Old thread got locked, those eligible for private critiques can submit their work here (and all others are welcome to submit their work to the main subreddit for a community critique).
Here's my Lesson 6 submission. It definitely took me a couple of drawings to get into the swing of this one, and to remember some of the lessons learnt during the 250 box challenge. It was certainly getting easier as I went though.
I found I was able to draw pretty decent straight lines freehand, but only if I really took my time and did a lot of ghosting. When I tried to pick up the pace that's usually when my lines went a bit wayward.
I've opted for little or no detail which did, to my eye, make some of the drawings look very simple - even when the construction was quite complex. But after your notes from the last lesson I think this was the right decision, to save myself from getting distracted from the core principles of the lesson.
You've got a great body of work here, with a fair bit of variety in terms of levels of strength. Some of these constructions are excellent - the toaster, the camcorder and the hand sanitizer bottle are all very well done. Others are somewhat more mediocre, but that's pretty normal as you get your head around how these forms are going to fit together in 3D space, and as you figure out what kinds of forms to focus on.
I did notice that, aside from the hand sanitizer, the other objects that had more cylinders involved tended to be weaker. This definitely draws attention to the fact that you didn't yet complete (or at least submit) the 250 cylinder challenge, and seemingly as a result didn't employ certain principles such as constructing cylinders around a minor axis in a number of cases. This definitely held you back in those areas, and is the reason that I mention this at the beginning of the intro video for this lesson.
So, needless to say, I think you'll definitely want to tackle the cylinder challenge to sure yourself up on that front.
One thing that did jump out at me in your kitchen scale drawing was the circular form on the front of the object. From the looks of it, it may have been positioned a little bit arbitrarily. This is the sort of thing that you'd definitely want to do a little more subdivision and leverage those little perspective tricks (like mirroring a measurement across the center of a face) to achieve greater precision.
Aside from those points, you definitely do a great job here of demonstrating to me that you're understanding how these forms interact with one another in 3D space, and how you can combine them to create complex objects. I definitely think you made the right call as far as eschewing most of the detail goes - you focused purely on the core forms, and while the result was simplistic in some ways, it's more that it was complex in all the right places.
Keep up the great work and consider this lesson complete. I do want you to move onto the cylinder challenge as I mentioned, and once you've got that done, you can move onto lesson 7.
It took me way longer than the supposed 8 hours but I got there. Like all the lessons the struggle was real in the beginning, but I think I got the hang of it at the end. The only thing I feel is missing is a proper way to finish the drawings to make them more clear.
This is really, really phenomenal work. You've demonstrated an incredible understanding of 3D space, and how the different forms relate to one another. This is essentially a perfect example of how this lesson should be done. So, rather than pointing out mistakes and such as I usually would (because frankly, there are none worth mentioning), I'm going to take the time to point out everything you did right.
You made absolutely no guesswork (or at least, none where you could help it). Everything was clearly subdivided, calculated, and hammered out). You made spared no lines, and weren't afraid to put everything necessary down.
You leveraged line weight to great effect to then pry your object free from the (highly structured) mess of construction lines.
You were at the same time extremely subtle with your line weight, and never at any point was it overbearing.
Through the whole time, you demonstrated a great deal of confidence.
All that said, looking over your work shows a remarkable amount of progress. While you demonstrated all of these good qualities althroughout, if you compare things like that initial chair with your later pages, you show considerable growth in your understanding of 3D space.
My favourite page, when compared against those early few, stands in a class of its own. And that's not unique, it's a strong trend in all of your later pages.
You've done a fantastic job here, and should be extremely proud of yourself. Keep up the fantastic work, and feel free to move onto the next lesson. I look forward to seeing your vehicles, as I am certain they'll be just as good, if not better.
Thank you so much for the amazing feedback! Reading it makes me blush.
I think what helped me immensely in this homework is that I used real life objects instead of pictures. That and deliberately doing extra till I felt confident enough at it.
I already started the next lesson which is another step up in difficulty. By reading your encouraging words I'm excited to keep at it. Thank you!
Here is my lesson 6 stuff, a lot of it ended up jankier than I would have liked. Kept getting lost in the divisions in the beginning but it was still weird even when I got mostly used to it near the end. Especially the ortographic view stuff is a bit weird to work with...
Looking over the first couple pages, it's clear that you were grasping the principles but were struggling to properly push your brain to think in those full three dimensions. You understood the theory of it, but figuring out how these forms you were drawing related to each other, and how their proportions could be turned around in space was still just a little ways out of your reach. Your linework was, as a result, a little hesitant (not in the way that hesitation causes wobbling - your lines are actually very smooth and straight throughout - but in the way that you were drawing smaller and more faintly).
As you push through however, you start to experiment a lot more, to push play with objects that are simpler in terms of the forms they're made of, but also more interesting in the way those forms are arranged. This in itself shows a lot of development in that you were targeting objects that were of greater value for these exercises.
Yeah, your proportions weren't always spot on, but what's most important here is that your constructions felt, for the most part, believable. It's the difference between someone thinking, "well that drawing is shitty" and "the toothbrush that guy drew is stupid". I have successfully trained you to effectively pass the buck and fool your viewer into thinking that what you draw is actually representative of something real and solid.
I really, really liked the perfume bottles you played with. Their forms were extremely precise, an interesting marriage between organic curves and geometric solidity, and you pulled them off really well. The squirt gun was unexpected, and was a bit of a fumble (the top side seemed to be slanted at a bit of an angle), but your approach to it demonstrated a really solid grasp of the material. I think you could probably get it down in a few more tries (although I wouldn't recommend it - it looks like it drove you a bit crazy to even do it once, and I think it'd do the same to me).
Anyway, long story short - you did a fantastic job, and you've got an excellent grasp of what it means to construct these solid, geometric, hard-surface objects. I'd honestly be interested in seeing how this shift in the approach to drawing and construction will have impacted how you draw your animals, but we can do that later - after you've completed lesson 7.
So, I'll go ahead and mark this as complete. Keep up the fantastic work - and I'm not sure you're aware of the little red dots I add next to some of the entries in my backlog list, but you've earned one this time.
Hello again, here is my lesson 6 homework! I felt pretty good about these overall, although it wasn't without its difficulties. One thing I noticed was that I had a tendency to get sloppier towards the end of the drawing; guess I need to try to be more patient with it. Also ellipses in planes are still hard :\
By and large I'm in agreement with you. Overall you've done a pretty solid job and have shown a lot of care in your construction - subdividing as necessary, building things out to be relatively boxy first before implementing curving surfaces and keeping an eye on your proportions.
I think your biggest area of difficulty is with ellipses. Often times when you try to construct them relative to a plane in space, their alignment is off. In the cylinder challenge page, you're introduced to this video about the criteria an ellipse must fit relative to the plane that encloses it in order to represent a valid circle in 3D space.
One that definitely caught my eye as being off was on your electronic pipet filler. The end of the cylinder coming down from its front is definitely off. The minor axis seems about right (it penetrates straight down the center of the cylinder), but the degree of the ellipse has it feeling slanted.
In your coffee maker however, you definitely had better results - although the execution of the ellipses was a little jittery, it's kind of understandable given that they're incredibly difficult to draw in such specific places. Definitely work on the confidence of your linework, but as far as I'm concerned, that's a pretty solid drawing.
