Uncomfortable

2018-11-17 00:08

It's really great to hear that you've been able to push your focus to over an hour. That is among some of the lesser goals I have for students, and it's why I stress the importance of taking breaks early on when one starts to get sloppy or bored - the idea that patience and focus is something that develops over time, and that one needs to be patient with themselves. I'm glad you were able to find a solution that worked for you.

You've done some pretty good work here. There are a couple points I'm going to raise, but by and large you're demonstrating a good grasp of the constructional concepts covered here, and you're clearly focusing on the important aspects. You're mindful of how your forms relate to one another, and you're never really leaning too hard or too early on curving, organic forms. These can often feel easier to work with, but when dealing with geometric constructions such as these, it's important to keep everything well controlled using straight lines, only rounding things off at the end.

So here are the two points where we can see some improvement:

• First off, since you've been going through drawabox for a long while, you likely didn't see one of the techniques I've been pushing as part of the 250 box challenge for the last year or so. In this exercise, after a student is done with a page of boxes, they go back over the page, extending all of the lines they've drawn towards their implied vanishing point. This allows them to see where their convergences have issues, and highlights problems they may not have otherwise noticed, and allows them to identify what they need to be thinking about for their next page of boxes. I've applied the technique to one of your weaker boxes in this lesson. Here we can see where some of your edges veered off too much and ended up intersecting with other lines far too early, well before their intended VP. You definitely had other boxes/constructions that were much stronger, but I still think it'd be useful for you to work a few freely rotated boxes into your warmup routine, and apply this technique to help continue sharpening those skills.

• The other issue has to do with your linework. Your lines are confident and smooth, which is great. The only issue is that you have a tendency to have strokes disappear, especially where they're meant to meet others at the corner of a form. While internal lines can actually benefit from this sort of lost-and-found tapering, and the tapering itself helps give a lot of life to your linework, it is important that the silhouettes of your forms be solid and complete, otherwise it'll undermine the believability of your constructions. If you end up missing the end point that way, you can go over it with another stroke - just be sure to ghost through it and apply all the preparation techniques before executing the mark, rather than drawing it immediately (which can often look quite sloppy).

Anyway! Keep up the great work and consider this lesson complete. Feel free to move onto the next one - though you MAY want to take a look at the cylinder challenge, or at least get some practice with cylinders before tackling lesson 7. I noticed your objects here were a bit light on the cylinders, so you may not yet have enough experience with them to tackle vehicles.

Uncomfortable

2018-11-18 19:17

Despite your hiatus, I see no signs of you getting rusty. Your work here is fantastic, and your general awareness of space and thorough use of construction is extremely impressive. On top of that, you're still exhibiting the same sort of confident, consistent linework throughout.

There are a few places where I think - if I'm going to be picky - where you could probably control yourself just a little bit more. Places where you've reinforced lines with additional strokes, like on the initial box for the pressure gauge. To be completely honest I'm not overly concerned with that, but that sort of thing does usually suggest that the student hasn't necessarily put enough time into planning and preparing than they could have (given that their initial mark left them wanting enough to make a second). Still, it's something you'd see me doing as well, and I'm largely grasping for ways to keep myself relevant as an instructor here.

Your strategy for your ellipses are pretty much correct from where I'm standing - starting with a plane/box, constructing within them, etc. Your main areas of practicing this are going to be the ellipses in planes exercises and the cylinder challenge work, while incorporating the principles covered in this video (which is introduced in lesson 7, though also in the cylinder challenge), which sets out criteria for determining whether or not an ellipse meets the requirements for representing a circle in 3D space and allows us to check for errors similarly to how we employ line extensions in the box challenge. The next version of the 'how to draw a cylinder' video, which will be coming out for christmas, will outline this in more explicit terms.

The short of it is that it's just a matter of practice. Ellipses are extremely difficult to control, and while they're an incredibly important tool for ideation, sketching, and rougher work, you'll find most people using them in finished work using tools like ellipse guides to nail them properly.

That said, your ellipses are considerably better in most other drawings, aside from maybe the end of the spout on your kettle.

