Old thread got locked, those eligible for private critiques can post their work here. I look forward to the day I don't have to repost these damn threads anymore...
Congratulations on completing the cylinder challenge! Here are a few things to keep in mind as you continue to move forwards:
I noticed that while you did draw your minor axis for a great many of these cylinders, you left them out in a number of places. This exercise, at its core, is about aligning ellipses to that minor axis line, and really drilling down to how important it is. So you really shouldn't be leaving it out at all.
When it comes to spatial problems, always lean on the side of giving yourself more room to work. That is, draw things bigger. It'll engage your brain more, make it easier to solve those spatial problems, and push you to use more of your arm.
I'm very pleased to see that you experimented with constructing cylinders inside of boxes here and there - you'll definitely benefit from playing with that more, as it gets very useful in later lessons where you have to align cylinders to other existing forms (rather than just drawing them at some arbitrary orientation). The box is great for being able to place a specific minor axis in space.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
Nice work completing the challenge! Overall you're showing progress, but I do have a few things to recommend as you continue moving forwards:
Overall, your ellipses are okay, but they do have a bit of stiffness to them. This comes from you hesitating as you make the stroke. Always push yourself to draw with a confident, persistent pace, and don't let your brain interfere. Once your pen touches the page, your brain needs to fuck right off and mind its own business - your arm owns the show and will see it through so you have to trust in its ability to do so.
I saw a tendency in waves where you'd have a bunch of cylinders where the alignment of your ellipses were coming along great, followed by a bunch where things tended to be a little slanted. It may be that you were more focused on it during some sessions, and less so during others. Remember that the alignment of those ellipses to the minor axis is super important, so it should be a high priority. (I'm assuming this is what you meant by lining up the ellipses with your minor ellipses :P)
Keep an eye on the relationship between the two ends of the cylinders. The closer end should be an ellipse with a slightly smaller degree than the farther end. The fact that it's a subtle shift does make it hard to pin down, but I did see a bunch where you were more or less repeating the same ellipse on either end, so try and adjust that a little bit.
Lastly, I recommend that when you get a chance, you play with the process of constructing a cylinder inside of a box as well. This is a very useful technique to get a hang of, because it allows you to construct a very specific minor axis/alignment for your cylinder, using a form that is much easier to construct relate to other objects.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
I'm still loving that confidence, but always keep in mind what I mentioned in regards to your first lesson 3 submission - don't let it get away from you. You've got some cylinders here that are really well drawn, and generally quite solid. But it comes in waves - sometimes you're more loose, and the solidity of your forms suffers due to gaps between lines, or a general lack of tightness to ellipses. Always remember to apply the ghosting method to each and every mark you put down - planning, preparing, and considering what exactly you are attempting to contribute to your drawing with each given stroke. Don't automatically reinforce marks that have just been put down (as some people do instinctively at times, I noticed this a little in the earlier part of your set).
I really want to hammer that home - take your time, and apply that confidence strategically only once you've planned and prepared fully. Other than that, you are doing very well. Your constructions are good, you're mostly nailing the alignments of your ellipses, and I'm pleased to see you playing with constructing your cylinders in boxes as well.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
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2018-09-01 14:59
250 Cylinders I did understand the issue presented in "Perfect Circles in 3D Space", about the angle, and insufficient degree of the ellipse causing the top and bottom poles to not align, However, I do not know how to determine the proper degree of an ellipse in 3d space.
On the 250 cylinders themselves, I often had to ignore the minor axis in order for the perpendicular ellipse poles to align correctly, in some cases I could expand the degree of the ellipse to satisfy both the minor axis and poles, but in some cases it was impossible to do both.
The challenge of drawing an ellipse inside of a plane such that its minor axis and degree are correct is very similar to the challenge of drawing a box such that each of its sets of parallel lines converge consistently towards their vanishing point. That is to say, in the box challenge we make a page's worth of attempts, then go over them to extend the lines and identify where we've made mistakes. We then continue onto the next page, applying what we learned and shift our approach, before going over to find the mistakes once again.
As I work through my multi-phase rebuild of the website, followed by some editing of the lessons and new videos, I'm actually going to be introducing this concept more explicitly to the cylinder challenge - that is, at the end of each page, going over with a pen to specifically identify the minor axis as well as the alignment of those contact points, and identifying where things have gone wrong.
For every plane (that is, a space enclosed by two sets of lines that are parallel in 3D space) that can be reasonably estimated as a square (so obvious rectangles like 244 are out), it is possible to come close enough to satisfying both criteria, but it's still rather tricky because they work in concert. For this reason, the challenge focuses more on speaking to muscle memory and instinct through repetition (followed by that correction phase and adjustments in the next page) rather than explicit rules of how to plan out your ellipse. It's one of those problems that the human brain is very good at on a subconscious level.
Anyway- you definitely did a great deal of solid practice here on this front, and your rate of success in constructing ellipses within their planes that feel approximately correct is pretty high. What still does stand out however is your line quality - individual examples show that you are entirely capable of drawing straight, smooth, confident lines (for example the lengthwise edges of your enclosing box in 112, 107, and many others are very well done), but I believe that when you are faced with a massive number of lines that need to be drawn, your patience and general conscientiousness is what suffers the most. In addition to this, your lines tend to be very uniform - a sign that you're perhaps pressing a little too hard with your pen as well as drawing a little too slowly, which diminishes any nuance and can make lines look clunkier. Finally, make sure you're continually rotating your page to find a comfortable angle of approach - this may also be what causes some of your lines to come out weaker than others. This goes for ellipses as well - there's not much to be done about ellipses with wide degrees, but those that are narrower will benefit from being rotated to suit your angle of approach.
Anyway! I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work, and feel free to move onto lesson 6.
Really nice work! Your cylinder constructions are looking very solid and confident, and you're doing a great job of aligning the ellipses to their shared minor axis. Your degree-shift from the closer to farther ellipses is also present, but nice and subtle. Fantastic.
The only thing I want to recommend is that by the time you hit lesson 6, it'd be great to have some more experience with drawing cylinders with a box as a starting point, as covered in the video. This becomes particularly useful when you need to position a cylinder in a specific manner within a scene, as it's easier to do this with boxes than it is with an arbitrary minor axis.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
Also, I have finished the lesson 2 homework. However, I am not able to submit it on the lesson 2 forum or comment on it. Instead of a comment option available, it says "This thread is archived."
You definitely show a fair bit of improvement over the course of the set - especially when it comes to the confidence of your linework. For a good deal of these cylinders, your ellipses tend to be quite shaky. While these are much better towards the end, the importance of drawing your marks with a confident, persistent pace really cannot be overstated. Slowing down out of a fear of making a mistake inevitably makes your marks wobbly and stiff, and undermines the solidity of the forms you draw. This applies across the board - straight lines, ellipses, and even when you're applying additional line weight. Each stroke needs to be drawn confidently.
That's really what the ghosting method focuses on - it allows you to separate the processes of planning and preparing, which tends to take more time and conscious thought, from the actual act of drawing the marks. Once your pen touches the page, you basically have to commit to it, and accept that while you may make a mistake, there's nothing you can do to avoid it now.
Moving on from that, generally you're doing a good job of aligning your ellipses to the minor axis, though I do want to recommend that you place your ellipses such that they sit entirely on the minor axis line, rather than being drawn around the line's end points. This allows us to focus more easily on that alignment.
Your cylinders in boxes are definitely a weak point, though this is largely because the boxes themselves are still an area that needs a fair bit of work. It's possible that since the focus of this exercise was on the cylinders, you didn't think as much about how you were approaching the boxes as you would have in the box challenge. Always remember that in no exercise are there steps that don't require your full attention and focus, and in general, the earlier the step in a constructional process, the more integral they are to the overall result.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so be sure to keep what I've mentioned here in mind as you move forwards.
There is definitely a great deal of improvement over this set! You start off pretty rough and uncertain of what you're doing, but you pick up steam before long. By the end, your cylinders feel considerably more solid, and though you may be a little too loose and relaxed when drawing your minor axes (they waver a little), your ellipses' alignments are solid. I'm also pleased to see that you did a great deal of work starting them off in boxes. You do have plenty of room to grow in that area however - especially when it comes to getting your ellipses to sit correctly in those planes. If you haven't already, I strongly recommend you check out this video, which was included on the challenge page.
