things. Here it is https://imgur.com/gallery/qm55C
Nice work! Your boxes definitely improve in confidence and construction over the set, especially from about halfway onwards. The only thing that I want to recommend is to give the notes on the challenge page about correction techniques - specifically extending your lines back towards the implied vanishing point. Doing this upon the completion of a page really goes a long way to make certain mistakes more obvious, especially when they tend to be more subtle and harder to detect.
Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
And another 250 boxes... no matter how many times I do this. It stay's hard. I tried to use line weight, especially to the end of the boxes. But I'll need a lot more practice with it. Also, my scanner made the corrections black :/. I apologize about that.
Looking pretty good, but there's one big thing that caught my eye that you're missing. In the challenge page notes, I've got an explanation of a very useful technique to identify mistakes by extending your lines towards their implied vanishing points. You should definitely be applying this approach, ideally upon completion of each page. As you get better with boxes, your mistakes are going to become less noticeable, so it's normal to kind of plateau. This kind of approach will keep your returns from diminishing.
I drew the boxes and corrected them before applying the line weight so it would be easier to tell which direction the lines went. Thanks again in advance for looking over these exercises :)!
Phenomenal work! You approached this with exactly the sort of care and patience I want to see from students. Your lines have been very confidently executed (each clearly demonstrating the ghosting method), and your weights are very confident. You were also extremely complete in your corrections, and as a result are demonstrating a strong grasp of 3D space.
Ultimately it's much easier to move forwards in noticeable ways when you're not very good to begin with - but in your case, you're at a point where the improvements will be more subtle. That said, I can see a considerably improved grasp of how your parallel lines should be behaving, and I think the consistency of your more advanced, subdivided boxes really demonstrates that to a great degree.
Sadly I really don't have much more to offer than praise! You've done very well, so consider this challenge complete. Keep up the fantastic work and feel free to move onto lesson 2.
Oh boy. I found the red pen salvage operation to be extremely difficult in some cases. A number of boxes I felt good about but some look to have been drawn by a legless/armless man with a pen in his mouth and I couldn't identify how to draw over top of the lines to make a correction as EVERYTHING seemed to be going the wrong direction. It's very interesting how impactful the review portion of this exercise is. I had thought that drawing 250 boxes would produce magic results but it's really the editing of the 250 boxes that cements the lessons in your gray matter. Magic is obviously in the eye of the beholder at this point in my development but I'm totally more sensitive to this stuff after a jaunt around the page with a red pen. Yowza Here is my submission for critique https://imgur.com/a/hJE5w
I gotta say, when someone submits a lesson quickly (I believe my last critique was almost exactly 24 hours ago), I worry that they've rushed - either not being as careful in the work as they could have, or not paying as much attention to the instructions. Sadly, this is no exception. I fully understand being enthusiastic, but you've got to slow yourself down and read both the notes provided in a given lesson or challenge, as well as my critiques.
At the end of my lesson 1 critique, I wrote this while advising you to tackle the 250 box challenge:
Be sure to read through the notes on that page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms, which as I mentioned in regards to your rotated boxes will help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Also make sure you read through the bit about correction techniques, and apply them upon completing each page.
You did note the bit about corrections (although you didn't apply the line-extending method as much as I'd have hoped to see), but you definitely ignored the point about drawing through your forms.
The thing about my lessons is that they are very dense. There's a lot of information in each paragraph, and while it's completely normal to overlook things in your first read through, you must be ready to compensate for that by making a habit of rereading the material whenever necessary. That goes doubly when I actually point something out to you directly in a critique.
I'd like you to try the challenge again. Take your time. No one's got a gun to your head expecting you to complete this work as quickly as possible. Not only is it in your best interest to work through the material slowly, but rushing through all the lessons in a week, or even a month, is simply not how this whole program works. In the past, if I've felt a student was submitting too frequently within a given month (relative to their pledge), I haven't been shy about telling them so. Moreover, the only times I've really had to do that, the student in question was skipping important instructions and generally stunting their progress by doing so.
Enthusiasm is great, but only when it's directed properly. So settle down, read through the notes, and try this again. Here's a few other points to keep in mind for your next submission of this challenge:
Draw bigger. Beginners will often feel like drawing things smaller, and while it may not always seem that way, it's often the result of a lack of confidence. This has the negative effect of causing us to stiffen up, and generally hurts us when we're trying to think through spatial problems (like constructing boxes)
When redlining your boxes, extend your lines further back towards the vanishing point. Try doubling the length of the original line, and pay attention to how those lines converge. Each box is made up of three sets of parallel lines, and each line of a given set SHOULD be heading towards the same point. Of course, since we're estimating, we're bound to make mistakes with that pretty much every time, but by watching the rates at which those lines converge, we can identify which ones don't match the rest of the set.
Apply that extension method to every box, and do it when you finish a page. Since you'll be drawn your boxes bigger, you won't be cramming quite as many into each sheet so it should be something where you can do one full page each sitting.
I also recommend taking a look at other submissions in this thread to get a better sense of what you should be doing.
Much, much better! It's clear that you approached it with a lot more patience and care this time, and it paid off. I can definitely see an improvement to the general structure and understanding of space.
If there's one thing I'd recommend to help push your boxes to the next level, it's to play with line weight. There's a tip about it on the challenge page as well, so be sure to give it a read.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2!
Phew wipes sweat off brow. Thanks man! I definitely needed a kick in the pants, that was super helpful:) Pen of Omens, draw me boxes beyond boxes! Lesson 2 HOOOOOOOOO!
Congrats on completing the challenge. There is one thing that I noticed, specifically in how you applied the correction techniques, that may benefit from some clarification.
For many of the boxes, you seem to have extended only a few lines - often only two at a time. Additionally, you did not appear to differentiate between the two possible directions of extension.
In order for this technique to really be helpful, it's important to extend all the lines of a given set, and really ideally, do so for all three sets of parallel lines. Determining the convergence of two lines doesn't tell you a whole lot until you start looking at how that compares to other lines of the same set. If you want to get the most out of this, extend every line of all three sets, and look at whether or not they all seem to be converging at roughly the same spot, or if they seem to be converging at several different points.
We really are only focusing on how those lines behave as they move further away from the viewer, towards the implied vanishing point. Extension towards the viewer isn't terribly useful, and in some cases can distract you. The first and most important thing we're checking is whether or not the lines of a given set converge together towards the VP. Then, as I mentioned in the last point, we start looking at whether they're converging towards the same VP, or many different scattered points.
A good example of this being done (although this is definitely the top 1%, and above what I expect to see from students) can be seen here.
I did also notice that you seem to be leaving a good deal of each page blank. It certainly doesn't impact the numbers of boxes, but it does raise questions about why. My guess is that you may have felt a little disappointed with the boxes on that page, and decided that if you started on another one, you'd have a greater chance of having a nice page. If that's the case (which it may well not be, it's just my guess based on prior experience), always keep in mind - these are all just exercises that may as well be destined for the garbage bin. What you gain from them is the doing of each construction, rather than the result you get at the end.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. It wouldn't hurt to continue practicing this stuff as a warmup, and maybe going back to apply those correction techniques properly. Either way, you're welcome to move onto lesson 2 when you feel you're ready.
Congrats on completing the challenge. The biggest piece of advice I can offer here is actually to point out something that you missed from the challenge page notes - specifically, the techniques about how to find errors and approach correcting. I'll paste 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.
You can apply this method to each of your boxes upon the completion of a page. It will help you identify where things are going wrong, specifically in relation to the near/far plane relationships.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. It would however be a good idea to go back over your boxes and apply this technique, and keep it in mind when doing this kind of exercise in the future.
Ohhh, that's satisfying to see. Great work, lovely boxes. The only thing you're missing in the correction phase, where you take a different colour of ink and do the following:
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.
Ideally you'd do this upon the completion of each filled page (doing them all at the very end is probably a huge pain, but that's what you get for not reading!)
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. You can do that correction stuff if you like, though I definitely recommend it.
:P Yes, instructions are important. You did well all the same - corrections are best done upon the completion of a page (immediately after each box is too closely connected to the drawing of that box and kind of distracting, after the whole 250 set you end up too detached from each individual box and don't have any way to apply what you learned) - all the same, doing them at all is better than not doing them, and you applied the principles well. The other benefit to doing them upon the completion of each page is largely that there aren't so many, and you are more likely to apply the techniques to all of them. It also encourages you to break up the challenge into several sittings, doing one page each session instead of rushing through.
Of course, you didn't rush at all. You took your time and constructed forms that feel solid and cohesive. There are certainly things that can be improved upon, and the correction methods certainly helps with that, but you're heading in the right direction.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
Well, it's not called a "challenge" for nothing! I was losing my motivation quite badly around number 180. But then I went and re-read your article on the subject and hammered away. :)
Drawing the boxes themselves was fun, but corrections took me a lot of time and started feeling like a chore as I advanced. I might have made a bit of a mess when correcting some of the boxes, too. In some cases, after spotting which lines were off I tried to redraw them, but then the other lines didn't fit, so I corrected those too... until I got a whole new box inside (or around) the original one!
But doing the corrections paid off, I think. I tried to make them for every 1-2 completed pages and I feel this helped me with the next set of boxes.
At the end, I also tried my hand at the advanced exercise. The first two attempts are quite a mess, but I am satisfied with how the last one turned out, for now.
Excellent work! This is definitely a great example of the corrections having their intended effect - your initial work was alright, but you were able to identify exactly where things were going wrong, and grew considerably over the course of the full set. By the end, you were producing solid boxes with a strong sense of weight and a cohesive construction. Very, very nicely done. Keep up the great work, and consider this challenge complete. You have indeed earned the name of "boxstudent".
Nice work! A few things to keep in mind that should help you improve:
The technique described in the notes for correcting your work (extending your lines towards their implied vanishing point) is extremely useful and should be applied upon the completion of each filled page of boxes. This will give you plenty to learn from before moving onto the next page.
You may find that drawing through your boxes gets a little visually confusing - filling in one of the front facing faces with some tight, consistent hatching will help eliminate the resulting illusion of being able to see the box in multiple ways.
Your line quality is generally okay, though I do detect a hint of hesitation which causes a bit of stiffness and wobbling. Always push yourself to apply the ghosting method so you can maintain a confident, persistent pace when executing your marks. Remember that the ghosting method includes placing points where you want your lines to start and end.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
Really struggled to motivate myself with this... got really frustrated when I thought I was getting the hang of it then suddenly it would go extremely wrong again! I generally did about 50 a day for 5 days to complete the challenge. I didn't extend lines on every box but I did find it helpful when things weren't quite looking right- although I found knowing what was wrong didn't always translate into a better result the next time around.
One of my biggest problems was estimating when lines needed to stop, I played with the dots method but then got impatient so found myself rushing the next few- you'll see some comments alluding to this throughout! Thanks in advance.
It looks like you're missing some pages! Currently I'm only seeing 89, so that makes it kind of tricky to critique. I did notice one thing though - you're going to want to work on drawing your lines with a more confident, persistent pace. Right now they wobble a little, which suggests hesitation.
Also, the correction techniques are best applied everywhere - ideally upon the completion of each page. This is because the technique itself makes obvious mistakes you might otherwise have missed, so you don't really always know where you should be applying it, and might as well do it everywhere.
Anyway, I'll mark the challenge as complete when you've posted the rest of the boxes.
Oops, looks like the Imgur upload got stuck! sorry you should see them all now. There are a few wobbly lines but having looked at the first 89 you saw, a lot of them are me (badly) attempting the thicker lineweights on the outer lines but not doing so in a way that makes it look like a single line. You'll see later that I just dont bother trying to make them thicker so you can see the individual lines. Anyway... you should see all 250 now. Sorry about that.
Aha! Okay, so I'll mark the challenge as complete. Keep working on your use of the ghosting method (your lines are less wobbly in the rest of the set, but they do still need the added confidence that comes with using the ghosting method to the fullest) and apply the correction techniques more consistently.
Even though I am doing the ghosting, I still have difficulty keeping a straight line. I also had to take a pause and order some coloured fineliners as the orange gel pen kept smudging, as well as changing the paper as I felt like I was cheating using a dotpad.
Pretty nice work! The confidence in your lines definitely improves over the set, where your initial lines were a little wobblier and more hesitant, and later ones turned out much more consistent. There are a couple things that I noticed that are worth mentioning though. It looks like some of the planes you filled in with hatching lines were actually the far plane of the box (which made the whole thing quite visually confusing, generally you should be applying it to the near plane to help clarify potential visual illusions). The other thing is that the extension of your lines (which you can leave to the end of each completed page, so you don't have to worry about smudging that coloured ink) were being extended in both directions (especially towards the beginning). You really want to be focusing this towards the implied vanishing point, as that's what is going to tell you more about the nature of your lines' convergence.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
I had some trouble at first because I didn't have the right posture. It took me a few days to adjust.
For the last three pages, my pen start to ran out of ink, so it made the exercise more difficult.
Overall, I really struggle doing this exercise, I thought it would take me 10 days, but it took me 20 days. There is a kind of boxes that were really difficult to do, and even more difficult to correct (the thin ones with two vanishing point).
Pretty nice work. There's definite improvement over the set, and your general confidence with constructing these boxes definitely grows as you work through more and more of them. I'm glad to see that you applied the correction methods as well, though if I had one recommendation to make, it's that you be careful about only checking one or two of your vanishing points. There are cases where you don't check the third, and end up missing areas where that third set of lines is actually diverging rather than converging. One example is 179, though there are many others.
The thing about this technique is that it's not just about clarifying areas where you know things are going wrong, but also about finding mistakes where you think there are none. This becomes more and more of a thing as you improve, as we tend to improve our constructional skills faster than our critical eye, and are more likely to plateau because of this (where our mistakes end up being subtle enough that we miss them, and we end up progressing much more slowly due to thinking our boxes are correct).
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work!
Nice work! Your confidence and general sense of construction definitely improves over the set, and I'm very pleased to see how thorough you are with applying the correction techniques. My biggest recommendation in terms of a next step to kick your boxes up a level would be to play more with some subtle line weight variation, making the silhouette of your boxes a little bit heavier to add some greater dynamism and cohesion to the overall form (giving the internal/external lines a sort of relationship like this helps make the forms feel more solid).
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
I probably rushed my lines a bit too much and i felt it was really hard to draw the "inner lines", it always looked wrong somehow but i didn't know how to correct them which led to me stop reviewing my mistakes after about 100 boxes or so.
Also, any tips on how to sit while drawing? Was only able to do roughly 25 boxes until my back startet to hurt :\
Your boxes and line quality improves considerably over the set, as does your general box construction. One thing I did notice though is that you did not apply the correction techniques I drew your attention to when I assigned the work. In the notes, I discuss extending your lines back towards their implied vanishing point to see how they converge together, as this makes it considerably easier to detect mistakes. It's best to do this upon the completion of each page, as this allows you to learn a great deal as you progress while not cutting into the flow of the exercise too much (as would happen if you corrected after each box).
Anyway, that is ultimately for your benefit, and there is still value in going back and applying those corrections in that manner. Still, I'll leave that up to you. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.
It's weird how I have a habit of remembering that I forgot to answer a question many, many hours after initially responding - but i totally forgot about your question about sitting!
It's very important that you sit straight while drawing. The desk should be at such a level that if you placed your hand flat on the desk (assuming the desk itself is also flat), your elbow would be bent at roughly 90 degrees. Avoid hunching over, because that's what's going to give you back pain. If you can get your hands on an angled desk, that's ideal, though most people can't - so it is important to know that when drawing on a flat table or desk, the farther end of your piece of paper is going to be far enough to create some perspective distortion (so your drawings end up a little warped). Generally you can avoid this just by being aware of the problem though, and getting used to compensate for it.
I really should redo the last two boxes, but they're what I drew, and I was too tired to even do corrections on them, so I will let them stand as they are.
My brain stopped smoking from trying to draw boxes at around halfway through, but I still can cause myself headaches when I try to figure out how to actually correct them after the extensions indicate they're wrong.
Congrats on completing the challenge! You did a solid job - there's definite and clear improvement (last two boxes aside), and I'm glad to see that you're applying the correction techniques properly. There definitely are still tendencies that you'll want to fix and adjust, but you're moving in the right direction and your general constructions/solidity are definitely getting better.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
Great work! Your constructions improve considerably over the set. Just a couple recommendations:
In the challenge page notes, I describe a technique for corrections involving extending your lines back towards their implied vanishing point. This can be very useful, especially as you reach a point where one is liable to plateau due to our mistakes being so minor that we fail to detect them. By looking at the convergence of our lines as they are extended, we can see more clearly where things are going wrong.