Throughout the lesson, all of your constructions feel remarkably solid, and your use of line weight helps bring each object out of its scaffolding without giving any impression of "replacing" linework or stiffening the results. So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 7 - I'm sure you'll knock that one out of the park as well.

floatingumberella

2018-12-04 07:08

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Uncomfortable

2018-12-04 22:40

There's a lot of good here - specifically the confidence of your linework, and the consistency of your constructions. While there are mistakes with underlying things, you didn't confuse matters and weaken your construction further by attempting to fix them (and thus muddying the waters with several visual answers to the same questions). You stuck to your previous answers and forged forwards, and frankly that is the best way to handle that situation.

Now, there are a number of issues that I'm noticing:

• Your boxes in general (aside from the last two pages where things are a step up from the rest) you have a pretty consistent tendency to draw boxes that are not properly rectilinear. Generally you've got some skewing towards the far end, and issues where the far side is larger than the closer end. By and large this means you do have a fair bit of room to work on your basic boxes, especially with applying the line extension method described in the 250 box challenge to help identify where your mistakes are so you know what to focus on specifically.

• I noticed on the mouse that when drawing the base, you didn't push the far end all the way to the end of the box. There's a little gap there, leaving some definite room for guesswork and general inconsistency. From the looks of it, there are other issues here that cause the back to generally get somewhat skewed, which suggests that on top of this you may not have followed the constructional process as closely as you could have. I mean, the mouse may be lopsided in this fashion, but I don't see anything in your proportional studies to suggest this.

• You mention that you struggled especially with round edges on things. This makes a lot of sense, and is quite normal. The thing to keep in mind is that round edges should be left straight and chisel-sharp for as long as possible. Try to capture them as a chain of straight lines, and only round them out towards the end. The reason for this is that a curve drawn on its own is very vague and doesn't give a clear, precise answer to one of those "constructional questions". By starting with straight lines to summarize the nature of a curve in more specific terms, the curve we draw thereafter ends up feeling a great deal more solid and clear. This also helps in terms of proportions and general construction because sharp corners and straight lines are much easier to deal with.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. You're doing well, but do need to keep an eye on the points I raised. Feel free to move onto the next lesson, but make sure you complete the 250 cylinder challenge first, as there is going to be a lot of that in the next lesson.

Also worth mentioning, for Christmas I'm currently working on a full rebuild of the website as a whole, and with it I plan to deliver a full restructuring of the lesson material, with better demos, and generally better and more pertinent explanations. Given that's about three weeks out, I figured I'd let you know in case you wanted to wait for it or continue onwards.

Uncomfortable

2019-01-20 05:59

Yeah, you can go ahead and post the work you completed. Whenever I update a lesson, I'll continue to accept the old assignment for some time before transitioning over fully.

Uncomfortable

2019-01-21 20:04

Very nice work! You've very clearly invested a great deal of effort into stepping through each phase of construction carefully and with a lot of attention to how everything is put together. I'm very pleased with how you've worked through each construction with ample subdivision, and how at no point do you ever rely on trying to add elements just as 2D elements on the drawing - everything you draw is clearly built out in three dimensions.

Now there certainly is room for improvement in certain places - line quality is sketchy at times (though only really in places where it's entirely understandable, with the latest modifications to the lesson allowing the use of ballpoint pens, rulers and ellipse guides for a very good reason), but there are a couple key things that I'm going to point out in terms of some of the choices you've made that should be more helpful than nitpicking linework.

• With your thumbtack, you chose to work with a pretty dramatic foreshortening. While there's nothing wrong with this at all, it is an excellent opportunity to discuss what this communicates to the viewer. Foreshortening that is this dramatic tells us one of two things - either the object itself is very large, like the size of a building, where the top of it is so far away that there is visible compression of space due to perspective, or the object is extremely close to the viewer's eye (which is especially fun to imagine with a thumbtack!). The viewer does inevitably understand that this is a thumbtack, and as such, we understand that it's probably a small object when not given any other cues to suggest scale, so we're more likely to assume that it's very close up. If it was set beside other objects, especially people, then we'd might be able to build the illusion that it's a very big thumbtack.

