Uncomfortable in the post "The Spring 2023 Promptathon has begun! Check the Drawabox home page for details. March 25th to 31st."

2023-03-25 19:01

Lots of people on our discord server are participating - feel free to join in! A new prompt with a detailed description to get your ideas flowing drops each day.

Uncomfortable in the post "Been drawing for some years before starting draw a box, got me wondering about how I position myself"

2023-03-22 14:44

You can check out the last section of the Tools video from Lesson 0 (the link is timestamped), it discusses how high your desk should be in relation to your body, to maintain good posture and avoid injuring yourself.

Uncomfortable in the post "I am only interested in drawing animals, will lesson 6 and 7 improve my ability to?"

2023-03-22 14:41

Thank you for the kind words!

Uncomfortable in the post "I am only interested in drawing animals, will lesson 6 and 7 improve my ability to?"

2023-03-22 03:07

I'm glad to hear that!

Uncomfortable in the post "I am only interested in drawing animals, will lesson 6 and 7 improve my ability to?"

2023-03-21 23:52

The thing to keep in mind about drawabox is that it's not about drawing plants, insects, animals, or vehicles. Each of these are a lens through which we explore the same thing, over and over: 3D space, and how the things we draw represent forms and structures that exist within it.

Each exercise is a puzzle we force our brains to solve, and in so doing we gradually rewire how we perceive the things we draw, and how they exist not as flat shapes on the page, but as forms in three dimensions.

Lessons 6 and 7 accomplish the same, by introducing us to different kinds of spatial problems. It's a new lens, but it trains the same skills, attacking the same problems from a different angle - and in so doing, helping us move beyond the plateaus we reach by looking only at the same things.

Uncomfortable in the post "Skipping the later challenges"

2023-03-20 17:52

Those two challenges are indeed optional.

Uncomfortable in the post "do i repost homework submission?"

2023-03-20 04:09

You can repost it, but you should probably check out the unofficial critique exchange program being run on our discord chat server (in the #critique-exchange channel). There's a pinned message there that explains how it works, but basically it helps students get critiques more reliably on their work by giving feedback to others - although I think to get feedback on Lesson 1, you just have to wait a week before being added to their list.

Uncomfortable in the post "How to get back into the flow of the 250 box challenge after a longer break?"

2023-03-19 00:15

It really is best to just continue where you left off. You may feel you regressed, but as long as you review the lesson material, and especially these reminders, you'll still be completed the assignment as intended. Then if you need to do any more, that'll be a decision someone else will make when you get feedback.

Uncomfortable in the post "Bladeless pencil sharpener?"

2023-03-19 00:12

Ask over in /r/ArtistLounge and /r/learnart. I think /r/drawing might just be for sharing work, and this subreddit is narrowly targeted as well (as AutoModerator explained).

If you're not able to find a bladeless option, one thing I might recommend is a brush pen. While ink can be pretty scary to work with, it can be really freeing to work with, and brush pens lean into a lot of little accidents that allow you to explore your doodles further. This video shows that kind of doodling, in case you're interested.

Best of luck on your treatment.

Uncomfortable in the post "Perspective struggles after the course: Where do I place the floor when drawing indoor environments?"

2023-03-17 16:52

There's no specific point for how high the floor should be. Rather, the one constant is that if you envision each scene as though it's being viewed by a person, or by a camera, the horizon line represents the level at which that camera sits.

Using the example where the viewer is a human, so the horizon line represents the level of their eyes, if you place another human of equal height into the scene and move it back in space, its eyes will always be at the horizon line regardless of how far away it goes.

This means that when placing the floor, you're basically thinking about how high off the ground the viewer's eyes are meant to be. If you put the horizon very low in the frame, that tells us that we're really low to the ground, often called a "worm's eye view", and if the horizon is very high in the frame, it tells us that we're way above the ground, as if the scene were seen from the eyes of a bird.