Try playing with more line weight (there's notes on that in the challenge page) to help push your boxes to the next level. Going back over them to make your weights a little more dynamic (in subtle ways, don't be too heavy handed) can really help improve the sense of cohesiveness and solidity.
Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.
[deleted]
2017-11-26 19:42
Awesome. Again, thank you for your input. I'll keep these points in mind moving forward.
Nice work! I'm really glad to see how much attention you paid to the correction phase, and it definitely paid off. Over the course of the set, your understanding of the angles of your lines and how they played together to create solid forms improved a fair bit, and by the end you were much closer to hitting the mark each time.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work.
I know I dind't follow the instructions for the corrections. I tried extending the lines but got confused by the mess of lines. Guess I should have put less boxes on the page.
One problem I experienced (besides lack of experience) was that the boxes sometimes "flipped" in my perception of their orientation and it took some blinking and force of mind to flip them back the way I wanted to draw them. Don't know if this is common or if I'm doing something wrong.
Wouldn't mind doing more boxes though I already started lesson 2 and really enjoy drawing the organic blobs.
Nice work completing the challenge. I can definitely see that your general sense of 3D space improved over the set, though as you mentioned, you could have done a little better applying that extension method through the entire set instead of just giving up on it.
The issue you encountered with the 'flipped' lines is pretty common - you can fill in one of the forward-facing faces with some tight hatching lines to serve as a visual cue and clarify which side is which.
In the future when you do apply the line extension method, I want to stress how important it is to extend all the lines - that is, all four for each set (currently you seemed to be doing only three in some cases), and all three sets. Remember that the point is to extend them towards their implied vanishing point, so you can see how they converge, and if that convergence is consistent or if they're meeting at many different points.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so go ahead and move onto lesson 2. More boxes will always help, so you can always mix those into your warmups.
I think I get it now. The point of the correction is not to correct the squares but to visualize the VPs. I tried to correct the squares and used a straight edge to see where the lines went but by not drawing the lines I did find myself second guessing. I'll keep it in mind and stick to the instructions next time.
Fantastic work! Your boxes feel very consistent and solid, and you've clearly developed a strong grasp of 3D space already. At this point, you may find that your boxes will plateau, because your ability to identify mistakes will be overshadowed by your grasp of space. Basically, you'll still be making teeny tiny errors, but you won't be able to catch them, so there will be limited improvement beyond that point.
The way to handle this is to apply the correction method described in the challenge page notes near the beginning, which involves extending each line towards its implied vanishing point. It's best to do this upon the completion of each page of boxes, though since you're already done, it's still valuable to pick maybe your last page and apply it there. Based on the convergence of the extended lines, you'll be able to pick up on oddities where some lines are not playing along with the others.
Anyway, again - great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
Pretty well done! You're spot on with your observation - we're more focused on being in the ballpark of correct, rather than fussing over perfection. If it looks good, it is good.
Also, yes. Boxes are the devil. But they're your devil.
I do have a couple tips:
Your line weights get pretty heavy by the end. Try to keep them simple - and don't apply the same weight all across the board. You had them lighter earlier on, but all the lines were light. Then later, you had them all pretty heavy. Focus on putting a little bit more weight around the silhouette, and maybe a TEEEENY bit more on one side of it to give the impression of dynamism. There are notes on this on the challenge page.
Nice work applying those correction techniques with your extended lines. Just one thing on that front - you'll benefit most from extending all of your lines - that is, all four lines of a given set, and all three sets. Sometimes you pick only two sets, and earlier on I noticed you were only extending three out of four lines of a given set (which you did end up correcting later on, but still worth mentioning).
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work!
Congrats on completing the challenge. Your understanding of 3D space definitely improves over the set. I do have a couple things to point out to you however:
Are you applying the ghosting method to your linework? Where your lines tend to wobble, and your tendency to automatically correct your linework as you draw (leaving a lot of messiness) suggests that you're not. Remember that this method and all of its steps should be applied to every single mark you put down.
In my critique for lesson 1, where I assigned this challenge as your next step, I stated "The bit about correction techniques near the beginning is also important, and should be applied upon the completion of each page of boxes." You don't seem to have followed this instruction at all. You should go back and read through the notes on the challenge page - specifically just above the blue video buttons, where I describe the technique that should be used to determine whether or not there are mistakes in your boxes' constructions.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Definitely be more mindful of following the instructions in the future, and be sure to go over them with the correction method. Better late than never.
halfway through i corrected only the obvious mistakes since it felt like i was taking way too long to complete the challenge, but non the less it was quiet an enjoyable journey.
Looking good! I'm glad to see that you applied the correction techniques to each of your boxes. You were definitely quite patient through the construction, and your grasp of 3D space has developed considerably through the full set. By the end your forms are looking confident and cohesive.
The only recommendation I have as you continue to move forwards is to play with more boxes with shallower foreshortening, as those will actually come into play moreso than those with dramatic foreshortening. That is to say, play with the idea that your vanishing points are further away, so your parallel lines converge less.
Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
Think the photo quality is a bit less horrid here.
In hindsight it might've been better to draw a little less cluttered so there'd be room for extending lines for the vanishing points, though at the same time I'd prefer not to use half my sketch book for this single challenge.
Very nice work. Your boxes look solid, and your line weights really add a lot of cohesiveness to each construction. Ultimately, extending the lines for the vanishing points is most useful in cases like this, where your mistakes are effectively unnoticeable. They're likely still there, but not easy to identify without techniques like this.
It wouldn't be a bad idea to apply the technique now to one out of every three or four boxes. Despite the clutter, it'd still be worthwhile. Of course it'd involve somewhat marring your pretty arrangements and constructions, but at the end of the day they're only disposable exercises - not works of art.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
Ive had to deal with a few things but now Im happily back and went straight to hammering. Ive taken my time re-doing Lesson 1 completely, and am now looking at the 250 boxes.
After doing a few and finishing the 250, I find I did not really lose much and doing a few everyday with the warm up practice should be enough to put me back on track. But if you feel I should re-do the 250 box challenge Ill get right on that.
Looking at my boxes two things jump at me, first I should use vanishing points that are farther away and second I should get better at drawing the hidden lines. Also sometimes my corrections are questionable
I have included the workflow I used; I thought maybe you could tell if Ive been doing something wrong or just need more practice.
Overall, very nice work. While there's always room for continued growth, you demonstrated a lot of improvement in both your constructions and your general confidence in how you deal with these solid forms throughout the set. I'm very pleased to see how thorough you were with extending your lines back towards their implied vanishing points. You're also clearly making good use of the ghosting method, and I'm glad to see that you're marking in points before committing yourself to particular lines.
As it stands, your approach is fine. I just hope that you applied those line-extensions upon the completion of each page rather than at the end of the whole set (as this allows you to learn from your mistakes throughout). I have no reason to think that you didn't do this, but I figured it was worth mentioning just in case.
Keep up the great work and consider this challenge as complete.
By the way, I'd been going through my records a week or so ago, and I noticed that you had pre-paid for critiques, with that period coming to an end on December 13th. Since you've only submitted lesson 1 and the box challenge, I'm going to go ahead and extend that up until the end of March - so feel free to continue submitting your homework for critique until March 31st.
Thank you for your critique. Indeed I have been doing the line-extensions after finishing each page, though I admit at first it felt like a huge time sink. After doing a few pages and starting to notice where and what my mistakes were it felt like part of the challenge.
Thank you for the encouragement and for *extending the critique submission period, you didnt have to, I appreciate it. Ill get started on lesson 2 !
You've done a good job working through the challenge and drawing through each and every form, and have demonstrated a fair bit of improvement over the set. I do realize that I assigned this to you quite a while ago, so it's not surprising that you may have missed some of the additional notes I added to the challenge. That said, it is important to refresh one's memory of the notes frequently, as we are all bound to forget things quite easily - especially when there are considerable gaps in our timeline.
The important thing that you have missed is my stressing the correction phase. Specifically, the following technique used to identify where your lines are 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.
It is best to apply this technique upon the completion of each page of boxes, but you should still pick the last page or two and apply it there anyway so you can identify where things are off.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
I truly did it awhile ago and it took me a bit while to complete, but would try and do more boxes as you wrote to me, as I want to feel/ see how it is. I can say I started imagining the vanishing points for the lines but it sounds better to try it the way you mentioned
I got the feeling that most of my boxes are presented from top view, as I started many of them with the Y method
is it an issue, would you recommend to try and make more boxes from different angles?
also, would glad to hear if you have any critic about the advance box challenge
While you are covering a range of rotations, I suppose you're right - most of your boxes are seen from the top, so it would be good to explore more from the underside as well.
On the advanced boxes, you did fine. There box you started off with was a little off (which is entirely normal, as I mention in the video), with the front face on the right side being a little too small, but you rolled with that pretty well and compensated for the errors as they accumulated. The only thing I noticed was that you don't seem to have found the center of the top/bottom planes, at least not that I can see. As a result, I think the lines you draw across those planes that would pass through the centers don't end up doing so. Finding the center points of your planes early is definitely important, as it allows you to gauge your error-compensation a little better.
You're generally doing great - the only recommendations I have here is to watch the direction in which you extend those lines. You're extending them at least a little in both (which I mean, is fine - a bit of a waste of space maybe but really not enough to matter) but there is one box on the first page (down the middle, second from the top) where you seem to extend them in the opposite direction - away from your implied vanishing point. Of course, the main point of extending your lines is to see how they all converge towards the vanishing point. Of course, one slip up is nothing. The rest of these are solid, and while there are certainly mistakes, you're applying the technique to identify what the issues are.
So, a question back to you - were you able to see places where your lines failed to converge correctly, and where their angles tended to be off by some margin?
point of extending your lines is to see how they all converge towards t
thank you
I see what you mean by the line extensions, I felt it when doing the box and noted myself about it
I could see the places where I misplaced a line which got the others a bit messed up, on some boxes I also made a new line to correct it a bit. anyway I can see your point and what you mean.
I feel like I need to do some more boxes but also wish to get on Lesson 2, so I plan to "warm up" with some boxes, and starting L2. if you have other recommendation I will glad to hear
I think that's a solid plan. At the end of the day, it's not going to be perfect, it'll take time to refine and train. So it's best to keep moving forwards and keep revisiting this stuff as a warmup.
Greetings, I finally finished these gosh dang boxes. It took me a while to figure out that the perspective on my initial boxes were too extreme. Hopefully the resolution is good enough, my phone camera isn't exactly great.
Very nice work! There's definite improvement over the set - although you did start out with a certain sense of confidence in your solidity. I noticed as well that your line weight became more subtle as you went on (earlier on it was pretty heavy-handed and didn't look that great). The subtler ones however provide a great sense of dimension and dynamism while improving the overall cohesiveness of the form.
I'm also very pleased to see how consistently you applied the line-extension method and clearly learned from it as you went along.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work.
Okay, this has been a somewhat bumpy ride for me. Got bored a few times so did some "exercises". Played around with some various depths and vp distances as well. I think I have somewhat control over these now. On the last 3 pages I stopped playing around and finished with some more "cleaner" boxes.
Nice work! I really like the structured approach you applied on some of these pages. Overall, I think you've applied the principles quite well, and have demonstrated a good deal of improvement.
One thing I do believe would have helped however is the application of the correction techniques outlined on the challenge page notes (just above the blue video links). Applying these after completing a page would allow you to identify and learn from your mistakes before moving onto the next one. I actually mentioned this when assigning the challenge.
I recommend that you do this for at least your last page, so you can identify where you need to work on things. It becomes exceptionally more helpful when you start to plateau (as we all do when we improve to the point that our mistakes become so subtle that we cannot identify them easily with the naked eye).
Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
I found this very difficult, but I felt that I got better as I went on. I still struggle getting the behind lines to all point towards their vanishing points. I can see the mistakes I'm making, but I find it difficult to get it right.
Overall you're doing pretty well, but I noticed that you didn't apply the correction technique mentioned in the lesson. It's explained in the paragraph just above the video links, as well as in the new version of the 'how to draw a box' video.
This approach (of extending lines towards the vanishing point after having drawn the box) really helps to identify the core of how your box sits in 3D space, and how the rules of perspective have been applied to it. The usual problem occurs when our lines (which are parallel to one another) do not converge in a consistent manner towards the same VP. By identifying the mistakes this way (ideally upon the completion of each page of boxes), we get a better sense of what to work on the next time, instead of working a bit blindly.
That said, you're still doing pretty well. Your lines are confident, your box constructions are fairly solid, and your use of line weight is coming along well. The last thing I'd like to recommend is that instead of applying additional line weight to the front-facing internal lines, you may want to instead fill one of the front-facing faces with some tight, consistent hatching to serve as a visual cue. The issue with adding weight to your internal lines is that it can break up some of the cohesiveness of the overall form.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work, and be sure to apply that line-extension technique at least to the last page of your boxes, to see where you can improve.
Nice work completing the challenge. I do have a few recommendations for you, though you are certainly progressing with the confidence of your constructions and the use of line weight.
Draw your boxes bigger - constructing boxes like this is very much a spatial problem, and our brains benefit from being given more room to work. I'd recommend drawing them about twice as big as you are now.
On the challenge page, there's a correction technique I describe above the video links, where you go back over your completed boxes and extend your lines back towards their implied vanishing points to see how exactly they're converging. This helps considerably to identify mistakes and to learn from them. The new video I released last week also explains this approach. It's extremely useful, and it seems you haven't taken advantage of it. In the future, be sure to apply that method - and I strongly recommend that you at least take your last page of boxes and apply it to each one there, so you know what kind of mistakes you tend to make.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so go ahead and move onto lesson 2 - though I do recommend that you continue to practice drawing freely rotated boxes in the future.
Great work! Your boxes' construction improves a fair bit over the set, as does your general confidence and line quality. Your weights are subtle, but they go a long way to really reinforce the sense of cohesion and solidity of the forms. Needless to say, I'm also very impressed with the patience and care you've applied to double checking the convergence of the lines of so many of your boxes. This is exactly what I want to see with this challenge.
Keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.
Note: The line extensions were getting messy so after a 100+ boxes, I drew more spaciously and only extended a selected few per page. I hope that's ok.
If you mark this challenge as completed, is lesson 2 next or another challenge ?
Thanks in advance for critiquing pages of the most evil form to be ever existed.
Good work completing the challenge. I'm glad to see that you applied the extension method, though extending all of them would always be better. I understand that it gets cramped and messy, but that frankly doesn't really matter. Presentation certainly is important (like taking the time to apply your hatching lines where you choose to with patience and care, keeping them consistent and parallel and stretching them from edge to edge rather than scribbling or having sloppy ones floating arbitrarily on a plane), but even more important than that is what you learn from your exercises. With each extension, you learn about the kinds of mistakes you tend to make so you can keep that information in mind for your next page.
I did actually notice one thing - as you progress, you tend more towards drawing boxes with more dramatic foreshortening, moving those vanishing points in closer to the boxes. If I had to guess, I'd say this was your response to what you identified with the extension method.
Being able to draw boxes with vanishing points that are quite far away (therefore having shallower foreshortening) is still very important - perhaps moreso than dramatic foreshortening, as it suggests forms that are of a smaller and more relatable scale. So, make sure you practice these as much as you need to in order to be able to execute them well too.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2 - but be sure to continue practicing boxes as part of your warmups.
[deleted]
2018-01-07 11:13
Okay, here's the boxes. After months of struggling with boxes, all I can think of now is boxes. I see boxes everywhere. Boxes boxes boxes. Did I mention boxes?
Nice work completing the challenge. I'm glad to see that after the first twenty, you remembered the bit about drawing through your boxes. Overall, there is definitely visible improvement in the solidity of your boxes, and your use of line. I do have two things to point out though:
You tend to draw more or less the same orientation of box each time, with very little variation. Definitely work on adding more variety to the angles of rotation. I know it can be tricky since there's only so many faces to a box and they're all the same size, but if two neighbouring boxes look like they're striving to depict the same configuration, try and change it up a little.
Don't forget to apply the line-extension method more regularly across the set, ideally upon the completion of each full page of boxes. I saw you do it once or twice (though you should extend them towards their implied vanishing point rather than in both directions). This will help you identify more clearly where you tend to make mistakes. It's totally understandable though that you didn't do this - when I assigned this as the next step, it was quite a long time ago, and I wasn't likely stressing the importance of extending your lines at that time. I've actually got a new 'how to draw a box' video up as of these last few weeks, which goes over all of that. Be sure to check it out when you have a moment.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Great work. I'm really pleased to see just how conscientious you were about extending all of your lines. Looking over them, I can see your general construction improving over the set, but definitely keep an eye on how those lines converge. When you've got two lines that are very close to each other on the page, they're going to be running pretty close to parallel - so whenever you find that not being the case, it's the kind of mistake that's going to stand out more.