Anyway, keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.
Thank you. I had watched that video, probably a couple times trying to make sense of it. Generally speaking, I tried to push the degree of the ellipse as much as possible and have it touch one the edges of the all planes so that the major axis lined up with the VPs but prioritized having the ellipse cantered on the minor axis. Is this incorrect? I kind of assumed with the shape of some of my boxes, I wouldnt have been making circles.
Well one thing that jumps out as incorrect is that you mentioned the major axis. The points at which the ellipse contacts the enclosing plane's upper and lower edges is not the same as the major axis. The major axis actually doesn't play any sort of a useful role, so it's best to ignore it.
Here's my submission. To be honest, I found it more difficult to draw ellipses smoothly when drawn on a plane than when freehand. But after taking a quick look at your critiques to others in this thread, I realized I could practice more on that.
Nice work overall! You've definitely gotten a good hang of constructing cylinders around an arbitrary minor axis. It's certainly true that drawing ellipses in a plane rather than freefloating is a lot harder - but that's all the more reason that you need to practice it more. So, I agree with your assessment that you would have benefitted more from practicing a better balance between freestanding cylinders and those constructed in boxes.
Ultimately building them inside of boxes is really useful when it comes to constructing more complex objects, as it's a lot easier to orient a box in space in a way that it relates in an intentional manner to other forms already present. From there, you're free to find your minor axis and build out that cylinder so that it plays a very specific role in what could be a more complex construction.
This ends up playing a big role by lesson 6, so you do have time. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, just be sure to work on the point I raised as part of your warmups.
Here it is, i might do like 250 more soon, the biggest challenge is to align my elipse with the minor axis while ghosting, second is executing properly what i just ghosted (just like lines, it comes of wrong more times than i like), third is drawing small degree elipses on a large size.
You're demonstrating a pretty good grasp of what you're aiming for, and all in all you're most of the way there. I'm very pleased to see that you're drawing your minor axes so they stretch all the way through each cylinder (for some reason I keep getting students who only draw them midpoint to midpoint - i think your tendency to draw those little major axis lines at the midpoint is actually a pretty good idea and I may enforce that later to keep students from making that mistake). Your ellipses and lines are confidently executed, and you're maintaining nice smooth strokes and even shapes.
There's only one thing I want to mention - you've focused this set purely on drawing cylinders around an arbitrary minor axis. This is more or less fine, though as you move forwards I do want you to practice starting them inside of boxes as demonstrated in the video. This can be extremely useful, especially when we start requiring the construction of very specific cylinders in specific orientations. Starting them off in a box can allow us to control where they sit in space a lot more easily, whereas achieving the same with a minor axis as the starting point can be a lot more challenging.
This isn't something that really comes into play until lesson 6 however, so you have plenty of time to practice that.
Keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
Yeah, i could foresee the the starting from the boxes point on other critiques in this post, by that time i was already halfway through the challenge, so thought of finishing it in the same manner as before. I do plan on doing this again.
BTW not blaming or anythin but ya said that the videos are supplement material to the actual course, since the box demo is only in the video and on the challenge page only the minor axis demo is shown i thought to treat that as the main focus. Just saying it might be the reason since many people have missed it. So maybe you can explicitly state on the challenge page (along with a box demo) to do a fraction of cylinders(half/quarter) with a box.
I'll work that in a little more clearly as part of the general rebuild/reorganization of the lessons. It's true that the main focus is building around a minor axis to start with, but you're right - that could certainly be alluded to more clearly.
I've worked very hard to produce these mediocre cylinders. They are what I can do now but I'm sure I'll get better as I keep doing these lessons. I've followed your directions as best I could in the lessons and often come back to this thread to read critiques. I still have a very difficult time drawing ellipses correctly. I would start most mornings with a ellipses in tables to try and compensate for this... but I didn't see too much improvement. Any suggestions about the general construction, such as foreshortening or degree of ellipse would be very helpful. I'm going to attempt the the remainder of Lesson 2 which I had planned to be done by the end of the month.
Nice work! I can definitely see over the course of the set that your overall understanding of 3D space has improved a great deal - as has the confidence of your linework and the solidity of your constructions. Your ellipses gradually become more consistent, and you make really good use of the minor axis as a tool throughout the challenge. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you're demonstrating a great deal of consideration of your results - you're not just drawing them and moving on, you're very clearly identifying issues and growing from them.
The one thing that I am noticing is that some of your cylinders come out feeling somewhat squished. This is completely normal, especially at this stage. The reason this happens is that while a single ellipse alone on a page can be said to represent a circle in 3D space, once you add additional ellipses, lines, forms, etc. they have to remain consistent with the initial ellipse's assertion, otherwise they'll contradict the idea that this original ellipse represented a circle at all.
Included on the challenge page, there was a video (which you didn't have to watch just yet, as it doesn't become properly relevant until lesson 6/7, and is reintroduced at that point) that goes over how to go about establishing an ellipse that jives with all the other assertions of a scene (like where certain vanishing points are). You'll find it here. It outlines a couple important points of criteria that will help you to assess whether or not a given ellipse actually does represent a circle, given all the other elements in the scene.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2!
Oh, also worth mentioning - the image hosting website you chose was a bit of a dud. You don't have to use imgur, but it really does help me go through your work if the host you choose at least allows me to click through all the images one by one, though having everything laid out on a single page for me to scroll through (as imgur does) is even better. I honestly don't really mind when pages are presented out of order, if it means being able to go through them quickly and easily.
Here are my 250 cylinders.. It was much less painful that the boxes I have to say. Though I feel like I got worse over time for some reason? I got feedback for lesson 2 about 75 cylinders in to this one, and one of your notes stressed trying to not be sketchy with initial construction lines, so I tried to apply that as much as possible here. (though admittedly, not with the boxes that contained cylinders, which was perhaps a mistake?). One thing Im struggling with is in order to execute nice lines I'm finding I need to draw a certain speed, but those lines invariably come out pretty fine. It helps if I hold my pen more perpendicular to the page, but that angle I find I have very little control. Anyway some advice would be much appreciated on that front as I'm working with lesson 3 right now and I feel like I'm having similar problems. Thanks again for looking over my stuff!
Overall you're doing a good job, and while things are kind of uncertain through the bulk of it, near the end your cylinders look considerably more confident and solid than before, so I guess it's something you were thinking through and sorting out.
There are a couple things I want to mention however:
Your straight lines have a tendency to waver here and there. I'm guessing this is related to what you mentioned in your submission, about having to hold your pen perpendicular to the page and losing control due to that. It's not uncommon for students to have to hold their pen in such a way, but the reason is that ink flows best in such a position. It largely becomes necessary when a pen is dying, or - more commonly - when a pen's tip has been damaged, which occurs when a student applies too much pressure while drawing. Either way, it is something you need to work on - a lot of your lines, specifically your minor axes as well as the side edges of your ellipses tend to wobble a bit and I can definitely see that being a problem moving forward. Make sure you're applying the ghosting method and drawing from your shoulder - switching up how you hold your pen may also be making you fall back to drawing from your wrist.
Don't apply line weight to entire lines. You do this a great deal throughout, though not so much on that last page, but overall I can see you adding weight to entire lines, as well as all the way around ellipses, or halfway around them to encapsulate the whole silhouette. Line weight, as mentioned in the form intersections video in lesson 2, should only be applied to local areas. This specifically allows you to execute those strokes with the same kind of confidence you'd have used when drawing the initial lines. In turn this also helps you to avoid the kind of hesitation and wobbling that I see a lot here.
Now, in terms of the constructions of your cylinders and their general solidity, you're doing a great job - so keep it up. Your cylinders in boxes are definitely going to continue to need the most work, but all in all you're moving in the right direction and have until lesson 6 before that starts to become particularly important.
Ah! Thanks for the feedback, and thanks so much for that tip about the damaged tip, I swapped both the tips on my 0.5 and 0.3 pens and they are way better now. I can now at least have a 10-15% tilt on them and still get a decent line out of them. I tried some toned paper for a change in the beginning of lesson 3 and I found I had to press a lot harder to get the ink to flow on the page. I think I ruined both tips doing that. Anyway, everything you've said I think still applies as things I need to work on, but at least I'm not fighting the pens so much anymore, thanks!
