Uncomfortable's Advice from /r/ArtFundamentals
uncomfortable's Comments | Check out their posts instead

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Boxes"

2015-01-28 23:16

Do whatever you can to make yourself feel comfortable and help digest the concepts. If that means writing out your thoughts on the page, then more power to you. It looks like your methods worked - the last several pages are looking far more confident, and generally correct. You've made a lot of progress!

Uncomfortable in the post "Video: Portrait study timelapse by Mike Meth, a good friend of mine - focus on how he lays in the underlying structure of the face"

2015-01-28 22:23

It's a very common issue that when working on a piece for a while, we get used to it. We've been staring at mistakes for so long that they start to look correct to us. Flipping the canvas is a great way to look at the illustration with a fresh eye. When working traditionally, artists would often use mirrors to give themselves a different perspective on their work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Video: Portrait study timelapse by Mike Meth, a good friend of mine - focus on how he lays in the underlying structure of the face"

2015-01-28 14:58

Fantastic videos - I'm definitely going to take a closer look at them after work. Personally, I find that when learning, people have a tendency to ignore the existence of the different planes on the face if they aren't forced to mark them out in line. I do agree that in the long run, it may be more helpful to forego as much line as possible. Once a person can recognize and understand that these different planar shifts exist, then it's probably better to move into painting it entirely in value. Of course, there's always a hundred different ways to reach a good result, and everyone has a method that suits them best.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-01-27 21:06

Up to page 5, it wasn't particularly promising. Your lay-ins are completely done in 2D, which makes it somewhat difficult (but not impossible) to transition into capturing the proper 3D form. What you should be laying in is more of an extension of the form intersections from the previous lesson. Most elements will be captured as 3D forms, save for the few parts that are generally less substantial and weighty (individual petals, leaves, etc - though masses of them can create organic forms). These would be captured as 2D shapes, but even the shapes themselves often turn in 3D space.

Up to page 5, while they aren't the best, they still do demonstrate some movement into 3D, I just think that since your lay-ins are still 2D, you're setting it up to be a little more difficult for yourself. What I find disappointing about them is that the forms tend to be awkward and stiff, and the detailing is often too dense and distracting.

All that said, page 6 and onwards are very well done. They seem far more controlled. You capture your shapes more confidently, and your detailing seems to have been held back - you don't create lots of contrast everywhere for the sake of it, instead you produce attractive focal points. Page 7 is definitely the best example of this.

I'm marking this lesson as complete, because you've shown some clear progression. Try and carry over those strengths into the future.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-27 17:44

Well done! Your lines and ellipses are solid. These exercises will help most if you do them regularly, so try and incorporate some amount of each into a warmup routine.

Your boxes are also pretty solid - what stands out most t ome though is your crosshatching. At times it comes out somewhat haphazard and sloppy - if you're going to add crosshatching, or anything for that matter, make sure that you do it carefully and cleanly. Otherwise something that wasn't necessary in the first place could take a good drawing and make it look shoddy.

I'm a little on the fence about your organic perspective boxes. They generally look good, but I can't shake this feeling that you're a little uncomfortable with rotating the forms arbitrarily in 3D space. If you do feel that you're not quite as comfortable as you'd like to be, give the 250 box challenge a shot. The post itself has several sets of notes that might come in handy, and the challenge itself was included to bridge the gap between this exercise and the form intersections from lesson 2. The form intersections are notoriously difficult, so it's best to be as comfortable as you can be with boxes before attempting it.

Overall, I really like your approach. Your presentation is fairly clean, and you show a lot of care with most aspects of your drawings. You definitely demonstrate a lot of patience. Keep it up!

Uncomfortable in the post "So you've decided to go back to the basics. We're here to help."

2015-01-27 15:50

I'm glad I could help.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-27 15:49

Gel pens work nicely for drawing, but they lack a specific quality over the felt tip pens - that is, the ability to control the thickness of the line through pressure. These are the pens I use. They're generally not terribly expensive - you can usually buy them individually (at art supply stores) for four bucks each, or something like that. Not super cheap, but definitely not on the super expensive end either.

Anyways, as for your homework - you did pretty well. The lines and ellipses are well done, though keep in mind that ellipses-inside-of-ellipses aren't too useful as exercises. The ones where you have a clear goal that you can either hit or miss are far more effective.

Those two exercises should be included in a warmup routine - you don't have to do quite so many each time, the amount is left up to your discretion. It's more about doing the exercises regularly and often.

Your boxes are alright as well - not great, though. In the future, try to start off by drawing your frames carefully. Use a straight edge for that (even though I don't allow straight edges for anything else, here it's important to start off with a strong presentation, to get in the frame of mind of doing everything cleanly and carefully).

You should look at the notes on the ghosting technique for drawing lines. Your lines are at times a little wobbly - this might help.

