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

2015-01-05 00:54

Well! Honestly, I think the reason you haven't seen any improvement in the past is because you rush rush rush rush rush. A lot of people who've been submitting lately have been doing that, and I've sent them all back to redo things more carefully.

Guess what you're going to have to do! :D

But I'll explain what exactly shows me that you're rushing.

  1. These.. aren't actually particularly rushed. You did a lot of them, and they're not poorly done. Good work.

  2. Your ellipses are definitely rushed though. Some moreso than others. First off, the exercises are intended to set out a certain space which defines the size and position of the ellipse you're about to draw. That's why we use rows, those lines define a certain height. Because of this, the exercises with a lot of ellipses inside of other ellipses are pretty much... not doing anything for you. So don't do those. The funnels are okay though. Take your time with each ellipse. I'm glad to see that you're drawing through them a couple times, that's great, keep that up. But be careful and while keeping your drawing pace for each ellipse reasonably quick, try and keep them tight. Also maximize the space on the page. There's a lot of blank space there that could be full of ellipses.

  3. Your rough perspective boxes are kind of sloppy. They're not super sloppy, but to start with, your frames are just wobbly. Drawing, and learning to draw, is a lot about frame of mind. If your frames aren't clean and straight (you can use a straight edge here if you must) and if you're not arranging them efficiently on the page, you're automatically putting yourself in a sloppier mindset.

  4. Same goes for the organic perspective boxes. It looks like you potentially have an okay understanding of how these forms would turn in 3D space, but you're going about it too carelessly.

As an example, here's the work that /u/Whirly123 submitted. Use it as reference for how to lay out your exercises and how to approach each one. The reason his are generally better than most peoples' is because he had taken the online version of the course I took, with the same instructor. He's done this all before (but he's revisiting it). Still, aim for that.

You're definitely capable of better than this already, take the time and put in the effort to prove me right.

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

2015-01-05 00:42

In that case, look into doing the 250 box challenge. Before you start it, look at the notes I've included there, and some of the stuff other people have submitted.

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

2015-01-05 00:32

You made a considerable amount of progress with those boxes. For the intersections, I definitely see a lot of blank space, but I'll mark it as complete anyways :P

I've never really been fond of microns, but if they work for you, then that's all that matters.

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

2015-01-05 00:12

It's much, much better. Ultimately despite being part of the exercise's name, I don't actually care that much about the intersections. It's more about whether or not you can draw a bunch of forms and have them exist together within the same 3D space. And you can, so congrats - this lesson is complete.

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

2015-01-05 00:03

... I love you. So much.

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

2015-01-04 23:47

The organic forms with contour lines are much better. Your dissections are alright, though using some photo reference to help inform your surface textures would have been nice. Try to do that more in the future.

I'm not really sure why your pens aren't flowing well. Based on the results I see, they seem to be okay. I do remember my instructor telling us to keep the staedtlers upright when drawing with them (though I found that to be a little hit-and-miss). Sometimes keeping them at an angle was actually a little helpful for keeping my initial draw-throughs and lay-ins from being too noticable. Still, you mentioned that you tried drawing with them upright, so I'm not sure.

Another thing that might help with your form intersections is to try to avoid forms that are stretched in one dimension. For example, long tubes, long boxes, etc. Stick to objects that are more 'equilateral', more or less the same size in every dimension. This allows us to focus on the forms themselves without bringing added perspective complications.

You ignored this part of my last critique, and your drawings suffered for it. Still, your drawings are somewhat improved, and I have a greater sense of your understanding of form in 3D space.

It's a little weird though how thick your lines are coming out in the form intersections. They seem fine everywhere else, but here they're super thick. Did you switch to a thicker pen?

While your forms are better, since you're having trouble with drawing through your forms in ink, I'm not going to let you move forward just yet. That is a core element in all of the Dynamic Sketching lessons (3-6) so you need to get a handle on that.

Draw your forms large, and make sure to follow the principles in the step-by-step I included in my previous critique (which was from the lesson notes). Focus on each form individually, and then simply add another and then decide how they intersect. Ellipses should always be drawn in a smooth motion, not a bunch of smaller overlapping lines. Same with long, straight lines.

Practice your form intersections until you feel you are more comfortable with drawing them completely in ink. Then show me the ones you feel that show you've grasped the concepts.

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

2015-01-04 22:40

Your second pages of things are generally better, as far as the organic forms and the dissections go. This shows that you're learning from the exercises, and understanding them better as you go along.

My only concern are your form intersections. You're treating these things too delicately, like you're too concerned with the final drawing, and not the understanding of the forms themselves. Draw through your forms. The result wasn't bad, but this is more of an issue of mindset that will ultimately cause problems for you in later lessons.

I'm not sure if you saw my step-by-step in the lesson notes, but here it is again. You may want to take it further than that, and draw the lines of each form that are blocked out by its other planes (for example, drawing all eight lines that make up a box). This is about understanding how forms interact in 3D space.

I would like to see one more page of form intersections. Try to follow my step-by-step process.

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

2015-01-04 21:26

Not bad. Your organic forms with contour lines are well done. Your dissections are alright as well, though I'd strongly recommend that this is a situation where you should try to rely on reference images to pull in some nice surface detail. This early on, we cannot really rely too heavily on our imaginations, largely because what we carry with us in our minds is often a gross oversimplification of detail. By pulling that kind of information from reference images - what a fish's scales look like, what kind of textures you might see on internal organs, etc. - you can create much more interesting imagery.

