Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-31 20:17

Generally very well done. The lines and ellipses are solid. Your organic perspective boxes are generally pretty good, though I do think you should watch for instances where you make the closer plane of a given box smaller than the farther plane. Since you're going to be practicing ghosting your lines, take a look at the 250 box challenge at the same time. It'll help solidify your boxes while giving you a more relevant context in which to practice your ghosting.

The other thing I wanted to mention was that in your rough perspective, or any sort of perspective drawing, you should draw a horizon line. This becomes even more relevant when you don't have clear vanishing points, but even when you do, it gives a very helpful point of reference. In one point perspective, you have to keep your horizontals parallel to the horizon, and your verticals perpendicular to it. If your horizon hasn't been marked out, it can be a little more challenging to get those angles right.

Anyway, you did quite well, so I'll mark this lesson as complete. Once you're comfortable with your ghosting and your boxes, go ahead and move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids"

2015-07-31 20:14

Excellent work, you definitely did a great job of visualizing and thinking through your forms before drawing! I especially love the wasps on the last page. Their proportions may be a little bit off, but the constructions are really solid.

I think you're going in a great direction, so all I can say is keep it up. Onwards to the next lesson!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-31 20:13

Pretty solid work! Your lines and your ellipses are very well done. Your rough and perspective boxes could use some work, though.

With the rough perspective boxes, I don't think it's a matter of understanding - you seem to know what to aim for (all horizontals should be parallel to the horizon, all verticals should be perpendicular to the horizon, and all depth lines converge at the vanishing point). The problem is your ability to freehand-draw the lines you mean to achieve.

That brings us to the ghosting technique that you practiced earlier in the lesson. It's not just an exercise - it's an approach to drawing that you should apply to all freehand drawing from now on. First identify the line you want to draw - how long is it, where does it start, where does it end, does it curve, etc. Then prepare to draw it by finding a comfortable angle of approach (rotating your page if you need to) and ghosting through the drawing motion. Finally, you make the mark quickly and smoothly.

It takes a lot longer to draw when using that technique, but the results are vastly better. Looking at your ghosting exercise, you did it very well - apply that method to drawing the freehand boxes, and your lines will come out far more accurately.

The same applies to the organic perspective boxes, but I also see some discomfort with the idea of rotating boxes arbitrarily in 3D space. You're not doing too bad, and in general I expect to see a fair bit of struggling with that at this point. I mainly included that exercise to gauge where I should send you next.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I think you should look at the 250 box challenge next. There's a helpful video there and some notes, and the challenge itself will help make you more comfortable with rotating those boxes, while giving you the chance to practice ghosting your lines in the context of drawing actual forms.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 2)"

2015-07-31 20:05

Generally not bad. There's a lot of room to grow for sure, but you seem to be heading in the right direction. Beyond that there will always be an element of practice and mileage.

With your organic forms with contour lines, your contours seem to be wrapping around the forms better than before. Your dissections are alright - you'll have plenty of opportunities to work on your observation of detail in the next few lessons, but that is something you should focus on in the future. Spend more time observing your photo reference, less time drawing. The moment you look away from the photo to draw, 90% of the information you observed will immediately be simplified by your brain, ultimately rendered useless. So, after putting down a few marks, you'll have to look back.

Your form intersections are alright. I definitely think you'd benefit from using shallower perspective on your forms, though. That means, the far end of a form should not be too much smaller than the closer end. When you have more dramatic perspective playing amongst forms that must interact with one another, you have to worry about making that rate of perspective distortion consistent across all the forms. Check out these notes from lesson 1.

Anyway, like I said, you did well enough to demonstrate an understanding of the concepts. You may want to review the lesson itself, and continue practicing these exercises, but I think you're ready to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#2)"

2015-07-31 20:00

Nice work. You definitely seem to be getting bolder and more confident. If you do a similar challenge in the future though, in terms of marking your mistakes, don't worry about the issues where a line you drew just went off mark. Focus on the ones where the line you intended to draw was incorrect. Then, instead of circling the mistake, actually draw the correct one. I saw that you did this in a few places, but not others.

Uncomfortable in the post "Announcement: Important news for those seeking critiques for their homework submissions during the month of August"

2015-07-31 12:55

It's kind of tricky. Generally I discourage people from moving ahead before having the lesson marked as complete, because there may be problems occurring in the first lesson that then carry over to the second - so if you wait to get the critique on that first lesson, you'll be able to avoid those mistakes the second time around.

Obviously in this particular case that becomes a lot more unreasonable. I'd say go ahead and go through each lesson one week at a time, but know that when I give critiques, I often ask for parts to be redone, and that when you actually submit the homework in September, submit it one at a time - like, submit lesson 1, then wait for the critique. Then submit lesson 2, and wait again.

I definitely will recommend however, that before doing each lesson, read the lesson carefully (obviously) and also try and look through some of the homework other people have submitted. It'll give you a good sense of what common mistakes you should be avoiding.