• There were some places where your boxes were constructed in such a way that they were definitely not rectilinear (a common mistake at this phase, as constructing free boxes like does result in blunders, and it was the right decision to move forward with it regardless). A good example of this was your stapler, whose box was visibly skewed. That said, you did build the stapler quite well within those awkward confines, and I'm quite pleased with how you adhered to it. Construction is all about answering questions, and you answered a question incorrectly with your initial box, but by sticking to that answer the rest of the way through the lie you told at the end still held together. If you're unsure of what I mean by "lie", I discuss it in the first page of the update to lesson 2.

• I think the only thing that really bugs me at all are the holes in your pencil sharpener, and it's for two reasons. First off, you weren't as meticulous when laying out the holes' footprint as you were in other areas. You didn't place them with subdivision and all that. Obviously though you understand the benefit and employed it elsewhere, so I'm not holding this against you. The other issue is that you blocked it in with black. This is unfortunate because when something is solid black, we're essentially given no real spatial understanding of what it represents. Just because something is dark in your reference doesn't mean that you need to convey that, especially not in a constructional drawing that conveys no other lighting information. The holes, though not placed or built correctly, could still have come out to be more believable, had they not been blacked out in this manner. So in general, try and avoid that in the future.

Anyway! You did a great job overall, and while you've got plenty of room for improvement, you're heading down the right path at considerable speed. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the 25 wheel challenge next (which is the prerequisite for lesson 7).

Uncomfortable

2019-01-23 23:37

Very nice work! You've applied a lot of the concepts and techniques to great effect, and the result is a series of drawings that feel tangible and believable, and above all - solid. I'm especially pleased with how you handled a lot of your curves. They carry a strong sense of intent and purpose to them, and they don't tend to feel arbitrary or accidental. I especially like some of the more organic curves on the back of the camera, where due to the nature of the object it wasn't as easy to adhere to the box's straight edges, but all the same your curves still maintained the illusion of solidity that is so easily lost.

I believe there are two major issues that I noticed, but both are pretty normal to see and are simply a matter of continued practice.

• What stood out most was that you certainly do struggle with your ellipses and cylinders, especially when it comes to positioning them in 3D space relative to other objects. The issues weren't really egregious or anything, but rather it was that often an ellipse would be skewed or sheared off at an odd angle. If we look at the end of the camera's lens for example, it doesn't align quite correctly to the same minor axis as the rest of the cylinder, and therefore doesn't sit as it should. I strongly recommend taking a look at the 250 cylinder challenge (which is actually a prerequisite for this lesson, which you'll see listed at the top of lesson 6's first page). The cylinder challenge explores ellipses quite a bit, and specifically their relationships to circles and perfect squares in 3D space.

• The other issue has to do with some of your starting boxes. Honestly you actually nailed many of your boxes, but there were a handful that didn't sit quite right in perspective. For example, the closed lighter, the table (which I assume was built for children, judging from how it's put together) and the stapler all stood out in this manner. This again is really quite normal, and I'm not surprised to see it here. Boxes are a fundamental building block of all we construct, and we need to keep on top of practicing them on a regular basis, and continually honing our ability to keep our sets of parallel lines' convergences consistent towards their shared vanishing points.

Anyway, by and large you've done very well, so I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Though I did critique this lesson despite you not completing the prerequisite, I do insist that you move onto the 250 cylinder challenge next. Note that this is also a prerequisite for lesson 7, along with the 25 wheel challenge.

Uncomfortable

2019-01-27 19:42

Oh my, it seems my comment before about submitting too often may have instilled a bit of fear in you! You don't need to worry so much - I'll let you know when you push it too far, you needn't present a case for each submission.

You've done some really phenomenal work here. Your form intersections are coming along great (admittedly some of your boxes still have minor issues in terms of keeping your vanishing points consistent, but that's not entirely abnormal and just means they need more targeted practice). Your cylinders are also looking quite remarkably solid, as are your spheres. You've clearly mustered pretty phenomenal control of your ellipses at this point, even those that are of a wider degree.

Your everyday object constructions are exceptionally solid and very thorough. You've taken the time at every turn to build out your boxes, subdivide fastidiously and define every tiny aspect of your construction. I don't see you skipping any steps. This is all exemplary.