For your form intersections, they were ultimately done well, but I'm concerned about your process. Looking at reference, using 3D and all is perfectly fine, though what I'm most concerned about is the fact that you seem to be concerned with the final drawing. I see this in the fact that you used pencil, then went over it with pen (as you explained in your post).

Don't worry about what the final drawing looks like. Concern yourself with understanding the forms themselves. Draw through them entirely, including the lines and faces that would be occluded by other forms, and the form itself.

I had included this step by step in the lesson notes. Every form should be included completely, and confidently - and in ink, so I can fully understand your approach.

I'm still going to mark this as complete, because it does seem like you understand the concept - but keep this all in mind for the next lessons. The construction is the most important thing I want to see in these lessons, not the final drawing.

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

2015-01-04 16:56

Generally once lesson 1 is completed, I remind the petson to continue doing exetcises 1 and 2 from it as a regular warmup whenever they sit down to draw.

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

2015-01-04 03:42

I hope that in time you'll be able to build the confidence to share your work. If it is the quality that makes you shy (as it does for most people), always remember that no one has any right to expect masterpieces from you - least of all yourself, least of all here. That fear is something that will, however, hold you back in the worst of ways until you can bring yourself to overcome it.

Confidence is everything, even if it has to be faked at first.

If there's some other reason you're not comfortable showing it, then I can only imagine, heh-heh-heh.

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

2015-01-03 17:59

I'm glad you enjoyed the exercise.

Overall, you're grasping some of the concepts, but certain things are slipping past you. Actually, it's really just one thing. You need to draw through your forms, because for now, you're not able to fully visualize what the entire forms look like - including the sides you cannot see.

First off, in the organic forms with contour lines, there are a lot of instances where your contour lines are not wrapping around the form completely. Every now and then, they're more or less straight. This is because your'e skipping the second step in my lesson - drawing the contour lines as ellipses. Eventually you'll be able to skip straight to step 3, but for now you need to be drawing full ellipses for your contour lines, so you can carry through the proper curves.

This applies heavily to your form intersections as well - which all in all, weren't too bad. The bigger issue is that you were doing a lot of guess-work, rather than discovering and understanding. Forget about drawing clean and tidy things - we have no interest in those. We are focusing on gaining an understanding of forms and how they interact in 3D space.

From the lesson notes (which you should always read carefully), there's this step by step form intersection demo that I added a month ago. Follow that process, but you may want to draw through the forms even more - for example, all 8 lines that compose a box. Treat them all as wireframes.

Another thing that might help with your form intersections is to try to avoid forms that are stretched in one dimension. For example, long tubes, long boxes, etc. Stick to objects that are more 'equilateral', more or less the same size in every dimension. This allows us to focus on the forms themselves without bringing added perspective complications.

Last of all, your dissections were nice, though I'd strongly recommend looking at photo reference when applying surface textures. It's a good habit to get into, as it helps build your visual library, and also gets you used to the idea that the information you currently carry in your mind is a simplified version of what things actually look like.

Anywho- I'd like to see you do one more page of organic forms with contour lines, one more page of dissections and two more pages of form intersections, keeping in mind the things I mentioned above.

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

2015-01-03 16:54

Your work definitely shows a considerable amount of progress over the years. Hopefully we'll be able to help speed that up.

At the end of the day, my teaching ability is paltry compared to Peter Han and Patrick Ballesteros - so if it's at all possible, try to save up to attend CDA in the future. The difference 3 months with either of them will make will be enormous, and the fact that you live in the LA area is already a huge advantage. Until then, hopefully I'll be able to help round out some of the early pitfalls.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 5: Drawing Animals"

2015-01-03 03:10

Sloths are super creepy. You did well though. I'd say some of your proportions are a little weird (for example, the tiger) and your elephants look a little stylized, but overall your constructions are fantastic. I really like the pug and the.. herons? storks?

For the camels, and pretty much anything with four legs, pay special attention to the way the underbelly curves. It's on a consistent curve from front to back, it's a little bit biased towards the front, resulting in a slightly sharper curve towards the rear.

Great work! Onto the next one. When you're doing the hard surface vehicles, try and think of them like the form intersections from lesson 2. I'll probably have to rewrite the lesson at some point, because a lot of people seem to be having difficulty with it. For now, look through the critiques I've given to the few others who have tackled it.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 3: Drawing Plants"

2015-01-02 17:42

Finally indeed! Okay, let's see...

Page 8 is amazing. That tree blows my mind. The mushrooms on page 7 are really impressive too. Loving the form on whatever that is to the right of the mushrooms as well, the volume of the main mass is fantastic, and is accentuated by the thin, curling petals.

There's just a couple things that worry me a little bit. Here's an overdrawing of page 4. Basically, it's your ellipses. When doing your constructions, they seem to come out a little timid, a little uncertain. Draw them with confidence - consistent, tight ellipses. Even if you make a mistake, you can visualize what the ellipse would have been had you made it a little bigger, or a little smaller. You still have a solid ellipse that you can count on, though.

Oh, and don't forget that your pots have inner rims as well. There's thickness there, be sure to show it. Well - you kind of did show it on the top right, but it's kind of... unclear, I guess. The rim comes out uneven so it's not entirely clear if we're looking at the inner rim, or something else.

Your later ones definitely seem to be much better, so it looks like you did show progress through the lesson.

Onwards to the next one! BUGS!

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

2015-01-02 17:14

I hope you'll work up the courage to post your homework for critique! There's really nothing to be afraid of, I automatically expect everyone to submit crap. If people weren't making mistakes, then there wouldn't be any reason for me to do this.

