You also appear to have no homework! Looks like you forgot to include the link. I've added your submission to my backlog anyway (i'm at work on a weekend again so I probably wasn't going to get to it for a while yet) so go ahead and edit the post to include the link when you get a chance.
You definitely improve over the set. Early on, you struggle a fair bit with keeping your boxes consistent, resulting in a lot of lines that go off at odd angles relative to their neighbours and generally weaken the construction. This gets better through the pages as your grasp of 3D space in relation to these objects improves.
The matter of capturing solid forms definitely still is something that is lacking, and I blame that partially on the use of black/blue pens. I have nothing against using blue to lay down your construction grids, but I do feel that in doing so you've become somewhat more careless with your black lines. Your line quality is considerably looser/sketchier, and you're not drawing through your forms. As a result, they tend to feel much less solid.
Aside from the turret, I do like this tank quite a bit. You didn't take it all the way, admittedly, the construction that is there feels much more solid. On the topic of that turret though, notice the larger cylinder halfway along the length - it's sitting there like it's a ribbon of paper that's loosely hanging around the rest of the tubing, rather than being solidly grounded against it. The piece we can see coming out of it does not connect to it - it literally passes through, and that makes that part of the drawing much less believable.
This car looks really nice. A lot of the details feel more grounded, and while the black lines were pretty much reserved for more of a last minute detail pass, you did draw them with the sort of confidence that maintains structure and solidity.
One thing I notice frequently is the use of curves where they don't feel entirely supported by the sort of boxier scaffolding that precedes it. Basically it's an issue where regardless of what you built up underneath them, you're not really regarding the drawing of the curves as though you're smoothing down those forms - instead the curves feel separate and independent of the actual structure. Take a look at the front of the jeep - notice how those curving lines kinda just do whatever they want, not actually regarding the underlying box?
Anyway, you've gained a lot of ground here, but you've also got some things to work on. Overall you've earned the lesson completion, but feel free to submit more for critique later on.
Here is the HW. Tough lesson, an exercise on patience and control, need to work on a lot of things. To name a few, ellipses of course, initial box construction, and too many unnecessarymarks. I hope I'm progressing well enough I know these things improve over time. Thanks appreciate the feedback. https://m.imgur.com/a/Sr9mG
Overall I think you are grasping the principles of the lesson quite well, but you're definitely getting too caught up in detail/texture. As far as the construction goes, this tank is definitely very well done, but you have varying levels of quality later on. I believe this is because you allow yourself to focus too much on detail too early, and as a result you distract yourself from really hammering out the construction as well as I know you can.
When it comes to the actual texture though, I also do think that what you're really doing later into the homework set is attempting to shade/render your drawings under the guise of texture. That's why you're using so much hatching and cross-hatching - it doesn't actually reflect the surfaces of your objects, but rather is a sort of lazy catch-all.
The main mistake there is that rather than trying to leverage these tools to render the light and shadow on our object, instead we're using light and shadow as a tool to help communicate important things about our drawing. We leverage shadows to help separate our forms out from each other so they're easier to understand (similarly to how we use line weight). We use the edges of our shadow shapes, and the areas where they transition to light in order to communicate information about the surface textures.
At no point are we just shading for the sake of shading. It's always to some other purpose, and if no other purpose exists, we just don't bother to do that. As long as you think about it in this manner, you're not going to end up in situations where you either use hatching just for the sake of it, or where you attempt to use your pen the way you might use a pencil (by trying to create those sort of value gradients).
Now, I definitely think you're demonstrating a good deal of understanding in regards to construction, but you've kept yourself from properly demonstrating the extent of it. I'd like you to do two more pages of vehicle drawings. This time, do it with a ballpoint pen and use a ruler. Both of these things were allowed in the instructions there, because I want you to focus entirely on the constructions rather than other aspects of drawings we've emphasized in the past. The ruler will help you execute precisely the straight lines you're after, while the ballpoint pen will allow you to be somewhat less heavy-handed with your linework. If you can get your hands on an ellipse guide, that'd be great too - but they're often prohibitively expensive, so don't feel like that's a requirement.
I don't want you to apply any texture or detail whatsoever. Focus entirely on construction and take those solid forms as far towards the likeness of your intended object as you can.
Thanks for the feedback need to drill that advice into my head moving forward. Here are the additional drawings, I tried to show the constructional side of things let me know if its enough. https://m.imgur.com/a/7U0O3
I'm really glad you included the preliminary stage of that pick-up truck, as it highlighted one major issue with your approach.
You're treating your drawing as though your construction is a plan, and then executing your "real" drawing on top of it. That is, your interpretation of applying line weight essentially involves replacing all of the existing linework. This is not correct, as it results in you drawing your subsequent lines slowly and throwing away a lot of the solidity of your construction.
Line weight should not be applied as though they are new lines - instead, line weight is to be added to certain parts of existing lines (not even the whole length of a line). Line weight is used largely to clarify overlaps and add hierarchy to a drawing. It is not the method by which one adds additional detail.
Give this video a watch. It's a new video I made regarding lesson 2's form intersections, but I explain the issue there as it's not entirely uncommon. I mention the issue around 16 minutes in.
