Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"
2015-09-07 22:01
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"
2015-09-07 21:54
wooow. Thanks for the catch! Let me know if you find anything else, I do this thing.. a lot. It's embarrassing.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (version 3)"
2015-09-05 14:16
I would probably only really include them if they fell into my focal area.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (version 3)"
2015-09-04 23:04
Nice work! Your form constructions and your textures are quite well done. I especially love the drawing of the caterpillar's head, as well as the (hercules?) beetle from page 6. The way you tackled the hair on the spider from page 4 was quite interesting as well. It seems to fade in and out, which is exceptional. To push it a little further, consider how the clumping of the hairs might impact the silhouette of that form. I can see that you've got a few stray hairs coming off here and there, but those kinds of direct tangents tend to draw a lot of attention. Using an approach like this can be more effective.
Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects"
2015-09-04 22:30
You're definitely moving in the right direction. I did notice some issues with your cylinders however. I strongly recommend that you look into doing the 250 cylinder challenge. The video linked there specifically talks about some approaches to constructing cylinders, utilizing the minor axis and even building it as a box first and placing a cylinder within it.
Once you've done the cylinder challenge, do another couple pages of every day objects and submit them here.
Uncomfortable in the post "As promised, August is over and critiques are open once again"
2015-09-04 03:09
Not sure why this question didn't show up in my inbox. Strange.
It's a common issue. I'm not sure of the specific issue you're encountering, but it's completely normal for some angles of approach to be more comfortable than others. As stated in lesson 1, you should feel completely welcome to rotate your page in order to find the most comfortable angle of approach. In the long run, you will likely want to practice more with angles that are less comfortable to you, but that is not an important thing to focus on right now. Don't let it distract you from the more significant things ahead of you.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (version 3)"
2015-09-03 19:46
Goddamn, these threads are getting locked quicker than I can repost them! Once again, the old lesson has exceeded 6 months of age. You may continue to post your homework submissions here.
You can still check out the previous homework submissions and critiques - since all of the exercises are fairly standardized, it's always helpful to look through what other people did right and wrong, and what kind of critiques they received.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids"
2015-09-03 01:19
Your forms are generally looking pretty good, though I did notice a few places where you could have stood to have laid in a much simpler form, and then built on top of it. For example, the front leg of the beetle on page 10 - its leg is doing all sorts of strange curves and such, but you seem to have jumped into that without providing any base for it.
Also, on the spider on page 8, remember to consider how the forms themselves curve in space (specifically the legs). The segmentation serves as little contour lines, and those lines aren't really wrapping around the forms too convincingly. The rest of the spider's body is quite well done though.
Lastly, you do need to work on your texturing. That's to be expected really, as it's a skill that develops as you move through the lessons and continue to practice. Right now you're looking at your reference in what appears to be fairly short bursts. You see hairs, so your brain registers this and you go to work on your drawing. Instead of just identifying the kinds of details you're seeing, think about how they're arranged. Are they spread out uniformly across the surface? Do they cluster in certain areas? Also, for situations where you've got a lot of little details that may create high-contrast areas, consider how you can group the information into clumps so as to convey the idea of what kind of detail is there without drawing every individual bit. A good example this is how to tackle drawing hairy surfaces.
Anyway, keep up the good work. You did quite well as far as the forms go, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Uncomfortable in the post "As promised, August is over and critiques are open once again"
2015-09-02 13:08
While it's perfectly possible to draw decent lines with your hand resting on the paper, it usually serves as a huge hinderance to beginners who do not yet fully understand how it feels to draw from the shoulder than drawing from the wrist. Since they aren't familiar enough with the tactile difference, they tend to revert back to drawing from their wrist.
There also is the concern that what you may perceive as being worse may simply be a matter of you lacking training with the right approach, and being better with the wrong approach. It's like when beginners tend to draw from their wrists, they do that because they know what to expect from it. The result is something they can control more tightly, even though other side effects of that approach make the overall quality of the drawing quite poor. When drawing from the shoulder for the first time, they tend to lose a lot of confidence because it feels strange and they lack the same control they're used to.
Now, as long as you are drawing from your shoulder, I'd say do what you feel is more comfortable. Ultimately whether or not the line quality is better will be determined if/when you submit lesson 1's homework for critique.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids"
2015-09-02 00:47
And I quote,
"Goddamn that scorpion is fuckin' amazing."