Once I'm done with the 'drawing people' topic, I'm thinking about moving into doing a few Form Language lessons. That pertains directly to concept design, so look forward to that.

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

2015-01-02 16:55

Overall, you did a good job. Early on, your organic forms with contour lines are a little bit hit-or-miss. None of them are really incorrect, but some of them feel a little weird (3, 5). Others are far better, such as 1, 8 and all those on page 3.

Speaking of page 3 - the way you applied the line weights is... EHH. The principles are correct, I'm just not a fan of the way the line weights come up out of nowhere, jumping from thin to super thick. #8 was an excellent example of how to apply line weights, try to stick to that. When the weights get too dramatically thick, it starts to look rather stylized.

Your dissections are done well. Lots of interesting cuts, lots of nice surface textures. Your animals look really cool, and I love the dissection on the shark.

Your form intersections are well done. The line weights get really distracting, so on the surface they don't look great, but after a bit of focusing, I can tell that structurally they are quite good. Your lines are straight, your perspective looks solid, etc. Good job.

Keep that line weight stuff in mind, but feel free to move onto the next lesson when you feel ready.

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

2015-01-02 16:50

Biiig improvement in the general confidence of your constructions. Your lines and shapes are much more solid, so kudos for that.

There are still some issues that I'd like to fix before we move forwards, though. One is your spheres. Drawing circles is really difficult, so the likelihood of you nailing it the first time is really low. So, I recommend that you draw through the circle a couple times before lifting your pen. The first time you go around the circle, it'll be approximate (ie: incorrect), but those mistakes will inform the second time around. Your muscles will automatically correct some of the mistakes you made, resulting in a much better circle. Yes, it's messier, but we're interested in drawings that are correct, moreso than ones that are clean.

Secondly, the perspective on your boxes is a little bit off each time. The far plane of the box comes out a little bigger than the near plane, which directly contradicts the rules of perspective. It's not an uncommon mistake to make, but I strongly recommend doing the 250 box challenge to try and fix that. There are also a bunch of notes included in the challenge that might help.

I actually just looked back at my old response, and noticed that I recommended the 250 box challenge there as well. Deeefinitely give that a shot.

Here's a bit of an overdrawing to help explain the things I mentioned.

Once you've done the 250 box challenge, submit to me one more page of intersections. I'm not sure if you've seen this, but in the last month I created a step by step on how I approach the form intersections. It might also be of some help.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Boxes"

2014-12-31 17:39

1 is cheap! >:

The rest are pretty solid. A few of your angles were out, but I'm guessing that was more because you lost control of the pen a bit, which is normal. You forgot to go over the boxes to mark out your mistakes, but since there weren't many it's fine.

I really liked a lot of the fun variations you did. Ellipses, warped boxes, smoother forms, etc. Very neat!

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 6: Hard Surface Objects"

2014-12-30 18:23

If you ever feel that it's becoming harder to focus, or things that you could do a little while ago are now more difficult, take a break. Pick it up again the next day. Grinding isn't particularly productive, and if you get sloppy again and continue to practice that way, it can be detrimental.

Here's my notes for this batch. Overall, I'm happy with your progress. I'm thinking one more set of 8 pages, with considerable breaks in between. Like, don't post them until later in the day tomorrow. Cylinders and boxes only. Lots of practicing of line and ellipse exercises beforehand.

I'm thinking that after this next set, we'll be able to move back to the vehicle stuff, though we'll take gradual steps. If you ever feel discouraged, look at this and remember that you drew this less than 48 hours ago. In that time, you've improved a hell of a lot.

One thing to keep in mind though is that drawing random forms like we've been doing, and drawing them in a way that constitutes a vehicle is conceptually the exact same thing. That said, our brains don't like to think so. When faced with the idea of drawing something concrete, drawing something from reference that contains loads of detail, our brains shut down. We become overwhelmed. We lose grip on what we know.

While you're doing these last 8 pages, keep that in mind. Try to think about the frame of mind you're in, how you feel as you're approaching these random, meaningless forms. Do this as practice so when you're faced with a situation that may threaten to overwhelm you, you can remain calm and remember that it is all just simple forms - often simpler than the things you're doing now, because the orientations of those forms tends to be easier to draw.

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

2014-12-30 17:57

Oh wow, your work is really impressive. I'd gone through some of your post history and I saw your daily sketch submissions, and I was already impressed by your sense of form and lighting.

I guess these lessons can help artists of any level, so they're still worth doing (to a certain extent), but if you're interested at all in helping out on this subreddit, let me know. Currently I've got /u/Whirly123 slowly progressing through the lessons with the intent of having him give critiques, and maybe post lessons in his area of expertise.

Anyways, my next topic (after I'm done dealing with how to draw people, which should have only one more lesson left), will probably cover form language and design (as in character, prop, etc) so that might be of interest to you.

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

2014-12-30 16:55

Everything is still 100% ink.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 6: Hard Surface Objects"

2014-12-30 02:42

It'll take more practice, but you're getting there, slowly. Four more pages of the same thing - if you feel you haven't improved enough after the four, do another four. You can choose to show me after the four, or eight, but don't do more than that without showing me the work again.

Here's some notes for the first page of this set

I see that your straight lines are starting to get better, too. Especially near the end of this set.

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

2014-12-30 01:10

Way, way better. You're still making some mistakes, but you're compensating for those mistakes, which makes the faces look mostly proportional. You still have a ways to go before the proportions become second nature, but you're definitely making enough progress for me to mark this lesson as finished. Also your attention to detail has gotten way better - your individual facial features look much more realistic than they did before.