As to your other question, specifically this one:

I've read that if you have a one point perspective scene for example, everything that is on the ground level is going to go to that vanishing point, but things who are on other levels will not. Because of that, decorations on the wall or on top of other furniture would not necessarily perfect allign to the same vanishing point. Is is accurate information?

This is not accurate. Every vanishing point governs one set of edges that are parallel to one another in 3D space. If you have a ground plane and a wall, and upon that wall you have a rectangular picture frame, if the picture frame isn't slanted (so it's aligned to the wall on one axis and to the floor on the other), it will share a vanishing point (at least in the depth-wise dimension, given that we're talking about a simple 1 point perspective scene) with the ground plane. If however the picture frame is slanted, it will no longer align to the ground plane, and its own vanishing point will separate from the ground's.

Uncomfortable in the post "Feeling a bit Sad (Little Rant)"

2023-03-16 16:42

This is definitely something we hear about often. I'd recommend that you share your feelings about this over on our discord chat server, where we have a channel called #art-frustrations. As this subreddit's focus is much more specific on homework submissions and questions relating to the lesson material, it's not a suitable place for it, but this is definitely the sort of venting/sharing that channel is intended for.

/r/ArtistLounge would also probably be a good place for this kind of post.

Uncomfortable in the post "Whats the point of official critique, when its copy-paste? lol."

2023-03-16 13:17

This is something we're extremely upfront about, as explained here in the Lesson 0 video that explains how official critique works: https://youtu.be/nBjTGvpd-q8?t=463 . The link is time-stamped to the specific section where I explain how it works.

Drawabox is able to function because students tend to make the same kinds of mistakes. They fall into set categories, and there isn't a ton of variance involved. This allows our TAs to create their own libraries of prewritten chunks of text that they can then piece together based on their analysis of a student's work. Meaning, the information they're given is specific to the tendencies and issues they themselves exhibit.

Even in the screenshots you showed, they aren't identical - the first and third call out the alignment of the funnels with the minor axis, the second addresses the student's tendency to hesitate, resulting in a wobbly line, and the fourth suggests that the student widens the degree of their ellipses as they move towards the ends of the funnel.

And of course these are limited crops of longer critiques, so there are likely other differences and variations. Really the only part that is consistently identical is the introductory paragraph.

We do everything we can to keep the price of one-on-one student specific feedback as low as we can - including paying our TAs quite a bit more than our students pay to receive that same feedback. Meaning, we take a loss by offering critiques, and so using prewritten text where able, we streamline the process and bring those costs down. TAs still do have to write explanations and answers to questions on the spot while writing their critiques, but the prewritten stuff helps save a lot of time (allowing them to allocate their time where it's needed most) while continuing to give students exactly what they need.

If you'd prefer that the teaching assistants labour over every word, typing it all out a little differently each time, and that they receive a sub-minimum hourly wage for their skilled labour, then you may want to patronize a different resource. Here however we encourage TAs to maximize their efficiency as long as the student gets the advice and information they need to progress meaningfully.

Uncomfortable in the post "when you do the 250 box challenge what do you do to make sure that all lines converge correctly?"

2023-03-12 19:05

Keep in mind that the purpose is not to draw 250 perfect boxes. It's to draw a page of boxes, doing your best to keep those convergences consistent, then apply the line extensions to identify where your approach was off, where you may have neglected to pay attention, and adjust your approach accordingly on the next page.

Doing this over the course of 250 boxes helps rewire our brains with a greater focus on maintaining those consistent convergences. No student does this perfectly by the end of the challenge, and there's always more growth to be had, but it's intended to be a bit of a short-term bootcamp for students so they're in a good position to continue getting the most out of the exercises we move onto afterwards.

Uncomfortable in the post "my friend dosen't see the importance of learning the fundamentals"

2023-03-11 17:09

This is probably a question better suited for /r/artistlounge, although this video on "What are the fundamentals and why do I need to learn them" from Lesson 0 seems pretty well matched to your question. Maybe share it with them.

