So overall, you're not that far off, but there are a few things that kind of catch my eye in terms of your general approach. I definitely agree that another stab at a shit ton of boxes is always going to be beneficial, so definitely do that - but there are some things I can point out that may also help.
Let's take a look at this page. See those buttons? I love that you've tried to construct them as independent forms - that's how it should be done. What's missing however is the fact that before you drew those buttons, I don't see any additional constructional lines that would help you in positioning them. On top of that, each mini-box looks pretty rushed - there was no solid box constructed first, you immediately jumped into some of the rounded corners. You're thinking too far ahead - putting less time than a form deserves because you're concerned with what needs to be done next.
On the matter of jumping into rounded corners too early, while almost everything in the world is bevelled in some manner or another, curves are vague, and vagueness isn't great for construction. A curve can represent any number of transitions from one directional line to another, and as a result many students will capture a curve in all of its vagueness without truly knowing what the lines that curve represents would have been. As a result, this unawareness is conveyed in their construction as a perceived lack of solidity.
For this reason, I always encourage people to work on solid, sharp, boxy forms for as long as possible, and smooth things out at the end, as demonstrated with the spray bottle here.
Beyond that, I think another stab at the 250 box challenge will give you the chance to continue honing the control behind your lines. As it stands, there are a lot of cases where you might lose a handle on your ghosting, and things go a little awry. It's very easy to forget the need to really ghost before every single mark, so it's good to have reminders of this.
Once you've been able to go through the 250 box challenge again, I'd like you to try another four pages of these everyday object drawings. I do have one question to ask before you go off and do that though - what size/type of pen are you using? Your marks look particularly thin, and don't carry a whole lot of confidence behind them. That may be a big factor, as confidence is as I've mentioned before, super important when conveying forms that feel solid and believable.
Hm, alright. Just wanted to make sure. Another question: Are you scanning your work? And if so, are you using a 'drawing' preset on your scanner? I've always found those presets to really increase the contrast on linework and throw away a lot of the nuance of one's lines, causing it to come out somewhat clunkier and less subtle than the drawing itself. When scanning, photo presets are generally better.
Yes I'm scanning my work. I've been using the auto scan function of my scanner. So I'm not sure if that's the problem. But for the next exercise I'll try to use the Photo preset, just in case.
I definitely think you're making good progress. It's steady, but it's coming along. The freehand constructions will definitely continue to improve with time and practice, but I also think moving onto the next lesson will give you some more angles with which to tackle this kind of construction, especially since you're allowed to take a bit of the pressure off and use a ruler.
So, I'll go ahead and mark this as complete (which it already seems to be, looking at your badges). Feel free to move onto the next one!
Hey there Uncomfortable! I think I'll pass this off to see what you think. I will be honest, this kicked my ass! I'll wait to see what your thoughts are, but I found this really difficult to perform freehand. I was thinking at first I would de extravagant objects, but I soon figured out I didn't know what I was doing and had to pick simpler things to draw. I feel my weakest one was the oil lamp I have there. After a few I started to get a hang of it but nowhere near what I imagined. Can't wait to hear what you have to say. Cheers!
Very nice work! I think you definitely made the right call on bringing the level of complexity down and focusing on really getting your head around some slightly more irregular forms and working your way up. The oil lamp is fantastic
A few things with some of these drawings did catch my eye however, and are worth mentioning. Firstly, with this box (I imagine it's one of the more extravagant ones), you definitely skipped some steps. Notice how complex those clasps and ornamental elements are? From the looks of it, they were positioned by eye - you definitely could have used more subdivision to give yourself a more concrete guide by which to place those elements. Additionally, the ornaments themselves are quite complex, and really should have been started out a little more simply themselves. It's easy to forget though, and treat them more like observational detail, but you'll get better results by treating them as constructions of their own.
Another thing I noticed was that you have a bit of a tendency to go over some of your lines (perhaps to add more line weight, or perhaps to 'clean things up'). This is something you should avoid, as a rule - there's a good reason for this. When we draw lines with that purpose, they tend to be drawn more slowly and deliberately, which also makes them less confident. Instead, you want to apply weight to sections at a time. Always keep in mind that the primary purpose of line weight is to clarify things like how one form overlaps another. It's not for the sake of replacing faint or sketchy lines (lines should be drawn confidently to begin with).
One last thing - I mention in the video (I think) that you should have completed the box and cylinder challenges before starting this lesson. It doesn't appear that you have! It would be entirely in your best interest to do so before tackling the next lesson.
Anyway, just be sure to keep that stuff in mind in the future. I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.
Thank you very much for the supportive feedback! I would agree that the fox was probably one of my weakest and i didn't put 100percent effort in that one. I might go back and try to remake that box again. I hope to get better on my line weight as I notice it does make the images seem very flat. But I'll do the box and cylinder section next and return to lesson 7 later.
Also it seems I didn't upload the hammer I drew. This was probably my most favourite, any thoughts?
I think it's lovely. Great observation, excellent construction. Nice ellipses, too! The claw section was definitely a little more from-the-hip than it should have been, I'd have probably tried to determine a more precise point for the end of those curves based on subdivision, but generally it came out quite well.
I have a smaller sketchbook (A5 I think) so instead of 8 pages with 2 drawings per page, I did 16 pages, hope that's ok.
I'm struggling so much with this lesson, looking forward to your advices.
[deleted]
2017-10-31 08:18
Hi Uncomfortable, I'm just commenting again in case my submission was caught into spam like last time (250 Cylinder challenge). Please take your time to review it.
Sorry about the delay! I definitely didn't forget about you, and did add your submission to my backlog. I've been having a ridiculously tough time at work of late, worked through Sunday, then nearly 18 hours on Monday and another 10 on Tuesday - so I'm rather behind on my critiques, and used most of the time that I had to make sure new patrons didn't think this was a regular occurrence.
Anyway! I've rather forcefully taken today off, so I'm hoping to get through the whole list. I believe there's a key point where your constructions start to improve. In a lot of cases, especially early on, you're a little haphazard in your use of the techniques and general construction of your forms. There's a lot of signs that you're very much focused on drawing the object as you see it, rather than actually building out the construction and thinking purely in simple forms.
You've got to totally cut the guesswork out. In previous lessons, we were dealing primarily with organic forms where this sort of thing was forgiven more easily. When you deal with hard, constructed objects, thinking purely in form becomes extremely important.
Looking at this drawing, there's a few important things that jump out at me as issues. Firstly, the cylinders aren't super solid. Cylinders are definitely difficult, so put some more work into nailing them. Skinny cylinders are especially tricky.
See the joint where the two major cylinders meet? There's no construction there - you've perceived it as a flat shape, rather than a form.
Lastly, I've noticed that you have a tendency to "clean up" your lines with ones that are drawn more slowly and carefully, rather than being confident. This goes back to stressing accuracy over flow, which is simply not the way you should approach your execution at any point. From what I can see, this seems to be how you're looking to apply line weight.