Here's the over-drawing and notes for this set. Things to look out for:

Anywho. Onward to the next lesson, brave explorer! You have earned the first people-drawing-badge of the subreddit.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Boxes"

2014-12-29 22:52

Nice work. I definitely see a big difference between your first and last pages (which are usually the ones I focus on). I liked the approach you took halfway through to increase your comfort level, with the big grid of perspective lines. Its impact was very obvious.

Your boxes are way more confident now, and your line weights are pretty solid.

As for your question, I use the steadtler pigment liners, the 0.5mm. I wouldn't go with a 0.38mm, just because they tend to be way too thin and lack the versatility. With a 0.5 it's still reasonably easy to make a thin line (with some pressure control, of course), but you can also make some pretty heavy lines too.

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

2014-12-29 22:28

Fantastic work, Chris. Your wasps, ants and beetles are definitely my favourite. I'm not entirely sure how accurate the scorpions are to your reference, but construction-wise they're pretty solid. 10's looking a little flat though, same with 6 (largely because you've got some thick weights on both sides of the form).

Overall, I'm very impressed and don't have much to say in the way of critique. Feel free to move onto lesson 5!

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Boxes"

2014-12-29 19:46

101, 225, 82, 47, 34

92, 14, 35

I think I like your second page best (page 3 in the imgur album). You seem to have found your stride at that point, your boxes come out a little more confidently, and a little more correct. By the time you hit 140ish, you seem to get a little tired, a little sloppy. Past the 160 mark, you clearly have had your fill.

Kudos for sticking with it and completing the whole thing, but I think it would have come out much nicer had you taken more breaks, and tackled it in smaller chunks. If you ever end up tackling this challenge again (and that might not be a bad idea), you'll probably benefit from drawing the boxes a little bigger. It tends to be easier to make things look cleaner when they're at a more considerable size. Maybe twice the size of the boxes you drew this time around.

I noticed that you caught several mistakes (92, 14, 35) where you were making the far plane of the box larger than the near plane, which would contradict the rules of perspective (since those two planes are the same size in 3D space, the farther one should appear smaller when drawn in 2D). Good job on catching those, though there were several others that showed the same problem as well (101, 225, 82, 47, 34 to name a view). Always keep that in mind when drawing forms - the face you can see is always closer than the face it is blocking, so that closer one should never be smaller (assuming they're the same size in 3D space).

Anyways! You drew a hell of a lot of boxes, so you've earned your badge. If you ever feel you want to do another set, feel free to submit again!

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 6: Hard Surface Objects"

2014-12-29 19:33

Though you're clearly still having difficulty with it, your lines are becoming straighter. Since there's definite improvement, we can't claim that you're just broken and won't ever get it! You will get it, you just need to keep working at it.

Here are my notes

So like I said, there's definite improvement here - your lines are straighter, though still a little wobbly and shaky at times, but far less so than before. Your perspective at times is off, though. Keep in mind that all parallel lines go off to the same vanishing point. I try to explain what I mean in the top right of my notes. Basically, those three lines that I emphasize define two separate planes of the box. They all must be parallel in 3D space (so going off to the same VP). Often times your third line will be going off in a different direction.

Next I want you to do four pages of form intersections, this time with boxes and cylinders. Your warm-up should consist of both the lines exercise and the ellipse exercise. If you find yourself getting confused and disoriented when you turn your page to get a straighter line, try focusing more and spend more time thinking before making the mark. It's perfectly okay for these mini-assignments to take you twice or thrice as long as they have been thus far.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 6: Hard Surface Objects"

2014-12-29 02:06

Your form intersections are definitely weak, and we're going to work on them until they're not. Here's the major problems I'm seeing. Your lines are not straight, your ellipses are timid, at times broken (as though you're attempting to sketch the forms before drawing them more cleanly).

I'd like to see four pages of intersections consisting only of boxes. Just a bunch of intersecting boxes, oriented at different angles. Try your hardest to keep your lines perfectly straight. If you feel it's necessary (and it probably is), you'll probably want to warm up beforehand with the lines exercise from lesson 1.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 5: Drawing Animals"

2014-12-28 19:47

These were my warty pigs. WHY ARE THEY SO DIFFICULT.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 6: Hard Surface Objects"

2014-12-28 19:36

Okay, so you're not really approaching this correctly. This is likely somewhat my fault, because this lesson doesn't really make the construction portion as obvious as it could be. Look at the locomotive example in the lesson, and also the bottom sketch from this page, which is from the homework I did when doing this lesson myself.

This is all just form intersections, and nothing more. You construct the object by using a variety of different forms, and you place them together to match your subject. Everything we cover on this subreddit is about looking at things analytically. Understanding their constructions, rather than simply understanding their surfaces.

Much of what you did is only surface drawing. The better ones - mostly the jeeps - start to work in a little more form construction, but it's limited to the overall box and maybe the wheels.

So, we're going to step back a bit. First, I want you to do 4 pages of form intersections, without any reference. Try to arrange them somewhat more like a vehicle (but don't go too far with this - i just mean, put two cylinders on the ground and then build on top of that. I don't want this looking like an actual vehicle, just having the basic essence of one). We'll go forward from there once you've done that.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 5: Drawing Animals"

2014-12-28 19:22

Overall, great work. I just finished writing the response to your introduction post, so I'm going to carry some of that sentiment over into here. First off, you're totally transparent. You're listing your thoughts and your concerns, and stating your displeasure, as a defense mechanism. Mentally, this separates you from the artist and makes you an external body offering their own critique. By separating yourself from the person who drew these animals, the person giving the critique (me) can't think less of you, right? If you're perfectly aware of your mistakes.

