Old thread got locked, those eligible for private critiques can submit their work here (and all others are welcome to submit their work to the main subreddit for a community critique).
So, as usual, I found this crazy difficult and a sunk vast amount of time into it.
I noticed just as I finished you changed the criteria slightly and updated the website. I'm hoping you'll still provide feedback on this as I had *just* finished it.
I think, clearly, there are numerous mistakes throughout, however I kept holding onto your advice of mistakes will happen and we're here to learn how to draw, not to create pretty images. That said I've left the earlier, uglier, mistake addled images in as I think you can see improvement throughout (I hope so anyway!) specifically the first car I tried to draw sucked heavy but I feel by the time I got to the honda/smart roadster I started to understand a little better how to convey what I wanted.
Anyway, thanks in advance for your feedback.
As this is the last lesson I was planning on, once completing this, heading onto Proko's figure drawing course. Does this seem a good trajectory to you?
There have been updates, but I generally leave a good deal of leeway for submissions made soon after the changes.
You definitely show a good deal of progress over the set in a number of areas, and I'm overall pretty pleased with the kinds of vehicles you attempted in each study. You started from pretty boxy looking jeeps, which allowed you to focus on some of the core challenges of construction, dealing with cylinders, etc. and steadily made your way up to vehicles with much more nuanced character to them.
While you have improved through this lesson, there are some issues that I'd like to address. The first one that jumps out to me is that your cars, especially this one and this one have a tendency to misalign from the enclosing box. We can see this towards the front of the car, where on both we can see a pretty significant slant from the right side of the vehicle to the left. This comes about because the major lines you've used to establish these cuts do not line up towards the same vanishing point as that side of the enclosing box.
Similarly, looking at the top edge of the right side plane of these constructions' enclosing boxes, you have a tendency to make it run pretty flat and horizontal. Usually you're only going to see a line run parallel to the horizon when it's at the horizon. Alternatively, if the vanishing point were so far away towards infinity that the convergence was negligible, we could see a virtually horizontal line up there, but the bottom edge of that right side plane shows clear convergence towards the horizon line, leading to a significant inconsistency in the construction.
The last point I wanted to raise was in regards to the proportions of your vehicles - they definitely need a lot of work. This is pretty normal, and will improve with practice, but make sure you're doing proportional studies (as shown in the camaro demo). There's a lot going on in cars, they're composed of all kinds of three dimensional curves and getting them right can be very challenging. Doing a proper analysis of the car you want to draw from the front and side is very valuable in pinning down your overall construction.
As to your question, moving onto Proko sounds like a solid plan as a next step. That said, I'm not quite marking this lesson as complete just yet, as I do feel that there are areas that we should work on first.
Here's what I want you to do:
First, read the notes on placing vanishing points from the new part of lesson 1. You may also want to read the new box material, as it's been completely updated and while you probably understand most of what's written there, it may help clarify some points and wouldn't hurt.
Then, take a look at the advanced box exercises - they focus on subdivision and drawing lines on the face of a box that converge towards the same vanishing point as that plane.
Once you've reviewed that material and done some of that subdivision exercise, I want you to tackle the 25 wheel challenge. Prior to formalizing it as a proper challenge, I've had a few students go through it, especially when they struggled with some of the specific characteristics of individual vehicles (their various specific curves and proportions), as wheels serve as a sort of microcosm of that same kind of challenge. Those students did appear to benefit from it.
Once you're done that, submit it, and we'll look over it together. Once you're back on Lesson 7:
I didn't see much application of the technique demonstrated in the constructing to scale video, so I'm not sure if you watched it. It's worth a look, followed by the new mustang demo which applies that technique in much greater detail.
Do 5 more vehicle drawings - three non-cars and two cars.
First of all thank you for providing such detailed feedback so swiftly.
Ok, will look at the above material, submit the 25 wheel challenge, submit it then (hopefully) will take a second crack at drawing the vehicles.
So I just wanted to ask you about vanishing points - I've looked at some of the newer material above and I wondered if, perhaps, in my vehicles I was setting my V.Ps too far off the page? What I mean by that is in my 2PP drawings, some of them at least, I was aiming for left and right VPS to be really quite a distance off the page to the left and the right. Would it be better to set them just a little way back from where the page ends? instead of another half page distance away?
Sorry if this question is phrased poorly or is an over-simplification!
I would definitely agree that your vanishing points are too far apart. This is why I linked you to these notes. Basically while we are free to place our vanishing points wherever we like, the distance between perpendicular vanishing points (those that govern sets of lines that are perpendicular to each other) determines the field of view with which we're looking at the whole scene.
If the vanishing points end up being really really far apart, you end up with a smaller field of view (expanding a small section of what's in front of the viewer to the whole picture plane), but if you place them very close together, you get a very wide field of view (trying to cram way too much into the picture plane).
The natural human FOV is about 60 degrees. If the space between the vanishing points is equal to the width of your picture plane, then you're working with an FOV of 90 degrees - so logically, you want the width of your picture plane to be about 2/3 (60/90) of the distance between your vanishing points.
Alternatively, you can think of it as though the space between your vanishing points should be equal to 1.5x the width of the picture plane. You don't have to be perfectly exact, but aim to estimate around there.
Looking forward to your feedback. Also been working on this over quite a long time, starting way before the wheel challenge. Would really like to hand it in this year still, so hope its ok i havent done the wheels yet. Will pick that up next.
Yup, this is where you post it - you likely got confused because it'd been 8 months since your last submission, but the patreon/private critiques go in these threads, not directly to the subreddit. I'm just replying now to let you know that your submission has been seen - it's 4AM and I'm getting to bed, so you'll be getting your critique tomorrow most likely.
You've done a lot of really fantastic work here, so you should be proud of yourself on that front. I also really like that exercise you did with the page full of perpendicular square planes on your second sheet, that's pretty clever.
As for your drawings, by and large you've got a lot of excellent constructions, with a few little points that I'd like to offer in suggestion.
I'm really pleased with just how boxy you tend to build things - it results in a lot of really strong spatial relationships between the various components of your constructions.
Don't forget to draw through your ellipses - yours are getting there, but they're still not even and smooth enough for you to be able to rely on them when they're drawn in just one pass.
Early on you have a lot of ellipses that float a bit arbitrarily - I'm not against what you've done here, because these drawings are clearly focused more on identifying the various components rather than fussing too much over their proportions, but whenever you do deal with anything that needs to be measured or scaled correctly, make sure you're establishing where you want to draw an ellipse with a plane first.
On your AT-AT page, one thing that definitely comes to mind is that establishing the ground plane early on, specifically giving yourself some kind of visual cue as to where it would fall beneath each vehicle, would help a great deal. Right now you don't have much to work with in terms of estimating how far down each leg should go, and as a result it does feel like some of these legs may be too long (and likely punching through the ground).
You've got some great wheel work throughout the set, though I do think that many of them are a bit off in terms of whether or not the ellipses represent actual circles relative to the implied perspective of the rest of the components - I'd assume this relates to what you said about doing this over quite a great deal of time, before the wheel challenge, so it's understandable. Definitely an area that can see continued development however.
I really love how this one came together - we can see your gradual understanding of proportions and structure, and it shows a lot of fantastic planning and consideration.
The cartoonier ones at the end really show your growth as a whole, and how you've developed your understanding of 3D space and construction to be able to apply it in a more general sense, with or without all of the additional construction lines.
All in all, you've done a fantastic job and I will absolutely be marking this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the constructional drawing curriculum. I do hope you'll move onto the wheels next, but no matter what you decide to tackle next I am confident that you are demonstrating a fantastic grasp of the major elements drawabox focuses on.
Defenetly feel like i have learned a lot on drawabox. Its a fantastic website!
Whilst I am pretty confident with boxes by now, wheels and ellipses are still a little bit of a struggle and i will keep working on them. Wheel challenge coming up!
With the AT-AT, i was so unhappy with how the legs turned out. I could have thought of constructing a ground plane myself! Thanks for suggesting that!!! Now I know how it works.
Compared to your last attempt at this exercise, your work has improved by leaps and bounds. It's so much better, and I'm sure you can see that. It was much better even at the beginning, though the first two pages had some structural issues, after that point it was smooth sailing. Your forms were solid, and you did a great job of capturing the complex tread patterns without ending up with texture that came off as distracting. Fantastic work.
Getting back to the vehicles, I'd like you to do 4 more drawings, focusing on those that have wheels - so mainly cars and trucks. Take your time and try and apply what you've understood here about building up from the underlying solid forms and being aware of the elements that convey and capture the character of the vehicle.
Be sure to check out the latest 1967 Shelby Mustang demonstration, as it should go into greater detail than any of the demos that were made available previously. I think you're very close to the end here, and the shift between the two attempts of wheels is very promising.
There were definitly some aspects I struggled with, like curvature or the chasis of the car, but I think in my last 2 drawings I kind of managed to do better on those.
Your improvement since the first submission when it comes to these cars is phenomenal. Your constructions have improved considerably, as has your eye for detail and your ability to capture that same detail in a manner that feels solid, tangible and believable. While it's true that there are some proportional issues (like the back half of the mustang's chassis as you pointed out yourself), the construction of its front half is really fantastic.
Your camaro is also pretty well done - I think it may be a little wide, but again the construction was handled very well. It actually stands out to me as more of a strength that you stick so closely to the earlier stages of construction, even if that initial enclosing box came out a little off, as it shows a deep respect and understanding for the process. Learning to judge proportions comes with time and experience, but this understanding of the constructional approach will serve you very well as you continue to move forwards.