So, you're doing great - all I'm really going to do before sending you onto the next lesson is address your concerns.
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It's part of the medium. On one hand, some pens will be less reliable than others (in which case keeping a pen upright at a 90 degree angle to the page can get you the optimum ink flow, though it can still be dependent on the pen). On the other, you just need to get used to controlling the pen pressure. Working at a larger scale will also in turn make your average lines thinner, relatively speaking, so you might be able to take advantage of that.
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Proportion all comes from practice, since it is largely a facet of observation. The more you train your eyes, the better you'll be at noticing the size relationships between different elements in your subject.
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Instead of only using line and hatching for texture, play with filling large blobs and shapes with flat black. Hatching and lines will naturally result in something of a bumpy or hairy look, which is often beneficial, but the best way to get a smooth, shiny result is to use large areas of uninterrupted black surface.
Anywho, onto the animals!
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects"
2015-09-01 23:54
Nice work! Early on you seem to be struggling a bit - or perhaps not struggling, but working in somewhat simpler terms as far as your constructions go. You ramp things up as you move forward, and the results are quite nice. The battery charger and the plug on pages 7 and 8 are really nice. I did that whole whistling thing one does when they see something impressive. I like what I see with your cylinders (constructing them from boxes), and in general you seem to be going in a solid direction.
Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Oh, and in regards to your question - separate in your mind what is an exercise and what is a proper drawing. Everything we do in these lessons are exercises, just for training. In that situation, avoid using a ruler, and instead take the opportunity to boost your ghosting/freehand skills. If you are drawing something that really needs to be perfect, then a ruler may be okay.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"
2015-09-01 23:51
Generally not bad. Your constructions have nice volumes, and generally feel quite dynamic and fairly solid. One issue that I did notice however that your approach does seem to have a full grasp of the idea that all of these basic forms connect together to make the whole. You seem to understand that on some level, but you're not taking it all the way.
The biggest thing related to that which is missing is an acknowledgement of the shoulder joint. Sometimes I see it marked in vaguely, but generally it doesn't seem to be afforded a whole lot of importance, and the arm doesn't necessarily seem to be sprouting from there.
The shoulders/hips are very important - as are pretty much any joint like the knees and so on where multiple 3D forms come together and connect.
As you move forward, take a look at these examples, paying special attention to how I construct the animals from simple forms that connect at specific points.
I'll mark this lesson as complete, and seeing as you already completed lesson 6, I'll go on and critique it.
Uncomfortable in the post "It's always important to seek out multiple avenues of learning - so check out Joe Collins' DRAW.academy"
2015-08-31 20:18
Yeah, I noticed that as well. It was down at the end of last week, and then it loaded fine yesterday - and now it's down again today. I was thinking maybe it was a cache issue on this machine, but clearing my cache didn't work and since you're experiencing the same thing it must be down after all.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects"
2015-08-30 23:36
I think you're moving in the right direction - starting to get a sense of how to break objects into smaller primitive forms. That said, there are still some fundamental problems that you need to work through.
I strongly recommend doing the 250 box challenge and the 250 cylinder challenge. Your boxes in particular are struggling - you have a tendency to draw the far plane of the boxes larger than the near plane. Be sure to practice a bunch drawing through them completely, as if they were transparent so you can see all the lines that define each plane of the form.
Furthermore, I hope you are continuing to practice the exercises from the first two lessons (the first one especially). I'm seeing a lot of places that would benefit from more practice on your ghosted lines (like the weight bench's lines are often composed of several marks, rather than a single well planned and prepared mark for each line). These are things that take time to improve, so you need to keep up with those exercises.
Once you've had the chance to go through those challenges and grind away at some of those earlier exercises, take another stab at the homework for this lesson and we'll see how much you've improved.
Uncomfortable in the post "Video: Uncomfortable Does RGD 03"
2015-08-30 15:45
Check out Ctrl+Paint, it's got a vast library of videos on painting in photoshop. I'm not sure if I will venture into that territory, since a lot of the material is already there. I may just stick to conceptual things that tend to be overlooked by others. That isn't set in stone though, so you may see more technical videos from me.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"
2015-08-25 18:01
Thanks, I appreciate the kind words.