Another thing to keep in mind, on the topic of cleanliness, is your hatching. Don't scribble haphazardly. If you're going to add shading - and in this case, you were not required to - do it well, otherwise it'll take a decent drawing and make it look worse. Each line should be separate, instead of a single line going back and forth. You should be controlling their spacing (there are situations where you'll want it to get more dense on one side, though this is something you should be in control of).

Your organic perspective boxes are much the same, though I do believe you should look into doing the 250 box challenge. It looks like you're struggling somewhat with rotating simple forms in 3D space, and the challenge should help increase your comfort levels with that. Be sure to read all the notes included in that post.

I'm marking this lesson as complete, but be sure to keep everything I've said in mind in the future.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2015-01-27 15:32

I'm not entirely sure which one you used pencil on, but generally you should avoid that. If you're using a felt tip pen (I always recommend a 0.5mm), you can achieve different line weights by applying less or more pressure.

Your organic forms are alright, with some pages being stronger than others. I'm noticing though that the contour lines aren't quite wrapping around the forms correctly - if they were full ellipses, you'd notice them getting pointy on either end. Doing more exercises like you did on the first page (drawing the full ellipses) should help. Overall your contour lines aren't bad, though - some of them do a good job of showing volume, it's just that the lines don't wrap around the form properly.

For your dissections, they work out better when you treat them like extensions of the previous exercise - which is how I intended them. So, your first page looks a little shabby, while the next one looks much better. The third's so-so; your forms are much less convincing, since a lot of them are based on ellipses that seem somewhat malformed.

Like the rest of your work, your form intersections seem a little hit-and-miss. Where cylinders are involved, you seem to fall short of the mark. With boxes, however, you seem to manage much better.

I'd like to see you do one more page of form intersections - try to avoid using any longer, stretched forms (like long tubes or long boxes) that bring perspective more into the mix than it needs to be. Also, draw your forms larger on the page. For example, on page 8, everything is way too small. It's nice to see you draw so many forms, but I'm more interested in the quality of those individual forms.

Finally, draw through the forms completely. For example, draw all 6 lines that comprise a box, instead of just the ones that the viewer would be able to see. This will help you understand how that form sits in space. Keeping in mind where your horizon line sits will also prove to be helpful.

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

2015-01-27 15:12

That'd be a bit tricky, since I don't know the first thing about caricatures.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 4: Drawing Insects, Arachnids and Other Creepy Crawlies"

2015-01-27 00:24

Well, I just learned a whole lot of things I didn't want to. Like that ants sometimes have stingers... And you just HAD to draw roaches. Shudders

I think what stands out most to me is, as you noted somewhere in there, the lack of focal points. That, and your tendency towards letting your crosshatching/texturing/etc get a little cluttered. For example, on the left side of page 5, your mandible study. You've got some scribbly-looking crosshatching that gets very distracting.

I think your roaches come out much better - especially the top left of page 6. I'm always a fan of crosshatching on a curved surface that flows against the curve (so on a cylinder, having the hatching going along the length of the form instead of wrapping around it). Reason being, while you can create a lot of tiny contour lines through your hatching, I find that they tend to become a little jarring. Instead, if you have them going length-wise, and increase the density of the lines where the form turns away from the viewer, you can much more successfully convey the curvature without providing too much visual information.

Anyways, as always, I think you've done pretty damn well. Your forms are impressive as always, aside from those mandible studies where they don't seem entirely convincing.

When you get a chance, check out /u/ffflay's insect homework. The use of line weight and conservative detailing is definitely something worth studying.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Boxes"

2015-01-27 00:11

There definitely is some improvement. What I noticed most is that your lines are straighter. Before they had a tendency to bend or arc.

You do have a ways to go, though - but progress is definitely good. One thing you may want to pay attention to with your boxes is what I mentioned before about the near and far planes of a box.

Each plane on the box corresponds to the other plane opposite to it. For example, the top plane of the box corresponds to the bottom one. One of these is usually visible, while the other is generally blocked by the rest of the box. For example, 184 - we can see the top plane and the right plane. The bottom plane and the left plane are blocked. Because of this, we know for a fact that the top and right planes are closer to the viewer than the bottom and left planes. They have to be in front in order to block them.

Now, if you look at the left plane of 184, you can see that it is actually quite a bit larger than the right plane. If you can't tell, it would be a good idea to draw through the box (that is, draw the lines that would otherwise be blocked). In perspective, if two objects are the same size in 3D space, when you draw them in 2D, the closer one is always larger. Always remember this. 184 does not follow that core rule. Hopefully keeping that in mind will help you in the future.

Anyways, good job on drawing all 250 boxes and completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "Who Are You? Introduce Yourselves!"

2015-01-27 00:05

Your head constructions are looking really good - and I'm really happy to see the patience you demonstrated in drawing so many. It'll definitely help you out in the long run.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-27 00:03

You've done pretty well. Two things that I'd like to mention, and they don't relate to your technique at all.