I do have to admit - when I scrolled down to see the bike, it was so unexpected and so spot on that I actually exclaimed, "oh DAMN". Fantastic work here. Excellent use of your ellipse guides, really solid construction, and the handling of the more organic curves whilst retaining the overall firm solidity of the forms was very well done.
The last one - the lamborghini - probably is the weakest of the set, but again it's because of proportion more tha nanything else. I can still see you faithfully adhering to the enclosing box, demonstrating that you're not just thinking about the creating a pretty drawing at the end. You clearly have a great respect for this as an exercise, and the internal details and construction are still quite well done. The details don't feel like they're stickers pasted onto a simple form, they feel as though they've been carved into it wherever needed. Especially in this drawing, I see a lot of fine cuts, creating distinctions between various planes of the overall form - the kind of thing that you're as likely to find in a well sculpted face.
While you obviously had your struggles, and will continue to grow with practice, I am very confident in marking this lesson as complete. You've done a great job, and should be proud of yourself. Congratulations on defeating the drawabox boss battle, and on completing the constructional drawing curriculum. All that's left - should you choose to attempt it - is the treasure chest challenge, though it is more of a bonus round.
There were definitly moments while completing your lessons where I thought "damn I suck at this and will never be good" so you finding potential in my drawings actually means a lot to me :)
I think I will do the 100 treasure chest challenge next, though my main question is - what's after that?
For now I want to learn more about drawing environments/vistas and also jump into digital drawing!
Can you recommend resources for learning such skills?
Also do you have advice on how to get feedback on your art?
I generally struggle finding people that can give me useful critiques.
So right now I'm sorting out a few non-drawabox things before I get back onto the DaB train, but my next goal (alongside gradually fixing up and reuploading the videos) is to create two new lesson sets. One will focus on design, tackling topics like the use of shape/form language, proportion, how to derive elements from existing reference to incorporate into something fresh and new. Another will focus on illustration, looking at things like composition, storytelling, etc.
What I would recommend is getting used to doing photo studies, digitally. Because we've been so focused on drawing, there will be some transitional struggles as you move onto thinking more in terms of blocking in shapes and such, but your overall understanding of 3D space will help a great deal.
Focus on blocking things in with a large square chalky brush, dropping in all of the major components before gradually refining them. This is one of those areas where there will be much more attention to drawing something exactly as you see it (construction is still very relevant, but overall you want to try and nail the composition and positioning of elements), matching colours without colour picking, and figuring out how to tackle a variety of new challenges.
Many years ago, before I went through the course material I developed into Drawabox, I gave myself a 31 day challenge where I would do at least one photo study, for at least 3 hours, every day for 31 days. These were the results. Some came out fairly well, others much less so (though it's fair to say that I had been painting digitally for years at this point). More than anything, the focus was on getting used to laying down values and colours, and replicating what I saw to the best of my ability.
It was a very fruitful exercise, and really kicked my comfort level up by a great deal. If you want to embark on something like that, I'd recommend doing a variety of subject matter - stills from movies/tv shows, still lifes, vehicles, landscapes, interior environments, etc. Don't spend too much time picking a photo, give yourself a limit on that and once your time's up, grab something and go.
The first three or so drawings show a gradual absorption of the material, with plenty of struggles, but a lot of signs that you're starting to internalize the lessons and apply them to greater and greater effect. When you start out, the proportions of your wheels are definitely off. If we look at the front driver side wheel, we can see that on either face of that box you constructed, the ellipses' contact points to the upper and lower edges don't align vertically (as they ought to given the 2 point perspective).
The overall construction of the body of the car however is coming along quite nicely, and I'm actually very pleased with the way you've built out the front. There's a clear awareness of form and construction, and you're mindful of how those forms turn in space, where there is thickness, rather than simply drawing a series of vaguely related lines on the page.
As far as the wheels go, your second page is a step in the right direction. The ellipses seem more appropriate, with the minor axis and contact points being aligned more correctly (still not spot on, but getting into the territory of being able to pass at more than a glance). You've still got a good construction for the body, though the proportions feel a little unnaturally exaggerated here up front, and the construction seems a little more simplistic, compared to the previous drawing. I do quite like how you've handled the back though - the proportions there are quite solid.
The truck on the third page is similar to the previous page. Overall reasonably well done, but the extreme perspective of the shot results in some definite exaggeration of the proportions that throw off the sense of scale to a degree. The cab's windshield definitely starts to get rather wide (probably should have been tucked in a little further), but I think the use of hatching to separate out the drawing was quite effective.
Now why am I focusing so much on your first three drawings? Well, because I still want to feel like I serve a purpose here. There isn't much to say about the other drawings, because they are all fan-friggin'-tastic.
I don't know what happened, but something seems to have fallen into place. Your understanding of form, the balance and subtlety of detail, the grasp of how all your forms come together in such specific relationships... it's all spot on. You clearly have gone beyond seeing these as simple drawings on the page and have punched right through into fully grasping that you are constructing solid, tangible, real objects in a 3D world.
I'm not sure if you've gone back to read some of the newer lesson 2 material, but where I talk about believing in the lie you're creating, this is exactly what I mean. You've been lost to madness, and there's no coming back. You believe in the illusion you're creating, and you're making everyone else believe in it too.
It's not just a matter of the constructions improving - the overall confidence behind your linework is hugely improved, and your line weight is subtle but adds such dimension and clarity.
Despite the sleekness of the stealth bomber and the tangible grip of the formula 1 racer's tires, that last drawing is by far my favourite. I actually do think that you may have made the windshield a little too wide again, but the character you've captured in that curvaceous cab, and the solidity of those wheels is absolutely mind blowing.
You've done a fantastic job, and despite not submitting the 25 wheel challenge prerequisite you sneaky sneak, I'm going to mark this lesson, and with it the whole constructional drawing curriculum complete. Congratulations on working all the way through drawabox, and on sticking with it for nearly a year and a half.
There still is that 100 chest challenge if you're interested in taking a swing at it, and there will be lessons in the near future on design and on illustration, but as far as I'm concerned, you have defeated the final boss. As such, I'll be giving you that coveted completionist role on the discord, which along with the envy of IDoHateBread, will also give you permanent access to the patreon discord channel for life.
Whew! You've clearly worked your ass off on this one. Overall you've demonstrated a considerable amount of growth, especially if we look at the overall progress since you started with Drawabox. There is going to be plenty of room for improvement, but in the interest of not having you die halfway through the critique from an anxiety induced heart attack: I am going to mark this lesson as complete. You've successfully defeated the drawabox monster.
To start with, your form intersections are definitely demonstrating a nicely developing grasp of 3D space. Your linework there is still a little bit hesitant, so I do think that overall your freehand linework needs a greater focus on the use of the ghosting method (investing your time in the planning/preparation beforehand, then executing with a confident, persistent pace). Remember that this also applies to when you're adding line weight too - don't add it with a slow-and-steady stroke, it's got to be confident all the way through.
The same applies to the cylinders-in-boxes you drew near the beginning. When you get a little nervous or anxious, to have a tendency of investing your time during the execution phase, drawing the strokes more slowly and carefully, which results in a visible wobble. Also watch the direction in which you extend those lines - there are some cases here where you've extended them in the wrong direction. I am pleased to see the extra practice in this area though, as it's definitely valuable especially as you move into this territory. Ellipses are killers, and the more comfort you can build up on this front, the better.
So I'll try and go over your drawings with some quick points:
It marks a great start, with clear focus on constructing everything out, relying on subdivision and such to build up your sense of scale.
Your proportions were admittedly off (I think the top section was too tall, and the wheels too small) but by and large this is not uncommon to see at this point, and you were definitely focusing quite well on dealing with individual, simple forms.
Your wheels' axles were off in their alignment, especially the front wheels. I don't see any clear minor axis being utilized there, so that was likely a major factor.
Your overall construction is coming along quite nicely here, and the use of overall subdivision is quite effective.
Proportions seem to be within reasonable margins
Generally when you find your construction spilling out of the confines of your initial enclosing box, it may not be a bad idea to add an extension to that box (adding another quarter or eighth to the box after the fact).
The massive ellipses for the front cylinder definitely tripped you up visibly, but you rolled with it as best you could and handled it fairly well. The ellipses are obviously a bit uneven, but that's not surprising.
I'm actually not sure what this is supposed to be, but your construction looks very specific. To a degree this means that the use of form is reasonably believable, but that the object you're trying to draw is something I'm not entirely familiar with. What is more likely is that you very much missed the mark, but your constructional drawing skills kicked in and focused on making the major forms feel more believable. I would definitely like to see the reference you used for this one.
Here's where we're kicking into something more interesting! You're breaking your object down into a lot of great forms, and are definitely aware of how they all fit together.
Some of the really small forms (like the rivets for example) fall more under the category of 'texture', and therefore would be better captured through the shadows they cast, rather than trying to enclose them fully as explained in some of the newer lesson 2 material).
Definitely a lot of organic, smooth curves going on here, and I think you struggled most with capturing the specifics of their character.
One thing that definitely applies here from lesson 6 is what I mentioned there about how to handle curves. I think you broke things down quite a bit, but I'm not seeing the kind of adherence to an underlying, boxier, more specific construction that keeps all of your curves in line. They still seem rather guessed at and approximated, rather than being hammered out fully with straight lines, then smoothed out as a finishing touch.
Proportions definitely played a big role here. This seems to be a sherman tank, which is generally much shorter in length, and quite squat.