Another thing I noticed was that with the planking that makes up the sort of fence that encloses the back of the pickup, the individual boards do not show any thickness in your construction drawing. You're also not drawing through those forms - you've got them stopping where they are hidden by another form. Drawing through your forms is still important. You are doing it for the most part in other areas, which is good - and overall your constructional drawing is very well done, I just figured it was important to point that out.
I'd like you to do one more page. Start out by doing a front and side proportional study (so you'll have to find something you can see from multiple angles) and really focus on figuring out how all your forms are situated. This should help you keep your proportions together a little bit better.
Then, as you did with the pickup truck, apply the 'measuring in perspective: constructing to scale' technique against your proportional studies. Try and limit your guesswork - notice how the cab of the pickup reaches up to some arbitrary height that has not been defined by earlier measurements/construction? Build out a 3D grid that encloses the entire object and stick to it.
Lastly, use a ballpoint pen for the whole thing as I mentioned in my last critique. You're too tempted otherwise to be heavy handed with your work. I don't want any clean-up passes, just pick and choose where you can apply a little extra line weight to clarify how certain forms overlap.
It'd be great if you could take progress shots as you did this time, though perhaps even more of them. One after every individual pass of the constructional method, so I can get a fuller sense of how you're going about it.
Thank you so many realizations, I'm glad we're getting to the bottom of these issues. I forgot to take more than two progress shots but I hope you can see that I'm building this using the construction to scale method. All in ballpoint with no details. I didn't emphasize any lines yet, when you have the time can you do a quick drawthrough, where would you emphasize the lines? Appreciate it. https://m.imgur.com/a/AH2Af
Sorry, I must have missed this when you posted it yesterday. Thanks for the reminder.
This construction is looking considerably better than before - you're paying far more attention to your forms, and how everything sits in 3D space, and are not getting noticeably caught up in detail in a way that undermines the overall construction. The only issue I'm noticing is just that your wheels have no visible tires - you've got the outer most ellipse defining the wheel, but then your next ellipse is tucked inside, so it looks like there's no thickness.
I demonstrate what I mean here. In the same image, I threw some quick additional line weights in and simple shadow shapes to help separate out your major forms. Remember that the focus here is to separate things out - you've got a lot of linework, so some simple, subtle additional weight to sections of certain lines (largely to clarify where one form overlaps another) and blocking in certain areas with solid black to accentuate the forms next to them will go a long way. Don't go overboard with this.
Okay here you go let me know what you think. I will incorporate the form intersection exercises regularly as that seems like something worthwhile to practice while thinking of blocking out major forms, thanks.
It really looks to me like you're adding your line weight with a very thick pen or marker, and as such have limited control over the weight of the lines you're drawing. As a result, your weights are not subtle.
I actually mentioned when I asked for the extra drawing for you to use only a ballpoint pen. To add line weight with that, not to resort to a different tool. What kind of marker are you using here?
This was a brush pen, which in hindsight I know should only be used for solid black areas, I messed that up. Also what do you think of the areas I chose to highlight. With the ballpoint pen would you add line weight by going over it once and leave it alone or go over the line (not necessarily the whole line) a couple times for thicker areas? Thanks.
For the most part the areas you chose to highlight were fine, except for maybe areas like the sun-roof where you but a fairly equal amount of weight around the entire opening. I do agree with adding more weight to the entire thing, but I'd put just a little bit more on one side over the other (to show dynamism, similarly to how I discuss line weight in the notes on the 250 box challenge page).
As for how to do it, I'd add weight by going over an existing mark one, or even a few times to build up weight as needed. BE SUBTLE. You don't need your weights to be shouting at the viewer. The weights are something that speak to the viewer's subconscious, not their waking mind, so it only barely has to be noticeable.
I'd like you to try one more drawing, and put that brush pen away.
I feel like it finally "clicked" when I got to the car. Though I'm not really happy with the smart car that came after it... that thing had a lot more curved shapes that I realized.
Nice work! Your boxier constructions are generally very successful and convey a strong sense of solidity. Where things start to get curvier is where some of your remaining weaknesses become more apparent, though it's a fairly normal issue. When it comes to moving from your boxes/planar constructions to rounding out your curves, you're straying too far from those bounds and end up with curves that feel less grounded and more arbitrary, which in turn weakens the resulting forms.
Here's an explanation of what I mean. Basically you'll want to adhere more closely to your boxier constructions, or break those edges down more to create intermediate steps. I'd like you to do two more pages of drawings with curvier objects - cars are definitely a great choice for that sort of thing.
I clearly screwed up the proportions on the first one real bad. Sorry about that. By the time I realized that was waaay too wide I just had to roll with it. I did try to keep all you said in mind thoughout, though.
I think the front of cars is absolutely the hardest thing for me so far. By the time I can get around to subdividing it into smaller forms there are some many lines in the way that I lose track of what I'm trying to construct. And they're always so rounded and weird! What's with the shape of those lights!? No amount of construction lines seems to help me there. I kind of wish cars were still all old-school blocky...
These are vastly better. The sense of solidity is much more present in these constructions. As far as the proportions go, I'm glad you stuck with it and plowed on ahead.
I do have one piece of criticism to offer however - ease up on that line weight, you're applying it way too heavily. Weight should be subtle - it doesn't need to make the entire object pop out of your construction lines. Furthermore, you don't want to get caught up in trying to add those additional marks slowly, trying too hard to match up with whatever you're adding weight to. This will make your lines stiffen up, and that's the worst.
