Uncomfortable

2018-04-24 15:31

Hey, I was just glancing at your work as I added it to my backlog and noticed that there are a a few pages that show "Whoops! There was a problem loading this page."

If you can't get that sorted out, imgur.com is also a good place to host your homework.

Uncomfortable

2018-04-26 20:38

Great work! Overall you're doing very well. Your lines are confidently executed, resulting in smooth, straight lines and evenly shaped ellipses. Your boxes also demonstrate a really nice grasp of 3D space.

There's always going to be room for growth and improvement - a lot of the issues you noticed yourself were of that sort, in that I fully expect them to be there. Struggling with the curved super imposed lines for instance, or your ghosted lines not being 100% accurate (overshooting/undershooting your end point), working on tightening up your ellipses, and so on. These are normal, and while being aware of them is important, they're the sort of thing that just need additional practice over a longer period of time.

The issues I'm going to point out - of which there are only a couple - are going to be the sort of thing that present a more consistent pattern that needs adjustment.

• In your funnels, you remarked upon this yourself, but I did see a pretty strong tendency to slant your ellipses a little bit, which resulted in them falling out of alignment. This wasn't so much something that happened near the end as you mentioned yourself (though it may have been more prevalent towards the ends) but rather it was a pretty consistent trend that the ellipses were at least a little off each time. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

• Your rough perspective boxes are overall really well done. Just the slightest thing that I noticed - keep an eye on your horizontals. I see cases where they're slightly off from running parallel to the horizon. It's slight enough that I'm not sure if I should have mentioned it - but in cases like this I always err on the side of pointing those things out.

• For your rotated boxes, excellent work for the main central axes. Towards the corners, the rotations taper off a little bit, so they end up less rotated than they ought to be. Again, just something else to keep an eye on. Overall this exercise is meant to be very challenging, and I expect most students to fare considerably worse. You've demonstrated that you've already got a well developed grasp of 3D space, and while there will be more work to solidify it, it's coming along great. I'm also very pleased to see that you kept the gaps between your boxes nice and tight, allowing you to leverage neighbouring boxes and edges when making decisions regarding the next lines you have to draw (that is, pulling information about the space you're drawing in from the forms already present within it, rather than always having to think back to far-off vanishing points).

• Your organic perspective boxes were really well done. I don't have any actual issues to remark upon here, but rather just a congratulations to offer. Like the previous exercise, this one was assigned with the expectation of students to mess up. I also purposely neglect to tell students to draw through their boxes, so they'll appreciate the technique more when it's actually introduced. That you applied this anyway shows a careful absorption of the material not only here, but also further on.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'm not going to assign the 250 box challenge, and allow you to move directly onto lesson 2 if that's what you'd like to do. I do however recommend that you go through the notes on the 250 box challenge page and do a bit of them for yourself - specifically so you can apply the line extension method explained in the how to draw a box video. This will allow you to identify all kinds of problems that may otherwise remain hidden, and will generally help refine your skills and understanding of space.

You're certainly welcome to do the whole 250 box challenge if that's what you'd like to do (and it certainly would be beneficial). I'm simply not making it a requirement, as you've demonstrated a strong enough understanding of that material to move right onto lesson 2. Keep up the great work.

Uncomfortable

2018-04-26 20:49

Very nice work! I do have a couple things to point out that should help over all, but you're doing very well.

One thing I noticed is that you are straddling the fence between having really confident, smooth linework, and slowing down a little (resulting in a bit of stiffness and wobbling). Your super imposed lines are great. Your ghosted lines exercise end up showing a little more hesitation - but once you hit the planes exercise, you go back to nailing it again.

With your ellipses in general, I think you could stand to push the confidence a little harder. They're pretty well done, but there's a little bit of hesitation there that results in the lines getting a little stiff. It's totally expected that this adjustment will throw your accuracy off a little at first, but accept that as a necessary sacrifice - and one that itself will be corrected with practice and development of your muscle memory.

Jumping into the boxes, these have generally been successful. One thing I want to advise you against is the use of dashed/dotted/broken lines. In the particular situation where you used them, it's a non-issue since that exercise uses a ruler. That said, anywhere that you might freehand broken lines, you're asking for trouble. Reason being, every time a line breaks, its flow also breaks and when you resume it, there's a high likelihood that your trajectory has shifted slightly. Do this enough times and you can no longer really trust the mark you've drawn. Solid lines are far more reliable, so stick to those.

The inaccuracy you identified from the rough perspective boxes is totally normal. Everyone experiences that, and it's usually quite shocking. That's really the point of the exercise, and by identifying those by extending the line back, you can start compensating for it every time you attempt the exercise.

Fantastic work with your rotated boxes. I'm very pleased with how you kept all the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent, as this helped keep things structured and generally helped inform your decisions quite well.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes definitely need work. I assigned this exercise here with the full expectation that most students would struggle with these quite a bit, as it's the first time you're really being asked to rotate boxes freely in 3D space without ever really being instructed on how to do so. The taste of failure is important, but the exercise also has great value in forcing you to think a little differently about how things can be rotated. We'll work more on this next, and I'll show you some techniques you can use to help with the construction and to check your work after the fact.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Your next step will be the 250 box challenge. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that page and watch the video linked there before you start the work. You should find that with drawing through your boxes and focusing on which lines should run parallel to one another (in 3D space, and therefore converge towards the same location) will help quite a bit.

Keep up the great work.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-01 20:44

Overall you're doing pretty well, though there are a few things worth mentioning.

• Your lines section, across the board, is pretty solid. Your marks are confident and smooth, and there isn't much in the way of wobbling or stiffness. You've got that flow going nicely, so that's great.

• Your ellipses are pretty well done, though earlier on you were definitely tending towards losing control of those ellipses a bit. That is, they were loose enough that the intended ellipse you were trying to draw was getting lost. As you progressed, things got better, and they started to tighten up without losing the wonderful confidence of your stroke. Keep working on that, but I'm pleased to say that your progress was in the right direction.

• For the funnels, watch the alignment of your ellipses. You tend to have them slanting slightly - the central minor axis should be cutting each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down their narrower dimension.

• I think your linework starts to get a bit sloppy in your rough perspective boxes. Most importantly, remember that each line in one point perspective will follow one of three possible behaviours. Either the line will go off towards the vanishing point, or it'll run parallel to the horizon line, or it'll run perpendicular to it. You've got a lot of lines that seem to be more guesswork than driven by intent. I explain this further in these notes

• In your rotated boxes, you definitely lose track of the ghosting method and end up with a lot of hairy, heavily reinforced lines. This is a habit you need to steer clear of. Every mark you put down should be planned and prepared for beforehand without exception - no drawing by reflex. You did however get the rotations fairly well, so that's good, and I'm glad to see that you kept the gaps between your boxes narrow, allowing you to look at neighbouring forms and edges to help inform your decisions when drawing new lines.

• You're making a good start with your organic perspective boxes. There's definitely room for growth, but your work here is about where I'd expect it to be. The intention here is more to push students to think differently about how to rotate forms in 3D space, and on that front you're doing great.

Now, at this point I'd mark the lesson as complete (which I certainly will) - but generally the next step I'd assign would be to move onto the 250 box challenge to help better develop your grasp of form and 3D space. Since you've already completed lesson 2, I'll go ahead and critique that, but you should still tackle the 250 box challenge. It's time consuming and rather tedious, but it's well worth the repeated cycle of constructing forms, checking for errors using the line extension technique, and constructing more.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-02 20:46

Pretty nice work overall! You've got a lot of confidence to your linework, which results in some nice, smooth strokes and no sign of hesitation, which is excellent.

With your ellipses, you'll definitely want to keep working on tightening things up, but you're definitely showing that you've got your priorities in order (again, a matter of confidence/flow over accuracy). Since you do have that confidence in spades, it's definitely time to work towards improving control. But special emphasis on how you ghost your lines and ellipses, as this is what will allow you to improve that accuracy while maintaining your flow.

Your rough perspective boxes are pretty well done, though I did catch a few lines that were slanting at times. Remember that you want those horizontals to run parallel to the horizon line at all times. It's understandable that you might miss a few, but I believe what I'm seeing there comes more from not putting as much emphasis on preparation before making the mark.

You certainly made a solid effort at the rotated boxes - it needs a lot of work, but that's really expected. I am pleased to see that for the most part you did try to keep the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent (as instructed in the lesson). I think what still caused you trouble however was similar to your rough perspective boxes - when lines should have been parallel to one of the axes, they still ended up slanted, so it's these issues with your execution that made everything else weaken along the way. As with before, the ghosting method is really the cure here, and taking the time to prepare properly before each stroke.

Your organic perspective boxes similarly have lots of room for improvement, and once again that's intentional. I've dumped you into the challenge or rotating boxes freely in 3D space without actually explaining how to tackle that. This is largely so students would be forced to think about rotating forms differently.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I want you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that challenge page and watch the video before starting the work. Along with being an opportunity to improve your grasp of freely rotated forms, and 3D space in general, it's also an opportunity to work on your line control, and the use of the ghosting method.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-02 16:24

Looks like you forgot to include a link to your work! I've recorded this post in my homework backlog, so just be sure to fix the missing link and I'll get to critiquing it later today.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-02 20:49

Looking great so far! Your linework is extremely confident, and there's no sign of hesitation. This shows me that your priorities are in order, as you're focusing on nailing the smooth flow of your lines before concerning yourself with accuracy. This is spot on, as accuracy will improve with practice, but flow is a matter of approach.

Remember that homework submissions should include the entirety of a lesson's assigned work, so in this case that means lines, ellipses and boxes. Also, imgur allows you to create albums, which can be very handy when getting your work together.

You're on the right track, so keep at it. I look forward to seeing your full submission - and when you do submit it, go ahead and include these pages as well.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-06 21:59

Your lines section is really quite well done. You've got a lot of confidence to your strokes, and you're primarily focusing on the flow of those lines over your accuracy, which is definitely key to executing smooth marks. So keep up the great work there.

For the most part, your ellipses follow the same trend, with confident execution leading to evenly shaped ellipses. There are some minor points I should mention though. If you look at this page, we can see that you're not focusing too much in some of these rows on having the ellipses fit snugly within their intended spaces. Some are well done, but you've got rows where the ellipses are floating a bit more arbitrarily within the space they're given. When doing this exercise, always set out a space in which they are to be contained. This allows you to assess whether or not you actually drew the ellipse you were after or not.

Also, a couple things about your funnels. A lot of your funnels have the sides inverted (so they're narrow towards the ends and wide towards the middle). I strongly insist that you don't deviate from the instructions of the given exercise, and just stick to the exercises I've assigned (in this case, having the funnel get narrow towards the center and wide towards the ends).

Additionally, remember that in the instructions I mentioned that the degree of your ellipses should change throughout the funnel, being very low/narrow towards the center, and wider/more circular towards the ends.

Overall you're doing well in this section, just be more mindful of the instructions of each exercise.

One thing I noticed in your boxes section is that your adherence to the methods covered in the first section (mainly the ghosting method) tends to waver. For example, there's a good deal of chicken scratching visible in your rotated boxes, and some in your organic perspective boxes. It's very important that you get used to applying the ghosting method to every single mark you put down.

It's actually pretty common to see students who really nail the lines section, but when it comes to the boxes, the linework weakens somewhat. They tend to start seeing each exercise as being broken up into "units" of time or effort. In the lines section, each unit corresponds to a single line. In the boxes section however, the same unit of time is then applied to a whole box (which consists of several lines). It's important to remind yourself that regardless of what it is you're drawing, you need to pay the same amount of attention and care to each individual mark you're putting down.

Your rough perspective boxes are generally fairly well done, though a couple things here:

• Watch your horizontals and verticals. Remember that the horizontals need to be running parallel to the horizon line, and the verticals need to be running perpendicular to it. It's easy to end up with a bit of slanting here and there, so just keep an eye on it.

• In regards to the correction method, I'm glad you did apply it in some places, but you really should be doing so to all of those boxes, not just a couple. Furthermore, what you did is not exactly what was instructed - rather than drawing the line from your point to the vanishing point, I want you to just extend the lines you've drawn up to where they intersect with the horizon, as shown here. By looking at the distance between those intersection points and the vanishing point, you can get a more concrete sense of how far off your estimation of perspective was.

Onto your rotated boxes - here, you missed a pretty important part of the exercise. That is, drawing through your boxes. In the instructions, I mention the importance of drawing all of the lines that make up each box, including those on the far side of each form. This helps us to better understand how each box sits in 3D space, and how that changes as the boxes rotate in space. It's key to this exercise.

I am pleased however that for the most part, you tried to keep the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent - this is quite helpful in keeping the exercise structured.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes were a decent attempt. There are certainly plenty of issues we'll deal with, but this is completely normal and expected at this point. That goes for both this exercise as well as the rotated boxes - I assigned these now in order to push students to think differently about how forms can be rotated in space, and have no expectation of perfection, or even success.

Now, while there are definitely issues, you should be ready to move onto the next step, so I'll mark this lesson as complete. Next I want you to move onto the 250 box challenge. Be sure to read through the notes on that page and watch the video linked there before starting the work. Follow the instructions to the letter, and don't stray from them. Apply the ghosting method to every single mark you put down, and upon the completion of each full page of boxes, go back and apply the line-extension method explained in the video to identify where you tend to go wrong.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-07 00:35

Based on my records, patreon's been unable to charge you since the month of January 2018, which includes the last month in which you received a critique. I saw that you'd deleted your pledge earlier today, and then repledged just before posting this homework submission.

The unpaid month aside, I'm sure you can understand that I'm not sure if your charge will be declined at the end of this month as well. This is the downside of offering to do critiques up-front, as I have to rely on the student to hold up their end of the bargain at the end of the month.

So, you have a couple options:

• You can wait until next month, by which time we'll be able to tell whether or not your pledge is going to go through

• You can cancel your current pledge and utilize the free homework critiques (by posting your work directly to the subreddit).

Uncomfortable

2018-05-08 00:49

Overall you're doing a pretty solid job. There are some issues, but as a whole you've demonstrated a good grasp of the material from this lesson. Here are a few things I observed:

• In your super imposed lines exercise, it's quite clear that you were a bit too focused on nailing your guideline very closely, and as a result your line wavered back and forth, instead of being smooth and consistent (and perhaps less accurate). As discussed here, we want the opposite.

• For the most part, you got the ghosted lines exercise correct in this regard. You focused more on being confident and smooth with your execution, while applying the repeated ghosting allowed you to maintain most of your accuracy. Good work here.

• In your planes, it was a bit of a mixed bag. You've got a lot of confident marks, but you also have some that show a considerable amount of hesitation. There are definitely many more that were well done however. It's also understandable that the extra-large ones wavered. You'll work up to those with a fair bit of practice, and it's important to give them a shot, but I'm glad that overall you had a pretty good balance of lengths.

• Overall your ellipses were fairly well done. The same principles apply, where confidence leads to a smooth, even shape. For the most part, you didn't hesitate too much, and were able to draw your ellipses well. You did get a bit stiffer when you started putting the ellipses in planes, but all things considered you still focused on the right priorities.

• For your funnels, I do think you'll want to focus a little more on keeping them correctly aligned with that central minor axis line, so it cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves. It does look like you were aware of this, but perhaps haven't yet developed enough control of your arm to get close enough to the ellipse you want. This of course will improve with practice.

• Solid work with the plotted perspective boxes.

• Your rough perspective boxes are well done, and I'm glad to see that you applied the double checking method. Your line quality isn't quite as good as your ghosted lines exercise though, possibly because you applied a little less time to each mark, thinking about the box as a whole, rather than focusing on the integrity of each individual component. Try and give yourself the opportunity to create each mark to the best of your ability, and set aside thoughts of the overall form you're trying to achieve.