The perspective on the barrel doesn't quite match the rest of the tank, but I am pleased to see that you utilized a minor axis line to establish its alignment.
Here proportions come into play again. The overall construction is actually quite nice here (with the curves being much more specific and precise than the moped's), but the proportions make it feel much more like a toy.
This one is definitely my favourite - the construction is solid, there's a lot of complexity but you generally construct everything. Nothing's pasted on like an after-the-fact detail, it all feels like solid forms.
Generally good use of shadow shapes to separate forms from each other
Would have benefitted from a cast shadow on the ground (not filled in, but just the outlines of one)
I quite like the front section, all the forms seem well aligned with one another.
If you look at the treads on the rear belt there, you'll notice that they're actually not aligned correctly. They should be running parallel to the width-wise construction lines, but they actually set off at a bit of an angle.
Again, with textural things like tire treads, while these are forms they are better captured using the shadows they cast rather than outlining them completely.
This one definitely fell... short of the proportion study. The top lengthwise study was pretty accurate, but the result ended up feeling extremely truncated.
That said, rather than making it seem wrong, it ended up feeling more like a mini cooper converted into a hearse, which while not what you were necessarily after, is still merely unlikely rather than impossible. And even kind of neat.
Your wheels' alignment are off - from the way they're drawn, they appear to be slanting inwards.
Your overall construction's pretty good, and you seem to be quite faithful here to your proportion studies.
The cast shadow is definitely off - towards the front we can see it tuck in, which is fine, but as a result the shadow should spill out towards the back to compensate.
The slatted window shutters there definitely come off as overly simplistic, and a bit cartoony. As do your wheels. Likely would have benefitted from closer observation of your reference.
Apparently I've gone over the post limit so this will continue in a reply to this comment
So in summary, you're applying a lot of the major concepts of construction quite nicely, and while you have struggles throughout you are demonstrating a considerable degree of growth. That said, you do have a long ways ahead of you, and Drawabox is just the start. The rest comes down to your own mileage and practice, but there are some key areas that you're going to want to focus on:
Ellipses, cylinders and wheels. Obviously access to an ellipse guide would be hugely beneficial here, so I am taking into consideration that your ellipse guide was quite small, and not always an option. That said, cylinders and ellipses are a particular challenge for you, both in alignment, keeping the ellipses smooth and even, etc.
When it comes to detail, you handle it well in certain cases, but frequently resort to a sort of oversimplification that comes from falling back to a cartoonier view of things. This suggests that you do need to work specifically on observation, making sure that when you put down a mark, you're only looking away from your reference for a moment - and that the mark you're putting down relates specifically to some piece of detail or information you're trying to carry over. Obviously this is something you need to balance against the overall construction, but even those constructional decisions need to be based on what is present in the reference image.
Proportion kind of falls into the previous point. The more drawing studies you do, the more carefully you observe your separate proportional studies you use along the way will gradually improve your eye.
The last thing I wanted to mention was something you did throughout these drawings that ended up being a rather poor choice that you were warned against. From the instructions (in the homework section):
You are welcome to use an ellipse guide, a ruler, and a ballpoint pen if you wish. No pencil or digital media, and stick to one kind of pen for your linework (though a brush pen can be used to fill in large dark areas if appropriate).
Here you did your construction work with what I assume to be a ballpoint pen, but went back over your drawing with a fineliner to replace the linework. This is something I've always advised people against, as early as lesson 2. Don't do an underdrawing and then go over all of your lines to distinguish the final drawing from the underlying construction. Doing so tends to have a few negative impacts:
Usually results in your linework being a lot less confident, you end up falling into the trap of drawing more slowly in order to match the marks underneath.
Your base line thickness ends up being heavier and less subtle, making things look somewhat cartoony (something you already struggle with).
Those lines are drawn focusing not on drawing the given form as it sits in 3D space, but rather just drawing lines on a flat page, which can serve to break the illusion especially earlier on as you're still learning.
In the future, avoid this kind of process when you're doing these kinds of exercises - because at the end of the day, it's all just exercises. You can absolutely continue to add line weight to key areas to clarify overlaps with the same pen you used to draw the construction lines, but it should not be in a manner where you're replacing existing lines. You're just giving a sense of hierarchy to the lines that already exist, and doing so with confident strokes in limited areas.
Anyway! You've got a long ways to go, but you've taken Drawabox about as far as it will take you. The rest is just practice, and perhaps looking back over some of the lesson material to refresh your memory in those areas (the lesson notes on lesson 2 are especially important, as they go over the general mindset of thinking in 3D, tackling texture/detail, etc.) So I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the drawabox lesson!
The treasure chest challenge is obviously still there for you to try if you'd like to, but it is technically not a part of the main curriculum - so you'll be getting the completionist role on the discord as well.
Final boss fight, indeed. Here's my second take. Tried super hard and tried not to get too tilted at my own limited skill level. As always thanks in advance for your feedback
I loooove your segway and the speeder thing right after it. Both look very slick, and are exceptionally well constructed. I do think that on the segway the tires could probably stand to be a little plumper, but aside from that they came out feeling very solid and believable.
The two cars were okay, but there was definitely some steps skipped on that first one (the cab of the car seems a bit flimsy, though the main body feels fairly well constructed), and there are some definite proportion issues. I also noticed that your wheels are slightly misaligned - the degrees of the ellipses cause the wheels to feel as though they're slanting inwards slightly, like the car is a little too heavy.
That said, both of these were vastly improved over your last submission - the constructions feel considerably more confident, and there is considerably greater awareness of how the different components all fit together - even the smaller ones that we may feel the urge to deal with more as detail/texture, rather than constructed form. All of this is a fantastic move forward.
The last thing I wanted to point out was that your helicopter's a bit of a bixed bag. The rotor mechanism is very well done. There are a lot of ellipses that come together, and it can definitely be quite tricky to manage, but you pulled it off. The main body of the helicopter however feels a little cartoony. The main form of the chassis isn't too bad, though that center line down the windshield is definitely off. I think the biggest problem here is that you used the box you started with as something of a suggestion, rather than continuing to build off it with more solid forms. As far as the curvature of that windshield goes, don't forget about this concept introduced in lesson 6 - of curves being inherently vague and insolid. In order to make a curve that feels more tangible and specific, we want to stick as closely to a specific arrangement of straight lines before smoothing them out at the end.
All in all, I think you've shown considerable improvement, and are coming to grasp the material quite well. While there is still room for improvement, that honestly is entirely expected - this stuff comes with practice and time, and drawabox is all about ensuring that you're equipped well enough to take the rest of the journey on your own. I feel confident that you are prepared on that front, and so I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson - and with it, the constructional drawing curriculum - complete. Congratulations.
There is still the 100 chest challenge, though it is entirely optional. You've defeated the boss, and it's up to you whether you want to mess around with its treasure. Congratulations!
Phew. Thanks very much. Honestly, I find it really difficult, especially with the cars, in as much as I put hours of effort into each one and I knew they didn't look perfect and I couldn't put my finger on why. Hopefully that'll improve with time.
So I just wanted to use this chance to quickly ask you some advice on what to do next? Basically, I want to get good enough to one day be a concept artist or to at least have enough skill to find some kind of career in art (I know this seems an insane goal but I don't think I'd care to live without pipe-dreams). I am putting in as many hours of practice as I can each day.
My plan was, as I said before, to do Proko's Figure drawing course and then possibly move on to studying lighting/colour after that. What would you suggest?
I'll keep practising boxes etc throughout my life, I think, they seem the life blood of three dimensional drawing.
So my next step with drawabox (somewhere mixed in there with rerecording some of the newer videos that have particularly awful audio), is to tackle two new lesson sets. One will cover topics relating to design, like the use of shape and form language, proportion, how to approach idea iteration, etc. and the other will cover matters of illustration - composition, storytelling, guiding the eye, etc. These, assuming I do a decent job in making them, will hopefully help you out on your journey, as these are important skills to learn.
In the mean time, proko's definitely a good place to look, and working on figure drawing in general - especially from a constructional standpoint (also check out Michael Hampton's books) is a good idea.
Ultimately while there are plenty of really excellent free resources out there, I really can't stress enough the value in spending some time taking classes from instructors like those who teach at CDA/Brainstorm (in person) or CGMA/Schoolism (online, though I can't vouch for these myself, I have heard lots of happy students). At the end of the day, a career is going to have some degree of investment to it, so start budgeting/planning for that early if at all possible.
Lastly, you may want to check out the Foundation patreon or their gumroad, as they've got a lot of handy videos. Definitely not the same as a live instructor or anything, but I studied under one of the founders (John Park) at CDA, and he really opened my eyes to a lot in regards to design.
Hot damn this is spectacular work. You're really demonstrating an exceptional understanding of construction and the material in general, and you were wise to leverage H2DR throughout all of this.
Your initial form intersections there are reasonably well done, but I am noticing that when it comes to the freehand boxes, your convergences are still pretty much all over the place. I think it comes down to maybe needing to slow down and think a little more about the lines you're putting down before you actually draw them. From the rest of your submission you clearly have a good grasp of 3D space and what you're doing, so it really must just be a matter of rushing and getting just a touch sloppy.
The freehand boxes for your cylinders-in-boxes are actually quite a bit better, which merely reinforces the likelihood of the previous case being laziness over anything else. You're demonstrating a solid comfort level when it comes to constructing those ellipses within their planes, as well as judging the proportions of the square ends in order to achieve plausible circles in 3D space.