  1. When you do an exercise that requires you to create several thumbnail compositions (the rough perspective and organic perspective exercises), take the time to draw out your frames properly - with a straight edge. It's all about the frame of mind it puts you in as you draw. If you start off with a wobbly frame, your eagerness to draw carefully will diminish.

  2. When you're scanning, make sure you have it set to black and white photograph, or colour photograph - instead of b/w drawing. The drawing settings tend to raise the contrast a lot, which removes some of the nuances of your linework.

Take a look at the 250 box challenge. You don't have to complete it, but at least read the notes included in the post - especially the ones about line weight. Right now your lines are all very uniform (which is totally expected for this stage). Learning how to vary those line weights will help you take your drawings to the next level.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2015-01-26 10:57

You control the thickness by applying more/less pressure. You generally do draw the whole object, then go back to selectively thicken specific lines. Yes, you can move forward. I'm on my phone right now, but I'm pretty sure I changed your flair already.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2015-01-26 00:35

A lot of reasons. Some noble, some less so. On one hand, I like teaching, and watching people improve over time. Makes me feel a little proud. Then, there's a big part of me that's rather vain, and soaks up all of the praise and gratitude. And finally, I do want this to help my career in some way or another. Either in making this a more official thing - opening a standalone website that can be monetized somehow, or allowing me to increase my presence on the net in general. I have some plans for that already, but for the moment I'm holding off on them. It's a lot more work, and there are other things I'd rather do right now.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2015-01-25 23:53

Your work looks pretty good. I can see what you're saying though, about the difficulty with making thin lines. It sounds to me like you're talking about a felt tip calligraphy pen. I've got some of the faber castell ones - I love e'm to death, but they're a little tough to work with at first.

All of your exercises look pretty good. You seem to have a fairly good sense of 3D forms (from your form intersections) but if you ever find a certain kind of intersection more challenging, don't be afraid to completely draw through the forms. For the most part I see that you've been deciding how your next form will intersect with the ones you've already drawn before drawing it. Usually I recommend drawing in the next form and then deciding how they intersect - but it's fine to do it this way, as long as you're comfortable with it.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2015-01-25 22:05

Looking pretty good. Your organic forms have nice volumes, and your contour lines wrap around them nicely. Your dissections are pretty cool, especially on the second page. I like the hot dog best, but the quarter cut on the bottom right is very neat as well. You've got a good eye for where to apply different thicknesses of layers to the dissections themselves to create interesting objects.

The first page of intersections is a little iffy (your perspective tends to be very dramatic on individual forms, leading to some weirdness that I mention in these notes. Your subsequent pages of intersections are much better.

In the future, don't use different thicknesses of pens - use only the 0.5. This forces you to learn proper pressure control of the pen itself, allowing you to become more versatile with the single tool.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-25 19:53

Pretty good. I have to admit though, my first reaction to you saying yourself that you got sloppy at the end was not good. At the end of the day, if you know you've done something poorly - not to the best of your ability - do it again. There's no time limit, no requirement to do everything in one sitting. If you're tired, take a break, leave it for a few days, whatever. The only requirement is that you submit work that is done at your very best. Only then can my critiques be of any value.

Anyways, you still did a pretty good job. Your lines are solid. Your ellipses look good, though I'm guessing you didn't have a chance to read over the lesson notes (there are lesson notes for every lesson in the comments - i've got css set up to force the comment to the top, though this doesn't work if there's over 250 comments in a thread, in which case those beyond the 250 threshold get hidden by default). You would have caught these notes regarding the ellipse exercise.

I won't have you redo them though. They look good enough for me to know you'll be able to do them properly in the future. Those first two should be done regularly anyway, so incorporate them into your warmup routine. You don't have to do two full pages of each, but some amount every time you draw would help you out immensely.

Your rough perspective boxes look fantastic. Your perspective is good, and your lines are confident. Your organic perspective boxes are so-so. Overall not bad, but I can see your sloppiness for sure. The biggest thing to watch out for is situations where the far plane of a box ends up larger than the near plane. This directly contradicts the rules of perspective, and you seem to be doing it pretty often.

Instead of having you redo that, I'm generally pleased with the homework so I'll mark it as complete and have you move onto the 250 box challenge before tackling lesson 2. It should help you iron out the major issues with drawing those boxes rotated arbitrarily in 3D space - something that might otherwise be a hindrance in lesson 2's form intersections.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-25 18:50

Generally I'd say do it the way you find most comfortable, assuming that the level of comfort translates into better results. The one on the left is looking sloppier for sure, though technically speaking in terms of perspective, it's more correct. Presentation-wise, the one on the right looks better, but it doesn't follow the rules of perspective (your far plane, defined by lines 1 and 5, is larger than your near plane, defined by 3, 7, 8 and 9.