Line weight is used to clarify specific local areas where the excess of lines becomes confusing. We use it more specifically to clarify overlaps of different forms. The concept of "local" weight is important - we don't add weight to an entire length of a line, or the entirety of an ellipse. We do it to a specific part, allowing our weight to taper on either end so it blends back into the rest of the line.
If you try to add weight to the entirety of a line, you'll end up going slower and more carefully out of fear of missing the mark. Definitely not what you want to do, because that stiffens up your drawing.
This drawing was considerably more successful. There's a lot more that has gone into thinking through its forms. You've clearly thought in boxes, rounding out your corners only afterwards. The one recommendation I have for this one is to use more subdivision. By subdividing a box (for example, the base of the whole object, that big box) you can create landmarks that can then be used to determine the position of other forms you may attach to it. Right now it looks like the sides of the smaller form were guessed, rather than determined using subdivision - or alternatively, using the mirroring technique discussed in the lesson's intro video.
So, overall you are making strides in the right direction, but there's more room for improvement. I'd like you to do another 4 pages of everyday objects, though you may want to practice some more boxes and cylinders before that. Maybe make a warmup routine out of it.
Hi uncomfortable, I have finished my lesson now and wow... did I struggle hard. I really need to work hard on this before tackling the next one. I will definitely rewatch your video and reread your object examples. Really looking forward to your critique and advice on how to improve.
There's a lot of great stuff here. One thing I'm noticing though is that your line weights don't really follow any clear logic - there's definitely areas that are heavier than others, but they don't do much to clarify the drawing, and often times important lines that establish the silhouette of a form are left to get lost in your construction.
I believe a lot of the weight actually ends up coming from trying to correct mistakes, rather than leaving them alone. Keep in mind that adding more ink to a problematic area will not make it better - it will only draw more attention to your blunders.
You do have a lot of interesting elliptical constructions, and while they are a touch messy, you apply them quite well. Some of your boxier ones end up seeming more challenging - working on more your basic box constructions will help considerably. I know it's been a while since you last looked at the 250 box challenge, but I do these days really stress the importance of applying the correction methods described there (specifically extending your lines back towards the implied vanishing point). This will help you learn more from each set of constructions.
Anyway, I think you're doing reasonably well, though you do have plenty of room to grow. I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, so go ahead and move onto the next lesson. The subject matter there is more difficult, but you do have the freedom to use a ruler and a ballpoint pen.
Thank you very much for the great feedback! Yes the line weight was definitely heavier on the mistakes were I tried to correct it. The boxes are a big problem and I will look into the 250 boxes challenge again and work on it.
This one took me a while. It's was hard, because now there is an additional layer of complexity -- how parts of an object relate to each other. The barrel was particularly hard. Please check out my homework at your convenience
Very well done! It's true that this lesson is quite difficult, especially when compared to the more forgiving matters of drawing organic forms like insects and animals. That said, you handled it quite well in most cases. I also noticed that your general confidence improved considerably over the course of the set, and your later drawings do feel much more solid and put together (with the exception of that disproportionate barrel).
That said, even the barrels are capturing the essence of the lesson well - your proportions are off, but the forms themselves still feel solid for the most part. The only complaint I have with both of them is that at either end, there's no visible thickness to the lip (before the rounded surface comes down to the flat face). So instead of having the minimally thick edge we see there in the reference, your rendering actually comes to a very sharp edge, one that could cut a person.
Whenever it comes to those kinds of edges, always consider whether or not it would reasonably be that sharp, or if it requires some minimal thickness to it, by constructing another inset ellipse.
Aside from that, you've done great. You've demonstrated a lot of different kinds of objects here, many of which have a lot of ellipses (which are very difficult as I'm sure you discovered). I especially liked both of your measuring tapes, as they both felt extremely solid and well constructed.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one. Keep up the great work.
I agree, the results are mixed. There are some remarkably successful constructions here, and others that are considerably less so.
I really liked this spray bottle. Overall it feels well proportioned and quite solid. There are two issues with how you approached it though, as I demonstrated here. The point about "don't replace your lines" is about the fact that you've got lines from your construction, but you're attempting to replace them where they already exist to "clean things up". That is likely an attempt at adding line weight, but the result is that you're creating a line that you've drawn much slower, and that is more likely to be more wobbly. I explain in the new form intersection video (I made a bunch of new videos, one for each exercise in lessons 1 and 2) why this is not the way you should be handling line weight, and that line weight needs to be added only to local sections of lines.
While the proportions on this one were definitely lacking, I think your construction of the overall forms was actually very well executed. Especially that lower mass. You go over your lines needlessly again, but aside from that the form is sturdy.
Some of your weaker pages tend to suffer a fair bit from starting boxes that just aren't correct, so it takes the rest of the construction down with you. That is definitely still something you are struggling with quite a bit.
It's been quite a while since you last tackled the 250 box challenge, and I've actually adjusted it somewhat in a way that I think may help you a fair bit. In the challenge, I now stress a very specific method for identifying errors and developing your understanding of 3D space. I've added a new 'how to draw a box' video that explains this technique, while also being more succinct about the matters of constructing the box.
I'd like you to go back and do the 250 box challenge again (which you should submit when you're done), and then do three more pages of everyday objects.
By the way - computer mice are generally quite difficult, but I think yours came out quite well.
I guess you probably didn't see the announcement I posted on March 1st about the new changes. You should go read it - I've separated the lesson critiques into three different tiers. The $3 tier you're pledged at is now only eligible for lesson 1/2 and box/cylinder critiques. These changes are largely to reflect how much more time on average the critiques for different lessons take.
I wrote out some notes for your latest attempt, and just as I was about to write this critique, I realized that one major component that was missing was also missing in your last set. I was a bit too focused on your victories there, that I failed to notice at the time.
It's the minor axis of your cylindrical objects. Of course, having gone through the cylinder challenge, and having watched the material in the lesson, you should have already been aware of this. All of your cylindrical forms must be constructed around a minor axis to ensure that your ellipses remain aligned to one another. This would have been incredibly valuable in your hourglasses, as well as other constructions like your lamp.
You seem to have a habit of making several leaps forwards, and then sliding back to ignoring the basic concepts covered in these lessons. I get that there are large gaps between your submissions, so you probably have periods of time where you are not regularly doing the basics exercises (mind you, you SHOULD be doing your best to commit 10-15 minutes every few days) but at the very least you should at least review the pertinent lesson material after each gap.
You're also still very much struggling with your boxes - this is definitely in big part because you didn't apply the line extension method to all of your boxes when doing the 250 box challenge. You demonstrated that you tried it for a handful, but the point is that it's meant to show you your mistakes in an explicit fashion, so you can then go onto the next page, try to compensate for those mistakes, and then check them again.
Looking at the box for the pencil sharpener for instance, your convergences are way off, especially for the vertical lines - to the point that they're not converging as they move farther away from the viewer, they are diverging.