Now, throughout your car drawings, you're clearly demonstrating a good grasp of how you these complex objects are composed of simple forms all compounded together. Early on you do start to play around with proportions, with some components coming out a little too small and others too large, but your strong understanding of construction comes through here, as regardless of those inaccuracies the results still feel solid and believable. It doesn't look like you, the artist, have made a mistake - but rather that whoever built the vehicle did so incorrectly, and you were simply recording what was there.
As you push through, your assessment of the proportions improve a great deal, and your attention to detail really brings your drawings to life. At no point do I get the feeling that any of these details are pasted on like stickers - they all feel like the result of forms that are present in the construction.
One thing that did stand out to me was specifically on your Mahindra Jeep CJ-4. If you look at its headlights, just above the grill, I noticed that the fixture around the bulb itself reads as though it's paper-thin. It's getting pretty small there, but the line is definitely prominent enough to create the impression that there's no thickness there, and that the edge jutts out.
It's definitely a minor issue, but is the sort of thing you want to keep in mind, as these kinds of matters of thickness in forms does tend to be noticeable.
Another thing I wanted to mention was that your drawings appear to follow a process where you put down your construction lines (I'm assuming with a ballpoint pen, as the lesson allows and encourages). You build everything up wonderfully, and then once you decide you're done, you come back over it with a different pen - something a little darker, a little more noticeable, and you separate out the 'real' lines from the underlying construction.
This is definitely understandable, as these constructions require so much complex linework and subdivision, but it is still something that I don't want to encourage in these drawings. That is, jumping to a different kind of pen to replace the underlying linework.
There are two main reasons for this:
The most obvious one is that it does cause us to change how we draw those lines. Not only do we stiffen up in our attempt to match them well (and admittedly you have matched your lines quite well), but it also has us draw those marks while thinking about our drawing in two dimensions. We're no longer establishing forms in 3D space, but rather focusing on lines that exist on the page.
It robs our drawings of some of the subtlety of steadily increasing levels of line weight that creates a nice hierarchy for our drawing. When we add line weight with the same pen, we can only increase that weight so much with each pass, so there tends to be a spectrum of weights in a finished drawing. Here there are some cases where you have that (in your Royal Enfield Bullet 500 especially) but there's still that jump from the construction lines to your final ones.
All in all, it helps a lot to acknowledge the construction lines as an inherent part of your final drawing. It gives your final result a lot more dimension and character, and avoids things that risk contradicting the illusion that your drawing is 3D.
I definitely admit that the second attempt at your fighter jet was definitely more dynamic, but I found that the first one's proportions were more reasonable, with the second one looking both a bit shorter from nose to tail, as well as having a shorter wingspan. The second one does have much nicer volumes, however, and that first has the same issue of things coming to a paper-thin edge if you look at the intakes beside the cockpit.
I have to admit, when I hit your last few pages of cars, I made an audible noise. This was earlier in the day when I was just glancing at your submission, so I can't remember what I said - but I remember it was loud and profane. You did a damn good job here.
Your constructions handle nuance, proportion and things as delicate as curves in an extremely deliberate and well thought out manner. Your mercedes and lamborghini are especially stunning. My only complaint here is the focus on hatching. This definitely hurt your overall presentation, as it draws so much attention to the cast shadow below the car and draws it away from the real juice in your details and forms. It just has so much contrast packed into a limited space that it can't help but grab your eyes.
Instead, I'd recommend going with either a solid black shadow, or perhaps even better, just the outline of the shadow itself. The outlines can work wonders when dealing with the shadows we use to ground our constructions - but as far as the shadows being cast by forms onto other aspects of the construction itself, filling them in completely and leaning into the binary nature of the pens themselves (either putting down a full black mark or no mark at all) would definitely have been more effective here.
Anyway, as you can tell from the tone of this critique, you've done a fantastic job overall and have thoroughly completed this lesson. I'll go ahead and mark it was complete, and with it, the whole dynamic sketching/constructional drawing curriculum. Congratulations on beating the final boss!
Usually this would be where you'd have the option to go and collect your treasure (the treasure chest challenge), but you've already completed it, so I haven't much else to offer you for now.
In the coming months I'm looking to add material covering both an illustration-based curriculum, focusing on composition, narrative, storytelling, etc. as well as a design-based curriculum, looking at form language, use of proportion, and how to iterate on ideas. Unfortunately those are a ways off - so just make sure you maintain your pledge through the rest of this month so you get charged at the beginning of April, and then you're free to do as you like.
I hope you feel drawabox has helped contribute to your understanding of form, construction and 3D space!
Since the Treasure chest challenge i had this unhealthy addiction to using a ruler, that is probably why my freehand boxes are wonky(aside from the fact that i did indeed approach them lazily)
I am guilty of willfully breaking the "stick to one kind of pen for linework" rule, in hindsight i should have just started the early linework using the .005 fineliner, during execution it just seemed like a good idea to use ballpoint pen since that is capable of grey and not using it for final linework for the same reason. (besides ballpoint pen sucks since it blotches when you least want it to).
The great thing about this challenge is that 80% of the work is actually a good research on the subject and the other 20% is putting the pen to the page. I used everything i had at my disposal. The-Blueprints.com for ortho views, 3dwarehouse.sketchup.com for a 3d model, and sometimes the wireframe renders of the subject on turbosquid.com (specifically for the bike, on which i had a lot of fun understanding how the parts fit together). i believe that this played an integral role in how the drawings turned out, if i didn't have these resources the end result would have been alot different.
The Audi r8 was a revelation for me, after finishing the thing it felt a bit anticlimactic as to how it turned out. Then it hit me that there is only a limited set of camera angles and degree of convergence from which a car looks pleasing to the eye, if you get a good camera angle but a shallow convergence it will look dull, but if you get the RIGHT camera angle and the Right convergence the same car will look 10 times better, so you can't infact use an arbitrary 3/4th view and an arbitrary convergence and then say "This looks dull".
Now the trouble is to figure out which exact camera angle and which exact convergence to start with, trying out all of them through drawing isn't an option, but this is exactly the type of questions a professional photographer asks himself, so if you google whichever car you want to draw and one of the pictures looks outstandingly appealing then you have something to work off of. For the SLS Amg i tried to immitate this image, and for the lamborghini i used this one. and each car has a different set of both, the angle which looks good on the SLS amg will not look good on the aventador and vice versa.
Final thoughts about the entire course
Before taking this course i had no concept of targeted practice or deliberate practice, it was all mindless grinding on whichever little exercise i came across, i had come across ghosted lines exercise in some form or other from 10 different resources before this, be it a comment in a facebook group or a youtube video or even H2DR.
None of those times i recall being explained why you should do this exercise and what to look forward to while doing them and how to think about them in general... should i make a herculean effort to do an entire ream of ghosted lines exercise in one go or do i need to do these once on a single sheet then i'm done for life? which one is it? Same thing with gestural drawings of figures, and same for freehand ellipses. so there was a lot of wastege of effort and paper happening.
THE FIRST TWO lessons are the most important of the entire course, to me they hit the nail on the head and left no doubts as how to think everytime you come across any exercise. "oh this exercise is aimed at better eye-hand coordination, and this one is aimed at observational skills, and this one for getting a good grip on convergence, this one is for getting mileage" So many things started making sense.
The best thing that this course taught me is to how to practice, and how dangerous mindless grinding is, you go into great depths explaining everything about the exercises in those first two lessons (and those same exercises keep re-occurring in the course, which is good!)
The dynamic sketching curriculum tackles the more practical aspect of drawing the things themselves, it is all about "telling a convincing lie!", and for me it really took a while to get a good grip on that, drawing something accurately vs drawing something good looking vs drawing in a manner that everything is consistent with each other to the point that you said
It doesn't look like you, the artist, have made a mistake - but rather that whoever built the vehicle did so incorrectly, and you were simply recording what was there.
That is a huge Achievement, one which makes me immensely happy!
The challenges are really the most fun of all, there's a brute force element to them which i really enjoy, similar to a hammer, while the lessons are like precise surgical knifes.
All in all this course is well worth the efforts and your paid critiques are obviously a steal compared to the value one gets in return. Will recommend this to everyone regardless of skill level.
I'm glad you were able to get so much out of it! And it's clear you definitely understand the goals of the exercises and lessons, and they definitely seem to have clicked for you. Best of luck as you continue to move forwards and apply what you've learned here! Earlier you mentioned that part of the journey is the end - but this is in fact just the beginning of yours!
Uncomfortable
2018-11-16 14:29
Old thread got locked, those eligible for private critiques can submit their work here (and all others are welcome to submit their work to the main subreddit for a community critique).
James_Rautha
2018-12-27 18:17
https://imgur.com/a/cYu5XMB
Here's my homework for lesson 7.
So, as usual, I found this crazy difficult and a sunk vast amount of time into it.
I noticed just as I finished you changed the criteria slightly and updated the website. I'm hoping you'll still provide feedback on this as I had *just* finished it.
I think, clearly, there are numerous mistakes throughout, however I kept holding onto your advice of mistakes will happen and we're here to learn how to draw, not to create pretty images. That said I've left the earlier, uglier, mistake addled images in as I think you can see improvement throughout (I hope so anyway!) specifically the first car I tried to draw sucked heavy but I feel by the time I got to the honda/smart roadster I started to understand a little better how to convey what I wanted.
Anyway, thanks in advance for your feedback.
As this is the last lesson I was planning on, once completing this, heading onto Proko's figure drawing course. Does this seem a good trajectory to you?
Thanks!
