Uncomfortable

2018-02-23 02:15

Nice work! I can see a fair bit of improvement over the set. Your awareness of your lines' convergence increases, as does the confidence of your linework. I do believe that there is room for improvement, and that certainly will come with time and practice - but what's important is that this exercise gave you the opportunity to build up important habits in how you think about these forms and how they sit in space.

As you draw boxes for later exercises and as part of drawings in further lessons, always keep that convergence in mind - think about which lines should be parallel to one another, and what that means about their alignment in your drawing.

Also, in terms of the proximity of your vanishing points to the boxes themselves, you may have noticed that the closer the vanishing points are, the more dramatic that foreshortening gets. This also ties in with a sense of scale, where that quick convergence suggests a much larger scale (like looking at the top of a tall building from the ground), where a shallower, more gradual convergence towards a far-off VP tells us an object is of a more relatable scale, like something we might pick up.

As you continue to move forwards, one thing I recommend is that you incorporate playing with line weight into these sorts of exercises. The notes on that topic are also included on the challenge page, and I also mention them in regards to lesson 2's form intersection exercise (in the video for that one). Line weight can go a long way to bind the lines that make up a form together, making them feel more like one cohesive unit rather than a series of lines located in close proximity to one another.

Anyway, keep up the great work, and congratulations on pushing through the slog. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2018-02-23 21:46

Nice work completing the challenge! You definitely put a lot into pushing through and completing all 250, and you certainly showed a good bit of growth in your general understanding of how these forms sit in 3D space.

I have a couple recommendations for you, as you continue to move forwards:

• While you do seem to have a good spread of boxes whose vanishing points are closer and further, I do recommend that you shift the balance to focus more on those with shallower foreshortening (where the vanishing points are much further off). You'll find these will play a more a role more frequently in your drawings, as shallower foreshortening implies a smaller, more relatable scale, while dramatic foreshortening suggests that objects are very large. Getting more practice in with shallower foreshortening is going to continue to prepare you better, especially once you hit lesson 6.

• Watch the execution of your lines - I did catch you getting a bit sloppy with your ghosting at times, where your lines did not remain entirely straight. Remember to follow through all of the steps of the ghosting process, starting with putting your points down. I'm not sure if that's something you neglected in some cases but not others, but I can see several cases where you did not apply the method fully.

Keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2018-02-28 21:48

Very nice work! Your line quality is confident, and your constructions are very consistent. I'm pleased to see that you applied the line-extension method to most of your boxes, and I can see that it has helped considerably over the set.

One recommendation that I have is in regards to a bit of an illusion you might have noticed. It's actually quite easy, when one has drawn through a box, to mix up which side is meant to be facing towards us and which is meant to face away. In order to avoid this, it can help to fill in one of the forward-facing faces with some tight hatching lines to serve as a visual cue. That tends to resolve the illusion quite well. If you didn't actually have too much trouble with that though, it's not entirely necessary.

Also, I'd recommend that as you move forwards, you play a little more with the line weights of your boxes (by going back over them after completing the initial construction), especially those on the lines that define the silhouette of your forms. I have notes on this on the challenge page, so give them a read if you haven't already.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-02-28 21:52

Very nice work! From a presentation stand point, those pages with all the boxes packed in tightly is pretty impressive. Overall you did a great job with the challenge - a great deal of your linework is fairly confident, and your constructions are consistent and solid. I did catch early on that when you were adding line weight, your lines wavered a little bit (possibly from drawing a little too slowly when attempting to match the original stroke). This is something you'll want to avoid, pushing yourself to draw those marks more confidently so as to keep them smooth (even if it causes you to slip up here and there). I actually see improvement on this front in the later pages, but the wobbling is still there to a lesser extent.

Keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-03-03 02:51

There is definitely improvement on the points you mentioned - line quality and accuracy of your convergences - but also in the illusion of solidity in your forms. That's definitely great to see.

As far as that line quality goes, while you certainly have improved significantly, I do still think that you'll want to continue paying special attention to your use of the ghosting method when adding line weight. At the beginning of the set, your basic lines were wavering somewhat - by the end, your lines were much straighter and smoother. The lines where you'd gone back over with additional weight however were still coming out a little stiff and uncertain. This is because when you added that weight, you did so with a slower stroke - you need to get used to adding that weight with the same kind of confidence you drew the initial mark, even if that results in mistakes here and there.

Aside from that, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-03-07 23:31

Looking good! Your confidence of execution has definitely improved considerably over this set, and I'm very pleased to see how thorough you were in marking out those line extensions. Your box constructions also become considerably more consistent, and the illusion of solidity for each form improves as well.

Whenever you practice this in the future, I want to recommend (if you're not doing this already) to try and visualize those line extensions before you actually draw the edges of the box at all. Try and think about which vanishing point you're aiming for, even if it is far off the page. I've noticed that even though you do show a fair bit of improvement over all, the mistakes still suggest that you may not be as conscious of what you should be aiming for with these convergences as you construct each box.

As you prepare for each stroke, try ghosting further along the line's trajectory, to get a fuller sense of how your lines are going to converge together. You may also want to lay down the points for many of your lines first, in order to get a better estimation of how they're going to behave together, before actually committing to any of the full marks.

Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete. Most students do complete lesson 1 first, before moving onto this challenge - since you've done it a little backwards, I want to let you know that this technique of drawing through your boxes is one you should expect to use whenever you're drawing three dimensional forms in these lessons - even if it's not explicitly stated or demonstrated in that exercise.

Uncomfortable

2018-03-09 01:06

Goodness, you are definitely quite conscientious when it comes to your corrections, and I believe it's paid off quite a bit. While your constructions were fairly confident from the beginning, the consistency of your angles and convergences improves a fair bit over this set.

I'm also pleased to see the greater emphasis on line weight in your last 50 boxes, it goes a long way to maintain a sense of cohesiveness for the box as a whole, helping you move from drawing a collection of individual lines to drawing a single solid form that carries a sense of weight.

When possible, it'll always be best to extend your lines further - the more you do, the more it'll tell you about how they're all behaving as they converge. I did notice that some of your boxes had minimal extension, while others had much more, so I figured it would be worth pointing out.

It will also always be better to draw boxes that are on the larger end. While most of your boxes were of a good size, I noticed that you had some that were quite small (for example, many on your last page) that definitely could have been larger. The reason for this is that our brains are able to think through complex spatial problems with much more ease when we give them more room to play with. Cramping our drawings up result in our spatial awareness suffering to a degree.

Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-03-11 20:08

Congratulations on completing the challenge. I can definitely seem improvement over the set, in terms of your general grasp of 3D space. I am however also noticing that you do seem to continue to make some of the same kinds of mistakes at times, which suggests to me that you may not be entirely thinking about the results of your last page's line extension phase and incorporating all of what you learned here.

When drawing a box, try and think about where you want your lines to converge towards. Try ghosting in the direction of your implied vanishing point, and before drawing a mark, consider how it's going to relate to the other marks that belong to the same set. For example, the green lines in 244 suggest that you may have gotten a little bit lax (I've seen this tendency with other boxes).

In the majority of cases, you are going to have minimal convergence - this in some regards is easier to deal with, because they are mostly staying parallel. On the other hand, it can pose other difficulties because it's very easy to slip into the mistake of actually making those lines diverge by accident. This is the sort of thing you've got to keep your eye on as you continue to move forwards.

Lastly, you'll want to consider playing around with your line weights in the future. There's some notes on that topic in the challenge, and it's a great way to kick your boxes up to the next level, by making them feel more cohesive as a single form. Uniform lines tend to make them feel more like a collection of lines within the same space.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-03-13 21:31

Congrats on completing the challenge. One thing that stands out to me in this set is that while you were very diligent about extending your lines towards their implied vanishing points for the first fifty or so boxes, you seem to have stopped doing that altogether after about 56, despite the fact that you were bringing to light certain clear inconsistencies in the convergence of your lines. I'm not sure why you decided to stop, but this is something you need to keep doing.

It'll help to also think more about those convergences as you draw the lines - to consider where your vanishing point might be (even if it's well off the page) and try and envision how the line you're about to draw will converge with other lines that are meant to be parallel to it.

I also noticed that the majority of your boxes have vanishing points that are quite close, with not a lot that play with the foreshortening being much shallower (with VPs that sit much farther away). Unfortunately the shallower foreshortening is going to be much more common, as it implies a much more relatable scale (whereas dramatic foreshortening with closer VPs implies a much larger scale). You'll definitely want to make sure you can handle boxes of both sorts, but if you had to pick just one, I'd lean towards shallower foreshortening.

Lastly, and perhaps least importantly, I noticed that the hatching lines you were using to help distinguish the front-facing faces and back-faces were quite scribbly and haphazard. Take a bit more time and ensure that your hatching lines are parallel to one another and stretch all the way across the planes from edge to edge, rather than having them floating arbitrarily in the middle of a given plane.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Be sure to keep the points I've raised in mind, as these are things you'll definitely want to continue to work at.

Uncomfortable

2018-03-13 21:35

Very nice work! Your boxes have come out quite solid and confident, and convey a good sense of weight. You've used line weight to great effect to really enhance the cohesion of each form (instead of having the boxes feel like a loose grouping of lines). I'm also pleased to see you applying the line-extension method, though not applying them to all of your boxes is definitely a missed opportunity.