• Nice work with the rotated boxes - I can see that you heeded my advice about keeping the gaps between your boxes narrow, which helped with your estimation of your angles, and also kept everything well structured. I noted that you decided not to draw the corner boxes - most people find these to be the most difficult, but all the more reason to tough it out and put them in. Even if it "ruins" the rest of your efforts. At the end of the day, each one of these are just exercises. The only way to ruin it is to neglect to take full advantage of the opportunities to learn that it affords.

• With your organic perspective boxes, you're demonstrating a well developing sense of 3D space. There is definitely room for growth here, but you're doing a little better than I would have expected from a student at this stage, on this front.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next to help you solidify what you've already demonstrated here in regards to your understanding of how forms can be rotated in 3D space. Be sure to read through the notes and watch the video linked there on that challenge page. The points about drawing through your forms, and the technique demonstrated in regards to checking for mistakes by extending your lines towards their implied vanishing points will be very helpful as you continue to progress and grow.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-08 00:59

Great work overall! Your lines section was very confidently done, and you're applying the concepts discussed in the lesson quite well. There's no real signs of hesitation, and while your accuracy will improve with time, your approach is spot on for producing smooth, consistent marks.

Your ellipses are almost showing the same strengths, though there's just a little bit of hesitation in them that causes them to stiffen up. The same principle applies - ghosting for precision, followed by a confident execution results on a smooth, evenly shaped ellipse. Yours are almost there, but in many of the cases I can see slight inconsistencies where the curvature of your ellipses accelerates or slows down, resulting in a shape that appears a little less than even.

This however improves over the set, and by the time you hit the funnels, you're drawing them with a considerably higher degree of confidence.

Your boxes were pretty solid as well. In your plotted perspective, I noticed that you experimented a little with boxes that fell outside of your two vanishing points, resulting in all kinds of weirdness. This is totally normal - as a box falls out of the circle defined by the two vanishing points (imagine the space in between being the diameter of a circle), you start to get hit by severe distortion.

Your rough perspective boxes are looking good, but watch your horizontals and verticals. Remember that the horizontals need to run parallel to the horizon and your verticals need to run perpendicular to it. You've got a bit of slantyness here and there. (that all assumes the boxes run parallel to the ground plane, which in this exercise, they all do).

Very nice work with the rotated boxes - you've done an excellent job of keeping everything structured and consistent, and have shown a solid sense of 3D space.

When it comes to rotating those forms a little more arbitrarily, as shown in the organic perspective boxes, you've definitely got some room for improvement - but this is totally normal and expected. This exercise is intentionally challenging, and is really only there to force students to think a little differently about how forms sit in space. The rotated boxes was similarly challenging, but you definitely nailed that one.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video linked on that challenge page before starting the work.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-08 01:16

You've actually done a pretty solid job here. I do have a few things to point out, but you're barreling down the right track.

There's only really one issue that's worth mentioning, but it shows up in a few places. Strangely enough however, it doesn't show up everywhere. It has to do with how you're drawing your lines. If you look at your first page of super imposed lines, those marks are smooth and confident. They're not 100% accurate, but when they take off, they maintain a consistent trajectory with no wobbles or bumps.

On the second page however, it's the opposite. They're extremely accurate, but they're a little wobbly and bumpy, where you've allowed your brain to course-correct as you go, rather than trusting in your arm to do what it does best.

The first page is considerably better than the second, because it shows the priorities (flow vs accuracy) in the correct order. Both are important, but a confident execution with no hesitation will always be key. Accuracy will improve with practice, and with the use of the ghosting method, but that confidence comes from how you approach the problem. And you're demonstrating a pretty good grasp of this with your ghosted lines and planes exercises, where you're achieving a pretty good degree of both accuracy and flow.

Going down into your ellipses, you're definitely visibly hesitant here, so you slow down and hesitate when you execute them. As a result, you break the shape sometimes (usually in very small ways, but sometimes more noticeably) to better fit within the spaces you have. Always remember that your brain should only play a role when you're preparing with the ghosting method. Once you execute, your arm has received its marching orders, and should execute them with - you guessed it - confidence.

Your plotted and rough perspective boxes are quite solid. Your rotated boxes are good as far as keeping them consistently together in a structured manner, although you're not quite achieving the full range of rotation. This is a pretty common issue where our brain tricks us to think we've rotated forms more than we actually have (since our brain prefers things to exist on a grid). If you actually were to extend the lines of the outermost boxes and their neighbours, you'd actually find that they were pretty close to converging towards the same vanishing point - meaning the two outermost layers of your boxes are more or less running parallel with one another.

The trick would be to really exaggerate the rotation of those outermost boxes, bringing one vanishing point even closer to the box itself, as it slides along its axis, making that convergence more dramatic.

Your organic perspective boxes are far better than I would have expected from a student at this stage. You're demonstrating a pretty solid grasp of 3D space, and I'm very pleased to see that you drew each box even where it was blocked by its neighbours.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I require most students to complete the 250 box challenge. For you, I'm going to leave that as optional (though I would like you to at least read through those notes and watch the video there, as it discusses a few useful techniques). You may feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-08 02:07

While there are a few issues, the biggest ones (which we'll touch on in a bit) are very clearly a matter of misunderstanding, rather than an problem with your skill level.

Starting with the lines section, you're pretty much spot on here. You're clearly prioritizing flow above accuracy, which is exactly right. The result is that your lines are smooth and consistent. They may be a little off the mark, but that's entirely normal and expected. It'll also improve with practice and time.

The same carries forward into your ellipses, which due to their confident execution, are very smooth and evenly shaped. I did notice that you tend to draw through them a little bit too much - the instructions mention to stick to 2-3 full rounds of the ellipse, but 2 is really best. More than that and you start losing track of the ellipse you're actually trying to draw.

For the most part your plotted perspective boxes are on point. There are a few here and there where you go a bit awry (possibly experimenting, or something else, but most have all their lines going back to their vanishing points.

One of those where things are off can be seen in the bottom right of the middle set on this page (I can see that the page is upside down, but I'm going to refer to the orientation as I see it in the photograph). You can see that top edge of that box's grey face doesn't go off towards any of the vanishing points. There's plenty of that kind of weirdness on the bottom set of this page.

All of these issues tend to come from cases where you start guessing things. The important thing to remember when dealing with perspective where you've got actual vanishing points marked on the page, is that there's generally no guesswork.

Everything has a specific behaviour, and follows some clear rule. If you're unsure of how a line should behave, you can step back and think about those limited sets of possible behaviours and determine how you should draw the line from there.

And that leads us into the real strangeness in this submission - the rough perspective boxes. For the most part, it does not appear as though you're actually drawing these boxes with consideration for the vanishing point itself.

Your linework, and even the construction of the boxes themselves (if you ignore the fact that none of them are actually aiming towards the same vanishing point) are all fairly decent, so this suggests to me that you went into the exercise without fully understanding what was being asked of you.

Give these notes a read. There I detail the three major behaviours lines in this exercise will adhere to. I also recommend that you rewatch the video for this exercise.

Your rotated boxes are decent, and your organic perspective boxes are as well. They both have plenty of room for improvement, but they're exactly where I'd expect them to be for this lesson. They show that you followed the instructions to the best of your ability, and set out on the right path to think through the rotation of forms in 3D space.

We'll work more to really solidify your grasp of these concepts in a bit (by working through the 250 box challenge once I mark this lesson as complete), but first I want you to redo the rough perspective boxes exercise. First reread the notes and rewatch the video I linked above, then give it another shot and submit that portion again.

Assuming you've followed the instructions without any confusion, I'll mark the lesson as complete then, and you'll be able to move onto the 250 box challenge.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-08 22:41

I'll go through your homework section by section.

To start with, your lines section is quite well done. You've got a lot of confidence to your execution, which helps to ensure that your marks are smooth and consistent, with no visible wobbling or hesitation. As far as the first priority goes, you've nailed it by focusing on flow over accuracy.

Both are of course important however - so your next step will be to try and try to increase the amount of control you exhibit over your marks, while maintaining that smooth execution. In your ghosted lines and planes exercises, we can see areas where your lines sometimes fall short of their target (resulting in a gap between the end of the line and the intended endpoint. This is the sort of thing you'll want to work on improving, ensuring that you're achieving a confident, smooth, straight line that goes from the start point to the end point without undershooting or overshooting. You are certainly heading in the right direction though, so keep that up.

In your ellipses, you're showing the same kind of confidence, but your control definitely suffers in certain areas, especially the funnels and the ellipses in planes exercise.

• For the funnels, your work's a bit sloppy. Remember that each ellipse should be treating the line that cuts down the middle of each funnel as though it were its minor axis, while the ellipse also fits snugly between the two edges of the funnel. The minor axis cuts through the narrower side of the ellipse. In a lot of cases, you've got it passing through the wider dimension, which would be the major axis instead. You're also having a fair bit of trouble getting the ellipses to fit snugly between the two arcs.

• For the ellipses in planes, work on getting the ellipse to touch the edges of the plane. A lot of yours are floating arbitrarily in the center, without being anchored down to the space. Part of all of these exercises has to do with fitting the ellipses snugly within the space they're given.

Remember that the ghosting method should be applied to every single mark you put down - be it a straight line, an arc, or an ellipse. The ghosting method is meant to help you exert greater control over the mark you're about to make by training your muscle memory before executing with that same bold, confidence.

Your tables of ellipses exercises are generally looking much better. They're a little loose at times, but they're fitting nicely within the space they're given.

Your boxes are fairly decently done. The plotted perspective is spot on. The rough perspective boxes are pretty good, though I have a couple of small remarks to make on this front. The same matters of control I mentioned in regards to your lines section applies here, so keep working on your use of the ghosting method to help improve muscle memory before executing each mark. Additionally, your use of hatching is a bit sloppy - we can see the lines are arcing, bending and hooking towards their ends, and they often float arbitrarily in the middle of their given plane. You want to make sure that they're straight, parallel and consistent, and that they stretch all the way across from edge to edge. Even though they're not an integral part of the drawing, it's important to fight the urge to give any mark you put down a half-measure of effort.

The rotated boxes was definitely a struggle for you. This is fairly normal, as this exercise and the organic perspective boxes are both notoriously difficult. I assign them here largely to get students to think about rotating forms in 3D space a little differently without actually giving you the instruction on how to tackle it (I generally assign the 250 box challenge afterwards as it goes into those principles in detail).

One issue I'm seeing is that for the most part, your boxes aren't actually rotating very much. If you take a look at this image, you can see that the lines of boxes that are beside each other are actually still converging towards the same vanishing point. This tells us that the lines run parallel to one another in 3D space, and therefore there is no rotation.

If you take a look at this diagram from the lesson, you'll see how as the box rotates, the vanishing points slide in one direction, with one VP moving towards the box and the other moving away from it on the other side. So, the convergence of one set of lines of a given box will start to accelerate, becoming more dramatic as one of the VPs moves closer to it, and the convergence of the other lines will become shallower as their VP slides farther away.

It's entirely normal at this point not to be able to apply this just yet. That said, I did notice that you didn't quite do the exercise exactly as it was demonstrated - my guess is that you added the extra rows of boxes because you realized that there wasn't much rotation happening.

Your organic perspective boxes are about where I'd expect them to be at the end of this lesson. There's plenty of room for improvement, but you're starting to show your brain trying to handle these matters of arbitrary rotation in 3D space.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I know you said that you'd completed the 250 box challenge already, but if this was before you completed this lesson 1 work, I believe you may have to give it another shot.

Before you do that however, I would like to see the work you did for the 250 box challenge prior to becoming a patron to ensure that you're following the instructions correctly.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-10 21:19

Your lines section is looking pretty solid. You're demonstrating some nice, confident execution that keeps your lines smooth and straight, without any significant wobbling (aside from the curved/wavy super imposed lines, and that's fairly normal). When you get into the ellipses, you maintain a similar kind of confidence, which is certainly good and helps maintain even shapes, but your control is a little weaker at times. Because of this, there's definitely a significant number of ellipses that tend to be looser and less defined, where the ellipse you were aiming to draw gets a bit lost.

Applying the ghosting method (as you should be doing for every mark you put down) should help here, specifically using more time in the preparation phase so as to build up your muscle memory. This will make your confident strokes more accurate, as the muscles driving that motion will have had more time to get ready.

Jumping into your boxes, you did a great job with the plotted perspective. Your rough perspective boxes are solid as well, though I noticed that when applying the double checking method, you applied it incorrectly. You drew your lines all back to the vanishing point, when the instructions said to extend the lines you had drawn up to where they intersect with the horizon line. The reason this is better is that when you see the distance between your intersection and the actual vanishing point, you get a more concrete and useful sense of how far your estimation of perspective was off.

You did a really good job with the rotated boxes, with the rotation of the forms coming along great. The issue here is more that your linework feels kind of sloppy, specifically because of how the hatching lines are rather haphazard. It's true that they're not the main focus of this drawing, but any mark you put down should be shown the appropriate amount of care. With hatching in particular, it's important to ensure the lines stay straight, parallel and consistent, and stretch all the way across the plane from edge to edge. Don't let them bend unintentionally, or hook as lines drawn more quickly tend to do.

Your organic perspective boxes do need work, but that's entirely expected at this point. With this exercise, I've dropped you into the deep end of the pool before really teaching you how to swim. The purpose was to get you to think differently about rotating forms freely in 3D space, and so you'd have some context by which to situate yourself when we dig into that subject further.

One trend I did notice is that where your parallel lines should be converging (as they move off in the distance, they have a tendency to diverge instead. This is something you'll want to keep an eye on.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video linked there on that page before starting the work, as the techniques discussed there should help a fair bit.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-11 23:18

Very nice work! You've got a lot of very confident linework, both in your lines section as well as in your ellipses. This helps you maintain smooth, straight lines without any signs of wobbling or stiffness. It also helps you keep your ellipses evenly shaped. The biggest challenge a lot of students have is noticeably hesitant linework (where they're too afraid of making a mistake to make their marks by trusting in their muscle memory). It seems you're beyond this, except for a couple minor areas where it's usually common - like the ellipses in planes exercise, where most people struggle to get past the need to be more careful in fitting the ellipses into those awkward shapes.

Moving onto the boxes, you're doing pretty well here too. I noticed that you only submitted one page of rough perspective boxes, but the one you did submit is looking pretty good (though be sure to apply that line-extension double checking technique to every line, not just the ones you think are off).

For your rotated boxes, the forms themselves show a well developing understanding of space, though the lines are a little less confident. Make sure you're applying the ghosting method to each and every mark you make, so you can separate the process of planning and executing your marks and execute with full confidence and trust in your muscle memory. Also, I noticed that you skipped at least one of the steps in the lesson (drawing squares at the extremities). While this was not an issue here, I do want to stress the importance of following the instructions to the letter.

While your organic perspective boxes do need work, this is totally expected - and they're actually still better than I would have expected from a student at this lesson. This exercise is more about pushing students to think differently about rotating forms in 3D space, and while there are inconsistencies in how your lines converge towards their various vanishing points, that's something we'll be working on next.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video on that page before starting the work.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-13 18:37

Your work here is really phenomenal. You've followed the instructions to the letter, and are demonstrating an immense amount of confidence with your linework. This results in your lines coming out very smooth and consistent with minimal wobbling or stiffness, and also achieves an even shape with each of your ellipses. Despite this, you're still maintaining a good degree of control and precision with most of your marks. The issue usually arises from students putting more effort in their accuracy over the flow of their lines, resulting in wobbling - but your balance between both priorities is spot on.

Your boxes section is generally well done too - the only issues I noticed are apparent in the last two exercises, which admittedly are meant to be beyond a student at this point. I've kind of dumped you lot into the deep end of the pool before teaching you how to swim. The point of this was to get you accustomed to thinking about freely rotated forms without getting caught up in plotting all your lines back to the infinite vanishing points required.

That said, despite the obvious challenge in these two exercises, you did remarkably well. There are definitely issues, but you followed the instructions to the letter and managed to achieve fairly good results.