Just remember that not everyone is at a stage where they're ready and willing to go study the boring basics. It took me ten years from when I started drawing regularly to get to that point myself. It can simply be a matter of them not being ready for that just yet.

Uncomfortable in the post "Should I draw textures from my arm?"

2023-03-10 17:54

There are many strokes that won't be comfortable to do from the shoulder right now. That's not a reason not to use the shoulder though, as it's through use and practice that it becomes easier. As noted in the material, length is irrelevant - it's all about the nature of the mark being drawn, and what you need from it.

In texture it's normal to need a lot more tight precision, and stiffness of strokes is not really a problem, though generalizing isn't super useful. Focus on whether you need the stroke to flow smoothly or not. If you do, draw it from the shoulder.

Uncomfortable in the post "Should I draw textures from my arm?"

2023-03-09 18:37

What you have engraved into your head actually contradicts what the material says. Your question is answered here and the section below it about "the path of least resistance" is relevant as well.

Uncomfortable in the post "Day 2 lesson 1 2/100days"

2023-03-07 18:42

While I approved your previous post as it seemed to have a question in it, note what AutoModerator's reply says. The subreddit is not the place to post regular updates, partial work, etc. It's just meant for specific questions and completed lesson homework.

You may find our discord chat server more fitting for your purposes.

Uncomfortable in the post "Posting homework on Imgur"

2023-03-02 15:30

It's possible that if you were uploading a large number of images all at once, it may have viewed it as potential spam. I know newer imgur accounts can run into that more often.

Try uploading the images in small batches - still to the same album, but basically upload a few, then add a few more, and add yet a few more,.while ensuring that they're all present.

Uncomfortable in the post "Internal crisis over the 50% rule"

2023-02-27 18:01

Glad to hear it! If you need any help coming up with ideas of things to draw, you can always check out our drawing prompts on the drawabox website.

Uncomfortable in the post "Looking to buy proko's courses. which one first ?"

2023-02-26 23:20

This is definitely going to be something you'll want to ask in /r/learnart or /r/artistlounge.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2 and 250 box challenge"

2023-02-26 22:37

As the 250 box challenge is a prerequisite for Lesson 2, you should be completing that first. Outside of official critique that's really left up to the student, but for official critique it's a hard requirement. If you have additional time after a page or two of boxes, make sure you're keeping up with the 50% rule as well.

Uncomfortable in the post "Is there an art tool/pencil/pen that can be white but naturally write on a black plastic surface without any black leaking through?"

2023-02-24 17:56

While AutoModerator did explain why this subreddit is not suitable for this question, you may want to look into Sharpie's oil based "Paint Pens".

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Boxes Purpose"

2023-02-24 17:53

The purpose of the box challenge is to help students develop their underlying, instinctual understanding of how the things they draw on the flat page, and the manner in which they're drawn, impact what they're meant to represent in 3D space. More specifically, the box challenge focuses on the idea that the edges that are parallel to one another in three dimensions converge towards a shared vanishing point when drawn in 2D. Basically the box challenge has us repeatedly focus on those convergences, so as to build up our ability to gauge how lines should be angled such that they converge with other lines in a given set.

In the grand scheme of things, 250 boxes isn't that much, so it's not intended to achieve any particular amount of growth/improvement in this area - just to push students forward and to ensure that they've had a significant exposure to this idea of focusing on convergences.

What you described, drawing the Y and then estimating where to place your other lines, is entirely appropriate, as long as you were focusing on having those lines converge consistently, and as long as you were applying the line extensions from the instruction to then check where those convergences were off so you could adjust your approach in the next page.

As a side note, nothing in Drawabox is meant to train students to visualize the things they intend to draw. The reason for that being that I myself have aphantasia - which is an inability to visualize things in one's head. In my experience however this is not a disability, but rather helps clear away any of the unnecessary distractions many students might face, especially when they're able to already see what they wish to draw, but simply can't reproduce it on the page. This has the potential of creating the expectation that they are supposed to be able to, when in fact just like the rest of us, they still have to go through the work of developing their technical drawing skills, their observational skills, and their visual libraries.