I hit this challenge before doing the [Form Intersections] on Lesson 2. This one consumed less time than the box challenge but I see less achievement... Here are my concerns:
I do draw the cylinders with my shoulder, but I was forced to use wrist or elbow when it comes to adding extra line weight on the circle lines. I tried to use shoulder but couldn't produce similar arcs and curves because the whole looking became messy. I am confident for using shoulder when drawing straight lines, maybe I need to practice more for detailed shoulder control.
I could draw circle 2 times with confidence before I lift my pen in general situation, but if I have to draw a circle inside of the box - just like when doing structured cylinders I did after cylinder No. 170 - I feel pressured that I want to make a well-fit circle inside the box which ruins my muscle memory. That moment, my brain and eyes take over my muscle memory, and ghosting method got neutralized. More practice is the only answer? (I think so but want to make sure...)
Any advice would be appreciated. Always thank you so much for your help!
Over the course of the challenge, you definitely show a great deal of improvement on the spatial challenges of this exercise. As you point out in your own notes however, you definitely have issues with the linework aspect of things. In terms of the things you asked, what stands out to me is that you modified your approach solely on the basis that it wasn't giving you the results you were hoping for. Of course, the only way to improve is to face that challenge head-on. Remember that we're not here to draw nice cylinders, pretty plants, or cool animals. We're here to learn from the processes of failing in these activities in every possible way. Long story short - yes, more practice.
There were a couple of my own little issues I noticed as well:
You're not drawing through your ellipses for most of these. It's something you should be doing for every single ellipse you draw for my lessons, and it helps maintain a confident stroke. You do it in a few places here and there (especially towards the end, where things get much better), but by and large you've tried to nail each ellipse in one go, it seems.
When adding line weight, don't attempt to add it to the entirety of a line. You're not replacing an existing line with a darker one, you're taking that existing stroke and giving it more character and variation. Line weight should be added only to certain local areas of lines, usually to clarify overlaps or silhouettes at key points. This puts us in a position to execute those marks - with the ghosting method, just like any other - with more confidence, since we don't have to nail anything too complex.
Anyway, overall you're doing well, just don't flee from your mistakes. Face them head on so you can learn from them properly. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
Hey Mr. Box, before doing form intersections I went ahead with this challenge. I enjoy doing them within boxes more, as it gives a much better understanding of cylinders in space. The tough part was keeping the ellipses on the minor axis (practice), and if I got it wrong, to balance out the other end.
For future reference, is there a way to check corrections? With the boxes you can extend groups of parallel lines. It felt that without having a box first, all I can check for was the minor axis and not perspective. Thank you!
Nice work! Youve demonstrated some definite development in your understanding of 3D space, as well as your ability to manipulate and construct cylinders. I do have one issue with your linework however - I can see that you basically put your construction down, and then went back over it with a darker line to commit to certain lines. My assumption is that this is how you are using line weight, but I dont want you to use this methodology in the future - at least not as part of the drawabox work.
I mention this once you get into lesson 2 (specifically in the video for form intersections), but basically you need to see the construction lines you put down as being final. Every mark we put down, we weigh in terms of whether or not its going to contribute to our final result, or if its going to help us better grasp how our construction sits in space, and if it does either of these things, we draw that line confidently - with no attempt at hiding marks, making them extra faint, etc. Then, once all your lines are drawn, you generally apply line weight to emphasize certain local areas of existing lines (NOT whole lines all at the same time), usually to clarify where two forms overlap and establish which is in front.
As for your question, there is a way and Im going to be introducing it to the lesson/challenge page along with a fresh how to draw a cylinder video as part of the overall website rebuild that Im hoping to release for Christmas.
The short of it is, however, you enclose a cylinder in a box (if it wasnt already constructed inside of one) and apply the criteria described in this video. This criteria allows you to determine where all three vanishing points ought to be (one from following the minor axis of each ellipse, one from the planes enclosing each ellipse, and the last from the vertical contact points of each ellipse to its enclosing plane. You can do these checks for each ellipse separately, and then see how closely they match up.
I know its a bit to take in there, but Ill explain this in greater detail once Im able to release a video on this.
Anyway, Ill go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.
This was probably a good idea as when I started I realised my cylinders were pretty poor. See exactly what you mean about too much tapering from my last homework - have developed a bad habit with that so was trying to consciously change this throughout this challenge.
I could see in other homework submissions people were including a few cylinders in boxes so I included some of these also.
Very nice work! You've definitely improved with the confidence of your constructions, as well as the evenness of your elliptical shapes. Overall your control is coming along great, and the alignment to those minor axes looks solid. One thing on that last point though - try and get the minor axis to extend all the way through the cylinder (or rather, draw the ellipses such that they're completely sitting on the minor axis rather than roughly centered on its end points), as it's a good habit that'll continually remind you of the necessary alignment for the ellipses.
Also, I'm glad you threw in some cylinders in boxes - it's definitely something I'm going to mention more explicitly as part of the challenge (I'll be updating the video for it at christmas). It's pretty helpful especially as you get into lesson 7, so I'd recommend adding some of those box-cylinders into your warmups.
Anyway I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
Nice job pushing through this challenge. I think you were doing an okay job through the first hundred and fifty or so, but did show some points of sloppiness. Issues with the alignment of your ellipses to your minor axis, generally perhaps being a touch too loose. Things that may have benefited from taking just a little extra time.
By the time you hit around 170 though, you do start to hit your stride, and the overall quality increases. There are still some alignment issues here and there, and some places where your lines wobble, but by and large there's definite improvement.
I'm also pleased to see you playing with constructing your cylinders in boxes, as that's something that will come in very handy in the future (specifically with lessons 6 and 7). Getting acquainted with it now is definitely a good call.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. I do think that you'll want to continue keeping an eye on the alignment of your ellipses to the minor axis, but generally everything looks to be moving in the right direction. Keep up the good work.
Your general understanding of the spatial challenges involving cylinders certainly improves over the whole set. I do have to say though, the first page was... questionable. The complete lack of foreshortening doesn't actually make any sense in that particular configuration. It'd only have a chance of working if the ends of the cylinder were of very small degrees, with us only looking at their edges and a tiny bit of their faces and the cylinder running directly up and down in front of us.
For your ellipses here, were you using an ellipse guide? I was going to call out the issue with you not drawing through them as you ought to be (and technically speaking ellipse guides aren't allowed for this lesson, though given that you're heading into lesson 7 I can understand why you may have chosen to use one). ... That, or you just got really, really good at ellipses.
I did notice a distinct lack of ellipses drawn inside of boxes, so that's definitely something you'll want to get some mileage with. Admittedly the challenge page doesn't mention it, though the video does demonstrate it as something to explore.
I'm currently working through a full rebuild of the website along with a revision of all the lesson material, and that's one of the things I'm making clearer. This will all be released for Christmas.
On that note, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Given the release in under 3 weeks, you may want to take a bit of a break and wait for the new content. If not, you're welcome to move onto lesson 7.
That or I'm secretly turning into a robot every night.
I actually didn't understand why I would draw ellipses inside of boxes if I could construct them without them anyways, so I just chose not to.
I actually already submitted lesson 7 and messed the wheel exercize up so I did this challenge and will draw the wheels again :)
So your website update is finally coming along, congrats!
I guess I won't see much of it since I'm almost finished with all the lessons, but I saw in other critiques that you're talking since quite some time about it so it seems to be a big event for you!
Oh right, I forgot that you were already on lesson 7. Sometimes it's a bit tricky to keep track of all my students.
As for ellipses in boxes, it's vastly easier to place a box in a scene relative to other objects than it is to place a cylinder on its own - so learning to use a box as a starting point for a cylinder is extremely valuable.
Pretty nice work! There are a few things that I want to draw to your attention, but by and large your cylinders are coming along fairly well. Here are some things to keep in mind:
Caught a lot of ellipses that you weren't drawing through - you're definitely getting better at hitting them in one go, but you should still be abiding by the rules of "always draw through each ellipse you draw for these lessons". It'll give you more practice with the muscle memory, and as you keep getting them tighter and tighter, you'll equally develop your ability to hit them in one go.