In the lesson 2 form intersections video (there weren't any videos for those things back when you completed the lesson), I explain that line weight should be applied to certain localities - not to replace or clean up existing lines, but to emphasize them in key areas, most often overlaps to show which line runs in front, and which one gets tucked behind.
In general, I'd recommend drawing the entire thing with one pen - in your case, the ballpoint you used for the construction. Going over with a completely different pen results in a disconnect and an imbalance.
Anyway, you've done great. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching lessons. As for those headlights, it's true - they can be tough. Your second car's were definitely better, but in general I think it's still a matter of sticking to those straight lines as much as you can, and understanding how you're carving that headlight into the form. The headlight has to be grounded like part of a 3D puzzle that fits together to make a car. If you stick it on like a sticker, it won't feel solid or three dimensional. This is actually very similar to how we construct the heads of animals, for which there is also a new video.
Keep up the good work, and be sure to keep on top of this! Drawabox is only meant to send you in the right direction. It's now up to you to put the mileage in.
Woo! Guess I'll celebrate by drawing a few boxes for the box god.
I definitely plan to come back and do the texture challenge (and advanced lessons, eventually!) but I want to get into figure drawing first. I know about Prokopenko of course, but do you have any other recommendations?
I'm honestly not well versed in what's out there. I've vaguely seen Michael Hampton's books to be pretty good, if a bit complicated at first. I learned most of what I know from a class I took under Kevin Chen, so I didn't end up using any of the books/tutorials that are available. I always mean to try them out just so my recommendations can be more than second-hand, but as you can imagine I don't have a whole lot of time :P
Howdy Uncomfortable...I've put a lot of hours into this lesson, both in learning and drawing. I feel like proper vehicle drawing will take quite some time to continue to refine, but recently it's been clicking more and more, and I'm understanding more of the construction techniques. While I'm not exactly proud of some of these, I'm still seeing progress, and I think learning and grasping what's intended from this lesson. I plan to work on vehicles for a lot longer, but I wanted to submit my work now to get a feel for stuff to work on moving forward. As always, thank you for what you do, and I look forward to your feedback. Here's my Lesson 7 Submission.
Overall you're demonstrating a good grasp of form, and you've got a handful of quite successful drawings here, like your various abstract form studies, this tank (minus the turret) and this mini cooper.
A lot of your other constructions do have merits as well, but for the most part they suffer from a considerable amount of sloppiness. I'd say the mini was the only drawing where you really buckled down properly and went through all of the appropriate steps of constructions. In other cases you had verticals that were visibly slanted relative to your horizon line (leading to a skewed look).
You also have a tendency to draw enclosing boxes that are larger (usually vertically) than the actual vehicle you intend to draw, resulting in a vehicle that does not fit snugly into any vertical confines, somewhat defeating the purpose of the technique.
I'm not sure if you were aware, but in this lesson, you are fully allowed to use a ruler when drawing your lines. It's mentioned near the beginning of the lesson.
I'd also like to point out that your use of hatching is extremely haphazard, and tends to make your drawings look very messy. The moment you get scribbly with your hatching, your drawing will look rushed and frantic, and the sense of solidity and structure will fall away. You should also not be colouring in things that are darker in terms of their local colour. Imagine that everything in your subject matter is solid white.
Now, I do want to mention again - your last drawing is really quite good. I'd like to see you do another three pages of vehicle drawings, approaching them all exactly as you have done with the mini cooper. Strive to be more controlled in the use of your lines (don't go reinforcing lines automatically, that's a bad habit you should have shed earlier on in the lessons - you should be applying the ghosting method whenever drawing freehand, which means thinking before every individual stroke).
I shed a lot slop in lessons 4-6 but this lesson I felt the slop creeping up. The Mini Cooper construction felt right doing it, I took my time. Ill buckle down, watch my slop, watch my hatch, and return with three cleaner, constructed vehicles. Thanks for the critique.
You've got some really nice, conscientious constructions here - like your mercury cougar. That's definitely what I'm after, although you've got to watch your core boxes for slants and inconsistencies. The cougar's suffering quite a bit from skewed horizontals and slanted verticals as shown here.
In your last page, you mentioned that you were pleased with the fact that the drawing was cleaner than your others, and that this is what you'd been focusing on. While it's certainly true that it is cleaner, that is not what you should be investing time or effort into. While we want to ensure that we do not waste linework, we do not want to attempt to hide the lines that we do draw. Worrying about this will only cause you to split your attention and distract yourself. You'll end up inclined to skip important lines (in order to keep your drawing tidy), and that's how you end up with misaligned constructions. Your earlier, more conscientious constructions are far better and are exactly what you should be doing - just with a little more care for your initial boxes and such.
On that same vein, watch your ellipses - you're visibly holding yourself back with them in order to keep them cleaner. They are admittedly very tricky, so in all likelihood they're going to be a bit of a hassle, but allowing them to come out clean-but-uneven isn't going to teach you much about drawing them.
Another thing I noticed is that in your tank, you don't seem to have constructed the turret of the cylinder around a minor axis line. .. Actually, you don't seem to be using a minor axis for any of your wheels, at least that I can see.