Uncomfortable in the post "It's always important to seek out multiple avenues of learning - so check out Joe Collins' DRAW.academy"
2015-08-25 15:04
I just came across this today.
From what I've seen, Joe's got a handful of video lectures (with pretty good production quality) and a small forum for interactive critique, on which he and Valentina, the other administrator, are quite active.
The principles behind the approach described there are similar to what I cover, but their methodology differs in several ways. I think it's important to expose yourself to several different ways of tackling the challenge of learning how to draw before settling on one that works best for you.
Just remember to give each method a fair shot by setting aside what you've learned previously and immersing yourself in the lessons. When you're finished and you've acquired a fuller understanding of what that particular instructor is trying to convey, you can pick up your prior knowledge once again and merge it with the knew stuff - keeping what you find valuable and tossing away the rest.
Oh, and if you decide to join their forum, don't forget to give them our regards!
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids"
2015-08-25 03:25
From where I'm standing, they look fantastic. The big beetle looks especially cool (though watch where the legs connect with the body - the forms are flattening out).
you shouldn't be expecting these things to come out cleanly - we're not focusing on clean. We're focusing on understanding the forms by drawing through them and using contour lines here and there. By definition, that's the opposite of clean.
There are two points where you can certainly improve.
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Your lines are looking a little shaky - I'm thinking this might be from a general discomfort with drawing something that is destined to not be clean. Try and release your inhibitions - ghost your shapes and draw confidently. If you mess up, it doesn't matter. You might be able to recover, or if it's catastrophic you can always just move on. There's no shame in that. Being timid, however, will hold you back.
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Remember that everything has thickness - the shell on the beetle's back is blending into the form of its body. It should sit on top of it, like an extra layer.
Your two best drawings are the beetle and the housefly, both on page 1. The spider's not bad either. The other three come out a little flat, because you're not curving your contour lines well enough, or you're drawing too timidly.
Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#2)"
2015-08-23 20:09
Yeah, generally with all of the homework, it's best to take breaks and know your limits. I notice here that your work is generally pretty solid up to the second last page - then on the last page, it kind of gets sloppy. If you ever get tired, stop and do something else. I know it's not a good habit as far as getting shit done goes, but for now we want to focus on doing the absolute best we can. After all, you can either do something quickly, or you can do it well - so lets focus on doing it well.
Anyway, you still did a pretty solid job, and aside from some of the ones on the last page, you're clearly getting a hang of constructing these simple forms. Congrats on completing the challenge.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"
2015-08-23 20:07
In general, great work. You've done a solid job of breaking down the forms and organizing them into a hierarchy of importance. They all give a strong impression of being 3D objects, rather than simply being flat.
The only thing I'd like to draw your attention to occurs on the first page and the eighth. With the venus fly trap, I can see that you laid in the initial shape with a broken line, likely to keep it from being too apparent in the drawing. I strongly advise against using broken lines, because as soon as the line breaks, so does the integrity of the shape itself. The best way to achieve a solid shape is with a single continuous line.
You didn't demonstrate this problem very often, and I don't really see it anywhere other than those two places, but it's an important issue that many people face, so I wanted to be sure to stress it.
Aside from that, fantastic. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Uncomfortable in the post "Announcement: Important news for those seeking critiques for their homework submissions during the month of August"
2015-08-23 18:16
Haha, thanks- I'll keep that in mind.
Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#2)"
2015-08-22 01:36
Pretty nice work. You're definitely getting confident with your lines. I did notice however that most, if not all of your boxes are showing some really dramatic perspective. It's good to practice that, but you should also allow yourself to construct boxes that use a shallower perspective - that is, boxes where the far plane is only a little smaller than the near plane.
When you draw many forms in the same scene, you're going to end up making use of shallower perspective more often, because if everything's got super dramatic perspective on it, it'll look weird as hell.
Anyway, good job completing the challenge. Keep it up.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 2)"
2015-08-21 01:12
Your second page of organic forms is considerably better than the first, so you're definitely improving. Your form intersections are also looking much better than before. You've got room to improve for sure, and over time your confidence will build up - but for now, you're moving at a good pace.
Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 2)"
2015-08-19 20:57
It definitely needs work, as you pointed out.