If you're at all interested in aphantasia, I do have a video here which I made for Proko's youtube channel a couple years ago.

Uncomfortable in the post "Internal crisis over the 50% rule"

2023-02-23 18:20

No, you're not a "weird case" - you're describing what the vast majority of people feel, and why the 50% rule is necessary. It's not about how you feel now, and your existing relationship with drawing - most people who are out looking for a course are specifically doing it because they prefer to spend their time with some kind of promise that this investment of time will "pay off", that there's a clear and well defined purpose to it.

The 50% rule exists to rewire the student's brain and help them develop a healthier, more tenable and long-lasting relationship with the act of drawing. I'd recommend rewatching the 50% rule video (as the video by and large attempts to make this point), and view it as speaking directly to you. Don't attempt to position yourself outside of the majority, because you are very much part of it in this case.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 boxes challenge completed. Am I good to go to the next lesson?"

2023-02-22 19:52

I think you might want to review the instructions for this one, as you haven't completed the challenge correctly. The main issues being:

• You only drew the boxes, and did not apply any of the line extensions that serve as an error analysis, helping you to better understand where your approach needs to be adjusted for your next page.

• You way overfilled your pages, resulting in a lot of very tiny boxes. The assignment section states that you should aim to fit 5 or 6 boxes to a page.

This challenge is not the sort of thing that you're expected to go through quickly. It's not at all uncommon for a single page of 5 or 6 boxes to take half an hour to an hour. It's a lot of work, and generally gets spread out over the course of a month (although that all depends on how much time the student has each day, some students take longer).

Uncomfortable in the post "my First comission, is this a scam??"

2023-02-22 19:49

While automod did explain why this isn't the subreddit for this particular question, I did want to weigh in and say that while I don't know for sure, the eagerness to pay up-front does smell pretty fishy.

I do know of a type of commission scam where the person will insist on paying everything up-front, but they'll pay with something like a cheque, and they'll "accidentally" make it for like 10x more than the agreed upon amount.

You'll get the cheque, they'll say "oh drat I made a mistake, can you send me the difference?" And once you do, you find out that their original cheque bounced, leaving you not only without the agreed upon payment, but also having lost the money you sent back to them.

In this case, the fact that they want to do it through Paypal is a small reassurance, given that if they made a mistake, you'd just be able to refund the original payment and not end up spending any of your own money. But that said, I'm not entirely familiar with how paypal works in such situations (I use it plenty, but don't generally have to issue refunds).

Going back to the original red flag - their eagerness to pay you fully up-front is a pretty big one, and that along would make me very wary of working with them. It doesn't guarantee that they're scamming you, but it does certainly make it seem that way.

Uncomfortable in the post "Is it better to do it at a flat desk or an angle?"

2023-02-16 19:03

At the end of this video (the link is timestamped) from Lesson 0, I go into detail about how you should be sitting at your desk, angled desks vs. flat desks, etc.

Uncomfortable in the post "Drawabox 250 Box Challange Part 1(1-122)"

2023-02-16 19:02

Unfortunately a lot of posts come through this subreddit, so it's important that the entirety of your homework submission be contained in one post. That isn't always possible with reddit's own image uploading restrictions, so hosting your work on another platform (like imgur.com, or whatever else you're comfortable using) and linking to it here becomes necessary.

Please try uploading your work to a third party image host, and try submitting your work here again.

Uncomfortable in the post "50% Time Doodling"

2023-02-14 19:44

Glad to hear that you're diving head-first into the 50% rule! Unfortunately on the subreddit in order to ensure people get as good of a chance of getting eyes on their homework, submissions here are reserved for full lesson submissions, but I wanted to cheer you on a little for adhering to the rule, as it's probably the most difficult thing for most students to do. That is, to just let go and draw.