In the rotated boxes, the one issue I noticed was that the boxes along the outside end not to be rotated in any significant way relative to their neighbours. Take a look at this. I've extended off each box's lines as they converge towards one of their horizontal vanishing points. On the left side, with the blue and green boxes, you can see that along the bottom they're more or less on top of each other. This tells us that they're converging towards the same point, and that they're effectively parallel (no rotation).

When looking at both blue lines as a pair, and both green lines as a pair to compare their overall convergence, we can see that the blue lines actually converge slower than the green ones, meaning that the vanishing point they're converging towards is actually further away.

If you look at this animated diagram from the lesson, you'll see that in this scenario, as the box turns as these boxes are, the leftmost vanishing point should be sliding towards the right (getting closer to the boxes). So the box with the blue lines is actually rotating in the opposite direction.

The same thing happens on the right side, with the red and yellow boxes, although to a more noticeable degree. That's why we get this feeling that the rotation is sort of flattening out. The vanishing point for that farthest box should instead be getting closer to the box itself, with the convergence of those lines becoming very dramatic.

This is a fairly common mistake that I see at this stage, so it's nothing to worry too much about. We're going to be putting a good deal of focus on boxes and the convergences of these lines next, so there will be plenty of opportunities to work on improving in this area.

Your organic perspective boxes, much like the rotated boxes, are very well done in regards to my expectations for students at this stage, but there is definitely room for improvement. The most common issue I'm seeing is having lines that should be converging towards some far off point actually diverging instead. Again, it's extremely common.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. As I said above, your work is fantastic, and I'm really pleased with the care with which you follow all of the instructions, and the time you spend on every individual mark to ensure that it is confident and controlled.

Next I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge. In the notes and video there, you'll see me talking about drawing through your boxes (drawing all of the lines that make up each box, including those on the far side of the form), and about an error checking method that has you extending your lines towards their implied vanishing point to better identify issues with those convergences. Both of these should help considerably when it comes to getting a handle on your free rotations.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-13 18:43

So far you're doing pretty well! One thing that did catch my eye a little bit however is that when you draw these marks, you may be just a little too focused on your accuracy. Accuracy certainly is important, but as far as priorities go, maintaining a consistent, confident flow to your strokes is the most important. As I explain in this comic, we can achieve smooth lines by ensuring that whenever we execute a mark - after whatever preparation we've done (usually using the ghosting method), we do so with confidence, trusting in our muscle memory rather than attempting to guide our hand with our conscious brain. The wobbles come from course-corrections we make whenever we notice ourselves veering off our intended path.

When we execute the mark, it's important to accept that all the opportunities we've had to ensure our accuracy are basically set in stone - and once the pen touches the page, any opportunity to avoid mistakes are gone. All we can do is push through confidently and accept the result. This way, even if we're off the mark a little bit, our line will still be smooth and will maintain a consistent trajectory.

Now I've said a lot here about what is currently a fairly minor issue in your work - for the most part, you are executing with a good deal of confidence, and your lines are fairly smooth. It's just that slight wobbling that I'm noticing that made me want to point this out.

Also, keep in mind that when you submit your homework for review, you should be submitting all the sections of a given lesson - in this case, the lines, ellipses and boxes sections should all be submitted together. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to receiving the rest of your submission when it's completed.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-15 00:34

Overall you're doing a pretty good job. Your first two sections are really solid - your linework is fairly confident and smooth, which helps avoid the kind of stiffness and wobbling that comes from the slow and hesitant makes a lot of beginners will make. You maintain a pretty consistent flow from the beginning and throughout the execution. The only place I saw some wavering was to a very small degree in your page of ghosted lines - but you seemed to correct that as you moved through the lesson. This confidence carries through into your ellipses, keeping them evenly shaped.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, there's a few issues that come up. First and foremost, your lines don't feel quite as sturdy. They waver a little, there's some visible hesitation at times. It's not always the case, but compared to the lines in your funnels or your planes exercises, it seems you may not be putting as much effort into applying the ghosting method. Remember that all your preparation goes into the phase before your pen touches the page. Once it does, you've got to let your muscle memory take over.

Also, remember that in this exercise, you've got to pay attention to keeping your horizontals parallel to the horizon line, and your verticals perpendicular to it. You've got a bit of slanting here and there where you lose focus.

One last thing about this exercise - when applying your double-checking with the red lines, you drew your lines back to the vanishing point. Instead, the instructions say to extend them back to the horizon line. This allows you to see a more concrete sign of how far off you were with each estimation.

It's understandable that you struggled with the rotated boxes - you were meant to, as it's an extremely challenging thing to dump on students at this stage, and I do so largely to get students to start thinking about how to rotate those forms in 3D space, rather than expecting any degree of success. That said, you actually did a pretty good job. The only major problems I saw were the corners, and you actually nailed the one in the bottom right - so for all intents and purposes, you were definitely farther along than I would have expected.

Your pen definitely did get a lot thicker though. I'm assuming you switched to a thicker tip, in which case I'd recommend switching back when you can. Lines that heavy are going make it a little harder to deal in the kind of finesse and nuance that we want to get into (unless you can manage to develop a lot more pressure control quickly).

Your line quality is looking good again in your organic perspective boxes. The boxes themselves are alright, though they do have issues in terms of how each set of lines converges towards their own far-off vanishing points. Like the rotated boxes exercise, that's expected. I haven't actually gone into any depth explaining how to handle freeform rotation. That'll be the next step.

So, I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that challenge page, and watch the video linked there before starting the work, as there are a few important concepts that will help you better understand how each box you draw sits in 3D space, and how to learn from the mistakes you make along the way.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-17 01:07

Great work! Your first section shows a good deal of confidence behind your linework, which helps keep your strokes smooth and straight, and allows you to maintain a consistent trajectory throughout without any visible signs of wobbling. You carry this through into your ellipses section as well, where that confidence helps maintain even shapes.

In your ellipses in planes, you show a bit of struggling on this front, but this is actually fairly common as it's easy to get overwhelmed by the need to keep those ellipses within those awkward shapes. Just keep the confidence in mind, and remember that maintaining the flow of your stroke and the evenness of your shape is the most important thing, with accuracy coming in second.

In your plotted perspective boxes exercise, I noticed that one with the weird face next to it. This, surprisingly enough, is entirely correct. You followed the rules of two point perspective to the letter, and as you noticed, when it falls outside of the two vanishing points, it starts to get heavily distorted. This'll happen if you draw them too high or too low as well - basically if you imagine there being a circle that passes through both vanishing points on either side, anything outside of that circle will end up heavily distorted.

Your rough perspective boxes were spot on - great line quality (some people forget to ghost their lines here, but you nailed it), and I'm pleased to see you applying that double checking method correctly. You've got some varied results with your several attempts at the rotated boxes exercise, but I think it's clear that you learn a great deal about how these forms rotate in space.

In truth there wasn't really any requirement to repeat the exercise, as both this one and the organic perspective boxes were intended to be too challenging for any student at this stage to really nail down. Rather than that, the focus is getting students to break away from thinking about everything in terms of one, two or three point perspective, and to think about how forms can be rotated freely in 3D space. That said, you definitely showed progress. I think number 2 was the most successful. Definitely room to improve (I think all of them struggle a bit with getting the outermost boxes to really push their rotations farther than their neighbours), but you're getting there.

Now your organic perspective boxes do show room for improvement, but you're heading in the right direction. It's just a matter of working on how you think about each line being part of a set of parallel lines, that all need to be converging consistently as they move further into the distance. You've got some that aren't entirely consistent, and some that actually diverge. This is totally normal - remember that I've thrown you into the deep end of the pool without ever teaching you how to swim. So we'll get into those swimming lessons next.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Next, I want you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through the notes and watch the video linked there on that challenge page before starting the work.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-19 21:01

Rather than your memory getting better at tracking that, it's more about your muscle memory improving. You'll understand that you'll need a certain kind of ellipse in a certain area, and that is effectively all you'll require. The internal mechanics of the being aware of your minor axis and such will be handled by your muscle memory (like how you handle the complex mechanics of walking when you want to move across the room).

Of course, it takes a great deal of practice to take something and relegate it to your muscle memory. We work towards that by repeating it over and over, continually grinding the concepts of our minor axis and that alignment until it starts to become second nature.

Overall you've done a great job with the first two sections of your latest push through lesson 1. Your lines are confident and well executed, and your ellipses are smooth and evenly shaped.

When we get into the boxes section, specifically the rough perspective boxes, I do see that you're perhaps not as conscious of the nature of your horizontal and vertical lines, since you're so heavily focused on the lines that go further off into the depth of the scene. Remember that your horizontals must run parallel to the horizon, and the verticals must run perpendicular to it. It's easy to end up having them slant (as if there's some other vanishing point to the far side) when we stop thinking about them.

In addition to this, your line quality drops just a little bit here. Something I see from students is that they'll divide things up into units of work or effort. In the first section, each line will require one unit of effort. On the second section, each ellipse will require one unit of effort. Once you reach the boxes, you fall into the same pattern - each box receiving one unit of effort.

This of course doesn't make sense, because each box consists of numerous lines, meaning each line receives a fraction of the attention it would have received in the first section. So, it's important to always be mindful of each mark you're putting down, and give it the attention it needs in order to properly apply the ghosting method and ensure that your marks are confident and smooth, alongside being accurate.

In your rotated boxes, you certainly made a solid attempt. One important bit from the instructions that you missed however was the importance of keeping the gaps between your boxes very narrow and consistent. Keeping your boxes close together means that neighbouring edges can help you determine how a given line should be drawn, as demonstrated here. When you leave a significant gap, you lose out on this important tool for this exercise. You also end up losing the continuity of scale.

That said, the rotations themselves are coming along fairly well. I do believe that you have not quite managed to cover the full 180 degree rotation on either axis, with your outermost boxes not quite being rotated far enough. That is definitely something you'll want to work on, keeping in mind just how dramatically those vanishing points slide along the horizon as a box is rotated.

For your organic perspective boxes, I'm very pleased to see that you applied the principles of drawing through your boxes from the 250 box challenge to your boxes here. This has definitely helped you to keep a better sense of how each form sits in 3D space. I do believe that the convergences of your lines towards the same vanishing point are somewhat inconsistent at times, so that will be something you'll want to continue working on.

It's been quite a while since you last completed the 250 box challenge, and the notes/content for that challenge has improved since then. There's now a more concrete method to identify mistakes like those that you've encountered here that involves extending your lines further towards their implied vanishing point, to see where the inconsistencies lie. I definitely recommend looking over the video I posted on the challenge page (How to Draw a Box 2) so you're caught up on those techniques.

Anyway, keep up the great work. I think you've clearly done a much better job now than your first attempt. It's like two completely different people.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-20 01:47

Usually I'd wait for you to respond to the message I just sent out through Patreon, but I'll jump on it right now anyway because this is a pretty short critique.

Your linework is looking solid - you're drawing with a confident, persistent pace that helps keep your lines smooth and consistent, eliminating any potential wobbling or stiffness that tends to come from focusing too much on accuracy. You're absolutely on the right track there.

Finding the middle in the ghosting planes exercise is pretty normal - it's actually not really a focus in the context of this exercise (at least now - you'll find that as you progress, you can utilize this exercise to focus on different things, especially as you delve into perspective). For now you only need to look at the planes as being an excuse to apply the ghosting method. Later on, you may want to envision that these planes exist in 3D space, in which case estimating the middle will be a skill you'll want to focus on developing.

Anyway, you're doing very well and are headed firmly in the right direction. The reason this is a short critique is because homework should be submitted when the whole lesson is complete - in this case, all three sections (lines, ellipses, boxes). I look forward to you submitting the rest of your work, and when you do be sure to include these pages as well.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-20 16:19

It doesn't look like I have you down as being eligible for private homework critiques. If you are a patreon supporter, then check your inbox as I'll have sent a message asking for your reddit username. Otherwise you're welcome to submit your homework to the main subreddit for a free critique from the community. Actually, I see that you've already done this.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-22 21:07

You've done some phenomenal work here. Your lines are smooth and confident, and you're demonstrating some exceptional precision without sacrificing the smoothness and flow of your lines when using the ghosting method.

Your ellipses are also coming out evenly shaped, and you're quite mindful of keeping them constrained within their intended spaces. And honestly, your boxes are more of the same - you've clearly demonstrated a great deal of patience and care in following the instructions to the letter, and your work is completely in line with my expectations.

You even did a remarkably solid job with the rotated boxes exercise, which along with the organic perspective boxes was intended to be a little too challenging for students at this point. Your organic perspective boxes do need work, but you're right on track. The real point here with these two exercises was to get students to think differently about 3D space, and to disengage them from thinking about entire scenes in terms of 1, 2 and 3 point perspective.

One thing I do want to point out though is that in your organic perspective exercises, you had a tendency to draw lines, and then abandon them, drawing another correction instead. In general, this isn't a great habit to develop. What you're doing here for the most part isn't as bad as rampantly trying to draw corrections directly on top of existing lines, but it's still the same sort of thing. When we get in the habit of correcting ourselves reflexively, we end up making our problematic areas much darker and more obvious to the viewer. It's generally best to do what you can to plan ahead of time (committing only to individual points first, which have a smaller footprint, until you have a better sense of what you're after), then if you make a mistake, just leave it be and keep going.

Anyway, you're doing really well, so I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next to get some more work in on developing your grasp of 3D space and handling those freely rotated forms. Be sure to read through the notes on the page and watch the video linked there - the techniques mentioned of drawing through forms and extending lines to check for mistakes should help you solidify your grasp of the material quite a bit.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-25 00:08

Your work is really well done, though at a first glance it doesn't seem that way - due to the awful scan job. It's not an uncommon issue, and easily fixed. Just make sure that when you scan your work, you don't use the "drawing" presets that most scanners offer. Use photograph presets instead. The drawing ones will ramp up the contrast to the point that the result looks extremely harsh and your linework loses all of its nuance. I honestly have no idea why those presets even exist...

Anyway - your linework is really solid. Your execution shows a good deal of confidence, which helps keep your marks smooth and eliminates any wobbling. This carries through to your ellipses too, which maintain an even shape.

I did notice though in the funnels exercise that the alignment of many of your ellipses was off. Remember that this exercise is all about keeping your ellipses aligned to that central minor axis line, so the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down their narrower dimension. Many of yours tend to slant a little.

In your boxes section, there is one thing I noticed. If you compare the quality of your lines to those in the first section, they seem to take a bit of a hit. This is actually a common thing - I see students start to think about the amount of time each exercise should take, and they split them into what we can consider "units of effort". In the lines exercise, each line will take one unit of effort. In the ellipses, each ellipse is one unit. And in the boxes section, each boxes takes one unit-

except that doesn't make sense. Because the boxes consist of multiple lines, so each line is now given a fraction of a unit - which means you're not giving them as much time as you could, and they come out a little sloppier. Keep that in mind as you move onwards, it's very easy to get caught in the trap of rushing because you feel you ought to be doing things more quickly.

Aside from that, your work here is solid as well. You did struggle with your rotated boxes exercise, but still exceeded my expectations with it. Students always have a tough time with that one, and the purpose is more to get them to think differently about rotating forms in 3D space, and breaking them away from thinking about entire scenes in terms of 1/2/3 point perspective, than actually expecting them to do anything close to perfect work.

Same goes for the organic perspective boxes. I'm very pleased to see that you drew through all of those boxes despite not being instructed to. This definitely helped you to get a better grasp of how each form sits in 3D space. That said, there are still inconsistencies in how your lines converge towards their far-off vanishing points.

So, I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through the notes and watch the video linked on that page before starting the work.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-27 17:55

Overall pretty well done! I noticed a considerable shift in your approach between your first and second pages of superimposed lines, which saw a significant improvement. On the first page your strokes were more wobbly, where you aimed for accuracy over the flow and consistency of your marks. On the second page, it was clear that you focused more on flow, resulting in smoother lines, which in the long run are a much better way of practicing.

Your ellipses are generally quite well done too, though you'll want to work on tightening them up as you continue to practice. This can be quite challenging, as we don't want to lose the smooth, even shapes that come from the confidence of your stroke, but be sure to chip away and tighten them bit by bit as you go.

