Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2015-04-21 23:02

You're getting there, but you're not spending enough on the lay-ins. Right now I don't see anything resembling figure 2.3 (from the mexican wolf demo), where I flesh in all of the major forms. You jump too early from a basic lay-in of the cranial mass, the ribcage and the pelvis, to the whole animal.

A really good example is on page 8, the front view of the rhino. We have no idea at all how that horn - a solid, 3D mass - connects to the rest of the head. Similarly, we don't know how the muzzle of the rhino connects back to its cranial mass. If you look at the wolf demo, I've got a solid shape coming off the circle to represent the muzzle.

You always want to be building forms off of other forms. If you find yourself with random shapes floating around, chances are you're missing an intermediary step.

Generally you did a good job with the detail, though. You're very close, I think just fixing up the lay-in stage will push you to the next level.

I'd like to see two more pages of animals, with a greater focus on lay-in constructions.

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

2015-04-21 22:52

You're almost there. The biggest issue I'm seeing is that you're drawing forms very timidly, like you're afraid to put lines on the page. What I want to see is people thinking through the lines that they put down - making sure that each line serves a purpose to either help the artist better understand the forms and how they sit in 3D space and relate to one another, or to help convey necessary information to the viewer.

Basically, what I want to see are complete forms. If you find yourself leaving gaps between lines, chances are you're being too timid.

Secondly, slow down when you're applying detail. I'm seeing a lot of lines that were definitely drawn way too quickly. Just slowing down, and paying closer attention to exactly what kind of detail you're trying to carry over from your reference to the drawing should help.

Thirdly, take a look at the bottom of page 6 - the carapace/shell on that beetle type thing. Those contour lines are not at all helping give me a sense of the form they're supposed to wrap around. Again, they're timid, and that timidness is messing them up. You've got to think about the form itself, how it sits in three dimensions, not worrying about leaving as few marks on the page. The rest of that insect is, as far as the form goes, quite good.

I'd like to see three more pages of insects - for the first two, don't go into any detail. Just draw the lay-ins. They should be recognizable, just don't go into any extra detail. On the third page, you may go into detail, but remember to slow down and look for the rhythm in your surface textures. Don't just scribble wildly and hope for the best.

Uncomfortable in the post "Check out Bryan Lee's Sketchbook Kickstarter. More info in the comments"

2015-04-21 18:46

Yeah, it hit me in much the same way. Not much you can do about it though, aside from continually pushing yourself to close those gaps.

Uncomfortable in the post "Check out Bryan Lee's Sketchbook Kickstarter. More info in the comments"

2015-04-21 13:24

The impression you give of yourself through social media is critical to one's success - though personally I've only followed him on Art Station, so I don't know much about him as a person.

That said, looking at his deviantART page for all of thirty seconds, it looks like he's rather gracious about answering all of the questions he receives.

Uncomfortable in the post "Check out Bryan Lee's Sketchbook Kickstarter. More info in the comments"

2015-04-21 00:11

I don't usually go out and endorse others' projects, but I think this one would be of interest to some of you. I've been following Bryan Lee's ArtStation page for some time now, specifically drawn in by some of his beautiful anatomy studies.

Today I found out that he's trying to release a sketchbook. Based on what I've seen from the work he's posted online, I can't help but be excited by the notion. He does a fantastic job of capturing all the subtleties of form and energy in his subjects, and I'm eager to see more of it. I figured some of you might be interested in that as well.

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

2015-04-20 21:21

When you start off, your boxes aren't bad, but what's generally lacking is confidence. As you progress, you show a marked improvement. You don't seem as uncertain of yourself.

The only thing I'd say you could change is, when you find a line you draw is slightly off, don't correct it (in this case, don't correct it in black). Leave it as it is, adding more ink will draw attention to the issue.

I award you one more banana.

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

2015-04-19 19:11

The time per lay-in is completely irrelevant, and there's no real answer for your question. Reason being, it takes everyone a different amount of time to put in the amount of information they need. One thing I don't want you to do is try to consciously speed your process up. It'll happen naturally, but if you try to speed yourself up you risk losing perspective on the issue and becoming sloppy.