You should be placing your ellipses so they sit entirely on the minor axis on both ends, rather than on the ends of the line, to help align to it more effectively.
I'm a little unsure of whether or not you're aware of the degree shift in the ellipses. Some feel very samey, others seem right, and others feel like they might be shifting in the wrong direction. The closer end should have a narrower degree than the farther end, due to how the angle at which we see these surfaces changing through the length of the cylinder.
You don't seem to have attempted any cylinders in boxes, as demonstrated in the video. This is something you should definitely practice as it comes into play a great deal when handling lesson 6 and 7. It's much easier to place a box in 3D space and then build a cylinder inside of it, than to place a cylinder around a minor axis in a specific position relative to other objects. This is something I expand on much more in the new version of the lessons coming out on Tuesday, so check that out at that time.
Anyway, your linework is looking very confident as always, so keep that up. Keep the bits I've mentioned here in mind, but I'll go ahead and mark the challenge as complete.
I didnt draw through the ellipses cuz I did ghost a ton before putting the line down, so that I could really imagine the 3d shape before.
or that I'm not sure what you mean, drawing through as a wrapping lines over the cylinders or drawing over the ellipses?
the degree shit - I always kept in mind that the farther end should have a narrow degree, so the closer will be larger degree. for some reason it just stick to my mind.
I completely forgot about the cylinders in boxes :) I think its a bit because I follow the "homework goals" too tightly so it wasnt a clear "task" to also make on this exercise. will do some, before going into L7.
You interpreted what I meant by drawing through ellipses correctly (going over the ellipse two full turns before lifting your pen). It's great that you're ghosting like that and the results are definitely there, but I still want you to draw through them. Considering your preparation, the result should be tight enough not to look too different from going over it once, but it'll provide you with that extra muscle-memory-mileage.
As for degree - what you described there ("farther end having narrower degree") is not correct. The closer end has the narrower degree, as shown here.
Lastly, the cylinders in boxes should be mentioned more in the actual challenge page notes. This has been corrected in the full rebuild of the website, which will be coming out on December 25th.
I kinda felt the cylinders from boxes when drawing from life, so the thing is I know how it should be, and have the vision for it, but the tight rules for "nailing it" inside the boxes, sometimes got me off the track and gave me the thoughts of redoing the whole thing.
which, in anyway, I know and deeply respect this practice, but it can get really frustrating (and I actually allow myself to write it, cuz I'm here for awhile :) )
as always, I print-screen your replays and took notes, thank you!
I can definitely see improvement here, though it comes and it goes. Some of your cylinders look and feel quite solid, with fairly tightly drawn ellipses, well ghosted lines (that come out straight), and minor axes to which the ellipses are all reasonably well aligned. Even on the last page however, I am seeing a bit of a mix, where some are visibly better than others.
I think there are a few factors here that are coming into play:
Time. There are definitely mistakes here and there that can be blamed on simply not putting as much time as you need into each cylinder.
Scale. You're definitely struggling a great deal with the larger ones, which is admittedly understandable. Really big ellipses force you to engage your whole shoulder, and there's a good chance that you may be relying more on your elbow than you may realize, so when you break past a certain size, it becomes much more difficult to manage.
It is worth mentioning that I'm also seeing places where your linework breaks down somewhat. I can see places where a line's been drawn with several separate segments, though I suspect this may becoming from your attempts at adding line weight. Remember that when you're adding line weight, usually it's just going to be in key, limited areas (rather than trying to wrap the entire form in a thicker line, this is something we talk about in lesson 2). You should also be applying the ghosting method just as you would when having drawn the original stroke to ensure that it comes out smoothly and confidently. You may make a mistake, but that is no reason to hesitate or draw more slowly. Mistakes happen, but gradually by pushing yourself to always draw with confident strokes, your muscle memory and overall control of those confident strokes will improve.
Anyway, by and large you've done a lot of good work here. There's still plenty of room for improvement, but that's largely expected. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
One thing worth mentioning is that for the last few months I've been working on a full rebuild and revision of the drawabox material, which will be released on December 25th. This comes along with a lot of changes to how I explain and convey the lesson 1 and 2 material, as well as a new video for cylinders. I'd recommend that when it comes out, you look over the notes from the lessons you've already completed to ensure that you move forward from the best possible position.
Thank you so much for your feedback, it's very helpful. I do really struggle with large cylinders and it's something I am going to work on. Also, I haven't been using ghosting method for adding line weight, but I'll do it from now on. I will have a look at updated lesson 1 once It's added.
Congratulations on completing the challenge! You've definitely put a great deal of effort into this challenge, and I can certainly admit that it's not an easy one.
Here are a few things to keep in mind as you move forwards:
I noticed that when it comes to drawing the edges of your cylinders, your lines tend not to be entirely straight, and I noticed that the lines you use when constructing most of your boxes tend to come out much straighter. Often we can be impacted psychologically by the particular kind of object or form we're drawing, depending on whether it's familiar or not, or whether we're simply not confident in that area - try and focus on the individual mark you're making, rather than what it belongs to. Applying all three stages of the ghosting method helps bring you out of the complexity of what you're trying to construct and lets you focus more on the individual stroke.
I noticed that later in the set, when applying the corrections/checking to your cylinders in boxes, your red lines on the boxes themselves corresponded more to where you felt those lines should have been, rather than where they were. Instead, I want you to simply extend these lines - this process isn't about finding out what would have been correct, but rather identifying where things went wrong, and identifying the nature of the convergences you've drawn. Focusing these corrections on what the box should have been breaks the relationship between the ellipse and its container.
Based on the fact that you do appear to have followed the newer instructions of 150 cylinders around arbitrary minor axes and 100 in boxes, but didn't catch a lot of the more specific notes about how to apply correction methods or how to approach constructing the cylinders in boxes, I'm going to guess that you probably took advantage of the early sneak peek for patrons in the discord, but didn't get the more recent information since I didn't update that til closer to the end. I definitely recommend that you go over the notes and video that are there now, as they go into detail as to how you should be testing each box/cylinder pairing to best identify whether your ellipses are circular and your planes are square.
Anyway, congratulations again on completing this challenge. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 6.
Uncomfortable
2018-07-16 15:37
Old thread got locked, those eligible for private critiques can post their work here. I look forward to the day I don't have to repost these damn threads anymore...
dubstepheroman
2018-07-24 23:05
Done with the challenge. https://imgur.com/a/zRpvPix
Uncomfortable
2018-07-25 20:13
Congratulations on completing the cylinder challenge! Here are a few things to keep in mind as you continue to move forwards:
I noticed that while you did draw your minor axis for a great many of these cylinders, you left them out in a number of places. This exercise, at its core, is about aligning ellipses to that minor axis line, and really drilling down to how important it is. So you really shouldn't be leaving it out at all.
When it comes to spatial problems, always lean on the side of giving yourself more room to work. That is, draw things bigger. It'll engage your brain more, make it easier to solve those spatial problems, and push you to use more of your arm.
I'm very pleased to see that you experimented with constructing cylinders inside of boxes here and there - you'll definitely benefit from playing with that more, as it gets very useful in later lessons where you have to align cylinders to other existing forms (rather than just drawing them at some arbitrary orientation). The box is great for being able to place a specific minor axis in space.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
TheDrawingChicken
2018-08-17 03:35
https://imgur.com/a/FVTaaAC
Yay~ I'm done.
I have some trouble lining up the ellipses with the minor ellipses still though. :(
Maybe I'll experiment constructing cylinders inside boxes in the 256-512 Cylinders.
Uncomfortable
2018-08-17 16:39
Nice work completing the challenge! Overall you're showing progress, but I do have a few things to recommend as you continue moving forwards:
Overall, your ellipses are okay, but they do have a bit of stiffness to them. This comes from you hesitating as you make the stroke. Always push yourself to draw with a confident, persistent pace, and don't let your brain interfere. Once your pen touches the page, your brain needs to fuck right off and mind its own business - your arm owns the show and will see it through so you have to trust in its ability to do so.