Lastly, please stop using hatching lines altogether. You have a habit of misusing them (being very scribbly/haphazard/sloppy with them), and using them in inappropriate places (like colouring things in you feel are darker - the colour of the material doesn't matter, imagine that what you're drawing is solid white and focus purely on the construction).
You do have one very strong construction here - the ketchup bottle. It was very well executed, and though there definitely would have been a use for a minor axis for the cylinders along the top, it came out look quite good. The label was also constructed very nicely, although you largely relied on guesswork for it rather than explicitly subdividing your box or mirroring measurements across the central axis to be more precise. I did notice though that some of your lines here seem to consist of several different marks, like you've reflexively reinforced them. It doesn't look like an attempt to add line weight - the top section of the bottle seems to have three distinct marks for each line going up its length. I have no idea why, but please refrain from doing this. One mark per line, period.
Using a RULER this time (lets try and strip away some of the additional difficulties that are getting in the way and focus on the meat of this lesson), I want you to do four pages of everyday object drawings. This also means that I expect you to draw ONE mark per line. For any curving lines, apply the ghosting method.
Rewatch the videos and reread the notes for the 250 box challenge, the 250 cylinder challenge AND this lesson. Do it more than once if you have to.
No guesswork. Subdivide your boxes as much as you need to to be precise.
Do your warmups regularly - even if you're caught in periods of time where you can't work on the lesson work itself, you NEED to be practicing the exercises from lessons 1 and 2, as well as freely rotated boxes and cylinders from the challenges. Set aside 15-20 minutes every day, or every couple of days and spend it doing 3 or 4 of these exercises.
You're absolutely right, that is definatly something i should have been aware of, i felt like something was missing, how i didn't realise i forgot the minor axis is beyond me. I remember it when i practice my ellipses a couple of times a week, i'm almost ashamed that i could forgot doing it with all my "actual" drawings" wow.
I am without a doubt reversing back too basic mistakes way too often, and i don't really understand why i'm doing it to be honest. I have large gaps between my submission because i only send in the drawings i'm atleast somewhat satisfied with, i actually have been drawing literaly everyday since i started, and at least a couple of times a week, i do pages of boxes and cylinders, but only sparely do i do the other basic excercies, this is definatly something i'm going to change from now on, and make sure include all the basic excercices.
I have a question for you regarding my repeated marks and the hatching. Am i only supposed to draw every single line once, and never reinforce them or should i wait until i have finished the drawing and just add lineweight. I am a little bit confused about this part.
I'm going to stop with the hatching as you asked, but just out of curiosity, what would be a proper way to use it?
I want to thank you for taking your time to do this. I know it's probably at least somewhat frustrating for you too keep on critiquing more or less the same things every time i submit my homework, but i want you too know that i am appreciating what you do more than you can imagine, and i want to let you know that even though it might not seem like it always i am trying my best to do exactly what you say :D
First you draw the entire thing, one mark per line, not worrying about where the additional weight goes. Then you go back and apply additional weight similarly to the super imposed lines exercise, though you limit the weight to certain local areas rather than attempting to cover long lengths of line or entire shapes, focusing on clarifying specific overlaps. You draw those additional marks with the same confident, persistent pace you would have drawn the initial marks, using the ghosting method. Each additional mark should still be planned out, and done individually.
Thanks for the answer, it makes it a lot easier to understand :D
Another question i have,if it's not too bothersome, is how would you have indicated the sand in the hourglass? I couldn't figure out a convincing way too do it myself.
Here it is again! I feel like i have improved but i've had a big issue with withholding myself from going over the same lines more than once, i feel i have improved on that aswell, but it's something that's going to take some time for me to conquer completely.
There is definitely a considerable improvement. It mostly comes down to following the instructions and taking your time when constructing these forms. The only thing that really jumped out at me in this set is that you decided to make the shaft of this hatchet much shorter than its enclosing box. Think of the initial construction steps as making decisions - decisions that you are not going to go and unmake afterwards. Meaning, if you planned the shaft to be that long, then you need to stick to it rather than change your mind halfway, even if that means you won't be matching the reference perfectly.
That's what the constructional method is all about - splitting up your construction into steps, dealing with problems in isolated chunks.
I do have one other thing I want to mention, and I actually brought it up a few critiques ago: when you're adding line weight, don't apply it to the entirety of a shape, form or line. Only add it where appropriate, to certain local areas. Never apply line weight with a slow, careful stroke, because this will wobble and stiffen. You want to add line weight with the same kind of confidence with which you'd draw your initial mark.
I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Go ahead and move onto the next lesson, but don't stop practicing those basic exercises.
Honestly, this one was hell for me. At least at first. After a while I lost track of what lines meant what and couldn't wrap my head around them at that point. I do think I was screwing up a lot less by the last few pages though.
Despite your difficulty with a lot of the complexities inherent to this lesson (all the damn lines all over the place), your work here is exceptional. I agree that your last couple pages are particularly well done, but your earlier stuff demonstrates a solid grasp of the forms you're dealing with, how they relate to one another and their proportions. At no point do you waste your linework, and you're always leveraging weight in a way that does not undermine the underlying construction, but rather emphasizes and organizes it to great effect.
Most importantly in my eyes is that despite the challenge all of the construction lines posed for you, you didn't shy away from using them. You faced that difficulty head on.
I'd say the first two pages show that you're getting used to the methodology, the following four show work at the level I'd be hoping for, and the last two pages go above and beyond.
Keep up the fantastic work and consider this lesson complete.
Thank you so much! I'll get started on the vehicles right away then.
[deleted]
2018-01-31 22:19
Hey Uncomfortable!
Been a while since I last submitted. I wasn't very happy with how the animals turned out, which put me off continuing. But I've decided I want to get it done, and I learned a lot up until this point, so I'm back!
I think I've got a good grasp on what we're supposed to learn in this lesson. Some of these are better than others, but I'll leave it to you to judge how I did overall!
You've definitely got some really nice looking constructions (I especially liked this page due to its solidity), but when it comes to cylinders, it definitely looks to me like you may have jumped the gun a bit. You haven't yet completed the 250 cylinder challenge, and it definitely shows. You've got a couple cases where you're leveraging the minor axis, but for most of your cylindrical forms you're neglecting that entirely, to the detriment of your constructions. Getting through that cylinder challenge will definitely help both instil the principles of cylinder construction, while also giving you more practice with ellipses, and specifically the ellipses one might draw to reflect a certain cross-section in space (like what you faced here).
Similarly, additional practice with your boxes will definitely help. Your boxes are okay, but there are some inconsistencies here and there, angles that are slightly off - and things like this early on in the constructional process will result in issues later down the line. That said, you should absolutely stick to those mistakes and see them to the end, as you did here. My point is merely that practicing those more basic elements are what will have the greatest impact on improving your ability to draw these more complicated objects.