Overall you're doing great, so keep up the good work. I did notice though that in my critique of your lesson 1 work, while you added the rough perspective boxes that I'd requested, you never actually notified me. I'm glad to say that they're looking fine, so I'll go ahead and mark lesson 1 as well as this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-03-20 01:01

Your work here is excellent. Your boxes were fairly decent to begin with, but over the course of the set the consistency of your convergences and the confidence of your linework definitely progressed. Don't worry at all about the fact that you were taking about 6 minutes per box. There's nothing wrong with that at all. You're frankly meant to take as much time as you need at this point. My bigger concerns are with people who feel they're not going fast enough, and as a result end up rushing. If the methodology feels intuitive and makes sense to you, that's fine. When I spoke of formulas, I was referring to the tendency in many people to focus too much on each individual step one might apply to a task, and in doing so find themselves paralyzed, unable to move forwards without knowing what the next ten steps will be. A great deal of learning comes from making mistakes and scraping our knees, so if we are unable to actually make those mistakes, we do not grow.

Gradually you will find yourself taking less time - it's not something that requires any conscious effort, but the more we repeat these processes, the more we internalize them. The more our subconscious understands that on the basis of being told several lines are parallel to one another, that they must converge together at a similar rate. The more this internalizes, the less we need to actively think about it.

Ironically, this internalizing comes from taking the time, every time, to go through those steps, and to analyze our mistakes. You are very clearly doing this, and to great effect. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-03-20 23:15

Really nice work! What impresses me most is that your line quality is extremely confident and self-assured. There's no hesitation there, nor any desire or attempt to hide your marks. You apply line weight quite nicely as well, and achieve a good relationship between your lighter and heavier edges.

Despite the issue you caught on occasion, I can certainly see you getting a better grasp of how your parallel lines ought to be converging. There's definitely still room to grow, but the improvement is notable especially when examining the extended lines.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work.

Uncomfortable

2018-03-21 22:43

Very nice work! As before your line quality is very confident and consistent, and you're clearly taking your time to apply the ghosting method as needed rather than getting preoccupied with the greater goal of creating a box. I'm also very pleased to see that you're extending your lines here, and I do believe that your convergences are improving over the set.

One thing that I noticed however is that you have a tendency to keep your vanishing points quite close, resulting in foreshortening that is quite dramatic. I highly recommend that you practice a greater variety, especially in terms of how far or close your vanishing points rest. You'll find as you move forwards that the vast majority of boxes we'll be using will actually have vanishing points that are quite a but further off, resulting in the shallower foreshortening that implies an object of a much more relatable scale (like something you could carry in your arms). Dramatic foreshortening is more in line with larger structures, like looking at the top of a building from the ground floor.

Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-03-30 02:37

Fantastic work! I'm really pleased to see that you applied the line extension method to each and every box without fail - and it's clear that you did learn a great deal from doing so. Over the course of the set your linework becomes more confident and your constructions become more solid. There certainly is more room for improvement (there's still some convergence issues like 248 which is honestly totally normal), but you're doing great and are improving at an excellent rate.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-03-30 02:42

Pretty good work, though I have a few recommendations:

• It really is important to extend the lines of each box, and to study what those extended lines are telling you about your tendencies. It's the identification of those tendencies, followed by being conscious of them while drawing your next box that helps you progress. You are certainly getting better over the set, but I do feel that you still have a good deal of room to grow when it comes to handling those convergences.

• In the future, try and draw your boxes a little bigger. Our brains benefit considerably from being given extra room to think through these sorts of spatial problems - when we draw smaller, we have the opposite effect, resulting in more mistakes.

• Give each box more time. While I could be wrong, your boxes feel just a little bit rushed. Not terribly so, but I do think you could probably stand to think and plan out each line a little more, and as I mentioned above, think more about how you want your lines to be converging.

You are definitely making progress, but need to be more conscious of what you are trying to achieve with each mark. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete - as you move onto lesson 2, be sure to incorporate the lesson 1 exercises as well as some freely rotated boxes into a regular warm up routine so as to continue developing on this front.

Uncomfortable

2018-03-31 20:09

Nicely done! I'm glad to see that you applied the line extension methods to your boxes pretty stringently. There is certainly room to continue growing, but you've made considerable improvement over the set. There's a definite confidence to your linework, and the consistency of your constructions definitely improves. Continue to think about how your lines are going to converge as you draw them, and when you extend those lines, think about where you tend to make your mistakes. For example, with box 211, you've thought more about the convergence of two lines at a time, rather than all four. It's a common issue, so just be sure to keep in mind as you move forwards.

A couple things to keep in mind:

• You technically stopped doing the exercise after box 215. The point is to focus on freely rotating boxes without explicitly placing your vanishing points. You transitioned more into the rough perspective box exercise here, and while there's definitely value in that, don't deviate from the instructions.

• Watch how you're applying those hatching lines. For the most part you're okay, but I do want you to focus on keeping your hatching lines stretched from edge to edge (rather than floating in between two edges on a plane), and I don't want you to cross-hatch as it gets quite sloppy.

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

Uncomfortable

2018-04-02 17:48

I'm glad to see how thorough you've been in extending your lines towards their implied vanishing points. You're definitely showing improvement with the convergence of your lines, but I think there are still some room for growth. One thing I want you to do is think more about how your lines are meant to converge as you draw them. Think about how they relate to each other and where you want them to all come together. For example, if you look at box...

err, I can't actually make out the number. But it's the one that's directly about 241. If you look at its vertical lines, specifically at the two that sit towards the middle of the drawing (one on the front side and the other on the back side of the form), you'll notice that these two lines are actually very close to each other, so you can very easily determine how they're going to come together while you're actually drawing them. When lines are relatively close, there's going to be relatively little change in their angles - they'll be almost parallel to one another. In this case however, you've got them converging quite dramatically.

Always look for lines that should be parallel in 3D space, and are in close proximity to one another in the drawing itself. When you're drawing a mark that sits close in this manner to another edge that's already been drawn, think about how much its angle actually needs to be changed. The closer they are, the more similar the angle should be.

You also may want to try playing with line weight a little more. I see you did so in a few cases (like box 232, i think), though in that particular example your additional weight has been added in a somewhat scratchy fashion, rather than utilizing the ghosting method as you would with any other mark.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep working on this sort of thing as part of your warmup routine (mixed in with the various lesson 1 exercises), but feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2018-04-03 23:37

Nice work! You're visibly improving over the set, and I'm very pleased to see that you applied the line extension method across the board. Your boxes are quite solid, and your linework is confident. While sometimes your convergences are still a little off (this'll of course improve with time and practice), regardless they still feel believable as three dimensional forms. They may not always come out as perfect boxes made up of 90 degree angles, they never feel flat or implausible.

Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2018-04-05 16:00

Looking good! Your boxes feel solid and confident, and your lines are confident. Your use of weight definitely adds a great deal to the constructions and helps keep them cohesive, as though you're drawing a single form rather than a collection of lines.

One (minor) issue that I noticed that you will want to keep an eye on is something I see frequently from students. If you take a look at 256, specifically at the pink lines that head towards the left, you'll see that you're starting to see two groups of two lines with their own convergences, rather than one group of four lines all converging together. In this particular case it's only really one line that's off. A better example might be 226.

Anyway, it only comes up here and there, but always keep in mind the fact that all four lines are converging together. It's easy to lose track of the relationship between all of the lines.

Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Uncomfortable

2018-04-15 17:48

Looking good! I'm glad to see that you went over the vast majority of your boxes to extend their lines, and from the looks of it, properly analyzed them to identify where your convergences weren't quite right, or where certain lines were drifting off course.

From the beginning, you were applying the techniques of box construction covered in the notes and video pretty well, but this careful analysis definitely helped push you forwards. Your line quality is also looking quite confident, and your experimentation with line weight is bearing fruit.

One piece of advice I have to offer is to try and keep those line weights a little more subtle. Avoid lines that get overly thick, relative to their neighbours, as this can start to flatten things out. Even if the difference in line weight is minute, the subconscious can pick up on it, and it can contribute a lot to a drawing, so strive for that kind of subtlety instead.

Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete!

Uncomfortable

2018-04-15 19:05

In my experience, focus and patience are hard, but they're things we develop over time. Give someone a pen and some paper for the first time, and they'll sit down and draw for ten minutes, tops. They'll feel that what they drew in that time will define their ability forever, that they will never have it in them to sit for longer, to think harder, and to take their time.

But as we all know, as we work at it, our tolerance for the tedium and the repetition and all the little things increases. We find ourselves able to focus for longer, to go from spending minutes on a sketch, to hours and even days. But the main thing to remember is where we started. Of course, I don't know how this applies to those with additional concerns like ADHD and whatever else, but I'm going to assume my point here does apply to you.

Keep at it, and when you feel your focus drifting, and your ability to think about each mark you put down to fizzle, take a break. Ensure that the work you do is at or around your peak performance, and push yourself just a little bit each time to go for longer.