For some reason, I really, really like your first two pages. The first two datsun drawings are a bit rough around the edges, but they're really quite charming. You've captured the feel of the car quite nicely and unlike the third page, your hatching was limited to the cast shadow shapes and silhouettes (as opposed to trying to shade with it). The construction feels more solid, and the ellipses in your wheels are considerably more confident and even.
I've mentioned a lot here, so take some time to absorb it. Try another four pages, and try to work more on starting from a single box and subdividing it rather than stacking multiple boxes. This method seems to work better for the way you think.
OK - I have probably said it before, but I feel like I'm getting this. You are right, starting with a box and subdividing makes sense to me. I can establish perspective right off the bat, and break it down from there. If I had to chose 4 of my 7 new vehicles, I would submit this one, this one, this one, and this one...but here's the album because I've been putting in work.
It took a few tries, but I think you've finally gotten it. These drawings are just the kind of conscientious application of subdivision and construction that I was looking for. It was peeking through in some areas before, but now this is a proper collection of it.
So with that, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching lessons!
Question: you say things along the lines of rendering light and shadow is a crutch to not understanding construction proper form. If I wanted to take things like this from line drawing to...whatever is next. Is the term rendering? How do I go about it? Or is it the same thing: light and shadow, just I happen to know to construct proper forms?
You've made a considerable amount of improvement over this set. When you started out, you had some individual components down reasonably well on their own (for example, the front wheel on your tvr griffith came out really nicely, but as you push farther to the back, your proportions start to fall apart). By your third page, the structure and proportion certainly improves (going with a less dramatic angle was definitely a good call), though the back wheel well comes out a bit strange, as does the front wheel.
Now, I think your biggest jump is when you hit this beauty. There doesn't seem to be an iota of guesswork here - you've laid it all out and applied the construction and measurement techniques to great effect. The body of the vehicle, especially towards the front, feels very solid and convincing.
I do have mixed feelings about using different tools (mixing ballpoint and felt tip), for a couple reasons. Firstly, we get caught in the trap of drawing too carefully when we try to go over an existing mark to totally replace its linework. So when we go over with a felt tip pen, we naturally have to replace everything, which puts us at great risk of getting wobbly and undermining the solidity of our forms.
As far as that goes, this attempt didn't suffer from this problem in the slightest. Your linework is confident and smooth, so fantastic work there.
The other reason is that there's a certain pleasantness to the subtle separation of object from construction - when we only have to worry about adding a bit of line weight here and there to clarify line weight and draw the eye to the right places, the drawing gently emerges from the construction lines. But that's really just a matter of opinion, but for that reason I really like the version of the drawing that was ballpoint only.
As you moved into other subject matter - like that helicopter - you definitely demonstrated your overall grasp of the material. The motorcycles seemed a bit strange (I think it was mostly the wheel, but also perhaps the length of the overall thing, but I could be wrong). Your more fictional vehicles were a pleasure to look at as well. The B wing shows a fantastic focus on construction.
So, all in all, you've done an excellent job. It fills me with pride to see how you've taken to these geometric objects. You did a pretty good job with the everyday objects in the last lesson, but it's clear that you've grown considerably even since then. I'm hoping that you'll be able to take some of the principles you've learned here from these less-than-forgiving topics and apply them back with your animals. Many find that once they've been forced through the grueling gauntlet of vehicles, they're able to look at organic matter in an entirely different way.
Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching lesson set! You should feel proud of yourself, you certainly deserve it.
Rendering is essentially about two things. Firstly, knowing where your light source(s) are, and secondly understanding the nature of the texture of the various surfaces. Given that you understand how these objects relate to one another in 3D space, understanding where your light source is should be enough to grasp how the basics of how light travels around your scene - in other words, it's enough to tell you which faces will be in shadow and which will be lit. Understanding how light bounces is something you'll grasp by doing a good deal of studies, from life and from photo reference.
As far as texture goes, it would probably be a good idea to give the texture challenge a try, as it moves into the territory of light, though still in a rather harsh, full-dark vs. full-light kind of way. It does get you thinking about light sources a little bit though.
Once you've moved beyond that, black and white digital painting studies would be next, then moving into colour.
Uncomfortable
2017-10-11 13:41
Old thread got locked, those of you eligible for critiques can post your work here.
CorenSV
2017-11-11 18:00
And here are my vehicles. This was a hard assignment, especially the construction of the initial box, it's perspective and the proportions of them.
I unfortunately don't have a brush pen or an ellipse guide.
https://imgur.com/a/YvyIt
Uncomfortable
2017-11-11 18:56
You also appear to have no homework! Looks like you forgot to include the link. I've added your submission to my backlog anyway (i'm at work on a weekend again so I probably wasn't going to get to it for a while yet) so go ahead and edit the post to include the link when you get a chance.
CorenSV
2017-11-11 18:59
Now that's embarrassing XD. Whoops, I fixed it. Sorry for that.
Uncomfortable
2017-11-12 07:02
You definitely improve over the set. Early on, you struggle a fair bit with keeping your boxes consistent, resulting in a lot of lines that go off at odd angles relative to their neighbours and generally weaken the construction. This gets better through the pages as your grasp of 3D space in relation to these objects improves.
The matter of capturing solid forms definitely still is something that is lacking, and I blame that partially on the use of black/blue pens. I have nothing against using blue to lay down your construction grids, but I do feel that in doing so you've become somewhat more careless with your black lines. Your line quality is considerably looser/sketchier, and you're not drawing through your forms. As a result, they tend to feel much less solid.