For example, if you look at 238, you've got two lines going off to the left that are pretty close to each other in the center. These two are diverging slightly, and because they're so close, it becomes quite apparent. Keep an eye on that sort of thing.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
I realized upon coming back to this page that I used a totally different correction method than the one described - instead of "finishing" edges out to their vanishing points, I added arrows indicating how the corners need to move to make the box more accurate. If you think that would still be a beneficial exercise for me, let me know - for now I'm uploading as-is, since putting both annotation forms on the same pages would get pretty hard to interpret.
Overall you did a pretty good job, and you've certainly benefitted from the exercise. Your constructions and general line quality improves over the set, and I believe the subtlety to your line weight variation goes a long way to lend a sense of cohesion and solidity to your boxes without overdoing it.
The correction method you applied isn't honestly all that valuable, but it is better than nothing. I definitely believe that at least going back over the last page and extending your lines towards your implied vanishing points would be very beneficial, as it's the convergence of those lines where we always mess up, and doing so will allow you to better identify where you tend to make mistakes.
By the way - your use of hatching is kind of interesting. Some people approach it rather sloppily, having inconsistent lines that don't quite stretch all the way across each plane. In your case, yours don't touch the edges but that is also very obviously intentional, so it doesn't come off as really all that sloppy. That said, it would be better for you to ensure that they stretch all the way across, for the sake of presentation. When your lines stop at different distances from the edges, it can ding your presentation a little. Not that it's one of our main concerns, but it's still worth minding a little.
Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Once you've extended the lines of your last page and have reviewed the kinds of mistakes that become apparent in doing so, feel free to move onto the next lesson.
I've started to figure out that I still have quite a bit of trouble with drawing straight lines that end up where I want them to do. So I'll have to up the practice on the ghosting exercise for sure. Or be more careful during that practice.
Dunno how the boxes went though. Hope some improvement is at least visible!
else I'll have to draw even more boxes O__O.. oh well, can't hurt anything but my sanity!
Your boxes are looking pretty damn spiffy now - especially if you compare the first and last pages of this challenge, they look considerably more solid and confident near the end, although the beginning wasn't particularly bad either. I have just one recommendation, and it's in regards to how you're using that correction method. You actually had that one right on the first page - extend your lines in one direction, towards the implied vanishing point - not equally in both directions, as you did from the second page onwards. You want to keep track of how those lines are converging, so you only really need to focus on one side (and ideally give that other side more length in order to see more of the pattern of convergence).
Anyway, keep up the fantastic work. You're doing great.
Nice work completing the challenge. Your box constructions are definitely coming along well. I do have a few recommendations though that should help as you continue to move forwards:
Draw your boxes bigger. Right now each one is quite tiny. When it comes to spatial problems (and constructiong boxes is very much a spatial problem), our brain benefits considerably from having more room to work and think through things.
Just above the video link, I describe a correction method that involves extending your lines towards their implied vanishing point (after finishing drawing a full page of boxes) to see how those lines converge. Give it a read, and try applying it to your last page or two. I also describe this in the new how-to-draw-a-box video that I posted on Christmas. It's very helpful in figuring out where you tend to make mistakes, so you know what to work on during your next attempt.
Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Nice work! You're constructions definitely get more consistent and confident throughout the set, and I'm glad to see that you've been trying to apply the line extension method to double check and identify your mistakes. On that note, I did notice that you were mainly extending only one set of parallel lines - keep in mind that there are three individual sets, and to really get the most out of that technique you've got to extend all of them and analyze how the lines of each given set converge towards one another. Doing it only for some of the sets leaves you open to accidentally making mistakes in other areas.
I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. I think it'd be a good idea to take your last page or two and apply the method to the remaining lines, so you can identify mistakes that might be hiding (it's easy to miss them once your boxes have reached a certain level, this technique is intended to make them more obvious).
Anyway, keep up the good work! Once you've done that, feel free to move onto lesson 2.
Excellent work. Your box constructions feel very solid and cohesive, and capture a strong sense of weight. Your use of line weight also goes a long way to reinforce these principles, and I'm glad to see that you were applying the double checking methods a fair bit throughout. You're definitely heading in the right direction at considerable speed, and the confidence of your linework is really showing.
It's good to see that you haven't gotten rusty at all, despite your last submission having been almost a year ago. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
Finally got around to finishing and uploading this. I started ages ago but got really busy (and unmotivated) until recently, where I busted out half the challenge in 2 days. You will see my lack of motivation in my sloppiness around the middle :S hope it's adequate nonetheless.
I'm glad you were able to complete the challenge. Having the persistence to push all the way through is definitely very important.
Your boxes vary in quality throughout the set - some are much stronger than others. There is one very important thing that you neglected to do however, and I mentioned it when assigning this challenge. That is, the correction technique where you extend the lines of a completed box back towards its implied vanishing points to see how those lines converge. I explain this in the paragraph above the video links on the challenge page, as well as in (the new version of) the how to draw a box video.
Be sure to give that video a watch, and while it would have been best had you applied this technique upon the completion of each full page, I recommend that you still apply it now to your last two pages in order to identify where you're making mistakes and what the nature of those mistakes is.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Be sure to continue incorporating this kind of exercise into your warmups, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Great work! I totally agree that the yellow highlighter was a mistake, but what can you do. What's important though is that you very clearly demonstrated throughout the set that you learned from the act of extending those lines, and as you progressed your boxes started to look much more confident and solid.
You've done really well here. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2, and keep it up!
"How to draw 250 boxes and still be unable to get anything right - by Aera"
youuuuu drama queen. You're doing remarkably well for a whiny little hoe who can't own his victories. Your forms feel solid, your line weights are subtle but go a long way to add a strong sense of cohesion to your forms, and you're clearly doing a great job of checking the convergence of your lines with each box.
Your lesson 1 boxes weren't that bad to begin with, but in comparison these are considerably better.
So take a tissue, dab at your tears and move onto the next lesson. You're doing good, so consider this challenge complete.
You started out from a point of considerable weakness, and demonstrated a great deal of improvement over the set. One can definitely see your understanding of 3D space start to click together, and the amount of growth here is pretty fantastic. Moreover, your very last page is a big jump from your second last, with both solid constructions and confident linework. It is unfortunate that you didn't apply the line extension method to a lot of the later pages, and as a result there is definitely room for improvement in terms of keeping those convergences consistent (as I'm sure you noticed from that last page), but I am glad that you decided to mark them out at the end there.
Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
That was weird. After 150-200 boxes I could control which way I saw the front face/back face of the box, and I could look at where a point should go instead of trying to make parallel lines... most of the time.
Sorry the colored corrections make it so hard to see the line work.
Your constructions are definitely coming together nicely, and your convergences are becoming noticeably more consistent. A couple suggestions - if you continue to have trouble with that front/back face illusion (in case it comes back), you can fill in one of the near faces with some tight, consistent hatching lines to serve as a visual cue. Also, what you may want to play with next is varying the weight of your lines. This can go a long way to building up the cohesion and solidity of your forms. I've got some notes on how to go about this on the challenge page so be sure to check them out.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Is line weight something that can feasibly be done with a ball point pen without drawing over the line again? I'm using ball point pens until I learn to stop smashing the pen into the surface (was destroying felt-tip pen tips), and ball points seem pretty consistent for width.
I don't trust myself to draw a second line and have it come anywhere near overlapping the first one heh.
Regardless of what tool you're using, it should be added by drawing over the line again. You should not be trying to vary your weight when putting the initial construction line down - instead you go back over it afterwards, adding extra weight in local areas with a confident stroke, similar to the super imposed lines exercise. You may not trust yourself to do that successfully right now, but that's no reason not to do it anyway. Even if it ruins each and every box, they're just fodder. It doesn't matter.
I did it! I realized I struggle with repetitiveness, but I know it's for the best; I did take a couple of breaks because of work but also because sometimes I would start overthinking about the long road I have ahead of me before I can actually switch careers, not being good enough...yada yada.....so I would kind of give up and start procrastinating (I know, kill me, been dragging the issue since forever)
Onto the actual challenge (I had to get that off my chest) I didn't really see that big of an improvement, but it is there :)
The linework got better the more boxes I drew (also I always do my warmups) still, even on the last few boxes my arm would sometimes just go kind of wacky and do a very wtf curve (I'm always drawing from the shoulder so I'm still figuring out what's wrong - I probably need more practice) also I started with 2 different pens (0.5 - 0.1) whoops...until I read the bit about subtlety on Discord (I thought I was just being fancy hehehe). Oh and there was a bit of a problem with me trying to fix some overshooting lines, making them thicker and kind of defeating the purpose of making the boxes look subtle, bad habit I got to fix (it's just my afraid-of-failure-syndrome)
So I started with a really crappy perspective, mostly because I thought I could remember everything in the boxes video without watching it again after a while, I was so wrong....so I watched it again, and my perspective got a looooot better. Since then I don't think I saw much of an improvement, except that it became easier to see the angles and thus I drew a bit faster.
Oh, and the new boxes video helped me a lot, the old one was really good, but I grabbed some very useful tips, so thank you!
I think that is all I'm able to see by myself, I hope it is good enough to pass \0/ this is actually a major milestone for me, since the first time I tried to do it at the beginning of 2017, I drew like 50 boxes and just left it for dead, so even if it's not the best assignment out there, I'm really proud of myself, and now I actually feel like I can actually finnish all the lessons.
Thank you for the amazing work you put on this project!
Congratulations on getting through all 250! It definitely is a notable accomplishment, and you should feel proud of yourself. To be honest, from what I can see, your constructions started out in a pretty strong position - your forms felt solid and reasonably well constructed to begin with, so it's not surprising that the improvement over the set was somewhat more nuanced. There definitely is improvement, both in the confidence of your linework, the subtlety of your weight variation and the solidity of your constructions, but it's not the sort of obvious, drastic improvement that comes when one is starting out from a much lower level.
One of the most notable changes that I noticed was in the way that you apply those extra weights. There's a bit of wobbling near the beginning, but by the end your application of thickness is considerably more confident, so it flows more smoothly.
Anyway, keep up the great work. You'll continue to improve at this sort of rate with practice, but as it is you're more than ready to move onto lesson 2.
I haven't drawn in the correction lines for every box, but I have drawn them in for a lot of boxes - enough to see patterns emerging and try to address them. Getting the 'back' (furthest) edge on the correct angle without a ruler was a constant challenge.
Great work! I can definitely see considerable improvement over the set. Your boxes by the end are generally well constructed (still room for improvement on the alignment of those lines towards their VPs, but it's much better than before), and your linework is confident and self-assured, with your variation in weight contributing a lot to the solidity and cohesiveness of each construction.
Keep up the fantastic work and consider this challenge complete!
Nice work! I'm glad that you went over your boxes with such persistence, extending those lines towards their implied vanishing points. I did notice that when you started out, you were only extending 3 of the 4 lines of a given set, but you fixed that within a couple pages.
Overall, your linework is much improved compared to lesson 1 (where your boxes tended to have wobblier, more timid lines). Your constructions feel more confident, and your convergences are getting more consistent. There certainly is room for growth of course, and I do think your ghosted lines still have a little ways to go, but you're absolutely moving in the right direction.
On additional thing you may want to work on as you continue to move forwards is line weight. There are notes regarding this in the challenge page. Varying the weights of your marks helps to add an additional sense of cohesion - where a box made up of uniform lines may have very little holding it together as a single form, reinforcing the weight of the silhouette can really go a long way to make them feel as though they make up a single cohesive form.
Keep up the great work, and consider this challenge complete.
Read the instructions! You missed the part about going back over your work and extending your lines towards their implied vanishing points to see how they're converging. Though I'm not sure when you started these boxes, I did upload a new how-to-draw-a-box video which goes over this, though it was mentioned in the exercise notes as well.
Your lines are a little hairy at times, so watch out for that. It looks like you're a bit in the habit of correcting trying to correct mistakes. It's a bad habit! Gotta make sure you think and ghost before every mark you put down.
Overall the constructions are looking good, you just gotta watch that line quality and take the steps to identify mistakes after the fact so you can learn from them.
Oops! I actually did (try) to do a page of those (box 1-10) i just forgot to include them. Here it is :https://imgur.com/QPnjHYX .
That is definately something i have a tendency too do. I try do avoid it but i will try to try even harder :D
I'm glad you think they look good! I feel proud of these boxes because i honestly think i learnt a lot from the challenge this time around, especially because of your new video :D
I'll post again after i've done the four extra pages of everyday object drawings :D
It's good that you did try them. Make sure you do them for all your boxes from now on, and I do recommend that you do them for the last couple pages that you completed for the challenge.
Uncomfortable
2017-08-22 05:55
Old thread got locked, those eligible for homework critiques by /u/Uncomfortable can submit their work here.
Reil_
2017-08-22 08:12
http://imgur.com/a/Cy8Ed
I had the feeling of doing the same perspective over and over so I went for more extremes in some cases. I tried to push the perspective a lot, since I think that 3 point perspective is still one of my weakness but I see that i have still to master the two others.
Also sometime I find that i'm not doing my shoulder movement and ghosting and I set back myself to do it with ghosting.
I see a lot the 'front square/rectangle is bigger than the second' and many times it helped me visualise where the box was placed.
The line weight is still difficult and I want to train more to be able to do fine lines with the 0.5 point pen.
Thanks in advance!
Uncomfortable
2017-08-22 18:40
Pretty nice work. Your line quality is especially nice, as most of your lines maintain a consistent, smooth trajectory, and appear to be drawn with a fair degree of confidence. The biggest thing you can do at this point to help your growth is to apply the approach mentioned in the notes about extending your lines further back (during the correction phase) to help identify where the convergence of your lines is inconsistent. You should find this quite frequently, though it's the greater inconsistencies that are the bigger problems, that we definitely want to get used to identifying. I've pasted the method from the notes below:
You don't have to do it for every page, but applying the approach to a couple is definitely worth your while. Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
Reil_
2017-08-23 10:57
Thank you very much. I think I had to do the extension phase as soon as I finished each page. I went back to it after I finished all boxes and it became a tedious task, and sometime I couldn't get the right lines.
I will continue to do boxes every few days.
alexvostrov
2017-08-22 23:27
http://imgur.com/a/XnirF
Whew, that was a bit crazy but at the same time I think that I learned quite a bit. I pay attention to box edges in a different way now that I've seen all the possible ways to screw them up.
In parallel with this I actually wrote a training game for myself to develop my intuition. It throws incomplete boxes at you and asks you to click where the missing corner should be. I spent 1 hour each day playing it, before drawing the boxes. I've been graphing my error magnitude and it's about half of what it was at the beginning.
Uncomfortable
2017-08-23 04:23
Nice work! You were definitely very conscientious about applying your corrections and extending back those lines, and your work certainly seems extremely confident throughout.
I'm actually very interested in this game you mentioned - it sounds like a brilliant idea, and I'm a little disappointed I didn't come up with it first. What state is it in currently, and what did you build it in?
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work!
alexvostrov
2017-08-23 15:31
I threw it together with Unity. It's pretty basic at the moment, I don't even have a main menu to select the various exercises (there are 3 at the moment).
I'll polish it up a bit over the next few weeks and throw it out into the wild to see how it does. I should also probably playtest it with a few people to sort out the UI design issues.
I think that there's a huge potential in this idea. The biggest obstacle to practice is getting quick and accurate feedback. For a lot of this stuff (like value judgement) we can have the computer throw thousands of examples at the player. I've also used what I know of learning psychology (spaced repetition) to speed things up, but there's probably more to be done.
I'm pretty excited to get to figure drawing. It should be reasonably easy to get mocap data off the Unity store and to make simple figure proportion exercises.
Uncomfortable
2017-08-23 22:31
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing it. If there's anything I can help with, let me know. I'm sure you've got the development down, but as far as marketing and whatnot - I'd like to link to it from the drawabox site. Well, to be honest, I'd love to negotiate having some DaB branding on there but that's a conversation for another day :P
alexvostrov
2017-08-23 22:36
For sure, I'll drop you a message when it's presentable. It's a bit modest right now, but it's better to ship early rather than late with these things.
