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

2015-07-15 20:07

You're showing improvement, but you'll definitely have to continue practicing getting your ellipses to fall where you want them to. Your dissections look fairly solid, however. I'll mark this lesson as complete though, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Also, while the fur one doesn't look a whole lot like fur, I think you definitely showed some good judgment in deciding to imply the texture only here and there rather than covering the form in individual strands. You're actually approaching it in the correct manner - focusing on showing how the silhouette changes.

I have these notes on the topic, but it's pretty much just talking about what you're attempting to do.

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

2015-07-15 20:03

The dissections weren't bad. It's more of a matter of your textures being a little simplistic. That'll improve as you expose yourself more to drawing from photo reference, rather than your imagination. Just remember to spend a lot more time studying your reference photos rather than drawing. We have a habit of immediately simplifying whatever we see within seconds, so it's important to look back at the reference and refresh your memory very often.

There are two exercises however that you will need to work on. One is the organic forms with contour curves - your contour lines don't wrap around the organic forms, rather they stop abruptly when they hit the edge. I talk about this at length in this video, which was linked in the lesson. Be sure to watch it if you haven't already - and if you have, watch it again.

Your form intersections are the other part that need work. It's not that the forms are bad, but rather your approach shows a lot of bad habits. The forms themselves are fairly well drawn.

I do not however want you to get in the habit of drawing very faintly, and then 'cleaning up' with another pass. I want you to think before each mark you make - consider whether or not it is going to contribute to the final drawing or to your understanding of the forms you're drawing (like drawing through ellipses and forms, which you should absolutely be doing). If a line you want to make doesn't contribute to either of these two categories, then it should not be drawn. But if it does contribute to either of these two things, then it should be drawn confidently. Do not expect to go back over it again to clean things up, and do not worry about being very clean. Instead, be thoughtful and draw with purpose. This exercise is not about drawing an arrangement of forms, but rather about exploring and understanding the forms in a scene.

It's hard to tell, but it does kind of look like you may have done an underdrawing with pencil and then erased it afterwards. If that's the case, I want to remind you that you should not be using pencil.

I'd like you to do two more pages of organic forms with contour curves, and two more pages of form intersections.

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

2015-07-15 19:55

Well done. Your forms are looking great. I noticed in the first page that your lay-ins seemed to be far too complex (the beetle on the bottom, under the two wasps, was not composed of any rudimentary forms). You did seem to start working more with basic organic masses however, and things started to improve from there.

I do want to point out that when working on the hairy texture on the spider of page 5, you drew out individual strands. On the moth on the last page however, you drew the hair/fur in chunks. This latter method, doing so in chunks and masses, is far more effective as it results in far less distracting contrast and noise.

Anyway, nice work - feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2015-07-15 19:52

Your form intersections are generally done quite well. My only concern there is that you appear to be drawing in two stages - first, roughing in the lines more faintly, then drawing the cleaner lines with a heavier mark. I want you to draw only the first stage, doing so with confidence rather than expecting to be able to clean up in the next step. Continue to draw through your ellipses and your forms (that's great), but every mark you make should be drawn with confidence, because it belongs there. If a mark does not contribute to the drawing, or to your understanding of the forms, then it should not be drawn at all.

Anyway, that exercise was still done well. That's just something to keep in mind.

Your dissections were alright as well, though they suffer from a problem that is rooted in your organic forms with contour curves. Your contour curves do not wrap around the forms, they stop abruptly at the edges. You need to focus on producing the illusion of a rounded form. This video, which was linked in the lesson, talks about this in greater depth. Be sure to watch it.

I'd like you to do two more pages of organic forms with contour curves.

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

2015-07-15 19:45

Great work. Everything generally looks fantastic, though if I had one thing to say, it'd be to ease up on how much you draw through the ellipses in the ellipses-in-planes. Drawing through them is great, but after a certain point you lose track of what you're aiming for. Try to draw through them two or three times tops.

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Video: From Black and White to Colour"

2015-07-15 00:08

That's a great extension! I usually bring my reference into PureRef (where I can resize/flip/arrange them) but I never considered looking for a chrome extension to do that.

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

2015-07-14 19:49

Congratulations on getting into art school!

Looking at your work, I did notice some issues with the organic forms with contour curves - those contour curves aren't producing the illusion of wrapping around the forms. Rather, they look to be stopping abruptly when they hit the edge. I talk about this a lot in the video linked in the exercise.

Your dissections suffer from the same issue, though your texturing was fairly well done. In the future however, consider how you might go about implying a particular texture without using a lot of line/contrast. Right now your knitted texture is very busy - which is great for a focal point, but when actually using it in an illustration, it's important to consider how you'd want to be able to render that texture in areas that are not focal points.

For your form intersection, there's one thing that I think you missed in the exercise description:

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.

Look at figure 3.3, and note how the form I chose is fairly equilateral; it's the roughly the same size in all three dimensions. These forms are going to be easier to manipulate.