Lastly, you definitely get better in terms of adding details, but when you started out, it was definitely clear that you were a little overwhelmed by the amount of visual information present in your go pro. This is entirely normal, and as a result we tend to just kind of throw marks on the page to see what sticks, without as much focus on how the forms fit together, and how, say, a button might be grounded in the rest of the object.
When you add detail to one of these constructions, focus on that - how they're grounded. Don't allow yourself to attach them like stickers, which is much more arbitrary.
I'd like you to do 4 more pages of these drawings, focusing more on cylindrical objects (but first complete the cylinder challenge).
That's so weird. I have no idea where my previous critique went, I can't find record of it anywhere.
Your constructions are definitely getting better. The only comment I have to offer is I find the lack of minor axis in your wacom pen is disturbing. Other than that, while there's room to grow with practice (working on keeping your lines perfectly straight, maintaining the alignment of your ellipses, building solid enclosing boxes), you're moving in the right direction and are making a great deal of headway on all of these fronts.
I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.
One question: When drawing the fidget spinner, I trisected the circle as you would on a 2D circle, but as you can see it ended up quite skewed. Is this just a side effect of imperfect perspective or is there a larger problem at play?
I was confused for a long time, but eventually I realized the problem was obvious. Your box is not square, it's rectangular. You're not trisecting a circle, you're trisecting something more of an oval. So one of the angles is smaller than the other two, resulting in a Y type shape. See?.
Of course, how does one draw a square in 3D space? Well, there are the techniques in the next lesson, leveraging the minor axis, vanishing points, contact points, etc. But usually eyeballing it is enough for something like this, as there's going to be a range where the proportions feel fairly squareish, and we've fallen outside of that range.
Overall your other constructions are really good. Very precise, great use of subdivision and relationships between measurements. I do think that in some cases you might jump to the curvy lines too soon (the unholy tricircular rotational device is a good example of where hammering out the structure with straighter lines then adding circles/curves would have been better) but overall your attention to detail is really phenomenal.
Keep up the fantastic work and consider this lesson complete.
I quite like the tape dispenser and the lighter. I think those in particular demonstrate that you're developing a grasp of the importance of subdivision and figuring out specific measurements instead of relying on guesswork - which is something that tends to weaken some of your other drawings. Curves are dangerous - it's easy to draw them and have them go all over the place, because one can think of them as not having any specific location in space. I like to treat curves as though they capture a range of locations.
If you take two straight lines and join them end to end, with an angle in between, that angle is specific. It's clear. It's solid and decisive. Take a curve however, and it represents a great number of those kinds of straight, clear angles. In that sense, one has not made a decision, but rather they have only narrowed down their options.
This is why a lot of your curving lines feel flimsy, or a little flat - because the volumes you are containing within your forms are done so within a range of options. The limit may be here, or it might be a bit further - who knows? The curves certainly don't. For this reason, try to construct your objects with a greater emphasis on boxy forms. Cut and carve straight planes whenever possible - and then when you've made all your clear decisions, you can round off your corners and build your curves bounded within the limitations of those straight, clear angles. Like the bottom right of this demo, between steps 2 and 3. Focus on the transition between the base box and the trapezoidal form stacked on top of it, and the resulting curves that flow from one to the other.
Cylinders however are different. Like boxes, they have clear rules to which they must adhere, and while a proper ellipse is made up of a curving line, it has a very specific curvature to it, such that to deviate from it would be obviously incorrect. In that sense, it captures only one possible mark - a specific, intended ellipse - and not a range, like other curves. Your cylinders definitely need work. This is not surprising, as you have not yet completed the cylinder challenge, which was a recommendation in the intro video. I can see you using principles from it, like the minor axis and such, but you simply need a lot more mileage. Your boxes do as well.
One last thing that I noticed - you're being timid with your linework. The enclosing box on this page, and the minor axis on this one. You're making obvious efforts to draw lightly and hide your marks. Don't do that. You should not be expending mental energy on trying to manage your pressure so extensively at this point. Draw each and every mark confidently - any mark you are not executing with the required confidence is not a mark worth drawing. Remember that these are exercises - not an opportunity to impress someone with a pretty picture. We are here to understand how to construct forms in 3D space, and that means drawing clean and concise construction lines.
Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to go and do the 250 cylinder challenge, then try another four pages of every day objects.
Alrighty, so 250+ cylinders later, a major focus on shoulder use (even for the small stuff), reviewing the lesson 2 form intersection video (drew a couple of these prior to watching that :/ - so line weight is a little wonky), and stopping myself from guessing. I feel better about these submissions. Here's my four additional everyday objects.
There's definitely been growth here. There's also room for improvement, but you're moving in the right direction. Just one thing worth mentioning comes to mind right now - draw bigger. From the looks of it, you've got a lot of extra room for those casettes, but ended up limiting yourself to a fairly limited portion of the page. Spatial problems benefit considerably from having more room to think through them.
I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete - you'll find the next lesson is quite similar, but also more challenging as the scale steps up and complexity increases. You're also allowed to use tools like rulers, ellipse guides, and even draw in ballpoint - I recommend you take advantage of that as much as possible.
Uncomfortable
2017-10-11 13:39
Old thread got locked, those of you eligible for critiques can submit your work here.
CorenSV
2017-10-20 17:34
https://imgur.com/a/CJwzZ
And here is my attempt at lesson 6.
I think I might need to retry the 250 box challenge. I'm having a very tough time with getting the right proportions of boxes down.
Uncomfortable
2017-10-21 02:57
So overall, you're not that far off, but there are a few things that kind of catch my eye in terms of your general approach. I definitely agree that another stab at a shit ton of boxes is always going to be beneficial, so definitely do that - but there are some things I can point out that may also help.
Let's take a look at this page. See those buttons? I love that you've tried to construct them as independent forms - that's how it should be done. What's missing however is the fact that before you drew those buttons, I don't see any additional constructional lines that would help you in positioning them. On top of that, each mini-box looks pretty rushed - there was no solid box constructed first, you immediately jumped into some of the rounded corners. You're thinking too far ahead - putting less time than a form deserves because you're concerned with what needs to be done next.
On the matter of jumping into rounded corners too early, while almost everything in the world is bevelled in some manner or another, curves are vague, and vagueness isn't great for construction. A curve can represent any number of transitions from one directional line to another, and as a result many students will capture a curve in all of its vagueness without truly knowing what the lines that curve represents would have been. As a result, this unawareness is conveyed in their construction as a perceived lack of solidity.
For this reason, I always encourage people to work on solid, sharp, boxy forms for as long as possible, and smooth things out at the end, as demonstrated with the spray bottle here.
Beyond that, I think another stab at the 250 box challenge will give you the chance to continue honing the control behind your lines. As it stands, there are a lot of cases where you might lose a handle on your ghosting, and things go a little awry. It's very easy to forget the need to really ghost before every single mark, so it's good to have reminders of this.