I did notice that your funnel ellipses were slanted slightly - remember that they need to be aligned to that central minor axis line, such that the minor axis cuts each one into two equal, symmetrical halves through their narrower dimension. You're not far off, but not quite there yet.

Your work was pretty solid for your rough perspective boxes, and I'm pleased to see that you extended each one's edges back towards the horizon line to check your estimation of perspective.

You made a solid effort in your rotated boxes. This exercise is purposely intended to be quite challenging for students at this stage, and I don't expect them to fully succeed just yet, as I haven't actually taught anything pertaining to the free rotation of boxes yet, I'm really just dumping you into the deep end of the pool. While being an opportunity to break away from a more structured view of perspective, and seeing entire scenes as being bound to one, two or three point perspective (which is an erroneous view that many beginners tend to have), it's also an exercise in following instructions closely and carefully, and exhibiting patience.

You did follow most of the instructions quite well, especially with how narrow and consistent you kept your gaps, using neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines. I did notice though that you only drew the "extremity" box for the right side, not the others.

One thing I did notice though was that your outer boxes weren't actually rotating relative to their neighbours. I demonstrate this here: https://i.imgur.com/b7Eb9mK.png

The organic perspective boxes exercise is of the same sort - that is, extra challenging, no expectation of success, aimed at getting students to think differently about rotating forms in 3D space. That said, you did a pretty decent job. There's definitely room for improvement with the consistency of your convergences, but we'll definitely work on that. All in all, you're in a good state relative to my expectations.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video on that page before starting the work.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-29 00:21

You're doing a pretty good job, especially in some of the most important areas. That includes how closely you're following the instructions for each exercise, and the patience with which you complete them.

One thing that jumped out at me however was something that comes up across most of your exercises. It's that when it comes to executing your lines, there's two main priorities that we keep, and from the looks of it you're attacking them in the wrong order. There's accuracy, how closely we match the mark we're trying to make, and flow, how smoothly we execute our stroke, and how closely we maintain a consistent trajectory throughout.

At the moment you're focusing more on accuracy, as many do - though you should really be putting flow first. Once you've ghosted and prepared all you care to, it's important to execute your mark with a smooth, confident and persistent pace. If you're too focused on accuracy, it'll cause you to slow down so your brain can control your hand as it moves, allowing you to course-correct as you go. These course-corrections manifest as wobbles in a line.

Now, your wobbles are minimal, but I do see them across the board. So you'll benefit from pushing yourself to execute your marks a little more confidently, and to work on hesitating less as you draw. Accept the fact that mistakes happen. We prepare all we can, and once we touch our pen to the page, we've committed ourselves and must move forwards boldly, rather than showing our fear and uncertainty.

As I said, this applies across the board - it keeps your lines smooth, and your ellipses evenly shaped (as opposed to stiff and bumpy). Of course, accuracy is still important, but that is something that will develop with practice, whereas a smooth execution comes more from how you approach the problem.

Aside from that, you've done a pretty good job. Your rough perspective boxes is solid, and you took the time to double check your estimation towards the vanishing point. Your rotated boxes - despite being a notoriously challenging exercise was very solid (though there's no good reason for having skipped the corner boxes - some do so because they're afraid to ruin a nice drawing, but when it comes to these exercises, the results don't matter, only what you gain from doing them does).

Your organic perspective boxes do need work, but they're absolutely where I'd expect them to be at this point. The exercise is largely meant to push students to think about how forms can be rotated arbitrarily from a different angle, separating themselves from some of the rigid 1/2/3 point perspective systems (and erroneously applying them to entire scenes). This is a great start, and we'll work on improving your grasp of how each box sits in space.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video on that page - and remember that along with being an opportunity to further your grasp of 3D space, it's also an excellent chance to work on those smooth, confident executions of your linework.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-29 00:54

Nicely done overall. I noticed early on in your lines section that you had a tendency to draw your lines a little too slowly, which resulted in them wobbling and coming out a little stiff. As you progress however and once you hit the planes, you show a much better awareness for their flow. This carries through into your ellipses, which helps keep them evenly shaped. That kind of growth is exactly what we're looking for.

Throughout the rest of the lesson, you do a pretty solid job of following the instructions and progressing with patience and care. I'm very pleased to see that you applied the line-extension method to your rough perspective boxes.

Though definitely a challenging exercise, you did a pretty good job with the rotated boxes. It's definitely true that your rotation could be pushed just a little bit more (if you try and pinpoint where your vanishing points are, and track how they slide along as your boxes rotate, you'll notice that the outermost boxes' vanishing points only move a little relative to their neighbours, when they really should be experiencing a more dramatic change.

That said, you did a great job of keeping your boxes tight and structured, and leveraged the instructions to great effect. I also like your use of line weight.

Same goes for the organic perspective boxes. Here there's definitely a lot of room to grow, both with having your lines converge consistently towards their implied vanishing points, as well as being more consistent with your rate of foreshortening. Right now you've got a lot of boxes that have some really dramatic foreshortening to them, which generally suggests that the object is very large (like looking at the top of a tall building from the ground) or that it is very close to the viewer's eye. It becomes difficult to make sense of so many objects with such a large implied scale being together in such a way, so the sense of scale of the whole scene ends up feeling odd, even if the viewer isn't necessarily sure why.

That said, that's totally normal at this point. This is something we'll work on next. As it stands, this exercise was largely to get you to think about how forms can be rotated freely in 3D space. You've also done a great job with your line weights here, which helped make your forms look solid, despite the awkwardness of some of them.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes on the challenge page and watch the video linked there as well, before starting the work.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-01 23:31

Overall, very nice work! I've got a couple things to mention, but you're doing a great job.

In your first page of super imposed lines, you were definitely quite stiff and focusing too much on being accurate, which resulted in some rather wobbly lines. By the second page however, you gained a good deal of confidence and shifted your focus to the consistent trajectory and flow of each stroke, which produced a much stronger result.

I definitely noticed some stiffness in your ellipses in planes exercise. This isn't entirely abnormal, and I often see it when students struggle between drawing a smooth ellipse, and getting them to fit snugly within these awkward shapes. Your ellipses in the other sections were much smoother, so I think this was more a case of you getting a bit overwhelmed, causing your focus to shift into the wrong area (accuracy over flow).

In your funnels, keep an eye on your ellipses' alignment to that central minor axis line. You want each ellipse to align such that it is cut into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension.

Your rough perspective boxes were pretty well done. I know you may have been a little shocked by seeing that your estimations were off as much as they were, but I assure you that this is entirely normal. Improving your estimation here is a process of practicing the exercise, then going back over it to check where you were off (and trying to identify the patterns, and in turn compensating for those patterns of behaviour during your next attempt). This is why it's definitely very important that you apply the checking method each time - I noticed that you didn't do so on that second page.

Excellent work on your rotated boxes. This is a notoriously tricky exercise, and I honestly don't expect most students to nail it, or even come close. It's more about getting students to think differently about 3D space, and to break away from thinking about entire scenes in terms of 1, 2 or 3 point perspective. You did an excellent job however, and followed the instructions very well. Your line quality's a bit wavy at times, so definitely work on the use of that ghosting method, but you still did a great job.

Your organic perspective boxes are coming along well, though there's definitely more work to be done as far as rotating boxes freely in 3D space goes, and getting a sense for how your various sets of parallel lines ought to converge. We'll be working on that next.

So, I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that page and watch the video as well before starting the work, as there are some extremely valuable tips that will help you better understand how each form sits in 3D space, and how to benefit most from each page of boxes.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-01 23:59

Overall you're doing a reasonable job. There are areas where you can improve, but you're well within the range of what I'd expect to see for this lesson.

• In your super imposed lines, your straight lines are pretty good. You're focusing more on drawing confidently and maintaining a persistent pace and a consistent trajectory rather than fussing too much over accuracy. This keeps your lines smooth, which is what we want. When you tackle your wavy and curving lines however, I do see a bit more of a tendency to slow down so your brain can guide your hand as you draw. You want to work on trusting more in your muscle memory, and to get that confidence back. Remember that your accuracy is not the main focus here - it's maintaining a consistent, smooth trajectory throughout the stroke.

• In your ghosted lines exercise, you definitely focused pretty much only on lines of a considerable length. I think it helps a lot to work your way up, and to give yourself a good deal of variety. Train your arm on the shorter lines first, go up to longer ones, then back down to smaller.

• Ironically with your planes, I think you drew those to be too small. You have a bit of variety here, but in general it does give the impression that drawing more cramped may have come from a lack of confidence (it's something I see often). Drawing smaller feels like a way to hide one's insecurities in their skills, but at the same time it robs you of the confidence that you need to really push those confident strokes. This was especially the case when you hit the ellipses in planes, where your planes got especially tiny.

• All your other ellipses are drawn much more confidently, which is pretty solid. What I am noticing however is that your ellipses tend to come to points on either end. That's definitely something you'll want to work on, as this sudden point means that they're not yet proper ellipses. Be sure to continue practicing this, and smoothing them out. This may be caused by you drawing more from your wrist - try to push yourself to draw your ellipses (and really any linework that needs a more consistent, smooth, confident trajectory) from your shoulder.

• Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, there's a few things I noticed. Firstly, again - you're drawing pretty small. Even though it might feel unnatural, you need to push yourself to draw bigger. Not ridiculously huge, but 1.5-2x bigger than you currently are. Secondly, pay attention to the nature of your horizontal and vertical lines here. As I explain here, there are three different sets of lines, and each set follows a different behaviour. There's no guesswork - you just need to find which behaviour the line you're drawing is meant to follow, then execute that task. I'm noticing that your horizontals and verticals tend to slant. I don't think this is a case of you not knowing when a line should run parallel to the horizon, or when it should run perpendicularly to it, but rather I think it's just that you're not focusing enough on applying the ghosting method for each and every stroke - and the minimal preparation causes you to draw lines without enough control.

• Also for the rough perspective boxes, you seem to try to apply the double checking method for a couple of these in purple. You're not quite following the instructions here correctly though. In these notes I ask you to extend your lines back to where they intersect with the horizon, rather than drawing the lines as they would have been, had they converged perfectly. The benefit from my way is that you can see how far away the intersection with the horizon line is from the actual intended vanishing point.

• While you technically didn't finish your rotated boxes (as there's 7 boxes missing), those you did draw were coming along well. Don't make the mistake however, of stopping because you're afraid of ruining the drawing. None of these drawings matter - they're just exercises, total fodder that could be tossed into a fire upon completion. The only thing that matters is what we learn from doing them. A bad drawing that taught you a lot through its numerous failures is far more valuable to you than a pretty one that taught you nothing.

• Your organic perspective boxes are pretty crazy, but that's totally normal and expected. This exercise is hard, and I don't expect students to even come close to nailing it. Its purpose is more to get you to think differently about 3D space, and to break away from thinking of entire scenes as being dominated by 1, 2 or 3 point perspective. Rather than digging into the issues with foreshortening being too dramatic, or your sets of parallel lines not converging consistently towards the same vanishing points, I'll leave that be - as that's what we'll tackle in the 250 box challenge, which will no doubt be assigned (though I know you've already started on it).

Before you get back to the 250 box challenge however, I want you to try one page of rough perspective boxes again. Watch the video for that exercise and read through the notes (and the self critique resource notes), then attempt the one page and submit it here. Then I'll mark this lesson as complete and you can get back to the 250 box challenge.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-05 22:25

Your super imposed lines are fantastic. Lots of confidence there, focusing primarily on maintaining a consistent trajectory to your lines. Your ghosted lines exercise is okay, though you've got some waviness at times, which you'll want to iron out. This is mostly a matter of getting into the groove of ghosting and building up the muscle memory - this can take some time to get used to.

I do believe this waviness causes some issues in your planes, where the resulting issues with control become more apparent. It's still the same problem, and it'll get better with practice, but it's certainly something to be aware of. I'm definitely thinking you need to get used to putting more time into the preparation phase before executing with that same confidence. You do get a little better into your second page of planes however (I'm writing this critique out as I scroll through your pages). Still room for improvement, but definitely a step up.

Your table of ellipses is fairly solid. You'll continue to get better at tightening the ellipses up, but as it stands you're doing well. Your ellipses in planes are a little less so - I see areas where you've got ellipses that float arbitrarily in the middle of a plane (rather than touching all four edges of the plane as they're meant to). Always remember that this is the target you're aiming for - having your ellipse touch all four sides.

For the funnels, you're pretty close - just keep an eye on the alignment of the ellipses relative to the central minor axis line. The minor axis should cut each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension. At the moment you've got a few that are slanting a little.

Your rough perspective boxes are coming along well. As your control over the ghosting method improves, so will your execution here, but when it comes to demonstrating an understanding of the exercise itself, you're pretty much spot on.

While there's plenty of room for improvement on the rotated boxes, you actually did a very solid job. This exercise is intentionally meant to be very challenging at this stage, and similarly to the organic perspective boxes, it's akin to me dumping you in the deep end of the pool without really teaching you how to swim. That said, you've managed to achieve a solid rotation on all axes, and while symmetry is a little off, that's really not a big loss against your victories here.

Your organic perspective boxes do show room for improvement, but again - that's totally expected. In regards to what I'm looking for, you're showing some great development when it comes to arbitrary rotations of forms in 3D space, and are stomping down with gusto down the right path.

Now there's a lot of minor issues I've mentioned, so be sure to keep up with these exercises as part of a regular warmup routine (10-15 minutes at the beginning of each sitting), but I'm definitely going to mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next, to get some more work in on really solidifying your grasp of free rotations in 3D space. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video on that page before starting the work.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-05 23:48

Your work here is really phenomenal. There's not much to criticize, just a couple minor things to point out. You're demonstrating an exceptional amount of control and confidence with your linework - each mark is smooth and consistent, but still maintains a good deal of precision. This applies not only to your straight lines, but to your ellipses as well.

On top of that, you've demonstrated here an exceptional degree of patience, clearly filling each page to the brim with no signs of rushing or delivering anything but your best.

You've also done remarkably well with the last two exercises (rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes), which are intentionally meant to be extremely challenging at this point. Your rotated boxes are spot on, and while your organic perspective boxes show a little inconsistency here and there, they're still far above my expectations for this lesson. The inconsistencies I do see (generally with the convergence of lines towards their implied vanishing points) are not always easy to detect.

One thing I do want to mention is that with the rough perspective boxes, it is important that you go over the completed work as described here, to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Now, as one might imagine, I'm absolutely marking this lesson as complete. I do however want you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. You're very close to demonstrating a solid grasp of 3D space and how forms sit within it, and I think the best way to move forward would be to really nail this down. The challenge page's notes and videos go over a few technique to work towards a fully developed mental model of space which I think will prove very effective for you. It certainly is tedious, and honestly I'm on the fence about assigning this or leaving the decision to you, but at the end of the day we're here to ensure that your skills improve as much as possible.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-08 21:01

Hey! I currently don't have you down in my records as being eligible for private homework critiques. If you're a new patron, be sure to check your inbox as I'll have sent a message to gather your reddit info. If not, you're welcome to submit your work directly to the subreddit to receive a free critique from the community.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-09 16:33

Really, really phenomenal work here. You're demonstrating a great deal of confidence with your linework, as well as a lot of patience and care when working through each exercise. It's clear that you take the time to read through the instructions and ultimately follow them to the letter - which considering the density of the content, is no small feat (and one that a lot of people stumble with).

This confidence in your linework helps you maintain smooth lines and evenly shaped ellipses. The only area where you didn't quite do this as well as elsewhere was in your super imposed lines. Now, the margin here is minimal - they're still done quite well, but there is a visible wobbling where your lines go back and forth, rather than maintaining a consistent trajectory as explained here. This is pretty common though, because we don't actually push the importance of a confidence execution until we hit the ghosting exercise.