You've got a lot of forms that are highly stretched, which really complicates the scene. This is causing you to falter at times. Rather than exploring each resulting problem individually, it's generally easier to have the exercise done without the extra perspective complication. Once you get a handle on doing it the simpler way, it actually becomes much simpler to tackle more complicated situations.

Another issue I noticed is that you're not drawing through your ellipses. Because of this, they're coming out fairly stiff and uneven.

I'd like you to redo the organic forms with contour curves (2 pages) and the form intersections (2 pages).

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

2015-07-14 19:42

Very nice! Great confidence, and your forms (and corrections) seem to generally be on point. Keep up the good work!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2015-07-14 19:41

It's an improvement, moving in the right direction. I'd like you to do a few more pages, this time moving past the lay-in to full detail. Always remember to study your reference closely, both when constructing the lay-in and when carrying over surface texture information.

I am noticing that your linework is lacking in confidence. You may be drawing a little small, and you may be drawing from your wrist in situations where you'd be better off drawing from your shoulder.

As for your question, there's no ideal way to hold a pen - it's more about what allows you to most comfortably make use of your pen, and your arm. What you're doing now should generally be fine.

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

2015-07-14 19:36

Right now there's nothing specific I'd like you to change in your approach. It's not always a matter of changing technique that will lead to improvement - there is always a large component of practice that will allow you to gain more comfort and confidence with how you approach things now. That will only come with time.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-07-14 19:34

Generally not bad. I especially like the ones that consist of solid 3D forms over those with flatter elements (like leaves and petals). Your mushrooms are especially well done.

I did notice one significant issue however. When it comes to some kinds of forms and shapes, you start off very loose and then jump into detail too early.

Look at this. Some of your leaves were done somewhat properly (stepping from very simple, to slightly more complex, to more complex still, etc.) Others jumped right into the serrated edges, and then attempted to clean them up further.

All of them are loose and sketchy however. I want you to stop and think before you draw anything. You have a tendency to think more on the page as you draw, rather than planning and thinking before putting your pen to the page. Each mark you make should be the result of consideration and forethought, resulting in a very specific mark.

I'll mark this lesson as complete, because generally your forms are pretty good - I hope to see your next homework submission reflect what I've mentioned here.

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

2015-07-14 19:25

Your boxes aren't solid. The most obvious manifestation of your issues are the near/far plane size relationships, which I stressed in the 250 box challenge. It may help to actually draw through your boxes (as if the boxes themselves were invisible, allowing you to see all 6 lines that make up the form), so each plane can be fully defined.

You really, really need to work on those boxes. I see that you completed the 250 box challenge, but you need to go back, watch the video and read the notes.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-07-13 20:17

Your first set - using the images from the demos - are fantastic. Great forms, great confidence, great details. Your second set aren't necessarily bad, but the big difference is that there's a very obvious use of a timid hand. You become far more afraid to put complete, closed forms and shapes down on the page, and instead have a lot of broken lines all over the place, roughly approximating 2D shapes.

Broken, timid lay-ins won't convey the sense for weight and form that you need to convincingly capture your subject. Page 14 of the second set, the tree with the drooping branches - we don't get a clear sense of why those branches are drooping. I mean, we understand, because we know what we're looking at - branches that are heavy with leaves. But the drawing itself does not convey that to a person with no understanding at all of how trees work. The leaves look weightless, so there's little reason for the branches to droop. If you blocked those leaf-masses as complete 3D forms however, we'd have a better sense of something heavy dragging them down.

You still did great, especially in that first set, and I know you are fully capable of doing this well. You just took a bit of a wrong turn in experimenting, which is totally fine. I'm still going to mark this lesson as complete, because you've shown that you can do it as I expect.

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

2015-07-13 20:12

Nice work! I really like the speaker and the mouse. Your boxes are definitely a little hit-and-miss (the rubiks cube and the camera), so you could definitely do with some extra practice with boxes in general, but overall you did very well. The majority of your forms are solid and you have a good eye for the finer details, rendering them all as individual forms rather than simply flat detail.

Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2015-07-13 20:10

The solidity of your intersections is pretty good, though the forms themselves leave something to be desired. Your boxes often come out skewed and your cylinders have issues as well. I'd strongly recommend that you take a look at the 250 box challenge and the 250 cylinder challenge. Each of those has videos in the challenge post that should help you better understand the forms themselves. I don't think you absolutely have to do the full challenges (obviously it's to your advantage to do so), but you should at least give each a little more practice.

I really liked your organic forms with contour curves. Great volumes, great forms. Your dissections were certainly lacking however - not in the forms, but you didn't do much at all as far as surface texture goes. Right now I'm mostly concerned with form, but I think it is greatly to your benefit to practice applying different surface textures that you've pulled from observing reference images (or from life).

The arrows were solid as well.

Though I'm disappointed in what was missing from the dissections, I'm still going to mark this lesson as complete, as my focus lies primarily with your understanding of form.