If you'd like to continue sharing your work though, feel free to join our discord chat server.

Uncomfortable in the post "Is it really alright to call Drawabox reddit "ArtFundamentals"?"

2023-02-06 18:11

I appreciate the kind words! And that is honestly something that bothers me too. As much as I can, right up at the beginning of the course, I stress that students shouldn't see Drawabox as this thing they need to conquer before they're allowed to indulge in other things - in drawing the things they want to draw, in taking other courses, etc. It is definitely a struggle though, as people are inclined to stick to their comfort zones, and when you offer them something that'll hold their hands for a while, they're hesitant to let go.

Uncomfortable in the post "Is it really alright to call Drawabox reddit "ArtFundamentals"?"

2023-02-06 17:54

You needn't worry at all. I think it was an entirely valid point to raise. These days I regret a lot about that name - even the word "Art" is itself a misnomer, as drawing is not inherently art. It's a tool we might use to make art, but over the years I've come to believe that in always talking about drawing as "art" it's created a really messed up perception of what it is we're doing in this community.

Uncomfortable in the post "Is it really alright to call Drawabox reddit "ArtFundamentals"?"

2023-02-06 17:45

This is actually something I address in the stickypost at the top of the subreddit, but to put it simply here, if I could change the subreddit's name, I would.

/r/ArtFundamentals came first - I created it to have a separate place to share what I had learned in the courses I had taken, and the things I felt many of the folks on /r/DigitalPainting (a community I was active in at the time, giving feedback to people and such), were missing. So, I summarized the lesson material that had been most impactful to me, provided assigned homework, and provided feedback to the students who did that assigned work.

The overall goal of what the subreddit was for, at the time, was to introduce the concepts that students tended to be missing. That is, "the fundamentals" those people were being told to learn (without elaboration).

Over the years, in providing feedback to thousands of students, I've come to narrow the specific elements I felt were most important in this regard. There are many fundamentals, and so what we shifted towards covering was more the "core" fundamentals of drawing. Not the fundamentals of art as a whole.

By that point however, our membership was considerable, and reddit does not provide any option for renaming a subreddit, short of closing it down and starting a new one. Unfortunately that would have been a considerable loss for all we've developed here, so it's never really been an option we've considered.

For what it's worth, we do explain Drawabox's role, what we mean by the "core" fundamentals, and point students to all the other fundamentals that exist here in the first page of our first lesson, to help mitigate the uncertainty and confusion a beginner may have.

Edit: I say however too much, and also for anyone else responding, don't be rude. /u/s_nicole is voicing something that I have myself been concerned about, and I think it's an entirely valid point to make.

Uncomfortable in the post "Where and how do I start?"

2023-02-06 16:11

If you're looking for recommendations for what to do to start learning how to draw, I would definitely recommend asking on the subreddits recommended in AutoModerator's initial reply to your post.

That said, I will point out that Drawabox.com - the free course this subreddit is focused on - is intended to provide a structured way to learn the core fundamentals of drawing. It won't teach you anything, but it's intended to provide a basis or a starting point.

You can learn more about what the course covers, and what its goals are in this video, and decide whether it's right for you. That said, I do still recommend asking your question on those other communities (specifically /r/learnart or /r/artistlounge) as they will provide you with a range of options, whereas here we just focus on one.

Uncomfortable in the post "I want to learn drawing."

2023-02-06 16:04

If you're looking for recommendations for what to do to start learning how to draw, I would definitely recommend asking on the subreddits recommended in AutoModerator's initial reply to your post.

That said, I will point out that Drawabox.com - the free course this subreddit is focused on - is intended to provide a structured way to learn the core fundamentals of drawing. It won't teach you anything, but it's intended to provide a basis or a starting point.