I wouldn't think any less of you if you presented me with a five year old's drawing of a hippo with stick legs. What's important to me is that you put the effort in, and that you attempt to apply the concepts I cover in my lessons, and you have done that well. Plenty of people submit homework that isn't great, and they may or may not be aware of it. But as long as they tried their best to apply those lessons to their work, they are my best students.

I had this English teacher in high school - Dr. Strong. She had a Ph. D and everything! And she gave me advice (in the context of writing essays, which would argue a specific point of view) that I still haven't forgotten after seven or eight years. Never admit weakness. It is up to your audience - the person reading, viewing, watching, critiquing - to do find your weaknesses. Don't make it any easier for them. Present your thoughts and work with quiet confidence - and if you don't have any, then fake it. Eventually it will become real. You may be presenting garbage, but frankly that is garbage that you put time and effort in, so while the rest of the world may not value it, you still should.

Okay, on to the critique. I'll be doing this ignoring your little comments, so forgive me if I repeat something you've said.

  1. Leopards - You've done a good job of capturing poses and gestures with these, and I like that you've varied where your focal points fall. At times - for instance, on number 3 - I feel that you might benefit from actively regarding the legs as being composed of separate components - a rectangle for the upper bone, and one for the lower, so you can achieve a clearer bend at the knee. When dealing with the head, it may help to use a box-type form to bring the jaw down from the main cranium (circle), rather than more circles. Boxes, as more planar shapes, tend to work better towards a solid construction.

  2. Rhinos - These are very well done. You've demonstrated a good eye for proportion (although on 3 and 5 the heads seem a little too small). Your forms seen to carry a nice sense of three dimensionality, and I really like 2, though it seems you got a little careless with the leg construction for that one.

  3. Pandas - A great variety of poses. 2 is looking rather awkward, and the back half of 5 seems to be where you kind of gave up on the poor guy. The rest are nicely done. I really like 6, and it came out well - but I'm a little concerned about how you deal with the construction of his head. The result was fine, but in the future, when you're drawing lines over the circle (to bisect it) try to play with curving those lines around the sphere that is represented there, rather than treating it as a flat circle. In general, always strive to wrap contour lines around forms, rather than cutting them across a flat surface.

  4. Warthogs - yeah.. we'll skip these. For some reason, when I was drawing warty pigs at the LA zoo for this class, I could not for the life of me draw them well. They were all terrible. Clearly we should be blaming these awful, misshapen animals, right?

  5. Flamingos - these are all very well done. 2 and 4 are my favourite. They're both fairly plain, but this allows me to see the construction better. It looks as though they're composed more of 3D forms rather than 2D shapes, which is great.

  6. Elephants - Their heads are very well constructed, but I'm catching a mistake you may have been making elsewhere. Or rather, perhaps not a mistake, but just an omission. If you look at the original lesson page, the horse I have near the top. It has a shape marked in red that goes from the ribcage-circle to the pelvis-circle, and establishes the form of its torso. I think you may be missing this step. In general, your pelvis does not seem to be quite big enough to properly construct those forms in 3D.

  7. Hippos - The proportions here seem to have been a point of difficulty. The leg constructions in general could use some work, but also pay attention to how the torso is shaped. It's not always a smooth curve from front to back - sometimes you'll notice that near the back, by the leg, it comes up a little quicker. The belly feels like a mass that is hanging down. Like on this hippo

  8. Kangaroos - These definitely look interesting. Great constructions, great action pose for #5. One thing that often makes an animal seem more lively is how the curves are handled from the rib cage to the pelvis. Rather than being consistent curves, they sometimes swoop in and out, creating more bean-like or other alternate shapes. You did a good job in capturing these variations with the kangaroos.

  9. Frogs - These area really well done too. 1 flattens out a bit, but 3 and 4 are excellent constructions.

You're right, a lot of them are rather messy, but I expected them to be. You are working in ink, and control of your linework and pen pressure is something you will develop over time. You have more than exceeded my expectations for this lesson, so feel free to move onto the next one when you are ready.

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

2014-12-28 18:45

I cringed at the mention of Crilley too, but maaan this guy is passionate. Whenever someone is quite so vocal about their opinions on anything art-related, be it critique or advice, I always look through their post history to find their work, to give support to their opinions. For /u/troutmix, I found nothing but this:

I don't post much, nor do I know anything. I just recommend books and such.

Ironically it's related to him doing the same thing I do - looking for people's portfolios before accepting their advice as valid.

Anyways, my point is that it is very easy to have your opinions swayed and shaped by those that are passionate. Take everything you hear with a hefty serving of salt, including what you hear from me. /u/troutmix may well have offered great advice - and quite frankly, I agree about studying realism before deriving other styles from it - a person who just throws the names of books and artists is not necessarily giving you anything of value. He may well not understand the purpose of these texts, or the techniques of those artists, and may be offering them to you without direction, without context.

Anyways, I can rail against people like that for days without end, but I won't.

I'm kind of concerned about you, though. Not as an artist - I glanced at your latest homework, and I'm impressed - but rather as a human being. You're sixteen, and sixteen year olds tend to be friggin' crazy and dramatic to begin with, so there's that. But more than anything, you're taking things way too seriously. Relax.