As for this lesson, you did pretty well. There's only one issue I noticed, and that's your center-alignment. You should be using the subdivision to find the center of your box so you can align the rest of the object to it. Like this.

Notice how I took the center of the bottom and the top planes to find the center line? That is something you need to be doing specifically with ellipses. I noticed you started taking the center point on page 12, but you don't actually have any sort of a directional line to follow, so your cylinder ends up being set at a slightly incorrect angle.

Anyway, keep those in mind. I'm still going to mark this lesson as complete, but you should still continue to do studies like these.

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

2015-04-19 18:49

Not bad. I think the biggest cause of the 'messiness' is that you're not taking the time to lay down your lines cleanly. It sounds pretty obvious, but it's definitely just a matter of rushing.

Your cross-hatching tends to look sloppy and uncontrolled. You set out the shape of your shadows, but then your hatching lines overshoot the shape, or start halfway through it. You should be taking the time to line up your pen so it starts at one side, and ends at the other. These lines should also be fairly parallel to one another.

Also, don't go back and hatch in the opposite direction, making a sort of grid. That just looks bad.

I did notice a few other instances of you simply not taking the time to think through your decisions before drawing the lines. Ghosting is your friend - find a comfortable angle, mark your beginning and end points, and ghost ghost ghost through the drawing motion as many times as you need to get accustomed to the line you want to draw. Then just draw it down once.

There's nothing wrong with drawing through your forms, and more than anything I encourage it. But every line you put down should serve a purpose. Either to help you understand the form better, or to help convey it to the viewer. If you can't find a specific way a line is adding to your drawing, then chances are that it shouldn't be there.

All that said, there's no reason to hold you back. For the most part your forms are okay, and you seem to understand what you're doing, it's just a matter of requiring more drawing mileage. Go ahead and move onto the next lesson, but be sure to continue practicing these things regularly.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2015-04-19 18:17

Great work. I especially liked how your birds came out. I'm not 100% sure where I sit on doing your lay-ins with marker. It kind of sidesteps the benefit of doing the whole thing with black ink (which forces you to really think through your decisions). It'll probably be better for you to stick to just the black pen for these exercises.

Either way, overall you did really well. Some of your lions are a bit derpy, but it happens. Onwards to the next lesson!

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

2015-04-19 18:13

Pretty good. If you ever find yourself having trouble with understanding how the form sits in 3D space, try drawing through it completely (including the lines that you generally wouldn't be able to see).

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-04-18 19:25

As far as the silhouettes and forms go, you did well. What I don't like though is your tendency to be very scribbly and haphazard. You're laying down lines without much thought to what purpose they serve, which leads to a very 'sketchy' sort of aesthetic. While I absolutely support drawing through forms consciously when you need to reinforce your understanding of a form you've drawn, you need to reel yourself back and put more effort into thinking before you draw. Every line on the page must serve a purpose, whether to help convey something to the viewer, or to help you get a better grasp of what you're drawing.

For example, on page 11, there are a lot of crisscrossing lines that aren't really contributing anything. On top of that, since you didn't stop to think very much before putting them down, they don't always align correctly to your form.

Anyway, that's actually a pretty common issue, but I definitely want you to work hard to shake it off. I'll mark this lesson as complete because you nailed what I was most interested in seeing (the forms), so I'd like to see your work for lesson 4 show that you're putting much more thought and planning into your drawings. Remember, spend 90% of your time observing, visualizing and planning, and only 10% of your time drawing.

One last thing - your photos are a little blurry, so it makes it a little difficult to appreciate the smaller details you've put in.

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

2015-04-18 19:17

Looking good. Your corrections definitely show a good understanding of what you're doing right and what's going a bit awry. You may also want to consider playing with the line weights in the future, as right now all your lines are fairly uniform.