I saw a tendency in waves where you'd have a bunch of cylinders where the alignment of your ellipses were coming along great, followed by a bunch where things tended to be a little slanted. It may be that you were more focused on it during some sessions, and less so during others. Remember that the alignment of those ellipses to the minor axis is super important, so it should be a high priority. (I'm assuming this is what you meant by lining up the ellipses with your minor ellipses :P)
Keep an eye on the relationship between the two ends of the cylinders. The closer end should be an ellipse with a slightly smaller degree than the farther end. The fact that it's a subtle shift does make it hard to pin down, but I did see a bunch where you were more or less repeating the same ellipse on either end, so try and adjust that a little bit.
Lastly, I recommend that when you get a chance, you play with the process of constructing a cylinder inside of a box as well. This is a very useful technique to get a hang of, because it allows you to construct a very specific minor axis/alignment for your cylinder, using a form that is much easier to construct relate to other objects.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
0700u
2018-08-26 05:30
250 Cylinder Challege
Thank You!
Uncomfortable
2018-08-26 21:33
I'm still loving that confidence, but always keep in mind what I mentioned in regards to your first lesson 3 submission - don't let it get away from you. You've got some cylinders here that are really well drawn, and generally quite solid. But it comes in waves - sometimes you're more loose, and the solidity of your forms suffers due to gaps between lines, or a general lack of tightness to ellipses. Always remember to apply the ghosting method to each and every mark you put down - planning, preparing, and considering what exactly you are attempting to contribute to your drawing with each given stroke. Don't automatically reinforce marks that have just been put down (as some people do instinctively at times, I noticed this a little in the earlier part of your set).
I really want to hammer that home - take your time, and apply that confidence strategically only once you've planned and prepared fully. Other than that, you are doing very well. Your constructions are good, you're mostly nailing the alignments of your ellipses, and I'm pleased to see you playing with constructing your cylinders in boxes as well.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
[deleted]
2018-09-01 14:59
250 Cylinders I did understand the issue presented in "Perfect Circles in 3D Space", about the angle, and insufficient degree of the ellipse causing the top and bottom poles to not align, However, I do not know how to determine the proper degree of an ellipse in 3d space.
On the 250 cylinders themselves, I often had to ignore the minor axis in order for the perpendicular ellipse poles to align correctly, in some cases I could expand the degree of the ellipse to satisfy both the minor axis and poles, but in some cases it was impossible to do both.
Uncomfortable
2018-09-01 18:01
The challenge of drawing an ellipse inside of a plane such that its minor axis and degree are correct is very similar to the challenge of drawing a box such that each of its sets of parallel lines converge consistently towards their vanishing point. That is to say, in the box challenge we make a page's worth of attempts, then go over them to extend the lines and identify where we've made mistakes. We then continue onto the next page, applying what we learned and shift our approach, before going over to find the mistakes once again.
As I work through my multi-phase rebuild of the website, followed by some editing of the lessons and new videos, I'm actually going to be introducing this concept more explicitly to the cylinder challenge - that is, at the end of each page, going over with a pen to specifically identify the minor axis as well as the alignment of those contact points, and identifying where things have gone wrong.
For every plane (that is, a space enclosed by two sets of lines that are parallel in 3D space) that can be reasonably estimated as a square (so obvious rectangles like 244 are out), it is possible to come close enough to satisfying both criteria, but it's still rather tricky because they work in concert. For this reason, the challenge focuses more on speaking to muscle memory and instinct through repetition (followed by that correction phase and adjustments in the next page) rather than explicit rules of how to plan out your ellipse. It's one of those problems that the human brain is very good at on a subconscious level.
Anyway- you definitely did a great deal of solid practice here on this front, and your rate of success in constructing ellipses within their planes that feel approximately correct is pretty high. What still does stand out however is your line quality - individual examples show that you are entirely capable of drawing straight, smooth, confident lines (for example the lengthwise edges of your enclosing box in 112, 107, and many others are very well done), but I believe that when you are faced with a massive number of lines that need to be drawn, your patience and general conscientiousness is what suffers the most. In addition to this, your lines tend to be very uniform - a sign that you're perhaps pressing a little too hard with your pen as well as drawing a little too slowly, which diminishes any nuance and can make lines look clunkier. Finally, make sure you're continually rotating your page to find a comfortable angle of approach - this may also be what causes some of your lines to come out weaker than others. This goes for ellipses as well - there's not much to be done about ellipses with wide degrees, but those that are narrower will benefit from being rotated to suit your angle of approach.
Anyway! I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work, and feel free to move onto lesson 6.
ossadeimorti
2018-09-02 17:01
Cylinders https://imgur.com/gallery/5jgrJLf
Uncomfortable
2018-09-02 20:59
Really nice work! Your cylinder constructions are looking very solid and confident, and you're doing a great job of aligning the ellipses to their shared minor axis. Your degree-shift from the closer to farther ellipses is also present, but nice and subtle. Fantastic.
The only thing I want to recommend is that by the time you hit lesson 6, it'd be great to have some more experience with drawing cylinders with a box as a starting point, as covered in the video. This becomes particularly useful when you need to position a cylinder in a specific manner within a scene, as it's easier to do this with boxes than it is with an arbitrary minor axis.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.
ossadeimorti
2018-09-02 21:06
Thanks!
Somehow I completely missed that part in the video. I'll do another page to try the box method :)
cosmic_heart
2018-09-04 05:02
Hello Uncomfortable, here is my Cylinders https://imgur.com/a/HukabLW
Also, I have finished the lesson 2 homework. However, I am not able to submit it on the lesson 2 forum or comment on it. Instead of a comment option available, it says "This thread is archived."
Uncomfortable
2018-09-04 23:46
You definitely show a fair bit of improvement over the course of the set - especially when it comes to the confidence of your linework. For a good deal of these cylinders, your ellipses tend to be quite shaky. While these are much better towards the end, the importance of drawing your marks with a confident, persistent pace really cannot be overstated. Slowing down out of a fear of making a mistake inevitably makes your marks wobbly and stiff, and undermines the solidity of the forms you draw. This applies across the board - straight lines, ellipses, and even when you're applying additional line weight. Each stroke needs to be drawn confidently.
That's really what the ghosting method focuses on - it allows you to separate the processes of planning and preparing, which tends to take more time and conscious thought, from the actual act of drawing the marks. Once your pen touches the page, you basically have to commit to it, and accept that while you may make a mistake, there's nothing you can do to avoid it now.
Moving on from that, generally you're doing a good job of aligning your ellipses to the minor axis, though I do want to recommend that you place your ellipses such that they sit entirely on the minor axis line, rather than being drawn around the line's end points. This allows us to focus more easily on that alignment.
Your cylinders in boxes are definitely a weak point, though this is largely because the boxes themselves are still an area that needs a fair bit of work. It's possible that since the focus of this exercise was on the cylinders, you didn't think as much about how you were approaching the boxes as you would have in the box challenge. Always remember that in no exercise are there steps that don't require your full attention and focus, and in general, the earlier the step in a constructional process, the more integral they are to the overall result.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so be sure to keep what I've mentioned here in mind as you move forwards.
cantdrawastickman
2018-09-05 09:07
Opted to do cylinders before getting into form intersections. Lesson 2 shouldnt be too far behind.
https://imgur.com/a/bDyl2JL
Uncomfortable
2018-09-06 00:56
There is definitely a great deal of improvement over this set! You start off pretty rough and uncertain of what you're doing, but you pick up steam before long. By the end, your cylinders feel considerably more solid, and though you may be a little too loose and relaxed when drawing your minor axes (they waver a little), your ellipses' alignments are solid. I'm also pleased to see that you did a great deal of work starting them off in boxes. You do have plenty of room to grow in that area however - especially when it comes to getting your ellipses to sit correctly in those planes. If you haven't already, I strongly recommend you check out this video, which was included on the challenge page.
Anyway, keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.
cantdrawastickman
2018-09-06 01:28
Thank you. I had watched that video, probably a couple times trying to make sense of it. Generally speaking, I tried to push the degree of the ellipse as much as possible and have it touch one the edges of the all planes so that the major axis lined up with the VPs but prioritized having the ellipse cantered on the minor axis. Is this incorrect? I kind of assumed with the shape of some of my boxes, I wouldnt have been making circles.
Uncomfortable
2018-09-06 02:23
Well one thing that jumps out as incorrect is that you mentioned the major axis. The points at which the ellipse contacts the enclosing plane's upper and lower edges is not the same as the major axis. The major axis actually doesn't play any sort of a useful role, so it's best to ignore it.