With your arrows, you may want to start off with arrangements that are less challenging. Your main concern here is getting the two lines to line up properly so they form a plane between them. Always be sure to close off the shape (you're leaving the ends open in a lot of places), and try to start off with smaller ribbons. Ghost through the lines as well, trying to put more thought and preparation behind each line.
Your organic forms with contour ellipses are pretty good - you're drawing through the ellipses nicely, and capturing some nice volumes. When you try to work with contour curves instead however, it becomes a bit more hit-and-miss.
Some of the curves do a good job of wrapping around the form, while others do all but become a straight line from edge to edge. Lets look at page 4, the Y organic form to the left side of the page.
The section that jutts out to the right side is done really quite well - the curves wrap around the form, giving us a sense that it really warps in 3D space, going back around the form and continuing on. We get a strong impression of volume and form. The part that jutts out towards the top however - those curves are barely curves at all. That section reads as being completely flat, like a piece of paper.
Your dissections aren't bad. The first page is pretty simplistic, but the second page is much better. Your textures are pretty nicely done - you've simplified them where necessary to reduce the contrast (though you may not have so intentionally). This keeps them from being distracting, which is a very good thing. The comment you had, "drawing every cell was the dumbest thing.." was right on the money - instead of drawing every individual instance of a thing, try and group them into clusters. Including every individual one will create more linework and more noise. It'll also make you look sloppy unless you draw each one really carefully. Clustering them gives you a more manageable number of items to draw, and reduces how distracting that area will be. You might increase the number and density of detail in that area if it's a focal point, but in most situations that is not an issue.
The form intersection exercise is a challenging one. There are a few tips I left in the exercise description to make them a little less difficult, though you seem to have missed them.
There's one thing to note here, though, and it's important. Since this exercise is complicated enough as it is, we don't want to make it harder. So, to simplify things, I urge you to avoid forms that are "stretched" in any one dimension. Long tubes, long boxes, etc. These will make your life hell, because they bring a lot of perspective distortion into the mix.
A lot of your forms are long and stretched, and that's definitely making that lesson hell. In general, I strongly advise you not to put very much perspective distortion on any one form - keep it nice and shallow. Not only does it simplify the exercise, but it also makes the perspective in the scene generally more consistent, making it all more believable.
Now, another thing I'm noticing is that your boxes aren't always looking too solid. You may need to practice these more. Be sure to ghost through your lines to keep them straight (you probably are ghosting through them, you'll simply need to spend more time in the ghosting phase to make sure your arm is comfortable), and do your best to maintain the size relationship between the near and far planes of the boxes. Near is always bigger, far is always smaller - though since we're keeping a shallow rate of perspective distortion, these differences are not going to be very large. Just a little smaller, just a little bigger - but NEVER the reverse.
Lastly, you're doing a good job with drawing through your ellipses. Still, try to draw through them only a maximum of two to three times. If you do it too much, you'll lose track of what the ellipse you're trying to draw is.
I'd like you to do two more pages of organic forms with contour curves (your contour ellipses were fine), one more page of dissections (to make up for the first one, which was too bare and simple), and two more pages of form intersections.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 2)"
2015-08-19 20:43
Not bad, but there's a couple things I want to point out.
For one thing, you need to draw through your ellipses. All of them. For the foreseeable future. When you don't draw through your ellipses, they come out slightly bumpy at times, or uneven. It doesn't allow you to capture a solid shape, and the shape is what is most important. This applies to all of your organic forms and your form intersections.
Secondly, your organic forms with contour curvesare generally pretty good. The only problem is that nearing the edge of the form, they curves need to accelerate just a bit more to convincingly wrap around the form. You're definitely on the right track, you just need to push it a little further. Keep that in mind when you practice these exercises in the future.
For the dissections, you missed one aspect of the exercise - you were supposed to start off with an organic form with contour curves, just like the ones done for the previous exercise. You focused too much on jumping straight into drawing a specific object, rather than applying textures to a miscellaneous form. I mean, you did do that as well, and it was done well, I just want to emphasize the importance of forgetting about form and focusing only on wrapping the texture around the random organic form with contour curves.