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

2015-07-13 20:05

Pencil is definitely out of the question. 0.3 is okay for now, though you'll find that the super imposed lines exercise will be more challenging. However, on the flipside, with a 0.3 you'll probably find it a little easier to do the later lessons, because it's much easier to control your line weight with a thinner pen. This means you'll get less practice as far as pressure control goes.

Ultimately you should keep on the lookout for some 0.5s, but I won't hold the 0.3 against you. I'll still critique your work (whereas I won't accept work done in pencil).

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

2015-07-13 20:03

Definitely a big improvement throughout the set. I do want to point out though that if you feel you're getting sloppy, don't push through it. Stop and take a break. Practicing while you're sloppy and unable to focus risks training bad habits.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"

2015-07-13 20:01

For this lesson at least, I don't see why you couldn't, though it'd be more difficult to avoid muddying your value levels. The exercise requires you split up your composition into a limited range of values, and charcoal tends to be very smudgy. You'd end up with a lot of situations where different areas would bleed into one another.

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

2015-07-13 19:50

You do still seem to be having issues drawing the lines at the angle you desire, but as it stands it seems you understand the concept more clearly. Beyond that, it's just a matter of practicing with ghosting your lines more. Go ahead and move onto the 250 box challenge next.

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

2015-07-13 19:47

I disagree - I'm generally quite pleased with how you capture your forms. They generally have a strong sense of volume to them. If there were an issue, you're right that it would be related to your lay-ins, but generally they're fine. The only issue I noticed is that when you draw hairs, you attempt to draw each individual strand. This results in a lot of tangents and contrast (both are the sort of thing that draw the viewer's eye). You'd be better off capturing the hairs in clumps, drawing them as grouped forms instead. Generally all you need to do to give the impression of a hairy surface is to capture how the silhouette of the form changes.

These notes I wrote a little while back may help a little.

Anyway, feel free to move on to the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Video: From Black and White to Colour"

2015-07-13 13:02

Thanks for the tip! Honestly, I generally hate working B/W to Colour, but since most of my lessons thus far have all been strictly black and white, I figured it wouldn't be fair to jump right into colour without any sort of step in between.

I'd heard about the sGray proof setup thing before, but never really wrapped my mind around how to use it effectively. Never considered opening it in a separate window.

Uncomfortable in the post "Video: Sketching Environments"

2015-07-13 00:13

More than anything, it's a matter of learning about composition, and how to use colour effectively. But yeah, if it weren't for the speed up, you'd basically just be seeing me blundering over and over.

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

2015-07-12 19:13

There's little sense in worrying about that right now. As it stands, you're really not applying all that much detail to begin with.

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

2015-07-12 15:39

There's a couple things I'm noticing overall. Most significantly, your linework is very wobbly and shaky. This tells me that you're not using the ghosting technique - which you should be using whenever making any marks. This includes ellipses, lines, curves, etc.

In your organic forms with contour ellipses, your ellipses are kind of all over the place. You will definitely need to practice being able to fit ellipses to a specific angle/location/size.

That said, your organic forms with contour curves were generally well done. Still wobbly, but the curves wrap around the forms nicely, creating the illusion of 3D form.

Your dissections, as you said yourself, are fairly weak. There's two major issues I see.

Aside from the lack of ghosting, your form intersections were pretty decent. Don't forget to draw through your ellipses though, you're often being rather loose with them, resulting in uneven shapes.

Now, this is going to sound excessive, but I'd like you to do 8 pages of organic forms with contour ellipses, so you can really practice getting your ellipses to fit snugly within the organic forms. Once you've done that, I'd like you to do another 1 page of dissections, paying special and careful attention to your photo reference. Focus on the surface detail only, not on the forms. Surface detail is the information that wraps around the form, while forms themselves will protrude out into 3D space.

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

2015-07-12 15:26

Ah yeah, it looks like you submitted your homework just a few hours after the challenge thread hit 6 months of age, and got automatically locked by reddit. I'll have to make a new one.

Anyway, your cylinders aren't bad, but I don't really see a whole lot of what I talked about in the how-to-draw-a-cylinder video. I talked about using the minor axis and constructing cylinders within boxes, but you didn't do any of that. Did.. you watch the video?

Anyway, since you did the challenge I'll mark this as complete, but it's important that you watch/read the material included in the challenge post instead of just charging forward.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-07-12 15:23

Haha, I'm glad to hear that you ventured outside! My condolences for the mosquito bites though.

Generally you did a great job. There's only a couple things I want to point out, and in the scope of your entire lesson they're fairly minor.

The first thing is that when laying in your forms, you tend to be kind of loose. For example, on the second page, the smaller drawing on the top right, you've got a bunch of ellipses, and inside of those ellipses you have clusters of smaller ellipses. Those were drawn really quickly and loosely - you should be more deliberate with how you put those forms down.