There is a little stiffness when you attempt to draw the ellipses in planes (largely coming from the desire to deform them in order to get them to fit into these awkward spaces). Always try to maintain the integrity of the elliptical shape to the best of your ability and as your first priority.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, I'm really pleased to see that you applied the double checking method with your blue pen - though I definitely recommend doing this on all the pages of this exercise. It's an extremely useful tool in identifying one's tendencies when it comes to estimating the accuracy of your estimation of perspective.

Your rotated boxes were done fairly well. It's good to see that you kept the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent, and were able (mostly) to use neighbouring edges as hints when drawing new lines. I do believe that your rotations could have been pushed a little further, and that the rotations diminished towards the corners, but overall you did a pretty good job here. This exercise, as well as the organic perspective boxes, comes with a pretty significant expectation of struggle, and on that basis you've done far better than most students are meant to. It's really about getting you to think differently about rotating objects in space, and constructing scenes that are not limited to 1, 2 or 3 vanishing points.

Now, your organic perspective boxes do need work as well (specifically with maintaining consistent convergences for sets of parallel lines), but again this is entirely normal. We'll be working on this next.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that page and watch the video before starting the work (as I'm entirely certain you will).

Uncomfortable

2018-06-10 18:31

Overall, fairly good work, especially through the first two sections. Your lines are confident and smooth, and your ellipses are evenly shaped. The only issue I noticed was in your funnels exercise, though it was minor. Just take a little more care with keeping your ellipses aligned to that central minor axis, so the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves.

Moving into the boxes, in regards to the rough perspective exercise specifically, this is an area you'll want to focus on. While you demonstrate a general grasp of what you should be aiming for, there are areas where your horizontals or verticals slant. In regards to this, give these notes a read.

In addition to this, you don't appear to have applied the error-checking technique mentioned in the video for this exercise. It is also described here, and is an important part of identifying the patterns in the mistakes we make, so we can learn from them.

Your rotated boxes are a good start - I'm pleased to see that you're keeping the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent, so as to keep the whole set more structured. That said, as far as rotations go, the boxes on the outside of the set actually end up rotating in the opposite direction relative to their neighbours, resulting in a sort of bump that flattens out, rather than a sphere (at least on the left side - on the right side, the boxes remain more or less parallel with no real rotation there).

If you take a look at where the vanishing points lie for each box, and identify how the vanishing points slide as the forms are rotated (as demonstrated in this animated diagram) you'll see that the behaviour is off.

Your organic perspective boxes are a good start. While there's various inconsistencies with how the sets of parallel lines converge towards their shared far-off vanishing points, this is entirely expected. This exercise, as well as the previous one are both particularly challenging at this stage, and are more about pushing students to think differently about forms rotating in 3D space.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video there before starting the work. Also, please refrain from working on lined paper next time.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-10 18:18

Really, really nice work. Your lines are confident, your ellipses are smooth, and you've followed the instructions for each and every exercise to the letter with a great degree of patience and care. This is exactly what I like to see from these homework submissions, and they generally make for an easier time writing critiques.

The confidence of your linework specifically helps you maintain a smooth flow to your lines and a nice, even shape to your ellipses. Definitely keep that up.

Now, the last two exercises of this lesson - the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes - are meant to be perhaps too challenging for students at this stage to really nail, but they're really about pushing them to think differently about 3D space, and how forms can be rotated within it. Moreover, it's about understand that scenes are not bound to 1, 2 or 3 point perspective (as many are left believing after the standard sort of perspective lesson). So the goal isn't really to expect perfection from students.

While your organic perspective boxes fall in line with that (with a fair bit of inconsistent convergence of sets of parallel lines, and the sort of thing that we'll delve into in greater detail next), your rotated boxes are really well done, and very close to being spot on. For that reason, rather than waving it off with a "well I didn't expect perfection", I figured I'd point out one area where this could improve.

If you look at this, you see the relationships between the boxes at the extremities with their immediate neighbours, specifically in how their vanishing points slide. For most of these you're sliding to a degree - I want you to push it even further as you come to the edge there. Rather than having the vanishing points slide the same amount each time, it's something that should accelerate, sliding more and more as the face that was initially facing forwards comes to face off towards the side. At the same time, the other VP would be moving closer and closer to infinity (I explain this a little further in these notes).

One thing worth mentioning about the organic perspective boxes is that your line quality drops pretty significantly here - likely because the challenge of constructing the arbitrarily rotated boxes becomes somewhat overwhelming, pulling more of your focus away from applying the ghosting method. This is definitely something you'll want to work on, as there will be many challenges where what you're drawing ends up being somewhat overwhelming. Maintaining the technique of thinking, planning and executing your strokes is always going to be the key to your success.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video linked there before starting the work.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-10 18:39

Really, really fantastic work. Your lines are confident and smooth, maintaining a consistent flow all throughout, and helping keep your ellipses evenly shaped. You show no hesitation or wobbling, and are clearly trusting fully in your muscle memory as you execute each mark. You carry this through the entire lesson, as you follow the instructions to each exercise to the letter, demonstrating a great deal of care and patience.

Now usually the one place I'd pick on to offer advice and critique is the rotated boxes. Most students struggle with it considerably, so it's ripe for nitpicking (even though I don't by any stretch expect success on this front - it's more about getting students to think differently about 3D space).

That said, you've done an exceptional job. Your rotations are steady and consistent, and you've covered the full range with great success. The only issue I can see is at the very corners, which is a notorious point of difficulty. On each of these boxes, you've distorted the form a little to make that "top" face visible - though at that rotation, it should be facing away from the viewer, and therefore that extreme corner has been pulled out further than it ought to be. You can see this in my demonstration.

Your organic perspective boxes are coming along great as far as this lesson is concerned. There are some inconsistencies with the convergence of sets of parallel lines towards their implied vanishing points, but that's entirely normal and expected. We'll be working on ironing that out next, and taking your grasp of 3D space (which is already developing well) and solidifying it.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through the notes and watch the video there before starting the work, as there are a couple useful techniques that should help you continue to develop your skills and solidify your grasp of this material.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-11 20:33

Very nice work overall. You're demonstrating a good deal of confidence with your linework, which helps keeps your lines smooth, and your ellipses evenly shaped. When it comes to the execution of lines, it's definitely the sort of thing one learns and develops their skills with in phases. First we focus on nailing the kind of confidence that keeps our lines smooth, as you've done. Then we work on our control - this is something you still do need to work on, as you've got a pretty big habit here of overshooting your lines. It can be a little tricky to find a balance between the two, but that is ultimately what you need to work towards next - getting your lines to fall between the start and end points you put down without undershooting or overshooting them.

Overall though I'm very pleased with your work. You're showing a lot of care with how you approach the exercises, and are demonstrating a well developing grasp of 3D space in your boxes section. You really nailed the rotated boxes, which is notoriously difficult. Your organic perspective boxes are coming along well, though there are inconsistencies with how your sets of parallel lines converge towards their implied vanishing points (which is entirely expected at this stage). We'll work on that next.

So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge. Along with having the opportunity to further solidify your grasp of 3D space and your handling of arbitrarily rotated boxes, it'll also give you the chance to improve your control over your linework (in terms of overshooting). Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video on the challenge page before starting the work.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-12 21:02

The only mistake you've really made is in your linking. And frankly, we can live with that - because your homework here is phenomenally done. The link you provided actually points to your overall imgur gallery (showing all your albums), rather than this specific album for your lesson 1 work. No issue here, but as your number of albums accumulate, it could be one in the future.

Anyway! Frankly, everything is spot on. You're executing each mark with a great deal of confidence and control, demonstrating both smooth flow with every stroke as well as a high degree of accuracy. This carries over into your ellipses as well, keeping them evenly shaped.

Throughout the boxes section, you demonstrate a strong sense of space, and a careful attention to detail (and to the instructions). The last two exercises - the organic perspective boxes and the rotated boxes - were intended to be beyond the abilities of students at this stage, but frankly, you really nailed them. You captured a full range of rotation with clean, solidly constructed boxes, and also managed to establish arbitrarily rotated forms that felt sturdy with a fairly consistent convergence towards their implied vanishing points. As far as the naked eye is concerned, you did great. There are little issues here and there if one takes the time to actually check all those convergences, but that is far and beyond what we're asking for here.

So, I'm absolutely going to mark this lesson as complete. I ask most students at this point to move onto the 250 box challenge, but I'm going to leave that as optional for you. What I will ask however is that you read through the notes and watch the video there, as there are techniques for box construction and more importantly error checking that will prove to be extremely useful as you continue to solidify your mental model of 3D space. You'll probably want to do at least a handful of boxes to put into practice those concepts, but the full 250 is entirely up to you.

You're welcome to move onto lesson 2 as soon as you're ready. Keep up the fantastic work.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-15 14:05

Complete the rest of lesson 1 now. I generally assign the 250 box challenge to those who need it (which is most people) after they've completed lesson 1.

Also, I noticed that you seem to have disabled your flair on this subreddit - I use flairs to track which students are eligible for critiques, and which lessons they've completed, so it's important that you reenable it on the sidebar (where it says "Show my flair on this subreddit").

Uncomfortable

2018-06-21 20:39

I think this review is going to be pretty useful to you, as there are a number of concrete pieces of advice I have to offer in relation to how you're approaching each exercise, and the process of mark making in general.

The biggest thing has to do with how you're executing your marks. This includes pretty much everything - straight lines, ellipses, etc. When we draw a mark, we have two main priorities:

• Accuracy, ensuring that the line we draw follows the path we intend

• Flow, ensuring that our mark is smooth and consistent, and free of wobbling or wavering

As it stands, you are putting accuracy far ahead of flow, and as a result you execute your marks slowly enough that your brain is able to course-correct as you go. This is extremely prominent in the super imposed lines exercise, and to a lesser degree after the ghosting method has been introduced.

Instead, we need to swap the priorities and put flow first. We want to ensure that at the very least, each and every mark is smooth and consistent, maintaining the same trajectory throughout from the point that it starts. We don't want to see any wobbly lines or uneven ellipses. We don't want to see any signs of hesitation or that we're allowing our conscious brains to interfere as we make the marks.

That's ultimately what the ghosting method is all about - splitting the drawing process into several stages, where we can plan and prepare initially to build up the appropriate muscle memory and increase our potential for accuracy. Finally when we actually touch then pen down and execute the mark, we do so with a confident, persistent pace accepting that any mistakes made from this point are inevitable and cannot be avoided by drawing slowly and carefully.

Mistakes happen - you'll find that here and there your lines don't fall exactly where you want them to, but as long as you draw with that kind of confidence, trusting in your muscles, you will generally achieve smooth, consistent strokes. That is key, as where accuracy will improve with practice and time, the flow of your strokes is always going to be a matter of how you approach them.

As for the rest of the lesson, I'll point out a few areas where you missed some of the instructions and other similar minor problems that I ought to address:

• When applying the ghosting method, don't make the points quite so large. Since this technique is supposed to be used with every single mark you put down from here on in, you don't want these big blots to be so clearly visible - a slight point is going to serve you much better. You just need to be able to see it when you're looking for it, nothing more - and ideally once your line passes through it, it'll basically become unnoticeable.

• When drawing your ellipses, it's great that you're drawing through them - but limit yourself to 2-3 times around the shape. Ideally, 2 is best.

• In your funnels exercise, you have a pretty consistent tendency to slant your ellipses. The point of this exercise is to practice keeping those ellipses aligned to the central minor axis line, so the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension. You'll also probably want to draw the minor axis with a ruler. Each exercise targets a specific skill, and in this case, we're not testing your ability to freehand straight lines. Drawing those with a ruler will ensure that you're set up in the best possible way to focus on the main core of the exercise.

• I also noticed that in some of your funnels, you completely neglected to draw the minor axis. Don't forget to include it, leaving it out rips out a pretty significant part of the exercise.

• I'm glad you went in to apply the double-checking method for the rough perspective boxes, as it's an important part of growing and improving. That said, you didn't apply the method correctly - where you drew the lines all the way back to the vanishing point, the instructions actually tell you to extend your lines as you've drawn them to where they intersect with the horizon line. This gives you a much more concrete sense of how far each line was off from the VP.

• The improvement between your first and latest attempts at the rotated boxes exercise is immense. Really nice work overall, especially towards the left side of the set. On the right, the rotations are a bit shallower, but they're spot on on the left.

• You definitely struggled with the organic perspective boxes, but that's entirely expected. It's meant to be more of an assessment before sending you off to the 250 box challenge.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. You definitely made the right call by moving onto the 250 box challenge, though I would have liked the chance to assign it myself. Reason being, I would have told you to use it as an opportunity to focus on practicing the sort of confident execution of your lines that I mentioned in the first half of this critique. Oh well - I'll go ahead and jump onto that critique next.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-21 21:00

Really nice work! I think you've done an excellent job here of demonstrating a lot of patience and care in how you've tackled each exercise, and most importantly, in how you've followed the instructions to the letter. Early on we can see where your super imposed lines start off kind of wobbly, but by the end of that first page, you're already showing an understanding of how the confidence of your stroke is far more important than your accuracy, and the resulting smoother marks carry through the rest of your lesson to great effect.

Your ellipses are solid - smooth and evenly shaped, while also maintaining a good degree of accuracy and control. Your boxes section demonstrates a well developing grasp of 3D space, and I'm thoroughly impressed by your rotated boxes. The first one is excellent - the second is pretty good too, though the rotations on the central axes appear to be just a little more timid than they ought to.

For your rough perspective boxes, you did a great job - just make sure you apply this double checking technique to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift. It does for everyone, but the key is to be aware of it so you know what to compensate for the next time you attempt the exercise.

Your organic perspective boxes are about where I'd expect them to be - that essentially means that you're moving in the right direction, but will benefit from some additional focus in this area. For that reason, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete but assign the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video there on that page before starting the work.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-21 21:26

Really, really fantastic work. Your lines are smooth and confident, you've clearly got your priorities (in terms of accuracy vs flow) in order. This carries over into your ellipses, which are coming out nice and even while maintaining a good sense of control.

Overall you're demonstrating a lot of care with each exercise, and moreover you've clearly taken the time to fully absorb all of the instructions. One of the worst things is when students flip through the instructions and rush to the drawing - it's very clear that you've taken your time at every turn.

Jumping ahead, your rotated boxes are really solid. Your organic perspective boxes are closer to where I'd expect them to be - which basically means that they're heading in the right direction but will need some additional attention. This is totally normal, as both these last two exercises are largely me dumping students in the deep end of the pool without properly teaching them how to swim yet, just to see what they'll do. Needless to say, you've definitely impressed me.

While there are some issues here and there with the convergences of your sets of parallel lines, your lines are still straight and precise, and you're clearly applying the ghosting method all over.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next to get some more work in on those freely rotated boxes. The notes and video there will go over a few techniques and concepts that will help you drastically improve on keeping your parallel lines consistent, so be sure to read/watch them before starting the work.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-23 20:12

It doesn't look like I have you down as being eligible for private critiques. If you are a patreon supporter, be sure to check your inbox as I reach out to new patrons through there to get their reddit username. If not, you're welcome to post your work directly to the subreddit to have the community review your work.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-24 00:03

I'm a bit impressed with the fact that you've been able to manage some pretty solid linework despite being forced to do the work on your bed. Posture's usually pretty important, but it seems you've managed pretty well. Your lines are quite smooth and confident, and your ellipses come out with even shapes that don't show any signs of wobbling or stiffness.

While you did a great job with the lines and most of the ellipses section, I did notice that when tackling the funnels, you ended up drifting from the instructions and possibly didn't watch the provided video which demonstrated how the exercise was meant to be done. This kind of lead you to miss a major point of the exercise, which is to practice aligning ellipses to a central minor axis (such that the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down their narrower dimension). That's definitely something you'll want to review.

Jumping ahead to the rough perspective boxes, you've done well but be sure to go over the completed work for this exercise as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Now, your rotated boxes at a first glance definitely need work - and this is totally normal and expected. This exercise, as well as the organic perspective boxes were included with the intent of seeing what would happen. A lot like dropping a child in the deep end of the pool before teaching them how to swim. What do you mean that's not a nice thing to do? What? No, don't call the cops.