Your form intersections were pretty solid by the end as well, aside from the need to draw through your ellipses. One thing I did catch though is that if you apply crosshatching - or really anything extra - to a drawing, you need to take the time to apply it cleanly and neatly. Don't be sloppy with anything, or it'll take your whole drawing down several notches in terms of quality.
Anyway, fundamentally you did fairly well so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. I do want you to pay special attention to all of the points I mentioned above however. They are important, and will bite you in the ass later.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids"
2015-08-19 18:03
Unfortunately, I back near the end of July, I made an announcement about critiques in August being limited to patreon supporters only, since I'm totally swamped with work from my full-time job this month. Regular free critiques will resume on September 1st, so you should resubmit your homework then.
If you do happen to be a patreon supporter though, send me a message via Patreon with your Reddit username so I know to associate the two accounts.
Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#2)"
2015-08-19 01:13
You're making some definite headway. One fundamental thing you should work on though is the lines themselves - most of them come out well, but I do notice some arcing and bowing to some of them, which compromises the solidity of your forms. You always want to aim for straight, and put lots of time into ghosting through the drawing motion to achieve that goal.
Some people do however find that when they ghost a line, they have a tendency to arc in a particular direction. In that case, try to aim for a line that arcs slightly in the opposite direction. This may compensate for your natural tendency, resulting in a straighter line. Definitely something to experiment with. At the end of the day, knowing what your tendencies are is important, because once you acknowledge and recognize them, you can compensate and correct over time.
Anyway, congratulations on completing the challenge. Kindly mop up your brain-goop before someone steps in it.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 2)"
2015-08-19 01:09
Generally you've hit the points I'm looking for, but there are a few things I want to bring your attention to.
First off, on page 3, you're showing some of the bad habits as far as contour lines go, especially with the organic form on the top of the page. Those lines stretch straight across from edge to edge, rather than wrapping around. I'm assuming this was just a mistake, as you fixed it in the others. This is however something you need to keep reminding yourself of - you're heading in the right direction, and in some cases you're doing it very well, others are a little more tenuous. Keep at it.
Your dissections look very nice. Great work with the textures and volumes.
Your form intersections are generally good, but moving forward I want you to focus on the lay-in rather than giving yourself the crutch of a cleanup pass. The first pass, where you lay in the forms, should be done confidently. No timid, broken or faint lines. Forget about discerning which lines overlap and which don't at this phase. Often people will try to be faint or use a light touch at this phase - this results in the forms themselves coming out less than solid. The clean-up pass is then used as something of a crutch, but it builds on top of something that is already kind of rickety. Also, remember to draw through your ellipses, this will help you nail your shapes, which in turn makes your forms look solid and confident.
Generally, I'd recommend forgetting about the clean-up pass altogether when you practice this exercise. In the future, once your lay-ins become more solid, you may want to revisit the idea of adding line weight to certain areas to show overlaps and add dimension and dynamism. That is different from clean-up, because it doesn't altogether replace the lines you'd drawn initially, but rather reinforces some of them. The stuff that was there to begin with was already correct, it's just adding a little flavour.
Anyway, you are moving in the right direction, and you've shown some marked improvement. I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, so go ahead and move onto the next one.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"
2015-08-18 00:48
I see significant improvement with the hippo and the rat - the hippo especially, its head is really impressive. With some of the others, I see the need to pay much more attention to your proportions, but that will come with time and practice. In general you're moving in the right direction.
I did notice some fundamental problems with how you tackled the bison - problems that I think you've solved on your own, but I felt it important to emphasize them. Check out this overdrawing. Sorry about the quality of the handwriting - I'm out of town at the moment, and don't have a tablet. I've been having to use my laptop's stylus functionality which is really poorly calibrated.
Anyway, I do think you have room to grow here, but you're going in the right direction. So keep up the practice with this material, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"
2015-08-17 00:10
I spent fifteen to twenty minutes on it, though I wouldn't look to that as the pinnacle of skill. I expect that you'll go far beyond that.
Unfortunately I don't know of many painting courses (since I never really got into painting traditionally), but if you're ever interested in something digital, check out Ctrl+Paint, where Matt Kohr has a lot of great videos and exercises.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"
2015-08-16 22:51
Generally you're doing pretty well. Blocking in your simple forms, then building on top of them with more and more complexity.