You can learn more about what the course covers, and what its goals are in this video, and decide whether it's right for you. That said, I do still recommend asking your question on those other communities (specifically /r/learnart or /r/artistlounge) as they will provide you with a range of options, whereas here we just focus on one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Proportionising"

2023-02-01 18:29

As Drawabox does everything it can to focus on a very limited set of concepts, it does not tackle much in regards to proportion, as many of the tricks involved in judging proportions better have us thinking in 2D space. Instead of mixing that up and potentially diluting the heavy focus on thinking in 3D, we instead leave it as one of those things students will focus on elsewhere.

Now, that does mean that for this topic, you're gonna want to ask in a different community in order to get a wider range of suggestions. I'd recommend asking over in /r/artistlounge or /r/learnart.

Uncomfortable in the post "Picking Up After ~9 Months Of Not Drawing"

2023-01-31 00:16

Your plan is exactly what I would recommend. Go back to the beginning in terms of reviewing the material, revisit the exercises more as part of longer warmups, then jump back in with Lesson 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "how to make my lines smooth, my strokes are very bad ? I have no TALENT and I've been drawing for half a year"

2023-01-30 15:19

While AutoModerator explained that posts on this subreddit should be reserved for those working through the lessons on drawabox.com, I should mention that markmaking and the execution of smooth strokes is something Drawabox focuses on towards the beginning of the course - so that might be something for you to check out. You'll find the free lessons here: https://drawabox.com

Uncomfortable in the post "Where are lessons 8 and beyond?"

2023-01-30 15:17

They were removed from the course many years ago. Long story short, once I was finished with the core lesson material between lessons 1-7, I figured the logical next step was to expand into other topics. This turned out to be the wrong decision, as it caused me to overextend myself into topics I hadn't had the chance to reflect upon to the degree I had with the existing material. From there, I changed the strategy to focusing on rewriting/improving upon the core material so it could be delivered as effectively and clearly as possible (something I am still working on improving), with the intention of leaving other topics to the instructors who are better suited to teaching them.

Uncomfortable in the post "Is anybody else having problems ordering the Drawabox Pens on PayPal?"

2023-01-30 15:16

I gave it a shot, but wasn't able to reproduce the issue. Sorry about that! If the issue continues to persist on your side, then there may be some other issue that we're unable to diagnose. Short of trying a different browser, it may not be something we can resolve.

If you decide to pick up pens from another retailer, there are some brands with different considerations listed in this section from Lesson 0.

Uncomfortable in the post "Is anybody else having problems ordering the Drawabox Pens on PayPal?"

2023-01-30 03:13

We are still getting orders as usual so I don't expect it's an issue others are running into. That said, I'm going to give it a shot myself. When you get that error, at what part of the process does it occur? Can you describe the steps you end up following so I can reproduce it as accurately as possible?

Uncomfortable in the post "When drawing lines, where should my eyes be LOOKING?"

2023-01-29 20:24

If you've got questions, you can post them as a new text post, and if I think I have anything specific to offer, I will weigh in myself, otherwise I'll leave it to others to respond to. Tagging me directly is not something you should be doing in this community.

For this, I don't really have an answer, because it's more that you shouldn't be focusing overmuch on what you're drawing during the execution phase of a mark. Your eyes play a role throughout the planning and preparation for a stroke (per the ghosting method), but once you execute the mark, you don't really want to be focusing on anything in particular, as that is only going to encourage your eyes to try and take control, which results in wobbling and hesitation.

Uncomfortable in the post "Internal crisis over the 50% rule"

2023-01-28 22:40

So this is something I mention in Lesson 0 - that basically, assuming you have infinite time, there's no better time than when the interests strike you. So you can be at Lesson 0, and be balancing drawabox, a figure drawing class, and your 50% rule play drawing, if you have the time for it all.

If you don't, then you may simply accept that you'll move through Drawabox more slowly, but can still get some of that figure drawing in there. Or you can decide for that time to just focus on Drawabox and the 50% rule.