Uncomfortable in the post "Announcement: Important news for those seeking critiques for their homework submissions during the month of August"

2015-07-31 12:52

Haha, yeah, that would be ideal but everyone's got their own time constraints, what with school starting up again for a lot of people and whatnot. I just hope I don't get buried with several hundred critiques to get through in one day. Either way, I'll find a way to deal with the backlog.

Uncomfortable in the post "Announcement: Important news for those seeking critiques for their homework submissions during the month of August"

2015-07-30 17:54

I try not to think about it.

Uncomfortable in the post "John Park starts an affordable online foundational art program, "Foundation Group""

2015-07-30 14:49

I read this first thing in the morning, and it really brought a smile to my face. Thank you so much for your kind words, and thank you for your pledge on patreon!

Uncomfortable in the post "Announcement: Important news for those seeking critiques for their homework submissions during the month of August"

2015-07-30 14:48

Yup. There always are one or two people who take advantage of the system, pledging and then removing their pledge once they've acquired whatever they wanted (extra videos, critique, whatever). At least with the critiques I'll actually know who is guilty of that, not that I'd really do anything aside from shake my head in disappointment.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects"

2015-07-30 01:32

So again, much like in my critique of your initial animal homework, your details are great but the underlying forms are not solid due to the scratchy approach. It's important to pull back and think through every mark, and how that mark is going to contribute to the drawing.

You may also want to check out the video linked at the top of the 250 cylinder challenge. It talks about how to align a cylinder to another object, using a box as a scaffolding. This is particularly relevant for this exercise, as it can be quite challenging to get that alignment right.

Secondly, I noticed that on some of your boxier objects, your far planes were looking a little larger than your near planes. for example, the bottom right of the first page. Come to think of it, I didn't really see that issue anywhere else, but I figured I should bring it to your attention.

Anyway, give the lesson another shot, trying to reign back the scratchy lines and put purpose and thought behind each mark you make.

In case you didn't catch the announcement I posted today, my critiques for the month of August are going to be limited to patreon supporters, due to my being swamped at work, and being generally unable to deal with the usual number of homework submissions I get. Normal open critiques will resume at the beginning of September.

Until then, once you've tackled this lesson's homework again, you may move onto the next lesson. You can submit them both again when the critiques reopen.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-30 00:44

Everyone's gotta start somewhere! And looking at your homework, you're not off to a bad start. There are some issues, but we'll iron them out in time.

I noticed that when you started off with your ellipses, you were drawing them in one shot, rather than drawing through them a couple times before lifting your pen. I'm glad to see that you transitioned to drawing through them - this is definitely the more effective approach. Your ellipses end up a little messier, but they allow you to draw with greater confidence. When you do this, however, I noticed that you still draw a little too slowly. This causes your lines to wobble a little, because your brain gets the chance to make little micro-corrections as you draw. These manifest as wobbling.

When you draw an ellipse, stop for a second and consider the position, angle and size of the ellipse you want to draw. Then, ghost your pen over the paper, getting your arm used to the motion required to draw that ellipse. Do this until your arm becomes comfortable with the movement. Then, when you feel ready, touch the pen to the page and repeat the motion, drawing through the ellipse two or three times before lifting the pen. Draw confidently and quickly enough to keep from wobbling - trust that your preparation was enough to keep your ellipse fairly accurate, and that your muscles know what to do.

This whole approach is essentially the same as the ghosting line technique. Identify the mark you want to make, prepare to make it, then make the mark confidently and quickly, trusting that your muscles know what to do. It takes more time, but it quickly becomes second nature and results in greater confidence and generally smoother, straighter and more accurate lines.

When you're drawing ellipses though, always draw through them. The goal is to ultimately be able to nail them in one shot, but that is a long way off. Drawing through them for the foreseeable future when doing these exercises will help give your muscles that extra practice.

Your rough perspective boxes were decent. There are some minor issues (if you take a different coloured pen and plot the lines back to the horizon, you'll find that not all of them intersect at the vanishing point), but at first glance it could pass for roughly correct. It's important to be aware of your mistakes so you can compensate for them when you next try that sort of exercise. Still, it's good for where you stand right now.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes do need work. This one is completely natural - I didn't include this exercise expecting anyone to get it perfectly, because it's actually a very challenging thing to do. It requires one to have a strong sense of spatial awareness, and the ability to rotate forms arbitrarily in 3D space.

The reason I included it was to gauge what step you should take next.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - you should continue to practice these exercises as warm-ups, but I'd like you to look at the 250 box challenge next. It has a helpful video and some notes on tackling the specific challenge of rotating boxes. The challenge itself should give you the practice you need to really get comfortable with the concept.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-30 00:28

So after looking at your homework, I gathered a few things. First off, you have a pretty solid sense of space - your organic perspective boxes demonstrated that you do a decent job of rotating boxes arbitrarily in 3D space, which is a good skill to have.