Jaspii
2017-08-24 13:44
Sounds awesome man! Keep us updated on your training games
Jaspii
2017-08-24 13:41
Yeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhhs!
I'm finally done with this challenge.
DaB-jaspii-250box challenge https://imgur.com/gallery/iPq2m
I took my time for these boxes and got a lot faster and more efficient towards the end . It still took me a very long time , however it was a good experience .
Thank you for providing me with the challenge dearest Uncomfortable
Uncomfortable
2017-08-24 19:41
Looking good! I think you really took this exercise to its limit, with your different variations. Usually I'm not too keen on students taking their own liberties (and it's best to avoid that in the future), but I think yours here were definitely in line with the spirit of the exercise. I'm pleased to see that you definitely have demonstrated a considerable improvement with your confidence and construction.
I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Keep up the great work.
Jaspii
2017-08-24 20:01
Thank you very much! Yes
I thought correcting a box that was way off by ghosting a new better box over it was a fun way to acknowledge and work with my mistake.
Will now indulge in lesson 2, becoming a patreon is really paying off.
one quick or probably longer question :
Would you say thats its a viable path to become a concept artist or illustrator without going to a physical art school?
Would you also recommend going the online way through means like CGMA , New Masters academy , ctrl Paint and obviously your website?
My desire to become a concept artist is burning like a wildfire and I very much believe that i have the discipline and will to practice on my own. However your opinion on this matter would still interest me.
cheers
em_rowan
2017-08-30 04:43
i'm not sure if i'm even supposed to be posting this here but you could check out this video if you haven't seen it already, it has some advice on successful self-teaching/online learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Al7QAS89s
Jaspii
2017-08-30 12:59
Tha m you very much ! This was a very good listen
Peronade
2017-08-31 19:46
Hello. It took me a while, but I've managed to finish the challenge. I definetely feel the progress as drawing 10 boxes at once was much less time consuming. I also feel like having better understanding of the space. Here are the results: http://imgur.com/a/280YQ
Uncomfortable
2017-09-01 01:41
Very nice work! Your constructions feel solid, and your use of line weight really kicks each one up to the next level. I'm also pleased that you went through the process of marking in your corrections. As you improve beyond a certain point, you'll find that your ability to identify those mistakes will need to catch up somewhat - so subtler mistakes will go unnoticed.
In that situation, the method I mention about extending your lines (I'll paste it again below) comes in very handy, as it allows you to get a better sense of what your lines are doing, and highlights issues you may not have otherwise noticed. It is time consuming of course, but it's a good idea to apply it broadly to an entire page or two of your later boxes (as those are the ones more likely to have the kinds of minor mistakes we miss).
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto lesson 2.
NotchDaMc
2017-09-01 03:52
https://imgur.com/gallery/m7BWI
My attempt at the challenge. Here wondering what you think & thanks in advance..
Uncomfortable
2017-09-01 16:50
These are definitely a big improvement over your previous attempts. While there are still mistakes (which is expected), you're identifying a lot of them, and appear to be learning from them and improving over the set. I'm glad that you stuck through it until you got a hang of the boxes - I think you should be good to move onto the next lesson. Just be sure to continue applying the principles that you've learned here, and working some boxes into your warmups is always a good idea.
Shajitsu
2017-09-03 17:47
Hey!
Damn.. This took me way longer than i expected. But i skipped my drawing sessions for some days because of lacking motivation. Today i finally made it!
http://imgur.com/gallery/nQQx5
(I know there are some numbers missing, i fucked up a little. Got about 20 Boxes on a piece of paper at work! )
Uncomfortable
2017-09-03 21:11
Based on my records, I don't have this account down as being eligible for private critiques. If you are a patreon supporter, make sure you check your patreon message system inbox, as I always reach out to get information like one's reddit username. If you're not however, you're welcome to submit your work to the subreddit itself to receive a critique from the community.
That said, your boxes are looking pretty good. The double checking for mistakes you did near the beginning is definitely great, I'd recommend trying that on the last few pages as well. Also, I noticed a lot of your boxes tend to have pretty dramatic foreshortening on them (due to the vanishing points being quite close). Be sure to practice shallower foreshortening as well, as this will come up more often.
Shajitsu
2017-09-04 03:59
Oh, you're right. Somehow it doesnt went through on Patreon. Im goin to make sure its working when im at home today.
So what is your advice for me? Can i continue doing the next exercise or should i do some extra work first?
Greetings
Uncomfortable
2017-09-04 04:00
Well, since you don't seem to have tackled lesson 1, that's definitely a good place to start. Or in this case, a good next step.
Shajitsu
2017-09-04 15:03
Alright, i'll do lesson 2 now! Thanks for the reply. I checked my Patreon and it seems that everything was fine, i just didnt sent u my reddit name. U should have a mail with it on Patreon!
Do i get this cool 250 Box badge? =)
Uncomfortable
2017-09-04 16:27
Yup, I've given you the badge for the box challenge and for lesson 1. The only things I want to mention in regards to your lesson 1 work is as follows:
For the funnels, remember that the far ends of the funnel should have ellipses that have the highest degrees (more circular), and the middle of the funnel should have a lower degree (narrowest).
For your rough perspective boxes, be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.
Your organic perspective boxes' foreshortening is definitely way too dramatic. By this I mean the vanishing points are too close, resulting in the far end of the boxes being waaay smaller than the close end, despite not having that much distance between them. As I mention in these notes, this throws off the sense of cohesion between all the boxes in the scene, and messes with the sense of scale. This is why it's a good idea to put a fair bit of practice into drawing boxes with shallower foreshortening, where the difference between the near/far planes is more subtle.
Be sure to continue working on that, but feel free to move onto lesson 2 as I mentioned before.
Uncomfortable
2017-09-04 04:02
Oh woops - my bad, you did do lesson 1. Then I guess you should be good to move onto lesson 2.
Mrs-Smith123
2017-09-05 11:12
New month, new Homework: Here is my 250 Box Challenge https://imgur.com/a/iftyb
(Please ignore the notes on image 7, I was just comparing different pens).
Looking forward to hear your critique, and thanks in advance :3
Uncomfortable
2017-09-06 00:15
Excellent work. Your line quality is very self-assured and confident, your box constructions are solid and I'm very pleased to see the extent to which you double checked your boxes afterwards. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
Mrs-Smith123
2017-09-06 18:43
Thanks a lot :)
I'll start workin on lesson 2, then!
[deleted]
2017-09-07 00:05
I came close to quitting so many times -- and maybe you'll wish I did after seeing these. :-) It may not look it, but it took me a long time to get through these boxes. After a few false starts and a couple weeks, I realized that I would never get through 250, nor would I learn from any mistakes, if I kept starting over. I feel like I hit a sort-of stride after a near breakdown around 100, but subsequently lost it and gained it over and over again. I submit these 250 boxes, ugliness and all. I feel like I accomplished something, though not what I thought I would have back at the beginning. I'm definitely not as far along as I had previously thought. Pretty humbling experience. Anyways. Enjoy!
https://imgur.com/a/XpCqy
Uncomfortable
2017-09-07 22:53
I think you're being a bit rough on yourself, and definitely overdoing it with the self deprecation. Your work here is quite strong. Your constructions feel sturdy, your line weights do a great deal to add solidity and cohesion to each form, and your corrections are ample and conscientious. I'm not sure what you're referring to as 'ugliness', but the corrections are not something to be ashamed of. That's what you learn from - of COURSE you're going to make plenty of mistakes, that is a given. The point is to identify them, even when they're not obvious, and to grow from them.
Lastly, you definitely improved over the set. Keep up the great work, and don't fuss over whether or not your work is up to scratch - because there's no standard to be comparing yourself against. That's all in your head. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
[deleted]
2017-09-08 02:23
Thank you! I'll move onto Lesson 2 (and ease up on the self-deprecation).
LoBoPia
2017-09-07 23:45
Drawing these boxes was tedious work. My main concern is drawing the same kind of box. I wasn't sure then if I was improving.
http://imgur.com/a/PxSga
Uncomfortable
2017-09-08 00:35
Nice work! Your line quality definitely improves over the set, as well as your general confidence. I'm also very pleased to see that after a point, you become quite dedicated to applying that line-extension method to help identify the mistakes that may not be entirely obvious to the naked eye. This clearly helps quite a bit, as your box constructions become a fair bit more consistent throughout.
Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
LoBoPia
2017-09-08 17:18
Should I also complete the 250 cylinder challenge before I start on Lesson 2's Form Intersections?
edit: thank you for the critique.
Uncomfortable
2017-09-08 17:34
It would certainly help, though it's not required.
sidneyanders
2017-09-08 18:48
It took a couple weeks on and off but it's done!
https://imgur.com/a/j2JuT
I felt a greater control toward the end, but felt like I got more sloppy as well. I don't know if I was slack at certain points or just able to notice my mistakes more. Should I go on to the next lesson or another challenge?
Uncomfortable
2017-09-09 23:51
Really nice work. Your boxes look solid, and your use of line weight goes a long way to help improve the sense of cohesion. You're also doing a good job of applying the ghosting method to your lines, so they tend to be quite confident and smooth.
The only advice I want to offer is that as your boxes improve, the nature of the mistakes you'll make will change. You'll still be making mistakes, but they'll be more subtle and difficult to detect. This is where extending your lines to make them more obvious comes into play in a big way. It's probably a good idea to take your last couple pages and apply the approach across the board, just to see where things are still a little bit off. It's tedious, but it's necessary to continue making meaningful gains once you've reached a certain point.
You're welcome to move onto lesson 2 - the 250 cylinder challenge is also there if you'd like to try it, but you're by no means required to do so at this point (it'll be a prerequisite for lesson 6, but that's a ways off). That said, it will help with the form intersections in the next lesson, so at least reading through the notes is definitely worthwhile.
Dio-Brawndo
2017-09-19 20:21
https://imgur.com/a/2HmD3 Finally done. I tried to be concise with my lines and not to be sloppy, but I feel like most of them ended up that way. I did find towards the end i would pick up more quickly if one line wasn't obviously in perspective or parallel with another, more or less; so I feel as if I at least got better at noticing that. I definitely gave it my full effort though, took a while.
Uncomfortable
2017-09-20 00:26
Excellent work, the fact that you put forward your full effort really comes across in these. The constructions are solid, and your line weights do a great job of reinforcing the cohesiveness of the forms. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you're clearly taking the time to identify even minor mistakes, and to apply the extension method to find those that may not be obvious.
Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
Dio-Brawndo
2017-09-20 01:18
Oh wow thanks so much for your critique, I appreciate it. I'm hyped now to continue to lesson 2 :) See you there!
berd_is_ded
2017-09-21 01:54
https://imgur.com/a/SgvAM
FUCKING DONE!
Uncomfortable
2017-09-22 00:13
Congratulations! Great work pushing through and completing the entire challenge. I especially appreciate how conscientious you are about applying your corrections, and extending those lines to find errors for the first 200 or so of them. The last 50 are admittedly less so, but I can certainly understand that you definitely wanted to get through them by that point.
I do however recommend that you do the same for those at some point. You certainly deserve a break for now. There are mistakes there that I can see, and at the end of the day the best way to improve is to identify them so you know what kind of mistakes you tend to make. Of course it's a lengthy process, and you're certainly on the right track.
Keep up the good work, and consider this challenge thoroughly complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.
[deleted]
2017-09-25 21:28
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2017-09-26 20:30
Excellent work. It's great to see the tenacity with which you approached this exercise, taking the time to extend all of the lines of all of your boxes, applying your corrections, and so on. You're generally doing great, but the only recommendation that I have is in terms of the degree to which you extend those lines. At the moment the extension is quite minimal, because of how packed the pages are, and so the benefit is equally slight. You'll definitely pick up on much more if you extend them to half, or even the full length of the original line. Also remember that you only really need to extend towards where the implied vanishing point is going to be, as it is the convergence (not the divergence) that tells us where we may have messed up.
Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
venusflycat
2017-09-26 12:47
https://imgur.com/gallery/wxDMb
Finally finished, overall I'd say that it was great practice and that I improved over the course of the exercise. That being said, I think I still have a ways to go with everything. Thanks in advance for taking a look!
Uncomfortable
2017-09-26 20:50
Congrats on completing the challenge. I do have a few observations to point out that should help you moving forwards:
Be sure to continue working on your use of the ghosting method. Right now I do sense a hint of stiffness in your linework, which suggests to me that you may be executing your marks a little slowly, rather than doing so confidently with a persistent pace. The steps of the ghosting method are important, as by investing your time in the preparation stages instead, you can maintain a reasonable degree of accuracy while continuing to execute your marks with confidence.
I'm glad to see that you did apply corrections in some areas, but I do think you'd benefit from being a little more thorough in that area. Specifically using the line-extension method described in the lesson (which I saw you apply a few times) is quite important, and following it up with specific corrections to the box itself.
It's best to do the corrections immediately after completing a page (rather than doing them at the end of the full set). This allows you to learn from those mistakes during the challenge, and also gives you a much smaller set to tackle at any given time. This in turn makes it easier to be conscientious when doing them.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
maxedwards1995
2017-09-29 22:12
Hi! First off, I would greatly appreciate if you read this post even though it is long and give your thoughts/advice but Ill post what I feel like I have learned first just in case you dont want to read my rant aha. (also note what I am about to say is a criticism of myself not of the challenge at all, I understand the usefulness of the challenge)
What I learned first off, I feel like after about 100 boxes I really started to understand how to draw the boxes in perspective even if my lines didnt show it sometimes and it also taught me to take my time as well (well on the ones that I did take my time on, see below) and doing so would yield better results
I had the odd stab at line weights but no real good attempt due to my issue below I believe.
link to my boxes: https://imgur.com/a/znubi
The rant bit (also it was after 100 or so that really felt like this)
I absolutely hated this challenge, while I feel like I learned a lot from this task, I found it so boring that it made me not want to even bother picking up the pen to draw the boxes and for a fair few of them past 100 I feel like I was just rushing through them even though I knew that it was better to take it slowly because in my head at the time I just wanted to get 250 done just so I could stop (I didnt do them all in one sitting, I just found it so dull spending my time drawing them). My ghosting was poor for a lot of them as I wasnt taking loads of time to nail it either just so I just get the box drawn.
I feel like if I had to draw 150 boxes instead of 250, I would have spent more time on each one (and probably yielded a better result) as I knew the end was much closer.
I did go through bits of motivation and I feel like that is clear when some of the boxes look quite good and thats because on those ones I did take my time etc and it really showed imo in both my ghosting and my perspective
My main question Do you have any advice for giving me the motivation to keep giving 100% through the super boring bits like this that are also so long and repetitive? (I think the repetitiveness of just drawing a box was also the issue maybe) (preferably without saying just get on with it as I tried to tell myself that)
Also, if you want me repeat this task due to my poor performance I totally understand but is there any side task that you would be able to give me that I could work on at the same time to break up the dullness of drawing the boxes again?
Thank you so much again and sorry that I am coming across as someone that is just moaning about this, I 100% view this as my own flaw that I must get over rather than me blaming the challenge
Uncomfortable
2017-09-30 02:53
What you've struggled with here - finding the motivation and the patience to carry on - is definitely something everyone faces, and the way we start out these drawabox lessons definitely brings that to a whole new level. It's not something I hide. The exercises, especially at the beginning, can be as boring as all hell. They're repetitive and uninspired at their very core.
This aspect of it is a lesson in and of itself, and it's a tough one to conquer. Being forced to do things that are boring, that aren't interesting, and that are repetitive and despite all that, to give them your full attention and your full focus, is a skill one develops over time, and is a skill that pays itself back several times over.
A big part of this is learning to focus on what you're working on at a given moment, and not to look ahead. Doing so leads to distraction, and we cannot do our best when we are distracted. Whether you're assigned ten boxes, twenty, a hundred or five hundred - what matters at a given moment is the box you are drawing right then. Again, that's a mindset that takes time to develop, but it is a necessary goal to move towards. Giving you 150 instead of 250 in order to cater to that distraction would not solve the problem, but rather encourage it.
Instead, when given a body of work that seems excessive, you can conquer it by simply spreading it out. You submitted your lesson 1 work about four or five days ago. Let's say it was five, and that you chopped away at the challenge every day. That makes for 50 boxes per day.
The first thing that comes to mind is that there is no deadline - you're welcome to spend as many days as you wish, though it is of course recommended that you work fairly regularly. Let's say you took ten days instead of five - you're down to 25 boxes a day, a much more manageable number. When not drawing boxes, you might draw other things, letting the exercises take up only a portion of however much time you've given yourself for drawing in a given day. Drawing things that make you happy is definitely an important part of keeping yourself from burning out.