Aside from the turret, I do like this tank quite a bit. You didn't take it all the way, admittedly, the construction that is there feels much more solid. On the topic of that turret though, notice the larger cylinder halfway along the length - it's sitting there like it's a ribbon of paper that's loosely hanging around the rest of the tubing, rather than being solidly grounded against it. The piece we can see coming out of it does not connect to it - it literally passes through, and that makes that part of the drawing much less believable.
This car looks really nice. A lot of the details feel more grounded, and while the black lines were pretty much reserved for more of a last minute detail pass, you did draw them with the sort of confidence that maintains structure and solidity.
One thing I notice frequently is the use of curves where they don't feel entirely supported by the sort of boxier scaffolding that precedes it. Basically it's an issue where regardless of what you built up underneath them, you're not really regarding the drawing of the curves as though you're smoothing down those forms - instead the curves feel separate and independent of the actual structure. Take a look at the front of the jeep - notice how those curving lines kinda just do whatever they want, not actually regarding the underlying box?
Anyway, you've gained a lot of ground here, but you've also got some things to work on. Overall you've earned the lesson completion, but feel free to submit more for critique later on.
Abel2TheMoon
2017-12-24 23:50
Here is the HW. Tough lesson, an exercise on patience and control, need to work on a lot of things. To name a few, ellipses of course, initial box construction, and too many unnecessarymarks. I hope I'm progressing well enough I know these things improve over time. Thanks appreciate the feedback. https://m.imgur.com/a/Sr9mG
Uncomfortable
2017-12-25 07:07
Overall I think you are grasping the principles of the lesson quite well, but you're definitely getting too caught up in detail/texture. As far as the construction goes, this tank is definitely very well done, but you have varying levels of quality later on. I believe this is because you allow yourself to focus too much on detail too early, and as a result you distract yourself from really hammering out the construction as well as I know you can.
When it comes to the actual texture though, I also do think that what you're really doing later into the homework set is attempting to shade/render your drawings under the guise of texture. That's why you're using so much hatching and cross-hatching - it doesn't actually reflect the surfaces of your objects, but rather is a sort of lazy catch-all.
The main mistake there is that rather than trying to leverage these tools to render the light and shadow on our object, instead we're using light and shadow as a tool to help communicate important things about our drawing. We leverage shadows to help separate our forms out from each other so they're easier to understand (similarly to how we use line weight). We use the edges of our shadow shapes, and the areas where they transition to light in order to communicate information about the surface textures.
At no point are we just shading for the sake of shading. It's always to some other purpose, and if no other purpose exists, we just don't bother to do that. As long as you think about it in this manner, you're not going to end up in situations where you either use hatching just for the sake of it, or where you attempt to use your pen the way you might use a pencil (by trying to create those sort of value gradients).
Now, I definitely think you're demonstrating a good deal of understanding in regards to construction, but you've kept yourself from properly demonstrating the extent of it. I'd like you to do two more pages of vehicle drawings. This time, do it with a ballpoint pen and use a ruler. Both of these things were allowed in the instructions there, because I want you to focus entirely on the constructions rather than other aspects of drawings we've emphasized in the past. The ruler will help you execute precisely the straight lines you're after, while the ballpoint pen will allow you to be somewhat less heavy-handed with your linework. If you can get your hands on an ellipse guide, that'd be great too - but they're often prohibitively expensive, so don't feel like that's a requirement.
I don't want you to apply any texture or detail whatsoever. Focus entirely on construction and take those solid forms as far towards the likeness of your intended object as you can.
Abel2TheMoon
2017-12-28 07:25
Thanks for the feedback need to drill that advice into my head moving forward. Here are the additional drawings, I tried to show the constructional side of things let me know if its enough. https://m.imgur.com/a/7U0O3
Uncomfortable
2017-12-28 19:11
I'm really glad you included the preliminary stage of that pick-up truck, as it highlighted one major issue with your approach.
You're treating your drawing as though your construction is a plan, and then executing your "real" drawing on top of it. That is, your interpretation of applying line weight essentially involves replacing all of the existing linework. This is not correct, as it results in you drawing your subsequent lines slowly and throwing away a lot of the solidity of your construction.
Line weight should not be applied as though they are new lines - instead, line weight is to be added to certain parts of existing lines (not even the whole length of a line). Line weight is used largely to clarify overlaps and add hierarchy to a drawing. It is not the method by which one adds additional detail.
Give this video a watch. It's a new video I made regarding lesson 2's form intersections, but I explain the issue there as it's not entirely uncommon. I mention the issue around 16 minutes in.
Another thing I noticed was that with the planking that makes up the sort of fence that encloses the back of the pickup, the individual boards do not show any thickness in your construction drawing. You're also not drawing through those forms - you've got them stopping where they are hidden by another form. Drawing through your forms is still important. You are doing it for the most part in other areas, which is good - and overall your constructional drawing is very well done, I just figured it was important to point that out.
I'd like you to do one more page. Start out by doing a front and side proportional study (so you'll have to find something you can see from multiple angles) and really focus on figuring out how all your forms are situated. This should help you keep your proportions together a little bit better.