For some people, the pomodoro technique has worked (where you set a timer, usually for 25 minutes but really it's whatever predetermined period of time suits you), followed by a 5 minute guilt-free break. The point is about letting the timer govern things. So when the timer says you're on break, you're on break and there's nothing you can do about it.

Anyway, back to your work - you're doing pretty well, but I do have a couple things to mention about your line extensions. I'm definitely pleased that you're doing them for all your boxes, though keep in mind that you only want to extend them in the direction of their implied vanishing point (towards which they should be converging). No need to extend in both directions. It's also more helpful to extend them as far as you can, to get as good of a sense of the nature of that convergence as possible.

Lastly, while you do seem to have a pretty good balance of boxes with dramatic foreshortening (where the VPs are very close) and shallower foreshortening (where the VPs are way further away), I'd recommend putting more emphasis on the latter. Shallower foreshortening is the sort of thing that's going to come up more frequently, and also tends to be more difficult since it's more difficult to visualize a VP that's distant. They're more common because shallower foreshortening suggests a more relatable, human scale, whereas dramatic foreshortening tells us that an object is very large (like looking at the top of a tall building from the ground floor). So, practicing having the VPs much further away will be more useful for most things.

Anyway, keep up the great work. Your boxes feel quite solid, and despite your struggles you have demonstrated a great deal of patience and focus here. Pushing yourself on that front will always help of course (especially when it comes to analyzing the results while extending those lines), but you're doing pretty well as it is.

Consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2018-04-19 21:45

Nicely done! Your linework and constructions definitely become considerably more confident throughout the set, and I'm very pleased to see that you're applying the line extension method to get a sense of what you need to work on from page to page. I can see clearly where certain issues with the convergence of your lines start to disappear, so that's fantastic.

Just a few points to think about:

• The extension method is, of course, a good thing to use all over. I totally understand dropping off from that near the end, but it's still a worthwhile analytical tool, so try not to leave it out from exercises like this.

• I wouldn't get in the habit of scribbling out boxes that aren't going well. Even if you fully understand what you did wrong, you should see every drawing through to the end. Every drawing can teach us a lot, and while certain things may not be as we intended them, there is still much to be gained by pushing through.

• When adding hatching to the face of a form, it's important to ensure that all your lines are consistent, parallel and stretch all the way across the plane, for presentation's sake. Anything being a little sloppy will take away from the effort you've put into the other aspects of your work.

• Something to consider as you continue to move forwards is line weight. There are some notes on that topic on the challenge page, so be sure to give them a read. I also talk about it in lesson 2's form intersection video.

Anyway, consider this challenge complete. Keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable

2018-04-19 21:49

Hahaha, it definitely is pretty taxing, and challenging to one's sanity. But rejoice! You beat it, and you beat it good. Great work completing the challenge. I'm very pleased to see that you applied the line extension method, and that you also demonstrated a pretty good grasp of the mistakes you uncovered with your corrections in green. I can see your understand of space and form improving, and your convergences becoming considerably more consistent over the full set.

As you continue to move forwards, you'll want to think about line weight as well. There are some notes on this topic on the challege page, as well as in the lesson 2 form intersections video, so be sure to check those out.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work.

Uncomfortable

2018-04-21 00:20

It certainly is something that takes a great deal of time and dedication, but you're definitely heading down the right path. You've shown considerable improvement with both the confidence of your linework and the solidity of your forms. There are a couple things to keep an eye on, but overall you're doing well.

One thing that jumps out at me is that when you're applying additional line weight, the confidence with which you draw your initial lines disappears, and you start drawing your lines much more slowly, carefully and hesitantly, resulting in them wobbling a little. Keep in mind that each and every mark you draw should be done so with confidence, applying the ghosting method - even when you're adding line weight.

Another thing worth mentioning can be seen in box 243 (as well as many others). Take a look at that box, specifically the lines that go off towards the left. There's four lines, focus on the two in the center that are quite close to one another. Because they're close to each other, and we know that these two edges are parallel in 3D space, this tells us that they're going to be very close to parallel when drawn on the page. In this box, there's a pretty big difference between them however, and they're actually diverging a fair bit. This is the sort of thing that extending our lines makes quite clear in a lot of cases, but in this particular case it's something we could identify even as we were drawing.

Whenever you're drawing an edge, think about the other edges you want your line to be parallel with, and consider how close they are. If they're as close as this pair are, then you can more or less draw your new line as being parallel to the other.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-04-21 00:31

Really great work! The considerable change from the first couple of false starts you had there and the last pages is immense, both in your understanding of 3D space, as well as your confidence with your linework. You're very clearly taking your time with each and every mark, and I see no wobbling or hesitation - just smooth, confident strokes.

There's of course still room for growth, as there always will be, but you're pretty consistently good enough to fool the naked eye. Once we start extending our lines, we see some issues here and there, like how in box 252, the lines going off to the left seem to group off in pairs rather than all converging together. Same thing happens for the lines going downwards.

As you continue to move forwards, you'll want to continue to practice boxes where the vanishing points are further away from the box, and the convergences are much shallower as a result. I think this is probably where you'll run into the kinds of issues we see on 252. Boxes with shallower foreshortening are also going to be more common, because it implies that the form is at a much more relatable scale to the viewer. A box with very dramatic foreshortening, and vanishing points that are close to the box, tend to suggest a really large scale (like looking at the top of a building from the ground).

Anyway, like I said - you're doing great. Keep up the fantastic work and consider this challenge complete. I've told you this before - I fully expected you to give up. But you kept pecking away, and became a proper drawing chicken. This is not the end of the road, but you've set off with your little chicken backpack, and are heading towards great terrifying things.

Uncomfortable

2018-04-23 20:32

Nice work! I can definitely see certain patterns of improvement across your set. For example, earlier when you extend your lines, we can see that the lines' relationships to each other (that is, to the other ones within their parallel group) don't end up being entirely clear, but several pages later, there's a more consistent convergence between them. It shows that you move from attacking your lines as individual components, to thinking about how they all work together.

One thing that caught my eye is that when you add line weight, there are in some cases signs that you may be going over your linework with a less confident stroke than you ought to. Remember that even when adding weight, you should still be executing your marks with a confident, persistent pace, and applying the ghosting method. It can be very easy to fall into the trap of drawing slower in order to match the line you're adding weight to, but this will generally cause the resulting mark to feel stiff (even if the wobbling is minimal).

Also, in that last little rotated boxes attempt, your alignment of your boxes is pretty well done, and I like the fact that you are aware of how the boxes relate to one another, using their proximity to help you make decisions in regards to how each mark should be drawn.

That said, make sure you're still applying the ghosting method - the gaps between your lines suggest a bit of a lack of planning/preparation, and they make the whole thing feel a little more loose and less solid. So keep an eye on that in the future (though I understand that this was probably a loose doodle).

LASTLY - thank you for the kitty paw. It's much appreciated.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work, and feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-04-25 23:07

Really, really nice work. You started off with some confident and precise linework, and just the application of the techniques of drawing through your forms really helped bring things together from the get go. That said, extending your lines definitely brought to light some inconsistencies in your convergence.

It's very clear to me that over the course of this set, you paid careful heed to what the line extensions taught you about your own approach and your own tendencies, and gradually corrected those mistakes. By the end, your convergences are considerably more consistent, and your forms feel much more solid and convincing.

You've done really well in putting this challenge to good use, and clearly gained a great deal from it. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge thoroughly complete.

Uncomfortable

2018-04-27 20:25

You may not have enjoyed it, but it certainly helped! Though there's still room for growth, I can see the cohesiveness of each set of parallel lines improving. Alongside that, the confidence of your linework is solid, as is your use of line weight to add to the illusion of solidity.

As you draw these boxes, I want you to keep pushing yourself to think about each line as part of the set to which it belongs. As you prepare to draw a mark, think about which lines it's meant to be parallel to (in 3d space), and think about what that means about its angle in relation to those other lines. For example, look at 248, specifically the lines going off to the right. The far back corner's line is obviously off, but if you look at it, it runs quite close to the topmost corner that is closest to the viewer. Because it runs quite close to it, it's actually going to be very close to actually being parallel to it when drawn in 2D.

Things like this are important to watch out for. In this particular case, it wasn't as easy to notice while drawing it, and only became clearer once the lines were extended. So think about how those lines would extend, and what kind of relationships that emphasizes between other lines within the same set.

Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-04-29 19:27

You've done pretty well, and have shown a considerable amount of improvement over the course of these.. various sets of boxes. I'm pleased to see that you applied the line extension method (sporadically at times - doing it for every box is always best, but you still did a fair bit regardless).

Overall, you're doing great. I do have a couple recommendations as you continue to move forwards though:

• You do show a tendency throughout to try and correct or reinforce certain lines where things don't go entirely according to plan. This isn't a great habit, and one you should definitely fight against. If a line doesn't go the way you meant it to, or you notice a mistake after the fact, leave it alone. Piling more ink onto a problematic area will only draw more attention to that blunder.