Uncomfortable
2018-12-27 22:40
There have been updates, but I generally leave a good deal of leeway for submissions made soon after the changes.
You definitely show a good deal of progress over the set in a number of areas, and I'm overall pretty pleased with the kinds of vehicles you attempted in each study. You started from pretty boxy looking jeeps, which allowed you to focus on some of the core challenges of construction, dealing with cylinders, etc. and steadily made your way up to vehicles with much more nuanced character to them.
While you have improved through this lesson, there are some issues that I'd like to address. The first one that jumps out to me is that your cars, especially this one and this one have a tendency to misalign from the enclosing box. We can see this towards the front of the car, where on both we can see a pretty significant slant from the right side of the vehicle to the left. This comes about because the major lines you've used to establish these cuts do not line up towards the same vanishing point as that side of the enclosing box.
Similarly, looking at the top edge of the right side plane of these constructions' enclosing boxes, you have a tendency to make it run pretty flat and horizontal. Usually you're only going to see a line run parallel to the horizon when it's at the horizon. Alternatively, if the vanishing point were so far away towards infinity that the convergence was negligible, we could see a virtually horizontal line up there, but the bottom edge of that right side plane shows clear convergence towards the horizon line, leading to a significant inconsistency in the construction.
The last point I wanted to raise was in regards to the proportions of your vehicles - they definitely need a lot of work. This is pretty normal, and will improve with practice, but make sure you're doing proportional studies (as shown in the camaro demo). There's a lot going on in cars, they're composed of all kinds of three dimensional curves and getting them right can be very challenging. Doing a proper analysis of the car you want to draw from the front and side is very valuable in pinning down your overall construction.
As to your question, moving onto Proko sounds like a solid plan as a next step. That said, I'm not quite marking this lesson as complete just yet, as I do feel that there are areas that we should work on first.
Here's what I want you to do:
First, read the notes on placing vanishing points from the new part of lesson 1. You may also want to read the new box material, as it's been completely updated and while you probably understand most of what's written there, it may help clarify some points and wouldn't hurt.
Then, take a look at the advanced box exercises - they focus on subdivision and drawing lines on the face of a box that converge towards the same vanishing point as that plane.
Once you've reviewed that material and done some of that subdivision exercise, I want you to tackle the 25 wheel challenge. Prior to formalizing it as a proper challenge, I've had a few students go through it, especially when they struggled with some of the specific characteristics of individual vehicles (their various specific curves and proportions), as wheels serve as a sort of microcosm of that same kind of challenge. Those students did appear to benefit from it.
Once you're done that, submit it, and we'll look over it together. Once you're back on Lesson 7:
I didn't see much application of the technique demonstrated in the constructing to scale video, so I'm not sure if you watched it. It's worth a look, followed by the new mustang demo which applies that technique in much greater detail.
Do 5 more vehicle drawings - three non-cars and two cars.
James_Rautha
2018-12-28 13:27
First of all thank you for providing such detailed feedback so swiftly.
Ok, will look at the above material, submit the 25 wheel challenge, submit it then (hopefully) will take a second crack at drawing the vehicles.
So I just wanted to ask you about vanishing points - I've looked at some of the newer material above and I wondered if, perhaps, in my vehicles I was setting my V.Ps too far off the page? What I mean by that is in my 2PP drawings, some of them at least, I was aiming for left and right VPS to be really quite a distance off the page to the left and the right. Would it be better to set them just a little way back from where the page ends? instead of another half page distance away?
Sorry if this question is phrased poorly or is an over-simplification!
Uncomfortable
2018-12-28 18:30
I would definitely agree that your vanishing points are too far apart. This is why I linked you to these notes. Basically while we are free to place our vanishing points wherever we like, the distance between perpendicular vanishing points (those that govern sets of lines that are perpendicular to each other) determines the field of view with which we're looking at the whole scene.
If the vanishing points end up being really really far apart, you end up with a smaller field of view (expanding a small section of what's in front of the viewer to the whole picture plane), but if you place them very close together, you get a very wide field of view (trying to cram way too much into the picture plane).
The natural human FOV is about 60 degrees. If the space between the vanishing points is equal to the width of your picture plane, then you're working with an FOV of 90 degrees - so logically, you want the width of your picture plane to be about 2/3 (60/90) of the distance between your vanishing points.
Alternatively, you can think of it as though the space between your vanishing points should be equal to 1.5x the width of the picture plane. You don't have to be perfectly exact, but aim to estimate around there.
James_Rautha
2018-12-29 13:01
Brilliant, thank you. Will crack on with the 25 wheel challenge.
kangoroopaw
2018-12-31 08:18
Maybe this is the way how to post. 3rd try (so apologies for spamming in case they all got posted somewhere)
Here is the link to my homework:
https://imgur.com/a/pNMr7Vr
Looking forward to your feedback. Also been working on this over quite a long time, starting way before the wheel challenge. Would really like to hand it in this year still, so hope its ok i havent done the wheels yet. Will pick that up next.
Happy new year!
Uncomfortable
2018-12-31 08:21
Yup, this is where you post it - you likely got confused because it'd been 8 months since your last submission, but the patreon/private critiques go in these threads, not directly to the subreddit. I'm just replying now to let you know that your submission has been seen - it's 4AM and I'm getting to bed, so you'll be getting your critique tomorrow most likely.
kangoroopaw
2019-01-04 16:26
Thanks!
Uncomfortable
2019-01-01 04:57
You've done a lot of really fantastic work here, so you should be proud of yourself on that front. I also really like that exercise you did with the page full of perpendicular square planes on your second sheet, that's pretty clever.
As for your drawings, by and large you've got a lot of excellent constructions, with a few little points that I'd like to offer in suggestion.
I'm really pleased with just how boxy you tend to build things - it results in a lot of really strong spatial relationships between the various components of your constructions.
Don't forget to draw through your ellipses - yours are getting there, but they're still not even and smooth enough for you to be able to rely on them when they're drawn in just one pass.
Early on you have a lot of ellipses that float a bit arbitrarily - I'm not against what you've done here, because these drawings are clearly focused more on identifying the various components rather than fussing too much over their proportions, but whenever you do deal with anything that needs to be measured or scaled correctly, make sure you're establishing where you want to draw an ellipse with a plane first.
On your AT-AT page, one thing that definitely comes to mind is that establishing the ground plane early on, specifically giving yourself some kind of visual cue as to where it would fall beneath each vehicle, would help a great deal. Right now you don't have much to work with in terms of estimating how far down each leg should go, and as a result it does feel like some of these legs may be too long (and likely punching through the ground).
You've got some great wheel work throughout the set, though I do think that many of them are a bit off in terms of whether or not the ellipses represent actual circles relative to the implied perspective of the rest of the components - I'd assume this relates to what you said about doing this over quite a great deal of time, before the wheel challenge, so it's understandable. Definitely an area that can see continued development however.
I really love how this one came together - we can see your gradual understanding of proportions and structure, and it shows a lot of fantastic planning and consideration.
The cartoonier ones at the end really show your growth as a whole, and how you've developed your understanding of 3D space and construction to be able to apply it in a more general sense, with or without all of the additional construction lines.
All in all, you've done a fantastic job and I will absolutely be marking this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the constructional drawing curriculum. I do hope you'll move onto the wheels next, but no matter what you decide to tackle next I am confident that you are demonstrating a fantastic grasp of the major elements drawabox focuses on.
Keep up the great work.
kangoroopaw
2019-01-04 16:38
Thank you for the detailed feedback!
Defenetly feel like i have learned a lot on drawabox. Its a fantastic website!
Whilst I am pretty confident with boxes by now, wheels and ellipses are still a little bit of a struggle and i will keep working on them. Wheel challenge coming up!
With the AT-AT, i was so unhappy with how the legs turned out. I could have thought of constructing a ground plane myself! Thanks for suggesting that!!! Now I know how it works.
Leerxyz
2019-01-04 15:37
Happy new year uncomfortable!
This is an assignment I finished in response to this comment (old thread got locked): https://imgur.com/a/IuVjZqi
Congrats on your website reboot :)
Uncomfortable
2019-01-05 00:51
Compared to your last attempt at this exercise, your work has improved by leaps and bounds. It's so much better, and I'm sure you can see that. It was much better even at the beginning, though the first two pages had some structural issues, after that point it was smooth sailing. Your forms were solid, and you did a great job of capturing the complex tread patterns without ending up with texture that came off as distracting. Fantastic work.
Getting back to the vehicles, I'd like you to do 4 more drawings, focusing on those that have wheels - so mainly cars and trucks. Take your time and try and apply what you've understood here about building up from the underlying solid forms and being aware of the elements that convey and capture the character of the vehicle.
Be sure to check out the latest 1967 Shelby Mustang demonstration, as it should go into greater detail than any of the demos that were made available previously. I think you're very close to the end here, and the shift between the two attempts of wheels is very promising.
Leerxyz
2019-02-09 17:18
Hi, here are the vehicles you asked me to draw.
There were definitly some aspects I struggled with, like curvature or the chasis of the car, but I think in my last 2 drawings I kind of managed to do better on those.
Thanks for the critique :)
Uncomfortable
2019-02-09 19:14
Your improvement since the first submission when it comes to these cars is phenomenal. Your constructions have improved considerably, as has your eye for detail and your ability to capture that same detail in a manner that feels solid, tangible and believable. While it's true that there are some proportional issues (like the back half of the mustang's chassis as you pointed out yourself), the construction of its front half is really fantastic.