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

2015-04-18 01:31

Well done! I think you started off at a point where the mistakes in your early boxes were fairly minor and at times hard to notice, but you worked well towards ironing those out. There definitely is progress between the first and last pages, though since the mistakes themselves were small, at times it's harder to notice.

Uncomfortable in the post "Why do I recommend doing the exercises in ink vs digitally?"

2015-04-18 01:11

With these lessons, I am trying to instill a certain set of values, and pencils tend to go against some of the important points. Most significantly, pencils are too forgiving - they allow you to think more on the page, scribbling and sketching lightly instead of thinking about every mark you put down. I always encourage people to put on the paper what they need (if that means drawing through forms to better understand how they sit in the scene or adding contour lines to help themselves better perceive the forms as three-dimensional), but I try to get people to shake off the habit of being rough and sketchy.

For the same reason, I only allow the use of ballpoint pen for the first two lessons, and I still try to discourage it. Even ballpoint allows you to sketch quite lightly with very little consequence. Felt tip pen on the other hand, especially in an inexperienced hand, will leave a dark mark no matter what. Every line counts, and each one will stand out like a naked fat man in a busy intersection.

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

2015-04-16 03:43

I donno what you're talking about - most of this is pretty damn solid. My biggest priority are the forms, and for the most part you capture those quite well. The rhino beetle is definitely my favourite. With the elephant moth, your forms kind of flatten out, but you seem to be aware of that, and compensate in later drawings. Still, keep an eye on how those contour lines wrap around the forms. Sometimes you have a tendency to have them stop very suddenly when they reach the edge of the form, which definitely contributes to the flatness.

I definitely think that as you continue to move through these lessons, the amount of detail you'll notice when observing your reference will increase, and you'll find yourself using a greater degree of nuance and finesse. It'll all come with time, but you're definitely on the right track.

Onwards to the next lesson!

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

2015-04-16 02:49

I'm really glad to see how your lines have become significantly cleaner and more confident as you reach the end of the challenge. Definitely a very nice improvement. Great work!

Uncomfortable in the post "Why do I recommend doing the exercises in ink vs digitally?"

2015-04-16 02:01

Printer paper's just fine. In class, we used toned recycled paper (you can get them as sketchbooks) but we're not really taking advantage of it here, due to how I've tweaked the lessons. Any paper will do.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-04-15 12:54

The pen looks good.

As for the wrapping of contour lines, it's like how I explain it in this video. The problem lies where the contour curve hits the edge of the form - it's not turning enough to really give the impression that it's wrapping around. Instead, if you were to continue drawing the curve, it feels like it would just keep going off the form.

It's a pretty common issue that people have, and it usually stems from not visualizing what you're drawing as a cylinder. Try to remind yourself of the curvature of the surface you're drawing - your paper is flat, but the form itself is rounded, so try to convince yourself that you are in fact drawing on a rounded surface instead. What you perceive is often what will show through in the drawing.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-04-14 21:32

Nice forms and lay-ins. I did notice that when it comes to the cylindrical forms, your contour lines don't wrap around properly (as explained in the organic form video.

Generally though you did pretty well. A good hierarchy of forms, didn't get too bogged down with detail, etc. I am a little concerned about the left side of page 11, I'm not sure if that's supposed to be surface texture or sketchy lines. If it's surface texture, it's very random - texture usually carries some kind of rhythm or pattern which you'll notice if you look closely enough. If it's just rough sketchy lines, remember to try and think in terms of specific forms - which you do for the most part elsewhere.

Anyway, I'll mark this as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson. Also, I'm not sure if you're using a felt tip pen or a ballpoint - if it's the former, good work, and if it's the latter, make sure to use felt tip next time.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Cylinders"

2015-04-14 21:29

Congrats on completing the challenge. One thing to consider is that it's probably better to draw through your ellipses whenever you draw them. Your shapes aren't always the best, so that should help.

There are a few other things to take into consideration when drawing cylinders, and I've been meaning to make a video about it, akin to my 'how to draw a box' one. I'll be doing that soon.. probably. GTA V came out on PC today though soo... maybe not too soon.