I did catch a couple places where your anxiety/worry did cause you to draw some of your freehand lines with a little less confidence, resulting in some wavering/wobbling lines, so that is worth pointing out. For example, along the top face of the charger contraption in the middle (not actually sure what it is, but damn if it doesn't look solid), as well as the top ellipse of the larger cylinder of the component off to the right.

Also, your later drawings' linework is pretty uniform, once we pass the computer mouse - I think we're seeing only two real levels of weight. One where you're laying down your construction lines, and another where you're creating your "final pass". That sort of approach is generally one I want you to avoid during these lessons - that is, distinguishing the "real" lines from the under drawing. Treat the entirety of the drawing as being gradually built up, with line weight added to sections of existing lines, usually to clarify overlapping forms or silhouettes.

This results in a more gradually built-up drawing, rather than one that looks like it was knocked out in just a couple distinct passes, and it ends up giving it a greater dynamism.

One last thing - since you completed the cylinder challenge many months ago, it'd be worth giving the notes/video for it another look, as they were thoroughly overhauled over christmas. You don't by any means have to do it over, your cylinders are mostly pretty good, but there are just some conceptual things, like how one can construct a perfect cube to scale, that will come in handy.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Keep up the great work and feel free to move onto the next step, which should be the 25 wheel challenge.

dvdjrnx

2019-02-27 20:07

Just realized I forgot my form intersections; sorry about that. I uploaded them to the same gallery linked above, so they should be there now.

Uncomfortable

2019-02-28 01:56

God damn. Phenomenal work here. Not only are you absolutely fastidious on breaking everything down to its smallest degree of necessary subdivision, but you're demonstrating exceptional understanding of 3D space, and an enormous amount of patience. Every single detail is laid out with precision and care and treated as a form with volume and solidity to it, rather than just a sticker that's been pasted on.

Now, there's clearly growth over the course of the set - your razor is absolutely incredible, and the game controller is fairly well done. The wristwatch pales in comparison, though is still fairly well done. What stands out most as one of its weaknesses is the fact that the strap doesn't quite stay firmly within its enclosing box, and as a whole, its curves are not precise. As explained here, when your curve strays that far from the straight lines you might use to help define it, it starts to feel vague, like it could potentially represent any number of configurations of straighter lines.

You did a much better job of this with the soap container, though in this one the areas where you went back over lines to add line weight ended up getting a little wobbly and stiff, as these strokes were drawn with minimal confidence. Always remember - if you're freehanding, every mark should be put down with the ghosting method, meaning planning and preparation are separated from the confident execution. While this certainly can result in mistakes, we can't allow the general loveliness of your drawings detract from the fact that these are just throw-away exercises focusing on spatial understanding and the control/confidence of your linework.

For your paper lamp, one thing that stands out is the texture along the lamp shade. There's two main concerns. Firstly, the texture is heavily based on line, though the wrinkles do often get large enough to cast a little more of a shadow. Always remember that, as explained here, the lines we draw as part of our textures aren't actually lines - they're just the shadows cast by the variation in form along the surface, and these can grow thicker. Don't be afraid to push this further.

The other point was just to keep an eye on the alignment of the wrinkles. Here you're definitely meaning to make the wrinkles run parallel to the main axes of the plane, but there is a bit of variation. Everything in a drawing comes down to intent - as long as you look like you made a decision intentionally, it won't look wrong. It may seem like a strange decision that you've made, but they'll question your sanity rather than your skill. And that's a-okay.

Anyway, coming back to that razor - really fantastic. If I had to nitpick something... put a little bit of cast shadow under the screw on the head. It'll help make it pop out just a little bit.

So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Keep up the fantastic work and feel free to move onto the 25 wheel challenge, which I'm sure you'll blow out of the water.

Uncomfortable

2019-03-09 01:28

To start with, your form intersections are really well done. The linework is confident, and while your boxes aren't perfect, everything feels pretty solid, and the intersections are entirely on point. It all demonstrates a very strong grasp of the relationship between these forms in 3D space.