Once you've been able to go through the 250 box challenge again, I'd like you to try another four pages of these everyday object drawings. I do have one question to ask before you go off and do that though - what size/type of pen are you using? Your marks look particularly thin, and don't carry a whole lot of confidence behind them. That may be a big factor, as confidence is as I've mentioned before, super important when conveying forms that feel solid and believable.
CorenSV
2017-10-21 07:49
I'm using a STAEDLER pigment liner 0.5 The ones you recommended.
Uncomfortable
2017-10-21 16:37
Hm, alright. Just wanted to make sure. Another question: Are you scanning your work? And if so, are you using a 'drawing' preset on your scanner? I've always found those presets to really increase the contrast on linework and throw away a lot of the nuance of one's lines, causing it to come out somewhat clunkier and less subtle than the drawing itself. When scanning, photo presets are generally better.
CorenSV
2017-10-21 17:33
Yes I'm scanning my work. I've been using the auto scan function of my scanner. So I'm not sure if that's the problem. But for the next exercise I'll try to use the Photo preset, just in case.
CorenSV
2017-10-27 19:18
and here are the 4 more requested pages!
https://imgur.com/a/DzpMI
Uncomfortable
2017-10-28 03:45
I definitely think you're making good progress. It's steady, but it's coming along. The freehand constructions will definitely continue to improve with time and practice, but I also think moving onto the next lesson will give you some more angles with which to tackle this kind of construction, especially since you're allowed to take a bit of the pressure off and use a ruler.
So, I'll go ahead and mark this as complete (which it already seems to be, looking at your badges). Feel free to move onto the next one!
TheLaughingStoic
2017-10-24 19:34
https://imgur.com/gallery/BhBpB
Hey there Uncomfortable! I think I'll pass this off to see what you think. I will be honest, this kicked my ass! I'll wait to see what your thoughts are, but I found this really difficult to perform freehand. I was thinking at first I would de extravagant objects, but I soon figured out I didn't know what I was doing and had to pick simpler things to draw. I feel my weakest one was the oil lamp I have there. After a few I started to get a hang of it but nowhere near what I imagined. Can't wait to hear what you have to say. Cheers!
Uncomfortable
2017-10-25 02:08
Very nice work! I think you definitely made the right call on bringing the level of complexity down and focusing on really getting your head around some slightly more irregular forms and working your way up. The oil lamp is fantastic
A few things with some of these drawings did catch my eye however, and are worth mentioning. Firstly, with this box (I imagine it's one of the more extravagant ones), you definitely skipped some steps. Notice how complex those clasps and ornamental elements are? From the looks of it, they were positioned by eye - you definitely could have used more subdivision to give yourself a more concrete guide by which to place those elements. Additionally, the ornaments themselves are quite complex, and really should have been started out a little more simply themselves. It's easy to forget though, and treat them more like observational detail, but you'll get better results by treating them as constructions of their own.
Another thing I noticed was that you have a bit of a tendency to go over some of your lines (perhaps to add more line weight, or perhaps to 'clean things up'). This is something you should avoid, as a rule - there's a good reason for this. When we draw lines with that purpose, they tend to be drawn more slowly and deliberately, which also makes them less confident. Instead, you want to apply weight to sections at a time. Always keep in mind that the primary purpose of line weight is to clarify things like how one form overlaps another. It's not for the sake of replacing faint or sketchy lines (lines should be drawn confidently to begin with).
One last thing - I mention in the video (I think) that you should have completed the box and cylinder challenges before starting this lesson. It doesn't appear that you have! It would be entirely in your best interest to do so before tackling the next lesson.
Anyway, just be sure to keep that stuff in mind in the future. I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.
TheLaughingStoic
2017-10-26 00:56
Thank you very much for the supportive feedback! I would agree that the fox was probably one of my weakest and i didn't put 100percent effort in that one. I might go back and try to remake that box again. I hope to get better on my line weight as I notice it does make the images seem very flat. But I'll do the box and cylinder section next and return to lesson 7 later.
Also it seems I didn't upload the hammer I drew. This was probably my most favourite, any thoughts?
https://imgur.com/gallery/Y96Sd
Uncomfortable
2017-10-26 01:07
I think it's lovely. Great observation, excellent construction. Nice ellipses, too! The claw section was definitely a little more from-the-hip than it should have been, I'd have probably tried to determine a more precise point for the end of those curves based on subdivision, but generally it came out quite well.
[deleted]
2017-10-29 11:17
Hi Uncomfortable, here is my submission for lesson 6 : https://imgur.com/a/n4haV
I have a smaller sketchbook (A5 I think) so instead of 8 pages with 2 drawings per page, I did 16 pages, hope that's ok.
I'm struggling so much with this lesson, looking forward to your advices.
[deleted]
2017-10-31 08:18
Hi Uncomfortable, I'm just commenting again in case my submission was caught into spam like last time (250 Cylinder challenge). Please take your time to review it.
Uncomfortable
2017-11-01 22:16
Sorry about the delay! I definitely didn't forget about you, and did add your submission to my backlog. I've been having a ridiculously tough time at work of late, worked through Sunday, then nearly 18 hours on Monday and another 10 on Tuesday - so I'm rather behind on my critiques, and used most of the time that I had to make sure new patrons didn't think this was a regular occurrence.
Anyway! I've rather forcefully taken today off, so I'm hoping to get through the whole list. I believe there's a key point where your constructions start to improve. In a lot of cases, especially early on, you're a little haphazard in your use of the techniques and general construction of your forms. There's a lot of signs that you're very much focused on drawing the object as you see it, rather than actually building out the construction and thinking purely in simple forms.
You've got to totally cut the guesswork out. In previous lessons, we were dealing primarily with organic forms where this sort of thing was forgiven more easily. When you deal with hard, constructed objects, thinking purely in form becomes extremely important.
Looking at this drawing, there's a few important things that jump out at me as issues. Firstly, the cylinders aren't super solid. Cylinders are definitely difficult, so put some more work into nailing them. Skinny cylinders are especially tricky.
See the joint where the two major cylinders meet? There's no construction there - you've perceived it as a flat shape, rather than a form.
Lastly, I've noticed that you have a tendency to "clean up" your lines with ones that are drawn more slowly and carefully, rather than being confident. This goes back to stressing accuracy over flow, which is simply not the way you should approach your execution at any point. From what I can see, this seems to be how you're looking to apply line weight.
Line weight is used to clarify specific local areas where the excess of lines becomes confusing. We use it more specifically to clarify overlaps of different forms. The concept of "local" weight is important - we don't add weight to an entire length of a line, or the entirety of an ellipse. We do it to a specific part, allowing our weight to taper on either end so it blends back into the rest of the line.
If you try to add weight to the entirety of a line, you'll end up going slower and more carefully out of fear of missing the mark. Definitely not what you want to do, because that stiffens up your drawing.