Cantuccini
2018-09-24 14:07
Here's my submission. To be honest, I found it more difficult to draw ellipses smoothly when drawn on a plane than when freehand. But after taking a quick look at your critiques to others in this thread, I realized I could practice more on that.
Uncomfortable
2018-09-24 18:47
Nice work overall! You've definitely gotten a good hang of constructing cylinders around an arbitrary minor axis. It's certainly true that drawing ellipses in a plane rather than freefloating is a lot harder - but that's all the more reason that you need to practice it more. So, I agree with your assessment that you would have benefitted more from practicing a better balance between freestanding cylinders and those constructed in boxes.
Ultimately building them inside of boxes is really useful when it comes to constructing more complex objects, as it's a lot easier to orient a box in space in a way that it relates in an intentional manner to other forms already present. From there, you're free to find your minor axis and build out that cylinder so that it plays a very specific role in what could be a more complex construction.
This ends up playing a big role by lesson 6, so you do have time. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, just be sure to work on the point I raised as part of your warmups.
pranavjitvirdi
2018-10-07 12:12
Here it is, i might do like 250 more soon, the biggest challenge is to align my elipse with the minor axis while ghosting, second is executing properly what i just ghosted (just like lines, it comes of wrong more times than i like), third is drawing small degree elipses on a large size.
https://imgur.com/a/qZHgqul
Uncomfortable
2018-10-08 20:18
You're demonstrating a pretty good grasp of what you're aiming for, and all in all you're most of the way there. I'm very pleased to see that you're drawing your minor axes so they stretch all the way through each cylinder (for some reason I keep getting students who only draw them midpoint to midpoint - i think your tendency to draw those little major axis lines at the midpoint is actually a pretty good idea and I may enforce that later to keep students from making that mistake). Your ellipses and lines are confidently executed, and you're maintaining nice smooth strokes and even shapes.
There's only one thing I want to mention - you've focused this set purely on drawing cylinders around an arbitrary minor axis. This is more or less fine, though as you move forwards I do want you to practice starting them inside of boxes as demonstrated in the video. This can be extremely useful, especially when we start requiring the construction of very specific cylinders in specific orientations. Starting them off in a box can allow us to control where they sit in space a lot more easily, whereas achieving the same with a minor axis as the starting point can be a lot more challenging.
This isn't something that really comes into play until lesson 6 however, so you have plenty of time to practice that.
Keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
pranavjitvirdi
2018-10-09 02:42
Yeah, i could foresee the the starting from the boxes point on other critiques in this post, by that time i was already halfway through the challenge, so thought of finishing it in the same manner as before. I do plan on doing this again.
BTW not blaming or anythin but ya said that the videos are supplement material to the actual course, since the box demo is only in the video and on the challenge page only the minor axis demo is shown i thought to treat that as the main focus. Just saying it might be the reason since many people have missed it. So maybe you can explicitly state on the challenge page (along with a box demo) to do a fraction of cylinders(half/quarter) with a box.
Uncomfortable
2018-10-09 03:23
I'll work that in a little more clearly as part of the general rebuild/reorganization of the lessons. It's true that the main focus is building around a minor axis to start with, but you're right - that could certainly be alluded to more clearly.
jujacks
2018-10-28 16:24
Hola El Box Papi,
I've worked very hard to produce these mediocre cylinders. They are what I can do now but I'm sure I'll get better as I keep doing these lessons. I've followed your directions as best I could in the lessons and often come back to this thread to read critiques. I still have a very difficult time drawing ellipses correctly. I would start most mornings with a ellipses in tables to try and compensate for this... but I didn't see too much improvement. Any suggestions about the general construction, such as foreshortening or degree of ellipse would be very helpful. I'm going to attempt the the remainder of Lesson 2 which I had planned to be done by the end of the month.
I used a different image hosting site so I wouldn't have to spend 20 minutes rearranging my images in imgur: https://postimg.cc/gallery/1amyfnx5e/
I didn't respond to your critique for my box challenge but I look back to it often to the advice you gave, thanks in advance!
Uncomfortable
2018-10-29 19:53
Nice work! I can definitely see over the course of the set that your overall understanding of 3D space has improved a great deal - as has the confidence of your linework and the solidity of your constructions. Your ellipses gradually become more consistent, and you make really good use of the minor axis as a tool throughout the challenge. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you're demonstrating a great deal of consideration of your results - you're not just drawing them and moving on, you're very clearly identifying issues and growing from them.
The one thing that I am noticing is that some of your cylinders come out feeling somewhat squished. This is completely normal, especially at this stage. The reason this happens is that while a single ellipse alone on a page can be said to represent a circle in 3D space, once you add additional ellipses, lines, forms, etc. they have to remain consistent with the initial ellipse's assertion, otherwise they'll contradict the idea that this original ellipse represented a circle at all.
Included on the challenge page, there was a video (which you didn't have to watch just yet, as it doesn't become properly relevant until lesson 6/7, and is reintroduced at that point) that goes over how to go about establishing an ellipse that jives with all the other assertions of a scene (like where certain vanishing points are). You'll find it here. It outlines a couple important points of criteria that will help you to assess whether or not a given ellipse actually does represent a circle, given all the other elements in the scene.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2!
Oh, also worth mentioning - the image hosting website you chose was a bit of a dud. You don't have to use imgur, but it really does help me go through your work if the host you choose at least allows me to click through all the images one by one, though having everything laid out on a single page for me to scroll through (as imgur does) is even better. I honestly don't really mind when pages are presented out of order, if it means being able to go through them quickly and easily.
drawABoxStudent
2018-10-30 20:02
Hey Uncomfortable, happy halloween!
https://imgur.com/a/QtODp2d
Here are my 250 cylinders.. It was much less painful that the boxes I have to say. Though I feel like I got worse over time for some reason? I got feedback for lesson 2 about 75 cylinders in to this one, and one of your notes stressed trying to not be sketchy with initial construction lines, so I tried to apply that as much as possible here. (though admittedly, not with the boxes that contained cylinders, which was perhaps a mistake?). One thing Im struggling with is in order to execute nice lines I'm finding I need to draw a certain speed, but those lines invariably come out pretty fine. It helps if I hold my pen more perpendicular to the page, but that angle I find I have very little control. Anyway some advice would be much appreciated on that front as I'm working with lesson 3 right now and I feel like I'm having similar problems. Thanks again for looking over my stuff!
Uncomfortable
2018-10-31 20:59
Overall you're doing a good job, and while things are kind of uncertain through the bulk of it, near the end your cylinders look considerably more confident and solid than before, so I guess it's something you were thinking through and sorting out.
There are a couple things I want to mention however:
Your straight lines have a tendency to waver here and there. I'm guessing this is related to what you mentioned in your submission, about having to hold your pen perpendicular to the page and losing control due to that. It's not uncommon for students to have to hold their pen in such a way, but the reason is that ink flows best in such a position. It largely becomes necessary when a pen is dying, or - more commonly - when a pen's tip has been damaged, which occurs when a student applies too much pressure while drawing. Either way, it is something you need to work on - a lot of your lines, specifically your minor axes as well as the side edges of your ellipses tend to wobble a bit and I can definitely see that being a problem moving forward. Make sure you're applying the ghosting method and drawing from your shoulder - switching up how you hold your pen may also be making you fall back to drawing from your wrist.
Don't apply line weight to entire lines. You do this a great deal throughout, though not so much on that last page, but overall I can see you adding weight to entire lines, as well as all the way around ellipses, or halfway around them to encapsulate the whole silhouette. Line weight, as mentioned in the form intersections video in lesson 2, should only be applied to local areas. This specifically allows you to execute those strokes with the same kind of confidence you'd have used when drawing the initial lines. In turn this also helps you to avoid the kind of hesitation and wobbling that I see a lot here.
Now, in terms of the constructions of your cylinders and their general solidity, you're doing a great job - so keep it up. Your cylinders in boxes are definitely going to continue to need the most work, but all in all you're moving in the right direction and have until lesson 6 before that starts to become particularly important.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge complete.
drawABoxStudent
2018-10-31 21:46
Ah! Thanks for the feedback, and thanks so much for that tip about the damaged tip, I swapped both the tips on my 0.5 and 0.3 pens and they are way better now. I can now at least have a 10-15% tilt on them and still get a decent line out of them. I tried some toned paper for a change in the beginning of lesson 3 and I found I had to press a lot harder to get the ink to flow on the page. I think I ruined both tips doing that. Anyway, everything you've said I think still applies as things I need to work on, but at least I'm not fighting the pens so much anymore, thanks!