All that said, did you do those particular boxes digitally because it was easier to demonstrate what you mean? Or are you doing the entire lesson digitally?

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 5: Drawing Animals"

2015-01-25 17:47

Most of them look pretty solid - but I guess what you're talking about is not approaching (many of) them through clear and solid constructions as outlined by the lesson? If not, I'm kind of confused by what you meant.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-25 04:52

Definitely an improvement over last time. The only critique I would like to add at this point is that in the future, you should try and fight the natural urge to correct your mistakes. Usually when a person makes a mistake in drawing a line, they'll draw another on top of it. This darkens the line, making it stand out against all the others. In doing so, you're basically just drawing the viewer's attention to the things you messed up. Leaving them alone may be a much better approach. This becomes even more effective when you get into using line weight to give your drawings more life.

Anyways, good work.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-24 19:31

Huh, that's peculiar. I can't comment much on it, since I don't know much about physiology, but you might want to keep an eye on that and experiment with different ways of holding your arm as you draw.

I'm not sure if I forgot to mention this but - you mentioned that you drag your hand on the table a bit when drawing from the shoulder. Try raising the point of grip on your pen a little so that your arm comes off the table completely. It'll tire your arm out more, but it'll give you a much better sense of how to draw from your shoulder.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-24 19:09

Nice work! You definitely show a lot of perseverance, and your hard work has paid off a great deal. You still have a ways to go, but you are certainly on the right path.

Your lines look good, and are either where I'd expect them to be at this stage, or a little further along. The longer lines tend to fray a fair bit, but what I look out for most is wobbliness (due to drawing too slowly). I don't see much of that - the rest will gradually be fixed with practice.

You clearly understand the intent of the ellipses exercise, and you do a fairly good job of pursuing it. I did notice that your ellipses are at times a little obbly (moreso with the larger ones, because they tend to be more difficult). Try to push past the urge to be extra-careful, and try to let your muscles do the drawing. When your lines wobble, it's because your brain is micromanaging the operation - it's telling your arm - go here, no, do this, go at this angle, curve a little more, etc. This leads to a lot of small variations which come out as bumps.

If you trust more in your arm, and simply draw at a somewhat faster, but constant pace, your lines should flow better. They may come out less accurate, but over time your brain and your arm will learn to co-operate better. Be sure to read these notes if you haven't already.

Both the lines and the ellipses are exercises that are best done often. Incorporate them into your warm-up routine, so you draw a handful of each before you settle in on whatever you intended to draw.

Your boxes are well done. There are mistakes here and there, but you've more than met my expectations for this lesson. Your lines are clean, and what I really like is that for the most part you've fought the natural urge to bury mistakes with ink in an attempt to correct them. All this does is draw attention to the mistake. Yours on the other hand give a greater sense of confidence, so the mistakes are less noticeable.

You should read up on the ghosting lines technique, however. If you haven't tried it already, it should help you achieve smoother, more accurate lines in exercises such as these.

If you're feeling concerned about your boxes, you should definitely look into the 250 box challenge next. There are a lot of extra notes included in that post, and you should read all of them. Then try to apply those concepts to the challenge itself.

The challenge should, while improving your confidence and comfort levels, get you ready for the form intersections on lesson 2. A lot of people have difficulty with them, but the box challenge tends to help solidify peoples' understanding of how simple forms can be manipulated and rotated in 3D space.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-01-24 17:35

It's more or less correct. It depends on how these lay-ins represent your understanding of the forms. I ask to see them largely because they help me understand mistakes made in the rest of the drawings. On their own they're difficult to comment upon.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-23 23:01

The party keeps on going. Some people leave, others arrive to replace them, the music keeps thumping and I'll never get any sleep. Welcome to my house!

Your work's looking a little soppy there, like you're attacking it too quickly. The fact that you didn't do the full set of homework is definitely adding to my theory. You've got to slow down in order to really complete the lesson to the best of your ability. Based on what I see, I can tell that you are capable of doing this better - and if you don't practice at your best, your progress will be stunted.

Patience is a huge issue when it comes to learning a skill, and a lot of the people who tackle these lessons tend to come in rearing to go, full of eagerness and enthusiasm. They're looking so far ahead, trying to reach the later lessons, and they don't pay proper attention to what they're doing now. I generally take the first lesson as an opportunity to break their spirits and toss their mangled souls onto my assembly line.

Lets look at how you could approach things better:

  1. The lines. You didn't read the lesson properly. This exercise involves drawing a single guide line (you can use a straight edge for this if you like), and then superimposing 8 freehand lines on top of it.

  2. The ellipses. Check out these notes, they cover what you did wrong. A lot of people make the mistakes you did, which led to me writing up something more consistent to throw at people. You did however draw through your ellipses a couple times each, which is very good to see. Definitely keep that up. The second part of that link is what applies to you.