Alternatively, even splitting your boxes into multiple sittings throughout the day (what about two sittings, 25 boxes per sitting, over five days?) can break up the monotony. Ultimately, this is about being faced with a challenge and conquering it within its stipulated terms. You cannot negotiate your obstacles away, but there are other things you can change.
Drawabox is a lot of work. That's pretty much what you signed up for, so expect more of that ahead. Don't, however, go forward thinking that you need to get it out of the way - the point is not finishing the lessons and reaching the finish line, because you're running laps around a circular track. Recently someone asked me what they should do after completing 7. My honest answer was that it wouldn't be a bad use of their time to go back to lesson 1 and revisit all of it. I have a student who's currently doing just that (well, they completed lesson 5, then decided to go back and start over), and they're doing vastly better now with this material than they had been previously.
The repetition, and the iteration is key. Each exercise is not about drawing something that looks pretty, but rather about what the exercise itself teaches you about controlling your arm, about understanding 3D space, and about constructing complex objects from simple forms. This is inevitably going to arise from doing it a lot, and it's for that reason that I always remind my students that having a lesson marked as complete does not mean you're done. That you should expect to continue practicing these exercises for a long time to come.
Anyway, onto your boxes - congratulations on completing all 250. That is certainly a big feat. Some of your boxes are better than others, perhaps where you were able to focus more, but others do show signs of distraction. There's several strewn about where you haven't drawn through the forms (though I'm glad that you did it for most).
I'm pleased to see that you tried to apply the extending-lines method for identifying mistakes, though there's two things I'd like to recommend on that front. Firstly, it's best to apply that method to all of your boxes. A good pattern to get into is to fill a page each sitting, then upon completion of that page, go back over it to mark in your corrections and identify your mistakes. I wouldn't say any of your pages are really full (technically doesn't matter to me, but it tends to be far more motivating to have a page filled to the brim at the end of a sitting rather than several pages with large open spaces and gaps - it's remarkable the impact a filled page can have on your psyche). Avoid scratching out your mistakes as well - if something goes wrong with a box, it doesn't matter, just keep trucking forward with it and complete it anyway.
The other point about the extension method I wanted to make is that the point is to extend those lines as they move further away from the viewer, rather than closer. I think there's a lot of cases here where you did the opposite, and tracked their behaviour as they move closer to the viewer and diverge. You really want to note their behaviour as they move towards their implied vanishing point, as it's their convergence that can tell you where things have gone wrong.
Lastly, I'd recommend filling one of the near-facing planes with some tight hatching lines to help give a visual cue as to which side is facing us. Drawing through your boxes, as good as it is in terms of helping us to better understand 3D space, can lead to an unfortunate illusion where we can perceive the box in a few different ways.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. There is certainly room to grow here, but you're moving in the right direction. Oh, on the topic of motivation, it may not be entirely related to the particular troubles you were facing, but this short bit on the topic is worth reading.
maxedwards1995
2017-09-30 07:01
Thank you so much for the detailed reply, I will bear all of it in mind when tackling the future exercises :) is it okay if I do 10 boxes a day on top of my warm up before I start my lesson 2 work for that day? Just so I can get more practice of them in but also so I can try implement the things you said.
Thanks again
Uncomfortable
2017-09-30 16:18
That is certainly fine, and encouraged.
[deleted]
2017-10-10 03:08
Hey /u/Uncomfortable
Here are my boxes - looking forward to hearing what you think!
https://imgur.com/a/HrjER
I do think I got better as I went along. I found myself thinking a lot more about how to make it look 3D rather than just thinking about what it should look like (if that makes sense...), so more focussing on parallel lines and VPs than I have been previously.
Thanks!
Uncomfortable
2017-10-12 23:59
Oh crap, sorry for missing this! My backlog failed me for once - I think I was critiquing a crapload that day, and I must have thought I'd critiqued yours and marked it completed.
Anyway, your work is looking great! You're clearly very patient, with every stroke being prepared for, thought out, and confidently executed. Your use of line weight is also well done, for the most part. Lastly, with all of your careful correction, I can see considerable improvement over the set. You started out with a good sense for how to make your forms feel solid, but over the course of the challenge, you definitely made big strides towards improving the alignment of your lines.
Anyway, consider this challenge complete and keep up the great work!
[deleted]
2017-10-13 00:21
No problem
Thanks very much for the feedback!
MrArghe
2017-10-11 16:17
First of all, thanks for your feedback for lesson 1!
I've moved on to the 250 box challenge and you can find the result here: https://imgur.com/a/o18Kv
Please note that I've marked some of the biggest errors using a red pen, but I've not tried to correct the mistakes. I only used the red pen to point out where the perspective and the lines are off.
Uncomfortable
2017-10-11 21:54
Nice work - I definitely see a considerable improvement in your confidence and the execution of your linework between the first page and the last. I do have a couple recommendations to make however:
When doing this kind of exercise in the future, try not to have any overlaps between your boxes. The reason for this is that in doing so, you're adding an extra dimension of complexity to the exercise, which in turn could potentially distract you from its main goal. Keeping each box a little more isolated from interacting with its neighbours (just spacing them out on the page, no need to quarantine them with their own frames) allows you to focus on its construction in a vacuum.
I also noticed that when you had your forms overlap, you did not draw the sections of a given box where it would be occluded by its neighbour. In general when doing these lessons, it's a very good idea to draw through your forms whenever possible - this includes drawing each form in its entirety even when it's blocked by its neighbours. This helps you keep in mind that the form is three dimensional, and not just a flat drawing on a flat page.
Correcting with red pen after drawing them is perfectly fine, and moreover it's encouraged in the instructions. We use a different colour to help distinguish the correction phase from the drawing phase, so there's little risk of building up any sort of habits involving reflexive correction. I do however recommend that you apply the line extension method to your corrections as well - this is described on the challenge page notes, and I'll paste it below as well. It helps to better grasp where your lines are off, especially if it's not entirely clear to your eyes. We often run into these less-obvious mistakes when we improve past making the more obvious ones.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
Enkadery
2017-10-13 01:42
Here we go! 250 Box Challenge.
https://imgur.com/a/wj4Xm
I've tried to mark most mistakes in orange. Earlier on I extended lines while on later pages I tried to just mark in a correct line. I also experimented with line weight more in the later boxes. Thanks!
Uncomfortable
2017-10-14 01:15
Very nice work! Your confidence and general construction improves considerably over the set, and your end results come out looking very solid. It's great that you were applying the line-extension method earlier on, though it would have been beneficial to apply it all throughout. I find it's best to finish a page, then go over it with that approach and mark in your corrections. Maybe one page a sitting or something like that. Ultimately as you improve, the mistakes you make tend to become more subtle and less noticeable - they're still there though, so this approach is important to continue improving in those smaller ways.
Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete!
Enkadery
2017-10-14 15:45
Thank you for the critique! I will keep going over them - I find it is nice to warm up a bit with some boxes and lines each time I sit down so I can keep checking for mistakes then.
CrashPosition
2017-10-16 19:56
Here it is!
https://imgur.com/gallery/0TVjz
Alright so the major problem I noticed during the challenge was... patience and focus. I'm working really hard to make a habit of ghosting my lines, but I currently have to fight the urge to go on autopilot about every 5 minutes...
Anyway I'm sure the issues with focus reflect in the boxes, but I do feel I've learned a lot and I'll continue using the exercise in my warmups.
Looking forward to your comments :)
Uncomfortable
2017-10-17 04:14
You've definitely improved considerably over the set. The boxes near the end are considerably more confident and much better constructed, in terms of the angles and relationships between the planes. I did notice however that while you're very conscientious in applying the line-extension method to your boxes, you definitely became less active in marking in your corrections closer to the end. Make sure you keep on top of it in the future! It's definitely worth it.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work.
HelenaC9
2017-10-19 14:18
Here it is! :)
Well that went a lot faster than I thought it would. As in, I thought I'd take a month or so and ended up taking 9 days because I just got into the habit of drawing 1 to 3 hours a day. I did not rush through anything, although in the beginning I probably should have extended more the lines. But I did start doing it more consistently halfway through and it helped with spotting mistakes.
This was actually a great exercise not in drawing but in discipline, which historically has been one of my worst skills. I'm really glad that I'm finally pushing through that laziness and tendency to procrastinate and just get down to business.
Also, even though I used the same 0.5 fineliner for all of these, I was so happy to see how much better my line weight got, and my pen pressure control.
As always I'm really grateful to you for taking the time to look through these 250 boxes, and giving detailed feedback. And for testing my discipline.
Uncomfortable
2017-10-19 21:34
Excellent work! I can really see an increase in your general confidence, and a sort of subtlety and nuance that increases in your boxes over the set. You're also clearly very conscientious and patient about extending your lines to identify and mark in your corrections. Great work all around.
I gotta say - when I assigned this challenge for the first time, it was largely because I didn't want to deal with someone who was struggling with the organic perspective boxes exercise. I figured I'd give them some busy work and then deal with it later. Turned out the exercise was hugely useful, and the student came back having a considerably stronger understanding of 3D space, along with a greater tolerance for some of the monotony of these exercises.
Anyway, well done. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work!
HelenaC9
2017-10-20 15:21
Thank you so much, I'm so glad my work paid off! :D
I definitely came out of it understand 3D space better, and being a lot more confident in my lines, so it was definitely worth the time and monotony :)
PlugTurtled
2017-10-24 00:51
Damn that was painstaking, got a bit of improved shoulder control and also figured out some perspective things. Here it is https://imgur.com/gallery/qm55C
Uncomfortable
2017-10-25 00:15
Nice work! Your boxes definitely improve in confidence and construction over the set, especially from about halfway onwards. The only thing that I want to recommend is to give the notes on the challenge page about correction techniques - specifically extending your lines back towards the implied vanishing point. Doing this upon the completion of a page really goes a long way to make certain mistakes more obvious, especially when they tend to be more subtle and harder to detect.
Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
CorenSV
2017-10-25 11:53
And another 250 boxes... no matter how many times I do this. It stay's hard. I tried to use line weight, especially to the end of the boxes. But I'll need a lot more practice with it. Also, my scanner made the corrections black :/. I apologize about that.
https://imgur.com/a/HGj0B
Uncomfortable
2017-10-25 23:16
Looking pretty good, but there's one big thing that caught my eye that you're missing. In the challenge page notes, I've got an explanation of a very useful technique to identify mistakes by extending your lines towards their implied vanishing points. You should definitely be applying this approach, ideally upon completion of each page. As you get better with boxes, your mistakes are going to become less noticeable, so it's normal to kind of plateau. This kind of approach will keep your returns from diminishing.
dandanisinajam
2017-10-26 05:28
Hi Uncomfortable! Here's my submission for this challenge: https://imgur.com/a/gzpYE
I drew the boxes and corrected them before applying the line weight so it would be easier to tell which direction the lines went. Thanks again in advance for looking over these exercises :)!
Uncomfortable
2017-10-27 00:03
Phenomenal work! You approached this with exactly the sort of care and patience I want to see from students. Your lines have been very confidently executed (each clearly demonstrating the ghosting method), and your weights are very confident. You were also extremely complete in your corrections, and as a result are demonstrating a strong grasp of 3D space.
Ultimately it's much easier to move forwards in noticeable ways when you're not very good to begin with - but in your case, you're at a point where the improvements will be more subtle. That said, I can see a considerably improved grasp of how your parallel lines should be behaving, and I think the consistency of your more advanced, subdivided boxes really demonstrates that to a great degree.
Sadly I really don't have much more to offer than praise! You've done very well, so consider this challenge complete. Keep up the fantastic work and feel free to move onto lesson 2.
Glongdor_Brownhands
2017-10-26 22:18
Oh boy. I found the red pen salvage operation to be extremely difficult in some cases. A number of boxes I felt good about but some look to have been drawn by a legless/armless man with a pen in his mouth and I couldn't identify how to draw over top of the lines to make a correction as EVERYTHING seemed to be going the wrong direction. It's very interesting how impactful the review portion of this exercise is. I had thought that drawing 250 boxes would produce magic results but it's really the editing of the 250 boxes that cements the lessons in your gray matter. Magic is obviously in the eye of the beholder at this point in my development but I'm totally more sensitive to this stuff after a jaunt around the page with a red pen. Yowza Here is my submission for critique https://imgur.com/a/hJE5w
Uncomfortable
2017-10-27 00:35
I gotta say, when someone submits a lesson quickly (I believe my last critique was almost exactly 24 hours ago), I worry that they've rushed - either not being as careful in the work as they could have, or not paying as much attention to the instructions. Sadly, this is no exception. I fully understand being enthusiastic, but you've got to slow yourself down and read both the notes provided in a given lesson or challenge, as well as my critiques.
At the end of my lesson 1 critique, I wrote this while advising you to tackle the 250 box challenge:
You did note the bit about corrections (although you didn't apply the line-extending method as much as I'd have hoped to see), but you definitely ignored the point about drawing through your forms.
The thing about my lessons is that they are very dense. There's a lot of information in each paragraph, and while it's completely normal to overlook things in your first read through, you must be ready to compensate for that by making a habit of rereading the material whenever necessary. That goes doubly when I actually point something out to you directly in a critique.
I'd like you to try the challenge again. Take your time. No one's got a gun to your head expecting you to complete this work as quickly as possible. Not only is it in your best interest to work through the material slowly, but rushing through all the lessons in a week, or even a month, is simply not how this whole program works. In the past, if I've felt a student was submitting too frequently within a given month (relative to their pledge), I haven't been shy about telling them so. Moreover, the only times I've really had to do that, the student in question was skipping important instructions and generally stunting their progress by doing so.
Enthusiasm is great, but only when it's directed properly. So settle down, read through the notes, and try this again. Here's a few other points to keep in mind for your next submission of this challenge:
Draw bigger. Beginners will often feel like drawing things smaller, and while it may not always seem that way, it's often the result of a lack of confidence. This has the negative effect of causing us to stiffen up, and generally hurts us when we're trying to think through spatial problems (like constructing boxes)
When redlining your boxes, extend your lines further back towards the vanishing point. Try doubling the length of the original line, and pay attention to how those lines converge. Each box is made up of three sets of parallel lines, and each line of a given set SHOULD be heading towards the same point. Of course, since we're estimating, we're bound to make mistakes with that pretty much every time, but by watching the rates at which those lines converge, we can identify which ones don't match the rest of the set.
Apply that extension method to every box, and do it when you finish a page. Since you'll be drawn your boxes bigger, you won't be cramming quite as many into each sheet so it should be something where you can do one full page each sitting.
I also recommend taking a look at other submissions in this thread to get a better sense of what you should be doing.
Glongdor_Brownhands
2017-10-27 03:11
Good feedback man and I shall definitely take this to heart!
Glongdor_Brownhands
2017-11-01 03:05
I've made another go at the 250 boxes with a bit more attention to detail and your critique. Boxes are hard! https://imgur.com/a/zep6o
Uncomfortable
2017-11-01 23:55
Much, much better! It's clear that you approached it with a lot more patience and care this time, and it paid off. I can definitely see an improvement to the general structure and understanding of space.
If there's one thing I'd recommend to help push your boxes to the next level, it's to play with line weight. There's a tip about it on the challenge page as well, so be sure to give it a read.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2!
Glongdor_Brownhands
2017-11-02 01:59
Phew wipes sweat off brow. Thanks man! I definitely needed a kick in the pants, that was super helpful:) Pen of Omens, draw me boxes beyond boxes! Lesson 2 HOOOOOOOOO!
DNODE235
2017-11-02 23:09
Finished my first run on the 250 Box Challenge.
https://imgur.com/a/oBc3s
Uncomfortable
2017-11-03 21:35
Congrats on completing the challenge. There is one thing that I noticed, specifically in how you applied the correction techniques, that may benefit from some clarification.
For many of the boxes, you seem to have extended only a few lines - often only two at a time. Additionally, you did not appear to differentiate between the two possible directions of extension.
In order for this technique to really be helpful, it's important to extend all the lines of a given set, and really ideally, do so for all three sets of parallel lines. Determining the convergence of two lines doesn't tell you a whole lot until you start looking at how that compares to other lines of the same set. If you want to get the most out of this, extend every line of all three sets, and look at whether or not they all seem to be converging at roughly the same spot, or if they seem to be converging at several different points.