The other issue relates to how quickly you move into complex forms. The whole idea of this approach to drawing is that you start off simple, and each layer serves as a framework for the next, slightly more complex layer. It's not a matter of drawing a box and then inside that box, drawing Michelangelo's David. You draw your box, then break it into more forms, and then hinge more detail on that, ultimately building up to something more complicated.

A strong example of this is in the bottom right of page 9. You've got some heavily serrated leaves, and from what I can see, the only lay-in you used for them was singular gestural lines. What you should have done is move onto general leaf shapes to capture how the forms move through 3D space, and then serrated their edges. Like this.

If we jump into complex detail too early, our drawings tend to flatten out, with too little consideration given to how things move through 3D space.

Anyway, your work was generally still quite well done, so I will mark this as complete. Just remember to spend more time on your lay-ins, rather than jumping right into detail too early on.

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

2015-07-12 15:10

I can still make out most of your pencil corrections, and they seem to be correct. The ones where you just circle the issue aren't really of much value of course, but I did notice a few where you redrew the lines, which were definitely more useful.

The changes are subtle, but I think I can see a general increase in your confidence by the end. You do a good job of keeping your near/far plane size relationships straight, and your angles are generally correct more often by the end.

Since a lot of your boxes show some fairly extreme perspective, I do want to remind you that when drawing a scene with many forms, the rate of perspective distortion (how quickly things get smaller relative to how far away from the viewer they are) will have to be consistent. Usually this means that if a box that's close up has some extreme perspective to it, something just a little further away will end up being much smaller than one might expect. The solution to this is, when drawing many forms in one scene, is generally to keep the perspective distortion less dramatic and extreme. Shallower perspective is often much easier to deal with. It also implies a smaller scale in general, while more extreme perspective immediately starts to read as tall-building-scale.

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

2015-07-12 15:06

From the looks of it, you accidentally uploaded the same page twice. Either way, this is definitely better. I am still seeing some of your lines straying from being perfectly horizontal or vertical, but I think that's more of an issue with having to practice ghosting your lines more. That will all come together with practice.

I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the box challenge.

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

2015-07-12 14:51

Your lines and ellipses are looking fairly solid, as are your plotted perspective boxes. Things start to get a little weaker when we venture into the rough perspective boxes though. One thing that's important to remember is that the ghosting technique is not merely another exercise - it's an approach to drawing that you should apply to all of your mark making. Identify the line you want to make (position, length, start, end, angle, etc), prepare to draw it (find a comfortable angle of approach, ghost through the motion of drawing until your arm becomes accustomed to it), then draw the line in a clean, smooth motion driven by your muscles and not your brain.

The other issue with your rough perspective boxes is that the rules of perspective make it such that each line follows a very specific behaviour, which you can identify by stepping back and thinking about what kind of line it is.

In one point perspective, it's only the lines that go off into the distance that converge at a vanishing point. Generally you got this right, although you definitely need to work on visualizing those lines going back to the VP - if you plot where your lines intersect with the horizon, you'll find that many of them are off.

That leaves two other sets of lines - your horizontals and your verticals. In one point perspective, the lines of each of these sets do not converge with one another. They remain parallel. Your horizontals run parallel to the horizon (all of the horizons here run straight across left to right, so as should all of your horizontal lines). Your verticals run perpendicular to the horizon - so in these cases, it should run straight up and down. If you take a closer look, you'll notice that the angles of your lines don't always match these rules.

Whenever you draw a line and catch yourself guessing, stop and take a step back. Consider the nature of each line and how it should behave.

The organic perspective boxes are definitely challenging, and they're intended to be. I don't expect people to do them perfectly, or even fully grasp them in this lesson. Rather, it's a gauge for me to decide where to send you next. It tests one's ability to rotate simple forms arbitrarily in 3D space. Yours definitely need some work, and we'll get to that.

First, I'd like you to try two more pages of rough perspective boxes. Once that's complete, submit them as a response to this comment. I'll mark the lesson as complete at that point.

Then, once it's been marked as complete, I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. There's a video on drawing boxes and a bunch of notes on other related concepts that should help you out. The challenge itself will allow you to practice drawing boxes in isolation, letting you focus on the specific pitfalls that are common to this sort of task, without having to worry about a bunch of boxes existing within the same scene.

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

2015-07-12 14:37

Your fourth page shows a little more careful observation of the details in your reference image, but in general the others do not. It's not just a matter of seeing that there are dots on your reference, and therefore you will apply dots to your drawing. You need to study how those dots are grouped - do they cover the surface evenly? Are they clustered into little groups? Are they all the same size, or are some larger than others? Are they all circular?

I always tell people that they should spend 90% of the time observing their reference and only 10% of the time drawing. Reason being, the moment you look away from the reference, your memory will start to fail. Most of what you saw will be immediately simplified in your brain. You need to expect yourself to observe and carry over only small amounts, then immediately look back to refresh your memory.

I am still going to mark this lesson as complete. There's going to be plenty of the same challenge in the next lesson, and I don't believe holding you back is going to help you much. That said, you should acknowledge that you need a considerable amount of work in this area, and should continue practicing with that in mind.