You did a pretty good job with your follow-along for the bluetooth speaker. I noticed that you changed from the initial box you'd put down. Generally I don't recommend doing this, but that said you approached it in a manner that didn't do much harm to your drawing. You didn't fuss around trying to make the initial box work, you simply drew another box, and while it can result in some minor visual confusion, it isn't too distracting.

Your barrels had a couple of issues - firstly and most notably, the proportions are off. That's not really a big problem, as it's a fairly normal place for students to struggle, and it is definitely something you'll continue to improve on. That said, I will point out the two major problems with your proportions here. The ends were too small, leading to too sharp a tapering on either end, and at least on the first part, the barrel ended up being far too long.

The issue that I'm more concerned about however speaks to how the iron bands were approached. They were drawn as though they were paper thin, and given no thickness or visible rim. As a result, they ended up feeling rather cartoony. Try and remember that all objects thicker than paper will have some degree of visible thickness to them. You won't be able to simply wrap a 2D strip around another form - and perhaps more importantly, you'll have to remain aware of how the form breaks through the silhouette of the form it's wrapping around. Here you left them quite flush with the barrel itself (although admittedly, I did the same thing in my demo).

I quite liked the second mouse attempt, and I felt you went into quite a bit of depth in your construction and subdivision of the enclosing box. I do want to advise you against the clear distinction you have here from your construction lines and the "final" drawing. In general, stay away from situations where you put down an underdrawing, and then go back to replace the lines with darker strokes. Here in particular it looks like you may have gone over with a completely different pen altogether.

Line weight is about building a hierarchy - not a clear distinction, but rather a gradient from lines that are pushed back, and some that are pulled forward. Weight is added to parts of existing lines to help clarify overlaps or reinforce sections of silhouette that may be getting lost, and you'll often find a line getting a little thicker, and then transitioning back to being thin. The biggest problem with trying to replace the entirety of lines is that we tend to stiffen up when we do it, trying to match the underlying line perfectly. Every mark we put down - including the addition of extra weight - should be done with a smooth, confident stroke, rather than the slow, laborious stroke that tends to be used here.

The rest of your drawings are all pretty well done. I especially liked the stapler - while it was much simpler, that doesn't make it any less valuable in my eyes. Often times picking a simpler subject matter can allow you to focus in on the core principles, allowing to make better use of it as an exercise.

The camera however was definitely my favourite of your set. Solid use of minor axes and inset ellipses, and I especially loved the dials along the side. Really fantastic work.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. You've clearly shown a good deal of growth over the set, and while there's always room for improvement, you're doing a great job. Feel free to move onto the 25 wheel challenge, which is a prerequisite to lesson 7.

Uncomfortable

2019-03-30 18:35

Really, really well done. You've got a lot of excellent use of construction here and demonstrate a great deal of patience and care as you build out every little detail and element of each object. You're making great use of the various techniques demonstrated through this lesson - subdivision, mirroring measurements across an axis, etc. and you're approaching elements like curving lines with a mindfulness for the specificity with which we want them to be crafted. You are at no point shy about your underlying construction lines, and you leverage line weight very effectively to build a gradual hierarchy, clarifying overlaps and allowing the object itself to emerge.

You also chose an solid variety of objects to draw, which certainly brought out many of your strengths, as well as some areas of weakness. One thing that stood out to me here and there was the tendency to struggle with your freehanded ellipses, specifically in choosing a degree that would properly satisfy the criteria that would suggest the ellipse represents a circle in 3D space. Generally what seemed to be off was that you tended to have ellipses with degrees that were a little too narrow, resulting in top/bottom contact points that did not align towards the vertical vanishing point. This was less of a concern when you used an ellipse guide on the camera drawing, so it is fairly understandable. Freehanding ellipses is difficult, and leaves us with a lot of different things to worry about simultaneously. It was also more of an issue on smaller ellipses/cylinders, rather than the larger ones, and was very prominent in this drawing.

If you don't quite remember what the contact point/criteria stuff is, it's all covered in the cylinder challenge.

Aside from that, your work is generally very well done. Keep up the great work and consider this lesson complete. Feel free to move onto the 25 wheel challenge, where you'll undoubtedly face a lot more fun-with-ellipses.