There are a few issues that I'd like to draw your attention to however. First off, you didn't do the super-imposed lines exercise correctly (the very first one). The exercise requires you to draw a line, and then draw directly on top of it eight more times, doing your best to match the line perfectly.

Secondly, with your ellipses, I'm glad to see that you're drawing through them - that's definitely good, but you may be taking it a little bit overboard. Draw through them two or three times max. Doing it too much will cause you to lose track of the ellipse you intended to draw. Focus on what your goal is (the angle/size/degree/position of the ellipse), ghost over it to get comfortable with the arm movement and then draw.

Lastly, you did pretty well with your ghosted lines, but this is not simply an exercise - it's the very crux and core of the whole drawing methodology behind all of the lessons. You stop, identify what kind of line you want to draw. Then you find the most comfortable angle of approach and ghost through the motion until your arm gets comfortable with it, preparing as best you can. Then finally when you draw, you do so quickly and confidently, trusting that you prepared enough to let your muscles take over and nail the line, drawing a single mark.

It takes a lot of time, doing this for every single mark you want to make, but it's well worth it and eventually becomes second nature. This technique and approach should be used for all of your mark-making. In this case, the organic perspective boxes and the rough perspective boxes were your first opportunities to do so.

In the future, try to avoid the scratchy, rough linework that you demonstrated there. Strive to draw each line in a single mark. You'll make mistakes, and you won't nail everything, but it'll come together in time.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to tackle the 250 box challenge next. It will give you the chance to really practice your ghosting, and also has a video and some notes on how to push your boxes to the next level.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2015-07-30 00:11

Fairly well done. I really like the one with the dog in the play-position. Or.. digging. Or whatever it's doing! It's very energetic.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to take a look at this breakdown. There are a few areas where you could improve on your construction, so keep those in mind as you move forward.

You definitely will find that these drawings aren't as good as your first set - that is mostly because you're not familiar or comfortable with this particular approach, so it's like wearing a stiff new pair of jeans rather than a pair that's been broken in. Give this constructive approach to drawing a fair shake, let yourself get used to it for a little while, and then if you still feel that you preferred the results from your initial technique, you can feel free to scrap it.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Cylinders (#2)"

2015-07-29 23:39

:P You should never have stopped. All of the lesson 1 exercises are things you should continue doing for ever and ever.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 2)"

2015-07-29 22:22

Not bad. I noticed early on that your organic forms with contour lines seem to demonstrate some issues with wrapping the contour lines around the forms, but by the time you reach the dissections, you seem to improve dramatically on that front, drawing forms that seem to really convey a strong sense of volume. Your textures are also a fairly decent start, that will be expanded upon in the next few lessons.

With your form intersections, they're alright - I can definitely see a sort of nervousness that keeps you from drawing bigger. Drawing small can present problems, as the tip of your pen ends up being larger relative to the drawing, so it comes out clunkier. You didn't seem to suffer from this too much, but it is something to generally be aware of. Draw bigger if you can, and don't just tuck into a corner of a page. You've got the whole thing, fill it up.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but you do seem to have some discomfort with drawing your boxes - your angles aren't always correct (sometimes the boxes seem skewed), and at times you draw your far planes larger than your near planes. Check out the 250 box challenge next - there's a video on that post that should explain the concept, and the challenge itself will give you some much needed practice.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-29 22:17

I'm sure it's tough being isolated. Thank goodness for the internet! It definitely looks like you'll find plenty that you can put to good use in the lessons.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Cylinders (#2)"

2015-07-29 22:16

The video in which I talked about using the box approach was added quite a bit later, so that's kind of understandable. You should definitely give it a watch though, in case you missed it.

Your cylinders do appear to be improving for sure, though I think you'd benefit immensely from two things - drawing through your ellipses more (you do it sometimes, but other times you seem intent on attempting to nail the ellipses in one go, which isn't terribly productive), and ghosting your lines more. Spending more time in the ghosting stage will help straighten out your lines and in turn spending less time actually drawing the mark will reduce some of the wobbling you demonstrate here and there. I also want to stress the importance on taking the time to properly draw each individual line of hatching, and don't cross-hatch (it tends to look bad). You do a good job with the hatching sometimes, making sure each line stretches all the way across the surface and that the lines are parallel, but other times you kind of half-ass it. If you're going to add something to a drawing, better that you just leave it out rather than rushing it.

Anyway, generally nice work completing the challenge! There's obviously plenty of room to grow, but you're making great headway.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#2)"

2015-07-29 22:09

I definitely see some improvement here, especially with your general confidence and the quality of your lines. I do want to recommend that you practice a bit by drawing through your boxes completely - that is, drawing all six lines as if the box were transparent. The reason being, I notice various instances (like 226, 234, etc.) where your far planes come out larger than your near planes. Drawing all the lines of the box will help because it will allow you to define each plane with the full four lines, whereas right now the far planes are only defined by two.