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

2015-07-12 14:31

I'm going to mark the challenge as complete, but it is definitely in your best interest to go back and correct things in red. I can see many cases where your far plane comes out bigger than your near plane (240, 238, 246, 207, etc). Your lines are definitely coming out more confidently though, so there has been some improvement over the course of the 250 boxes.

Generally when I see people making that size-relationship mistake often, I recommend that they draw through the boxes completely for a time. That is, draw all the lines of the box, as though the box were transparent. This will allow you to define each plane of the box explicitly, which will in turn show you the size relationships between them.

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

2015-07-12 14:29

Yeah, as /u/Sugarfight said, you didn't quite complete the lesson. Your pen is probably broken though if it's leaking all over the place.

Also, looking at your homework, I'm getting a serious sense of two things- first, you're rushing way too much. In your super imposed lines, you're not taking the time to line up the tip of your pen to the start of your lines, and your fifth page (which could count as the the ghosting lines I guess?) is very chicken-scratchy.

When making a mark, you should be putting much more time into preparing - lining up your pen correctly, finding a comfortable angle of approach, and ghosting through that drawing motion. Then, when you draw the line, the execution itself should be fairly quick to maintain a smooth line. Your lines often wobble, so I'm getting the sense that you're not putting much time into the first part, and then compensating by attempting to be too careful while actually drawing the mark.

I think you should definitely reread the lesson in greater depth, and try this part of your homework again. Then complete the other two parts before submitting again.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-07-10 23:27

You should absolutely be drawing big. It gives you more room to move your arm, and it makes the lines of your drawing seem less thick and clunky.

Anyway, one thing I focused on was your Green Kohlrabi. I did a demo of how I would have tackled it. One thing that really jumped out at me on yours was that your contour lines did not at all wrap around the form convincingly. You definitely need to continue practicing that.

Another thing I noticed is that you were far too quick to jump into detail on the leaves. The thing to remember is that every piece of visual information needs to hinge on some prior framework you put down. Look at my first step - I start off with a simple circle and a few lines. Then, I hinge the simple leaf shapes on those gestural lines. When I get into detail, I add the frayed leaf edges to those simple shapes, but I follow them to maintain that illusion of 3D form.

Don't draw detail expecting to bury your lay-in. The information the lay-in presents is what is most important. We could have stopped at the third step (the end of the lay-in) and it would still read fairly well. Step 4 and 5 only add minor elements that do not at all bury or undermine the base forms captured for the lay-in.

I'd like to see you do more lay-ins, leave any and all detail aside for now. I think another 6 pages of lay-ins should do for now. Also, you should consider practicing some of the organic form exercises from lesson 2 to practice those contour lines. May also want to rewatch the video that was included with that exercise.

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

2015-07-10 22:38

Not bad! Your lines have a general air of confidence, which is great. One thing I do want to point out is that when doing any sort of freehand drawing, you should be using the ghosting technique. It definitely takes longer, but it's worth it to get into that frame of mind of thinking through every mark you want to make - planning and preparing to make it first, and then executing it fairly quickly to achieve a smooth stroke. When doing your organic perspective boxes, you went back to a rougher approach to drawing, which undermines the solidity of the boxes themselves, and the confidence of your lines.

Anyway, I am pleased with your work so feel free to move onto the next lesson. You may also want to check out the 250 box challenge. At the very least, watch the video and read the notes, though the challenge itself is quite helpful when it comes to solidifying one's comfort level with rotating boxes arbitrarily in 3D space.

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

2015-07-10 22:33

Generally very nicely done! Your lines are fairly confident, and I'm quite pleased with how you ghost your lines. That is a fundamental technique, and should be applied to all freehand drawing. It's an important shift to make, thinking and planning, then executing a mark quickly to maintain the smoothness of the stroke. You're doing it quite well.

I do want to remind you that you should be drawing through all of your ellipses regularly, not just for that one exercise - right now the ellipses you didn't draw through often turn out uneven. What's most important as far as an ellipse goes is achieving an even, rounded shape with a smooth consistent stroke. Drawing through the ellipse gives you the leeway to be more confident with your drawing - that confidence often leads to a greater increase in quality. Drawing through a few times also gives you the added benefit of giving your muscles extra practice with every ellipse. Ultimately the goal is to be able to make a consistent, smooth and even ellipse in one go, but in order to work towards that I always recommend focusing on tightening the ellipse, bringing those multiple lines closer together until they fuse into a single stroke. You're well on your way to achieving that, so just keep at it.

Your rough perspective boxes are quite well done, but I do want you to be more careful when applying crosshatching. Don't be sloppy - make sure that the lines are parallel (which yours are), but also make sure they stretch from edge to edge, without having any starting or ending in the middle of the plane. If you're going to add something to a drawing, make sure it is not sloppy. The perspective here was well done however.

Secondly, in all of your box exercises - and any sort of composition-based exercise - it's VERY important that you draw within a frame. Since this relates to composition, I won't explain why just now, but trust me on that. Always enclose your shots in a frame.