Then, as you did with the pickup truck, apply the 'measuring in perspective: constructing to scale' technique against your proportional studies. Try and limit your guesswork - notice how the cab of the pickup reaches up to some arbitrary height that has not been defined by earlier measurements/construction? Build out a 3D grid that encloses the entire object and stick to it.
Lastly, use a ballpoint pen for the whole thing as I mentioned in my last critique. You're too tempted otherwise to be heavy handed with your work. I don't want any clean-up passes, just pick and choose where you can apply a little extra line weight to clarify how certain forms overlap.
It'd be great if you could take progress shots as you did this time, though perhaps even more of them. One after every individual pass of the constructional method, so I can get a fuller sense of how you're going about it.
Abel2TheMoon
2017-12-29 08:06
Thank you so many realizations, I'm glad we're getting to the bottom of these issues. I forgot to take more than two progress shots but I hope you can see that I'm building this using the construction to scale method. All in ballpoint with no details. I didn't emphasize any lines yet, when you have the time can you do a quick drawthrough, where would you emphasize the lines? Appreciate it. https://m.imgur.com/a/AH2Af
Similar to reference (original lost on pinterest) https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/dd/2d/79dd2dbc5d90f6552863acec987a32fc.jpg
Uncomfortable
2017-12-31 01:35
Sorry, I must have missed this when you posted it yesterday. Thanks for the reminder.
This construction is looking considerably better than before - you're paying far more attention to your forms, and how everything sits in 3D space, and are not getting noticeably caught up in detail in a way that undermines the overall construction. The only issue I'm noticing is just that your wheels have no visible tires - you've got the outer most ellipse defining the wheel, but then your next ellipse is tucked inside, so it looks like there's no thickness.
I demonstrate what I mean here. In the same image, I threw some quick additional line weights in and simple shadow shapes to help separate out your major forms. Remember that the focus here is to separate things out - you've got a lot of linework, so some simple, subtle additional weight to sections of certain lines (largely to clarify where one form overlaps another) and blocking in certain areas with solid black to accentuate the forms next to them will go a long way. Don't go overboard with this.
Abel2TheMoon
2017-12-31 17:32
Okay here you go let me know what you think. I will incorporate the form intersection exercises regularly as that seems like something worthwhile to practice while thinking of blocking out major forms, thanks.
https://m.imgur.com/a/tuPOk
Uncomfortable
2018-01-02 02:28
It really looks to me like you're adding your line weight with a very thick pen or marker, and as such have limited control over the weight of the lines you're drawing. As a result, your weights are not subtle.
I actually mentioned when I asked for the extra drawing for you to use only a ballpoint pen. To add line weight with that, not to resort to a different tool. What kind of marker are you using here?
Abel2TheMoon
2018-01-02 15:27
This was a brush pen, which in hindsight I know should only be used for solid black areas, I messed that up. Also what do you think of the areas I chose to highlight. With the ballpoint pen would you add line weight by going over it once and leave it alone or go over the line (not necessarily the whole line) a couple times for thicker areas? Thanks.
Uncomfortable
2018-01-02 18:01
For the most part the areas you chose to highlight were fine, except for maybe areas like the sun-roof where you but a fairly equal amount of weight around the entire opening. I do agree with adding more weight to the entire thing, but I'd put just a little bit more on one side over the other (to show dynamism, similarly to how I discuss line weight in the notes on the 250 box challenge page).
As for how to do it, I'd add weight by going over an existing mark one, or even a few times to build up weight as needed. BE SUBTLE. You don't need your weights to be shouting at the viewer. The weights are something that speak to the viewer's subconscious, not their waking mind, so it only barely has to be noticeable.
I'd like you to try one more drawing, and put that brush pen away.
aloneinthedork
2018-02-16 12:38
Hi Uncomfortable, here's my homework for this lesson: https://imgur.com/a/cB2aV
I feel like it finally "clicked" when I got to the car. Though I'm not really happy with the smart car that came after it... that thing had a lot more curved shapes that I realized.
Thanks for the feedback as always!
Uncomfortable
2018-02-17 02:04
Nice work! Your boxier constructions are generally very successful and convey a strong sense of solidity. Where things start to get curvier is where some of your remaining weaknesses become more apparent, though it's a fairly normal issue. When it comes to moving from your boxes/planar constructions to rounding out your curves, you're straying too far from those bounds and end up with curves that feel less grounded and more arbitrary, which in turn weakens the resulting forms.
Here's an explanation of what I mean. Basically you'll want to adhere more closely to your boxier constructions, or break those edges down more to create intermediate steps. I'd like you to do two more pages of drawings with curvier objects - cars are definitely a great choice for that sort of thing.
aloneinthedork
2018-02-18 22:46
Okay, here we go: https://imgur.com/a/jlW0W
I clearly screwed up the proportions on the first one real bad. Sorry about that. By the time I realized that was waaay too wide I just had to roll with it. I did try to keep all you said in mind thoughout, though.
I think the front of cars is absolutely the hardest thing for me so far. By the time I can get around to subdividing it into smaller forms there are some many lines in the way that I lose track of what I'm trying to construct. And they're always so rounded and weird! What's with the shape of those lights!? No amount of construction lines seems to help me there. I kind of wish cars were still all old-school blocky...
Thanks as always!
Uncomfortable
2018-02-20 00:20
These are vastly better. The sense of solidity is much more present in these constructions. As far as the proportions go, I'm glad you stuck with it and plowed on ahead.