  3. The rough perspective boxes. There's two issues here - first off, be careful with your lines. Strive to draw only one mark for each line - draw it straight and steady, from your shoulder - and if you mess up, try to fight the urge to correct it. Piling on more ink will only draw attention to the mistake. If you leave it alone, there's a good chance it will be less noticeable - this becomes more likely when you start dealing with varying line weights. The ghosting technique for drawing lines should help you here. Drawing straight lines is goddamn hard, so I don't expect you to nail it every time. Secondly, your hatching is just awful. They're just scribbles. If you're going to draw something, you should take the time to draw it well. That means, if you're deciding to add shading, take the time to draw those hatching lines, regularly spaced, covering the entire surface. If you half-ass it, it'll take what could be an otherwise good drawing without any shading at all, and make it shitty.

  4. The organic perspective boxes. My comments for the previous exercise stand for this one as well. Other than that, you didn't do a particularly bad job of it. You seem to have a decent sense for how simple forms turn in 3D space. It would be nicer to see each box treated with the care and focus it deserves, of course.

Every lesson as a set of 'lesson notes' posted in the comments. If you sort the comments by 'top', you should find them as the first comment. If not, hunt around a little bit. They always contain extra little pointers as well as extra content that I provide as time goes on, and I see the same questions or issues coming up again and again. Checking that out before tackling a lesson should save us both time.

I hope (and expect) to see a full eight pages next time you submit. There's nothing at all wrong with doing these in more than one setting. You should take breaks often - don't practice when you start getting tired, because you'll end up practicing your sloppiness. Also, the longer you take, the better.

I'm looking forward to seeing your next submission!

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 4: Drawing Insects, Arachnids and Other Creepy Crawlies"

2015-01-23 22:47

You definitely show a lot of improvement. Early on you seem to be struggling with understanding proportion - specifically with the ant on page 2, and the spider on the bottom of page 3, the mantis on page 4. They tend to be a little bit hit-and-miss (the spider on the top of page 3 on the other hand is pretty damn cool). Eventually you do hit your stride, with your last few pages looking very good.

I especially love your cicadas (I think?) and the scorpions on the last page are absolutely wicked.

Early on, you're also showing somewhat sloppier hatching techniques. It might be due to a general lack of comfort and confidence - if you feel you're doing poorly, you might get sloppy. Later on, it improves with everything else. There is one aspect of your hatching technique I'd like to draw attention to, however.

Looking at page 5, with what I assumed to be cicadas. The one on the bottom left shows a lot of hatching following the curvature of the body, like mini contour lines. Some of these stop abruptly, because the shadow doesn't extend beyond that point. I often find that hatching lines that stop suddenly feel a little jarring, especially on cylindrical surfaces. In my opinion (I'm saying this because while I take a firm stance on most things in this subreddit, here I'm really not sure if I'm making the right call), the way you approached it on the bottom right of that same page is more effective. Hatching lines running length-wise, growing more and more spaced out as they go towards the centre of what is essentially cylindrical. I kind of tackle the same issue in these notes.

Anyways, overall great work - the improvement over the course of the lesson is fantastic, and so are your final results.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-23 22:39

Maybe dislike was the wrong word. I'm daunted by it. I do however dislike the amount of preparation that has to go into, say, an oil painting. But in general, I worked digitally for years before going back to doing the fundamentals traditionally - so I'm spoiled by how forgiving digital media can be. I often choose to paint on a single layer (in a way, emulating some aspects of painting traditionally) but that is always my choice at that point in time. If halfway through a painting I want to change something, or change my workflow, I can very easily. Traditional media doesn't offer me as much flexibility, and the thought of working without it is intimidating.

That said, I do love the idea of traditional media. Ink drawings, graphite, oils (perhaps acrylics, but I've never tried them before) are all areas I'd like to pursue in due time. I know a greater degree of comfort and control will come with practice, it's merely a matter of putting in all of that time.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-23 04:17

I'm about to go to bed, but I figure I should do this critique before I go. It's not a long one.

Overall, I'm very much getting the sense that you're rushing. It's not abnormal, especially at the first lesson, so I usually try to break spirits here instead of later on. You're too eager to get through the lesson! At the same time, you're not afraid to deliver a whole lot of quantity, which is great - but not worth much if you're not going to focus on the quality as well.

You are capable of much better than this. I'll quickly summarize what you should look to fix.

  1. Lines - you actually did this wrong. From the looks of it, all you did was draw lines arbitrarily. The exercise is to draw a single guide line (for the straight lines you can use a ruler), then super impose 8 freehand lines on top of the guide line. This is hard as hell, and gets even harder as the line gets longer. Focus on keeping up a smooth pace and drawing from your shoulder. If you slow down too much, your line will get wobbly. If you go too fast, you'll end up very inaccurate - but this is at least fairly normal, there's no way you'll be 100% accurate at this point.