Uncomfortable in the post "Video: Not the usual fundamentals-fare, but here's a digital painting process video"

2015-04-14 03:15

Thanks. Here's a stab at your questions:

• I do use chalk brushes primarily, but I've got a few varieties of them instead of just one. Over time my brush set has expanded a fair bit, but I usually only paint with a few at a time, and most just sit there collecting dust. My brush collection include those from James Paick, Shaddy Safadi and Corbin Hunter. I rarely use the regular round brush unless I need to put down some very fine detail, which usually I avoid regardless.

• I never adjust the opacity - it stays at 100%. Instead, I have most, if not all of my brushes use my tablet pen pressure to control the opacity. With practice in digital media, as well as the exercises I explain in other lessons here using felt tip pens, I've built up a degree of control of the pressure. I think my flow is set to 50% usually, but that's because I accidentally saved my tool presets with that, and am too lazy to change it.

• For a long while, when I was limited to using my laptop, I'd do all my paintings at 2500x1350. I wasn't doing anything for print, everything was a doodle or a study, so there was no sense in going bigger. Now I still use that as a go-to size for starting. Once I've laid down a composition I like, I blow it up - for this one, I think it was 5000x3000.

• In Photoshop I'm pretty sure we don't have options between ink/paint/pencil like you'd see in some software packages that try to mimic traditional media

As far as painting goes, it always helps for it to rest on top of a more structured understanding of drawing. Practicing that and working on your understanding of form and value might help you push your paintings to the next level. It's often very tempting to jump ahead into working digitally, as well as in colour, but it's not always the best idea.

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

2015-04-13 23:44

I'm kind of surprised at the number of programmers I get around here. Definitely a good thing to see, though.

Nice lay-ins! I think the fly on page 3 is my favourite. The spider above it is fantastic too.

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

2015-04-13 23:43

Nice work. I hope that helped increase your comfort level!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-04-11 02:22

Go ahead and do them, but there's no need to submit them to me.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-04-11 01:44

Hm... There is a certain stiffness to them, but they are definitely better. They feel more solid, as if they exist in space. On the left of page 3, I can feel that some of those leaves are coming out towards me in space, while others sit behind it. It's certainly by no means perfect, but it's a big step in the right direction.

I'll mark this lesson as complete. Often I find that once people who are having trouble reach a certain point with the plants, they learn the remaining concepts better when applying them to the insects in the following lesson. So, go ahead and move onto lesson 4 and we'll see how things go.

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

2015-04-11 00:52

Tedious as they may be, them's some handsome looking boxes. Very confident. Nice work.

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

2015-04-09 22:08

You're either getting way better with the cylinders or getting way worse. I'm hoping the latter (that'd be the case if the ones on page 1 are the later cylinders). I did notice that the vast majority of your cylinders aren't making any use of the minor axis though. The minor axis is super important, because it aligns your ellipses to one another, allowing you to build a believable cylinder between them.

Anyway, I think you're definitely on the right track. Take another stab at lesson 6 - do 4 pages, and we'll see how things have changed.

AND USE THOSE MINOR AXES!

Uncomfortable in the post "Announcement: What would you want out of a dedicated ArtFundamentals website?"

2015-04-09 15:05

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm definitely limited by what I know myself (you won't see any animation lessons unless someone else with that skill set is willing to put in the time required to create lessons and write critiques), but the plan is definitely to expand into other areas. Eventually I'm planning to reach topics such as form language/design, digital painting (rendering, colour, etc.), illustration (composition, storytelling). It'll definitely take some time, but I'll get to them eventually. Probably.

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

2015-04-08 21:55

Pretty good. The griddy-ness isn't too bad here, but that's mostly because they fall in line with what looks natural on an insect. It'll start shooting you in the foot with animals and such - the key there is just to keep it from being regularly spaced. We'll worry about that later though.

One thing I did notice though is that you're still very sketchy and uncertain with your lines. If you're not sure of something, chances are that you're not breaking forms down enough. Right now, looking at the underlying lines (the lighter ones), they're drawn very non-committaly, as though you are expecting yourself to screw it up. That lack of confidence will always show through.