EHLART
2018-11-01 00:43
Hi Uncomfortable, here is my entry: https://imgur.com/gallery/Za626kd
I hit this challenge before doing the [Form Intersections] on Lesson 2. This one consumed less time than the box challenge but I see less achievement... Here are my concerns:
I do draw the cylinders with my shoulder, but I was forced to use wrist or elbow when it comes to adding extra line weight on the circle lines. I tried to use shoulder but couldn't produce similar arcs and curves because the whole looking became messy. I am confident for using shoulder when drawing straight lines, maybe I need to practice more for detailed shoulder control.
I could draw circle 2 times with confidence before I lift my pen in general situation, but if I have to draw a circle inside of the box - just like when doing structured cylinders I did after cylinder No. 170 - I feel pressured that I want to make a well-fit circle inside the box which ruins my muscle memory. That moment, my brain and eyes take over my muscle memory, and ghosting method got neutralized. More practice is the only answer? (I think so but want to make sure...)
Any advice would be appreciated. Always thank you so much for your help!
Uncomfortable
2018-11-01 20:31
Over the course of the challenge, you definitely show a great deal of improvement on the spatial challenges of this exercise. As you point out in your own notes however, you definitely have issues with the linework aspect of things. In terms of the things you asked, what stands out to me is that you modified your approach solely on the basis that it wasn't giving you the results you were hoping for. Of course, the only way to improve is to face that challenge head-on. Remember that we're not here to draw nice cylinders, pretty plants, or cool animals. We're here to learn from the processes of failing in these activities in every possible way. Long story short - yes, more practice.
There were a couple of my own little issues I noticed as well:
You're not drawing through your ellipses for most of these. It's something you should be doing for every single ellipse you draw for my lessons, and it helps maintain a confident stroke. You do it in a few places here and there (especially towards the end, where things get much better), but by and large you've tried to nail each ellipse in one go, it seems.
When adding line weight, don't attempt to add it to the entirety of a line. You're not replacing an existing line with a darker one, you're taking that existing stroke and giving it more character and variation. Line weight should be added only to certain local areas of lines, usually to clarify overlaps or silhouettes at key points. This puts us in a position to execute those marks - with the ghosting method, just like any other - with more confidence, since we don't have to nail anything too complex.
Anyway, overall you're doing well, just don't flee from your mistakes. Face them head on so you can learn from them properly. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
AvPBN
2018-11-14 16:07
Hey Mr. Box, before doing form intersections I went ahead with this challenge. I enjoy doing them within boxes more, as it gives a much better understanding of cylinders in space. The tough part was keeping the ellipses on the minor axis (practice), and if I got it wrong, to balance out the other end.
For future reference, is there a way to check corrections? With the boxes you can extend groups of parallel lines. It felt that without having a box first, all I can check for was the minor axis and not perspective. Thank you!
Les Assignment
Uncomfortable
2018-11-15 19:16
Nice work! Youve demonstrated some definite development in your understanding of 3D space, as well as your ability to manipulate and construct cylinders. I do have one issue with your linework however - I can see that you basically put your construction down, and then went back over it with a darker line to commit to certain lines. My assumption is that this is how you are using line weight, but I dont want you to use this methodology in the future - at least not as part of the drawabox work.
I mention this once you get into lesson 2 (specifically in the video for form intersections), but basically you need to see the construction lines you put down as being final. Every mark we put down, we weigh in terms of whether or not its going to contribute to our final result, or if its going to help us better grasp how our construction sits in space, and if it does either of these things, we draw that line confidently - with no attempt at hiding marks, making them extra faint, etc. Then, once all your lines are drawn, you generally apply line weight to emphasize certain local areas of existing lines (NOT whole lines all at the same time), usually to clarify where two forms overlap and establish which is in front.
As for your question, there is a way and Im going to be introducing it to the lesson/challenge page along with a fresh how to draw a cylinder video as part of the overall website rebuild that Im hoping to release for Christmas.
The short of it is, however, you enclose a cylinder in a box (if it wasnt already constructed inside of one) and apply the criteria described in this video. This criteria allows you to determine where all three vanishing points ought to be (one from following the minor axis of each ellipse, one from the planes enclosing each ellipse, and the last from the vertical contact points of each ellipse to its enclosing plane. You can do these checks for each ellipse separately, and then see how closely they match up.
I know its a bit to take in there, but Ill explain this in greater detail once Im able to release a video on this.
Anyway, Ill go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.
James_Rautha
2018-11-20 14:09
Here's my 250 cylinder challenge homework:
https://imgur.com/a/5sY7IQm
This was probably a good idea as when I started I realised my cylinders were pretty poor. See exactly what you mean about too much tapering from my last homework - have developed a bad habit with that so was trying to consciously change this throughout this challenge.
I could see in other homework submissions people were including a few cylinders in boxes so I included some of these also.
Thanks for the feedback as always.
Uncomfortable
2018-11-20 21:12
Very nice work! You've definitely improved with the confidence of your constructions, as well as the evenness of your elliptical shapes. Overall your control is coming along great, and the alignment to those minor axes looks solid. One thing on that last point though - try and get the minor axis to extend all the way through the cylinder (or rather, draw the ellipses such that they're completely sitting on the minor axis rather than roughly centered on its end points), as it's a good habit that'll continually remind you of the necessary alignment for the ellipses.
Also, I'm glad you threw in some cylinders in boxes - it's definitely something I'm going to mention more explicitly as part of the challenge (I'll be updating the video for it at christmas). It's pretty helpful especially as you get into lesson 7, so I'd recommend adding some of those box-cylinders into your warmups.
Anyway I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
mildly_terrible_art
2018-11-29 05:32
My 250 cylinder challenge:
https://imgur.com/a/gvHC3I3
Thank you for your time and critique.
Uncomfortable
2018-11-29 21:46
Nice job pushing through this challenge. I think you were doing an okay job through the first hundred and fifty or so, but did show some points of sloppiness. Issues with the alignment of your ellipses to your minor axis, generally perhaps being a touch too loose. Things that may have benefited from taking just a little extra time.
By the time you hit around 170 though, you do start to hit your stride, and the overall quality increases. There are still some alignment issues here and there, and some places where your lines wobble, but by and large there's definite improvement.
I'm also pleased to see you playing with constructing your cylinders in boxes, as that's something that will come in very handy in the future (specifically with lessons 6 and 7). Getting acquainted with it now is definitely a good call.
I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. I do think that you'll want to continue keeping an eye on the alignment of your ellipses to the minor axis, but generally everything looks to be moving in the right direction. Keep up the good work.
Leerxyz
2018-12-04 17:50
Hey Uncomfortable, here's my 250 cylinder challenge:
https://imgur.com/a/RaqWKoJ
Thank you for your time and your whole website.
Uncomfortable
2018-12-04 22:47
Your general understanding of the spatial challenges involving cylinders certainly improves over the whole set. I do have to say though, the first page was... questionable. The complete lack of foreshortening doesn't actually make any sense in that particular configuration. It'd only have a chance of working if the ends of the cylinder were of very small degrees, with us only looking at their edges and a tiny bit of their faces and the cylinder running directly up and down in front of us.
For your ellipses here, were you using an ellipse guide? I was going to call out the issue with you not drawing through them as you ought to be (and technically speaking ellipse guides aren't allowed for this lesson, though given that you're heading into lesson 7 I can understand why you may have chosen to use one). ... That, or you just got really, really good at ellipses.
I did notice a distinct lack of ellipses drawn inside of boxes, so that's definitely something you'll want to get some mileage with. Admittedly the challenge page doesn't mention it, though the video does demonstrate it as something to explore.
I'm currently working through a full rebuild of the website along with a revision of all the lesson material, and that's one of the things I'm making clearer. This will all be released for Christmas.
On that note, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Given the release in under 3 weeks, you may want to take a bit of a break and wait for the new content. If not, you're welcome to move onto lesson 7.