We really are only focusing on how those lines behave as they move further away from the viewer, towards the implied vanishing point. Extension towards the viewer isn't terribly useful, and in some cases can distract you. The first and most important thing we're checking is whether or not the lines of a given set converge together towards the VP. Then, as I mentioned in the last point, we start looking at whether they're converging towards the same VP, or many different scattered points.
A good example of this being done (although this is definitely the top 1%, and above what I expect to see from students) can be seen here.
I did also notice that you seem to be leaving a good deal of each page blank. It certainly doesn't impact the numbers of boxes, but it does raise questions about why. My guess is that you may have felt a little disappointed with the boxes on that page, and decided that if you started on another one, you'd have a greater chance of having a nice page. If that's the case (which it may well not be, it's just my guess based on prior experience), always keep in mind - these are all just exercises that may as well be destined for the garbage bin. What you gain from them is the doing of each construction, rather than the result you get at the end.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. It wouldn't hurt to continue practicing this stuff as a warmup, and maybe going back to apply those correction techniques properly. Either way, you're welcome to move onto lesson 2 when you feel you're ready.
[deleted]
2017-11-03 18:05
I feel like I'm having trouble getting the near plane/far plane relationship correct. https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_htCwOVSKddSWgta1pCY1h3UWc
Uncomfortable
2017-11-03 22:29
Congrats on completing the challenge. The biggest piece of advice I can offer here is actually to point out something that you missed from the challenge page notes - specifically, the techniques about how to find errors and approach correcting. I'll paste it below:
You can apply this method to each of your boxes upon the completion of a page. It will help you identify where things are going wrong, specifically in relation to the near/far plane relationships.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. It would however be a good idea to go back over your boxes and apply this technique, and keep it in mind when doing this kind of exercise in the future.
TheLaughingStoic
2017-11-05 23:00
Hey there, completed this Lesson, onto cylinders!
https://imgur.com/gallery/PRHgQ
Uncomfortable
2017-11-05 23:45
Ohhh, that's satisfying to see. Great work, lovely boxes. The only thing you're missing in the correction phase, where you take a different colour of ink and do the following:
Ideally you'd do this upon the completion of each filled page (doing them all at the very end is probably a huge pain, but that's what you get for not reading!)
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. You can do that correction stuff if you like, though I definitely recommend it.
[deleted]
2017-11-09 21:21
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2017-11-11 00:47
:P Yes, instructions are important. You did well all the same - corrections are best done upon the completion of a page (immediately after each box is too closely connected to the drawing of that box and kind of distracting, after the whole 250 set you end up too detached from each individual box and don't have any way to apply what you learned) - all the same, doing them at all is better than not doing them, and you applied the principles well. The other benefit to doing them upon the completion of each page is largely that there aren't so many, and you are more likely to apply the techniques to all of them. It also encourages you to break up the challenge into several sittings, doing one page each session instead of rushing through.
Of course, you didn't rush at all. You took your time and constructed forms that feel solid and cohesive. There are certainly things that can be improved upon, and the correction methods certainly helps with that, but you're heading in the right direction.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
boxstudent
2017-11-10 21:16
Whew... it's done: https://imgur.com/a/IK4Cl
Well, it's not called a "challenge" for nothing! I was losing my motivation quite badly around number 180. But then I went and re-read your article on the subject and hammered away. :)
Drawing the boxes themselves was fun, but corrections took me a lot of time and started feeling like a chore as I advanced. I might have made a bit of a mess when correcting some of the boxes, too. In some cases, after spotting which lines were off I tried to redraw them, but then the other lines didn't fit, so I corrected those too... until I got a whole new box inside (or around) the original one!
But doing the corrections paid off, I think. I tried to make them for every 1-2 completed pages and I feel this helped me with the next set of boxes.
At the end, I also tried my hand at the advanced exercise. The first two attempts are quite a mess, but I am satisfied with how the last one turned out, for now.
Uncomfortable
2017-11-11 01:16
Excellent work! This is definitely a great example of the corrections having their intended effect - your initial work was alright, but you were able to identify exactly where things were going wrong, and grew considerably over the course of the full set. By the end, you were producing solid boxes with a strong sense of weight and a cohesive construction. Very, very nicely done. Keep up the great work, and consider this challenge complete. You have indeed earned the name of "boxstudent".
boxstudent
2017-11-11 01:24
Thank you for the encouraging words and for replying so quickly! Have a great weekend!
konburice
2017-11-11 03:10
Hello! I had problems with patreon so I was only able to submit this now :D (my cat sat on my drawings, sorry some are crumpled)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wLaP2jqdAbVADMnc6OEfGGrdnbD6AVDH
Uncomfortable
2017-11-12 01:31
Nice work! A few things to keep in mind that should help you improve:
The technique described in the notes for correcting your work (extending your lines towards their implied vanishing point) is extremely useful and should be applied upon the completion of each filled page of boxes. This will give you plenty to learn from before moving onto the next page.
You may find that drawing through your boxes gets a little visually confusing - filling in one of the front facing faces with some tight, consistent hatching will help eliminate the resulting illusion of being able to see the box in multiple ways.
Your line quality is generally okay, though I do detect a hint of hesitation which causes a bit of stiffness and wobbling. Always push yourself to apply the ghosting method so you can maintain a confident, persistent pace when executing your marks. Remember that the ghosting method includes placing points where you want your lines to start and end.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
konburice
2017-11-13 10:17
Thank you very much for the feedback! :)
Letsgo1
2017-11-13 13:21
Hi, this is the link for the challenge: https://imgur.com/a/EGHYN
Really struggled to motivate myself with this... got really frustrated when I thought I was getting the hang of it then suddenly it would go extremely wrong again! I generally did about 50 a day for 5 days to complete the challenge. I didn't extend lines on every box but I did find it helpful when things weren't quite looking right- although I found knowing what was wrong didn't always translate into a better result the next time around.
One of my biggest problems was estimating when lines needed to stop, I played with the dots method but then got impatient so found myself rushing the next few- you'll see some comments alluding to this throughout! Thanks in advance.
Uncomfortable
2017-11-13 21:06
It looks like you're missing some pages! Currently I'm only seeing 89, so that makes it kind of tricky to critique. I did notice one thing though - you're going to want to work on drawing your lines with a more confident, persistent pace. Right now they wobble a little, which suggests hesitation.
Also, the correction techniques are best applied everywhere - ideally upon the completion of each page. This is because the technique itself makes obvious mistakes you might otherwise have missed, so you don't really always know where you should be applying it, and might as well do it everywhere.
Anyway, I'll mark the challenge as complete when you've posted the rest of the boxes.
Letsgo1
2017-11-13 21:34
Oops, looks like the Imgur upload got stuck! sorry you should see them all now. There are a few wobbly lines but having looked at the first 89 you saw, a lot of them are me (badly) attempting the thicker lineweights on the outer lines but not doing so in a way that makes it look like a single line. You'll see later that I just dont bother trying to make them thicker so you can see the individual lines. Anyway... you should see all 250 now. Sorry about that.
Uncomfortable
2017-11-13 21:42
Aha! Okay, so I'll mark the challenge as complete. Keep working on your use of the ghosting method (your lines are less wobbly in the rest of the set, but they do still need the added confidence that comes with using the ghosting method to the fullest) and apply the correction techniques more consistently.
Letsgo1
2017-11-13 21:43
okay noted. Thanks. I'll move onto lesson two now right?
Uncomfortable
2017-11-13 21:44
Yup.
Dingerzat
2017-11-13 22:12
And here are my results: https://imgur.com/a/8RV9A
Even though I am doing the ghosting, I still have difficulty keeping a straight line. I also had to take a pause and order some coloured fineliners as the orange gel pen kept smudging, as well as changing the paper as I felt like I was cheating using a dotpad.
Uncomfortable
2017-11-14 21:04
Pretty nice work! The confidence in your lines definitely improves over the set, where your initial lines were a little wobblier and more hesitant, and later ones turned out much more consistent. There are a couple things that I noticed that are worth mentioning though. It looks like some of the planes you filled in with hatching lines were actually the far plane of the box (which made the whole thing quite visually confusing, generally you should be applying it to the near plane to help clarify potential visual illusions). The other thing is that the extension of your lines (which you can leave to the end of each completed page, so you don't have to worry about smudging that coloured ink) were being extended in both directions (especially towards the beginning). You really want to be focusing this towards the implied vanishing point, as that's what is going to tell you more about the nature of your lines' convergence.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
Dingerzat
2017-11-15 12:51
Ah, silly me I thought I needed to make the far place hatched. Also thank you for your feedback =)
Wyrine
2017-11-15 03:53
Hi Uncomfortable,
Here is my 250 box challenge: https://imgur.com/a/ZTgmS
I had some trouble at first because I didn't have the right posture. It took me a few days to adjust.
For the last three pages, my pen start to ran out of ink, so it made the exercise more difficult.
Overall, I really struggle doing this exercise, I thought it would take me 10 days, but it took me 20 days. There is a kind of boxes that were really difficult to do, and even more difficult to correct (the thin ones with two vanishing point).
Anyway, your review will be greatly appreciated!
Uncomfortable
2017-11-15 19:56
Pretty nice work. There's definite improvement over the set, and your general confidence with constructing these boxes definitely grows as you work through more and more of them. I'm glad to see that you applied the correction methods as well, though if I had one recommendation to make, it's that you be careful about only checking one or two of your vanishing points. There are cases where you don't check the third, and end up missing areas where that third set of lines is actually diverging rather than converging. One example is 179, though there are many others.
The thing about this technique is that it's not just about clarifying areas where you know things are going wrong, but also about finding mistakes where you think there are none. This becomes more and more of a thing as you improve, as we tend to improve our constructional skills faster than our critical eye, and are more likely to plateau because of this (where our mistakes end up being subtle enough that we miss them, and we end up progressing much more slowly due to thinking our boxes are correct).
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work!
[deleted]
2017-11-15 04:08
250 Boxes
Uncomfortable
2017-11-15 20:00
Nice work! Your confidence and general sense of construction definitely improves over the set, and I'm very pleased to see how thorough you are with applying the correction techniques. My biggest recommendation in terms of a next step to kick your boxes up a level would be to play more with some subtle line weight variation, making the silhouette of your boxes a little bit heavier to add some greater dynamism and cohesion to the overall form (giving the internal/external lines a sort of relationship like this helps make the forms feel more solid).
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
JagArIntePeter
2017-11-18 17:17
https://imgur.com/a/fyICp
I probably rushed my lines a bit too much and i felt it was really hard to draw the "inner lines", it always looked wrong somehow but i didn't know how to correct them which led to me stop reviewing my mistakes after about 100 boxes or so.
Also, any tips on how to sit while drawing? Was only able to do roughly 25 boxes until my back startet to hurt :\
Uncomfortable
2017-11-18 23:51
Your boxes and line quality improves considerably over the set, as does your general box construction. One thing I did notice though is that you did not apply the correction techniques I drew your attention to when I assigned the work. In the notes, I discuss extending your lines back towards their implied vanishing point to see how they converge together, as this makes it considerably easier to detect mistakes. It's best to do this upon the completion of each page, as this allows you to learn a great deal as you progress while not cutting into the flow of the exercise too much (as would happen if you corrected after each box).
Anyway, that is ultimately for your benefit, and there is still value in going back and applying those corrections in that manner. Still, I'll leave that up to you. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.
Uncomfortable
2017-11-19 21:53
It's weird how I have a habit of remembering that I forgot to answer a question many, many hours after initially responding - but i totally forgot about your question about sitting!
It's very important that you sit straight while drawing. The desk should be at such a level that if you placed your hand flat on the desk (assuming the desk itself is also flat), your elbow would be bent at roughly 90 degrees. Avoid hunching over, because that's what's going to give you back pain. If you can get your hands on an angled desk, that's ideal, though most people can't - so it is important to know that when drawing on a flat table or desk, the farther end of your piece of paper is going to be far enough to create some perspective distortion (so your drawings end up a little warped). Generally you can avoid this just by being aware of the problem though, and getting used to compensate for it.
JagArIntePeter
2017-11-20 10:19
Yea, i noticed that it got worse quicker while hunching so I've tried not doing that while working on lesson 2. Thanks for the reply :)
Chousuke
2017-11-21 18:44
Boxes: https://imgur.com/a/skwXb
I really should redo the last two boxes, but they're what I drew, and I was too tired to even do corrections on them, so I will let them stand as they are.
My brain stopped smoking from trying to draw boxes at around halfway through, but I still can cause myself headaches when I try to figure out how to actually correct them after the extensions indicate they're wrong.
Uncomfortable
2017-11-22 04:43
Congrats on completing the challenge! You did a solid job - there's definite and clear improvement (last two boxes aside), and I'm glad to see that you're applying the correction techniques properly. There definitely are still tendencies that you'll want to fix and adjust, but you're moving in the right direction and your general constructions/solidity are definitely getting better.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
[deleted]
2017-11-25 03:54
https://imgur.com/a/bcWfI
Finally. "Corrections" are in red.
Uncomfortable
2017-11-25 19:35
Great work! Your constructions improve considerably over the set. Just a couple recommendations:
In the challenge page notes, I describe a technique for corrections involving extending your lines back towards their implied vanishing point. This can be very useful, especially as you reach a point where one is liable to plateau due to our mistakes being so minor that we fail to detect them. By looking at the convergence of our lines as they are extended, we can see more clearly where things are going wrong.
Try playing with more line weight (there's notes on that in the challenge page) to help push your boxes to the next level. Going back over them to make your weights a little more dynamic (in subtle ways, don't be too heavy handed) can really help improve the sense of cohesiveness and solidity.
Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.
[deleted]
2017-11-26 19:42
Awesome. Again, thank you for your input. I'll keep these points in mind moving forward.
ncpenn
2017-11-25 21:50
250 box challenge https://imgur.com/a/E1HXl
I put too many boxes one page 1. Realized it a bit too late and scaled back on boxes per page after that.
Uncomfortable
2017-11-27 00:24
Nice work! I'm really glad to see how much attention you paid to the correction phase, and it definitely paid off. Over the course of the set, your understanding of the angles of your lines and how they played together to create solid forms improved a fair bit, and by the end you were much closer to hitting the mark each time.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work.
remsummer
2017-11-29 10:51
Here's my challenge: https://imgur.com/a/EsCZ4
And the corrections: https://imgur.com/a/Onq9o
I know I dind't follow the instructions for the corrections. I tried extending the lines but got confused by the mess of lines. Guess I should have put less boxes on the page.
One problem I experienced (besides lack of experience) was that the boxes sometimes "flipped" in my perception of their orientation and it took some blinking and force of mind to flip them back the way I wanted to draw them. Don't know if this is common or if I'm doing something wrong.
Wouldn't mind doing more boxes though I already started lesson 2 and really enjoy drawing the organic blobs.
Uncomfortable
2017-11-30 21:21
Nice work completing the challenge. I can definitely see that your general sense of 3D space improved over the set, though as you mentioned, you could have done a little better applying that extension method through the entire set instead of just giving up on it.
The issue you encountered with the 'flipped' lines is pretty common - you can fill in one of the forward-facing faces with some tight hatching lines to serve as a visual cue and clarify which side is which.
In the future when you do apply the line extension method, I want to stress how important it is to extend all the lines - that is, all four for each set (currently you seemed to be doing only three in some cases), and all three sets. Remember that the point is to extend them towards their implied vanishing point, so you can see how they converge, and if that convergence is consistent or if they're meeting at many different points.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so go ahead and move onto lesson 2. More boxes will always help, so you can always mix those into your warmups.
remsummer
2017-12-09 18:36
I think I get it now. The point of the correction is not to correct the squares but to visualize the VPs. I tried to correct the squares and used a straight edge to see where the lines went but by not drawing the lines I did find myself second guessing. I'll keep it in mind and stick to the instructions next time.
bobstar
2017-11-29 16:39
250 boxes!
Uncomfortable
2017-11-30 21:36
Fantastic work! Your boxes feel very consistent and solid, and you've clearly developed a strong grasp of 3D space already. At this point, you may find that your boxes will plateau, because your ability to identify mistakes will be overshadowed by your grasp of space. Basically, you'll still be making teeny tiny errors, but you won't be able to catch them, so there will be limited improvement beyond that point.
The way to handle this is to apply the correction method described in the challenge page notes near the beginning, which involves extending each line towards its implied vanishing point. It's best to do this upon the completion of each page of boxes, though since you're already done, it's still valuable to pick maybe your last page and apply it there. Based on the convergence of the extended lines, you'll be able to pick up on oddities where some lines are not playing along with the others.