The biggest challenge I see for you is getting over this need to be hypercritical of your work. It's not making you a better artist, it's only making you miserable. Yes, it's true that some of your drawings might be shit, but it really doesn't matter. At all. You're expecting so much of yourself, and when I look at it, it just drains the fun out of drawing. There's no need to torture yourself.

It is a common problem, of course, especially for those who are passionate about art. Staring at a blank page is infuriating, knowing that the moment you make a mark is when everything will go down hill. Working purely from observation helps, because you know what you're trying to reproduce - but god forbid you try and draw from your imagination, because it's like crawling through a mine field.

I sort of got over it. Not entirely, but I don't feel that anxiety and self-hatred anymore, over shitty drawings. A blank canvas will always be intimidating. What I did was, after work every day (this was when I was 22 or 23, working as a programmer), I would watch TV and just doodle - in pen - in a little sketchbook I had. I still have it. I'd draw anything and everything, and pretty much all of it was crap. Still, I forced myself, two pages a day minimum. If the two pages weren't done, I wouldn't go to sleep until they were. Nothing from observation, all from my head. Just thoughtless doodles. Absolutely nothing serious.

These aren't about becoming a better artist, they're about being okay with not being a great artist. It's about lowering your personal standards. You're sixteen years old, you have years and years to work on the serious stuff. That's not at all what's important right now. If you forget to take joy in your work, you will burn out.

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

2014-12-28 04:24

By 2D game art, I'm guessing you mean 2D assets as opposed to just concepts?

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

2014-12-28 02:03

Your "george clooney" is actually quite well done. Obviously the likeness isn't there but I'm far more concerned with the proportions, which were solidly done. Whatever you did there - I guess, measuring the proportions on the photo - keep it up. Ultimately they're still the same proportions that I've been repeating, but I guess doing it that way makes them click a little more.

For the others, you felt that they were wrong because they were. The problems are less significant than they were on the last round - the main issue was generally the eyes being too high, and everything else kind of went a little wrong because of that. Also, you have a habit of drawing lips rather large - at least on that first page.

Your individual features are starting to look better. Less like icons, more like actual facial features. I think you should start drawing larger - one face per page, taking up a good deal of the page. The smaller you work, the more awkward it is to put in detail.

Four more pages please! If they all come out like the Clooney, I'll mark the lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Boxes"

2014-12-28 00:01

I'm glad to see that you're catching many of your mistakes. Also, after comparing the first few pages to the last few, your drawings are definitely coming out much more confidently by the end. Just keep an eye out for situations where the angle-relationships between the planes of a box don't seem entirely perpendicular. You seem to have caught a good deal of them, so keep that up.

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

2014-12-27 22:07

You need to pay more attention to those proportions. One of the major mistakes I found was that your circle isn't a circle. Drawing a perfect circle's a bitch, and largely unnecessary - all you have to make sure is that it's as wide as it is tall.

Here's some more notes. Another four pages, and pay more attention to those proportions. 'Cause if you don't check, I'm just going to have you do another four!

There's two things that I'm looking for before I let you move forward

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

2014-12-27 03:01

Well done! The last two sets of form intersections were quite well done. I really liked your dissections as well - they show some improvement over the organic forms, which are a little hit-and-miss. Some are very well done, while others flatten out something dreadful.

When it comes to those contour lines, always remember to wrap nicely around the form, especially when you reach the edge. For example, the bottom right of page 1 was very well done, while the one just above it is awful. More were done well than not, however, and you show a marked improvement as you progress.

I really liked the dissection at the middle-top of page 3, with all of the little layers and folds. Very interesting, and very well executed! Some of your other subject matters were pretty clever too - the mouse, the sketchbook. That poor frog - great attention to its innards!

I think you're definitely ready to move onto lesson 3, so go ahead with that whenever you feel comfortable.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Boxes"

2014-12-26 21:43

No, the way you did it is fine. Eventually you'll be able to catch most of your mistakes just by looking at them, but checking against proper perspective plotting is a pretty good way of building up to that.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Boxes"

2014-12-26 20:44

Well done! Early on, you have a bit of a tendency to draw the near plane of the box smaller than your far plane - you do this less and less as you progress through the challenge, but I did want to bring it to your attention because it still happens every now and then (#242 - though you did correct i, so I'm guessing you're aware).

Still, I see a lot of great progress, and the corrections are on point. Good job!

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

2014-12-26 20:42

The proportions on the first page are actually pretty damn good. Then you go all... all wrong. Bad NuggleBuggins, bad! Swats with a rolled up magazine

The rest of your faces end up being too squat, and I know you can tell because you regularly try to correct it by chopping the sides off the original circle. If you stick with the circle and drop a full unit down for the chin, it may feel too long to you, but you're just not used to it.

In this overdrawing, I tackled the corrections in two ways. I reconstructed it from the original circle you started with, and I also gave the face you drew some reconstructive surgery, making her head narrower and bringing her eyes in to match.

Your Jim Carrey's proportions are actually pretty good, even though the faces are creepy as all hell. I think you might benefit from doing this particular set of lessons in pencil (the ink-only rule only applies to the basics and dynamic sketching). Faces and people are just so complicated that ink ends up becoming more of a burden than necessary. You can even do these digitally, if you like. Whatever feels most comfortable for you.

Give me four more pages of faces, all from reference. And try not to make the features too cartoony. You can always stylize later, once you've gotten the concepts down.

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Boxes"

2014-12-26 06:48

Well done! It's a good sign that you were testing your own limits more and more by the end. It does look like you were tackling more complicated constructions.