I do have one piece of criticism to offer however - ease up on that line weight, you're applying it way too heavily. Weight should be subtle - it doesn't need to make the entire object pop out of your construction lines. Furthermore, you don't want to get caught up in trying to add those additional marks slowly, trying too hard to match up with whatever you're adding weight to. This will make your lines stiffen up, and that's the worst.
In the lesson 2 form intersections video (there weren't any videos for those things back when you completed the lesson), I explain that line weight should be applied to certain localities - not to replace or clean up existing lines, but to emphasize them in key areas, most often overlaps to show which line runs in front, and which one gets tucked behind.
In general, I'd recommend drawing the entire thing with one pen - in your case, the ballpoint you used for the construction. Going over with a completely different pen results in a disconnect and an imbalance.
Anyway, you've done great. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching lessons. As for those headlights, it's true - they can be tough. Your second car's were definitely better, but in general I think it's still a matter of sticking to those straight lines as much as you can, and understanding how you're carving that headlight into the form. The headlight has to be grounded like part of a 3D puzzle that fits together to make a car. If you stick it on like a sticker, it won't feel solid or three dimensional. This is actually very similar to how we construct the heads of animals, for which there is also a new video.
Keep up the good work, and be sure to keep on top of this! Drawabox is only meant to send you in the right direction. It's now up to you to put the mileage in.
aloneinthedork
2018-02-20 11:18
Woo! Guess I'll celebrate by drawing a few boxes for the box god.
I definitely plan to come back and do the texture challenge (and advanced lessons, eventually!) but I want to get into figure drawing first. I know about Prokopenko of course, but do you have any other recommendations?
Uncomfortable
2018-02-20 14:32
I'm honestly not well versed in what's out there. I've vaguely seen Michael Hampton's books to be pretty good, if a bit complicated at first. I learned most of what I know from a class I took under Kevin Chen, so I didn't end up using any of the books/tutorials that are available. I always mean to try them out just so my recommendations can be more than second-hand, but as you can imagine I don't have a whole lot of time :P
aloneinthedork
2018-02-20 23:43
Well, I'll start with Proko tomorrow and see how things go from there. Thanks for everything!
Carlton_Honeycomb
2018-03-18 18:30
Howdy Uncomfortable...I've put a lot of hours into this lesson, both in learning and drawing. I feel like proper vehicle drawing will take quite some time to continue to refine, but recently it's been clicking more and more, and I'm understanding more of the construction techniques. While I'm not exactly proud of some of these, I'm still seeing progress, and I think learning and grasping what's intended from this lesson. I plan to work on vehicles for a lot longer, but I wanted to submit my work now to get a feel for stuff to work on moving forward. As always, thank you for what you do, and I look forward to your feedback. Here's my Lesson 7 Submission.
Uncomfortable
2018-03-20 00:37
Overall you're demonstrating a good grasp of form, and you've got a handful of quite successful drawings here, like your various abstract form studies, this tank (minus the turret) and this mini cooper.
A lot of your other constructions do have merits as well, but for the most part they suffer from a considerable amount of sloppiness. I'd say the mini was the only drawing where you really buckled down properly and went through all of the appropriate steps of constructions. In other cases you had verticals that were visibly slanted relative to your horizon line (leading to a skewed look).
You also have a tendency to draw enclosing boxes that are larger (usually vertically) than the actual vehicle you intend to draw, resulting in a vehicle that does not fit snugly into any vertical confines, somewhat defeating the purpose of the technique.
I'm not sure if you were aware, but in this lesson, you are fully allowed to use a ruler when drawing your lines. It's mentioned near the beginning of the lesson.
I'd also like to point out that your use of hatching is extremely haphazard, and tends to make your drawings look very messy. The moment you get scribbly with your hatching, your drawing will look rushed and frantic, and the sense of solidity and structure will fall away. You should also not be colouring in things that are darker in terms of their local colour. Imagine that everything in your subject matter is solid white.
Now, I do want to mention again - your last drawing is really quite good. I'd like to see you do another three pages of vehicle drawings, approaching them all exactly as you have done with the mini cooper. Strive to be more controlled in the use of your lines (don't go reinforcing lines automatically, that's a bad habit you should have shed earlier on in the lessons - you should be applying the ghosting method whenever drawing freehand, which means thinking before every individual stroke).
Carlton_Honeycomb
2018-03-20 00:47
I shed a lot slop in lessons 4-6 but this lesson I felt the slop creeping up. The Mini Cooper construction felt right doing it, I took my time. Ill buckle down, watch my slop, watch my hatch, and return with three cleaner, constructed vehicles. Thanks for the critique.
Carlton_Honeycomb
2018-03-30 02:07
Alright I took your suggestions into consideration, and I have an additional 9 studies to present for critique. As always, thank you.
Uncomfortable
2018-03-31 00:40
You've got some really nice, conscientious constructions here - like your mercury cougar. That's definitely what I'm after, although you've got to watch your core boxes for slants and inconsistencies. The cougar's suffering quite a bit from skewed horizontals and slanted verticals as shown here.