This drawing was considerably more successful. There's a lot more that has gone into thinking through its forms. You've clearly thought in boxes, rounding out your corners only afterwards. The one recommendation I have for this one is to use more subdivision. By subdividing a box (for example, the base of the whole object, that big box) you can create landmarks that can then be used to determine the position of other forms you may attach to it. Right now it looks like the sides of the smaller form were guessed, rather than determined using subdivision - or alternatively, using the mirroring technique discussed in the lesson's intro video.
So, overall you are making strides in the right direction, but there's more room for improvement. I'd like you to do another 4 pages of everyday objects, though you may want to practice some more boxes and cylinders before that. Maybe make a warmup routine out of it.
Moonchild567
2017-11-11 19:44
Hi uncomfortable, I have finished my lesson now and wow... did I struggle hard. I really need to work hard on this before tackling the next one. I will definitely rewatch your video and reread your object examples. Really looking forward to your critique and advice on how to improve.
Have a great day and thanks in advance :)
https://imgur.com/a/YjDb5
Uncomfortable
2017-11-12 07:21
There's a lot of great stuff here. One thing I'm noticing though is that your line weights don't really follow any clear logic - there's definitely areas that are heavier than others, but they don't do much to clarify the drawing, and often times important lines that establish the silhouette of a form are left to get lost in your construction.
I believe a lot of the weight actually ends up coming from trying to correct mistakes, rather than leaving them alone. Keep in mind that adding more ink to a problematic area will not make it better - it will only draw more attention to your blunders.
You do have a lot of interesting elliptical constructions, and while they are a touch messy, you apply them quite well. Some of your boxier ones end up seeming more challenging - working on more your basic box constructions will help considerably. I know it's been a while since you last looked at the 250 box challenge, but I do these days really stress the importance of applying the correction methods described there (specifically extending your lines back towards the implied vanishing point). This will help you learn more from each set of constructions.
Anyway, I think you're doing reasonably well, though you do have plenty of room to grow. I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, so go ahead and move onto the next lesson. The subject matter there is more difficult, but you do have the freedom to use a ruler and a ballpoint pen.
Moonchild567
2017-11-12 15:34
Thank you very much for the great feedback! Yes the line weight was definitely heavier on the mistakes were I tried to correct it. The boxes are a big problem and I will look into the 250 boxes challenge again and work on it.
alex-and-stuff
2018-01-14 01:43
Hi u/uncomfortable
This one took me a while. It's was hard, because now there is an additional layer of complexity -- how parts of an object relate to each other. The barrel was particularly hard. Please check out my homework at your convenience
https://imgur.com/a/o8ABb
Uncomfortable
2018-01-14 04:28
Very well done! It's true that this lesson is quite difficult, especially when compared to the more forgiving matters of drawing organic forms like insects and animals. That said, you handled it quite well in most cases. I also noticed that your general confidence improved considerably over the course of the set, and your later drawings do feel much more solid and put together (with the exception of that disproportionate barrel).
That said, even the barrels are capturing the essence of the lesson well - your proportions are off, but the forms themselves still feel solid for the most part. The only complaint I have with both of them is that at either end, there's no visible thickness to the lip (before the rounded surface comes down to the flat face). So instead of having the minimally thick edge we see there in the reference, your rendering actually comes to a very sharp edge, one that could cut a person.
Whenever it comes to those kinds of edges, always consider whether or not it would reasonably be that sharp, or if it requires some minimal thickness to it, by constructing another inset ellipse.
Aside from that, you've done great. You've demonstrated a lot of different kinds of objects here, many of which have a lot of ellipses (which are very difficult as I'm sure you discovered). I especially liked both of your measuring tapes, as they both felt extremely solid and well constructed.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one. Keep up the great work.
Tarrazan
2018-01-15 21:32
This one was so hard to do it was uncomfortable, i think my results came out very mixed but anyway here it is :) https://imgur.com/a/Detoh
Uncomfortable
2018-01-16 02:02
I agree, the results are mixed. There are some remarkably successful constructions here, and others that are considerably less so.
I really liked this spray bottle. Overall it feels well proportioned and quite solid. There are two issues with how you approached it though, as I demonstrated here. The point about "don't replace your lines" is about the fact that you've got lines from your construction, but you're attempting to replace them where they already exist to "clean things up". That is likely an attempt at adding line weight, but the result is that you're creating a line that you've drawn much slower, and that is more likely to be more wobbly. I explain in the new form intersection video (I made a bunch of new videos, one for each exercise in lessons 1 and 2) why this is not the way you should be handling line weight, and that line weight needs to be added only to local sections of lines.
While the proportions on this one were definitely lacking, I think your construction of the overall forms was actually very well executed. Especially that lower mass. You go over your lines needlessly again, but aside from that the form is sturdy.
Some of your weaker pages tend to suffer a fair bit from starting boxes that just aren't correct, so it takes the rest of the construction down with you. That is definitely still something you are struggling with quite a bit.
It's been quite a while since you last tackled the 250 box challenge, and I've actually adjusted it somewhat in a way that I think may help you a fair bit. In the challenge, I now stress a very specific method for identifying errors and developing your understanding of 3D space. I've added a new 'how to draw a box' video that explains this technique, while also being more succinct about the matters of constructing the box.
I'd like you to go back and do the 250 box challenge again (which you should submit when you're done), and then do three more pages of everyday objects.
By the way - computer mice are generally quite difficult, but I think yours came out quite well.
Tarrazan
2018-03-03 01:26
Here you are :D https://imgur.com/a/PBqz0
Uncomfortable
2018-03-03 02:23
I guess you probably didn't see the announcement I posted on March 1st about the new changes. You should go read it - I've separated the lesson critiques into three different tiers. The $3 tier you're pledged at is now only eligible for lesson 1/2 and box/cylinder critiques. These changes are largely to reflect how much more time on average the critiques for different lessons take.
Tarrazan
2018-03-03 17:14
Sorry I hadn't seen that announcement, but I have increased my pledge to 10 dollars now :D
Uncomfortable
2018-03-04 19:28
I wrote out some notes for your latest attempt, and just as I was about to write this critique, I realized that one major component that was missing was also missing in your last set. I was a bit too focused on your victories there, that I failed to notice at the time.
It's the minor axis of your cylindrical objects. Of course, having gone through the cylinder challenge, and having watched the material in the lesson, you should have already been aware of this. All of your cylindrical forms must be constructed around a minor axis to ensure that your ellipses remain aligned to one another. This would have been incredibly valuable in your hourglasses, as well as other constructions like your lamp.
You seem to have a habit of making several leaps forwards, and then sliding back to ignoring the basic concepts covered in these lessons. I get that there are large gaps between your submissions, so you probably have periods of time where you are not regularly doing the basics exercises (mind you, you SHOULD be doing your best to commit 10-15 minutes every few days) but at the very least you should at least review the pertinent lesson material after each gap.