Jumping ahead to your barbacue, I do think that adding the little wheels underneath your enclosing box rather than inside of it was probably not the best call. That said, you may have forgotten to factor those in initially, and then tacked them on as an afterthought, in which case it's at least understandable.
For the most part, I'm just nitpicking. Your constructions are quite nice, as is the care with which you study your proportions and break everything down. There is room to improve (some of the enclosing boxes start off with a few little issues which trickle down into the rest of the drawing, for example) but you handle them well by pushing on through. You'll continue to improve with practice, but as it stands you're doing a great job.
Keep up the good work and consider this lesson complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.
Thanks! Yeah I will definitely rewatch that video and do some practice before starting vehicles, as I don't have any ellipse guides to use (I did consider buying some but I don't really think they'd be a worthwhile investment, since they're a bit pricey, and I don't really see myself using them a lot in the future). For the grill, I did actually choose to leave the wheels outside the box at the start, but I agree, looking back it probably wasn't the best choice.
some i am quite proud of, but struggling recently to keep up the patience and concentration. anyhow, bit afraid of the next lesson, everything with ellipses is sooo hard!
You've done some really, really fantastic work here. You've gone to such lengths to push the constructional element, subdividing your enclosing boxes, building things up from simple to complex, and even ensuring that each of your curves are well defined and made to follow a specific scaffolding. Every one of your constructions feel solid and believable. And furthermore, while it's very true that ellipse-based constructions are incredibly difficult, you tried your hand at several here and frankly you nailed each one.
The only piece of advice I have to offer, and it's not really a hard-fast rule that I'm presenting you with, but rather something to think about - is in regards to the kind of foreshortening you're using when you construct your initial enclosing boxes. I've noticed that many of these are constructed inside of boxes with fairly dramatic foreshortening, and vanishing points that are quite close.
Now, the kind of foreshortening you choose to use is entirely up to you, based on how you're deciding to depict an object, but keep in mind that the foreshortening does tell the viewer something about the object.
An object with extremely dramatic foreshortening is one of two things:
Very large - like looking at the top of a tall building from the ground floor
Very, very close to the viewer
The vast majority of objects that you've drawn here would find a shallower foreshortening, where the rate of convergence is much more gradual, to be a better fit - but there's certainly the argument to be made that you just wanted them to be seen as though they were being held up quite close.
What's important is that you understand the result of that effect, so you have a greater control over what you're trying to achieve.
Aside from that, you've done a fantastic job here and should be very proud of yourself. I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one - it'll be tough, but you're absolutely up to the task.
thanks a lot for the critique. will try to use the foreshortening of my objects more purposefully from now on. have a feeling this might come handy in the next lesson.
It's amazing that it took me under 2 weeks to complete this lesson. At the same time, I feel like the submission doesn't offer any outstanding work. Just me trying to figure out how to navigate the 1001 subdivision line.
I'm going to start by saying that I really, really like the very last drawing. The thing on the right side of this page. It actually shows an excellent use of concepts that you've either bungled a little, or misunderstood in previous drawings, and frankly, I think you really nailed it. Could it improve? Sure, the ellipses could be better. Ellipses are a bitch, especially when placing them in planes - but the important thing here is that you used them reasonably well and constructed forms that feel solid. You also applied line weight effectively, making things more cohesive, and pulling the construction out of all those subdivisions.
It's worth mentioning that I also really liked the drawing on the right side of this page.
Your other drawings are a mixed bag, but they're all hovering around "not bad". Nothing's remotely horrific, and the only reason that they're generally hovering around that place is because of your starting points - that is, the boxes you start with. But for everything after that, you're mostly on point. Your minor axis stuff is lacking early on, but after having that explained post-hairdryer-earphone-debacle, you got that down pretty well.
So, how do you improve? You may hit me for saying this, but it's the truth - the biggest impact is going to come from the simple things. Mostly practicing drawing freely rotated boxes, specifically ones that have fairly shallow foreshortening - that is, the hard ones where the vanishing points are very far away, convergence is gradual, and you constantly risk accidentally making your lines diverge instead (resulting in far planes that are larger than your near planes).
Working on ellipses is also something you're going to have to focus on - specifically getting ellipses to fit smoothly in planes. As you get into lesson 7, there's a couple of videos that touch on the topic of circles in planes, so be sure to watch them. Then try and carry those principles into the ellipses-in-planes exercises from lesson 1, which originally were not meant to factor in perspective or anything like that. It's a very versatile exercise though, and with a few additional rules, it can be quite helpful in this case.
This does lead to an important question though - have you been doing the exercises from lessons 1 and 2 as a regular warmup routine, picking two or three of them to do for 10-15 minutes at the beginning of each sitting? Haaaave youuuuu?
If you haven't, you'd better damn well start.
Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. The next lesson has a little more leeway - you're allowed to use a ballpoint pen, ruler, and even an ellipse guide if you have one (though most people don't). I HIGHLY recommend that you use a ruler and a ballpoint pen - it'll take a lot of the stress off, which is good because vehicles can tend to be pretty overwhelming at times.
Thanks for the feedback! It's interesting that your favourite drawings are those of stuff you cannot identiy :D I'll take that into consideration when I start lesson 7 (cylon raider for you, sir!).
But I'm somewhat upset that you think I wasn't doing warmups. They were done even on those days when I had no time or desire to draw and somehow they didn't transfer to the lessons...
It's definitely good to hear that you are doing them. The reason I asked was because of how some of your lines have a tendency to come out a little stiff at times. Not all of them - you've got a lot, especially when you're doing construction, that come out smooth and confident. But when you go in to apply line weight to emphasize an existing mark, or where you need to fit an ellipse into a particular space, you draw noticeably slower. This isn't uncommon but it is something you need to push through, getting yourself to draw with a confident, ghosted stroke regardless of the situation. This is hardest when you're afraid that you're going to mess up a drawing, but that's a worthy sacrifice if it means getting yourself to draw every mark with a confident, persistent pace without hesitation. Mistakes happen - but if you shy away from them, they'll hinder your growth.
The thing with confidence is that it's 90% lies. It's hard to just "be" confident - but we can fake it. And when you fake it long enough, one day you'll find that it's gone from being a farce to being genuine.
This was a struggle. First few pages were catastrophic, definitely started to "get it" after page 3. I could have done A LOT more of these but felt it might be better to get some feedback at this point.
I tended to have more success building things inside a box vs combining shapes. The food processor attempts (last 2 pages) are a good example of this. I'm thinking this is because there are lines towards the vanishing points on both the top and bottom so it's easier to guess in between them?
My cylinders in planes (especially when I had multiples close together) were a hot mess. Ultimately I just gave up on this approach after trying it for the juicer 3 times without improvement.
One thing that is still alluding me is drawing a cube (which is sort of hilarious). Using the "Y" method, I can't figure out where to put the third line. So I have the x and the y axis, but I don't understand how to estimate the angle and length of the last inner line (z axis). Like, there is some range of mathematical possibility for the lengths/angles of the lines in a cube that I'm not understanding. Essentially this. Do you think it would be helpful to try to freehand something like that, or is there a better way to get good at estimating? Maybe drawing a block from life?