As for the things you asked about, I did a demo for how I'd handle the lotus seed pod. Basically, you can put a ring around the hole to imply the extra detail, but having a full closed ring will end up reading wrong. So instead, break it up, in what's often called "lost-and-found lines". That is, a line will get 'lost' (disappear) and then be 'found' again, leaving the viewer to fill in the detail in their own minds. You can also take advantage of the shadows that would be caused by that little lip, as well as the potential contour lines to imply volume.
As for the willow tree, that's likely outside of the scope of this lesson. Between the sheer scale of the object (large complicated trees tend to introduce their own troubles) and the nature of the hanging foliage, it's probably best that we tackle that at a later date.
Anyway, go ahead and move onto the next lesson.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"
2015-08-16 21:06
It's definitely coming together. I'm a bit confused by your excavator though - parts of the.. er.. shovel thing? Seem to be missing thickness - as though you forgot to draw some of the side faces of the form. Also, with your x-wing, watch out for the alignment of the wings. Personally I have a shit-tonne of problems with this myself. The wings on planes can be extremely difficult to align. Again, using an overall box can help of course - enclosing wings from end to end inside of their own box that intersects with that of the main body, and then defining the wings inside of it.
The cylinders of your wheels have improved substantially though - they read more as being solid than they did before.
Uncomfortable in the post "Announcement: Important news for those seeking critiques for their homework submissions during the month of August"
2015-08-15 17:54
Glad I could help!
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"
2015-08-14 21:56
Very well done! Your forms are strong, and your linework is confident. You also have a good sense of how to imply surface texture without overwhelming the drawing with contrast and noise.
The only thing I have to say in the way of critique relates to your leaves, and I suspect it's something you already know. When you're drawing leaves, on your first lay-in pass, try to ignore the complicated detail on the edges and focus on the overall shape, composed of smooth consistent lines. Then, based on that initial lay-in, you can start dropping in smaller details - serrating the edges where necessary, or adding waviness. Those details will abide by the first lay-in, maintaining a consistent flow and direction for the form. Often times if you skip that, all of the waves/jaggedy edges/details will go off in slightly different directions, compromising the overall solidity and consistency of the form.
This may give you a better sense of what I mean.
Anyway, you did extremely well - and the black letter type on page 2 is very impressive!
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"
2015-08-13 00:02
Unfortunately, I recently made an announcement about critiques in August being limited to patreon supporters only, since I'm totally swamped with work from my full-time job this month. Regular free critiques will resume on September 1st, so you should resubmit your homework then.
If you do happen to be a patreon supporter though, send me a message via Patreon with your Reddit username so I know to associate the two accounts.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"
2015-08-12 01:41
Some of these are quite well done! Others show a bit of a struggle with proportion, but that's par for the course.
One thing I think my lesson may have failed to explain particularly well (I see this problem from the majority of people) is the idea of these animals being composed of solid forms that all connect to one another at specific locations. Nothing floats arbitrarily in space - everything is grounded in something else.
You actually did a pretty good job of this in many places, especially when thinking of how the legs connect to the torso. In other areas however - specifically the heads of your jaguars - you tend to have more arbitrary floating.
Check out these demos I did for other people who were facing a similar problem:
Focus on both the fact that the forms connect to one another in an explicit fashion, rather than just floating, and also on how I draw each form completely. Before I draw anything, I stop and think about what form I need next to continue constructing this animal. I don't try and feel it out on the page, and I'm not loose or sketchy. The next step is just another mark, but it's a specific mark and I think hard about what that mark is. Then, once I know it, I draw it in.
I'd like to see another four pages of animals - don't worry about going into detail, just construct a solid lay-in taking these points into consideration.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"
2015-08-12 01:33
I really like your moped and the hotrod. You really got in there and broke them down quite nicely.
Your boxy constructions are generally done fairly well, though you definitely seem to be struggling with cylinders. Based on your comfort with boxes, I think you'd do best to start off the cylinders as boxes as well, and then fit your cylinders inside of them (as I covered in the How to draw a cylinder video).
With the boat as well as your car, I think the biggest thing that led you astray was not starting off with a box as you did with some of the others.
The logic behind it is fairly straight forward - we start from simple forms, and fit slightly more complex forms into them. And then more complex forms into those, and so on, breaking them down until we achieve a fine degree of detail. Every level of detail hinges on the one before it, using it as a scaffolding. We use that scaffolding to make sure that our angles and proportions are sitting correctly in 3D space.