So students are meant to struggle with it, but more importantly it's also intended to push you to think differently about 3D space, and about how forms can be turned within it. It breaks us away from relying on all these plotted perspective lines going back to their vanishing points, while allowing us to think more about what those rules of perspective really mean. So regardless of success, you've certainly accomplished what the exercise was meant for.

That said, when I look closer at your rotated boxes, I can see that your main axes (the horizontal and vertical middle rows of boxes) are fairly well done. You definitely made the boxes far too deep, and this definitely hindered you somewhat, but as far as the front-most faces and their rotations go, you were on the right track. The problem is out towards the corners, where you were faced with the challenging task of rotating them on two axes. When faced with this particularly overwhelming problem, we have a tendency to shutdown and draw what our instincts tell us to. In this case, our brains hate things that aren't set to a grid - they like everything to be nice and parallel, so that's what your instincts are going to tell you to draw. A better response would be to step back and think about how that form currently sits in space, and how it relates to its neighbours. To look closely and see that the boxes are more or less parallel to those around them, and the rotations need to be pushed much further.

I definitely think that the depth of all your boxes was a pretty big factor in increasing the challenge though, so I'd recommend that you try to keep the boxes more equilateral in subsequent attempts. No need to worry about making everything a perfect cube, just try to avoid having things stretch out so much.

It's certainly good to see that you drew through your boxes in the organic perspective exercise. I usually leave students to make the mistake of not doing that (as it's easier to learn why it helps when you're allowed to struggle without it), but it's great that you already jumped on that. There are certainly some smaller issues here and there in terms of keeping the convergence of your sets of parallel lines consistent, but again - that's normal.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge, as I think you'll benefit from the extra opportunity to focus on these freely rotated boxes. Be sure to read the notes and watch the video on that page - you clearly know about drawing through your boxes, but the error-checking method mentioned there is also very useful in terms of getting the most out of the exercise.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-25 21:43

Very nice work! You're demonstrating a lot of confidence with your linework, which helps keep your strokes smooth and consistent, and also helps you to maintain evenly shaped ellipses. Jumping ahead though, I noticed in your funnels exercise that you had a tendency to have your ellipses slant slightly. Remember that one of the main focuses of the exercise is to keep your ellipses aligned to that central minor axis line, such that the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension.

Your plotted perspective boxes were well done. Your rough perspective is pretty good as well, but there's two issues I'd like to raise. Firstly, always focus on one vanishing point only for this exercise, don't extend it to two. This will help you focus on main challenge of this exercise without the added distraction.

Secondly, be sure to go over your completed work for this exerciase as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Now, your rotated boxes are really the only place where you stray - it doesn't look like you really followed the instructions very closely. You skipped a number of steps, and most notably you didn't draw through your boxes (meaning, you stopped drawing the boxes where they were blocked by other forms - you should be drawing them completely, including the lines on the opposite side of each form).

Your organic perspective boxes were fairly well done. There's plenty of room for improvement here, but that's entirely expected. Both the rotated and organic perspective boxes are intended to be quite difficult for students at this stage, they're really about pushing students to think differently about how forms can be rotated freely in 3D space.

Now, I am going to mark this lesson as complete, but I want you to do two things next. First, I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. This will help you get a better sense of how each box sits in 3D space. Read the notes and watch the video on the challenge page before starting the work - they cover a couple helpful tips that allow you to take full advantage of the exercise. Once you're done that, I want you to give the rotated boxes exercise another shot (be sure to follow the instructions more carefully this time).

Uncomfortable

2018-06-27 01:48

Nicely done! You've got some really confident linework through the first two sections - that confidence helps keep your lines smooth and consistent, and also helps you maintain fairly even shapes. I noticed a lot of the little red marks where you noticed mistakes - don't get too hung up on those. Your lines are going to separate towards one side in the super imposed lines, for instance, that's expected. It'll get better as you continue practicing, but if you focus too much on every little mistake, you'll end up shifting towards drawing more slowly and carefully, which in turn will result in you losing that smooth flow.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, you did well, but I did notice the areas where you went drastically overboard with that line weight on certain sides of the boxes. In this exercise it's not really a major focus (adding extra things to exercises can often result in missing their primary focus), but as far as line weight goes, remember that the key is subtlety. If your line weight is too heavy, it's going to start flattening things out. Ideally you just want to add enough additional thickness for the change to be just barely noticeable. It's more important that the subconscious pick up on it, rather than it being very loud and obvious.

Your rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes are coming along well, though they do leave plenty of room for growth. This is basically what I'd hope to see at this point - the exercises are more about pushing students to think differently about 3D space, and to break away from the rigid 1/2/3 point perspective systems that beginners have a tendency to lock themselves into when it comes to defining entire scenes. In truth, the exercises are a lot like dumping a child into the deep end of the pool before teaching them how to swim - there's a lot of things we haven't gone over here, but it's an important but of exposure.

The only bit of advice I want to offer in regards to the organic perspective boxes is that if you make a mistake, don't correct it. It's a bad habit to develop, to get caught up in making corrections and making areas with mistakes darker and more noticeable. It's usually best to just leave it alone and keep moving forwards with the rest of the drawing.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that page and watch the video linked there before starting the work.

Oh, one last thing - it looks like you've got your flair on this subreddit turned off (using the "Show my flair on this subreddit" function in the sidebar). Be sure to turn that back on - I use it to track who is eligible for critiques, and which lessons/challenges they've completed thus far.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-29 01:03

Your lines and ellipses are looking pretty good. Lot of confidence there, keeping your strokes smooth and your ellipses evenly shaped. A couple recommendations on those fronts:

• When practicing the ghosting method, try working with smaller dots - you don't need to make them so big and obvious. Usually a tiny mark is more than enough. The sort that'll end up getting engulfed by the line itself.

• In the ghosted section you did seem to need more work on controlling where your lines stop, but you seemed to improve quite a bit on this front in the planes.

• For your ellipses, try bringing the number of times you draw through them down to two. I know I say 2-3 times is best, but working your way down to 2 can help you focus on tightening them up (while maintaining the confidence of that stroke).

For your rough perspective boxes, two things:

• Watch your horizontals. You're doing a pretty good job of keeping your verticals perpendicular to your horizon, but your horizontals are sometimes off from being parallel to it, as they should be.

• Remember that you need to be applying the double checking technique after the fact. It'll help you track where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Your rotated boxes are coming along well. There's still plenty of room for improvement (as far as the subtler aspects of rotating forms in 3D space), but as far as this lesson goes you're where you should be. Same goes for the organic perspective - all this is probably what I mentioned to you beforehand in my last critique. I can't actually see the last submission as the imgur album's gone, but there's going to be a lot that you'll learn from the 250 box challenge (which you should still be doing next) when it comes to rotating forms in 3D space.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-30 01:23

Really, really nicely done. Your lines and ellipses show an exceptional degree of confidence in their execution (which helps keep them smooth, even and maintain an excellent flow), while also demonstrating precision and control. It's not an easy thing to pin down, especially with the ellipses.

Your plotted perspective boxes are obvious solid, though given that you've already done this lesson, that's expected. Your rough perspective boxes are also spot on.

Your rotated boxes are at that point where you're demonstrating a grasp of how those boxes are meant to turn in space, but your proportions are getting stretched and unbalanced, resulting in an end result that looks kind of off. I am pleased with the fact that you're maintaining narrow, consistent gaps between the boxes and keeping everything structured - just be sure to avoid stretching boxes as you turn them.

I'm pleased to see that you're drawing through the boxes in your organic perspective exercise. As far as that goes, you're doing a pretty good job. There are some inconsistencies (for example the frontmost box on the leftmost panel, you can see the pair of edges towards the center of the whole form are definitely off), but overall you're doing pretty well.

One thing that may help is to go to the 250 box challenge page and watch the video there. In the video, I describe an error checking method that involves extending your lines back towards their implied vanishing points. You can try applying this technique to the boxes of your organic perspective exercises, to find where things are off. While some are obvious, when one reaches a certain level of proficiency, it becomes harder to detect mistakes and techniques like these become more necessary in order to avoid plateauing.

One other thing worth mentioning is that right now you have a tendency to add extra weight to the internal lines of your forms (usually those that are closer to the viewer, likely to differentiate them from the lines on the rear side. This is actually not a great idea, as it breaks the cohesion of the overall form. By having heavier lines inside, you're emphasizing the idea that your boxes are really just an assortment of vaguely related marks.

On the box challenge page, there are some notes on how to successfully apply line weight, so I suggest you give them a read. The short of it is that you generally want to apply weight to the outside to solidify the silhouette of the form and increase the sense of cohesion.

As for the problem you were attempting to resolve with weight (clarifying which side is closer to the viewer and which side is farther away), I'd recommend adding some tight, consistent hatching lines to one of those front-facing faces to serve as a clear visual cue.

Anyway, you're doing great. I'm not sure if you've decided to refresh your basics, or if you're working your way from the beginning again (which is something I encourage people to do). If it's the latter, be sure to let me know and I can clear off your flairs to better track your progress.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-05 21:16

You've got a lot of good stuff here. I did catch a few things that I'd like to point out however that should help as you move forwards.

• You're definitely pretty focused in your super imposed lines with accuracy. Give these notes on the topic a read. I believe this is an issue that sticks with you through most of your linework, where you're focused too much on accuracy, to the detriment of the flow and confidence of your lines. At the end of the day, flow is far more important than accuracy, as it helps you maintain smooth and even strokes. Ensure that whenever you put a mark down, you do so with a confident, persistent pace (after preparing to the best of your ability with the ghosting method).

• As far as the wobbling/wavering goes, your ellipses are actually a fair bit more consistent than your straight lines. For the most part you execute them with a good deal of confidence, which helps keep the shapes even and balanced. The only issue I noticed here was that in your funnels exercise, you had a tendency to draw them at a slant. One of the focuses of this exercise is to maintain a consistent alignment with the central minor axis line (basically, ensuring that the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension).

• Your plotted perspective boxes are looking solid. Your rough perspective boxes are alright - mostly it's the line quality, the wobbling, that's a problem here but we can work on that. I also did notice some places where your horizontals failed to be entirely parallel to the horizon, or where your verticals failed to be properly perpendicular to the horizon, but this wasn't too frequent.

• The rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes are definitely meant to be quite challenging, and generally beyond the capabilities of students at this stage. Your attempts were solid, with plenty of room for improvement, which is what I usually hope to see. That said, there were a couple issues worth mentioning.

• In the rotated boxes, I did notice that you skipped the step of placing squares at the extremities of each axis, which suggests that you didn't necessarily follow the instructions as closely as you could have.

• I did like that you did a pretty good job of keeping the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent, which helped keep things structured.

• You did have a bit of a tendency to stretch your boxes as you went out towards the sides, rather than rotating them much. In the future, try and avoid that kind of stretching effect - it comes from your brain actively trying to fight your desire to rotate the forms. Our brains like things to exist on nice parallel grids. You may also notice that your rotation was actually minimal because of this, and if you look at the two boxes directly below the center one, you'll see that if you look at how their lines align, they're actually perfectly parallel to one another. Their lines converge towards the same vanishing point, so there's no rotation there at all - though your brain probably tricked you into thinking there was while you were drawing it.

• Your organic perspective boxes got a lot better as you worked on them - early on you had a lot of dramatic foreshortening, but by the end things were looking more consistent and controlled. There's still plenty of work we can do on your sense of how the parallel lines converge towards the same vanishing points and such, but you're doing a good job as it is.

So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes on the challenge page and watch the video linked there before starting the work. This is both going to serve as an opportunity to improve your understanding of 3D space, and how these forms can be freely rotated within it, as well as an opportunity for you to work on fixing up your linework to draw more confidently. Over the course of this lesson you did improve on that to the point that your linework in the organic perspective boxes was considerably better, but be sure to keep an eye on that as you work on the challenge.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-11 00:08

There's a number of things I noticed in your submission that we can work on. I'll list them out individually:

• In your super imposed lines exercise (and it continues on through the rest), one thing that jumped out at me was that you have a tendency to draw slow and steady, with a definite focus on the accuracy of your marks. You allow your brain to guide your hand as you draw, and whenever you see your pen going off track, you course-correct. This results in a line full of wobbles (as explained in this comic. You want to instead focus on achieving smooth lines that flow well first, leaving accuracy as a secondary priority. We can achieve this by drawing with a confident, persistent pace. That's what the ghosting method, introduced early on in this lesson, is all about. We break the process of drawing into several stages, first building up muscle memory and getting a feel for the mark we want to produce, then finally executing with a confident, persistent pace, trusting in our arms rather than our brain to drive the motion.

• With your planes exercise, I noticed that you drew more or less drew the same plane (in terms of size, orientation, etc.) over and over. You left a great deal of blank space in between as well. Try to go for more variation, draw some that are bigger, and fill up the space you've got.

• You appear to have skipped the tables of ellipses exercise, as well as the funnels.

• Be sure to apply the ghosting method everywhere, to every mark you put down. In the context of your ellipses in planes exercise, this will help you control your marks more, and improve how well you get them to fit within each plane without sacrificing the confidence with which you draw them.

• Your plotted perspective is looking pretty good. The only issue I can notice here is minor - it looks like your verticals slant slightly at times. This exercise is done in 2 point perspective, so your verticals should run perpendicular to the horizon line.

• You've got a good start to your rough perspective boxes. Make sure you go over your completed work as described here however to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

• Your attempt at the rotated boxes is looking pretty good in terms of structure and consistency. The line quality is also spot on (though looking at the rest of your work, I'm thinking you may have done this with a ruler, even though the instructions were to do it freehand - if you did freehand it though, then it's done very well). As you continue to work on this however, I want you to really push the rotation of these boxes. You've achieved a range of rotation of maybe 90-100 degrees, whereas the full range we want to fill is closer to 180. Remember, as shown in this animated diagram, the vanishing points will slide along the horizon line, and by the end one of them will be extremely close to the box itself resulting in a very dramatic turn. Our brains like to keep things in nice, parallel grids, so they'll actively fool us into thinking that we've drawn larger rotations than we actually have - so when in doubt, always push and exaggerate those turns.

• A few things to mention for your organic perspective boxes. Your box constructions are about where I'd expect them to be - meaning, they do need work (and we'll get to that), but you've tackled this challenging exercise admirably, considering that I haven't yet taught you how to deal with this kind of challenge. I dumped you into the deep end of the pool without teaching you how to swim, so to speak. One issue I did notice however was that your line quality tells me you completely stopped trying to apply the ghosting method, and went back to chicken scratch. No matter how difficult the challenge in front of you, you must always draw each mark with planning and forethought, using this technique. Don't chicken scratch, ever. I can see that you did a much better job with your lines in the one with black ink, but all of the blue ones were rather rough. The other thing is a more minor issue - when doing this exercise in the future, try playing with the scale of your boxes more to show depth. That is, draw the boxes that ought to be closer to the viewer to be MUUUCH bigger, and those farther away to be much smaller. It's a matter of exaggeration.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to redo the lines and ellipses sections. While you definitely did a pretty good job with the boxes section, it seems like you were still getting in the swing of things early on, and didn't follow the instructions or even complete all of those exercises. It's best that you redo them just to be sure that you've got it all down firmly before moving on.

Be sure to read through the instructions for a given exercise and watching the video for it immediately before starting the work on it, so it's all fresh in your mind.

Once you resubmit those two sections, I'll go ahead and mark the lesson as complete. At that point, I'll want you to move onto the 250 box challenge.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-12 14:29

It doesn't seem like I have you in my records as being eligible for private homework critiques. If you're a patron, be sure to check your patreon inbox as I'll have sent you a message asking for your reddit username. If not, you're welcome to submit your work directly to the subreddit for a critique from the community.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-14 00:39

Your super imposed lines are looking great. Lots of confidence in your execution, so your lines come out pretty smoothly, which is definitely our primary focus. Your ghosted lines are good, though the fact that the lines start trailing off pretty early on is pretty noticeable - you'll want to work on keeping those marks strong throughout the stroke.