Obviously these show a huge jump in my understanding from when I started, but I feel like there are some basic concepts that I'm still not really fully grasping.
Thanks for the feedback and for your time putting all this together!
Overall, your work has demonstrated a good deal of growth and development. It's always nice to see things start off uncertain and steadily improve over the course of the assigned homework set. As you continued to tackle different objects, experimenting in your methodology and continuing to develop your understand of working in 3D space, the quality of your results (in their solidity and general believability) continued to rise. I have no reason to think that this will not continue, so I am more than satisfied with your results. So, rather than picking on individual drawings, it's definitely going to be more productive to directly address the concerns you mentioned yourself.
On the topic of drawing a cube, I actually have an answer for you in video form. It's something I introduce as part of lesson 7: Measuring in Perspective: Constructing to Scale. It discusses how to construct a unit cube and to extend that as needed. I don't discuss that as part of lesson 6 because we're already facing a lot of complex concepts and this one gets particularly hairy. It utilizes some of the principles I mentioned in regards to the cylinder challenge (drawing ellipses in planes that represent proper circles). So instead, for this lesson I leave students to get accustomed to estimation, and to gauging things by eye.
Most people notice that these lessons tend more towards developing skills that pay dividends for those who move into concept art, where quick iteration is extremely important. So, while being able to construct things to scale in a variety of ways is important, training one's eye and gut sense plays a big role when you've got to hammer out quick sketches to explore your own designs.
Anyway, long story short - there are ways to measure this out. There are even more concrete approaches that involve plotting all your perspective out, but of course we don't really fuss with that here. The technique in the video is about as far as we go.
Now, practicing tables like you showed there could definitely be helpful, but it's important to remember that the rate of foreshortening applied to your box isn't always going to be the same - so while that table has a single box rotating on two axes, an important feature it's missing is what happens when that box moves closer to the viewer, as well as farther away. When the box moves closer, the rate of foreshortening gets much more dramatic, with the convergences of sets of parallel lines getting rapider. Conversely, when the box moves farther away, the convergences flatten out, becoming shallower. This factor plays a considerable role when it comes to estimating the lengths of your lines.
Ultimately, the best approach to improving on this front is a combination. Apply the methodology described in the video sometimes, but also be sure to do a good deal of drawing by eye as well. The former will get you more used to the kinds of measurements that come into play when constructing cubes, while the latter will get you used to gauging for yourself where those lines should end. And of course, expect a lot of failure.
In fact, following the principles in the box challenge, you could freehand your boxes and then go back to check them with the technique suggested in the video (by drawing an ellipse within each plane and checking how far off they are from meeting the two criteria that determine an ellipse to represent a circle in 3D space).
Moving on from that topic, one thing I do want to mention is that your sense that things went better when you constructed from a larger enclosing box is definitely spot on. While you're more reliant on whether or not you nailed that initial box, pinning down proportions as well as the specific relationships between different forms within that enclosing box becomes a good deal easier (especially in cases where things are piled on in an organized fashion - when things are connecting to each other at all angles, it can pose a greater challenge).
That approach also helps avoid issues like what we see in the food processor on the left side of this page. If you look at the base of the cylinder and its top, the planes enclosing each end are actually rotated quite a bit relative to one another. This disconnect resulted in it being quite a bit easier to have the top plane sloping at an angle quite inconsistent with its base, resulting in a cylinder that looked off. Your attempts on the subsequent page came out much better because those relationships between forms were a lot stronger and better enforced.
Anyway! You really are doing a great job. I saw the video you made for this lesson, and it made me laugh.. and laugh.. and laugh. I might be a bit of a sadist - but I am glad that while this lesson wasn't exactly fun, that you did feel like it showed you how much you've grown. Also while you may not be entirely aware of it, you really are doing well. Your results here are certainly above the average.
So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.
I'm not actually sure what your goals with these exercises are, but while lesson 7 is technically the last of the curriculum, I have plans to delve into topics involving shape/form language, manipulating proportion and other topics intrinsic to the creation of fresh designs (be it character, vehicle, prop, etc). This is something I'll be pursuing as soon as I'm done rebuilding the drawabox website (which I'm doing right now). I'm actually quite interested in seeing you work through those, if they suit your fancy. Given that you already have a fair bit of figure drawing experience, you'd definitely be a prime candidate for that kind of material. I hope you'll be sticking around to give those a shot as well!
You've got a lot of solid work here. What's important is that you're demonstrating a good deal of patience and care in applying all of the constructional methods. You're not skipping any steps, and aren't really relying on any guesswork - you're being pretty careful in subdividing as needed, and ensuring that each decision you make hinges on some other measurement you can pinpoint and produce.
Earlier on, I think some of your initial enclosing boxes tend to be a little weaker, which throws off the construction somewhat - though the fact that you stick to it despite that shows a good degree of control and a lot of respect for the constructional process. Regardless of whether or not that previous step has gone wrong, the decisions have been made, and you keep trucking forwards.
By the end of the lesson, your boxes and generally boxier constructions are coming along quite well. Your cylinders are a little weaker, but more in that they're less consistent. You've got some pretty solid cylinders/ellipses here, though less so here. It's really a matter of practice, but try drawing through your ellipses only two times. That'll get you the benefit of drawing through them but will reduce the amount of hairiness and messiness that can result.
Anyway! You're doing a good job and are heading quite confidently in the right direction, so I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. You'll find that the next one is quite similar with a few added challenges (mostly coming from the scale and importance of proportion in vehicles) as well as some advantages - like being allowed to use all kinds of tools (ballpoint pens, rulers, ellipse guides if you can find them). There are also some additional videos that could have been useful here, but that I held back in the interest of not hitting students with too much to think about all at once.
Sounds great, thanks so much. I did definitely notice that my initial boxes were off in the beginning, but seeing them through to the end despite the initial error was rewarding. Thanks again, and Ill have my lesson 7 up soon!
Sorry I took so long with this one, I went on vacation for 2 weeks halfway through the lesson and it took me a second to get back into it, I struggled a lot at first with this one as you can see in the first 4 images, 2 of which failed miserably (the soda can and the mirror). While on vacation I did a lot of drawing from life (mainly plants and cool rocks) but I also went back and practiced stuff from previous lessons aside from the 30 minute warm ups from Lessons 1 and 2 that you recommended to do every day, and I practiced a lot of boxes too which I think helped me when I came back from vacation as all the drawings after that feel stronger, not to say that they don't have problems because they do lol!
Your work here is fantastic - and frankly, I think the struggles at the beginning with the soda can highlights it. You're demonstrating an excellent grasp of boxy forms with a lot of clear planes throughout the set. This isn't uncommon at this point, as they tend to be the easier sort, but your execution conveys a sense of solidity and weight that I don't see too often and that students require much further experience and practice to pull off. It's very clear to me that you completely believe in the illusion you're producing, and it's this belief that pushes beyond your conscious decisions of construction to those only managed by one's subconscious once they've properly given themselves over. It's like how when you believe the lie you're telling someone, you can't help but be convincing and genuine about it.