When we start off with a box, that box gives us a solid sense of our three dimensions. It gives us planes for each individual dimension, and summarizes where the vanishing point is. Within this box, we can now place any line and be fairly certain that it'll come close to sitting correctly in perspective.
The box can also be subdivided easily. Looking at your submarine, had you started it off with a box as well, you'd have been able to use the exact same method to subdivide it as you did with the 2D proportional study in the corner. That way you could have aligned the smaller details more precisely. Despite that, you still did a pretty good job with the submarine, but you certainly could have done better had you started with a box.
Now, you did use your box in some places, which is great. But you may have felt that the box was less useful, and ditched it later on because of that. The reason the box may not have been as useful as it could have been because you had a tendency to stray from it here and there.
So, while your hotrod looked pretty damn cool, some of your forms didn't line up to the original box. Specifically the front of the car. Its vertical line was slanted (all your verticals should be straight up/down), and its horizontal was angled the wrong way. In drawings like this, the box gives you the majority of your landmarks, but marking out the horizon line also helps establish a stronger understanding of the space. You always know that at the horizon, the lines flatten out. When a line is above the horizon, it angles a certain way, and it reverses when it dips below the horizon.
Always look to the box and the horizon for hints as to the angle of your line. If you look at my overdrawing, you'll notice that when I was drawing the top line of the front of your car, I compared it to a line slightly above it on the block-in box. They're not at exactly the same position, but they're pretty close, so I used it to estimate the line that I wanted to draw. Always look for these kinds of relationships. There usually is a line that relates fairly closely, and if there isn't, you may want to subdivide your box a little more.
Anyway, you're definitely moving in the right direction, but we just need to solidify your grasp of how to use these block-in boxes. So, I'd like to see four more pages of vehicles, but don't go into detail. Just stick to laying in those major forms, starting with an overall subdivided box. Also, be sure to start your cylinders off as boxes as well.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"
2015-08-12 00:29
Looking good! I'll mark this as complete, feel free to move onto the next one.
Uncomfortable in the post "Announcement: Important news for those seeking critiques for their homework submissions during the month of August"
2015-08-11 14:49
There's a list of all the lessons, organized into sets, in the sidebar. If the app you're using doesn't allow you to view the sidebar, the same list can be found on http://drawabox.com (where the lessons are hosted anyway).
In February, I started rewriting the lessons into more comprehensive articles, so the oldest posts here are the previous versions of the lessons, and are outdated.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"
2015-08-10 23:25
Ah! Sorry about that. Either way, I just got home from work so there was no delay :D
Anywho, your drawings are well done, but there is a major element of the lesson that you are missing. Despite that, your constructions do generally show a strong sense of form and volume, and while at times your proportions get a little wild (your horses), you're doing a pretty solid job.
Now, I do want you to grasp this bit that you're missing, so I won't be marking this lesson as complete.
Essentially, what you're missing is that you're not considering the construction as a series of simple connecting forms. You're achieving good volumes with the contour lines, but you're not considering how the different parts of the body intersect. The actual points of connection are important, because they allow you to understand those forms in relation to one another.
This is a fairly common problem, though most end up completely losing sense of the three-dimensionality of the animals. You're at least maintaining that, so nailing this shouldn't be too difficult once you're pointed in the right direction.
Take a look at these demos I've done in the past:
Focus on how when I lay in the forms, I'm drawing complete, solid forms and shapes for every component, and making sure that I define how they all connect to one another. Don't worry about using as few lines for your lay-in - use as many lines as you need. I did notice that you were a little timid in this area, thinking too much about how the final drawing in full detail would turn out.
I'd like you to do three more pages of animals, but only the lay-in constructions. Don't go into any textural detail, just focus on the forms.
By the way, I loved the camel-cassowary.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"
2015-08-10 13:55
Unfortunately, I recently made an announcement about critiques in August being limited to patreon supporters only, since I'm totally swamped with work from my full-time job this month. Regular free critiques will resume on September 1st, so you should resubmit your homework then.
If you do happen to be a patreon supporter though, send me a message via Patreon with your Reddit username so I know to associate the two accounts.
Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.