Your organic perspective boxes were generally quite well done, but I did sense a hint of discomfort with the idea of rotating boxes arbitrarily in 3D space. It was only slight, but I do think that you should check out the 250 box challenge next. There's a video and some notes there that should help, and the challenge itself should give you the added practice you need to solidify your comfort level.

Anyway, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. Nice work!

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

2015-07-10 22:21

Very nice! Your first two parts - the lines and the ellipses - are very well done. Your line quality is quite confident, and you clearly took your time to make each mark with forethought and planning.

Your plotted perspective boxes are well done too, but things start to fall apart a bit when we hit the rough perspective boxes. It's very clear that you don't fully understand how to use 1 point perspective, so I'll try and explain it briefly.

When it comes to drawing things in perspective - especially simple, aligned boxes, we always know where each line will go. There's absolutely no guessing or uncertainty. If you step back and consider the basic rules that govern the scene, it is straightforward to figure out how a line will behave.

Each of these scenes has three sets of parallel lines. In two point perspective (like your plotted perspective boxes), two of those sets have their own vanishing points, and they converge to those points on the horizon. All that's left are the vertical lines. Instead of converging to a point, they are always perpendicular to the horizon line. In most cases, your horizon line goes straight across left to right, so all your verticals go straight up and down.

In one point perspective, only one set of lines converges to a vanishing point (the lines going off into the distance). This leaves two more sets of lines - the horizontals and the verticals. Just like two point perspective, your verticals run perpendicular to the horizon (so straight up and down). The horizontals always run parallel to the horizon, straight across left to right. These sets of lines do not converge.

Look at this. The blue lines represent the horizontal lines, and the green represent the verticals. So, always remember that when you're doing one of these strictly 1 point, 2 point or 3 point perspective type of drawings, every line goes to a specific place. There's no guesswork. It's inevitable that you'll mess up a line here and there when actually drawing it, but there's no reason to mess up the intent.

Now, I specifically said that this applies to one point/two point/three point perspective drawing exercises. If you look at the organic perspective boxes, it pretty much takes these nice, reliable rules and sets them on fire. But first lets get these nice strict systems settled, then we'll worry about what comes after.

I'd like you to redo the two pages of rough perspective boxes. When you're done, submit them as a response to this comment, and I'll mark the lesson as complete.

THEN, once I've marked the lesson as complete, I want you to go over to the 250 box challenge - there's a video there and some notes that should help you understand that next stage. The organic perspective boxes exercise showed me that you're not entirely comfortable with arbitrarily rotating boxes in 3D space, which is totally okay. I frankly don't expect people to be okay with it at this point, so I use that exercise as a gauge. Watching the video, reading the notes, and doing the exercise will help you increase your comfort level with that sort of fundamental skill. But again, don't worry about that until we've settled the rough perspective box business.

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

2015-07-10 19:53

For the rest of the challenge I kept the paper straight, which made it even more challenging. Do you think I should continue to draw with a straight paper, or does it not matter for now?

I really don't think it's going to help to make something that is already challenging even more complex. Rotating your page is something that helps you immensely when attempting to get comfortable with the drawing motion required to make a particular mark. That's part of the core of the whole ghosting technique which you should be using whenever doing any sort of freehand drawing. Limiting yourself from doing that is going to take something that is already hard for you and make it twice as hard.

Focus on dealing with one problem at a time. It can definitely be argued that there is great benefit from learning to draw a straight line at any angle of approach, but it certainly isn't worth much if it hinders you from learning to draw a straight line at only one angle. Baby steps!

Anyway, on that same topic, while it's great to listen to many sources and learn from many places, if you are doing an exercise that is a part of one particular body of lessons, it is important that you follow that body of lessons to a tee and not try to tweak the methodology while you are practicing it. By doing so you risk missing key points that you might not fully grasp until you are completely finished, and in a position to look at everything that was covered as a whole.

At that point, once you can step back and understand how everything fits together, you can blend what you've learned with other elements, tossing out things that simply didn't work with you and keeping what did.

Anyway, looking at your boxes, you're definitely making progress but there is room to grow. I very much think you should try drawing through your boxes more - that is, drawing all of the lines as though the box itself were transparent. This is because I'm seeing a lot of instances where you're reversing the size relationship between the near/far planes (as explained in the video), like 242 and 249. You've also got some issues with your angles - many of your boxes do not appear to be constructed from right angles, so they look somewhat skewed. Those are definitely things you'll have to work on.

Anyway, congrats on completing the challenge - though I hope you'll continue to practice these simple box exercises as you continue to move forward through the other lessons.

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

2015-07-10 19:06

Not bad! Your exercises are generally well done. There's just a couple things I want to point out, but I will mark this lesson as complete and let you move on.