It's fine if you fuck up a drawing or two on a page. Sometimes really nailing a drawing can increase the stress because you don't want to put a steaming pile of shit on the same page. Don't concern yourself with that. Imagine that you're going to be tossing all of the pages in a fire right afterwards. Just rush into it.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-04-08 21:48

Definitely better. Don't forget to draw through your ellipses though to achieve the correct shape (which should be your top priority). Also, your shading flattens out your forms, as every individual hatching line works as a tiny contour curve.

Here's an explanation.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-04-08 01:15

I'm not entirely sure what that is. Could you include the reference photo? Also, post to a new imgur album, it's hard to keep track of what's new and what isn't.

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

2015-04-08 01:02

Funnily enough, I think your best work is with the cylindrical objects. The reason for this is because you know they're a weak point, so you approach them more carefully. You focus more on breaking things down into smaller forms, and the result comes out much better.

You're too cocky with the boxier objects. You don't break them down enough, you jump from the overall box right down into the little nuances. Step back and take your time constructing those forms. Focus on the angles, and try treating everything as a form intersection. Not just a combination of forms being added to each other, but think about how you might take one form and subtract it from another. Try approaching it in that manner instead of guessing how you should carve into a particular form to get a certain result.

Also, I noticed that because you're finding this subject a little overwhelming (as anyone would), you're getting very rough with your lines. You're thinking on the page, instead of trying to visualize and think through the problems before drawing. Draw only what you need to understand a problem. Don't draw a few lines hoping for one of them to be correct.

This will definitely require you to draw more basic forms (to help build up the construction), so when you do, remember the ghosting technique.

I'd like you to do another 8 pages of these every day objects. I'd say devote at least 6 of them to boxy objects, and the last two can be cylindrical.

Don't get me wrong - you're doing very well. The spray bottle on page 2 looks especially good, and I like the bottles you've drawn on page 3 and 4. I just think you could do even better by focusing more on your constructions instead of relying on so much guesswork.

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

2015-04-06 23:58

Congrats on completing the challenge. Keep up the good work.

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

2015-04-06 23:54

You definitely have more room to grow, but I see a lot of progress and development through your homework. This topic is definitely a lot harder than the previous organic stuff we've been dealing with, so you should be pleased with how you are coming along.

I think the one thing I could suggest to help guide you is to consider which of the marks you're making are wasteful and which have purpose. Which ones are exploratory and uncertain, and which ones have been previsualized and are part of a greater plan. Remember the ghosting technique, and how it forces you to plan through everything. Try to carry that mindset into how you draw anything.

Anyway, go ahead and move onto the next lesson - but try and keep up with doing these kinds of still life studies, they'll definitely help you improve rather rapidly.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-04-06 23:36

There's a few major issues here that are impeding you quite a bit.

• Your work is very stiff - there's no organic flow to most of your lines. You should look at lesson 2 (which like everything else has been updated since you completed it) and try doing some of the arrow exercises.

• Your contour ellipses don't vary at all in degree, so in terms of the perspective, it looks weird. Watch this video in full, it should explain some of those concepts.

• Most of all, I'm really not seeing much lay-in in your plant studies. Sometimes I feel like I see traces of pencil drawings, which you should not be doing at all, though that might be something peeking through the page underneath. Your drawings shouldn't seem to jump in from nothing into full definition. I want to see you going from basic shapes and forms, into breaking those forms into smaller simple forms, then expanding into detail.

Since you've come back after a long time, I think it'd be in your best interest to at least look over the previous lessons. I think you're missing quite a bit of what is conveyed there.

Once you've done that, I'd like to see you try another four pages of plant studies - and don't do them when you're distracted (like sitting in class). Do them in an environment and situation where you can really focus on what you're doing.

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

2015-04-06 00:45

Definitely seeing a lot of improvement. Keep it up!

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

2015-04-05 17:36

Well done, I definitely see a good deal of improvement in both your confidence and your eye for perspective throughout the exercise.