The thing to keep in mind is that going into figure drawing early will simply mean that not everything you learn from it will make sense immediately, or will be something you can apply/use immediately, and as your spatial reasoning skill improves from following along with Drawabox, that will then echo into what you've been learning with your figure drawing resources.

Basically, don't let yourself be discouraged by the fact that figure drawing is gonna be challenging, and things won't always feel like they click when they're explained. The killer when learning any skill are expectations - the impression that we know how things should be progressing, whether we're doing well or not. As the person learning, we are not in a position to know any of that, so they're really just lies we tell ourselves, which can lead to burnout.

Uncomfortable in the post "Internal crisis over the 50% rule"

2023-01-28 20:01

I'm glad to hear that!

Uncomfortable in the post "Internal crisis over the 50% rule"

2023-01-28 19:05

I cannot stress this enough - the time spent on the 50% rule, on the "play" drawing, is not intended to help you improve the quality of your drawing. Your wording, especially in terms of "Or am I supposed to just tough it out with no improvement here at all?" suggests that while you've read the lesson, watched the videos, etc. you're still struggling with the idea that you're spending time on something that isn't directly going to help you produce better work.

The value of the 50% rule isn't something you're going to see immediately, but it will help you develop a healthier, more resilient, and more long-lasting relationship with drawing itself. It is not going to be a pleasant process, and it is not fun. It is torturous and frustrating. For any one of many different reasons, students at this stage need to produce work that looks good, because they've associated their own personal value with what they produce. Between the influence of the educational systems that teach us to fear failure, and the constant urge of social media to be popular or be worthless, many of us develop an incredibly unhealthy relationship with what we produce - regardless of the field.

This leaves the majority of people without the capacity to put up with drawing a bunch of trash for weeks, months, and years, in order to get to the "level" they fantasize about. In fact, it turns into a moving goalpost moving away from us as quickly as we can scrabble forwards. We just notice more flaws, we become more dissatisfied, and we assume that everyone else around us sees the same mistakes. That everyone is going to laugh at us (something you mentioned yourself, that people would laugh at your sketch), when in truth... No one really cares. But the world tells us that if we're not getting any attention, then we are not worthy of attention, and thus we are worthy of nothing. It's a toxic environment in which we've all been raised, and the 50% rule serves to undo some of that damage, so that at the very least, we can see the value in all that we do. Because if we are incapable of seeing it, then why should anyone else?

The 50% rule is conceptually very straightforward. You draw. What you draw does not change the fact that you drew, so as long as you've drawn, you've completed the task. But students bring their own additional barriers to that. They want to draw well, they want to see for themselves that the time they've invested has had an impact, that they've grown, that they've improved, and if they don't see that, then the fact that they drew at all doesn't matter. It's not enough for them to just draw, to simply follow what they're being told.

That's how it begins, but over time, through sheer brute exposure, it gets easier. It becomes a job, something you do regardless of whether you're motivated, regardless of what you want in the long run. It becomes something to get out of the way. And some ways beyond that, it becomes... fun. Those self-doubts and fears become quieter, the concerns about what others will think or do fade away, and it becomes about what you're doing, the marks you're making, and the simple pleasures of playing and experimenting.

But it isn't that from the get-go. So right now, it may feel redundant, it may not feel worthwhile. But as babies babble nonsense in order to get a grasp of their first language, to get a hang of conversing and expressing themselves with sounds they're barely able to get their mouths around, we too have to create a lot of nonsense to truly grasp the breadth of expression and communication for which this visual language we're learning now allows.

Uncomfortable in the post "I only want to learn Character design, do I need to go past drawabox lesson 2?"