Your camaro is also pretty well done - I think it may be a little wide, but again the construction was handled very well. It actually stands out to me as more of a strength that you stick so closely to the earlier stages of construction, even if that initial enclosing box came out a little off, as it shows a deep respect and understanding for the process. Learning to judge proportions comes with time and experience, but this understanding of the constructional approach will serve you very well as you continue to move forwards.
I do have to admit - when I scrolled down to see the bike, it was so unexpected and so spot on that I actually exclaimed, "oh DAMN". Fantastic work here. Excellent use of your ellipse guides, really solid construction, and the handling of the more organic curves whilst retaining the overall firm solidity of the forms was very well done.
The last one - the lamborghini - probably is the weakest of the set, but again it's because of proportion more tha nanything else. I can still see you faithfully adhering to the enclosing box, demonstrating that you're not just thinking about the creating a pretty drawing at the end. You clearly have a great respect for this as an exercise, and the internal details and construction are still quite well done. The details don't feel like they're stickers pasted onto a simple form, they feel as though they've been carved into it wherever needed. Especially in this drawing, I see a lot of fine cuts, creating distinctions between various planes of the overall form - the kind of thing that you're as likely to find in a well sculpted face.
While you obviously had your struggles, and will continue to grow with practice, I am very confident in marking this lesson as complete. You've done a great job, and should be proud of yourself. Congratulations on defeating the drawabox boss battle, and on completing the constructional drawing curriculum. All that's left - should you choose to attempt it - is the treasure chest challenge, though it is more of a bonus round.
Leerxyz
2019-02-11 16:44
Im so deligthed you like my drawings!
There were definitly moments while completing your lessons where I thought "damn I suck at this and will never be good" so you finding potential in my drawings actually means a lot to me :)
I think I will do the 100 treasure chest challenge next, though my main question is - what's after that?
For now I want to learn more about drawing environments/vistas and also jump into digital drawing!
Can you recommend resources for learning such skills?
Also do you have advice on how to get feedback on your art?
I generally struggle finding people that can give me useful critiques.
Uncomfortable
2019-02-11 17:36
So right now I'm sorting out a few non-drawabox things before I get back onto the DaB train, but my next goal (alongside gradually fixing up and reuploading the videos) is to create two new lesson sets. One will focus on design, tackling topics like the use of shape/form language, proportion, how to derive elements from existing reference to incorporate into something fresh and new. Another will focus on illustration, looking at things like composition, storytelling, etc.
What I would recommend is getting used to doing photo studies, digitally. Because we've been so focused on drawing, there will be some transitional struggles as you move onto thinking more in terms of blocking in shapes and such, but your overall understanding of 3D space will help a great deal.
Focus on blocking things in with a large square chalky brush, dropping in all of the major components before gradually refining them. This is one of those areas where there will be much more attention to drawing something exactly as you see it (construction is still very relevant, but overall you want to try and nail the composition and positioning of elements), matching colours without colour picking, and figuring out how to tackle a variety of new challenges.
Many years ago, before I went through the course material I developed into Drawabox, I gave myself a 31 day challenge where I would do at least one photo study, for at least 3 hours, every day for 31 days. These were the results. Some came out fairly well, others much less so (though it's fair to say that I had been painting digitally for years at this point). More than anything, the focus was on getting used to laying down values and colours, and replicating what I saw to the best of my ability.
It was a very fruitful exercise, and really kicked my comfort level up by a great deal. If you want to embark on something like that, I'd recommend doing a variety of subject matter - stills from movies/tv shows, still lifes, vehicles, landscapes, interior environments, etc. Don't spend too much time picking a photo, give yourself a limit on that and once your time's up, grab something and go.
spelling_expirt
2019-02-21 02:37
Welp, its been a long journey, but here is my lesson 7. Fun fact: I started on drawabox on September 26, 2017.
Thanks for everything.
Uncomfortable
2019-02-21 20:02
The first three or so drawings show a gradual absorption of the material, with plenty of struggles, but a lot of signs that you're starting to internalize the lessons and apply them to greater and greater effect. When you start out, the proportions of your wheels are definitely off. If we look at the front driver side wheel, we can see that on either face of that box you constructed, the ellipses' contact points to the upper and lower edges don't align vertically (as they ought to given the 2 point perspective).
The overall construction of the body of the car however is coming along quite nicely, and I'm actually very pleased with the way you've built out the front. There's a clear awareness of form and construction, and you're mindful of how those forms turn in space, where there is thickness, rather than simply drawing a series of vaguely related lines on the page.
As far as the wheels go, your second page is a step in the right direction. The ellipses seem more appropriate, with the minor axis and contact points being aligned more correctly (still not spot on, but getting into the territory of being able to pass at more than a glance). You've still got a good construction for the body, though the proportions feel a little unnaturally exaggerated here up front, and the construction seems a little more simplistic, compared to the previous drawing. I do quite like how you've handled the back though - the proportions there are quite solid.
The truck on the third page is similar to the previous page. Overall reasonably well done, but the extreme perspective of the shot results in some definite exaggeration of the proportions that throw off the sense of scale to a degree. The cab's windshield definitely starts to get rather wide (probably should have been tucked in a little further), but I think the use of hatching to separate out the drawing was quite effective.
Now why am I focusing so much on your first three drawings? Well, because I still want to feel like I serve a purpose here. There isn't much to say about the other drawings, because they are all fan-friggin'-tastic.
I don't know what happened, but something seems to have fallen into place. Your understanding of form, the balance and subtlety of detail, the grasp of how all your forms come together in such specific relationships... it's all spot on. You clearly have gone beyond seeing these as simple drawings on the page and have punched right through into fully grasping that you are constructing solid, tangible, real objects in a 3D world.
I'm not sure if you've gone back to read some of the newer lesson 2 material, but where I talk about believing in the lie you're creating, this is exactly what I mean. You've been lost to madness, and there's no coming back. You believe in the illusion you're creating, and you're making everyone else believe in it too.
It's not just a matter of the constructions improving - the overall confidence behind your linework is hugely improved, and your line weight is subtle but adds such dimension and clarity.
Despite the sleekness of the stealth bomber and the tangible grip of the formula 1 racer's tires, that last drawing is by far my favourite. I actually do think that you may have made the windshield a little too wide again, but the character you've captured in that curvaceous cab, and the solidity of those wheels is absolutely mind blowing.
You've done a fantastic job, and despite not submitting the 25 wheel challenge prerequisite you sneaky sneak, I'm going to mark this lesson, and with it the whole constructional drawing curriculum complete. Congratulations on working all the way through drawabox, and on sticking with it for nearly a year and a half.
There still is that 100 chest challenge if you're interested in taking a swing at it, and there will be lessons in the near future on design and on illustration, but as far as I'm concerned, you have defeated the final boss. As such, I'll be giving you that coveted completionist role on the discord, which along with the envy of IDoHateBread, will also give you permanent access to the patreon discord channel for life.
TheWitchOfTheRock
2019-02-24 00:03
flops onto the ground waving a handful of papers
https://imgur.com/a/kYkqrbV
Uncomfortable
2019-02-24 20:58
Whew! You've clearly worked your ass off on this one. Overall you've demonstrated a considerable amount of growth, especially if we look at the overall progress since you started with Drawabox. There is going to be plenty of room for improvement, but in the interest of not having you die halfway through the critique from an anxiety induced heart attack: I am going to mark this lesson as complete. You've successfully defeated the drawabox monster.
To start with, your form intersections are definitely demonstrating a nicely developing grasp of 3D space. Your linework there is still a little bit hesitant, so I do think that overall your freehand linework needs a greater focus on the use of the ghosting method (investing your time in the planning/preparation beforehand, then executing with a confident, persistent pace). Remember that this also applies to when you're adding line weight too - don't add it with a slow-and-steady stroke, it's got to be confident all the way through.
The same applies to the cylinders-in-boxes you drew near the beginning. When you get a little nervous or anxious, to have a tendency of investing your time during the execution phase, drawing the strokes more slowly and carefully, which results in a visible wobble. Also watch the direction in which you extend those lines - there are some cases here where you've extended them in the wrong direction. I am pleased to see the extra practice in this area though, as it's definitely valuable especially as you move into this territory. Ellipses are killers, and the more comfort you can build up on this front, the better.
So I'll try and go over your drawings with some quick points:
Hearse
It marks a great start, with clear focus on constructing everything out, relying on subdivision and such to build up your sense of scale.
Your proportions were admittedly off (I think the top section was too tall, and the wheels too small) but by and large this is not uncommon to see at this point, and you were definitely focusing quite well on dealing with individual, simple forms.
Your wheels' axles were off in their alignment, especially the front wheels. I don't see any clear minor axis being utilized there, so that was likely a major factor.
Truck
The alignment of your wheel axles is much better here, though you don't seem to have relied on a minor axis line for the front cylinder.
The proportions seem to be considerably better here as well.
There's probably much more that can be done in terms of breaking the major forms down further, but it's definitely a good start.
Steam Roller
Your overall construction is coming along quite nicely here, and the use of overall subdivision is quite effective.
Proportions seem to be within reasonable margins
Generally when you find your construction spilling out of the confines of your initial enclosing box, it may not be a bad idea to add an extension to that box (adding another quarter or eighth to the box after the fact).
The massive ellipses for the front cylinder definitely tripped you up visibly, but you rolled with it as best you could and handled it fairly well. The ellipses are obviously a bit uneven, but that's not surprising.
Plane.. thing?