Now, you did struggle more with your cylinder-based constructions, but I saw considerable improvements, and the sheer amount of care and conscientiousness really pushed you beyond. You didn't skip any steps - one area where students are bound to get sloppy is where the micron's gap connects to its body - there's an inset ellipse there that is frankly an annoyance to draw, but it speaks volumes that you saw fit to draw it in with as much care as you drew everything else.
The light bulb and the lamp are areas where your ellipses really push past the realm of struggles - you managed them extremely well, and I'm very pleased with how you managed to play with line weight without your strokes straying too far from their targets, or without having to draw them so slowly as to cause wobbling.
If I wasn't clear enough already, your work is fantastic. I see no issues with your technique or approach - at this point all that's left is to continue honing those most basics of skills, the sort of thing that one never truly masters, but keeps inching ahead. That is, continuing to push the confidence of your lines, continuing to work on your execution of those initial boxes and cylinders, and so on. All of which is already coming along well, but will always benefit from regular practice.
I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'm very interested in seeing how you manage with lesson 7 - it is essentially a more difficult version of this lesson where proportions and observation come even more into play while holding the same emphasis on clear and concise construction. Best of luck!
Thank you very much for your feedback! I eventually want to become a concept artist so I've been working really hard and trying to learn as much as I can. Your lessons have been incredibly helpful!
These are not all drawings I did, sometimes I didn't think carefully enough about how to draw something in perspective and the whole drawing got messed up, that was super frustrating!
One thing I would like to ask is if my lines are too wobbly or are arching too much. I repeated the lesson 1 lines exercises a few times and couldn't eliminate the arching, I hope the way it is in my last drawings is fine.
Another problem I ran into is that the construction sometimes got so cluttered that it was hard to differentiate between construction and the actual drawing and I felt line weight couldn't fix this issue completely.
Theres a lot of good demonstration here of how your understanding of space and form is improving. Your general approach to how these things are made up of simpler forms, and how they fit together is coming along great.
The use of those techniques is fine. What is causing you trouble is the simple stuff. Drawing boxes with sets of parallel lines that converge consistently towards each ones vanishing point, so they feel properly solid and rectilinear - and more importantly, placing and aligning features within those boxes so they line up correctly. These fundamental components really impact the overall believability of your constructions.
For example, in your microwave youve got two smaller details like either the panel of buttons, or the ventilation on the side. Each of these have estimated edges that dont run consistently towards the same vanishing points suggested by the primary box you started it off with.
If you jump back to the 250 box challenge, theres a video on there that you may or may not have watched yet, about Advanced Techniques. Its basically about freehand subdividing boxes, and I think this kind of exercise would be particularly valuable for you. Youd effectively apply then the same line-extension techniques covered in the main box challenge video to test how far off you were.
The only other thing I wanted to mention was about the water bottle you drew, specifically the ellipses on either end of it. Youve got a pretty significant shift between the degrees of either end. The magnitude of this shift is very similar to how dramatic the foreshortening between regular perspective lines is, and specifically what that represents. The same way a very dramatic foreshortening tells us an object is very large or very close to the viewers eye, a significant shift between the degrees of the ellipses on either end of a cylinder tells us that the cylinder is extremely large.
Long story short, for an object like a water bottle, you probably want to keep that transition fairly subtle.
So, I am going to mark this lesson as complete, as you clearly understand the principles, but you should work those advanced box exercises into your routine (and as always, be sure to continue practicing the simpler construction of boxes to continue honing your ability to draw lines to converge consistently towards the same point.
In the next lesson, youll be more free to draw with a ruler and so on. I actually didnt see any significant issues with your linework (in terms of what you mentioned about arcing and such), but it may help you focus more on how those lines are going to converge consistently. As the subject matter in the next lesson tends to be much more challenging, I find that it can help students from getting distracted by these more mundane struggles and focus more on the forms theyre drawing. So I definitely recommend that you take advantage of it.
Your constructions, and your general use of the construction is pretty much on point. You're starting out simple, keeping things within the bounds of their previous constructional phase, you're mindful of each individual component and you're not really skipping any major steps. I can say with confidence that you have a good grasp of 3D space, and how forms can be combined within it.
Construction-wise, the only issue I can really see is with the stapler, where the back of it seems to have collapsed somewhat - may have been useful to create a cross-section towards that back area to help bridge the transition. So basically to have constructed a few slices along the length of that top part, and then connected them.
Now, what is an issue is what I've mentioned many times - it's the basic stuff. Your lines aren't terribly confident or stable, and your boxes tend to be skewed more often than not. Your understanding of the material is on point, but your execution of the basics - the kinds of things we learned in lessons 1 and 2 and the box challenge, the things we practice continually as part of our regular warmup routines, simply aren't there.
That's what needs to receive the bulk of your time and focus. I cannot claim that you're not working your ass off at this - you clearly are internalizing these later concepts of construction, but all the technical aspects that are meant to support their use are lacking.
Now, the next lesson - which you are absolutely cleared to move onto, since these lessons are about understanding construction, and you certainly do - allows you to use a ruler and an ellipse guide. I strongly encourage you to do so. You're also allowed to work with a ballpoint pen.
I have had a few other students who've struggled in this manner, and they felt that being able to separate the process of executing the line from the rest of it helped immensely. They still did have to work on their basic skills separately, but there is something to be said about at least being able to pull it all off with the appropriate tools, even if your ability to freehand it all isn't there yet.
So, as I said - I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 7. If you're at all allowing the basic exercises to fall by the wayside, make sure you pick them up again in a meaningful way. If you have been doing them diligently however, then submit some of those to me and we can find out if you're approaching them incorrectly somehow, or focusing on the wrong thing.
[deleted]
2018-09-22 14:22
Sorry for the late reply, but I will probably cancel my patreon subscription for a while. Although I do practice the exercises of lesson 1&2, its not at the level of deliberate focus for it to be effective, as you can see. I plan to take some time off (about a month) from DaB to focus on this more.
Uncomfortable
2018-05-03 17:24
Old thread got locked, those eligible for private critiques can submit their work here (and all others are welcome to submit their work to the main subreddit for a community critique).
MegaMikeNZ
2018-05-06 12:01
Here's my Lesson 6 submission. It definitely took me a couple of drawings to get into the swing of this one, and to remember some of the lessons learnt during the 250 box challenge. It was certainly getting easier as I went though.
I found I was able to draw pretty decent straight lines freehand, but only if I really took my time and did a lot of ghosting. When I tried to pick up the pace that's usually when my lines went a bit wayward.
I've opted for little or no detail which did, to my eye, make some of the drawings look very simple - even when the construction was quite complex. But after your notes from the last lesson I think this was the right decision, to save myself from getting distracted from the core principles of the lesson.
Take your time to critique, I'm in no rush. Thanks. https://imgur.com/a/Vn8CokU
Uncomfortable
2018-05-06 22:18
You've got a great body of work here, with a fair bit of variety in terms of levels of strength. Some of these constructions are excellent - the toaster, the camcorder and the hand sanitizer bottle are all very well done. Others are somewhat more mediocre, but that's pretty normal as you get your head around how these forms are going to fit together in 3D space, and as you figure out what kinds of forms to focus on.