Just be aware in the future that the more you try and correct your mistakes, the more ink you put on the page, and the darker your lines get - specifically where you made your mistakes. This draws the viewer's eye. Basically, the more you try and fuss and correct, the more attention you're giving your mistakes.

Successfully dealing with mistakes is a skill that takes time and experience to develop, but eventually you will learn how to best handle a line that goes off a little bit in a way that effectively makes it disappear. That's one of the reasons I push people to work in ink!

I am glad to hear that you're noticing the times you accidentally reverse your perspective and make your near planes smaller than your far planes. Awareness is definitely half the battle, so continue to keep your eye out.

I hope I'll be seeing you tackle some of the lessons soon!

Uncomfortable in the post "OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: 250 Boxes"

2014-12-26 01:16

Scott Robertson's books are amazing. I have the How to Draw one sitting on my shelf.. Definitely haven't looked at it as much as I should. It just sits there, leering at me, calling me names.

So! Your boxes are looking very clean. I like the line weights around each one, it emphasizes the cohesiveness of each box as a single form rather than a bunch of connected lines. You could take it further by making the lines on one side just a touch thicker, to help add some dimension. Treat it as though there is a light source - the lines facing away from the light source get just a little bit thicker.

At first glance, your boxes look great, though upon closer inspection I am noticing similar mistakes across a lot of your boxes - moreso with your earlier ones, so it seems like you might be picking up on it, but I figured I'd bring your attention to it anyways.

We all know the basic rule of closer - bigger, further - smaller. I'm noticing a lot of situations where the far plane of your box is ending up bigger than your near plane. Here's some over-drawings to better explain what I mean. Always remember that the plane you can see is closer than the one you can't. Therefore, if both of these planes are the same size in 3D space, once drawn in 2D the further one should be a bit smaller.

You are also having some trouble with your angles - the planes of the box should be perpendicular to each other, so beyond a certain leeway, the viewer's eye will pick up on awkward slants to your planes.

As I said before though, this becomes less and less the case as you go through the boxes, so the later ones are really quite well done (save the odd instance of the mistakes I mentioned). Also, the confidence and cleanliness of your drawings is really striking. Definitely keep that up! The weights definitely look more attractive than your work from Lesson 2, which was already pretty damn good.

Have a Merry Christmas, and enjoy the badge you've earned!

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

2014-12-24 04:46

Nice figure drawings! It looks like you learned a lot from that class.

Uncomfortable in the post "EXTRA CURRICULAR: Interior Environment Cutout"

2014-12-24 01:14

I totally forgot about this. I never really intended to post it as another lesson, with homework, but I don't see why it couldn't be treated that way.

It'd be great to see you attempt this again - perhaps the same layout. Just to see how you can apply what you've learned thus far, for comparison's sake. Any media would do - digital, ink, pencil, etc.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 3: Drawing Plants"

2014-12-23 23:45

Definitely. I think the M is comparable to the staedtler 0.8mm. I don't really use the faber castell's much (though they are generally a little better in quality than the staedtlers), but I've got a couple lying around and they're F. I believe that's comparable to the 0.5mm staedtler pens, which are the ones I recommend.

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

2014-12-23 22:30

Whoa, that's quite a body of work! I'd be really interested in seeing how your comics change after completing the lessons!

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 3: Drawing Plants"

2014-12-23 22:25

Better, though you still have room to grow. I think you might be a little heavy handed with your pen - or perhaps it's particularly thick to begin with? What size are you using?

I'll mark the lesson as complete, because I think that as long as you apply what you've learned in this lesson, you should be fine to move forward.

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

2014-12-23 17:52

Big improvement. There's still room to get better, but I think you've definitely demonstrated the level of skill required for this lesson, so I'll mark it as complete.

One thing to note about the second page - the box in the centre of the construction is, well.. wrong. Perspective-wise, anyways. Your near-plane is smaller than the far-plane. Perspective dictates that the far plane, if it is the same size in 3D space as the near plane (which we know it to be, being a box and all), it will always appear smaller when drawn in 2D. Now we can sometimes get away with drawing it as the same size (because the eye is not an exact measuring tool), but we can never get away with it being larger. The eye will immediately pick up on something being off, even if it isn't sure what it is.

Just something to keep in mind! Anyways, if you feel at all uncomfortable with drawing forms at different rotations, there's always the 250 box challenge. Otherwise, feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 3: Drawing Plants"

2014-12-23 17:38

Your lay-ins are pretty good, although a lot of the ellipses I see are pretty rushed. Slow down and make sure each shape and form is complete. I know you had trouble with patience, but you'll have to fight a little bit harder.

The forms in your final drawings are alright - sometimes you go a little too heavily into detail. Your leaning plant of pisa's trunk/stem/whatever does not need to be detailed out completely. It would have been a lit more successful had you left the vast majority of it empty with a few minor contour lines to reinforce the form. Same with the orange tree - you don't ever need to detail so much, it ultimately detracts from the drawing, because you end up overwhelming the viewer. There's so much noise and contrast that their eye doesn't know where to rest.

I can see that you tried to taper off from the detail with some of your other trees, and you're going in the right direction with that. You could go further, though. It's possible that this is a side effect of you trying to maintain your patience - you over compensated with detail!

The other major issue I see is line weights. You kind of went HAM all over them, and it flattens out a lot of your drawings. For example, the roses - you've got them surrounded by a heavy, black line. This turns them into a flat graphic shape, and no amount of contour lines or shading will be able to combat it.