  2. Ellipses - The way you draw through your ellipses at the beginning is good. You should do that all throughout. Focus on getting your ellipses to fit snugly in the space allotted to them. Don't just draw a bunch of circles quickly, pay special attention to each and every one. Picture the kind of ellipse you want to draw, decide where and how it should fit, and then draw it. You either draw it accurately, or you don't.

  3. You clearly grasp your 1 point perspective, but your lines are sloppy. Take care with drawing each box, give it your full attention. If you make a mistake, fight the urge to 'fix' it by adding more ink. This will only draw more attention to the error.

  4. Like many people, you are having trouble rotating forms in 3D space. Read over the notes listed in the 250 box challenge. I will probably ask you to do the challenge after you've completed this lesson, but for now just read the notes and try to apply those lessons to your organic perspective boxes.

Every lesson has notes associated with it, which I post in the comments. They're usually the top comment, but with the first two lessons, it's not always guaranteed that they'll be at the top (because there are so many comments that some get hidden, which breaks my CSS hacks that are supposed to force them to the top). If you sort by top, it should be the first one. These notes often contain helpful hints and extra notes which you should read. Make sure you go back and read the notes in their entirety.

I'd like you to tackle this lesson again. Keep in mind, when I completed this lesson when I was taking this class, it took me at least six hours, if not more. Slow down, take your time, and take as many breaks as you need. Don't practice when you're tired, otherwise you'll merely practice sloppiness.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2015-01-23 01:40

Nicely done! Everything seems to be done fairly well. I like that you drew through all of your forms for your intersections - though I'd much prefer it if you didn't separate them into a lighter underdrawing and a cleaner drawing on top. The second stage kind of mucks up a lot of your ellipses, so generally I find it better for this particular exercise to simply leave everything at the first stage. The underdrawing is what I'm most interested in anyways.

Your dissections look nice. Interesting experimentations, with nice volumes. Your organic forms with contour lines are nice as well.

Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Who Are You? Introduce Yourselves!"

2015-01-22 23:51

That brings me back. When I was a kid, that was exactly what I did - tracing and copying DBZ and digimon stuff at first. Drew nothing but anime for years, and eventually I just kind of strayed into something different.

It's always great to see people who start with anime and manga looking to solidify their foundation. A lot of people immediately think that since they want to draw in a very specific style, they can forego learning how to replicate the real world. It takes a lot to recognize and accept the fact that every style is rooted in realism, and therefore it is the best foundation to have.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: The Head and Face from the Front"

2015-01-22 23:41

The one on the left on this page looks better (though her eyes seem a little close together). A lot of the others are still looking rather wide. I noticed that your ear shapes have improved, and your eyes are looking less iconic, though your nose is still sitting arbitrarily on the face.

Think of the face like a 3D puzzle. All the pieces fit together. You don't necessarily draw all the pieces and the borders between them, but you should understand them as such - and that understanding will ultimately come through in your drawing. How do your noses fit into the puzzle of the face? Right now they're just kind of glued on.

Also, try to tone down your exaggeration - especially on the nose and jaw sizes. Exaggeration tends to make things look cartoony.

Anyway, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - you still have a ways to go, but at this point it's a matter of rereading the lesson and my critiques, and practicing more. Since the next lesson is related to the head as well, there's no reason to hold you here.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-01-22 03:34

Always remember that the details are the least important aspect - form is of much greater significance, A naked form that carries its volume and convincingly sits in 3D space is far better than a beautifully detailed drawing that falls flat.

It looks like early on, you were floundering a bit - a few hits and misses form-wise, focusing a little too much on detail. By the end, however, starting from halfway through page 6 and all the way to the end of page 8, you seem to figure out what you're doing. #14 and #15 are very nicely done. 15 is a particularly difficult one, and you've done a great job of capturing how those leaves reach into space towards the viewer.

Nice work!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: The Head and Face from the Front"

2015-01-21 23:49

You'll need them less and less as time goes on. The guidelines are more there as a form of training, rather than a means to draw a correct head. The goal here is to start to recognize what looks correct and what doesn't, and what the general guidelines are. Furthermore, I want you to start seeing the head as a 3D construction rather than a flat object, much in the way we dealt with things for dynamic sketching. This is an extension of those concepts, so don't be throwing them on the wayside.

I appreciate how far you took your guidelines. There were some mistakes in those guidelines, however - sometimes since we're following such strict proportional rules (which of course don't suit every occasion, but are good starting points), it's very easy to trust that they are correct. Because hey, we measured!