You're also still very much struggling with your boxes - this is definitely in big part because you didn't apply the line extension method to all of your boxes when doing the 250 box challenge. You demonstrated that you tried it for a handful, but the point is that it's meant to show you your mistakes in an explicit fashion, so you can then go onto the next page, try to compensate for those mistakes, and then check them again.
Looking at the box for the pencil sharpener for instance, your convergences are way off, especially for the vertical lines - to the point that they're not converging as they move farther away from the viewer, they are diverging.
Lastly, please stop using hatching lines altogether. You have a habit of misusing them (being very scribbly/haphazard/sloppy with them), and using them in inappropriate places (like colouring things in you feel are darker - the colour of the material doesn't matter, imagine that what you're drawing is solid white and focus purely on the construction).
You do have one very strong construction here - the ketchup bottle. It was very well executed, and though there definitely would have been a use for a minor axis for the cylinders along the top, it came out look quite good. The label was also constructed very nicely, although you largely relied on guesswork for it rather than explicitly subdividing your box or mirroring measurements across the central axis to be more precise. I did notice though that some of your lines here seem to consist of several different marks, like you've reflexively reinforced them. It doesn't look like an attempt to add line weight - the top section of the bottle seems to have three distinct marks for each line going up its length. I have no idea why, but please refrain from doing this. One mark per line, period.
Here are my direct observations of your work: https://i.imgur.com/2nXBZeM.png
Here's what I want you to do:
Using a RULER this time (lets try and strip away some of the additional difficulties that are getting in the way and focus on the meat of this lesson), I want you to do four pages of everyday object drawings. This also means that I expect you to draw ONE mark per line. For any curving lines, apply the ghosting method.
Rewatch the videos and reread the notes for the 250 box challenge, the 250 cylinder challenge AND this lesson. Do it more than once if you have to.
No guesswork. Subdivide your boxes as much as you need to to be precise.
Do your warmups regularly - even if you're caught in periods of time where you can't work on the lesson work itself, you NEED to be practicing the exercises from lessons 1 and 2, as well as freely rotated boxes and cylinders from the challenges. Set aside 15-20 minutes every day, or every couple of days and spend it doing 3 or 4 of these exercises.
Tarrazan
2018-03-05 15:24
You're absolutely right, that is definatly something i should have been aware of, i felt like something was missing, how i didn't realise i forgot the minor axis is beyond me. I remember it when i practice my ellipses a couple of times a week, i'm almost ashamed that i could forgot doing it with all my "actual" drawings" wow.
I am without a doubt reversing back too basic mistakes way too often, and i don't really understand why i'm doing it to be honest. I have large gaps between my submission because i only send in the drawings i'm atleast somewhat satisfied with, i actually have been drawing literaly everyday since i started, and at least a couple of times a week, i do pages of boxes and cylinders, but only sparely do i do the other basic excercies, this is definatly something i'm going to change from now on, and make sure include all the basic excercices.
I have a question for you regarding my repeated marks and the hatching. Am i only supposed to draw every single line once, and never reinforce them or should i wait until i have finished the drawing and just add lineweight. I am a little bit confused about this part.
I'm going to stop with the hatching as you asked, but just out of curiosity, what would be a proper way to use it?
I want to thank you for taking your time to do this. I know it's probably at least somewhat frustrating for you too keep on critiquing more or less the same things every time i submit my homework, but i want you too know that i am appreciating what you do more than you can imagine, and i want to let you know that even though it might not seem like it always i am trying my best to do exactly what you say :D
Uncomfortable
2018-03-05 17:27
First you draw the entire thing, one mark per line, not worrying about where the additional weight goes. Then you go back and apply additional weight similarly to the super imposed lines exercise, though you limit the weight to certain local areas rather than attempting to cover long lengths of line or entire shapes, focusing on clarifying specific overlaps. You draw those additional marks with the same confident, persistent pace you would have drawn the initial marks, using the ghosting method. Each additional mark should still be planned out, and done individually.
Tarrazan
2018-03-07 01:00
Thanks for the answer, it makes it a lot easier to understand :D
Another question i have,if it's not too bothersome, is how would you have indicated the sand in the hourglass? I couldn't figure out a convincing way too do it myself.
Uncomfortable
2018-03-07 03:05
Ask me that again with your next submission and I'll draw it for you. For now, that's the last thing you should be thinking about.
Tarrazan
2018-03-19 02:11
Here it is again! I feel like i have improved but i've had a big issue with withholding myself from going over the same lines more than once, i feel i have improved on that aswell, but it's something that's going to take some time for me to conquer completely.
https://imgur.com/a/EM02X
Uncomfortable
2018-03-20 00:53
There is definitely a considerable improvement. It mostly comes down to following the instructions and taking your time when constructing these forms. The only thing that really jumped out at me in this set is that you decided to make the shaft of this hatchet much shorter than its enclosing box. Think of the initial construction steps as making decisions - decisions that you are not going to go and unmake afterwards. Meaning, if you planned the shaft to be that long, then you need to stick to it rather than change your mind halfway, even if that means you won't be matching the reference perfectly.
That's what the constructional method is all about - splitting up your construction into steps, dealing with problems in isolated chunks.
I do have one other thing I want to mention, and I actually brought it up a few critiques ago: when you're adding line weight, don't apply it to the entirety of a shape, form or line. Only add it where appropriate, to certain local areas. Never apply line weight with a slow, careful stroke, because this will wobble and stiffen. You want to add line weight with the same kind of confidence with which you'd draw your initial mark.
I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Go ahead and move onto the next lesson, but don't stop practicing those basic exercises.
aloneinthedork
2018-01-28 14:51
Hi Uncomfortable! Here's my homework for this lesson: https://imgur.com/a/eHsmj
Honestly, this one was hell for me. At least at first. After a while I lost track of what lines meant what and couldn't wrap my head around them at that point. I do think I was screwing up a lot less by the last few pages though.
Uncomfortable
2018-01-28 18:39
Despite your difficulty with a lot of the complexities inherent to this lesson (all the damn lines all over the place), your work here is exceptional. I agree that your last couple pages are particularly well done, but your earlier stuff demonstrates a solid grasp of the forms you're dealing with, how they relate to one another and their proportions. At no point do you waste your linework, and you're always leveraging weight in a way that does not undermine the underlying construction, but rather emphasizes and organizes it to great effect.
Most importantly in my eyes is that despite the challenge all of the construction lines posed for you, you didn't shy away from using them. You faced that difficulty head on.
I'd say the first two pages show that you're getting used to the methodology, the following four show work at the level I'd be hoping for, and the last two pages go above and beyond.
Keep up the fantastic work and consider this lesson complete.
aloneinthedork
2018-01-29 17:00
Thank you so much! I'll get started on the vehicles right away then.
[deleted]
2018-01-31 22:19
Hey Uncomfortable!
Been a while since I last submitted. I wasn't very happy with how the animals turned out, which put me off continuing. But I've decided I want to get it done, and I learned a lot up until this point, so I'm back!