In your last page, you mentioned that you were pleased with the fact that the drawing was cleaner than your others, and that this is what you'd been focusing on. While it's certainly true that it is cleaner, that is not what you should be investing time or effort into. While we want to ensure that we do not waste linework, we do not want to attempt to hide the lines that we do draw. Worrying about this will only cause you to split your attention and distract yourself. You'll end up inclined to skip important lines (in order to keep your drawing tidy), and that's how you end up with misaligned constructions. Your earlier, more conscientious constructions are far better and are exactly what you should be doing - just with a little more care for your initial boxes and such.
On that same vein, watch your ellipses - you're visibly holding yourself back with them in order to keep them cleaner. They are admittedly very tricky, so in all likelihood they're going to be a bit of a hassle, but allowing them to come out clean-but-uneven isn't going to teach you much about drawing them.
Another thing I noticed is that in your tank, you don't seem to have constructed the turret of the cylinder around a minor axis line. .. Actually, you don't seem to be using a minor axis for any of your wheels, at least that I can see.
For some reason, I really, really like your first two pages. The first two datsun drawings are a bit rough around the edges, but they're really quite charming. You've captured the feel of the car quite nicely and unlike the third page, your hatching was limited to the cast shadow shapes and silhouettes (as opposed to trying to shade with it). The construction feels more solid, and the ellipses in your wheels are considerably more confident and even.
I've mentioned a lot here, so take some time to absorb it. Try another four pages, and try to work more on starting from a single box and subdividing it rather than stacking multiple boxes. This method seems to work better for the way you think.
Carlton_Honeycomb
2018-04-03 20:34
cracks knuckles
OK - I have probably said it before, but I feel like I'm getting this. You are right, starting with a box and subdividing makes sense to me. I can establish perspective right off the bat, and break it down from there. If I had to chose 4 of my 7 new vehicles, I would submit this one, this one, this one, and this one...but here's the album because I've been putting in work.
Uncomfortable
2018-04-03 23:55
It took a few tries, but I think you've finally gotten it. These drawings are just the kind of conscientious application of subdivision and construction that I was looking for. It was peeking through in some areas before, but now this is a proper collection of it.
So with that, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching lessons!
svendogee
2018-03-29 15:28
https://imgur.com/a/aEf0v
Question: you say things along the lines of rendering light and shadow is a crutch to not understanding construction proper form. If I wanted to take things like this from line drawing to...whatever is next. Is the term rendering? How do I go about it? Or is it the same thing: light and shadow, just I happen to know to construct proper forms?
Anyways, thank you
Uncomfortable
2018-03-30 21:15
You've made a considerable amount of improvement over this set. When you started out, you had some individual components down reasonably well on their own (for example, the front wheel on your tvr griffith came out really nicely, but as you push farther to the back, your proportions start to fall apart). By your third page, the structure and proportion certainly improves (going with a less dramatic angle was definitely a good call), though the back wheel well comes out a bit strange, as does the front wheel.
Now, I think your biggest jump is when you hit this beauty. There doesn't seem to be an iota of guesswork here - you've laid it all out and applied the construction and measurement techniques to great effect. The body of the vehicle, especially towards the front, feels very solid and convincing.
I do have mixed feelings about using different tools (mixing ballpoint and felt tip), for a couple reasons. Firstly, we get caught in the trap of drawing too carefully when we try to go over an existing mark to totally replace its linework. So when we go over with a felt tip pen, we naturally have to replace everything, which puts us at great risk of getting wobbly and undermining the solidity of our forms.
As far as that goes, this attempt didn't suffer from this problem in the slightest. Your linework is confident and smooth, so fantastic work there.
The other reason is that there's a certain pleasantness to the subtle separation of object from construction - when we only have to worry about adding a bit of line weight here and there to clarify line weight and draw the eye to the right places, the drawing gently emerges from the construction lines. But that's really just a matter of opinion, but for that reason I really like the version of the drawing that was ballpoint only.
As you moved into other subject matter - like that helicopter - you definitely demonstrated your overall grasp of the material. The motorcycles seemed a bit strange (I think it was mostly the wheel, but also perhaps the length of the overall thing, but I could be wrong). Your more fictional vehicles were a pleasure to look at as well. The B wing shows a fantastic focus on construction.
So, all in all, you've done an excellent job. It fills me with pride to see how you've taken to these geometric objects. You did a pretty good job with the everyday objects in the last lesson, but it's clear that you've grown considerably even since then. I'm hoping that you'll be able to take some of the principles you've learned here from these less-than-forgiving topics and apply them back with your animals. Many find that once they've been forced through the grueling gauntlet of vehicles, they're able to look at organic matter in an entirely different way.
Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching lesson set! You should feel proud of yourself, you certainly deserve it.
Uncomfortable
2018-03-30 21:47
Sorry about forgetting your question.
Rendering is essentially about two things. Firstly, knowing where your light source(s) are, and secondly understanding the nature of the texture of the various surfaces. Given that you understand how these objects relate to one another in 3D space, understanding where your light source is should be enough to grasp how the basics of how light travels around your scene - in other words, it's enough to tell you which faces will be in shadow and which will be lit. Understanding how light bounces is something you'll grasp by doing a good deal of studies, from life and from photo reference.
As far as texture goes, it would probably be a good idea to give the texture challenge a try, as it moves into the territory of light, though still in a rather harsh, full-dark vs. full-light kind of way. It does get you thinking about light sources a little bit though.
Once you've moved beyond that, black and white digital painting studies would be next, then moving into colour.