• I'm definitely glad to see a good balance between boxes with dramatic foreshortening (where parallel lines converge quite quickly) and those with shallower foreshortening (where the vanishing points are much farther away, so lines converge at a more gradual rate). The latter tend to be more common in our drawings, as shallower foreshortening implies a more relatable scale, and dramatic foreshortening suggests a very large scale (like looking at the top of a tall building from the ground). With shallower foreshortening, there is a tendency that I see in some of your boxes, where of the four lines in any given set, they will start pairing off together, resulting in two vanishing points closer to the box, rather than a single one much further away. It's a pretty common issue that you should just keep in mind as you continue to progress.

Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-02 20:32

You improved on quite a few fronts through this set. Not only did your sense of construction as applied to each box get stronger, with the resulting forms feeling more solid and consistent, but the confidence with which you drew your marks improved considerably.

I do think that you peaked around 150, which was about the time you stopped applying the line-extension method. After that, your lines start to wobble a bit more so they're not drawn with the same kind of confidence, or perhaps the same care as far as ghosting goes. My guess is that that's the point where your patience wore thin. When that happens, take a break. Try to always tackle the work at your best.

Another thing I noticed was that you definitely had more success with boxes where the vanishing points were relatively close, and the rate of convergence was fairly dramatic. This makes a lot of sense, as it's easier to gauge the convergence towards a point that you can see, as opposed to one that's much farther away. That said, this sort of shallower foreshortening, where the vanishing points are off the page and the convergence is more gradual, are going to come up a lot more frequently, as it suggests a much more relatable scale to that box. Dramatic foreshortening tells us a box is really large, like looking at the top of a building from the ground.

So, you're definitely going to want to keep pushing yourself to practice with that shallower foreshortening. Those circumstances are also the ones where you're going to want to employ that error-checking more stringently. You actually did move more towards shallow foreshortening in the second half of your boxes, but that's also where you stopped extending your lines.

I'd recommend going back over them to at least apply the error checking method to the boxes you missed, so you can get a better idea of the type of errors you tend to make.

That said, overall you're doing pretty well, and I'm very pleased with the quality of your linework and your use of linework where your work peaked. Definitely gave the impression of strong, solid forms, and a great sense of 3D space.

Keep it up, and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-04 01:08

Looking through these was actually quite interesting. For the most part, I think the impact of learning the importance of drawing through your forms, and applying that extension method as conscientiously as you did was pretty significant even near the beginning. Your boxes were already feeling quite solid, and while there were some convergence issues here and there that you were identifying, overall you were doing great.

Then as you progressed, you seemed to get a little... bored. Like you blew all of your gas on those first few pages, drawing a lot of fantastic, confident forms with strong weights and a great sense of space, and then burned out somewhat. Towards the middle of the set, your boxes were more subdued, like your interest had waned and the energy you were putting into these powerful forms had dissipated. They weren't bad, and spatially you were still progressing, but the line quality did drop.

That's.. pretty understandable - this isn't exactly a fun exercise.

Anyway, that said - after that lull in the middle, you started picking up again. Your line weights became confident again, and you finished up quite strong. It was a wild ride. So, overall you're doing great. You've reinforced a pretty strong grasp of 3D space, and leveraged the techniques to great effect - hopefully learning and internalizing the importance of drawing through your forms. You can definitely see the clear difference between these boxes and those you drew for the organic perspective exercise in lesson 1.

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

Uncomfortable

2018-05-05 19:38

Nicely done! You show considerable progress through the set, and continue to improve - up until the last page, where I think nearing your goal may have made you rush somewhat. That's understandable of course.

As you continue to move forwards, you will also want to experiment with the use of line weight to help increase the cohesiveness and solidity of your forms, as that will help kick them up to the next level. There are notes on this topic on the challenge page, so be sure to give them a read.

Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-06 22:07

Nice work completing the challenge. I do have a few things to point out about your set that should help you as you continue to move forwards:

• The first thing that jumped out at me was that you kind of lack variety. You're mostly drawing the boxes at roughly the same orientation, or at least you're grouping many of them as being from the same angle. You're also pretty consistently focusing only on boxes with a very shallow rate of convergence. You should have a balanced variety of boxes, in terms of their rotation/orientation as well as the rate of convergence of their lines. When the vanishing points are very, very far away, those lines wont' converge much - but if you move them closer to the box, the foreshortening will become more dramatic, and the lines will converge more visibly and more quickly.

• When you apply the line extension method, you extended them in both directions. You only really need to extend them towards their implied vanishing point, to identify the nature of their convergence. In fact, extending in both directions can definitely get quite confusing.

To be completely honest, I think that you would have gained a great deal more from this exercise if you hadn't stuck purely to such a shallow convergence for all of your lines. They're largely near isometric (where lines that are parallel to one another in 3D space also run parallel to one another in 2D space).

I am going to mark this challenge as complete, as you certainly did the work - but you should definitely make freely rotated boxes a significant part of your general warmup routine in order to get more practice in with a greater amount of variety.

You are of course free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-11 23:00

You're definitely showing a fair bit of improvement over the course of the set, so great job there. You may want to explore the use of line weight as you continue to push through, as that'll kick them up to the next level by improving the general cohesion of your forms. There are notes about that on the challenge page that you can read through.

As for your question however, I think when you're drawing those last few lines, you may not be thinking about the all lines with which it should be parallel. I'm sure you remember from the notes and video how every box is made up of three sets of four parallel lines. It's easy to mistakenly get stuck focusing only on the relationship of the line you're drawing with the box as a whole, or perhaps only with one other line with which it should be converging.

But the thing is, that line needs to be converging at a consistent rate with all the lines that belong to its set. So if you look at the green extended lines on box 225 for example, the two lines close together towards the center should be drawn more or less parallel to one another (because they're so close to one another). Or, if you look at 232, you can see the two leftmost red lines, where they're converging much earlier than the other red lines.

Ultimately you have to think about how the line is going to interact with all those other marks in its set. The fact that we use the ghosting method for all of our marks (meaning, we start by laying down start/end points) can help a lot in this regard, because we can place them down for a bunch of lines before committing completely.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. You're doing a great job and showing a fair bit of progress, but be sure to keep an eye on what I mentioned there. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-15 00:40

Very nice work! While you may have rushed, it doesn't really show that much in your work. Overall your forms are quite solid, and I'm quite pleased with how you use line weight in a subtle, yet effective way. You're not overbearing with it, nor are you too loud and obnoxious. You add just a little extra weight where it's needed, and it punches your boxes up to the next level.

When you started out, I could see that you were doing a pretty good job but you were struggling with a bit of divergence, especially when it comes to the lines that were closer together (like, where you'd extend them they'd run right beside each other, so you could very clearly see that they weren't as parallel as they should have been). By the end however, you became much more consistent in avoiding this problem. That's exactly the kind of growth I'm looking for.

Anyway, you did very well. In the future you may want to play a bit more with a variety of box types - that is, you did a lot with vanishing points that were very far away, you'll want to play with some that are a bit closer, and some that are much closer. Farther away is going to come up more often (because this applies a smaller, more relatable scale), but you'll still want to have experience with vanishing points that are close to the box itself (where the lines converge quickly, suggesting a much larger scale like looking at the top of a building from the ground).

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

Uncomfortable

2018-05-17 22:42

Overall your consistency of construction and general sense of 3D space does improve a fair bit over the set. I do have to say though - it's too bad that you stopped applying the line extension method after your first hundred boxes. While it's very valuable earlier on, it really shines when your construction starts to get more consistent and your mistakes get more subtle. It's by analyzing the behaviour of those sets of parallel lines as they converge towards a single point (or fail to do so) that we become more aware of our mistakes.

Also, near the end your line quality definitely falters (as you noted yourself). Those gaps, having lines undershoot or trail off like that greatly weaken the illusion of solidity of your boxes and make things feel generally flimsy. It's extremely important that you apply the ghosting method across the board, and take advantage of how applying it correctly helps improve your control.

Lastly, as you continue to develop in this area, playing with line weight is a great way to kick your boxes up to the next level. I've got notes on this topic on the challenge page, so be sure to give them a read.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. You've come a fair distance, but try and limit the number of corners you end up cutting along the way.

P.S. you are absolutely welcome to resubmit previous lessons, if you've redone them.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-18 20:20

You show considerable improvement in a lot of areas here. The obvious one is the solidity and consistency of your box constructions, but along with that, the confidence of your lines and your use of line weight comes along really well. You're also showing an immense degree of patience and care, and don't really show any areas where you get sloppy (it's not uncommon to see people start to slip up and rush through the last 50 or so as they see the finish line approaching).

One area where you do need work however is more in regards to the variety of your boxes. After the first couple of pages, you started to fairly consistently draw boxes with very dramatic foreshortening, where your lines would converge very rapidly towards their vanishing point (due to the VPs being very close to the boxes). This sort of dramatic foreshortening is definitely good to practice, but you must keep in mind that it specifically implies a very large scale (like looking at the top of a building from the ground floor), or that the object is extremely close to the viewer's eye.

The vast majority of the objects we draw are at a much more relatable, human scale, so getting used to drawing boxes that have a shallower foreshortening and convergence is an extremely valuable skill. You're definitely on the right path, you just need to widen the range of the kinds of boxes you're practicing with. You did mostly focus on this sort of box in your first two pages, but obviously being at the beginning of the set, we aren't able to see the same ramping up of your skills in that area.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

HyperboreanBaby

2018-05-19 23:29

Dab 250 1 https://imgur.com/gallery/hrvITuL

I noticed that I have trouble placing the vertical for back corners.