I did notice that, aside from the hand sanitizer, the other objects that had more cylinders involved tended to be weaker. This definitely draws attention to the fact that you didn't yet complete (or at least submit) the 250 cylinder challenge, and seemingly as a result didn't employ certain principles such as constructing cylinders around a minor axis in a number of cases. This definitely held you back in those areas, and is the reason that I mention this at the beginning of the intro video for this lesson.
So, needless to say, I think you'll definitely want to tackle the cylinder challenge to sure yourself up on that front.
One thing that did jump out at me in your kitchen scale drawing was the circular form on the front of the object. From the looks of it, it may have been positioned a little bit arbitrarily. This is the sort of thing that you'd definitely want to do a little more subdivision and leverage those little perspective tricks (like mirroring a measurement across the center of a face) to achieve greater precision.
Aside from those points, you definitely do a great job here of demonstrating to me that you're understanding how these forms interact with one another in 3D space, and how you can combine them to create complex objects. I definitely think you made the right call as far as eschewing most of the detail goes - you focused purely on the core forms, and while the result was simplistic in some ways, it's more that it was complex in all the right places.
Keep up the great work and consider this lesson complete. I do want you to move onto the cylinder challenge as I mentioned, and once you've got that done, you can move onto lesson 7.
MegaMikeNZ
2018-05-08 02:57
Thanks for your notes. I'll move on to the cylinders.
AAARRN
2018-05-06 20:34
It took me way longer than the supposed 8 hours but I got there. Like all the lessons the struggle was real in the beginning, but I think I got the hang of it at the end. The only thing I feel is missing is a proper way to finish the drawings to make them more clear.
https://imgur.com/gallery/ldkqWOj
Uncomfortable
2018-05-06 23:25
This is really, really phenomenal work. You've demonstrated an incredible understanding of 3D space, and how the different forms relate to one another. This is essentially a perfect example of how this lesson should be done. So, rather than pointing out mistakes and such as I usually would (because frankly, there are none worth mentioning), I'm going to take the time to point out everything you did right.
You made absolutely no guesswork (or at least, none where you could help it). Everything was clearly subdivided, calculated, and hammered out). You made spared no lines, and weren't afraid to put everything necessary down.
You leveraged line weight to great effect to then pry your object free from the (highly structured) mess of construction lines.
You were at the same time extremely subtle with your line weight, and never at any point was it overbearing.
Through the whole time, you demonstrated a great deal of confidence.
All that said, looking over your work shows a remarkable amount of progress. While you demonstrated all of these good qualities althroughout, if you compare things like that initial chair with your later pages, you show considerable growth in your understanding of 3D space.
My favourite page, when compared against those early few, stands in a class of its own. And that's not unique, it's a strong trend in all of your later pages.
You've done a fantastic job here, and should be extremely proud of yourself. Keep up the fantastic work, and feel free to move onto the next lesson. I look forward to seeing your vehicles, as I am certain they'll be just as good, if not better.
AAARRN
2018-05-08 19:19
Thank you so much for the amazing feedback! Reading it makes me blush.
I think what helped me immensely in this homework is that I used real life objects instead of pictures. That and deliberately doing extra till I felt confident enough at it.
I already started the next lesson which is another step up in difficulty. By reading your encouraging words I'm excited to keep at it. Thank you!
Turkopauto
2018-05-15 20:22
Here is my lesson 6 stuff, a lot of it ended up jankier than I would have liked. Kept getting lost in the divisions in the beginning but it was still weird even when I got mostly used to it near the end. Especially the ortographic view stuff is a bit weird to work with...
https://imgur.com/a/tC8e9Ck
Uncomfortable
2018-05-15 20:54
Looking over the first couple pages, it's clear that you were grasping the principles but were struggling to properly push your brain to think in those full three dimensions. You understood the theory of it, but figuring out how these forms you were drawing related to each other, and how their proportions could be turned around in space was still just a little ways out of your reach. Your linework was, as a result, a little hesitant (not in the way that hesitation causes wobbling - your lines are actually very smooth and straight throughout - but in the way that you were drawing smaller and more faintly).
As you push through however, you start to experiment a lot more, to push play with objects that are simpler in terms of the forms they're made of, but also more interesting in the way those forms are arranged. This in itself shows a lot of development in that you were targeting objects that were of greater value for these exercises.
Yeah, your proportions weren't always spot on, but what's most important here is that your constructions felt, for the most part, believable. It's the difference between someone thinking, "well that drawing is shitty" and "the toothbrush that guy drew is stupid". I have successfully trained you to effectively pass the buck and fool your viewer into thinking that what you draw is actually representative of something real and solid.
I really, really liked the perfume bottles you played with. Their forms were extremely precise, an interesting marriage between organic curves and geometric solidity, and you pulled them off really well. The squirt gun was unexpected, and was a bit of a fumble (the top side seemed to be slanted at a bit of an angle), but your approach to it demonstrated a really solid grasp of the material. I think you could probably get it down in a few more tries (although I wouldn't recommend it - it looks like it drove you a bit crazy to even do it once, and I think it'd do the same to me).
Anyway, long story short - you did a fantastic job, and you've got an excellent grasp of what it means to construct these solid, geometric, hard-surface objects. I'd honestly be interested in seeing how this shift in the approach to drawing and construction will have impacted how you draw your animals, but we can do that later - after you've completed lesson 7.
So, I'll go ahead and mark this as complete. Keep up the fantastic work - and I'm not sure you're aware of the little red dots I add next to some of the entries in my backlog list, but you've earned one this time.
DynamicRaccoon
2018-05-18 13:56
Hello again, here is my lesson 6 homework! I felt pretty good about these overall, although it wasn't without its difficulties. One thing I noticed was that I had a tendency to get sloppier towards the end of the drawing; guess I need to try to be more patient with it. Also ellipses in planes are still hard :\
edit: format
Uncomfortable
2018-05-18 22:43
By and large I'm in agreement with you. Overall you've done a pretty solid job and have shown a lot of care in your construction - subdividing as necessary, building things out to be relatively boxy first before implementing curving surfaces and keeping an eye on your proportions.
I think your biggest area of difficulty is with ellipses. Often times when you try to construct them relative to a plane in space, their alignment is off. In the cylinder challenge page, you're introduced to this video about the criteria an ellipse must fit relative to the plane that encloses it in order to represent a valid circle in 3D space.
One that definitely caught my eye as being off was on your electronic pipet filler. The end of the cylinder coming down from its front is definitely off. The minor axis seems about right (it penetrates straight down the center of the cylinder), but the degree of the ellipse has it feeling slanted.
In your coffee maker however, you definitely had better results - although the execution of the ellipses was a little jittery, it's kind of understandable given that they're incredibly difficult to draw in such specific places. Definitely work on the confidence of your linework, but as far as I'm concerned, that's a pretty solid drawing.
Jumping ahead to your barbacue, I do think that adding the little wheels underneath your enclosing box rather than inside of it was probably not the best call. That said, you may have forgotten to factor those in initially, and then tacked them on as an afterthought, in which case it's at least understandable.
For the most part, I'm just nitpicking. Your constructions are quite nice, as is the care with which you study your proportions and break everything down. There is room to improve (some of the enclosing boxes start off with a few little issues which trickle down into the rest of the drawing, for example) but you handle them well by pushing on through. You'll continue to improve with practice, but as it stands you're doing a great job.