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

2015-04-04 19:34

Definitely seeing some steady improvement between the beginning and the end. Your comfort level has certainly increased, so I'm pleased to see that. Nice work!

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

2015-04-04 19:33

I think the dominos are my favourite. Keep an eye on your near/far plane relationships though. You should definitely go back with a different coloured pen - I noticed that you did in some cases, but you missed quite a bit, so it'd be worth going over it again.

Also, don't forget to use the ghosting technique. Most of your lines are solid and fairly clean, but it might help with the bowing lines, and you have a bit of a tendency to get sloppy near the end.

Anyway, pretty good work. Congrats on completing the challenge.

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

2015-04-04 19:16

This is a problem that I'm seeing from all your boxes. The near/far plane relationship is reversed.

I think it'd be a very good idea for you to do the 250 box challenge and the 250 cylinder challenge before revisiting this lesson. Instead of doing them separately though, I think I'd recommend that you do the boxes, then put a cylinder inside of each one.

Note what I demonstrated in my last critique. Use the diagonals to find the centers of the near and far plane, and draw a line through those center points to find the 'center spine'. Then align your ellipse's minor axes to this spine. You didn't do that in your most recent homework.

I think doing both of these challenges in this way will help improve your comfort level with these two forms - and they're pretty much the most important ones you'll deal with in this kind of construction.

Uncomfortable in the post "Video: Not the usual fundamentals-fare, but here's a digital painting process video"

2015-04-03 18:35

Unfortunately, I don't have any specific recommendations for you. I've never taken any online courses before, so I don't really know much about the specific classes. The only class I took that comes to mind is Environment Design with James Paick - which was offered through CG Master Academy (though I took it in person at a different school), but unfortunately James Paick doesn't seem to be teaching for them anymore. Likely because he and John Park started a new school, though I don't think that offers anything online.

I have heard good things about CG Master Academy, but since I don't have any experience with them, I can't make any assertions.

I do plan to eventually move onto some digital painting related subjects (like rendering materials, composition, etc.) eventually, but that won't be for a while. I'm still chugging through more basic, traditional topics. Next up I'm on drawing people, then after that, some more design topics (character/creature/prop/etc).

Eventually I'll get there, assuming drawabox continues to grow and eventually becomes something a little more stable and sustainable.

Edit: Oh, I thought of something I wanted to add. It totally makes sense not to splurge on the expensive classes if you're doing this as a hobby - but if you are trying to work your way up to doing this professionally, you should likely try and shift your mindset about paying for education. There's a lot of shitty classes out there, but there are also a lot of great ones. If you happen to find one that's recommended by others, chances are you're going to get back much more than you put in. Everything is an investment.

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

2015-04-02 22:57

Actually, your zebra spider was one of my favourites. You captured the hairy surface without resorting to random lines (which would have made the spider look like an eight legged scrotum... oh god, why did I say that, now I'm going to have nightmares). You looked closely and found the rhythm and pattern of the fur, and did a pretty good job of putting it down. You also generally avoided too much noise and competition, by maintaining that rhythm. It keeps the contrast fairly low.

I think your work starts to get a little weaker with the praying mantis and the moth, but generally is well done. Keep an eye on your proportions when doing your lay-ins, and always be aware of how different forms connect to each other.

Anywho - good work. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-04-02 22:54

Great work, wrong thread. I'll mark the challenge as complete, of course, but keep an eye on where you're posting! :P

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

2015-04-02 22:46

Haha, yeah, tedium is the name of the game. You did well though. Glad to see you drew through a lot of the boxes, and played with line weights. Nice work!

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

2015-04-02 22:33

Congrats on completing the challenge. I definitely want to point out that after the first page, your boxes suddenly get really small. It's much easier to get sloppy and to make mistakes when you draw tiny like that, so try to avoid it. Bigger boxes come out looking much more confident, and the lines themselves end up looking finer relative to the size of the box - since on a tiny drawing, lines will immediately start to appear to be very thick and clunky, due to the relationship with the size of the drawing itself.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-04-02 22:24

So I am going to let you move forward. There are still some issues, but I think in general you'll benefit more from the next lesson, due to the shift in subject matter.