HyperboreanBaby

2018-05-19 23:30

Dab 250 1 https://imgur.com/gallery/hrvITuL

I noticed that I have trouble placing the vertical for back corners. I am not worried about line weights at this stage. Sometimes one set of parallel lines would be off, I have to watch for that.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-20 19:53

Congratulations on completing the 250 box challenge. You definitely pushed through and drew a great many, and I'm glad t osee that you drew through all of your forms. You're definitely demonstrating some confident, smooth linework, which is great to see.

I honestly would have rather you'd applied the line extension method to all of your boxes however, rather than those at the beginning and a handful of those thereafter. It's an important technique that allows you to identify mistakes you may not have otherwise noticed (after all, as you get better, fewer and fewer of your mistakes will be obvious to the naked eye), and it forces you to think more about the relationship of each line with those it's meant to be parallel to.

You do improve over all, but I can still see many boxes even further on in the set that have lines that do not converge consistently towards the same vanishing point when they should. I also see boxes where you've extended some lines, but not others, sometimes only extending two or three lines out of a given set - even though there's four to each set. What you're trying to see is the relationship between all the lines of a given set, and while the three you extend may look fine, it may be the fourth you neglected that is off.

When you're drawing the lines of a box, always think about the lines with which it must be parallel. Don't worry about how the line relates to any of the others - just those in its set, the ones that ought to go off towards the same vanishing point.

Take a look at this. I've outlined one of the sets of lines from box 245. Obviously there's a serious problem in the relationship between lines B and C. Because they're in such close proximity to each other, they should actually be running basically parallel to each other. We can determine this just by looking at how they're arranged, and considering the fact that they all need to converge towards some far off point. It's not as easy when the lines aren't drawn yet of course, but that's one of the things we're training you to do. To understand the nature of these lines and the relationships they have before you've actually drawn them.

Anyway, keep those points in mind. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. I do believe that you'll benefit from going back over them and extending all of the lines of your last few pages to better learn the kinds of mistakes you tend to make, but I'll leave that decision up to you. Feel free to move onto lesson 2 when you're ready.

imguralbumbot

2018-05-20 05:14

^(Hi, I'm a bot for linking direct images of albums with only 1 image)

https://i.imgur.com/AkFW2LV.jpg

^^Source ^^| ^^Why? ^^| ^^Creator ^^| ^^ignoreme ^^| ^^deletthis

Uncomfortable

2018-05-20 19:57

Pretty nice work! Your lines are confident, and you're demonstrating a strong awareness of where your vanishing points lie, and how the various sets of parallel lines converge together. I'm also pleased to see that you've been applying the line extension method fairly consistently throughout.

The only piece of advice I have to offer is that you should try to aim for a little more variation in regards to how close your vanishing points sit to the boxes. For the most part here, your boxes demonstrate a fairly dramatic foreshortening, with rapid convergence. Sometimes the vanishing points are a little further away, and that convergence is reduced a little, but it is still quite obvious in all cases.

The reason I want you to consider boxes with shallower foreshortening is because that ends up coming into play a fair bit. Where dramatic foreshortening suggests boxes with a very large scale (like looking at the top of a tall building from the ground), a box with shallower foreshortening and more gradual convergence of its parallel lines suggests a box that is at a more relatable, human scale. Since most of the objects we'll be drawing are of hits nature, it's important that you get a fair bit of practice in on that front as well.

So, I strongly recommend that you work some boxes of this sort into your warmups, applying the same techniques of drawing through your forms and extending your lines to check for mistakes. That I leave up to you - I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-20 22:43

Looking good. Do you recognize the kinds of mistakes that the line extensions make more obvious?

Uncomfortable

2018-05-23 19:50

Overall you're doing a pretty good job. If you compare where you started with this challenge to the end, you've improved a fair bit in your understanding of how those lines need to be converging with those they're parallel to, towards a vanishing point (be it closeby or far off). There is definitely room for improvement on this front, getting them to converge more closely towards the same point, but that will come with practice.

It's definitely important though that you've shaken off, for the most part, issues with lines diverging as they move farther away.

I'm also pleased with the confidence of your lines. You're maintaining straight, smooth strokes throughout. The next step would be to spend some time thinking about how using line weight to help accentuate the solidity of your forms - there's notes on that topic on the challenge page, so be sure to check them out.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. As for your other request, go ahead and include the link. I don't generally offer general critique on non-drawabox work, so I won't promise anything in-depth, but I'll take quick look all the same.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-26 19:02

Honestly, you've done a pretty solid job with these. Your linework is extremely confident, and you're doing a great job applying line weights. There is improvement with the consistency of your convergences (which the extended lines are meant to test), but there certainly is room for improvement on that front. I still do see areas where you've got lines that converge more in pairs (like the parallel edges of a given plane converging together, but not to the same point as the lines on an opposite plane with which they are also parallel), so that's something to work on. As you draw a line, it's important to try and think about all the other three lines with which that one will be parallel - whether you've drawn them yet or not. Think about where they're going to converge, even if it's farther away, and if possible, think about how "similar" a line is going to be to another in the same set.

If you look at box 250, you can see those two middle lines there going down towards the bottom left. They're extremely close to each other, so you know that they're going to be nearly parallel since they're to converge towards the same far off point. It's easy to gauge this because the lines are actually drawn close to one another in this case - but there are cases when lines are quite similar to one another (being just a few degrees different when you actually compare the angles at which they come out of the vanishing point), but may not be drawn as close together on the page, so it's harder to tell.

Anyway, that's something you'll want to keep focusing on as you continue to grow. You've done a great job with this set, so consider this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-05-27 17:01

While I do agree with the line weight/super imposed lines stuff getting a bit sloppy by the end (and being really quite solid at the start), you definitely did improve considerably over the set on the core of the challenge - that is, becoming more consistent with your convergences. The set as a whole is pretty solid.

One thing that I do want to recommend is that you not make a habit of continually drawing new lines when things go wrong. I can see areas where you probably felt you missed the super imposed line, and decided to go back over it again and again until you got it right. Better to invest more time into ghosting through it, then executing once (whether it works or not). Usually one extra stroke is enough to provide some nice, subtle weight. If you really want to you can go at it once more, but only if the first attempt worked out okay (so as to avoid doing it because the first attempt went awry).

Anyway, you definitely learned a lot from extending your lines. Just spend more time on ghosting through the motion before you add weight to a mark. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete - feel free to move onto lesson 2!

Uncomfortable

2018-05-29 00:46

Good work completing the challenge. I can see various degrees of improvement throughout, especially in your last few pages. That said, I do agree that there are still some areas where you are struggling rather consistently. That is, it's pretty often that you have lines that should be parallel, that end up diverging as they move farther away, rather than converging as they ought to.

The important thing here is that when you're drawing a line, don't distract yourself by thinking about the corners so much. What matters, and what you should be focusing on are the other lines the current one runs parallel to (remember, three sets of four parallel lines). When you're drawing a line, think of those - including the ones that haven't yet been drawn - and consider where they're meant to converge to.

Also, think about their similarlity/proximity. This isn't necessarily speaking of how close, physically, two lines are, where they're drawn. Rather, think about the angles at which they radiate out from the vanishing point they all are meant to share. If the angle between two of those lines is quite small, then where they become a part of the box, those lines are going to end up being much closer to being parallel to one another.

Here's an explanation of what I mean. It's tricky, but one must learn to think strategically about what they cannot necessarily see, or what has not yet been drawn. Also, leveraging the part of the ghosting method that involves placing points for the start and end of an intended line can be helpful. That is, placing the points for numerous lines before committing to them with an actual stroke.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-02 18:06

It's definitely really clear that your understanding of how those sets of parallel lines must converge together consistently has improved considerably over the course of the challenge. It's really quite interesting to see the continuous progression - not much plateauing or stalling, just continuous, steady improvement.

There are two things worth mentioning - the first doesn't matter much, but your scanner settings aren't doing you any favours. It looks like you're using the "drawing" presets many scanners have - this is designed to really ramp up the contrast on an image, in the interest of having a stark white background. It also tends to blast out any of the nuance of your linework, and makes it look pretty bad. The photograph presets are usually preferable.

Related to your actual work though, the next step you'll want to take with these is playing more with your line weight to help improve the sense of cohesion and solidity across your forms. When the lines are all uniform, it's easy for a box to feel more like a collection of marks that are loosely connected to one another - once you add a little line weight here and there (keeping it subtle of course), it starts to feel more like a single object.

There are notes on the topic of line weight on the challenge page, so be sure to give them a read. I also talk a little bit about it on the form intersections video for lesson 2.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Oh, also worth mentioning - if you do end up taking that NMA course alongside drawabox, remember that it's very important that you try not to let techniques from one course contradict what another course tells you to do. So when you're doing NMA stuff, apply NMA's techniques. When you're doing drawabox, apply drawabox techniques. Some people do find it a little tricky to balance these out, and leaving the decisions on what is valuable and what is not to the end isn't always easy - but it is important to understand the various techniques and principles within the full context that they're taught.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-04 20:34

Imgur seems to have a penchant for shuffling things around as it pleases. Not sure why.