Keep up the good work and consider this lesson complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.
DynamicRaccoon
2018-05-19 00:55
Thanks! Yeah I will definitely rewatch that video and do some practice before starting vehicles, as I don't have any ellipse guides to use (I did consider buying some but I don't really think they'd be a worthwhile investment, since they're a bit pricey, and I don't really see myself using them a lot in the future). For the grill, I did actually choose to leave the wheels outside the box at the start, but I agree, looking back it probably wasn't the best choice.
kangoroopaw
2018-05-21 06:58
Hello!, here is my homework for lesson 6.
https://imgur.com/a/qN09Vig
some i am quite proud of, but struggling recently to keep up the patience and concentration. anyhow, bit afraid of the next lesson, everything with ellipses is sooo hard!
imguralbumbot
2018-05-21 06:58
^(Hi, I'm a bot for linking direct images of albums with only 1 image)
https://i.imgur.com/PZLoWqc.jpg
^^Source ^^| ^^Why? ^^| ^^Creator ^^| ^^ignoreme ^^| ^^deletthis
Uncomfortable
2018-05-22 00:08
You've done some really, really fantastic work here. You've gone to such lengths to push the constructional element, subdividing your enclosing boxes, building things up from simple to complex, and even ensuring that each of your curves are well defined and made to follow a specific scaffolding. Every one of your constructions feel solid and believable. And furthermore, while it's very true that ellipse-based constructions are incredibly difficult, you tried your hand at several here and frankly you nailed each one.
The only piece of advice I have to offer, and it's not really a hard-fast rule that I'm presenting you with, but rather something to think about - is in regards to the kind of foreshortening you're using when you construct your initial enclosing boxes. I've noticed that many of these are constructed inside of boxes with fairly dramatic foreshortening, and vanishing points that are quite close.
Now, the kind of foreshortening you choose to use is entirely up to you, based on how you're deciding to depict an object, but keep in mind that the foreshortening does tell the viewer something about the object.
An object with extremely dramatic foreshortening is one of two things:
Very large - like looking at the top of a tall building from the ground floor
Very, very close to the viewer
The vast majority of objects that you've drawn here would find a shallower foreshortening, where the rate of convergence is much more gradual, to be a better fit - but there's certainly the argument to be made that you just wanted them to be seen as though they were being held up quite close.
What's important is that you understand the result of that effect, so you have a greater control over what you're trying to achieve.
Aside from that, you've done a fantastic job here and should be very proud of yourself. I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one - it'll be tough, but you're absolutely up to the task.
kangoroopaw
2018-05-27 14:03
thanks a lot for the critique. will try to use the foreshortening of my objects more purposefully from now on. have a feeling this might come handy in the next lesson.
LairaKlock
2018-05-25 22:06
It's amazing that it took me under 2 weeks to complete this lesson. At the same time, I feel like the submission doesn't offer any outstanding work. Just me trying to figure out how to navigate the 1001 subdivision line.
Leaving the rest to the box deity:
https://imgur.com/gallery/W1cA4aC
Uncomfortable
2018-05-26 01:59
I'm going to start by saying that I really, really like the very last drawing. The thing on the right side of this page. It actually shows an excellent use of concepts that you've either bungled a little, or misunderstood in previous drawings, and frankly, I think you really nailed it. Could it improve? Sure, the ellipses could be better. Ellipses are a bitch, especially when placing them in planes - but the important thing here is that you used them reasonably well and constructed forms that feel solid. You also applied line weight effectively, making things more cohesive, and pulling the construction out of all those subdivisions.
It's worth mentioning that I also really liked the drawing on the right side of this page.
Your other drawings are a mixed bag, but they're all hovering around "not bad". Nothing's remotely horrific, and the only reason that they're generally hovering around that place is because of your starting points - that is, the boxes you start with. But for everything after that, you're mostly on point. Your minor axis stuff is lacking early on, but after having that explained post-hairdryer-earphone-debacle, you got that down pretty well.
So, how do you improve? You may hit me for saying this, but it's the truth - the biggest impact is going to come from the simple things. Mostly practicing drawing freely rotated boxes, specifically ones that have fairly shallow foreshortening - that is, the hard ones where the vanishing points are very far away, convergence is gradual, and you constantly risk accidentally making your lines diverge instead (resulting in far planes that are larger than your near planes).
Working on ellipses is also something you're going to have to focus on - specifically getting ellipses to fit smoothly in planes. As you get into lesson 7, there's a couple of videos that touch on the topic of circles in planes, so be sure to watch them. Then try and carry those principles into the ellipses-in-planes exercises from lesson 1, which originally were not meant to factor in perspective or anything like that. It's a very versatile exercise though, and with a few additional rules, it can be quite helpful in this case.
This does lead to an important question though - have you been doing the exercises from lessons 1 and 2 as a regular warmup routine, picking two or three of them to do for 10-15 minutes at the beginning of each sitting? Haaaave youuuuu?
If you haven't, you'd better damn well start.
Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. The next lesson has a little more leeway - you're allowed to use a ballpoint pen, ruler, and even an ellipse guide if you have one (though most people don't). I HIGHLY recommend that you use a ruler and a ballpoint pen - it'll take a lot of the stress off, which is good because vehicles can tend to be pretty overwhelming at times.
LairaKlock
2018-05-26 07:47
Thanks for the feedback! It's interesting that your favourite drawings are those of stuff you cannot identiy :D I'll take that into consideration when I start lesson 7 (cylon raider for you, sir!).
But I'm somewhat upset that you think I wasn't doing warmups. They were done even on those days when I had no time or desire to draw and somehow they didn't transfer to the lessons...
Uncomfortable
2018-05-26 16:46
It's definitely good to hear that you are doing them. The reason I asked was because of how some of your lines have a tendency to come out a little stiff at times. Not all of them - you've got a lot, especially when you're doing construction, that come out smooth and confident. But when you go in to apply line weight to emphasize an existing mark, or where you need to fit an ellipse into a particular space, you draw noticeably slower. This isn't uncommon but it is something you need to push through, getting yourself to draw with a confident, ghosted stroke regardless of the situation. This is hardest when you're afraid that you're going to mess up a drawing, but that's a worthy sacrifice if it means getting yourself to draw every mark with a confident, persistent pace without hesitation. Mistakes happen - but if you shy away from them, they'll hinder your growth.
The thing with confidence is that it's 90% lies. It's hard to just "be" confident - but we can fake it. And when you fake it long enough, one day you'll find that it's gone from being a farce to being genuine.
BeccaRand
2018-06-14 16:03
This was a struggle. First few pages were catastrophic, definitely started to "get it" after page 3. I could have done A LOT more of these but felt it might be better to get some feedback at this point.
https://imgur.com/gallery/SPqFbTL
I tended to have more success building things inside a box vs combining shapes. The food processor attempts (last 2 pages) are a good example of this. I'm thinking this is because there are lines towards the vanishing points on both the top and bottom so it's easier to guess in between them?
My cylinders in planes (especially when I had multiples close together) were a hot mess. Ultimately I just gave up on this approach after trying it for the juicer 3 times without improvement.