Locomotive
Here's where we're kicking into something more interesting! You're breaking your object down into a lot of great forms, and are definitely aware of how they all fit together.
Some of the really small forms (like the rivets for example) fall more under the category of 'texture', and therefore would be better captured through the shadows they cast, rather than trying to enclose them fully as explained in some of the newer lesson 2 material).
Moped
Definitely a lot of organic, smooth curves going on here, and I think you struggled most with capturing the specifics of their character.
One thing that definitely applies here from lesson 6 is what I mentioned there about how to handle curves. I think you broke things down quite a bit, but I'm not seeing the kind of adherence to an underlying, boxier, more specific construction that keeps all of your curves in line. They still seem rather guessed at and approximated, rather than being hammered out fully with straight lines, then smoothed out as a finishing touch.
Tank
Proportions definitely played a big role here. This seems to be a sherman tank, which is generally much shorter in length, and quite squat.
The perspective on the barrel doesn't quite match the rest of the tank, but I am pleased to see that you utilized a minor axis line to establish its alignment.
Ship
Lawn Tractor
This one is definitely my favourite - the construction is solid, there's a lot of complexity but you generally construct everything. Nothing's pasted on like an after-the-fact detail, it all feels like solid forms.
Generally good use of shadow shapes to separate forms from each other
Would have benefitted from a cast shadow on the ground (not filled in, but just the outlines of one)
Snowmobile
I quite like the front section, all the forms seem well aligned with one another.
If you look at the treads on the rear belt there, you'll notice that they're actually not aligned correctly. They should be running parallel to the width-wise construction lines, but they actually set off at a bit of an angle.
Again, with textural things like tire treads, while these are forms they are better captured using the shadows they cast rather than outlining them completely.
Hearse
This one definitely fell... short of the proportion study. The top lengthwise study was pretty accurate, but the result ended up feeling extremely truncated.
That said, rather than making it seem wrong, it ended up feeling more like a mini cooper converted into a hearse, which while not what you were necessarily after, is still merely unlikely rather than impossible. And even kind of neat.
Your wheels' alignment are off - from the way they're drawn, they appear to be slanting inwards.
Wagon
Your overall construction's pretty good, and you seem to be quite faithful here to your proportion studies.
The cast shadow is definitely off - towards the front we can see it tuck in, which is fine, but as a result the shadow should spill out towards the back to compensate.
The slatted window shutters there definitely come off as overly simplistic, and a bit cartoony. As do your wheels. Likely would have benefitted from closer observation of your reference.
Apparently I've gone over the post limit so this will continue in a reply to this comment
Uncomfortable
2019-02-24 20:59
Overall
So in summary, you're applying a lot of the major concepts of construction quite nicely, and while you have struggles throughout you are demonstrating a considerable degree of growth. That said, you do have a long ways ahead of you, and Drawabox is just the start. The rest comes down to your own mileage and practice, but there are some key areas that you're going to want to focus on:
Ellipses, cylinders and wheels. Obviously access to an ellipse guide would be hugely beneficial here, so I am taking into consideration that your ellipse guide was quite small, and not always an option. That said, cylinders and ellipses are a particular challenge for you, both in alignment, keeping the ellipses smooth and even, etc.
When it comes to detail, you handle it well in certain cases, but frequently resort to a sort of oversimplification that comes from falling back to a cartoonier view of things. This suggests that you do need to work specifically on observation, making sure that when you put down a mark, you're only looking away from your reference for a moment - and that the mark you're putting down relates specifically to some piece of detail or information you're trying to carry over. Obviously this is something you need to balance against the overall construction, but even those constructional decisions need to be based on what is present in the reference image.
Proportion kind of falls into the previous point. The more drawing studies you do, the more carefully you observe your separate proportional studies you use along the way will gradually improve your eye.
The last thing I wanted to mention was something you did throughout these drawings that ended up being a rather poor choice that you were warned against. From the instructions (in the homework section):
Here you did your construction work with what I assume to be a ballpoint pen, but went back over your drawing with a fineliner to replace the linework. This is something I've always advised people against, as early as lesson 2. Don't do an underdrawing and then go over all of your lines to distinguish the final drawing from the underlying construction. Doing so tends to have a few negative impacts:
Usually results in your linework being a lot less confident, you end up falling into the trap of drawing more slowly in order to match the marks underneath.
Your base line thickness ends up being heavier and less subtle, making things look somewhat cartoony (something you already struggle with).
Those lines are drawn focusing not on drawing the given form as it sits in 3D space, but rather just drawing lines on a flat page, which can serve to break the illusion especially earlier on as you're still learning.
In the future, avoid this kind of process when you're doing these kinds of exercises - because at the end of the day, it's all just exercises. You can absolutely continue to add line weight to key areas to clarify overlaps with the same pen you used to draw the construction lines, but it should not be in a manner where you're replacing existing lines. You're just giving a sense of hierarchy to the lines that already exist, and doing so with confident strokes in limited areas.
Anyway! You've got a long ways to go, but you've taken Drawabox about as far as it will take you. The rest is just practice, and perhaps looking back over some of the lesson material to refresh your memory in those areas (the lesson notes on lesson 2 are especially important, as they go over the general mindset of thinking in 3D, tackling texture/detail, etc.) So I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the drawabox lesson!
The treasure chest challenge is obviously still there for you to try if you'd like to, but it is technically not a part of the main curriculum - so you'll be getting the completionist role on the discord as well.
James_Rautha
2019-03-07 15:18
https://imgur.com/a/crHT9SI
Final boss fight, indeed. Here's my second take. Tried super hard and tried not to get too tilted at my own limited skill level. As always thanks in advance for your feedback
Uncomfortable
2019-03-08 01:24
I loooove your segway and the speeder thing right after it. Both look very slick, and are exceptionally well constructed. I do think that on the segway the tires could probably stand to be a little plumper, but aside from that they came out feeling very solid and believable.
The two cars were okay, but there was definitely some steps skipped on that first one (the cab of the car seems a bit flimsy, though the main body feels fairly well constructed), and there are some definite proportion issues. I also noticed that your wheels are slightly misaligned - the degrees of the ellipses cause the wheels to feel as though they're slanting inwards slightly, like the car is a little too heavy.
That said, both of these were vastly improved over your last submission - the constructions feel considerably more confident, and there is considerably greater awareness of how the different components all fit together - even the smaller ones that we may feel the urge to deal with more as detail/texture, rather than constructed form. All of this is a fantastic move forward.
The last thing I wanted to point out was that your helicopter's a bit of a bixed bag. The rotor mechanism is very well done. There are a lot of ellipses that come together, and it can definitely be quite tricky to manage, but you pulled it off. The main body of the helicopter however feels a little cartoony. The main form of the chassis isn't too bad, though that center line down the windshield is definitely off. I think the biggest problem here is that you used the box you started with as something of a suggestion, rather than continuing to build off it with more solid forms. As far as the curvature of that windshield goes, don't forget about this concept introduced in lesson 6 - of curves being inherently vague and insolid. In order to make a curve that feels more tangible and specific, we want to stick as closely to a specific arrangement of straight lines before smoothing them out at the end.
All in all, I think you've shown considerable improvement, and are coming to grasp the material quite well. While there is still room for improvement, that honestly is entirely expected - this stuff comes with practice and time, and drawabox is all about ensuring that you're equipped well enough to take the rest of the journey on your own. I feel confident that you are prepared on that front, and so I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson - and with it, the constructional drawing curriculum - complete. Congratulations.
There is still the 100 chest challenge, though it is entirely optional. You've defeated the boss, and it's up to you whether you want to mess around with its treasure. Congratulations!
James_Rautha
2019-03-08 05:42
Phew. Thanks very much. Honestly, I find it really difficult, especially with the cars, in as much as I put hours of effort into each one and I knew they didn't look perfect and I couldn't put my finger on why. Hopefully that'll improve with time.
So I just wanted to use this chance to quickly ask you some advice on what to do next? Basically, I want to get good enough to one day be a concept artist or to at least have enough skill to find some kind of career in art (I know this seems an insane goal but I don't think I'd care to live without pipe-dreams). I am putting in as many hours of practice as I can each day.
My plan was, as I said before, to do Proko's Figure drawing course and then possibly move on to studying lighting/colour after that. What would you suggest?
I'll keep practising boxes etc throughout my life, I think, they seem the life blood of three dimensional drawing.
Uncomfortable
2019-03-09 01:54
So my next step with drawabox (somewhere mixed in there with rerecording some of the newer videos that have particularly awful audio), is to tackle two new lesson sets. One will cover topics relating to design, like the use of shape and form language, proportion, how to approach idea iteration, etc. and the other will cover matters of illustration - composition, storytelling, guiding the eye, etc. These, assuming I do a decent job in making them, will hopefully help you out on your journey, as these are important skills to learn.
In the mean time, proko's definitely a good place to look, and working on figure drawing in general - especially from a constructional standpoint (also check out Michael Hampton's books) is a good idea.
Ultimately while there are plenty of really excellent free resources out there, I really can't stress enough the value in spending some time taking classes from instructors like those who teach at CDA/Brainstorm (in person) or CGMA/Schoolism (online, though I can't vouch for these myself, I have heard lots of happy students). At the end of the day, a career is going to have some degree of investment to it, so start budgeting/planning for that early if at all possible.