2023-01-28 15:07

While you are welcome to use the lessons however you see fit, I feel I should use this opportunity to remind folks that Drawabox is not a series of individual tutorials. It is a course with a singular core goal, towards which all of the lessons work. As explained in Lesson 0, it's all about developing a student's understanding of how the things they draw on a flat page exist in three dimensions, and of how to manipulate those three dimensional forms to create believable structures and constructions as they draw. This is something we develop throughout the course, though this is most fully tackles betweens lesson 3 and 7, where we finally get to using constructional drawing as an exercise, turning each construction into a 3d spatial puzzle where we work through breaking our subject into simple forms and rebuilding it in the page while figuring out how those forms relate to one another in space. Lessons 1 to 2 arm us with what we need to leverage this kind of exercise, so it all builds up towards the same overall goal.

The goal is not to learn to draw plants, insects, animals, vehicles, etc. - it's to use them as lenses through which to look at this core problem if spatial reasoning. To view it in a sense of being topics you might skip based on your areas of interest would undermine the manner in which the course is designed.

Of course, no one's going to stop you from using the material however you wish, as it is freely available without restriction. It's also worth noting that not everyone goes through it from start to finish, and we benefit throughout the process (rather than only at the end where we've complete it in full) - so many people progress through it, take away what they've gained and move onto other things prior to completing it. But going in with the intent of stopping at a particular point does suggest a misunderstanding of what the intent of the course is.

Hopefully this clarifies things for you.

Uncomfortable in the post "Study Buddy?"

2023-01-26 21:56

Check out /r/ArtBuddy. That would be a more appropriate subreddit for this kind of request.

Uncomfortable in the post "HELP: Position of subdivision lines"

2023-01-25 03:27

The best way to use orthographic studies is as an opportunities to decide the proportions of the object you're going to construct. Of course that comes largely from observing the object itself, but at the end of the day, accuracy isn't as important as it may seem in the context of this course.

So, in effect, while you're working on the orthographic plan, allow yourself to look at a situation of like, "this element would end up being at 29/50ths of the width", and feel free to decide if it doesn't end up messing with anything else, that you can place it at the 3/5ths mark instead. Subdivide as much as you want, but don't feel that it's particularly important to be hyper-accurate, as it's not going to add anything to the exercise but will instead make it a lot more taxing.

Uncomfortable in the post "New at the community"

2023-01-25 01:40

While AutoModerator did say their bit, since this post is more in the grey area, I wanted to weigh in myself. I think you'll get a more varied set of answers from either /r/artistlounge or /r/learnart, since those communities are not specifically focused on Drawabox. Since you're looking for other helpful material, I recommend asking over there, so the answers you get aren't just coming from people who mainly focus on Drawabox.

Uncomfortable in the post "How strict is the "no reference" rule when free drawing?"

2023-01-22 23:52

If what you're referring to is aphantasia, then I would like to clarify one thing. Aphantasia is not the inability to imagine things - it's the inability to visualize what we do imagine in our heads, so like the absence of a "mind's eye".

Honestly though, I made a video about this for Proko's youtube channel, and even they used the clickbaity title of "how to draw with an imagination", so that misnomer is not on you. I do want to stress however that while it does seem like aphantasia's something that holds us back as artists, it really doesn't - not even when it comes to drawing from one's imagination.

Rather, the expectation that we can only draw things if we're able to visualize them first, is incorrect - and it's actually something that leads to a lot of frustration with those students who can visualize quite well. It leaves them with the expectation that what they visualize is enough to draw from, as though it were the equal to looking at a photo reference, and then when they find themselves unable to draw it as expected, they are prone to getting frustrated.

At the end of the day, learning to draw from one's imagination requires strong spatial reasoning skills, which we all must develop through the same kind of hard work. To that end, I'm glad that you mentioned that some artists also have it, as that is very true. I just wanted to be clear that it doesn't actually make much of a difference, as many people might be inclined to think.

Uncomfortable in the post "Is it too late to learn drawing at age of 22 ?"

2023-01-20 23:07

No, not even slightly. At 22 you are extremely young, and have your life ahead of you. You have plenty of time to learn to draw, and as far as the average age of my own students, you're a few years younger than that.