Still, great work completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "Announcement: Important news for those seeking critiques for their homework submissions during the month of August"

2015-07-29 21:21

Absolutely. This will go in effect August 1st,so you have tomorrow and Friday to submit your homework.

Uncomfortable in the post "Show Us Your Progress!"

2015-07-28 20:06

Definitely seeing a greater consideration for form and volume! Keep it up.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2015-07-28 20:05

Definitely much better. There is one thing I want to draw your attention to though.

Your approach to drawing is generally very loose and a little sketchy. As far as capturing detail, this works well for you, as it is quite visually appealing. When it comes to construction and general lay-ins however, it tends to be less effective.

To an extent, it's a matter of thinking and visualizing, versus drawing and exploring your shapes right on the page. The former requires you to know exactly what marks you want to put down on the page beforehand, while the latter has you kind of exploring and putting down more ink before nailing the shape you wanted. Usually that results in more timid linework and less solid forms.

Now, I don't want you to completely change the way you draw - like I said, I like the way you capture detail. When you do your lay-ins, however, I want you to put emphasis on drawing complete, closed, solid forms. No gaps between the lines, no wobbling or wavering. Ghost the crap out of your lines so they end up being exactly what you visualized and intended.

Then, once that lay-in/construction is complete, you can apply details with your usual approach.

I'd like you to do just two more pages, taking what I've said here in mind. I'd also like you to take a picture of each drawing when its construction is done, before you start going into detail.

Uncomfortable in the post "Show Us Your Progress!"

2015-07-28 20:00

Yup, there's no cut-off date.

Edit: Except due to unexpected circumstances at work, there's going to be a partial interruption of critiques in August.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#2)"

2015-07-28 19:59

Ahaha, it does get pretty exhausting. There are other things I work on in my spare time (my own art, game development projects, etc) which are generally far more interesting to me, but writing critiques and creating new lessons often takes me away from that. If it weren't for the patreon campaign/donations, I'd probably have stopped a while back.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2015-07-28 19:56

You're going in the right direction. Of course a lot of it falls in the realm of just putting the time in and practicing, but for the most part you're grasping the concepts.

There are a few things that I would like to draw your attention to, however. For one, mind your horizon line. You'll notice in that example, you drew the top edge of the side plane as angling towards the top left. All of the other lines imply a horizon line that sits lower however. Since the vanishing point sits on the horizon line, it gives us a clue as to in which direction each line will converge.

Secondly, I noticed that when you draw cars, you tend to misalign the wheels slightly. I know that often times the front wheel is turned slightly in most reference photos, so that's fine, but in examples such as the top of page 3, the back wheels do not align to the overall box of the truck. You should probably go back and review the notes and video in the 250 cylinder challenge and practice those more.

Anyway, since you seem to generally be on track, I'll mark this lesson as complete. Well done.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids"

2015-07-27 23:04

Pretty nice work! I definitely see some considerable improvement over the course of the lesson. Your forms are generally quite strong and believable, and the constructions come together quite nicely. I especially liked your housefly and your rhinoceros beetle.

There's room to grow for sure, but in general it's just a matter of practice. You're moving in the right direction, and you seem to know exactly what to aim for. So, all I can say is to keep up the good work. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-27 23:02

Ahaha, wow, that's my mistake. When these lessons were first written, they were just handwritten images, so I slowly developed a collection of notes over time, addressing problems people were facing. With the new version of lessons, being long written articles, the need for those extra notes was removed. I just forgot to remove that bit from the sidebar!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-27 22:59

One thing is definitely jumping out at me - you need to practice the ghosting technique. From the looks of it, you're not spending enough time identifying and preparing to draw (by ghosting through that motion until it feels comfortable) and you're probably putting too much time into actually making the mark.

If you draw slowly, your line will wobble, because you're giving your brain the chance to interfere and make little corrections along the way. If you draw too quickly, your line will go wildly off the mark. You can reel in that inaccuracy however by spending more time ghosting through the drawing motion, getting your arm used to what you want it to do. Then, when you draw, you will be able to draw quickly and confidently without as much sacrifice in the way of accuracy. Of course it won't be perfect, but it'll improve with time.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I want you to tackle the 250 box challenge next. The ghosting technique is not simply an exercise - it is a methodology to mark making that should be applied to everything. This challenge will help you practice your ghosting.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 2)"

2015-07-27 22:56

It is challenging, but you need to learn to identify the textures yourself. Take any image of an object and focus on a part of it. Analyze and study its texture. It's not about 'ideas' - texture literally exists everywhere around us.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#2)"

2015-07-27 22:35

I definitely see a significant increase in the solidity and confidence of your boxes throughout the set. One thing I do want to recommend however is that instead of just circling lines you think are wrong, correct them. Identifying mistakes isn't worth much if you don't go back and figure out what the correct line would be.

Anyway, good work on completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-27 22:27

Generally not bad. There are a few things I want to stress though.