Leerxyz
2018-12-05 20:04
Hey, thanks for the feedback.
Yeah I was defenitly using an ellipse guide...
That or I'm secretly turning into a robot every night.
I actually didn't understand why I would draw ellipses inside of boxes if I could construct them without them anyways, so I just chose not to.
I actually already submitted lesson 7 and messed the wheel exercize up so I did this challenge and will draw the wheels again :)
So your website update is finally coming along, congrats!
I guess I won't see much of it since I'm almost finished with all the lessons, but I saw in other critiques that you're talking since quite some time about it so it seems to be a big event for you!
Uncomfortable
2018-12-05 20:07
Oh right, I forgot that you were already on lesson 7. Sometimes it's a bit tricky to keep track of all my students.
As for ellipses in boxes, it's vastly easier to place a box in a scene relative to other objects than it is to place a cylinder on its own - so learning to use a box as a starting point for a cylinder is extremely valuable.
LinezzzUp
2018-12-20 13:37
hi there :)
here's take on this challenge :)
https://imgur.com/a/fy1bxIc
Uncomfortable
2018-12-21 19:11
Pretty nice work! There are a few things that I want to draw to your attention, but by and large your cylinders are coming along fairly well. Here are some things to keep in mind:
Caught a lot of ellipses that you weren't drawing through - you're definitely getting better at hitting them in one go, but you should still be abiding by the rules of "always draw through each ellipse you draw for these lessons". It'll give you more practice with the muscle memory, and as you keep getting them tighter and tighter, you'll equally develop your ability to hit them in one go.
You should be placing your ellipses so they sit entirely on the minor axis on both ends, rather than on the ends of the line, to help align to it more effectively.
I'm a little unsure of whether or not you're aware of the degree shift in the ellipses. Some feel very samey, others seem right, and others feel like they might be shifting in the wrong direction. The closer end should have a narrower degree than the farther end, due to how the angle at which we see these surfaces changing through the length of the cylinder.
You don't seem to have attempted any cylinders in boxes, as demonstrated in the video. This is something you should definitely practice as it comes into play a great deal when handling lesson 6 and 7. It's much easier to place a box in 3D space and then build a cylinder inside of it, than to place a cylinder around a minor axis in a specific position relative to other objects. This is something I expand on much more in the new version of the lessons coming out on Tuesday, so check that out at that time.
Anyway, your linework is looking very confident as always, so keep that up. Keep the bits I've mentioned here in mind, but I'll go ahead and mark the challenge as complete.
LinezzzUp
2018-12-22 08:23
thank you :)
I have a few questions if its ok,
or that I'm not sure what you mean, drawing through as a wrapping lines over the cylinders or drawing over the ellipses?
the degree shit - I always kept in mind that the farther end should have a narrow degree, so the closer will be larger degree. for some reason it just stick to my mind.
I completely forgot about the cylinders in boxes :) I think its a bit because I follow the "homework goals" too tightly so it wasnt a clear "task" to also make on this exercise. will do some, before going into L7.
thank you and waiting for your updates :)
Uncomfortable
2018-12-22 18:41
You interpreted what I meant by drawing through ellipses correctly (going over the ellipse two full turns before lifting your pen). It's great that you're ghosting like that and the results are definitely there, but I still want you to draw through them. Considering your preparation, the result should be tight enough not to look too different from going over it once, but it'll provide you with that extra muscle-memory-mileage.
As for degree - what you described there ("farther end having narrower degree") is not correct. The closer end has the narrower degree, as shown here.
Lastly, the cylinders in boxes should be mentioned more in the actual challenge page notes. This has been corrected in the full rebuild of the website, which will be coming out on December 25th.
LinezzzUp
2018-12-22 21:45
I kinda felt the cylinders from boxes when drawing from life, so the thing is I know how it should be, and have the vision for it, but the tight rules for "nailing it" inside the boxes, sometimes got me off the track and gave me the thoughts of redoing the whole thing.
which, in anyway, I know and deeply respect this practice, but it can get really frustrating (and I actually allow myself to write it, cuz I'm here for awhile :) )
as always, I print-screen your replays and took notes, thank you!
jagodapo
2018-12-22 10:49
Could you please have a look at my cylinder challenge: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mqc0aed26wgchj5/AAD2v2sg9Q2T3UXOe_9LpMCPa?dl=0
Thank you
Uncomfortable
2018-12-23 22:51
I can definitely see improvement here, though it comes and it goes. Some of your cylinders look and feel quite solid, with fairly tightly drawn ellipses, well ghosted lines (that come out straight), and minor axes to which the ellipses are all reasonably well aligned. Even on the last page however, I am seeing a bit of a mix, where some are visibly better than others.
I think there are a few factors here that are coming into play:
Time. There are definitely mistakes here and there that can be blamed on simply not putting as much time as you need into each cylinder.
Scale. You're definitely struggling a great deal with the larger ones, which is admittedly understandable. Really big ellipses force you to engage your whole shoulder, and there's a good chance that you may be relying more on your elbow than you may realize, so when you break past a certain size, it becomes much more difficult to manage.
It is worth mentioning that I'm also seeing places where your linework breaks down somewhat. I can see places where a line's been drawn with several separate segments, though I suspect this may becoming from your attempts at adding line weight. Remember that when you're adding line weight, usually it's just going to be in key, limited areas (rather than trying to wrap the entire form in a thicker line, this is something we talk about in lesson 2). You should also be applying the ghosting method just as you would when having drawn the original stroke to ensure that it comes out smoothly and confidently. You may make a mistake, but that is no reason to hesitate or draw more slowly. Mistakes happen, but gradually by pushing yourself to always draw with confident strokes, your muscle memory and overall control of those confident strokes will improve.
Anyway, by and large you've done a lot of good work here. There's still plenty of room for improvement, but that's largely expected. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.
One thing worth mentioning is that for the last few months I've been working on a full rebuild and revision of the drawabox material, which will be released on December 25th. This comes along with a lot of changes to how I explain and convey the lesson 1 and 2 material, as well as a new video for cylinders. I'd recommend that when it comes out, you look over the notes from the lessons you've already completed to ensure that you move forward from the best possible position.
jagodapo
2018-12-24 00:57
Thank you so much for your feedback, it's very helpful. I do really struggle with large cylinders and it's something I am going to work on. Also, I haven't been using ghosting method for adding line weight, but I'll do it from now on. I will have a look at updated lesson 1 once It's added.
TheWitchOfTheRock
2018-12-27 23:59
https://imgur.com/a/oUM9dZG
250 cylinders! And more boxes for the box god
Uncomfortable
2018-12-28 18:43
Congratulations on completing the challenge! You've definitely put a great deal of effort into this challenge, and I can certainly admit that it's not an easy one.
Here are a few things to keep in mind as you move forwards:
I noticed that when it comes to drawing the edges of your cylinders, your lines tend not to be entirely straight, and I noticed that the lines you use when constructing most of your boxes tend to come out much straighter. Often we can be impacted psychologically by the particular kind of object or form we're drawing, depending on whether it's familiar or not, or whether we're simply not confident in that area - try and focus on the individual mark you're making, rather than what it belongs to. Applying all three stages of the ghosting method helps bring you out of the complexity of what you're trying to construct and lets you focus more on the individual stroke.
I noticed that later in the set, when applying the corrections/checking to your cylinders in boxes, your red lines on the boxes themselves corresponded more to where you felt those lines should have been, rather than where they were. Instead, I want you to simply extend these lines - this process isn't about finding out what would have been correct, but rather identifying where things went wrong, and identifying the nature of the convergences you've drawn. Focusing these corrections on what the box should have been breaks the relationship between the ellipse and its container.
Based on the fact that you do appear to have followed the newer instructions of 150 cylinders around arbitrary minor axes and 100 in boxes, but didn't catch a lot of the more specific notes about how to apply correction methods or how to approach constructing the cylinders in boxes, I'm going to guess that you probably took advantage of the early sneak peek for patrons in the discord, but didn't get the more recent information since I didn't update that til closer to the end. I definitely recommend that you go over the notes and video that are there now, as they go into detail as to how you should be testing each box/cylinder pairing to best identify whether your ellipses are circular and your planes are square.
Anyway, congratulations again on completing this challenge. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 6.