Overall I can definitely see progress over the set. Your estimation of perspective is improving steadily. There's certainly room for more growth, as is expected, but you've definitely made a solid jump forwards with this challenge.

One thing that caught my eye was that up until your late 100s to early 200s, you had a tendency of applying the line extension method to check your mistakes on two of the three sets of lines. This causes your awareness of the convergences to become a little unbalanced - where you'll tend to do really well on two sides, but then compensate by having the third fall a bit out of whack (and sometimes even diverge when it should be converging). The fact that you start extending the lines of all three later into the set does show that you're aware of this, but it was certainly worth mentioning.

As you continue to move forwards on this, I definitely recommend looking into the use of line weight (there are notes about this on the challenge page) to help increase the general sense of cohesion and solidity of your boxes, as it can definitely help kick things up to the next level.

Aside from that, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-04 20:52

There's definite improvement over the set, with your awareness of your convergences becoming more acute as you push through. There's still a lot of room for improvement of course. When you draw a given line, it's important that you try and think about all the other lines to which this one is going to be parallel. It's easy to get caught up in thinking about the other lines, line those that'll come together at a particular corner (a lot of people say that the back corner is the hardest), but think only about parallel lines.

Think about those that have already been drawn, the one you're drawing now, and those that have not yet been drawn, and consider how they're all going to converge together towards the same far off point. Also, think about which of these lines are more similar to each other.

Also, it's worth mentioning that when you apply the line extensions, it's probably best to draw along the entire length of the line as well, rather than starting the extension where the line ends. Aim for something more like this.

Lastly, putting some consideration towards line weight (there's notes about that on the challenge page) is a great way to kick your boxes up to the next level and to help increase the sense of cohesion and solidity you get from your boxes. When your lines are all left at a uniform weight, they tend to feel more like a loose collection of lines, rather than a single solid form.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-05 23:39

Very nice work overall. You've demonstrated a good deal of patience and care, and you've been extremely thorough in checking your boxes after the fact, and you've clearly learned a great deal from doing so.

As your constructions are coming along great, the one thing worth mentioning is that your line weight starts off very nice, but steadily seems to get a bit heavier throughout. The key to successful line weight is that it is subtle. There's no need to be heavy handed with this, and often being so can work to the detriment of the forms you're attempting to depict. Remember that line weight is always relative - it's all about one line appearing heavier or lighter than another, even if only slightly. That is always enough.

Anyway, keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-09 17:24

I think you've done a lot of really fantastic work here, and have demonstrated a good deal of growth in relation to this subject matter. As you move through the set, the mistakes become more subtle - which is exactly what we're aiming to do. Perfection is a far off target, but you're certainly heading in the right direction.

One issue that is still apparent in your later boxes becomes a little clearer when you look at boxes that are more stretched, like #250. The issue is that lines that make up a given plane will tend to converge with one another as a pair, rather than also sharing a vanishing point with the opposite plane. For example, the lines on the top plane going off to the right side will converge together much sooner than they intersect with the lines going towards the right of the bottom plane. Of course, since all these lines are meant to be parallel to one another, they should ideally be converging towards a single far-off point. What this tells us is that the lines belonging to any one plane have a tendency to converge together a little more rapidly than they should.

It's a common issue, but definitely something to keep in mind.

I think at the very beginning you were playing around with line weight - I definitely recommend you continue doing that to help kick your boxes up to the next level. It's true that I want you to draw all your lines with pens of a single thickness (ideally 0.5), but experimenting with line weight by going over existing lines with a confident stroke will work wonders in improving the general solidity and cohesiveness of your forms.

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

Uncomfortable

2018-06-14 23:31

You give me boxes, you give me kitty.... You've made my day a happy one.

You clearly show a good deal of improvement on a number of fronts. I think your lines are well planned and executed throughout, but your confidence in your use of line weight steadily grows over the whole set, and of course your awareness of your convergences (followed by a direct improvement of their consistency) trends upwards all along. By about 180ish, you're pretty consistently drawing boxes that to the naked eye look pretty correct.

Now, we know better once we extend our lines, and that's something that's going to continue to haunt us for quite some time, as the desire for perfection always does. But the most significant thing I see, especially towards the end, is a clear sense of how your lines are much more than just their drawn segment. You show yourself to be aware of the line's nature, as it continues on towards its vanishing point, and how it relates to the lines around it. Where at the beginning you could only grasp the lines as independent actors whose relevance to you was limited to their little dance upon the stage, you now see them as they go home, kiss their children good night, and cheat on their spouses.

Aside from getting you out of my hair for 69 days, that is exactly what this exercise is about. Understanding that there is a great deal more than what we see. There are patterns and relationships in everything. It's not something I can just explain to someone - it's a conclusion they need to come to themselves. All I can do is brandish the whip.

So, consider this challenge thoroughly complete. Go on, feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-15 18:24

Nice work completing the challenge! It is a bit of a pity that you stopped extending your lines after the first 100, as it does contribute a fair bit to one's growth, by keeping you aware of what you should always be working towards. That said, you do show a fair bit of progress overall, and in general you're demonstrating a good deal of confidence with your linework.

I do recommend that you at least take your last page and apply the line extension method, just to get a sense of where you're at now. In addition to this, as you move forwards, consider playing with some line weight to help improve the overall cohesiveness of your boxes. There are notes on this subject on the challenge page, so be sure to give them a read.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-15 18:58

Nice work! Overall your boxes are looking pretty solid, and your convergences are fairly consistent - aside from a few cases here and there. Of course, we're more interested in the overall pattern we see throughout your work, which is solid.

The kinds of mistakes I usually look out for are problems where the lines of a single set of parallels start to pair off, rather than converging together at a single point (like the blue lines in 235). Also, issues like the purple lines in 231 where you've got lines that run very close to one another (and should therefore be pretty close to parallel), but their convergences are off leading to early intersections. You see a similar issue in 236 with the purple lines - specifically those two in the center.

As I show here, if we imagine how those lines radiate out form the vanishing point, the if the angle between those lines is small, then those lines are going to be pretty similar to one another. Even moreso if the box is farther away from their vanishing point - since the farther out the box is, the more parallel its lines will be.

Anyway, those are problems that come out here and there, but they're mostly outliers. For the most part you're showing a lot of great work. Keep it up and consider this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-16 18:13

You've shown a great deal of improvement over this set in a number of areas. The consistency of your convergences improves a fair bit, as does the confidence of your linework, and the general solidity of your resulting forms (specifically in the development in your use of line weight which helps develop the cohesion between the sets of lines that make up each box).

While I see the issue you describe in various places in the set, I see it much less (if at all) in the last page, and overall it decreases throughout, showing that you are developing a good grasp of 3D space. That said, it is a problem that arises when a student focuses too much on how the different sets of lines are going to meet at their various corners. Your main focus should be instead on, when drawing a given line, all the other lines that are to run parallel to it (including those already drawn as well as those yet to be). The corners will have a tendency to fall into place as long as the convergences are consistent.

As far as figuring out where the corners will meet (and avoiding ending up with line segments that extend too far out), you can leverage the part of the ghosting method that has you lay down points for the start/end points for a given form. Points are a minimal commitment with a much smaller footprint than a full line, so you can certainly lay down points to establish the direction a line is going to flow, and do this for a number of lines before determining where a corner may fall. Overall with continued practice your natural sense for how long these lines should be will continue to develop, but there is absolutely no harm in relying further on estimating things with individual points before committing to the actual lines that are to make up your box.

Anyway, keep up the great work. You're doing very well, and may consider this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-19 00:42

Well, you completed the challenge - so congratulations on that. When it comes to the line extensions, it is of course ideal that we understand why we're asked to apply a certain technique, but at the end of the day, even if you don't understand it just then, deciding not to do it on that basis isn't particularly useful.

That said, it'll help for us to take a look at the boxes on your last page and identify what you should be keeping an eye on when extending those lines. As we know already, each set of parallel lines goes off towards its own vanishing point. The skill we're working to develop is being able to get our shorter segments to converge at a consistent enough rate that they point towards roughly the same vanishing point, some ways off. When we extend our lines, we can see how successful we've been in this endeavour.

For example, looking at 248, you can see that the two central red lines coming down are actually diverging. Because they're quite close to each other (and because the overall convergence of all those lines is very gradual and shallow), those two lines should basically be parallel to one another.

We see a similar thing in 250, except here the overall convergence is a little more rapid. Those two central red lines are diverging, when they should be close to parallel. The blue lines going off to the right though are much more consistent.

When drawing these lines, it's important to think about all the other lines that are meant to be parallel to the one you're working on - including those you've already drawn, and those you're yet to. Looking at how "similar" those lines are to the one you're drawing will tell you what the relationship between them will need to be. When I say similar, what I really mean is the angle between them as they radiate out from the vanishing point as shown here.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. You're free to move onto lesson 2, but these freely rotated boxes are something you're going to want to work into your regular warmup routine, so you can continue to work on getting your convergences to be more consistent.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-21 20:54

I do agree that your improvement is significant, and it shows best in your follow-up on lesson 1's rotated boxes. That said there are a couple things I can suggest that will help you as you continue to push forwards, in terms of opportunities that were missed here (in terms of taking full advantage of the exercise).