Firstly, in the super imposed lines exercise, take the time to line up your pen with the beginning of each line. I see a lot of signs of rushing, where the beginning of the lines appear frayed because each time you drew on top, you'd start at a slightly different position. Don't rush! Take your time with each exercise.

In the ellipses, I noticed that you often jumped between drawing through your ellipses and trying to hit them in one attempt. It is important that you continue drawing through them all the time. Ultimately the goal is to be able to draw a clean ellipse without having to draw through it, but that is a long ways off. Drawing through them will allow you to get used to the feeling of drawing the ellipses with more confidence, which will generally result in more even shapes - which is our main priority.

For the boxes, where you appear to have struggled with drawing straight lines, I want to stress the importance of the ghosting technique. It's not just an exercise, but rather a process you should apply to every single mark you want to make from here on in. Every line you draw should be preceded by thought, consideration and preparation. Consider where each line starts and ends, whether it curves or is straight. Then find a comfortable angle of approach, rotating your page if necessary, and ghost through the motion until it feels comfortable. Then, lastly, draw the mark quickly and confidently.

Doing this for every single line will require patience, but it's an important habit to develop.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. It'll help you grow accustomed to the ghosting technique, while letting you practice the construction of solid and convincing boxes.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 2)"

2015-07-27 22:20

I think you're being a bit too hard on yourself. Humility is good, but self-deprecation leads to a lack of confidence, which will hinder your progress. That said, I'm glad to say that I see a lot of confidence in your line work!

Your work here is very strong. The form intersections demonstrate a great sense of spacial awareness, and your dissections' textures are nicely varied and complex. Your contour lines wrap convincingly around all of your organic forms, creating a strong illusion of volume, and your arrows/ribbons give a good sense of a flat object moving through 3D space.

I really have no criticisms to give, and am saving this one to my collection of exemplary submissions. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-27 22:14

Looking much better! I'll mark this lesson as complete, so go ahead and move onto the 250 box challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-27 22:13

Generally very well done. Your line and ellipses are quite solid, and your boxes are generally okay, but there are two things I want to bring to your attention.

First off, your crosshatching in the rough perspective boxes exercise is sloppy. It's not that you can't do it well (obviously), but you need to take the time to do anything you choose to do exceptionally. In this case, your hatching lines should be separte, parallel, consistent, and stretch across the entire surface from edge to edge. Nothing floating in the middle of a plane, nothing scribbly or zigzagging.

The other thing I wanted to point out is that while your organic perspective boxes are pretty good, I am getting a sense of some discomfort with rotating boxes arbitrarily in 3D space. This is totally normal, and I mainly threw in this exercise to catch this problem so we can work towards fixing it.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete but I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. The video and notes in the challenge post should help solidify some of the understanding, while the challenge itself will give you the practice needed to really drive it home.

Also, always remember to use the ghosting technique when drawing any freehand lines. It'll take you more time (since you have to really think and prepare and practice before every single mark you draw) but it's an important mindset to get into.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-27 22:08

Excellent work. The only issue I see, and it's a minor one, is your accuracy in your rough perspective boxes. They're generally good, but you should keep an eye on your tendency to stray from the VP as your lines move further away from it. That is to say, if you plot your lines back to the horizon with a different coloured pen, you'll notice that many deviate. This is pretty normal, but it's important to keep that in mind as you move forward, so you can consciously compensate for your tendencies.

Still, your work was very well done, and generally I see great confidence and strong spacial skills. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2015-07-27 22:06

Your drawings are beautiful. Unfortunately, you didn't really follow the lesson at all. You've demonstrated strong observational skills, but didn't do much as far as laying in and using basic forms to construct your subjects. These lessons are not just about being able to draw what you see in a photograph - it's about understanding them, and how their smaller components relate to one another, how those forms connect to each other. This understanding allows you to draw them in different poses and positions from those seen in the reference images.

Please give the lesson another shot. Also, since I am not marking this one as completed, I will not be critiquing your submission for the next lesson. Please refrain from moving forward before having the previous lesson marked as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-26 15:29

I'm glad that you're so enthusiastic!

So your lines were done quite well. I can see one reason why you may have struggled with the ellipses - you missed the part about drawing through them a few times before lifting up your pen. This is extremely important, as it tends to allow you to draw them with more confidence, which results in a better more consistent and even shape. It also gives you extra practice towards developing the muscle memory required to draw ellipses in one shot. Definitely go back and reread the ellipse section of the exercise, paying special attention to the area around figure 2.9. This drawing-through/truing-up thing should be applied to all of your ellipses for a good long time to come.

One thing I really liked was the confidence with which you drew your boxes. Your lines came out smooth and steady because of this. There are some issues in the organic perspective boxes with the forms themselves (drawing those forms rotated arbitrarily is quite challenging, and I mainly include this exercise to gauge your abilities rather than expecting you to nail them perfectly). I definitely encourage you to do the 250 box challenge next - there's a video and some helpful notes in that challenge post that should clarify some things, and the challenge itself will help solidify your comfort levels.

