Check out this review of Drawabox that was just released by a former student, Rebecca Rand!
https://youtu.be/UFn9w3uDkz4
2019-05-07 17:45
Uncomfortable
Lereas
2019-05-08 01:50
Okay. I think this is the final impetus that is going to make me buckle down and really commit to it.
raustraliathrowaway
2019-05-08 11:15
That kangaroo doesn't look quite right. Perspective's a bit off.
liveart
2019-05-08 16:43
I have to agree about the whole digital vs pen thing. I've started this a couple of times and got frustrated when I noticed my line/ellipse/box making was improving on paper, but I wasn't seeing the same results when I switched to work on my projects digitally. I think it's such a different experience that it doesn't translate as well as you'd hope. Not that there's no improvement, just less of one.
Between the lack of friction, the drawing on a separate surface from where you're looking (I don't have a Cintiq), and a bunch of other little things I think it's just not building up the same set of muscle memory and skills. Not that there wasn't any improvement but I've started again all digital and I think as long as you make a point of strictly adhering to not erasing/undoing it's the better way to go if that's the medium you want to work in.
I really think the instruction being changed to: work in the medium you're trying to learn with but never erase a line (ie: pretend it's pen) would be an improvement. Different mediums just require different skill sets, even when it comes to something as basic as mark making.
Uncomfortable
2019-05-08 17:09
I certainly wouldn't disagree that there's going to be a learning curve for whatever medium you decide to move onto. Some aspects of the motor skills certainly do transfer, but there's no getting around the fact that using a regular tablet will always require you to get accustomed to the disconnect between the drawing surface and the screen. That said, it doesn't really relate to why I push the use of ink as the medium that should be used while working through the drawabox lessons.
The purpose of Drawabox as a whole is to rewire your brain in a number of ways. To instil patience, to develop a habit of forethought and planning before execution, to change how you see the world around you and to build up your ability to think in three dimensions, to manipulate three dimensional forms and to combine them to build up complex objects from the most simple of components. Every single one of those things sticks with you regardless of which medium you try to use.
I'm not here to teach you how to draw in pen. Being a purely digital artist myself, I wouldn't really claim to know how to leverage a lot of the nuance that comes with ink as a medium. I know how to put marks down, to control how much pressure I apply (which carries over to my use of a stylus), but that's about it.
I specifically push against people doing these lessons digitally because of two factors: my own experiences learning as a digital artist, and what I've seen from students over the years. When I first started sharing the lessons back in 2014 when this subreddit started, I didn't have any restrictions. People could do the homework in whatever tool they saw fit, and I'd critique it. I imposed these limitations because of the tendencies I saw fairly consistently from students who jumped right into digital. This is what caused me to reflect upon my own experiences doing the same thing. Of course there's still no shortage of students posting digital work either to the subreddit or on the discord, and the same issues still arise.
There is one last reason that bears mentioning - the limitation has served to make the process of critiquing students' homework (something I did for free until 2016) vastly more feasible, because it cut out a lot of problems that I'd otherwise had have to address directly. It's not to say that those working with ink didn't sometimes rush or exhibit impatience, but they did so far less frequently.
Now, no one's going to break into your house to tar-and-feather you for doing the exercises digitally. In fact, it's a great idea to work through the couple lessons digitally once you've got a solid grasp of the material with the recommended tools to help develop your dexterity and control within that chosen medium. All I can do is give you the recommendations that in my experience have helped students achieve the specific goals of the Drawabox lessons with greater rates of success.
liveart
2019-05-08 17:43
I can respect that, but for me personally it was an added layer of frustration that actually caused me to quit the exercises altogether because they are a grind (albeit worth it) and it seemed like I was getting about half the benefit in the type of work I cared about as I was on paper.
Obviously you have to give general advice based on your experiences and what works best for most people but I've just found it more motivating to see the improvements more immediately in the medium of my choosing and demotivating to see improvements not carry over as much as I'd like. Again that's just my personal experience, you certainly have more experience teaching than I do.
Thanks for taking the time for a thorough response though, I appreciate that.
NesteaDrinker
2019-05-09 08:55
Hey, great video! Your drawings after dab look great! I'd like to have a question tho. I've started somewhere half year ago and I'm on lesson 4 and have literally zero fun/ personal project drawings. How do you approach creating a piece using DaB knowledge? Should I just do everything I did but without construction and it should work or should I do some sort of underdrawing with pencil?
Uncomfortable
2019-05-09 13:07
Looks like you might be a bit mistaken - I'm the one sharing the video here on the subreddit. If you've got questions for Rebecca, I'd recommend asking them as a comment directly on the video.
As for the point about having zero fun/personal project drawings, then you're doing Drawabox wrong.
NesteaDrinker
2019-05-09 13:27
Hoped she is also here on the sub. Anyway, thanks for reply, I'll try some fun stuff then.
mirvine555
2019-09-14 10:17
In "Ultralearning: Accelerate Your Career, Master Hard Skills and Outsmart the Competition", Scott Young talks about how "Direct learning" impacts how effectively you learn a new skill. In short, his point is that when you are learning a new skill you should be spending a large portion (he argues most) of your time doing the thing you are trying to learn. It's not just about having fun and avoiding burnout (which are certainly important) but it's also crucial to the process. Avoiding drawing for fun and just grinding through the lessons is not only boring, but it's also counterproductive. It's the classic "slow down to go faster".
For me, I do struggle to step away from the exercises and do my own drawing. This is partly because it's so much easier to just follow the instructions and produce some meaningful output. But sitting down to do my own work means I'm on my own, I have to think about it, think about what to draw, figure out how to apply the lessons I learned so far, and then deal with the results which are not going to be nearly at the level I want. So it's hard to motivate myself to do it.
So yeah, drawing for fun should be mandatory. Perhaps you should make it mandatory to submit a personal drawing or two between lessons, not for critique, because that's adding to your workload, but just as a pre-req before you can start the next lesson. Would also be a great way to see how people on the program progress with their own stuff over the duration of the program. Just a thought.
BTW, there's a lot of things he mentions in that book that I see are present in the drawabox approach. Worth a read.
Uncomfortable
2019-09-14 17:09
I'll definitely check that book out when I get a chance. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about babysitting students so directly, though. I'll have to give it some thought.
renoitucx
2019-05-08 02:57
Found my kind