I definitely see improvement in terms of your line quality, in terms of what I mentioned about drawing with a confident, persistent pace. Your initial lines tend to be smoother than they were in lesson 1, with less visible wobbling. That said, when you add line weight, you revert to drawing very slowly and carefully, and wobbling all over.

When you add line weight, it's very important that you get used to applying the ghosting method there as well, and drawing the reinforcing mark with the same kind of confident, persistent pace. Yes, you may end up making a mistake, you may end up in some separation where your lines don't follow exactly the same path - but it's the process and the approach that you need to ingrain in yourself. As you continue to practice it that way, you'll get better, the gaps will shrink, and what will be left will be considerably more confident and smoother linework.

On the topic of line weight, it's great that you were experimenting with different ways to apply it. In the notes I mention an important point you may have missed or forgotten. The specific lines you choose to add weight to have an impact on how effective the use of weight will be.

A box is essentially a collection of lines, and when they're all uniform, that's more or less what it feels like. If you add weight to the lines that define the box's silhouette though (the outer lines), you start to build up this sense of cohesion, where they all belong to a single entity, bordered by these subtly darker lines. It doesn't even need to be that obvious (and generally shouldn't be) - just enough for one's subconscious to pick up on.

Alternatively, if you decide to add extra weight to the internal lines, those that sit inside of the silhouette, you construct the borders inside of your form and start to break it apart. Instead of feeling like a single, enclosed, cohesive form, it emphasizes how these lines are separate from one another. So that's something to avoid.

Lastly, I want to talk about the line extension method, how you've applied it, and what it generally tells us.

There are a few issues in how you applied the technique that reduced its effectiveness:

• It's important to extend all the lines. All three sets of parallel lines need to be extended, as they all need to be tested. It's easy to fall into a false sense of security if you focus only on extending two out of three (which you did quite frequently).

• Extend the lines only towards their implied vanishing points - don't bother extending in the opposite direction, it'll actually get more confusing if you do. The extensions are meant to let us study how our lines converge, and whether or not they converge at a consistent rate towards a roughly singular point. If we extend them in both directions, it can sometimes be less clear which side should be converging and which should be diverging.

So, when you study those extensions, keep an eye on the patterns you see. One common mistake (which we can see in 248 for example) is to have the lines within a given set pair off, instead of converging together in the same place. Or, like in 222, you can see a situation where two of the middle lines of a given set start intersecting way faster than the outer ones do. On that topic, these notes may help.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. You may feel free to move onto lesson 2, but be sure to keep working on these freely rotated boxes as well as the exercises from lesson 1 as part of a regular warmup regimen.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-25 21:57

Very nice work! I'm glad to see you pushing through all of these and maintaining some very confident, smooth linework. I can see you experimenting with different ways to approach things like line weight throughout, and by the end you settle on a fairly subtle approach which I think works best.

I do have some thoughts on how you apply the line extension method however - one of the key points about the technique is to be able to study how lines converge as they extend. On many of these, where you draw only the ends of the extensions, I think the relationship between the original line and its extension gets a little muddled - especially when you end up with a lot of red marks already present on the page. This can make it a lot harder to properly analyze what the extensions tell us.

For example, if you look at 248, specifically the lines that go down towards the right, you can see that two of your middle lines cross very early on. This is a common problem that extending lines will highlight, but when they aren't extended fully from the original line, it's harder to identify and really internalize what you're doing wrong. Here are some notes on the problem: https://i.imgur.com/bqGEzHk.png

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-26 20:26

Nice work! You're definitely showing improvement and understanding of the concepts (like working on having your lines converge at a consistent rate), though there's always going to be room for growth. You did a pretty great job with 250, but there are still other boxes (like 248 for example) that have some inconsistencies with how the lines converge. It is of course a continuous thing, and you've made some pretty significant strides with these 250 boxes.

I also like that the general confidence of your lines has improved over the set. The earlier boxes look a little less certain, with ink getting blobbier where you've hesitated, and so on.

As you continue to develop in this area, always think about the similarities between different members of a set of parallel lines. Two lines are more similar when the angle between them where they intersect is smaller. I explain this further in these notes.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-06-30 01:09

Congrats on completing the challenge. I'm glad to see that you approached the exercise quite conscientiously and drew through all your forms. It's also great that you took the time to mark in corrections.

There is one thing that's missing though, but it's probably not your fault (that kind of depends on when you started this challenge). I went to look at your lesson 1 work, and noticed that you submitted it quite a long time ago (over two and a half years ago now). The lessons on the drawabox website have been updated and developed as the years have passed, and the box challenge is no exception. One thing I've added (which is contained in the updated how-to-draw-a-box video) is the idea of going over a page once it has been completed and extending all of the lines of each box towards their implied vanishing point. This allows us to see how those lines tend to converge (and more importantly, where they fail to converge as they're meant to).

I recommend that you watch the video and try applying that technique to your last page of boxes, so you can see where you will want to focus your continued efforts.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-01 19:50

It looks like you only linked one page of your boxes (1-7)!

Uncomfortable

2018-07-03 21:15

There is a very clear and obvious increase in your ability to manipulate these forms in 3D space, and to capture the illusion that they are solid and cohesive, across this set. You've done some really fantastic work here, and the fact that the gradual progression is so clear really brings me pleasure.

By the end, you've got some excellent constructions and are demonstrating a good grasp of how to really push them to the next level with successful line weight.

There's certainly room for improvement, as there always is, but you're definitely showing a good grasp of the line extensions and what they tell us, and I expect that you'll continue growing on this front as you go.

Keep up the fantastic work and consider this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-09 00:26

Great work! I was a bit concerned at first but I'm glad you started applying the line extension method, and held fast to it through the rest of the set. I think it went a long way to helping you make your convergences more consistent, and the result seemed to be more solid and better constructed boxes by the end. Your confidence on those last few pages is really fantastic, and your use of line weight really helps make the whole form feel more cohesive.

One thing that can help as you continue to move forwards is to try and make the line weight more subtle. I actually quite enjoy how you've got it right now (especially the fact that individual lines tend to taper and expand, which gives a great sense of dynamism). One thing you will want to watch out for though is pushing the weight much further than this. The thicker things get, the more graphic and flattened they tend to be. With line weight, one can achieve a great effect even if the variation in weight is much more subtle - as long as there's enough of a difference for the subconscious to pick up on it, it'll still read just as well. Just something to keep in mind.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work and feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-16 17:17

Thanks for catching that! I've made a new thread, but I'll go ahead and critique your work here. Overall you've demonstrated a good deal of growth in your understanding of space and how these cylinders are to be constructed over the full set. You're definitely quite mindful of your minor axis and keeping your ellipses aligned, so that's fantastic.

There are two areas I believe require more of your focus. The first and definitely the most important is your line quality. I see a lot of stiffness and wobbling - I think this may be more due to how you're adding line weight rather than how you're drawing your initial lines (I could be wrong on that point). Just remember that the ghosting method - which should be applied regardless of whether you're drawing your initial lines or if you're adding line weight) relies on building up the muscle memory and familiarity with the stroke you want to put down, followed by a confident, persistent execution resulting in a smooth mark.

Once your pen touches the page, you are committed - at this point, you cannot allow your brain and eyes to guide your hand. All your trust must go into your arm, which has by this point repeated the motion several times. If you still mess up with a slightly inaccurate line, that's totally fine. It's not the end of the world - but if you freeze up and draw slowly out of fear of making a mistake, then you won't move forward from there.

The second point is that you should focus more on the techniques involving starting from a box. I saw a couple places where you attempted this, but it's definitely a useful technique to drill. It'll allow you to construct a cylinder that exists in a very specific location relative to other forms in a drawing, which is a challenge that has already come up in lesson 6, and will continue to be a major player in lesson 7.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-17 01:52

Nice work completing the challenge! I can definitely see your eye for the convergences improving over the set, and it shows in your corrections. Those extended lines come increasingly closer to being spot on.

One thing I do feel you could have touched on more (or really at all) was boxes with vanishing points that sit much farther away. In this set you've really focused on fairly dramatic foreshortening, which usually implies an object that is either very close to the viewer, or very large (like looking at the top of a tall building from the ground). Objects with shallower foreshortening, whose vanishing points tend to sit much farther away and tend to have a more gradual convergence usually represent objects of a more relatable scale.

Keep that in mind as you continue pushing forwards. In addition to this, be sure to review the notes on the challenge page about line weight - that's a great way to kick your boxes up to the next level by reinforcing their cohesion and solidity.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-24 20:32

Looking good! You've definitely showed a good deal of growth over the set. I'm also pleased to see that you've played with line weight a great deal, and have made a point to tackle a great variety of orientations for your boxes.

One concern I have about the ruler technique you used to check your lines' convergence is how you could reasonably find the vanishing point to begin with, without extending your lines to see where they converged. In addition to this, the line extension technique is less about seeing whether you were right or wrong, and more about studying the way those lines converge (or more frequently how they fail to converge consistently). It's by studying this that we can identify where we go wrong in our approach.