One thing that is still alluding me is drawing a cube (which is sort of hilarious). Using the "Y" method, I can't figure out where to put the third line. So I have the x and the y axis, but I don't understand how to estimate the angle and length of the last inner line (z axis). Like, there is some range of mathematical possibility for the lengths/angles of the lines in a cube that I'm not understanding. Essentially this. Do you think it would be helpful to try to freehand something like that, or is there a better way to get good at estimating? Maybe drawing a block from life?
Obviously these show a huge jump in my understanding from when I started, but I feel like there are some basic concepts that I'm still not really fully grasping.
Thanks for the feedback and for your time putting all this together!
Uncomfortable
2018-06-14 23:21
Overall, your work has demonstrated a good deal of growth and development. It's always nice to see things start off uncertain and steadily improve over the course of the assigned homework set. As you continued to tackle different objects, experimenting in your methodology and continuing to develop your understand of working in 3D space, the quality of your results (in their solidity and general believability) continued to rise. I have no reason to think that this will not continue, so I am more than satisfied with your results. So, rather than picking on individual drawings, it's definitely going to be more productive to directly address the concerns you mentioned yourself.
On the topic of drawing a cube, I actually have an answer for you in video form. It's something I introduce as part of lesson 7: Measuring in Perspective: Constructing to Scale. It discusses how to construct a unit cube and to extend that as needed. I don't discuss that as part of lesson 6 because we're already facing a lot of complex concepts and this one gets particularly hairy. It utilizes some of the principles I mentioned in regards to the cylinder challenge (drawing ellipses in planes that represent proper circles). So instead, for this lesson I leave students to get accustomed to estimation, and to gauging things by eye.
Most people notice that these lessons tend more towards developing skills that pay dividends for those who move into concept art, where quick iteration is extremely important. So, while being able to construct things to scale in a variety of ways is important, training one's eye and gut sense plays a big role when you've got to hammer out quick sketches to explore your own designs.
Anyway, long story short - there are ways to measure this out. There are even more concrete approaches that involve plotting all your perspective out, but of course we don't really fuss with that here. The technique in the video is about as far as we go.
Now, practicing tables like you showed there could definitely be helpful, but it's important to remember that the rate of foreshortening applied to your box isn't always going to be the same - so while that table has a single box rotating on two axes, an important feature it's missing is what happens when that box moves closer to the viewer, as well as farther away. When the box moves closer, the rate of foreshortening gets much more dramatic, with the convergences of sets of parallel lines getting rapider. Conversely, when the box moves farther away, the convergences flatten out, becoming shallower. This factor plays a considerable role when it comes to estimating the lengths of your lines.
Ultimately, the best approach to improving on this front is a combination. Apply the methodology described in the video sometimes, but also be sure to do a good deal of drawing by eye as well. The former will get you more used to the kinds of measurements that come into play when constructing cubes, while the latter will get you used to gauging for yourself where those lines should end. And of course, expect a lot of failure.
In fact, following the principles in the box challenge, you could freehand your boxes and then go back to check them with the technique suggested in the video (by drawing an ellipse within each plane and checking how far off they are from meeting the two criteria that determine an ellipse to represent a circle in 3D space).
Moving on from that topic, one thing I do want to mention is that your sense that things went better when you constructed from a larger enclosing box is definitely spot on. While you're more reliant on whether or not you nailed that initial box, pinning down proportions as well as the specific relationships between different forms within that enclosing box becomes a good deal easier (especially in cases where things are piled on in an organized fashion - when things are connecting to each other at all angles, it can pose a greater challenge).
That approach also helps avoid issues like what we see in the food processor on the left side of this page. If you look at the base of the cylinder and its top, the planes enclosing each end are actually rotated quite a bit relative to one another. This disconnect resulted in it being quite a bit easier to have the top plane sloping at an angle quite inconsistent with its base, resulting in a cylinder that looked off. Your attempts on the subsequent page came out much better because those relationships between forms were a lot stronger and better enforced.
Anyway! You really are doing a great job. I saw the video you made for this lesson, and it made me laugh.. and laugh.. and laugh. I might be a bit of a sadist - but I am glad that while this lesson wasn't exactly fun, that you did feel like it showed you how much you've grown. Also while you may not be entirely aware of it, you really are doing well. Your results here are certainly above the average.
So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.
I'm not actually sure what your goals with these exercises are, but while lesson 7 is technically the last of the curriculum, I have plans to delve into topics involving shape/form language, manipulating proportion and other topics intrinsic to the creation of fresh designs (be it character, vehicle, prop, etc). This is something I'll be pursuing as soon as I'm done rebuilding the drawabox website (which I'm doing right now). I'm actually quite interested in seeing you work through those, if they suit your fancy. Given that you already have a fair bit of figure drawing experience, you'd definitely be a prime candidate for that kind of material. I hope you'll be sticking around to give those a shot as well!
jordan_dean
2018-06-19 06:03
Hi again, heres my work for lesson 6. https://imgur.com/gallery/QDr7XLj
Thanks!
Uncomfortable
2018-06-19 20:21
You've got a lot of solid work here. What's important is that you're demonstrating a good deal of patience and care in applying all of the constructional methods. You're not skipping any steps, and aren't really relying on any guesswork - you're being pretty careful in subdividing as needed, and ensuring that each decision you make hinges on some other measurement you can pinpoint and produce.
Earlier on, I think some of your initial enclosing boxes tend to be a little weaker, which throws off the construction somewhat - though the fact that you stick to it despite that shows a good degree of control and a lot of respect for the constructional process. Regardless of whether or not that previous step has gone wrong, the decisions have been made, and you keep trucking forwards.
By the end of the lesson, your boxes and generally boxier constructions are coming along quite well. Your cylinders are a little weaker, but more in that they're less consistent. You've got some pretty solid cylinders/ellipses here, though less so here. It's really a matter of practice, but try drawing through your ellipses only two times. That'll get you the benefit of drawing through them but will reduce the amount of hairiness and messiness that can result.
Anyway! You're doing a good job and are heading quite confidently in the right direction, so I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. You'll find that the next one is quite similar with a few added challenges (mostly coming from the scale and importance of proportion in vehicles) as well as some advantages - like being allowed to use all kinds of tools (ballpoint pens, rulers, ellipse guides if you can find them). There are also some additional videos that could have been useful here, but that I held back in the interest of not hitting students with too much to think about all at once.
jordan_dean
2018-06-20 01:10
Sounds great, thanks so much. I did definitely notice that my initial boxes were off in the beginning, but seeing them through to the end despite the initial error was rewarding. Thanks again, and Ill have my lesson 7 up soon!