I'd like you to reel back a bit. Do two more pages of plants, but instead of drawing them with full detail, try to approach it more like I did in this example (I added it to the bonus content in the lesson notes a while back). Do not apply shading or excessive detail. You can apply line weights, but be careful and thoughtful with it. Start off with thin lines, then selectively darken lines on one side of your forms (treat it like lighting, where the line closer to the light source is lighter, the one further away is darker). Also use line weights to reinforce overlaps - a thicker line crossing over a thinner line will always be clearly communicated as being on top.

I feel like you've got a lot of good drawings here, but they're buried under overwhelming detail and line weights.

Uncomfortable in the post "LESSON 3: Drawing Plants"

2014-12-23 17:13

Overall, these look really good (except for 10, I have no idea what that is).

Let's start with your lay-ins. It's a bit hard to critique most of them without knowing what exactly they're supposed to represent, but the most important thing that I'm seeing is that each one is comprised of complete forms and shapes. They're fairly confident, a lot of your forms carry a good sense of volume and solidity, etc. The only one I was just a teensy bit concerned about was #3 on page 1, what looks to be a mushroom. I would have thrown in a cap to the stem tube where it connects with the cap. I could be wrong (again, without the reference I'm just guessing) but it feels as though the connection point would be visible at this angle. Being able to see the cap on the tube would help reinforce how these two forms intersect.

Other than that, and based on how your final drawings came out, I'm convinced that you made the right choices between 2D and 3D elements when doing your lay-ins, and that they were not too simple for the subjects.

There definitely is progress as I flip through your finals. The first page are a little more tentative, a little more flat. The pot in #1 is awkward, like the top plane is angled while the bottom plane is flat. #2 is pretty decent, the layering of the bits on the stem is really nice. Actually, the whole thing is all about layering, and you pulled that off well. #3 is kind of meh. I like the details around the ridge of the cap, but I feel like the stem flattens out a lot. The cap shows some great volume and form, though.

At page 4 you really start to move forward quickly. The scale is good as long as you can convey the amount of detail you require - which it seems that you could. Both here show good form and volume, the surface texturing is not distracting (even with the complexity of #4). I do feel that you're lacking focal points, but frankly that's preferable to having a piece that is too busy. In the future, pick a spot on your subject, draw a circle over it (a lot of people are nervous to do that), and detail the shit out of everything inside the circle. Just outside the circle, you can taper off the detail. Here's an example of how my instructor, Peter Han, tackled that sort of thing.

Page 5 is looking okay, though some of the overlaps of the petals on #6 are a little unclear. The line weight uncertainty you mentioned is likely at play here. I'll go over that a bit more later. #7's got some nice organic twisting to it, and it shows some nice movement through 3D space. The petals are a little boring though, like they're begging to be made a focal point. I like the care you took when applying the little rings around the stem, they really push the form and solidity of the whole plant. Also that curling on the petal is a fantastic touch.

6 is nice, I like the simplistic approach to the cube-pot-thing, it really emphasizes the plant itself. That in itself gives the kind of contrast we look for to define a focal point, though that could definitely be taken much further. #7 is well done too, but there are ways of showing scale on an object without resorting to external reference. It's certainly not as concrete as having a person standing there, but it'll do the job in a subtler manner. It's all about the details. The best example I can think of is a large space ship. As a basic arrangement of forms, it is very difficult to tell how big it is, if there's no frame of reference. However, once the details are added, you immediately have something to compare. Little access panels, windows, recessed sections and cut-lines (oh god, how I love the cut-lines) all show scale because we understand at least to some extent, how they are intended to be used. Humans are driving this space ship - or usually, at least something human-sized. Therefore the windows are tailored to them, as are the access panels. Cut-lines might help show how it was put together, breaking it into more manageable parts. More cut-lines, more parts, probably a significantly larger overall construction.

Now, how do we apply that to plants? Tricky, but looking at things like leaves and petals, no matter the scale, some things don't change too much. One thing that comes to mind - and I could be wrong about this, so take what I say with a grain of salt - but the little veins in leaves probably aren't going to scale up very much with the rest of the plant. I'm sure there's more that you can find by studying your reference photo, so look for little details like that.

I really, really have no idea what's going on in #10, but every set of drawings is going to have a failure or two. No shame in that. The head on 11's looking great, though the stem kind of lost its form. Despite the reference, I probably would have tried to show a bit of the stem curving back around, instead of having the top of it hidden by parts of the head. I think that would have communicated its purpose a little better, and would have given us some nice flow.

Your trees came out really nicely. They're looking nice and solid, especially the tree trunks. The foliage was captured better in #13, but the approach you took for both was definitely the right one. Clumping things together, not letting the overwhelming detail get the better of you.

Now, for the line weights, there's two main things that I keep in mind when tackling them. First off, treat them like you would lighting. One side of a form will have a lighter line (closer to the light source), the other side will have a thicker line (further away from light source). Don't stick to the lighting thing as a hard-fast rule, but use it as a guideline. Then there's overlaps. A thicker line conveys the fact that it is on top of a thinner line. So if you end up with a T junction, you'll want to make the top bar of the T a little thicker than the vertical line. We already know that it's overlapping based on the arrangement of the lines, but we're trying to make it as easy as possible for the viewer's eye to pick up on it. In some cases, it becomes less obvious, so the weights are important to avoid confusion.

I did a quick treatment of your water lily to demonstrate how to approach some of those concepts. You'll notice that this also started to create a focal point around the connection of the root to the rest of the plant.

Anyways - you did a great job, and I definitely think you're ready to move forward.