Anyway, again - great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
[deleted]
2017-11-30 05:47
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2017-11-30 21:41
Pretty well done! You're spot on with your observation - we're more focused on being in the ballpark of correct, rather than fussing over perfection. If it looks good, it is good.
Also, yes. Boxes are the devil. But they're your devil.
I do have a couple tips:
Your line weights get pretty heavy by the end. Try to keep them simple - and don't apply the same weight all across the board. You had them lighter earlier on, but all the lines were light. Then later, you had them all pretty heavy. Focus on putting a little bit more weight around the silhouette, and maybe a TEEEENY bit more on one side of it to give the impression of dynamism. There are notes on this on the challenge page.
Nice work applying those correction techniques with your extended lines. Just one thing on that front - you'll benefit most from extending all of your lines - that is, all four lines of a given set, and all three sets. Sometimes you pick only two sets, and earlier on I noticed you were only extending three out of four lines of a given set (which you did end up correcting later on, but still worth mentioning).
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work!
tigermac
2017-12-02 17:34
https://imgur.com/gallery/in4tm
Uncomfortable
2017-12-02 21:35
Congrats on completing the challenge. Your understanding of 3D space definitely improves over the set. I do have a couple things to point out to you however:
Are you applying the ghosting method to your linework? Where your lines tend to wobble, and your tendency to automatically correct your linework as you draw (leaving a lot of messiness) suggests that you're not. Remember that this method and all of its steps should be applied to every single mark you put down.
In my critique for lesson 1, where I assigned this challenge as your next step, I stated "The bit about correction techniques near the beginning is also important, and should be applied upon the completion of each page of boxes." You don't seem to have followed this instruction at all. You should go back and read through the notes on the challenge page - specifically just above the blue video buttons, where I describe the technique that should be used to determine whether or not there are mistakes in your boxes' constructions.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Definitely be more mindful of following the instructions in the future, and be sure to go over them with the correction method. Better late than never.
RakanMaG
2017-12-03 02:14
Good day Uncomfortable,
Here is my submission for the challenge https://imgur.com/a/OHa5F
halfway through i corrected only the obvious mistakes since it felt like i was taking way too long to complete the challenge, but non the less it was quiet an enjoyable journey.
Uncomfortable
2017-12-03 23:42
Looking good! I'm glad to see that you applied the correction techniques to each of your boxes. You were definitely quite patient through the construction, and your grasp of 3D space has developed considerably through the full set. By the end your forms are looking confident and cohesive.
The only recommendation I have as you continue to move forwards is to play with more boxes with shallower foreshortening, as those will actually come into play moreso than those with dramatic foreshortening. That is to say, play with the idea that your vanishing points are further away, so your parallel lines converge less.
Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
Velka22
2017-12-04 04:51
Hello again Uncomfortable!
Here are my 250 boxes: https://imgur.com/a/ncnBb
Think the photo quality is a bit less horrid here.
In hindsight it might've been better to draw a little less cluttered so there'd be room for extending lines for the vanishing points, though at the same time I'd prefer not to use half my sketch book for this single challenge.
Uncomfortable
2017-12-04 23:33
Very nice work. Your boxes look solid, and your line weights really add a lot of cohesiveness to each construction. Ultimately, extending the lines for the vanishing points is most useful in cases like this, where your mistakes are effectively unnoticeable. They're likely still there, but not easy to identify without techniques like this.
It wouldn't be a bad idea to apply the technique now to one out of every three or four boxes. Despite the clutter, it'd still be worthwhile. Of course it'd involve somewhat marring your pretty arrangements and constructions, but at the end of the day they're only disposable exercises - not works of art.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
Nahaor
2017-12-12 00:39
Hello Uncomfortable! Hope youre doing well.
Ive had to deal with a few things but now Im happily back and went straight to hammering. Ive taken my time re-doing Lesson 1 completely, and am now looking at the 250 boxes.
After doing a few and finishing the 250, I find I did not really lose much and doing a few everyday with the warm up practice should be enough to put me back on track. But if you feel I should re-do the 250 box challenge Ill get right on that.
Looking at my boxes two things jump at me, first I should use vanishing points that are farther away and second I should get better at drawing the hidden lines. Also sometimes my corrections are questionable
I have included the workflow I used; I thought maybe you could tell if Ive been doing something wrong or just need more practice.
Thanks for your time!
Uncomfortable
2017-12-12 23:44
Overall, very nice work. While there's always room for continued growth, you demonstrated a lot of improvement in both your constructions and your general confidence in how you deal with these solid forms throughout the set. I'm very pleased to see how thorough you were with extending your lines back towards their implied vanishing points. You're also clearly making good use of the ghosting method, and I'm glad to see that you're marking in points before committing yourself to particular lines.
As it stands, your approach is fine. I just hope that you applied those line-extensions upon the completion of each page rather than at the end of the whole set (as this allows you to learn from your mistakes throughout). I have no reason to think that you didn't do this, but I figured it was worth mentioning just in case.
Keep up the great work and consider this challenge as complete.
By the way, I'd been going through my records a week or so ago, and I noticed that you had pre-paid for critiques, with that period coming to an end on December 13th. Since you've only submitted lesson 1 and the box challenge, I'm going to go ahead and extend that up until the end of March - so feel free to continue submitting your homework for critique until March 31st.
Nahaor
2017-12-13 21:28
Thank you for your critique. Indeed I have been doing the line-extensions after finishing each page, though I admit at first it felt like a huge time sink. After doing a few pages and starting to notice where and what my mistakes were it felt like part of the challenge.
Thank you for the encouragement and for *extending the critique submission period, you didnt have to, I appreciate it. Ill get started on lesson 2 !
LinezzzUp
2017-12-13 16:30
Hi there :)
Just finished my 250 boxes and advanced box challenge and would be glad to hear your opinion on it!
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Byq42ynUsuU_M2Rna0tZc1pMcWM
had a good time finishing this in between my other studies, well been awhile :)
Uncomfortable
2017-12-13 22:03
You've done a good job working through the challenge and drawing through each and every form, and have demonstrated a fair bit of improvement over the set. I do realize that I assigned this to you quite a while ago, so it's not surprising that you may have missed some of the additional notes I added to the challenge. That said, it is important to refresh one's memory of the notes frequently, as we are all bound to forget things quite easily - especially when there are considerable gaps in our timeline.
The important thing that you have missed is my stressing the correction phase. Specifically, the following technique used to identify where your lines are off:
It is best to apply this technique upon the completion of each page of boxes, but you should still pick the last page or two and apply it there anyway so you can identify where things are off.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
LinezzzUp
2017-12-14 06:31
thank you very much!
I truly did it awhile ago and it took me a bit while to complete, but would try and do more boxes as you wrote to me, as I want to feel/ see how it is. I can say I started imagining the vanishing points for the lines but it sounds better to try it the way you mentioned
I got the feeling that most of my boxes are presented from top view, as I started many of them with the Y method
is it an issue, would you recommend to try and make more boxes from different angles?
also, would glad to hear if you have any critic about the advance box challenge
thank you very much! have a great weekend!
Uncomfortable
2017-12-14 17:00
While you are covering a range of rotations, I suppose you're right - most of your boxes are seen from the top, so it would be good to explore more from the underside as well.
On the advanced boxes, you did fine. There box you started off with was a little off (which is entirely normal, as I mention in the video), with the front face on the right side being a little too small, but you rolled with that pretty well and compensated for the errors as they accumulated. The only thing I noticed was that you don't seem to have found the center of the top/bottom planes, at least not that I can see. As a result, I think the lines you draw across those planes that would pass through the centers don't end up doing so. Finding the center points of your planes early is definitely important, as it allows you to gauge your error-compensation a little better.
LinezzzUp
2017-12-15 08:30
thank you :)
will do a bit more boxes, will it be ok to send the link here with the new boxes? as its the already the topic of it
I really didnt paid attention about the top/bottom plane's middle, weird because I thought I got it.. hehe well ok then
thank you!
Uncomfortable
2017-12-16 00:26
Sure, you can send me your new boxes when you've got some done.
LinezzzUp
2018-01-10 22:22
Hi :)
sorry for the delay, here are 2 pages that I tried to revisit the boxes as you told me to, also tried to make them not so similar to one other
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1W4EANXkczUTMbhFT4-CiMUXCGXUfnEpU
your opinion and critic is most welcome :)
Uncomfortable
2018-01-11 00:55
You're generally doing great - the only recommendations I have here is to watch the direction in which you extend those lines. You're extending them at least a little in both (which I mean, is fine - a bit of a waste of space maybe but really not enough to matter) but there is one box on the first page (down the middle, second from the top) where you seem to extend them in the opposite direction - away from your implied vanishing point. Of course, the main point of extending your lines is to see how they all converge towards the vanishing point. Of course, one slip up is nothing. The rest of these are solid, and while there are certainly mistakes, you're applying the technique to identify what the issues are.
So, a question back to you - were you able to see places where your lines failed to converge correctly, and where their angles tended to be off by some margin?
LinezzzUp
2018-01-14 05:13
thank you
I see what you mean by the line extensions, I felt it when doing the box and noted myself about it
I could see the places where I misplaced a line which got the others a bit messed up, on some boxes I also made a new line to correct it a bit. anyway I can see your point and what you mean.
I feel like I need to do some more boxes but also wish to get on Lesson 2, so I plan to "warm up" with some boxes, and starting L2. if you have other recommendation I will glad to hear
thank you :) and have a great week!
Uncomfortable
2018-01-14 05:16
I think that's a solid plan. At the end of the day, it's not going to be perfect, it'll take time to refine and train. So it's best to keep moving forwards and keep revisiting this stuff as a warmup.
Blargas
2017-12-16 00:34
Greetings, I finally finished these gosh dang boxes. It took me a while to figure out that the perspective on my initial boxes were too extreme. Hopefully the resolution is good enough, my phone camera isn't exactly great.
https://imgur.com/a/cSlir
Uncomfortable
2017-12-16 19:34
Very nice work! There's definite improvement over the set - although you did start out with a certain sense of confidence in your solidity. I noticed as well that your line weight became more subtle as you went on (earlier on it was pretty heavy-handed and didn't look that great). The subtler ones however provide a great sense of dimension and dynamism while improving the overall cohesiveness of the form.
I'm also very pleased to see how consistently you applied the line-extension method and clearly learned from it as you went along.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work.
kasefresser
2017-12-21 20:29
Okay, this has been a somewhat bumpy ride for me. Got bored a few times so did some "exercises". Played around with some various depths and vp distances as well. I think I have somewhat control over these now. On the last 3 pages I stopped playing around and finished with some more "cleaner" boxes.
https://imgur.com/a/P5a12
Uncomfortable
2017-12-22 01:10
Nice work! I really like the structured approach you applied on some of these pages. Overall, I think you've applied the principles quite well, and have demonstrated a good deal of improvement.
One thing I do believe would have helped however is the application of the correction techniques outlined on the challenge page notes (just above the blue video links). Applying these after completing a page would allow you to identify and learn from your mistakes before moving onto the next one. I actually mentioned this when assigning the challenge.
I recommend that you do this for at least your last page, so you can identify where you need to work on things. It becomes exceptionally more helpful when you start to plateau (as we all do when we improve to the point that our mistakes become so subtle that we cannot identify them easily with the naked eye).
Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
Hodor42
2017-12-27 04:15
I found this very difficult, but I felt that I got better as I went on. I still struggle getting the behind lines to all point towards their vanishing points. I can see the mistakes I'm making, but I find it difficult to get it right.
https://imgur.com/a/KnQKx
Uncomfortable
2017-12-28 18:45
Overall you're doing pretty well, but I noticed that you didn't apply the correction technique mentioned in the lesson. It's explained in the paragraph just above the video links, as well as in the new version of the 'how to draw a box' video.
This approach (of extending lines towards the vanishing point after having drawn the box) really helps to identify the core of how your box sits in 3D space, and how the rules of perspective have been applied to it. The usual problem occurs when our lines (which are parallel to one another) do not converge in a consistent manner towards the same VP. By identifying the mistakes this way (ideally upon the completion of each page of boxes), we get a better sense of what to work on the next time, instead of working a bit blindly.
That said, you're still doing pretty well. Your lines are confident, your box constructions are fairly solid, and your use of line weight is coming along well. The last thing I'd like to recommend is that instead of applying additional line weight to the front-facing internal lines, you may want to instead fill one of the front-facing faces with some tight, consistent hatching to serve as a visual cue. The issue with adding weight to your internal lines is that it can break up some of the cohesiveness of the overall form.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work, and be sure to apply that line-extension technique at least to the last page of your boxes, to see where you can improve.
dubstepheroman
2017-12-30 21:54
250 boxes done. https://imgur.com/a/4STFm
Uncomfortable
2017-12-31 01:17
Nice work completing the challenge. I do have a few recommendations for you, though you are certainly progressing with the confidence of your constructions and the use of line weight.
Draw your boxes bigger - constructing boxes like this is very much a spatial problem, and our brains benefit from being given more room to work. I'd recommend drawing them about twice as big as you are now.
On the challenge page, there's a correction technique I describe above the video links, where you go back over your completed boxes and extend your lines back towards their implied vanishing points to see how exactly they're converging. This helps considerably to identify mistakes and to learn from them. The new video I released last week also explains this approach. It's extremely useful, and it seems you haven't taken advantage of it. In the future, be sure to apply that method - and I strongly recommend that you at least take your last page of boxes and apply it to each one there, so you know what kind of mistakes you tend to make.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so go ahead and move onto lesson 2 - though I do recommend that you continue to practice drawing freely rotated boxes in the future.
[deleted]
2017-12-31 05:35
Here you are:
https://imgur.com/a/sOhvk
I didn't highlight every page, sad to say. But when I did, it left my paper very messy - beware.
Thank you in advance for critiquing my work.
Uncomfortable
2018-01-02 02:10
Great work! Your boxes' construction improves a fair bit over the set, as does your general confidence and line quality. Your weights are subtle, but they go a long way to really reinforce the sense of cohesion and solidity of the forms. Needless to say, I'm also very impressed with the patience and care you've applied to double checking the convergence of the lines of so many of your boxes. This is exactly what I want to see with this challenge.
Keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.
Element-X619
2018-01-03 21:42
Ok first of all, boxes are evil. The purest form of all evil on this planet.
Second, boxes are the nine hells, the abyss, and all that is morbid.
Third, did I mention that boxes are evil? I think you got my point.
Anyways here's my box challenge completed:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VjhsoI6EHAc-OFBYw4mJA1cPjfgWQGK3
Note: The line extensions were getting messy so after a 100+ boxes, I drew more spaciously and only extended a selected few per page. I hope that's ok.
If you mark this challenge as completed, is lesson 2 next or another challenge ?
Thanks in advance for critiquing pages of the most evil form to be ever existed.
Uncomfortable
2018-01-05 01:56
Good work completing the challenge. I'm glad to see that you applied the extension method, though extending all of them would always be better. I understand that it gets cramped and messy, but that frankly doesn't really matter. Presentation certainly is important (like taking the time to apply your hatching lines where you choose to with patience and care, keeping them consistent and parallel and stretching them from edge to edge rather than scribbling or having sloppy ones floating arbitrarily on a plane), but even more important than that is what you learn from your exercises. With each extension, you learn about the kinds of mistakes you tend to make so you can keep that information in mind for your next page.
I did actually notice one thing - as you progress, you tend more towards drawing boxes with more dramatic foreshortening, moving those vanishing points in closer to the boxes. If I had to guess, I'd say this was your response to what you identified with the extension method.
Being able to draw boxes with vanishing points that are quite far away (therefore having shallower foreshortening) is still very important - perhaps moreso than dramatic foreshortening, as it suggests forms that are of a smaller and more relatable scale. So, make sure you practice these as much as you need to in order to be able to execute them well too.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2 - but be sure to continue practicing boxes as part of your warmups.
[deleted]
2018-01-07 11:13
Okay, here's the boxes. After months of struggling with boxes, all I can think of now is boxes. I see boxes everywhere. Boxes boxes boxes. Did I mention boxes?
https://imgur.com/a/8ze2d
Uncomfortable
2018-01-07 17:09
Nice work completing the challenge. I'm glad to see that after the first twenty, you remembered the bit about drawing through your boxes. Overall, there is definitely visible improvement in the solidity of your boxes, and your use of line. I do have two things to point out though:
You tend to draw more or less the same orientation of box each time, with very little variation. Definitely work on adding more variety to the angles of rotation. I know it can be tricky since there's only so many faces to a box and they're all the same size, but if two neighbouring boxes look like they're striving to depict the same configuration, try and change it up a little.