Lastly, you may want to check out the Foundation patreon or their gumroad, as they've got a lot of handy videos. Definitely not the same as a live instructor or anything, but I studied under one of the founders (John Park) at CDA, and he really opened my eyes to a lot in regards to design.
pranavjitvirdi
2019-03-12 11:42
https://imgur.com/a/OJWWJ2o
This is it! part of the journey is the end. i'll write my final thoughts later
Uncomfortable
2019-03-12 19:52
Hot damn this is spectacular work. You're really demonstrating an exceptional understanding of construction and the material in general, and you were wise to leverage H2DR throughout all of this.
Your initial form intersections there are reasonably well done, but I am noticing that when it comes to the freehand boxes, your convergences are still pretty much all over the place. I think it comes down to maybe needing to slow down and think a little more about the lines you're putting down before you actually draw them. From the rest of your submission you clearly have a good grasp of 3D space and what you're doing, so it really must just be a matter of rushing and getting just a touch sloppy.
The freehand boxes for your cylinders-in-boxes are actually quite a bit better, which merely reinforces the likelihood of the previous case being laziness over anything else. You're demonstrating a solid comfort level when it comes to constructing those ellipses within their planes, as well as judging the proportions of the square ends in order to achieve plausible circles in 3D space.
Now, throughout your car drawings, you're clearly demonstrating a good grasp of how you these complex objects are composed of simple forms all compounded together. Early on you do start to play around with proportions, with some components coming out a little too small and others too large, but your strong understanding of construction comes through here, as regardless of those inaccuracies the results still feel solid and believable. It doesn't look like you, the artist, have made a mistake - but rather that whoever built the vehicle did so incorrectly, and you were simply recording what was there.
As you push through, your assessment of the proportions improve a great deal, and your attention to detail really brings your drawings to life. At no point do I get the feeling that any of these details are pasted on like stickers - they all feel like the result of forms that are present in the construction.
One thing that did stand out to me was specifically on your Mahindra Jeep CJ-4. If you look at its headlights, just above the grill, I noticed that the fixture around the bulb itself reads as though it's paper-thin. It's getting pretty small there, but the line is definitely prominent enough to create the impression that there's no thickness there, and that the edge jutts out.
It's definitely a minor issue, but is the sort of thing you want to keep in mind, as these kinds of matters of thickness in forms does tend to be noticeable.
Another thing I wanted to mention was that your drawings appear to follow a process where you put down your construction lines (I'm assuming with a ballpoint pen, as the lesson allows and encourages). You build everything up wonderfully, and then once you decide you're done, you come back over it with a different pen - something a little darker, a little more noticeable, and you separate out the 'real' lines from the underlying construction.
This is definitely understandable, as these constructions require so much complex linework and subdivision, but it is still something that I don't want to encourage in these drawings. That is, jumping to a different kind of pen to replace the underlying linework.
There are two main reasons for this:
The most obvious one is that it does cause us to change how we draw those lines. Not only do we stiffen up in our attempt to match them well (and admittedly you have matched your lines quite well), but it also has us draw those marks while thinking about our drawing in two dimensions. We're no longer establishing forms in 3D space, but rather focusing on lines that exist on the page.
It robs our drawings of some of the subtlety of steadily increasing levels of line weight that creates a nice hierarchy for our drawing. When we add line weight with the same pen, we can only increase that weight so much with each pass, so there tends to be a spectrum of weights in a finished drawing. Here there are some cases where you have that (in your Royal Enfield Bullet 500 especially) but there's still that jump from the construction lines to your final ones.
All in all, it helps a lot to acknowledge the construction lines as an inherent part of your final drawing. It gives your final result a lot more dimension and character, and avoids things that risk contradicting the illusion that your drawing is 3D.
I definitely admit that the second attempt at your fighter jet was definitely more dynamic, but I found that the first one's proportions were more reasonable, with the second one looking both a bit shorter from nose to tail, as well as having a shorter wingspan. The second one does have much nicer volumes, however, and that first has the same issue of things coming to a paper-thin edge if you look at the intakes beside the cockpit.
I have to admit, when I hit your last few pages of cars, I made an audible noise. This was earlier in the day when I was just glancing at your submission, so I can't remember what I said - but I remember it was loud and profane. You did a damn good job here.
Your constructions handle nuance, proportion and things as delicate as curves in an extremely deliberate and well thought out manner. Your mercedes and lamborghini are especially stunning. My only complaint here is the focus on hatching. This definitely hurt your overall presentation, as it draws so much attention to the cast shadow below the car and draws it away from the real juice in your details and forms. It just has so much contrast packed into a limited space that it can't help but grab your eyes.
Instead, I'd recommend going with either a solid black shadow, or perhaps even better, just the outline of the shadow itself. The outlines can work wonders when dealing with the shadows we use to ground our constructions - but as far as the shadows being cast by forms onto other aspects of the construction itself, filling them in completely and leaning into the binary nature of the pens themselves (either putting down a full black mark or no mark at all) would definitely have been more effective here.
Anyway, as you can tell from the tone of this critique, you've done a fantastic job overall and have thoroughly completed this lesson. I'll go ahead and mark it was complete, and with it, the whole dynamic sketching/constructional drawing curriculum. Congratulations on beating the final boss!
Usually this would be where you'd have the option to go and collect your treasure (the treasure chest challenge), but you've already completed it, so I haven't much else to offer you for now.
In the coming months I'm looking to add material covering both an illustration-based curriculum, focusing on composition, narrative, storytelling, etc. as well as a design-based curriculum, looking at form language, use of proportion, and how to iterate on ideas. Unfortunately those are a ways off - so just make sure you maintain your pledge through the rest of this month so you get charged at the beginning of April, and then you're free to do as you like.
I hope you feel drawabox has helped contribute to your understanding of form, construction and 3D space!
pranavjitvirdi
2019-03-13 08:52
Yeah i agree with everything you said,
Since the Treasure chest challenge i had this unhealthy addiction to using a ruler, that is probably why my freehand boxes are wonky(aside from the fact that i did indeed approach them lazily)
I am guilty of willfully breaking the "stick to one kind of pen for linework" rule, in hindsight i should have just started the early linework using the .005 fineliner, during execution it just seemed like a good idea to use ballpoint pen since that is capable of grey and not using it for final linework for the same reason. (besides ballpoint pen sucks since it blotches when you least want it to).
The great thing about this challenge is that 80% of the work is actually a good research on the subject and the other 20% is putting the pen to the page. I used everything i had at my disposal. The-Blueprints.com for ortho views, 3dwarehouse.sketchup.com for a 3d model, and sometimes the wireframe renders of the subject on turbosquid.com (specifically for the bike, on which i had a lot of fun understanding how the parts fit together). i believe that this played an integral role in how the drawings turned out, if i didn't have these resources the end result would have been alot different.
The Audi r8 was a revelation for me, after finishing the thing it felt a bit anticlimactic as to how it turned out. Then it hit me that there is only a limited set of camera angles and degree of convergence from which a car looks pleasing to the eye, if you get a good camera angle but a shallow convergence it will look dull, but if you get the RIGHT camera angle and the Right convergence the same car will look 10 times better, so you can't infact use an arbitrary 3/4th view and an arbitrary convergence and then say "This looks dull".
Now the trouble is to figure out which exact camera angle and which exact convergence to start with, trying out all of them through drawing isn't an option, but this is exactly the type of questions a professional photographer asks himself, so if you google whichever car you want to draw and one of the pictures looks outstandingly appealing then you have something to work off of. For the SLS Amg i tried to immitate this image, and for the lamborghini i used this one. and each car has a different set of both, the angle which looks good on the SLS amg will not look good on the aventador and vice versa.
Final thoughts about the entire course
Before taking this course i had no concept of targeted practice or deliberate practice, it was all mindless grinding on whichever little exercise i came across, i had come across ghosted lines exercise in some form or other from 10 different resources before this, be it a comment in a facebook group or a youtube video or even H2DR.
None of those times i recall being explained why you should do this exercise and what to look forward to while doing them and how to think about them in general... should i make a herculean effort to do an entire ream of ghosted lines exercise in one go or do i need to do these once on a single sheet then i'm done for life? which one is it? Same thing with gestural drawings of figures, and same for freehand ellipses. so there was a lot of wastege of effort and paper happening.
THE FIRST TWO lessons are the most important of the entire course, to me they hit the nail on the head and left no doubts as how to think everytime you come across any exercise. "oh this exercise is aimed at better eye-hand coordination, and this one is aimed at observational skills, and this one for getting a good grip on convergence, this one is for getting mileage" So many things started making sense.
The best thing that this course taught me is to how to practice, and how dangerous mindless grinding is, you go into great depths explaining everything about the exercises in those first two lessons (and those same exercises keep re-occurring in the course, which is good!)
The dynamic sketching curriculum tackles the more practical aspect of drawing the things themselves, it is all about "telling a convincing lie!", and for me it really took a while to get a good grip on that, drawing something accurately vs drawing something good looking vs drawing in a manner that everything is consistent with each other to the point that you said
That is a huge Achievement, one which makes me immensely happy!
The challenges are really the most fun of all, there's a brute force element to them which i really enjoy, similar to a hammer, while the lessons are like precise surgical knifes.
All in all this course is well worth the efforts and your paid critiques are obviously a steal compared to the value one gets in return. Will recommend this to everyone regardless of skill level.
Thats all from me.. Thanks a ton!
Uncomfortable
2019-03-13 23:13
I'm glad you were able to get so much out of it! And it's clear you definitely understand the goals of the exercises and lessons, and they definitely seem to have clicked for you. Best of luck as you continue to move forwards and apply what you've learned here! Earlier you mentioned that part of the journey is the end - but this is in fact just the beginning of yours!