Here's my notes on your homework. The top left has a great example of what I mean. You buggered the circle, making it wider than it was tall. It's not an uncommon mistake (based on what I've seen out of all three people who've attempted this lesson?), and I can understand how easy it is to make. It'll definitely throw your proportions off in a big way though. Measuring circles is hard, but if you treat it like a square, that should make it a little simpler. Just take your fingers and use them to measure the width, then bring that down as the height.

As I said before, the face is a 3D construction. It's made up of a lot of planes. Someone who is new to drawing faces will treat them as being fairly flat, which leads to a cartoony look. The fat deposits on the cheeks and such make it kind of easy to do that, as well. You've got to look deeper, and see the structure that lies under the surface. Once you can start to see that, it'll be a hallmark of gaining a greater understanding of the head as a constructed form.

Also, you're drawing your ears as really consistent curves - take a look at how I've drawn them in the top right of my overdrawing. They angle outwards, with the top of the ear further out than the bottom. This differs from person to person, but it's a good rough approximation to start from.

Finally, facial features. Look carefully at your reference. You're drawing a lot of symbols, for the eyes and nose. For the lips, you're doing a little better (using more indication instead of outlining everything), but they're still coming out very flat. The key is to observe - spend a lot of time doing that. The features are, like the head, not flat. They too have planes (probably because literally everything has planes in this world). The lower lip for instance has a top plane, a front plane and a bottom plane.

I'd like to see you do another set of heads from the front.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Cylinders"

2015-01-21 23:11

Pretty good. From page 3 onwards, you seem to have hit your stride. I would have liked to have seen you drawing through those ellipses though to capture a rounder shape instead of just going around once to achieve a cleaner (but less correct) shape.

Still, good work and the shakiness you mentioned seems to be improving.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Cylinders"

2015-01-21 16:03

I'm going to add you to the approved submitter list, since this would be far more visible as its own link. Feel free to post the video again when you read this.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-21 16:00

My thoughts are right here. It's not an uncommon query, since digital art is extremely popular, and people tend to want to jump right into it.

I don't think it's a good idea. For a while, I would sort of accept homework done digitally (it'd usually be full of obvious driver issues, and other things that made critiquing the quality of the techniques themselves very difficult to comment on). Now, I've closed that door - mostly due to the massive number of critiques I have to do every day. Since I work full-time and I have my own projects going on the side, I'd rather not spend more time having to figure out how to critique special cases.

I am a digital artist myself, and I tend to dislike the vast majority of what's involved in working traditionally. Still, it's a very good idea to ground yourself in traditional practices, as they'll give you a much better sense of what you should be aiming for when working digitally.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2015-01-21 00:01

Yeah, the crutch of being able to erase and undo is a difficult one to throw away - but the benefits are immense. When you can fallback on something like that, you tend to treat your drawings as far too precious, and you also don't put in quite as much thought into your lines.

I think you're starting to get it - enough for me to let you move forward. You should definitely continue practicing these though - and when you do, you could stand to draw your forms bigger. When you draw things so small on the page, it immediately makes it even harder, because your pen's strokes look so much thicker relative to the size of the drawing.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-20 23:58

You may have struggled, but you won the fight. Great work, you hit all the points I was looking for, and you presented it all neatly and cleanly.

The first two exercises (lines and ellipses) should be incorporated into a warmup routine. You don't have to do as many, but try and do some of each when you start a drawing session. You should see improvement over time.

The boxes look great - you can push them to the next level by working on your line weights. Take a look at the notes included in the 250 box challenge post. The challenge is optional, but the notes on line weight should help you make your drawings pop.

Go on and move ahead to lesson 2!

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 5: Drawing Animals"

2015-01-20 23:55

Not bad. Your birds look fantastic, your big cats less so. By the time you hit the tigers, I think you were starting to get exhausted. Four legged animals are tough, and it doesn't look like you were taking any breaks. Don't practice when you're tired, it won't do you any good.

It does look like you're struggling with proportion, but you're slowly gaining ground in that battle. Keep observing your reference closely, and try to approximately measure the relationships of different parts of the animal's body (with your fingers, or that thumb-on-pencil trick that stereotypical artists use when drawing from life). Basically you want to measure the smaller object, and then see how many times that measurement fits into the larger one.

One thing I noticed is that you're not really constructing the head at all. You're blocking it in with a rough circle and that's about it. Often times there's much more going on than that. Take a look at this critique I did of someone else's animal drawing that I did a long time ago. Look at how the head starts off as a circle, then I drop in a sort of boxy shape for the length of the head.

Last of all, I think you need to draw bigger. If the head of your animal ends up being the size of the tip of your pinkie finger, there's no way you're getting any construction in there.

I'm still going to mark this lesson as complete, because your birds were quite well constructed, and for the most part I see a decent grasp of the general constructions of the body. I'm ignoring those godawful tigers.