I think you may have noticed this when you started working on the planes, and as a result you started drawing multiple marks per line - whatever the reason, it's important that you get used to executing only one mark per line to ensure that you're executing the technique correctly. In addition to this, getting in the habit of reinforcing your marks automatically and by reflex is a bad idea that will result in unnecessarily hairy linework down the line.

Your ellipses are coming along pretty well. In some places the shapes come out a little uneven, but I think it's largely a matter of getting used to drawing them from your shoulder, and maintaining an even shape throughout. You're headed in the right direction, so continuing to practice these exercises as part of a warmup routine should be enough to keep you improving on this front.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, you're mostly doing pretty well, but watch your horizontal and vertical lines. Remember that your horizontals should be running parallel to the horizon line, and your verticals should be running perpendicular to it. You seem to have some lines that slant a little here and there.

Also, make sure that your hatching lines stretch all the way from edge to edge rather than floating in the middle of a plane.

Your rotated boxes, though kind of stretched on one side, is actually pretty good. Along the horizontal axis you've achieved a solid range of rotation. Watch out for the boxes above and below however - you'll notice that if you compare the vanishing points for those boxes that they're actually pretty close to being parallel to one another.

When trying this exercise in the future, I'd recommend trying to make the boxes somewhat less deep. You don't need to fuss too much over exact proportions, but aiming for something that seems vaguely cube-like is a good bet.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes certainly are coming along well, and are about where I'd hope for them to be. This means that there's definitely room for improvement, but that you're working your head around this complex task quite well. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. This should give you an opportunity to continue solidifying your grasp of 3D space.

By the way, your plant drawing demonstrates a great start with construction. Nice work.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-15 20:23

Your lines section is really solid. Super imposed lines are looking pretty confident, you're clearly focusing on keeping the lines smooth rather than fussing too much over accuracy. This carries over into your ghosted lines and planes, where the ghosting method is helping take your already confident execution and adding some preplanning to achieve greater control.

Your ellipses are generally looking good as it is, though you'll definitely want to continue working on tightening them up and maintaining their even shapes (while maintaining the same confidence). This largely comes from getting used to drawing ellipses from the shoulder. While your ellipses in planes do suffer in terms of maintaining even, elliptical shapes (due to the way drawing them in the planes poses a somewhat distracting challenge), these are already looking better in terms of tightness over the previous pages.

Your funnels are okay, but they do feel a touch haphazard. Don't leave gaps between the ellipses, as it's a wasted opportunity to get more mileage.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, you look to be doing a good job. Just be sure to go over your completed work on these exercises as described here. It helps to get a sense for where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

You made a solid attempt at the rotated boxes. The rotations do need work (pay attention to how the vanishing points slide as a box rotates, as demonstrated here from the lesson and as I explain here in regards to your own work. I do like that you generally kept the gaps between your boxes fairly narrow and kept the edges on either side of a gap fairly parallel and consistent. This helped keep things structured.

Your organic perspective boxes were definitely a challenge, but you made some headway here. We are going to continue working on this however to further solidify your grasp of 3D space and to get you more familiar with how those sets of parallel lines that make up each box converge in a consistent manner.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch (or perhaps rewatch) the video on that page before starting the work.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-15 21:16

Overall you've done a pretty great job! Your lines and ellipses sections are fantastic - you're demonstrating a good deal of confidence with your linework, and this helps keep each line smooth and each ellipse evenly shaped. At the same time you're showing a lot of refined control, which can be quite tricky to manage without resulting in a wobbly line. Very well done.

Jumping ahead to your boxes, I have a very minor point to raise about the rough perspective boxes. When adding hatching to a surface, it's always best to ensure that the lines stretch all the way from edge to edge, rather than falling short and floating somewhat arbitrarily. It really is a matter of aesthetics, but it keeps things from looking sloppy. As far as the meat of this exercise however, you've done quite well and I'm glad that you applied the additional error-checking step to identify how your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Your rotated boxes is definitely one of the better ones. You've taken great care and patience with this, and I'm really pleased with how you kept all of the gaps between the boxes narrow and consistent, keeping the whole system nicely structured and ensuring that neighbouring edges remain more or less parallel. The only issue I noticed was that you're not quite pushing your rotation enough. It's actually a very common problem - our brains prefer things to all be arranged on tidy little grids, and we tend to become quite uncomfortable with rotation and deviation from that. As a result, our brains trick us into thinking that we're rotating things much more than we actually are. As you can see here, in order to fill the full range of rotation, it's necessary to push and exaggerate it more. What actually happened in your boxes was that rather than rotating them more, you were stretching them instead.

Now, it is important to understand that both this exercise and the organic perspective boxes are intentionally way more challenging than students at this stage are expected to be able to handle. I've dumped you in the deep end of the pool without teaching you how to swim, and all things considered, you appear to be treading water quite comfortably, though perhaps not swimming laps like a pro.

The organic perspective boxes definitely posed a challenge to you, and we will continue to work on the challenge of rotating boxes freely in 3D space. That said, I like that you pushed the scale of your boxes to show depth, and that you maintained fairly confident linework throughout. The only thing there that I'd wish to point out is that when you make a mistake, it's best just to leave it alone. Otherwise you end up adding more ink and drawing more attention to the areas that you'd honestly prefer the viewer to ignore.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. That'll let you get some more practice "swimming" so to speak. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video on that page before starting the work.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-15 20:42

Overall you've done a pretty good job. I did notice a couple things I'd like to bring to your attention however:

• In your super imposed lines, while you generally did well, I noticed a bit of wobbling in your lines. The first priority of this exercise is to achieve marks that are smooth and consistent - we want to focus more on flow and leave accuracy second to that. This can result in our lines diverging a little towards the far end, but as long as our marks follow a consistent trajectory with no bumps or wobbling, then I'd consider it to be successful, as that accuracy improves with practice, as well as the application of the ghosting method (which usually hasn't been introduced at this point). This exercise, and the principle of focusing on the confidence of one's stroke comes into play a lot when getting into adding line weight. If we jump ahead, we can see that in your organic perspective boxes, you added some additional weight, but you did so in a manner that resulted in wobbly lines. You put accuracy over flow, and the result suffered a little for it. When it comes to linework, confidence is most important.

• The rest of the lines section was solid, and when applying the ghosting method your linework demonstrated exactly the kind of confidence I'm looking for.

• Your ellipses section was also spot on - each shape is even and there's no signs of wobbling or stiffness among them. At the same time you're demonstrating a pretty fantastic degree of control.

• Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, you're mostly demonstrating a good grasp of the exercise, but there's a few points worth mentioning. Firstly, your line quality here looks far below what you showed with the ghosting exercises earlier on. The lines tend to arc, and lack that same confidence (and as a result, don't appear to be entirely smooth). Secondly, you'll want to keep an eye on your horizontals and verticals. The horizontals should run parallel to the horizon line, and the verticals should run perpendicularly to it. Thirdly, the hatching lines were a bit sloppy. Be sure to keep the consistent and parallel, and stretch them all the way across from edge to edge, rather than having them fall short and float inside the plane. Lastly, don't forget to go over your completed work as described here to identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift. All in all, I get the impression that you could do far better at this exercise, and that you may have simply rushed through it rather than giving it all the time it required of you.

• For your rotated boxes, you technically didn't complete the exercise. I do see students leaving out those corner boxes here and there, and it's usually out of a fear that tackling those (which tend to be the more challenging ones) is going to "ruin" their attempt. A complete attempt gone badly however is infinitely better than one that was never truly attempted. That said, there is something I can offer in terms of critique. Currently rather than rotating the boxes to the side (ignoring the center one), your boxes are actually more or less parallel to one another. As you can see here, their lines converge towards the same vanishing point, meaning that they are parallel. As shown in this diagram, the vanishing point slides as the box rotates - with one VP moving towards the box itself, and the other VP sliding away from it.

• Your organic perspective, save from the line quality being somewhat wobbly, is pretty good. You're showing an awareness of how the boxes sit in 3D space, and while there are issues in the convergences of the sets of parallel lines, that's something that will improve with practice over a long period of time. One recommendation I do have though is to watch the newer version of the how to draw a box video. It has been updated since you last did the challenge, and includes a useful tip on how to test a box for problems (which can help you to gradually resolve them through more targeted practice). That said, I won't be asking you to redo the challenge, as you have already done it, and you're demonstrating a good grasp of the benefits of drawing through boxes.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do one more page of rough perspective boxes, and one page of rotated boxes.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-16 17:11

It definitely shows that this isn't your first run through - you've done an excellent job across the board. Your lines are confident and smooth, your ellipses are all evenly shaped and well controlled, and your boxes convey a strong grasp of 3D space as well as how those forms relate to one another and the world around them.

You've taken the time required to put out the best of your abilities for each exercise, and it's clear. I don't see any instructions that have been skipped or ignored, just the result of clear discipline and care.

I think your rotated boxes came out quite well, but the rotation along the horizontal axis is definitely much better than the same for the verticals. If you identify where the vanishing points end up being as the boxes rotate, you'll find that the sliding for the horizontal boxes is more dramatic and exaggerated (which is exactly what we want in order to fill out the full range of rotation).

Similarly, you did a great job with the organic perspective boxes, with some small areas where continued practice will yield further growth. Keep an eye on the consistent convergences of your lines as they recede towards their vanishing points, and also don't stop drawing a form when it gets overlapped by a neighbour. Draw each form to completion, and worry about overlaps later. This gives you a better sense of how each form sits in 3D space, so those that end up only partially drawn will tend to come out weaker for this reason.

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

Uncomfortable

2018-07-18 20:56

Overall you're doing a pretty good job! I definitely agree that you'll need to focus to get a little more accustomed to ghosting, and finding the rhythm/pacing that works for you - just always remember that the confidence of that final stroke is what's most important. Whether you're drawing a straight line, a curve or an ellipse, you've got to make sure that you focus all your time on the preparation/ghosting phase. Once your pen touches the page, you've committed yourself and can't let your brain interfere anymore. Trust in your muscles and push forward.

Now, it is important to point out that I don't see any significant wobbling in your lines, so that's good. It's just a bit of a tendency to waver or go a little off course initially, which suggests to me a little jerk of hesitation at times. Overall though you improve on this throughout the set, so I think it's really a matter of continuing to practice with it while keeping your mind on this issue.

Aside from that though, you're doing great. I can see that you're clearly following the instructions to the letter, especially in the boxes section. Your rough perspective boxes show a clear grasp of how vanishing points work, and I'm pleased to see you double checking your alignments after the fact. You also did a fantastic job with both the rotated and organic perspective boxes exercises, which are purposely meant to be more challenging than most students at this stage can handle.

My only recommendation on the rotated boxes is to try and tuck in the far edges of the outermost boxes. So if you look at the horizontal middle row of boxes, you want the furthest left edge to move more towards the right (so the face of that box turns more to the side), and you want the furthest right edge to move more towards the left. This is essentially to push and exaggerate the rotation further, as right now those outermost faces are still set at a fairly similar angle to their neighbours.

Keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. It looks like you've decided to move onto the 250 box challenge next, which is a great choice. The notes there about drawing through boxes, and the double-checking technique described in the video are extremely useful when it comes to further solidifying your grasp of 3D space.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-20 23:12

Overall you've done a pretty fantastic job. The first and most significant thing I look at with these critiques is the line quality in the first two sections. You're demonstrating a great deal of confidence with your linework, and this carries through into your ellipses as well. The result is smooth lines and even shapes without any stiffness or wobbling.

Your struggles with the ellipses in planes are understandable, for all intents and purposes, you did a good job in that you did not allow your ellipses to get deformed to match their enclosing planes. they maintained their elliptical shape regardless. Now, there is room for improvement here, but this is really what I was looking for.

In regards to your funnels, you generally did a good job here, but watch those few where the ellipses ended up a little slanted. Keep practicing on getting them all to line up to that central minor axis line, such that each ellipse is cut into two equal, symmetrical halves down their narrower dimension.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, you generally did a good job by I've got two things I want to mention:

• Firstly, don't slant your boxes for this one. Stick to boxes that run parallel to the ground plane. Varying the exercise can seem more entertaining, but it's also going to distract you from the core of the exercise.

• Upon completion of this exercise, be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

You did a pretty good job with the rotated boxes (though I noticed that you skipped at least one of the steps, where you lay out the four extremities on each axis to help flesh out the range of rotation you're aiming for). I'm very pleased to see that you kept the gaps between each box narrow and consistent, this definitely helped to keep things structured and eliminate as much guesswork as possible.

My only recommendation here is for those outermost boxes - try and really push and exaggerate their rotation as much as you can. If you compare the vanishing points of those boxes and their inner neighbours, you'll notice that they don't actually slide as much as they could, meaning that the rotation is minimal. Our brains prefer things to remain parallel, so they'll often trick us into thinking things have rotated more than they actually have. As a result, it becomes important to exaggerate that rotation in order to fight against this natural tendency of our brains.

For your organic perspective boxes, I'm pleased to see that you drew through most of these boxes. There is certainly room for improvement in terms of the consistent convergences of sets of parallel lines, but you're doing a great job as far as this lesson is concerned. I don't actually expect students to nail this stuff just yet.

One recommendation I do have though is in regards to scale. You've got a lot of great variation between large and small boxes here, but one thing that actually breaks the illusion of scale is that you've got a lot of small boxes situated in front of the larger boxes. We can understand that the smaller ones are in front of the boxes, but it essentially tells us that all the boxes are naturally of different sizes. In this exercise, we try to push the idea that the boxes are all the same size. This is actually a natural assumption our brains makes until it's told otherwise - that all similar objects are of the same size in 3D space, and that variation in the scale at which they're drawn corresponds to where they sit in space. That is, the smaller ones are farther away and the larger ones are closer. It ends up being a great tool for conveying the depth of the scene, so long as you don't break that illusion.

It's a pretty handy trick to keep in mind.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes on the challenge page before starting the work - and be sure to watch the video as well, as there are some helpful techniques that will help you to get the most out of this exercise.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-21 23:43

This is pretty solid work, and what pleases me most is that I can see slight adjustments in how you're approaching your linework at the very beginning. You start off on that first page a little uncertain, a little wobbly - but already by the second page you're demonstrating a significant increase in the confidence with which you approach the exercise, and you hold to that trend as you continue through the lesson.

As a result, your lines tend to come out quite smooth, and your ellipses achieve a consistent, even shape. Early on those ellipses come out a little bit loose, but I can see you tightening them up quite quickly.

I figure it's worth mentioning that while your ellipses in planes feel at times off, you're hitting all the points I'm looking for. You're maintaining those consistent elliptical shapes (rather than deforming them to better fill out the awkward enclosing planes), and while this sometimes throws off your accuracy, you're showing that you've got your priorities in order.

The funnels exercise is the only place where you didn't quite follow the instructions as intended. You left out the central minor axis line (the one that runs in between the two arcs of the funnel). This minor axis is extremely important, as the exercise is all about aligning your ellipses to it such that each one is cut into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension. Your ellipses tend to be a little bit slanted in this regard, so it's definitely something to keep in mind.

Jumping ahead to the rough perspective boxes, you're doing a great job, just be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Your rotated boxes show an excellent grasp of the rotation of the forms through the horizontal and vertical axes - the only area where I think you're a bit off is the corners, where those boxes tend to stick out (both in 3D space from the rest of the boxes, and visually). Above all else, remember that you want to keep the gaps between all your boxes very narrow and consistent. You did a great job of this with the rest of the set, it's just those corners where the gap got more considerable, and those boxes fell out of sync with the others.