Zeon1xx
2018-07-17 21:04
Sorry I took so long with this one, I went on vacation for 2 weeks halfway through the lesson and it took me a second to get back into it, I struggled a lot at first with this one as you can see in the first 4 images, 2 of which failed miserably (the soda can and the mirror). While on vacation I did a lot of drawing from life (mainly plants and cool rocks) but I also went back and practiced stuff from previous lessons aside from the 30 minute warm ups from Lessons 1 and 2 that you recommended to do every day, and I practiced a lot of boxes too which I think helped me when I came back from vacation as all the drawings after that feel stronger, not to say that they don't have problems because they do lol!
https://imgur.com/a/XdKx1G7
Uncomfortable
2018-07-18 20:42
Your work here is fantastic - and frankly, I think the struggles at the beginning with the soda can highlights it. You're demonstrating an excellent grasp of boxy forms with a lot of clear planes throughout the set. This isn't uncommon at this point, as they tend to be the easier sort, but your execution conveys a sense of solidity and weight that I don't see too often and that students require much further experience and practice to pull off. It's very clear to me that you completely believe in the illusion you're producing, and it's this belief that pushes beyond your conscious decisions of construction to those only managed by one's subconscious once they've properly given themselves over. It's like how when you believe the lie you're telling someone, you can't help but be convincing and genuine about it.
Now, you did struggle more with your cylinder-based constructions, but I saw considerable improvements, and the sheer amount of care and conscientiousness really pushed you beyond. You didn't skip any steps - one area where students are bound to get sloppy is where the micron's gap connects to its body - there's an inset ellipse there that is frankly an annoyance to draw, but it speaks volumes that you saw fit to draw it in with as much care as you drew everything else.
The light bulb and the lamp are areas where your ellipses really push past the realm of struggles - you managed them extremely well, and I'm very pleased with how you managed to play with line weight without your strokes straying too far from their targets, or without having to draw them so slowly as to cause wobbling.
If I wasn't clear enough already, your work is fantastic. I see no issues with your technique or approach - at this point all that's left is to continue honing those most basics of skills, the sort of thing that one never truly masters, but keeps inching ahead. That is, continuing to push the confidence of your lines, continuing to work on your execution of those initial boxes and cylinders, and so on. All of which is already coming along well, but will always benefit from regular practice.
I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'm very interested in seeing how you manage with lesson 7 - it is essentially a more difficult version of this lesson where proportions and observation come even more into play while holding the same emphasis on clear and concise construction. Best of luck!
Zeon1xx
2018-07-18 22:52
Thank you very much for your feedback! I eventually want to become a concept artist so I've been working really hard and trying to learn as much as I can. Your lessons have been incredibly helpful!
Leerxyz
2018-08-06 06:06
Hey, here's my homework submission for this lesson: https://imgur.com/a/RP6HUZ9
These are not all drawings I did, sometimes I didn't think carefully enough about how to draw something in perspective and the whole drawing got messed up, that was super frustrating!
One thing I would like to ask is if my lines are too wobbly or are arching too much. I repeated the lesson 1 lines exercises a few times and couldn't eliminate the arching, I hope the way it is in my last drawings is fine.
Another problem I ran into is that the construction sometimes got so cluttered that it was hard to differentiate between construction and the actual drawing and I felt line weight couldn't fix this issue completely.
Anyways, thanks for the lesson :)
Uncomfortable
2018-08-06 22:17
Theres a lot of good demonstration here of how your understanding of space and form is improving. Your general approach to how these things are made up of simpler forms, and how they fit together is coming along great.
The use of those techniques is fine. What is causing you trouble is the simple stuff. Drawing boxes with sets of parallel lines that converge consistently towards each ones vanishing point, so they feel properly solid and rectilinear - and more importantly, placing and aligning features within those boxes so they line up correctly. These fundamental components really impact the overall believability of your constructions.
For example, in your microwave youve got two smaller details like either the panel of buttons, or the ventilation on the side. Each of these have estimated edges that dont run consistently towards the same vanishing points suggested by the primary box you started it off with.
If you jump back to the 250 box challenge, theres a video on there that you may or may not have watched yet, about Advanced Techniques. Its basically about freehand subdividing boxes, and I think this kind of exercise would be particularly valuable for you. Youd effectively apply then the same line-extension techniques covered in the main box challenge video to test how far off you were.
The only other thing I wanted to mention was about the water bottle you drew, specifically the ellipses on either end of it. Youve got a pretty significant shift between the degrees of either end. The magnitude of this shift is very similar to how dramatic the foreshortening between regular perspective lines is, and specifically what that represents. The same way a very dramatic foreshortening tells us an object is very large or very close to the viewers eye, a significant shift between the degrees of the ellipses on either end of a cylinder tells us that the cylinder is extremely large.
Long story short, for an object like a water bottle, you probably want to keep that transition fairly subtle.
So, I am going to mark this lesson as complete, as you clearly understand the principles, but you should work those advanced box exercises into your routine (and as always, be sure to continue practicing the simpler construction of boxes to continue honing your ability to draw lines to converge consistently towards the same point.
In the next lesson, youll be more free to draw with a ruler and so on. I actually didnt see any significant issues with your linework (in terms of what you mentioned about arcing and such), but it may help you focus more on how those lines are going to converge consistently. As the subject matter in the next lesson tends to be much more challenging, I find that it can help students from getting distracted by these more mundane struggles and focus more on the forms theyre drawing. So I definitely recommend that you take advantage of it.
Leerxyz
2018-08-09 14:38
Thanks for the feedback, I will definitely start implementing the advanced box exercise now :)
[deleted]
2018-09-17 20:51
Lesson 6
Uncomfortable
2018-09-17 23:38
Your constructions, and your general use of the construction is pretty much on point. You're starting out simple, keeping things within the bounds of their previous constructional phase, you're mindful of each individual component and you're not really skipping any major steps. I can say with confidence that you have a good grasp of 3D space, and how forms can be combined within it.
Construction-wise, the only issue I can really see is with the stapler, where the back of it seems to have collapsed somewhat - may have been useful to create a cross-section towards that back area to help bridge the transition. So basically to have constructed a few slices along the length of that top part, and then connected them.
Now, what is an issue is what I've mentioned many times - it's the basic stuff. Your lines aren't terribly confident or stable, and your boxes tend to be skewed more often than not. Your understanding of the material is on point, but your execution of the basics - the kinds of things we learned in lessons 1 and 2 and the box challenge, the things we practice continually as part of our regular warmup routines, simply aren't there.
That's what needs to receive the bulk of your time and focus. I cannot claim that you're not working your ass off at this - you clearly are internalizing these later concepts of construction, but all the technical aspects that are meant to support their use are lacking.
Now, the next lesson - which you are absolutely cleared to move onto, since these lessons are about understanding construction, and you certainly do - allows you to use a ruler and an ellipse guide. I strongly encourage you to do so. You're also allowed to work with a ballpoint pen.
I have had a few other students who've struggled in this manner, and they felt that being able to separate the process of executing the line from the rest of it helped immensely. They still did have to work on their basic skills separately, but there is something to be said about at least being able to pull it all off with the appropriate tools, even if your ability to freehand it all isn't there yet.
So, as I said - I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 7. If you're at all allowing the basic exercises to fall by the wayside, make sure you pick them up again in a meaningful way. If you have been doing them diligently however, then submit some of those to me and we can find out if you're approaching them incorrectly somehow, or focusing on the wrong thing.
[deleted]
2018-09-22 14:22
Sorry for the late reply, but I will probably cancel my patreon subscription for a while. Although I do practice the exercises of lesson 1&2, its not at the level of deliberate focus for it to be effective, as you can see. I plan to take some time off (about a month) from DaB to focus on this more.