What stands out most about this one is the attempt at capturing those really minute details. Consider the fact that you had to look SUPER close to the plant to notice them. This tells us that the viewer looking at the plant from the distance at which you drew it isn't going to be able to see it.

Whenever you try and capture a pattern that seems somewhat random, look at it and try to spot the pattern. There are very few things that are truly random. Furthermore, try and treat the details as you treat the overall forms. Start capturing big overall shapes, and then break them down into smaller ones. At every stage, you should feel like you've got some kind of general scaffolding/framework to hang your next level of detail off of.

Here's how I tackled that avacado plant.

I did like the pseudotrillium rivale though - aside from the haphazard lines inside, you captured and broke down the forms quite well. Always remember that nothing should ever be scribbled or put down randomly. Things usually follow some kind of rhythm or pattern.

Uncomfortable in the post "Video: Not the usual fundamentals-fare, but here's a digital painting process video"

2015-04-02 18:25

Actually, I had a lot of layers there - but I painted as though i was painting on only one. By that I mean, I didn't separate things out logically onto their own layers. When I felt like going in a new direction, or experimenting, I'd create a new layer and just keep going. I rarely ever painted underneath layers, they only existed to preserve older states of my image, allowing me to go back if I need to (which I almost never do). The only time I took advantage of the layers was when I darkened the standing figure.

I definitely agree that layers can be very distracting. The reason I paint this way is because worrying about being on the right layer takes me away from the painting process itself, and ruins my momentum. Practicing painting on one layer will probably increase your comfort level with this approach. Really it's a matter of being comfortable with painting over mistakes or areas you'd like to change, rather than erasing them or trying to make them work. If something isn't working, be bold, and just paint right over it.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-04-02 00:11

I'm very tired, so I'll be doing your critique tomorrow. In the mean time, could you show me the photo reference you used for the avacado plant? I'll probably do a quick demo of it.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-04-01 23:02

Slow down there. I haven't even critiqued your homework from the first lesson yet. I have glanced at it, and there are some major issues. The way these lessons are structured, each one builds on the one before it - so if you've got issues on the early lessons and you've rushed ahead, you're going to end up having to redo a lot. Wait for me to finish critiquing the first lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2015-04-01 22:20

You definitely show a great deal of improvement over the three attempts. That said, there are several major issues with your approach.

• Most significantly, I see a lot of wasted linework. Your lines are uncertain, and therefore unplanned. It means that you are thinking on the page itself, rather than attempting to think through in your mind and draw the results. It's true that I encourage drawing through forms, but that is because those forms are key to understanding how the object sits in 3D space. The forms themselves, their positioning and orientation, you understand in your head and then transfer on paper. They're generally easier to understand because they're but simple forms.

• Sometimes you're skipping a lot of the steps I demonstrate in the lesson, other times you do the steps but do them very loosely or incorrectly. When you start, you block in the three major forms - cranium, ribcage, pelvis. You're not just drawing arbitrary ellipses, you're blocking in where the entirety of that form exists. Actually look at your reference and see where the rib cage begins and ends, how it's angled and oriented. Then draw a simplification of it that roughly matches in position, rotation and scale.

• Remember that while these forms are generally organic, they're still form intersections (like from lesson 2). Every form should fit together. This is a mistake I see a lot of people make, and a good example of it is on heads. They'll draw the cranial mass (which is a ball) and then arbitrarily draw the head around it. The snout is a box that connects to that ball, so you should draw it as one, keenly aware of how they fit together. The entire body should be treated in this fashion.

• Don't forget that these forms you're drawing are 3D. A lot of the torsos I see look very flat because you yourself are not perceiving them as 3D forms as you draw. Practice your organic forms with contour lines beforehand, and then try and apply those principles to your animal drawings.

Keeping everything I've mentioned above in mind, give this lesson another shot.