Don't forget to apply the line-extension method more regularly across the set, ideally upon the completion of each full page of boxes. I saw you do it once or twice (though you should extend them towards their implied vanishing point rather than in both directions). This will help you identify more clearly where you tend to make mistakes. It's totally understandable though that you didn't do this - when I assigned this as the next step, it was quite a long time ago, and I wasn't likely stressing the importance of extending your lines at that time. I've actually got a new 'how to draw a box' video up as of these last few weeks, which goes over all of that. Be sure to check it out when you have a moment.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
svendogee
2018-01-09 16:02
https://imgur.com/a/uqTpl
Let me know if you need me to adjust levels on the photos, they seem kind of jank on my monitor.
Uncomfortable
2018-01-09 22:13
Great work. I'm really pleased to see just how conscientious you were about extending all of your lines. Looking over them, I can see your general construction improving over the set, but definitely keep an eye on how those lines converge. When you've got two lines that are very close to each other on the page, they're going to be running pretty close to parallel - so whenever you find that not being the case, it's the kind of mistake that's going to stand out more.
For example, if you look at 238, you've got two lines going off to the left that are pretty close to each other in the center. These two are diverging slightly, and because they're so close, it becomes quite apparent. Keep an eye on that sort of thing.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
grey_forty_eight
2018-01-10 04:53
One year later...
I realized upon coming back to this page that I used a totally different correction method than the one described - instead of "finishing" edges out to their vanishing points, I added arrows indicating how the corners need to move to make the box more accurate. If you think that would still be a beneficial exercise for me, let me know - for now I'm uploading as-is, since putting both annotation forms on the same pages would get pretty hard to interpret.
Uncomfortable
2018-01-11 00:45
Overall you did a pretty good job, and you've certainly benefitted from the exercise. Your constructions and general line quality improves over the set, and I believe the subtlety to your line weight variation goes a long way to lend a sense of cohesion and solidity to your boxes without overdoing it.
The correction method you applied isn't honestly all that valuable, but it is better than nothing. I definitely believe that at least going back over the last page and extending your lines towards your implied vanishing points would be very beneficial, as it's the convergence of those lines where we always mess up, and doing so will allow you to better identify where you tend to make mistakes.
By the way - your use of hatching is kind of interesting. Some people approach it rather sloppily, having inconsistent lines that don't quite stretch all the way across each plane. In your case, yours don't touch the edges but that is also very obviously intentional, so it doesn't come off as really all that sloppy. That said, it would be better for you to ensure that they stretch all the way across, for the sake of presentation. When your lines stop at different distances from the edges, it can ding your presentation a little. Not that it's one of our main concerns, but it's still worth minding a little.
Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Once you've extended the lines of your last page and have reviewed the kinds of mistakes that become apparent in doing so, feel free to move onto the next lesson.
CorenSV
2018-01-11 13:09
Another set of boxes:
https://imgur.com/a/Wivir
I've started to figure out that I still have quite a bit of trouble with drawing straight lines that end up where I want them to do. So I'll have to up the practice on the ghosting exercise for sure. Or be more careful during that practice.
Dunno how the boxes went though. Hope some improvement is at least visible!
else I'll have to draw even more boxes O__O.. oh well, can't hurt anything but my sanity!
Uncomfortable
2018-01-12 00:54
Your boxes are looking pretty damn spiffy now - especially if you compare the first and last pages of this challenge, they look considerably more solid and confident near the end, although the beginning wasn't particularly bad either. I have just one recommendation, and it's in regards to how you're using that correction method. You actually had that one right on the first page - extend your lines in one direction, towards the implied vanishing point - not equally in both directions, as you did from the second page onwards. You want to keep track of how those lines are converging, so you only really need to focus on one side (and ideally give that other side more length in order to see more of the pattern of convergence).
Anyway, keep up the fantastic work. You're doing great.
Ariel504
2018-01-11 16:34
I have finished my first challenge, this was more difficult than I expected it to be. https://imgur.com/a/4ML4Y
Uncomfortable
2018-01-12 00:57
Nice work completing the challenge. Your box constructions are definitely coming along well. I do have a few recommendations though that should help as you continue to move forwards:
Draw your boxes bigger. Right now each one is quite tiny. When it comes to spatial problems (and constructiong boxes is very much a spatial problem), our brain benefits considerably from having more room to work and think through things.
Just above the video link, I describe a correction method that involves extending your lines towards their implied vanishing point (after finishing drawing a full page of boxes) to see how those lines converge. Give it a read, and try applying it to your last page or two. I also describe this in the new how-to-draw-a-box video that I posted on Christmas. It's very helpful in figuring out where you tend to make mistakes, so you know what to work on during your next attempt.
Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.
[deleted]
2018-01-12 19:26
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2018-01-12 20:45
Nice work! You're constructions definitely get more consistent and confident throughout the set, and I'm glad to see that you've been trying to apply the line extension method to double check and identify your mistakes. On that note, I did notice that you were mainly extending only one set of parallel lines - keep in mind that there are three individual sets, and to really get the most out of that technique you've got to extend all of them and analyze how the lines of each given set converge towards one another. Doing it only for some of the sets leaves you open to accidentally making mistakes in other areas.
I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. I think it'd be a good idea to take your last page or two and apply the method to the remaining lines, so you can identify mistakes that might be hiding (it's easy to miss them once your boxes have reached a certain level, this technique is intended to make them more obvious).
Anyway, keep up the good work! Once you've done that, feel free to move onto lesson 2.
Pelegar
2018-01-15 14:43
Hello!
It was a long and difficult trip for me (I had to do 2 looooong breaks) but here it is ====> https://imgur.com/a/7BYEB
I don't know if improvement can be seen throughout the set but I think I understand and feel better the box construction know ;-)
I try to do the warmups everytime I sit to draw so I included them...
Now I'd like to be able to draw rotated and stacked boxes, I'll try to work on this.
Thank you for your comments!
Uncomfortable
2018-01-16 01:32
Excellent work. Your box constructions feel very solid and cohesive, and capture a strong sense of weight. Your use of line weight also goes a long way to reinforce these principles, and I'm glad to see that you were applying the double checking methods a fair bit throughout. You're definitely heading in the right direction at considerable speed, and the confidence of your linework is really showing.
It's good to see that you haven't gotten rusty at all, despite your last submission having been almost a year ago. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
Pelegar
2018-01-16 05:36
Thank you Uncomfortable!
[deleted]
2018-01-15 16:01
https://imgur.com/gallery/RZbf6
Finally got around to finishing and uploading this. I started ages ago but got really busy (and unmotivated) until recently, where I busted out half the challenge in 2 days. You will see my lack of motivation in my sloppiness around the middle :S hope it's adequate nonetheless.
Uncomfortable
2018-01-16 01:36
I'm glad you were able to complete the challenge. Having the persistence to push all the way through is definitely very important.
Your boxes vary in quality throughout the set - some are much stronger than others. There is one very important thing that you neglected to do however, and I mentioned it when assigning this challenge. That is, the correction technique where you extend the lines of a completed box back towards its implied vanishing points to see how those lines converge. I explain this in the paragraph above the video links on the challenge page, as well as in (the new version of) the how to draw a box video.
Be sure to give that video a watch, and while it would have been best had you applied this technique upon the completion of each full page, I recommend that you still apply it now to your last two pages in order to identify where you're making mistakes and what the nature of those mistakes is.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Be sure to continue incorporating this kind of exercise into your warmups, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
SwoleMuffins
2018-01-19 03:42
It took a while, but I finally completed it!
250 Boxes!
This was super challenging. I switched to a yellow highlighter for corrections halfway through, which feels like a mistake in hindsight.
Uncomfortable
2018-01-20 01:14
Great work! I totally agree that the yellow highlighter was a mistake, but what can you do. What's important though is that you very clearly demonstrated throughout the set that you learned from the act of extending those lines, and as you progressed your boxes started to look much more confident and solid.
You've done really well here. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2, and keep it up!
Aeramine
2018-01-27 00:46
https://imgur.com/a/j3NwO
Tear me apart, pasta-man.
Uncomfortable
2018-01-27 02:02
"How to draw 250 boxes and still be unable to get anything right - by Aera"
youuuuu drama queen. You're doing remarkably well for a whiny little hoe who can't own his victories. Your forms feel solid, your line weights are subtle but go a long way to add a strong sense of cohesion to your forms, and you're clearly doing a great job of checking the convergence of your lines with each box.
Your lesson 1 boxes weren't that bad to begin with, but in comparison these are considerably better.
So take a tissue, dab at your tears and move onto the next lesson. You're doing good, so consider this challenge complete.
[deleted]
2018-01-27 03:32
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2018-01-28 18:28
You started out from a point of considerable weakness, and demonstrated a great deal of improvement over the set. One can definitely see your understanding of 3D space start to click together, and the amount of growth here is pretty fantastic. Moreover, your very last page is a big jump from your second last, with both solid constructions and confident linework. It is unfortunate that you didn't apply the line extension method to a lot of the later pages, and as a result there is definitely room for improvement in terms of keeping those convergences consistent (as I'm sure you noticed from that last page), but I am glad that you decided to mark them out at the end there.
Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.
LordNed
2018-01-27 06:23
That was weird. After 150-200 boxes I could control which way I saw the front face/back face of the box, and I could look at where a point should go instead of trying to make parallel lines... most of the time.
Sorry the colored corrections make it so hard to see the line work.
https://imgur.com/a/hlbAD
Uncomfortable
2018-01-28 18:32
Your constructions are definitely coming together nicely, and your convergences are becoming noticeably more consistent. A couple suggestions - if you continue to have trouble with that front/back face illusion (in case it comes back), you can fill in one of the near faces with some tight, consistent hatching lines to serve as a visual cue. Also, what you may want to play with next is varying the weight of your lines. This can go a long way to building up the cohesion and solidity of your forms. I've got some notes on how to go about this on the challenge page so be sure to check them out.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
LordNed
2018-01-28 18:57
Is line weight something that can feasibly be done with a ball point pen without drawing over the line again? I'm using ball point pens until I learn to stop smashing the pen into the surface (was destroying felt-tip pen tips), and ball points seem pretty consistent for width.
I don't trust myself to draw a second line and have it come anywhere near overlapping the first one heh.
Uncomfortable
2018-01-28 19:36
Regardless of what tool you're using, it should be added by drawing over the line again. You should not be trying to vary your weight when putting the initial construction line down - instead you go back over it afterwards, adding extra weight in local areas with a confident stroke, similar to the super imposed lines exercise. You may not trust yourself to do that successfully right now, but that's no reason not to do it anyway. Even if it ruins each and every box, they're just fodder. It doesn't matter.
LordNed
2018-01-28 19:41
Thank you!
ageofaurum
2018-02-04 00:58
I did it! I realized I struggle with repetitiveness, but I know it's for the best; I did take a couple of breaks because of work but also because sometimes I would start overthinking about the long road I have ahead of me before I can actually switch careers, not being good enough...yada yada.....so I would kind of give up and start procrastinating (I know, kill me, been dragging the issue since forever)
Onto the actual challenge (I had to get that off my chest) I didn't really see that big of an improvement, but it is there :)
250 box challenge
The linework got better the more boxes I drew (also I always do my warmups) still, even on the last few boxes my arm would sometimes just go kind of wacky and do a very wtf curve (I'm always drawing from the shoulder so I'm still figuring out what's wrong - I probably need more practice) also I started with 2 different pens (0.5 - 0.1) whoops...until I read the bit about subtlety on Discord (I thought I was just being fancy hehehe). Oh and there was a bit of a problem with me trying to fix some overshooting lines, making them thicker and kind of defeating the purpose of making the boxes look subtle, bad habit I got to fix (it's just my afraid-of-failure-syndrome)
So I started with a really crappy perspective, mostly because I thought I could remember everything in the boxes video without watching it again after a while, I was so wrong....so I watched it again, and my perspective got a looooot better. Since then I don't think I saw much of an improvement, except that it became easier to see the angles and thus I drew a bit faster.
Oh, and the new boxes video helped me a lot, the old one was really good, but I grabbed some very useful tips, so thank you!
I think that is all I'm able to see by myself, I hope it is good enough to pass \0/ this is actually a major milestone for me, since the first time I tried to do it at the beginning of 2017, I drew like 50 boxes and just left it for dead, so even if it's not the best assignment out there, I'm really proud of myself, and now I actually feel like I can actually finnish all the lessons.
Thank you for the amazing work you put on this project!
Uncomfortable
2018-02-05 01:27
Congratulations on getting through all 250! It definitely is a notable accomplishment, and you should feel proud of yourself. To be honest, from what I can see, your constructions started out in a pretty strong position - your forms felt solid and reasonably well constructed to begin with, so it's not surprising that the improvement over the set was somewhat more nuanced. There definitely is improvement, both in the confidence of your linework, the subtlety of your weight variation and the solidity of your constructions, but it's not the sort of obvious, drastic improvement that comes when one is starting out from a much lower level.
One of the most notable changes that I noticed was in the way that you apply those extra weights. There's a bit of wobbling near the beginning, but by the end your application of thickness is considerably more confident, so it flows more smoothly.
Anyway, keep up the great work. You'll continue to improve at this sort of rate with practice, but as it is you're more than ready to move onto lesson 2.
ageofaurum
2018-02-05 18:31
-does a happy dance- thank you so much, I'll move on then!
MegaMikeNZ
2018-02-11 02:41
250 Box Challenge https://imgur.com/a/5P5fX
Took my time and got there in the end.
I haven't drawn in the correction lines for every box, but I have drawn them in for a lot of boxes - enough to see patterns emerging and try to address them. Getting the 'back' (furthest) edge on the correct angle without a ruler was a constant challenge.
Thanks!
Uncomfortable
2018-02-11 20:45
Great work! I can definitely see considerable improvement over the set. Your boxes by the end are generally well constructed (still room for improvement on the alignment of those lines towards their VPs, but it's much better than before), and your linework is confident and self-assured, with your variation in weight contributing a lot to the solidity and cohesiveness of each construction.
Keep up the fantastic work and consider this challenge complete!
LairaKlock
2018-02-12 20:34
I have no excuses.
https://imgur.com/gallery/xFEqB
Uncomfortable
2018-02-12 22:05
Nice work! I'm glad that you went over your boxes with such persistence, extending those lines towards their implied vanishing points. I did notice that when you started out, you were only extending 3 of the 4 lines of a given set, but you fixed that within a couple pages.
Overall, your linework is much improved compared to lesson 1 (where your boxes tended to have wobblier, more timid lines). Your constructions feel more confident, and your convergences are getting more consistent. There certainly is room for growth of course, and I do think your ghosted lines still have a little ways to go, but you're absolutely moving in the right direction.
On additional thing you may want to work on as you continue to move forwards is line weight. There are notes regarding this in the challenge page. Varying the weights of your marks helps to add an additional sense of cohesion - where a box made up of uniform lines may have very little holding it together as a single form, reinforcing the weight of the silhouette can really go a long way to make them feel as though they make up a single cohesive form.
Keep up the great work, and consider this challenge complete.
Tarrazan
2018-02-13 23:50
Here are the 250 boxes you wanted :D https://imgur.com/a/IqbCO
Uncomfortable
2018-02-15 01:38
Pretty good work! A couple concerns:
Read the instructions! You missed the part about going back over your work and extending your lines towards their implied vanishing points to see how they're converging. Though I'm not sure when you started these boxes, I did upload a new how-to-draw-a-box video which goes over this, though it was mentioned in the exercise notes as well.
Your lines are a little hairy at times, so watch out for that. It looks like you're a bit in the habit of correcting trying to correct mistakes. It's a bad habit! Gotta make sure you think and ghost before every mark you put down.
Overall the constructions are looking good, you just gotta watch that line quality and take the steps to identify mistakes after the fact so you can learn from them.
Tarrazan
2018-02-15 11:54
Oops! I actually did (try) to do a page of those (box 1-10) i just forgot to include them. Here it is :https://imgur.com/QPnjHYX .
That is definately something i have a tendency too do. I try do avoid it but i will try to try even harder :D
I'm glad you think they look good! I feel proud of these boxes because i honestly think i learnt a lot from the challenge this time around, especially because of your new video :D
I'll post again after i've done the four extra pages of everyday object drawings :D
Uncomfortable
2018-02-15 15:46
It's good that you did try them. Make sure you do them for all your boxes from now on, and I do recommend that you do them for the last couple pages that you completed for the challenge.