One other thing I wanted to mention was that when you apply shading, like in the rough perspective boxes, don't be sloppy. The hatching should consist of consistent parallel lines that stretch across a surface from one edge to the other. Nothing floating in the middle of the plane. The shading isn't necessary, but whenever you add anything to your drawings, be sure to commit to it and spend the time on it required to make it as tidy as the rest of your drawing.

Anyway, I do want you to try the ellipse exercises once more. Once you complete that, submit them as a response to this comment, and I'll mark the lesson as complete. Then you can move onto the 250 box challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-26 15:22

Much better! Don't forget that you should be drawing through all of your ellipses from here on in, so that should have been applied to the ellipses in planes as well. Anyway, you did well on everything else so I'll mark this as complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#2)"

2015-07-26 15:21

Great improvement! You definitely make huge leaps and bounds throughout the set, and after that little break, your general confidence improves significantly. Nice work!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 2)"

2015-07-26 15:18

Aha, so you accidentally posted on the wrong account. Sorry for not critiquing yesterday then, but you know how it goes.

Your arrows are pretty decent. Interesting dramatic curves and twists.

Your organic forms do need some work however. You're close to getting them down, but a lot of your contour lines fail to really wrap around the form properly. Instead of wrapping around, they have a tendency of just hitting the edge and stopping, without creating that illusion of continuation. Some of yours were better than others, so I think it's just a matter of pushing yourself a little harder. Here's a breakdown of which ones were done correctly hand which weren't. You'll notice that sometimes one was partially done correctly, and partially incorrectly. Definitely check out this video if you haven't already - and rewatch it if you have. It goes over this very issue, and talks about how to accelerate your curve so it feels like it continues on behind the form.

Your dissections suffer from the same problem, so the volumes themselves are not terribly convincing. Extra practice with the previous exercise will help with this. Furthermore however, while your textures weren't necessarily bad, they could be done better. When you study a reference image, the moment you look away, the vast majority of what you have seen will immediately be simplified in your mind. It's an evolutionary skill we've developed that's helped keep our species going for hundreds of thousands of years, but when it comes to drawing, it's a big hurdle we all need to conquer. So, if most of the information you gleaned from your reference in a glance is now useless, the solution is to look back at the reference after drawing for a second or two. Most beginner artists are unaware of this problem, so they'll continue drawing for some time, recording the information in its simplified form. It's extremely important to look back over and over, carrying over tiny bits of information at a time and spending a lot of time really studying your reference. Focus on how the elements are organized, their rhythms and patterns. Sometimes you may see a texture that has a lot of little pores and spots - the beginner thing to do is to recognize this and then draw a bunch of pores and spots on your form. Instead, consider how they're grouped together, whether they are uniformly covering the surface, evenly spaced, or if they exist in small clusters.

You're not too far off the mark here either. It's just a matter of pushing yourself just that little bit harder.

Lastly, the form intersections - these are definitely challenging. There's a bunch of things I'm noticing here that you could change technique-wise to improve your results.

• First off, draw through your ellipses a few times - don't try and nail them in one shot. If you do, your form will either be uneven, or in this case, the lines will be chicken-scratchy and bumpy.

• Secondly, don't attempt to draw these in two stages. You know that common method of drawing that involves roughing things in first, then cleaning up with a darker line. In this case, that second clean-up stage is something you need to set aside. All of the focus needs to be on that first step. Feel absolutely free to draw through those ellipses and draw through those forms, and do so confidently - don't worry about the fact that you're adding extra lines, so long as those lines really contribute to either that final drawing or your understanding of the forms you're drawing. If the line you wish to draw doesn't contribute, then don't draw it. Otherwise, draw it with confidence. We're not trying to make clean and tidy drawings here, we're trying to understand the forms and how they exist in relation to one another.

• Use the ghosting technique from lesson 1. This should be applied every time you need to draw anything freehand. It applies to both straight and curving lines, and even ellipses. It forces you to think and plan before drawing every single mark, and also makes you consider whether or not a given line should really be drawn, or if it doesn't actually contribute anything.

• In the lesson, I emphasized the need to avoid forms that are stretched in any one dimension - long tubes, long boxes, long cones, etc. The problem with these is that they bring too much perspective distortion into the mix, and that adds more complexity to an already difficult exercise. Instead, use forms that are more equilateral - whose all three dimensions are roughly equal, and that could roughly fit within a cube.

• Lastly, I think you would benefit immensely from tackling the 250 box challenge. I am noticing that many of your boxes show some level of discomfort when it comes to rotating them arbitrarily in 3D space. The challenge includes some helpful notes and a video, and the challenge itself will help give you the practice you need to really solidify your comfort level with that concept.