I think I've got a good grasp on what we're supposed to learn in this lesson. Some of these are better than others, but I'll leave it to you to judge how I did overall!
https://imgur.com/a/CKpPa
Thanks!
Uncomfortable
2018-02-01 21:48
You've definitely got some really nice looking constructions (I especially liked this page due to its solidity), but when it comes to cylinders, it definitely looks to me like you may have jumped the gun a bit. You haven't yet completed the 250 cylinder challenge, and it definitely shows. You've got a couple cases where you're leveraging the minor axis, but for most of your cylindrical forms you're neglecting that entirely, to the detriment of your constructions. Getting through that cylinder challenge will definitely help both instil the principles of cylinder construction, while also giving you more practice with ellipses, and specifically the ellipses one might draw to reflect a certain cross-section in space (like what you faced here).
Similarly, additional practice with your boxes will definitely help. Your boxes are okay, but there are some inconsistencies here and there, angles that are slightly off - and things like this early on in the constructional process will result in issues later down the line. That said, you should absolutely stick to those mistakes and see them to the end, as you did here. My point is merely that practicing those more basic elements are what will have the greatest impact on improving your ability to draw these more complicated objects.
Lastly, you definitely get better in terms of adding details, but when you started out, it was definitely clear that you were a little overwhelmed by the amount of visual information present in your go pro. This is entirely normal, and as a result we tend to just kind of throw marks on the page to see what sticks, without as much focus on how the forms fit together, and how, say, a button might be grounded in the rest of the object.
When you add detail to one of these constructions, focus on that - how they're grounded. Don't allow yourself to attach them like stickers, which is much more arbitrary.
I'd like you to do 4 more pages of these drawings, focusing more on cylindrical objects (but first complete the cylinder challenge).
[deleted]
2018-02-10 02:52
Hey /u/Uncomfortable - here's part two https://imgur.com/a/zroHn
I think your reply to my post came through as a message, so hopefully you see this!
Uncomfortable
2018-02-10 19:01
That's so weird. I have no idea where my previous critique went, I can't find record of it anywhere.
Your constructions are definitely getting better. The only comment I have to offer is I find the lack of minor axis in your wacom pen is disturbing. Other than that, while there's room to grow with practice (working on keeping your lines perfectly straight, maintaining the alignment of your ellipses, building solid enclosing boxes), you're moving in the right direction and are making a great deal of headway on all of these fronts.
I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.
svendogee
2018-02-14 16:55
https://imgur.com/a/g8LgI
One question: When drawing the fidget spinner, I trisected the circle as you would on a 2D circle, but as you can see it ended up quite skewed. Is this just a side effect of imperfect perspective or is there a larger problem at play?
Uncomfortable
2018-02-16 01:26
I was confused for a long time, but eventually I realized the problem was obvious. Your box is not square, it's rectangular. You're not trisecting a circle, you're trisecting something more of an oval. So one of the angles is smaller than the other two, resulting in a Y type shape. See?.
Of course, how does one draw a square in 3D space? Well, there are the techniques in the next lesson, leveraging the minor axis, vanishing points, contact points, etc. But usually eyeballing it is enough for something like this, as there's going to be a range where the proportions feel fairly squareish, and we've fallen outside of that range.
Overall your other constructions are really good. Very precise, great use of subdivision and relationships between measurements. I do think that in some cases you might jump to the curvy lines too soon (the unholy tricircular rotational device is a good example of where hammering out the structure with straighter lines then adding circles/curves would have been better) but overall your attention to detail is really phenomenal.
Keep up the fantastic work and consider this lesson complete.
Carlton_Honeycomb
2018-02-15 21:40
Hi Uncomfortable...unlike Sven, I have no complicated questions. Just another critique for your backlog...
My lesson 6 submission (with commentary as usual).
Uncomfortable
2018-02-16 01:50
I quite like the tape dispenser and the lighter. I think those in particular demonstrate that you're developing a grasp of the importance of subdivision and figuring out specific measurements instead of relying on guesswork - which is something that tends to weaken some of your other drawings. Curves are dangerous - it's easy to draw them and have them go all over the place, because one can think of them as not having any specific location in space. I like to treat curves as though they capture a range of locations.
If you take two straight lines and join them end to end, with an angle in between, that angle is specific. It's clear. It's solid and decisive. Take a curve however, and it represents a great number of those kinds of straight, clear angles. In that sense, one has not made a decision, but rather they have only narrowed down their options.
This is why a lot of your curving lines feel flimsy, or a little flat - because the volumes you are containing within your forms are done so within a range of options. The limit may be here, or it might be a bit further - who knows? The curves certainly don't. For this reason, try to construct your objects with a greater emphasis on boxy forms. Cut and carve straight planes whenever possible - and then when you've made all your clear decisions, you can round off your corners and build your curves bounded within the limitations of those straight, clear angles. Like the bottom right of this demo, between steps 2 and 3. Focus on the transition between the base box and the trapezoidal form stacked on top of it, and the resulting curves that flow from one to the other.
Cylinders however are different. Like boxes, they have clear rules to which they must adhere, and while a proper ellipse is made up of a curving line, it has a very specific curvature to it, such that to deviate from it would be obviously incorrect. In that sense, it captures only one possible mark - a specific, intended ellipse - and not a range, like other curves. Your cylinders definitely need work. This is not surprising, as you have not yet completed the cylinder challenge, which was a recommendation in the intro video. I can see you using principles from it, like the minor axis and such, but you simply need a lot more mileage. Your boxes do as well.
One last thing that I noticed - you're being timid with your linework. The enclosing box on this page, and the minor axis on this one. You're making obvious efforts to draw lightly and hide your marks. Don't do that. You should not be expending mental energy on trying to manage your pressure so extensively at this point. Draw each and every mark confidently - any mark you are not executing with the required confidence is not a mark worth drawing. Remember that these are exercises - not an opportunity to impress someone with a pretty picture. We are here to understand how to construct forms in 3D space, and that means drawing clean and concise construction lines.
Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to go and do the 250 cylinder challenge, then try another four pages of every day objects.
Carlton_Honeycomb
2018-02-21 04:17
Alrighty, so 250+ cylinders later, a major focus on shoulder use (even for the small stuff), reviewing the lesson 2 form intersection video (drew a couple of these prior to watching that :/ - so line weight is a little wonky), and stopping myself from guessing. I feel better about these submissions. Here's my four additional everyday objects.
Uncomfortable
2018-02-22 00:24
There's definitely been growth here. There's also room for improvement, but you're moving in the right direction. Just one thing worth mentioning comes to mind right now - draw bigger. From the looks of it, you've got a lot of extra room for those casettes, but ended up limiting yourself to a fairly limited portion of the page. Spatial problems benefit considerably from having more room to think through them.
I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete - you'll find the next lesson is quite similar, but also more challenging as the scale steps up and complexity increases. You're also allowed to use tools like rulers, ellipse guides, and even draw in ballpoint - I recommend you take advantage of that as much as possible.