You've made a good start with the organic perspective boxes - as expected (this exercise is notoriously difficult and I haven't yet really taught you how to handle these free rotations of forms in space), you do have room for improvement. That said, you're demonstrating a well developing grasp of space, and I'm confident that we'll be able to iron out the issues (for example, with keeping the convergence of your sets of parallel lines consistent) fairly easily.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through the notes on that page as well as watch the video linked there, as they go over some useful techniques that will help you flesh out your grasp of 3D space and make good use of the challenge itself.

Keep up the fantastic work.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-22 19:26

Parents can really be delightful. "My kid ate my original funnel ... so I redid it." just offhand, like that's a perfectly normal thing. And I guess it is. But either way, it made me laugh.

Those who are new to drawing - like, completely new, no prior experience - are often far easier to teach than those who've been doing it for a while on their own. Reason being, they approach it like learning anything else - they'll read the instructions carefully, take their time, and move forward without any preconceived notions of how well they should be performing. They are entirely willing to accept the failures that come with attacking something with confidence.

And frankly, that's exactly what I see here. You've done a fantastic job.

With every exercise, you've demonstrated patience and thoroughness, both in going through the instructions and applying them. I see no signs of rushing, nor do I see any of the wobbly lines and stiffness that comes from hesitation and fear. As a result, your lines are smooth and straight, and your ellipses come out evenly shaped and consistent.

Yes, accuracy is an area that has plenty of room for growth, but that's exactly what I expect and hope to see at this stage. Accuracy improves with practice, but it's the correct approach that needs to be nailed down before that growth can be achieved.

I'm very pleased to see that for the most part, with your rough perspective boxes, you took your time in applying the ghosting method and strove to keep the horizontals parallel to the horizon line, and your verticals perpendicular to it. It's also great that you went ahead and applied the double checking method to see where your estimation of perspective drifts.

The rotated boxes were admittedly a struggle at first - and frankly, they're meant to be. This exercise and the organic perspective one both are included here not unlike how one might throw a child into the deep end of the pool before teaching them to swim, just to see what they'll do. ... Wait, you're not supposed to do that? Well, it's a good thing I don't have kids.

That said, your second attempt was an incredible improvement over the first - you took what you learned from that first attempt and showed an extremely adaptive understanding of 3D space.

Now, your organic perspective boxes definitely need work, specifically with keeping the sets of parallel lines' convergence consistent, and generally constructing these arbitrarily rotated forms in space, but that will be our next step.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. As I'm sure you will, be sure to read through the notes and watch the video there, as there are a couple of techniques that will help you make the best use of this exercise - one of which is drawing through your boxes, which you already seem to be doing.

Keep up the great work.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-24 00:03

Your work is really solid. You're demonstrating an immense amount of confidence without sacrificing control. It definitely shows that this is not your first time tackling this material, as most people (if doing the lessons correctly) will be pushing themselves on the confidence front to achieve smooth lines and consistent, even ellipses, while letting control/accuracy fall to a second priority. It's absolutely the right way to do things, but what you're showing here has gone beyond that and has wrangled that accuracy as well without sacrificing the first priority, flow.

Long story short, fantastic work on the first two sections. There is a little stiffness and wobbling in your funnel ellipses, and some unevenness/deformity with the ellipses in planes, so those are areas where you're going to want to shift the focus more towards confidence over control until you're able to smooth them out, but overall you're doing really well.

Your plotted and rough perspective boxes are looking really solid, and I'm quite pleased that you're double checking the latter with those red lines. Watch your horizontals in the rough perspective though - I noticed some that were a little off from being parallel with the horizon. Not by too much, but by enough to be worth calling out. Horizontals run parallel to the horizon, verticals run perpendicular to it.

Both rotated boxes attempts were well done (considering that I'm dumping students into the deep end of the pool here without teaching them how to swim), but you've shown considerable improvement between the two. The second, while being much better, still doesn't quite push the rotation to cover the full range we're after though, so you'll want to keep trying to exaggerate that rotation. The step 3 which you seem to have skipped (drawing the squares at the end of each axis) helps quite a bit, as it establishes the range of rotation you're trying to achieve, and gives you a capped space to fill rather than a limitless void to work in.

I am however quite pleased that you kept your boxes structured, maintaining narrow gaps between them to limit guesswork.

The organic perspective boxes exercise is similar in terms of the swimming analogy - you've done a reasonable job, though there is definitely lots of room to further develop your understanding of 3D space, and how these forms sit within it. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through the notes on that page and watch the video linked there, as they cover a few important techniques that'll help you get the most out of this challenge.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-27 21:35

To be completely honest, I think you did a pretty fantastic job at the first two sections, especially in terms of the confidence of your execution. I don't see a whole lot of wobbling or anything like that - your accuracy will certainly improve with time, but this is entirely in line with what I'm expecting. Along with your lines coming out smooth, your ellipses are also quite evenly shaped and consistent, and at the same time you are demonstrating a pretty solid degree of control.

All of this carried over into the boxes section, so I'm pleased to see that your boxes demonstrate the same kind of care with each individual line. A lot of students start focusing too much on the box as a whole, and end up putting less time into each line.

Now, your rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes exercises certainly do have issues but this is entirely normal. These exercises are notoriously challenging, especially at this stage, as I'm largely throwing you into the deep end of the pool without teaching you how to swim, just to see how you'll fare. It also has the benefit of giving you the context of experience before we get into the instructional parts of this particularly challenging matter, which in my experience helps students absorb the lectures more easily.

Now, on the rotated boxes I'm pleased to see that you're mostly keeping the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent (there are some minor deviations here and there where the angles shift or a box sticks out further than it should). What I am noticing however is that your outermost layer of boxes is usually set at the same orientation as its inner neighbour. If you extend the lines of your boxes to find their implied vanishing points, you'll see that they're actually not sliding along very much (as they should, which I demonstrated in this animated diagram). Instead of rotating the boxes, what you're doing is stretching them, and showing a lot of that side face which at this point should be mostly pointing to the side (and therefore not very visible to us).

Your organic perspective boxes are coming along well, though the convergences of your sets of parallel lines aren't very consistent. This is something we'll work on. In addition to this, I noticed that your lines have a tendency to trail off here, leaving visible gaps at the corners. Try and avoid this in the future.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video linked there, as I cover a number of useful techniques that will help you get the most out of this exercise.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-29 21:37

Your imgur link lead to a dead end, but I took a guess and replaced /gallery/ with /a/ and it brought me here: https://imgur.com/a/Igv7Fqp. Here's hoping that's your work, because that's what's getting critiqued :P

Your lines section is looking quite solid. Lots of confidence behind those lines, it's helping you maintain some smooth, consistent executions and also helps you avoid any wobbling or hesitation. The same thing is true about your ellipses, where the confidence helps you establish nice, even shapes, but in this regard you're going to want to work on applying the ghosting method more, or rather adjusting how you apply it so as to help improve your overall control. This is definitely tricky, and it's a sort of second-step after getting your confidence down. You want to maintain confidence, but work on tightening up your ellipses and having them fall more accurately into their designated spaces.

Now, when I say that, it's a bit of an exaggeration - your accuracy is quite good in places, but overall tightening your ellipses up is what you want to focus on moving forward.

Jumping into your boxes, you're doing a pretty solid job. I'm pleased to see you applying that double checking method to your rough perspective boxes. They're looking fantastic (aside from the really dark, chicken scratchy one on the bottom of this page, not sure what happened there - just remember that if you make a mistake, going over it and trying to correct it is probably not a good idea as it'll draw way more attention to it).

Your rotated boxes have the signs of a good attempt, but there's definitely some things that could be improved. For instance, it's important to keep an eye on the gaps between your boxes - keeping them narrow and consistent helps you keep things more structured and reduce the amount of guesswork required. This is demonstrated in the instructions, specifically in figure 3.19. Additionally, try to be a little less haphazard with that hatching there. Anything you draw should be done so with a consideration for presentation and with the patience required for that.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes are similar - they're a good start, but we definitely have lots of room for growth in this area. Luckily, that's expected and intentional, and we'll jump into that next.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes on the challenge page and watch the video there - they cover a number of strategies and techniques that can help you make the best use of this exercise.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-29 22:53

Going into this, I did worry about the fact that you'd done this all in one day. Rushing through things is generally a bad idea, as the focus of the lesson is largely on doing the best you possibly can at your current skill level, so the assessment you receive is as helpful as possible. If you end up slipping up on something largely because you were getting tired or bored, then pointing it out is not really that helpful. Furthermore, these kinds of mistakes can hide issues that are of the sort we really want to pick up on - issues where you misunderstood something.

That said, overall you've done a pretty decent job and seem to have understood the instructions fairly well.

Your lines section is looking solid - you're executing your marks with confidence, and this carries over into your ellipses, keeping them nice and evenly shaped. In your funnels exercise, keep an eye on how your ellipses are aligned to that central minor axis line (the one that goes down between the curving edges of the funnel). You want the minor axis to cut each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down their narrower dimension.

Moving forward to your plotted perspective, you've done this well - I just want to warn you away from using dashed lines in the future. It's not an issue here, because you drew them using a ruler as instructed, but when freehanding a line, make sure you don't use dashed lines. Reason being, when you break the flow of a line, then try to pick it up again, it will undergo a slight shift. Do this enough times throughout the length of a line and your trajectory will end up very inconsistent. Solid lines are trustworthy, so stick to those.

In your rough perspective boxes, you've done well, just mind how you've approached applying additional hatching lines to those boxes. Any mark you put down should take presentation into consideration - it is obvious that these hatching lines were treated more as an afterthought, as being less important (and therefore being okay to be a little sloppier with them). Try not to think that way about any mark you deem important enough to put down.

Your rotated boxes are a solid attempt - you kept them nicely structured, which is fantastic and reduced the amount of guesswork necessary. I am noticing however that your outermost boxes (for example, lets look at the box furthest to the right on the horizontal axis) are actually running more or less parallel to their immediate inner neighbour (in the same example, the box directly to the left of the one I mentioned previously). If you look closely at how the lines converging towards the right vanishing point are aligned, they're actually converging together for both boxes. This tells us that there is very little actual rotation between the two individual boxes. It's pretty normal to see this, but you definitely want to push and exaggerate your rotations further, letting the vanishing point of the outermost boxes slide more dramatically towards the box.

Lastly, with your organic perspective boxes, there is definitely a lot of room for improvement here. There are issues that are fairly normal (like keeping the convergences of your sets of parallel lines consistent, which most people have trouble with at this stage). There's also issues with your linework in general. It shows that you weren't applying the ghosting method as consistently as you had earlier through the lesson, so it does suggest that you gave way to a fair bit of rushing here.

Now, I am going to mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next to help continue to develop your grasp of 3D space. Additionally, it'll push you to get more used to applying the ghosting method to every line you put down, letting it become a consistent habit.

One last thing - in the future, don't do this work on lined paper. It can contribute to the willingness to rush and be a little sloppy, due to the fact that it already feels like you're doing it on throw-away paper. While it's absolutely true that each and every exercise is throwaway, working on blank paper still helps you to put forward your best effort at every turn.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-30 23:43

Honestly, you've done a really fantastic job! Your lines are smooth and confident, your ellipses (aside from a few key places where you stiffen up just a little bit) are drawn evenly and with remarkable control, and you demonstrate a great deal of patience and care when drawing your boxes.

To start with, the confidence in your lines is extremely important. While your accuracy is pretty decent, you're not putting it ahead of the general flow and smoothness of those marks, so we don't see any wobbling or hesitation. Your ellipses employ this same principle for the most part, allowing you to maintain an even, consistent shape, and avoid deforming them to suit their containing spaces. Strangely enough, I think this is the case in your ellipses in planes most of all, which actually are usually where I see most students stiffening up and getting overwhelmed by the need to fit into these awkward planes.

In the other ellipse exercises, I do see the slightest hint at times that you're allowing your conscious mind to control your hand just a little, making tiny adjustments as you go. It's almost negligible, so I don't want you to actively change your approach - just keep in mind the constant drive to draw confidently and to trust in your whole arm as you draw (rather than your conscious brain).

On that same note though, I did notice that sometimes you draw through your ellipses a bit too much, resulting in some marks that come out a bit hairy. This is only happening here and there, but try and stick to going around the ellipse two full times before raising your pen. Three works too, but two is ideal.

Your plotted perspective boxes is spot on, though this one isn't a particular challenge for most people. Your rough perspective boxes shows a lot of care and consideration for each line. You apply the ghosting method to great effect, and you're taking great care in keeping your horizontals parallel to the horizon, and your verticals perpendicular to it. I'm also pleased to see you applying that double checking method, which is great to see where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Your rotated boxes is, for all intents and purposes, well done. You're covering the full range of rotations quite well. Most students show issues with their outermost layer of boxes, where they might not rotate quite far enough. In your case, that layer is fine, but I think it's the middle layer (the ones surrounding the central box) that perhaps could be rotated a little further. The overall shape of the system of boxes feels a little less spherical because of how these haven't turned too much relative to the center.

That's just nitpicking though - you have definitely nailed the core principles of this exercise.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes are closer to what I'd expect at this stage. It's a challenging exercise that students aren't actually expected to be able to nail just yet, as I haven't properly explained how to go about drawing freely rotated boxes in 3D space. This is, of course, intentional. I want students to think about the challenge and experience it a little, so when they receive the lesson material on it, they're able to refer back to their own experiences as context, so as to absorb the information a little better.

The issues are generally with having sets of parallel lines converge together consistently towards their shared vanishing points, and we'll definitely continue to deal with this as our next step.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. As you've already decided for yourself, I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge. As I'm sure you already have, be sure to read through the notes and watch the video on that page, as there are a few useful techniques that will help you make the most of the challenge.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-30 14:20

This section is specifically for students who are eligible for private critiques (by pledging to the patreon). Those students must complete all the sections of a given lesson in the recommended tools (ink).

You're going to want to post this directly to the subreddit for a free community critique, although you're likely to get a better response there if you submit after completing the whole lesson.

Uncomfortable

2018-08-01 21:36

There are a few things worth pointing out here, though overall you're doing a decent job.

• In your super imposed lines, your lines have a tendency to wobble somewhat. This suggests to me that you're preoccupied with the accuracy of your marks, to the detriment of the smooth flow of their execution. [As explained here](Wobbling, Drawing Too Slowly and Carefully), that flow is your main priority. So, when you make these marks, I want you to ensure that you execute them with a confident, persistent pace - even if this means your line parts from your guide line.

• This carries through into the ghosted lines. Your flow is a little better here, but there's still some wavering and hesitation, so that suggests you're going to want to keep pushing yourself to trust in your muscles. Once your pen touches the page, you're committed - any mistake you are going to make can no longer be avoided. So, face it head-on with confidence, to ensure that at the very least the mark comes out smooth and straight. If your results are inaccurate, then adjust how you approach ghosting (it can take some getting used to in order to find a good rhythm), but always execute with confidence.

Keep those two points in mind as you continue to move forwards. In addition to this, I do want to point out a couple other things:

• When you submit your work, make sure it's a complete set - so for this lesson, that means all three sections. That'll give me a solid body of work to draw my critique from, so I can identify greater trends of behaviour.

• If at all possible, upload your images separately rather than as a single file. I'm guessing you scanned everything into a PDF (I've seen a few other students doing the same), and I guess imgur interprets that as a single file. It definitely is much easier for me to jump around your work if it's an album of several images instead.

As for your question, it is okay to learn from several sources, but just make sure that when you're doing exercises from one source, that you follow those instructions to the letter. It's easy to be swayed into applying techniques from one source to the exercises of another, which can lead you to missing the reasoning behind why I might be asking you to do things a certain way. So as long as you're able to approach each in isolation, it shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, keep up the good work, and I look forward to the rest of your submission.

Uncomfortable

2018-08-01 21:17

Yep! You're meant to get into the habit of applying the ghosting method to every mark you put down for these lessons. Long term this will train you to think before every stroke, even if eventually you're not putting as much intention and conscious thought behind each mark, doing so through the entirety of this lesson plan will ensure that there is a subconscious consideration to your linework that will pay dividends many times over.