Anyway, I'd like you to try the organic forms, dissections and form intersections again, and before tackling the form intersections I strongly encourage you to try the 250 box challenge. I feel that you're very close to getting these things, but just needed a bit of extra direction and a firm push.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 2)"

2015-07-25 21:56

Nice work! I agree with much of your assessments, and was quite pleased with your dissections as well. You definitely have room to grow, but it's just a matter of practicing these exercises as you move forward. You seem to know what to aim for, and are making the right steps to move towards it.

As I am quite satisfied with your homework, I'll mark this lesson complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 2)"

2015-07-25 21:38

If you want me to critique your work, you've got to start at the very beginning, and not move on until I've marked each prerequisite lesson as complete. You can't start off in the middle, unfortunately.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 2)"

2015-07-25 21:37

Your organic forms are improving, but your dissections are still... not quite there.

You are right about the cookie being better than the strawberry, and there's a reason for that. When you saw the cookie, you felt like the texture and patterns were unfamiliar, so you likely spent far more time looking at the photo reference.

When you looked at the strawberry, you understood a couple of things - the seeds look like dots in circles. And then you probably didn't look back at the reference again after that, and simply drew that oversimplification.

There is a LOT more to it than that, and you need to take the time to really observe your reference. Every beginner has the problem that when they see something, their minds will simplify it. It's something we developed through evolution, because it's much easier to comprehend and communicate simple icons than to absorb all of the overwhelming detail of the world.

But we need to rewire our brains to see the finer patterns and details.

There's another issue with your textures - what you're supposed to be doing is wrapping them around those forms, but instead what you're doing is you're filling 2D, flat shapes with flattened textures. There's no wrapping going on, no curving or warping with the surface of the form.

Anyway, I want you to try another exercise. Take a look at this sheet. This is a texture exercise I did in one of my classes. It's not particularly well done, and I don't want you to do it exactly like this. This is just an example to help describe what I want you to do.

So, start by drawing a table on your page - two columns, and however many rows. Then, in each box (you'll notice I alternated, I want you to fill every single one), I want you to draw a different texture. On the far left, that texture needs to be dense. As it moves towards the right, the texture should become more and more sparse.

Now, I don't want you to draw random textures from your imagination as I did. Instead, I want you to draw them from photo reference. You're taking the textures you see, which are already wrapped around forms, and then flattening them down into these flat spaces on the page. Spend 90% of your time looking at the reference - the second you look away, the vast majority of detail you've observed will be simplified by your brain and will be useless to you. So, you'll have to regularly look back and forth, observing the same details over and over.

Think about the rhythms and patters of the textures - don't just identify simple things like dots-in-circles. Consider how those dots are arranged. Are they really just simple dots? Or are they smaller objects that cast their own little shadows? When you saw the seeds of the strawberries, you didn't acknowledge them as being small forms that varied in shape and size.

Anyway, I want you to do two pages of this exercise, then try two more pages of dissections. When tackling the dissections again, remember to start it off as just an organic form with contour line. Focus on getting the contour lines to wrap around the forms, don't think ahead to what kind of textures you're going to apply. Just nail that form. Then, once that's done, you can start adding your textures, remembering to wrap them around the forms, as the contour lines do.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2015-07-25 21:21

It's definitely an improvement. I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but there's two other things I want to draw to your attention.

First off, instead of considering every surface as smooth and curving, think about them as having defined faces. For example, your animals' torsos can be divided into the belly, sides and top/back. While the transitions between those faces are still gradual and smooth, it's important to be fully aware of them, and even mark them in. Often times it's too easy to get away with just drawing everything as smooth and rounded, because that does not require you to make those kinds of clear-cut decisions about where one side ends and another begins. This also undercuts the solidity of your forms. The same can be said about the limbs, that they have multiple sides/faces to them that should be considered.

The other thing was that you should definitely slow down when considering the textures on your reference material. At times you do a good job (I quite like the turtle on page 12) but it's important to spend more time looking at the reference.

Our brains are tricky - the moment we look away from the image, it immediately starts to simplify everything that we recorded into our memory. Because of this, the vast majority of what we observed gets lost to us, requiring us to look back at the reference once again, after only drawing a few marks. The problem is that this is not a problem we are instinctively aware of. We naturally think that we still have enough of the information to continue drawing for ten, twenty seconds, or even more.

Don't trust your memory - continue to look back at the reference and try to identify specifics about the textures you see. What kind of visual elements are there? Spots, pores, hairs, bumps, etc. Do Are they spread out evenly over the surface, or do they tend to cluster together in groups? If you catch yourself applying the same simple cross-hatching pattern to everything, you're probably not observing things closely enough.

Anyway, like I said, you're progressing nicely. These are simply things you should keep in mind as you move forward, and as you continue to practice these things on your own. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#2)"

2015-07-25 21:14

I do see some improvement over the boxes. There's a couple things I want to suggest that will help you improve even more.