First off, in the dissections, try to avoid any textures that deal in randomness. The main example of this would be the sides of the eyeball, where you've got a lot of randomly squiggly lines. Instead of relying on randomness, try to identify the rhythms that are present in the surface textures you are studying. You generally did this well, but I wanted to draw your attention to that specific case.

Secondly, while I like how you generally executed your form intersections - you drew confidently and did not think too hard about trying to be overly tidy (being clean is important, but it is secondary to understanding your forms) - you need to keep an eye on your boxes. There are many situations where the near plane/far plane size relationships are reversed, and the far plane ends up larger than the near plane. These are things you should be very mindful of.

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

2015-07-10 19:02

Yes, it would be best for you to replace your dying pens with new ones as quickly as possible, rather than attempting to rely on thinner ones. Obviously the impact will depend on how much thinner the new pen is - a 0.4mm won't be that different from an 0.5, but after a certain point, you'll end up missing out on some of the practice of controlling how much pressure you use when drawing. I like the 0.5's best because it gives you a very wide range of line thickness, based on how hard you press.

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

2015-07-10 19:00

There is no clear answer to this question, because it differs from person to person. What's most important is that you do not attempt to complete the exercise quickly. Rushing won't allow you to complete the exercises to the best of your ability, with the utmost care.

Take the time to read through the lesson carefully - the same goes for each exercise description. Then strive to fill each page with the exercises. Only stop when you yourself are satisfied with your own productivity.

I do not expect any one lesson's homework to be completed in one sitting - it's important to take breaks, and know when you're getting tired. If you try to push yourself too hard, your work will be sloppy, and won't be of much value.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Cylinders"

2015-07-09 20:04

Looking fantastic. I'm loving your attention to the minor axis, and the general solidity of your forms. Just one thing to think about though - instead of shading the sides with short curving lines which stop abruptly, consider applying lines that run length-wise along the cylinder, keeping them closer together at the core of the shadow and letting them space out more, becoming less dense as they radiate outwards. That kind of hatching generates less contrast and fewer tangents, tending to become lower key and generally look smoother.

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

2015-07-09 19:51

Not bad! The only thing I noticed that needs a fair bit of work is your use of the ghosting technique. As it stands, I think you're not spending enough time in the ghosting stage, and are in turn attempting to be too careful and going too slowly when you actually draw the line. This carefulness causes your lines to wobble to varying degrees. Remember that you must wait until you feel entirely comfortable with the drawing motion before making the mark - and the process of making the mark should be relatively quick so as to let your muscles take over.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I think you should tackle the 250 box challenge next. Usually I point people to that challenge when their box forms are weak. Yours are generally fine (though everyone can benefit from more practice), but this exercise will give you a chance to practice that ghosting method. The technique, after all, should be applied to all freehand drawing, including the freehand box exercises from this lesson.

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

2015-07-09 19:47

I definitely think you're starting to get it. There's definitely room to grow, so keep practicing on your own, but I'm pleased enough to mark this lesson as complete and send you onto the next one.

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

2015-07-09 18:48

Your arrows are fairly well done, but I am a bit put off by the light, somewhat timid touch with which you draw some of your lines. In the organic forms, the outer shape has a nice confident line (which is great), but your ellipses are timid and often half-drawn. Don't think in terms of, this line should be rough/light, and this line should be dark and prominent. All of your lines should be confident and apparent. We can apply extra weight afterwards, but there should be no lines that you do not confidently present as part of your drawing. So, the ellipses and the contour curves should be complete and continuous. You may make mistakes, but that's fine. These are just exercises, after all.

Your dissections are alright, though they do suffer from the same problem. The contour lines are wrapping well around the forms, giving a sense of volume, but those timid lines really undermine their solidity.

In your form intersections, there's only really two things that are off - it's general roughness/sloppiness. Use the ghosting technique when you're drawing your lines, and don't use more than one mark per line. Don't let it get chickens-scratchy. If you want to add weight after the fact, that's fine, but when you're drawing the forms initially, it's just a single, clean, ghosted mark per line. Using the ghosting technique here will also help straighten your lines.

Secondly, you don't have to apply hatching, but when you do you should be much more thoughtful and conscientious about it. Strive to be tidy and neat, don't let your presentation suffer where it could simply be improved by taking more time with it.

Your forms generally do show improvement over the boxes from the last lesson, but I'd still like you to complete the 250 box challenge. Once you've done that, please redo the organic forms/dissections/form intersections. It'll be nice to see the degree of improvement after the challenge.

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

2015-07-09 16:38

That's something everyone generally needs to face when they start drawing. It's perfectly natural, and will decrease with time and practice. Right now your homework generally looks very strong. You clearly took your time and thought through every line you drew.

I did notice that you're showing some discomfort with the organic perspective boxes - this is kind of expected. I don't really intend for people to be able to do this perfectly right off the bat, rather it's a way for me to see what the best next step would be. So, I'll mark this lesson as complete but I'd like you to take a look at the 250 box challenge. The challenge post includes a video and some helpful notes on various related topics. Give them a watch/read, then do the challenge. It should help increase your comfort level with that general concept of rotating simple forms arbitrarily in 3D space.