For a page there (126 to 142), your use of line weight definitely went a bit awry (you were darkening the internal lines, which breaks the cohesion of the overall form), but I'm very pleased to see that you bounced back from that quite strongly in subsequent pages and ultimately achieved considerably stronger, more solid forms.

One last thing I am noticing fairly consistently that your linework is a little hesitant throughout the set. It's not a glaring thing, but if you loo closely, one can see that your linework is a bit shaky. Definitely push yourself to draw those lines with more confidence upon execution, and be sure to apply the ghosting method that allows you to separate the preparation and execution phases into distinct steps, so you don't have to worry about accuracy and flow simultaneously. This applies to when you're adding line weight too - it's easy to get caught up in trying to match the line perfectly to the one that you're thickening, but in doing so you can cause the original line (which may have been drawn more confidently) to feel hesitant and shaky due to the addition.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work and feel free to move onto lesson 2!

Uncomfortable

2018-07-25 20:26

So, you definitely did learn some things from this exercise - though you definitely would have grown more had you approached it with less of a focus on just getting it done, and more on each individual box. Drawabox involves a great deal of tedium, especially in these early stages, and relies very heavily on having students develop a strong sense of discipline. In order to do that however, you must lean into the challenge (that is, the challenge of doing a lot of boring crap, not necessarily just the 250 box challenge), and stop fighting it.

More than that, you need to take care to follow instructions to the letter. For example, you didn't extend your lines so you could really learn from your mistakes until a ways into the challenge. You also ignored, or missed, the fact that in my critique of your lesson 1 work, I asked you to submit one more page of rough perspective boxes before moving onto the challenge. That's why you still haven't earned the lesson 1 badge.

Now, I will be marking this lesson as complete, as you have completed the work. The corners you cut are largely to your own detriment, and will hold you back somewhat as you continue to move forwards (especially on the discipline end of things), but I'll leave that to you. I will however point out a number of things I noticed, which you can keep in mind as you continue to move forwards.

• Most of the boxes whose lines you extended had vanishing points that were fairly close by. These are generally easier to get right, because you can work relative to points that aren't too far off from the box. While I'm pleased you drew a fair number of boxes with vanishing points that were much farther off, you didn't actually test many of these after the fact. These are the ones that are going to be much more difficult, and also the ones that come into play much more often. Vanishing points being farther away gives us a much shallower rate of foreshortening, which in turn communicates to the viewer that the object is either at a more human-relatable scale, or that it's some distance away. Conversely, boxes with a more dramatic rate of foreshortening tell the viewer that the object is either very large (like looking at the top of a tall building from the ground), or veeery close to the viewer's eye. The first group - with shallower foreshortening - are going to be present much more frequently in your constructions.

• Your hatching lines often come out very sloppily. This is something at the core of how you approach things right now that you need to change sooner rather than later. I don't say this to be mean, but to address an important problem. You're very willing to hedge - that is, given the option to do something properly vs. not do it at all, you pick the middle road and do it quickly. Every single mark you put down must be thought out, everything you draw must be treated as though it reflects upon you. Hatching lines are included in this - you either draw them properly, stretching individual lines across the plane from edge to edge, or you don't draw them at all. No zigzagging, no looseness, just planned, well executed lines.

Like I said, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. That said, you may not move onto lesson 2 until you provide me with the one page of rough perspective boxes I asked for in my previous critique.

Uncomfortable

2018-07-28 22:29

Nice work! You've shown a lot of diligence with extending your lines towards their implied vanishing points, which demonstrated a considerable improvement in your estimations. Early on, you also showed some fantastic use of line weight, though I noticed that you tapered off with that as you went through the set.

One thing I did notice however was that your boxes were pretty heavily leaning towards having their vanishing points positioned quite close. This results in your boxes having fairly dramatic foreshortening, which suggests that the box itself is either very large (like looking at the top of a tall building from the ground) or very close to the viewer. You will definitely want to experiment more with boxes that have vanishing points farther off, with shallower foreshortening and more gradual convergence of parallel lines. This will help you develop a familiarity with boxes that exist at a more relatable, human scale.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work and feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-08-02 23:02

Nice work completing the challenge! Your line quality and general construction is looking solid, and I see a number of places where you've got some subtle line weights going that helps contribute to the general solidity of your forms. I'm also very pleased to see you applying the line extension method so thoroughly, it definitely pays off.

One recommendation that I do have is that right now I see most of your boxes are working with vanishing points that are relatively close to your boxes, leading to foreshortening that is fairly dramatic throughout. Experience with boxes that have a much shallower foreshortening (where the vanishing points are considerably farther away, resulting in a more gradual convergence) is very useful. Where dramatic foreshortening suggests an object being either very close to the viewer or very large (like looking at the top of a building from the ground), shallower foreshortening suggests a more relatable, human scale. This is something you'll end up using a lot more often, due to most objects not being massive.

So, be sure to focus a little more on those moving forwards, as it'll definitely reap important benefits. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete - feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-08-06 01:18

I definitely agree! I think youve shown some considerable improvement over the course of the challenge, and have really put the techniques and principles covered in the notes to good use. Im very pleased to see that while early on you were testing the waters with the whole line extension method (and focusing perhaps too much on only one set of lines rather than all three) you eventually did move on to looking at all three sets simultaneously and with equal scrutiny. It gets really easy otherwise to focus too much in one area and end up throwing the others out of whack.

Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-08-06 01:26

Youre showing considerable growth over the set, and have definitely put the techniques covered in the lesson to good use. I definitely did notice that as you pushed through into the 200s, you were less and less inclined to apply the line extension method. Always remember that these exercises are learning opportunities rather than a demonstration of skill - so leaving out that which will allow you to learn from each and every box (even the latest ones) is robbing yourself of additional chances to identify and learn from your mistakes.

Also, that very first page - i understand that it was more of a presentation thing, but keep in mind that when it comes to drawing 3D forms, and especially within the scope of these lessons, drawing each form to its entirety (rather than letting them cut off where they are overlapped by some other form) is a very important part of understanding how each form sits in 3D space and relates to the forms around it.

Not that you did a bad job of it - in fact, those boxes were constructed very well. Its just something to keep in mind as you continue to move forwards, especially on things like the form intersections in lesson 2. Wouldnt want to be half drawing forms there.

Anyway, Ill go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2!

Uncomfortable

2018-08-09 21:00

Theres definitely a good bit of improvement over the set! I do have a couple things to recommend however:

• Draw your boxes bigger - I get that you were trying to cram as many as you could into the page, but these are spatial problem, and our brains benefit immensely when given more room to think through those kinds of things.

• There was some variety in the orientations of your boxes, but not a whole lot - a lot of the boxes felt like repetitions of each others, so try and shake that up a little more.

• When extending your lines, extend them more. Remember what those extensions are meant to tell us about this boxes - they show us how those lines are converging towards their implied vanishing points. The more you extend it, the more you learn about where your lines are off.

Aside from that, keep up the great work! Ill go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-08-09 21:20

So far so good (aside from not applying the line extension method so far) but Im only seeing your first page. Did you perhaps accidentally not link to a full album?

Uncomfortable

2018-08-10 22:25

Nice work! I can see considerable improvement in the overall construction and the solidity of your constructions over the set. There is one thing that caught my eye while looking over the work though, and I paid special attention to whether or not you were picking up on it. At times it seemed you were, but perhaps not enough, so I want to mention it here.

You have a tendency to focus on each plane of the box as a separate entity, and less on each set of parallel lines as a whole. That is, we know that each plane has another plane that matches it on the opposite side of the box - these both have lines that belong to the same "set" of parallel edges. The top and bottom edges of these given planes are, for example, going to be parallel.

When you're drawing them, you're focusing a lot on how the top and bottom edges of each plane converges, rather than how the top and bottom edges of BOTH planes converge towards the same far off point. For example, the blue extensions of #226.

This does get better over the set, and I see it less and less towards the end, but it's still a big enough issue, and one worth pointing out.

In addition to this, I want to show you these notes. They relate to a tendency I see later on, in boxes like #247, where parallel lines that are very close to each other have a tendency to converge too quickly. When lines are very similar (in angle as shown in those notes), they'll run virtually parallel to one another.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2018-08-16 17:50

Nice work! You've shown a great deal of patience, conscientiousness and progress over this set, and I'm very pleased to see that you applied the line extension method across the board. It also stands out that you focused particularly on boxes with farther vanishing points and shallower foreshortening - this was a good call, as this is what we see in the majority of smaller, more relatably-scaled objects we end up drawing. They also present some considerable challenges, like keeping the convergence of your boxes consistent.

While you've got some real great ones (228 stood out to me for example), you'll still want to keep an eye on how you think about all four lines of a given set and how they converge together. A common problem is to focus on lines in pairs (because out of the set of 4 lines, two will belong to one plane, and two will belong to another. This results in situations where you end up with something more akin to two vanishing points, and those planes on either side of a box not actually running parallel to one another (like 147).

Anyway, keep up the great work. You're showing a lot of growth and your constructions are looking quite solid. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.