Still, you do need to practice this more.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-01-20 23:43

I think I've had you draw enough plants, and while you've still got plenty of room to improve, I think you're starting to catch onto the concepts. I'll mark this lesson as complete, but keep what I mentioned in my critiques in mind as you complete the next lessons.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Boxes"

2015-01-20 23:41

It's tough to see the improvement in this set largely because you already seem to have a solid grasp of the concepts involved. That isn't to say that the challenge is useless - it's just that the improvement ends up being much more subtle. You'll see a lot more visible improvement for those who are complete beginners.

The only thing I wanted to be sure you noticed was on box 13 - you circled a line there, but it seems you didn't mark out the fact that the far plane (on the top of the box) is much larger than the closer plane (at the bottom, the plane whose right side line you circled).

Anyways, congrats on completing the challenge!

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2015-01-20 14:00

Nope! The only places where it's okay to use a ruler is to draw the template line in exercise 1 (on top of which you attempt to super impose 8 more freehand lines to each 1 template line), and drawing the frames for the two perspective exercises. Everything else should be done freehand.

If you're having trouble with that, you may want to look at the ghosting lines drawing technique.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2015-01-20 13:58

It's not particularly obvious to most people - but I think there's value in doing it wrong first, because the fact that there is a difference between drawing normally and how I expect you to draw becomes more memorable.

Uncomfortable in the post "So you've decided to go back to the basics. We're here to help."

2015-01-20 13:57

At the top of the side bar, before the lesson breakdown. There aren't many all-encompassing rules but each lesson has its own "lesson notes" in the comments section. There are extra lesson-specific requirements in there.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2015-01-20 03:38

I suppose that'll do for now. Remember that these are the foundation of construction. This kind of exercise is generally more difficult than actually constructing objects that you see in reference, but the principles are all here.

It seems that you're grasping them well enough to move forward, but I definitely recommend that you practice these regularly. The next lessons will also probably start cementing more of the ideas by using them more practically.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 4: Drawing Insects, Arachnids and Other Creepy Crawlies"

2015-01-20 01:59

Goddamn, you make me want to start doing these lessons again, purely to defeat you! Sadly right now my free time is spent programming, for some strange reason.

Fantastic forms and textures. The line weights especially make the drawings pop. I think the snail's my favourite though - that, or the spider underneath him, it's got spunk.

The best thing about your drawings is that each one has attitude and personality - they're not just animals, each one's become a character in its own right. That's definitely something special.

Out of curiosity (and a desire to steal), where do you find your reference? Google images? Or are you hiding something...

Are you a secret entomologist with the power to freeze time?!

Uncomfortable in the post "So you've decided to go back to the basics. We're here to help."

2015-01-20 01:30

You are very welcome.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: The Head and Face from the Front"

2015-01-20 01:29

http://i.imgur.com/pfd3N8u.jpg

Yeah, definitely draw it in heavier. The construction lines also help me understand what you're doing right and wrong. Also I'm definitely getting the sense that you're not treating them with enough significance in your drawing. Kind of like, you're drawing them, but not using them, if you get my meaning.

Anyways, the jist of my demo is this: line is bad. We must use it, but especially when drawing faces, we try to use as little of it as possible. Imply as much detail as you can. Also, look very closely at your reference for things like eye shape, nose, mouth, etc.

Draw me more faces!

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2015-01-20 00:48

Honestly, if you ask me (which you are, 'cause I'm the art czar >:D) it's a good thing to be taking longer and longer. Initially for a lot of people there's a need to rush through things. When I did these exercises, I spent 6-8 hours on each of the first two lessons, and then the subsequent lessons were given 8+ hours each. The more time you spend, the better. As long as it's being spent effectively, of course.

Overall, you'll have to give it another shot. I'll break down the issues that we need to resolve.

  1. The organic forms' contour lines are not really wrapping around the forms correctly. The curves at the ends of the contour lines are stopping short - if you picture the full ellipse that would go all the way around, it'd end up a little pointy on both ends. Most people seem to skip past step C in the lesson, I'm not really sure why. You need to go back and draw the full ellipses for each contour line, drawing through them completely to get the right curvature, just as you learned to draw ellipses in lesson 1.

I'm sure you can do much better than this, it's a matter of understanding the correct approach.

Edit: I just saw on your deviantart the version where you draw through all the forms. Good work, (you should have posted that to begin with) but you should still do it in ink. The whole mindset that comes from working in ink is extremely important, especially for the form intersections. Draw everything knowing full well that it will be present in the end, and focus only on what you are doing right then and there. Don't look ahead, and don't plan ahead.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: The Head and Face from the Front"

2015-01-20 00:25

Yeah, I'm not a fan of front view either. It often seems really unnatural, but since we rarely draw things in frontal view, we tend to be bad at it.

There's two major elements lacking here:

Post one of the references you used. I can give you a more helpful critique by drawing a version of the reference myself, and showing you the differences between your approach and mine.