First off, don't just circle your mistakes - in that different coloured pen, actually draw the correct line. Don't worry about issues where the line overshoots or things like that. We're interested in the mistakes where you drew the wrong line, at the wrong angle.

Secondly, you should definitely practice drawing through your boxes more. That means drawing all six lines for each box, as though it were transparent. Right now, the far plane is only defined by two lines, instead of the full four. Because of this, you often make the mistake of drawing your far plane larger than the near plane, as explained in the video.

Anyway, congrats on completing the challenge. Definitely making progress, but you've still got a fair bit of room to grow.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-25 21:12

Generally you did quite well. There's just two things I want to bring to your attention. First off, make sure you used the ghosting technique whenever you have to do any sort of freehand drawing. The first instances where you got to practice that in this lesson outside of the ghosting exercise itself is the rough perspective and organic perspective boxes. It's important to get used to this whole mindset of preparing to draw and thinking through what kind of mark you want to make before drawing it on the page, though it takes more time. On that same note, if after using the ghosting technique you make a mistake, don't try to correct it. This will only add more ink to the area you want people to ignore - but doing so draws their eyes to it. Just leave it alone.

Secondly, it looks like you missed the part in the ellipse exercise about drawing through your ellipses a couple times before lifting your pen. This is extremely important and is something you should be doing whenever drawing ellipses, in these exercises and in those in the future.

I'd like you to reread the ellipse section of the lesson, and then redo the ellipse exercises.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-24 22:46

Not bad. I noticed that you started off with your super-imposed lines in pencil. Based on the fact that everything else is in ink, I'm sure you know my stance on doing these exercises in pencil, so I won't lecture you about it.

Your ellipses progress throughout the lesson, and it's great that you're doing a lot of them. I think the biggest thing is that early on, you're focusing less on getting the shape right, and are compensating by drawing through them a bunch of times. Instead of doing that, draw through them two or three times max, and before doing so, ghost through the drawing motion and think about what kind of ellipse you want to draw. The position, size, angle, etc. You do this much better by the end of the lesson, and I can see that you're already reeling yourself in, keeping yourself from going as crazy with the ellipses as you were initially.

For the rough and organic perspective boxes, you did pretty well - the only thing I want to recommend is to spend more time on ghosting through those lines. If you put more time into the preparation stage (ghosting through the lines, getting used to the drawing motion) and then draw the lines fairly quickly, you will find that the lines come out smoother (because of the drawing pace) and more accurate (because of the time spent preparing). It'll take longer, but it's definitely worth it and will develop good habits.

Anyway, your stuff's looking pretty good. If you feel you want more practice drawing boxes and ghosting through lines, check out the 250 box challenge. Otherwise, feel free to move onto lesson 2 when you're ready.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2015-07-24 22:35

Very cool! It's really neat to see how they were filling in all of their blanks with animals they knew - specifically horses. Thanks for the great links.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 2)"

2015-07-24 22:33

Very impressive work! It's very clear that you spent a lot of time on it, and I'm glad thought hard about how you were approaching things and decided to redo what you had rushed through. Fantastic work, fantastic work ethic, it'll all take you very far.

I do agree that you could develop more comfort with the organic perspective boxes - those aren't easy, and I don't expect people to do them perfectly here. I'm glad you found your way to the 250 box challenge and the video/notes there. Doing the challenge is a great idea, and I think you'll gain a lot from it. Still, you actually did pretty well at this exercise, especially on your second page.

The other thing I wanted to point out was your rough perspective boxes - on the surface, they look fantastic. Clean, well plotted out, nice consistent cross-hatching. There's only one issue that you should be aware of. If you plot your lines back to the horizon (it'd be a great idea to do this, with a different coloured pen, on top of the rough perspective exercises you've done already), you'll see that they don't actually intersect with the horizon at the VP.

This is a common problem that people have, and it's just important to be aware of it - if you know exactly what you're doing wrong, you can consciously compensate for it when you attempt a similar exercise in the future. Just knowing and remembering that you tend to make that sort of mistake will help you fix it.

Anyway, like I said - great work. Feel free to move onto the next lesson when you're comfortable with those 250 boxes.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2015-07-24 22:28

Generally you did a great job. Good variety of animals, a good illusion of volume in your forms. There's only one issue that will take your drawings much further as far as the construction goes.

The animals are made up of several different forms - we must be aware of how each of these forms connect to one another. The biggest issue is that the shoulders are often left undefined in your drawings - so you've never really made the decision as to how the limbs connect to the torso. See?.

This is a really common mistake that people make, and chances are I don't cover this in enough detail in the lesson itself. As a result, I've ended up with a bunch of rough demos that stress the idea of connecting forms to one another. You should give them a look.

I'd like to see two more pages - I was considering letting you head to the next lesson, but ultimately decided that you'd benefit more from just spending a little longer here.

On another note, your bird fish made me laugh. Kind of scared it's going to want to eat itself though. Thank goodness it hasn't got a beak.