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

2015-07-08 20:18

You should generally wait for my critique on one lesson before moving onto the next. That way I can pick up on certain mistakes before they trickle down into the next set of homework, ultimately saving us time and effort.

Anyway, your lines exercises are looking pretty solid, as are your ellipses. Your rough perspective boxes are generally fine as well, though you have a tendency to become less accurate as you move away from the vanishing point. As you get further to the left or right of the vanishing point, your lines don't actually converge at the VP - instead they hit other points on the horizon. You should make sure that you are more aware of your tendency to do this, so you can compensate for it in the future.

It appears that you did not complete the organic perspective boxes exercise, so I'm not going to be able to mark this lesson as complete.

As far as lesson 2 goes, I'm not going to go into an indepth critique since lesson 1 isn't completed, but I will mention the following: Your arrows are fine, but your organic forms with contour curves are not done correctly. The contour curves do not give the impression that they are wrapping around the form, rather that they simply stop abruptly. Remember that you are drawing 3D forms so you need to convey that illusion of volume. I discuss this common issue in this video, which was included in the lesson.

Your dissections suffer form the same problem, and you once again missed an exercise - the form intersections.

I'm getting the impression that you might not be reading the lessons as carefully as you should. It would be in your best interest to go back and read both lessons in greater detail.

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

2015-07-08 20:11

I'm puzzled that you feel your second attempt at the rough perspective boxes looks worse. It's significantly improved. Your boxes feel much more solid than they did before, and everything looks very deliberate.

I generally prefer people to wait for my critique before moving onto the next lesson (often times a mistake in one lesson will trickle down to the next) but go ahead and submit the lesson 2 homework if you've already completed it.

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

2015-07-08 20:06

I'll mark this as complete. Your lines are definitely better. Right now however you're working in a lot of long/stretched forms which brings perspective a bit too much into play. That complicates things a lot more than we need.

Note the following form the lesson:

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.

Look at figure 3.3, and note how the form I chose is fairly equilateral; it's the roughly the same size in all three dimensions. These forms are going to be easier to manipulate.

I do think you should continue to practice this exercise on your own, because there is room to grow, but you're moving in the right direction. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2015-07-08 20:02

Definitely shows improvement. I'll mark this lesson as complete, but one thing I'd like you to keep in mind is the integrity of your straight lines. Especially when defining the shaft of a cylinder, you have a tendency to curve the lines when they reach either end, to connect with the ellipses. The thing about curving lines is that they don't feel solid. They don't represent a clear decision - rather, the curve encompasses several possible lines. Try to focus more on keeping your lines straight where they need to be.

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

2015-07-08 19:58

Not bad! I like the confidence of your lines quite a bit. There are some issues, but I'm going to mark this lesson as complete anyway.

When you said that your linework was shaky, I immediately thought that I might see some wobbling. I'm glad to see that I didn't - it's just a matter of accuracy and arcing, which is easier to solve in the long run. You just need to spend more time ghosting through your drawing motion. You may also want to play with compensating for certain tendencies - that is, if when drawing a straight line it has a tendency to arc upwards, try to instead draw a line that arcs downward slightly. This should result in a somewhat straighter line.

One somewhat minor issue I noticed is that when your ellipses get large, you start to loose control of them. That is, when you draw through them multiple times (which is great) the different lines end up spreading out quite a bit. Focus on keeping them tightly together. After a certain point, when the lines separate too much, there ceases to be any sort of a useful elliptical shape there.

In both of your freehand box exercises (rough/organic perspective boxes), you should be using the ghosting technique when drawing your lines. This technique should be applied whenever you have to draw freehand lines. It applies to curving lines too, or ellipses. Right now without the ghosting technique, your lines come out too loose and not terribly well thought out. The boxes themselves end up lacking solidity, since the lines don't end up straight.

Also, when you're applying hatching/shading to the boxes, do so with care and thoughtfulness. On a flat surface, the lines should be parallel, separate and stretch from one edge to the other. Nothing scribbly, nothing loose, nothing careless and nothing zigzagging.

Last of all, the organic perspective boxes exercise is meant to give me an idea of how you are with rotating simple forms arbitrarily in 3D space. I by no means expect people to be able to do this perfectly, it just influences what kind of recommendations I give in terms of what you should tackle next. Yours weren't too badly done, but there does appear to be a little discomfort with the concept, so I do recommend that you take a look at the 250 box challenge next. There's a video and some notes there that should help solidify your comfort level and also help take your boxes to the next level with tips on the use of line weight. The challenge itself will also help you practice ghosting your lines in the context of drawing actual forms.

Also, in the organic perspective box exercises, I noticed that you were exhibiting a fair bit of inconsistent perspective distortion. Check out these notes on the subject. Basically, the rate at which the far end of a box was getting smaller than the near end were consistent across the different boxes.

Anywho! Tackle the 250 box challenge, and then move onto lesson 2.