Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Applying Construction to Insects and Arachnids (Patreon Critique Thread)"

2019-03-30 23:30

There is definitely a considerable degree of growth over this set, but there are also a number of places where you're missing a few important points. Over the lesson I can definitely see you building a more mindful understanding of how the forms themselves relate to one another in 3D space.

What stands out most to me is the fact that through just about the entirety of your homework (aside from where you drew along with the louse demo) you drew the segments of your legs as stretched ellipses, rather than the sausages that were demonstrated in the lesson.

Basically stretched ellipses are by their very nature (and by the fact that they steadily widen towards the center and then taper towards the opposite end) very stiff. There's not much there to bend, because of how they're always growing or shrinking. Sausages on the other hand follow a much more flexible path - the width between the edges does not grow nor shrink, it remains consistent, allowing you to bend it as needed. This helps us capture the sense of rhythm and flow.

We also want to avoid dropping contour curves along the length of our sausages. Contour curves can stiffen and lessen the fluidity of a form. Instead, we can reinforce the solidity of the form very conveniently by placing a single contour curve right at the joint - where two sausages intersect, defining that intersection, and thereby reinforcing the relationship between these forms as being one that exists in 3D space.

Sausages are key. Learn them. Use them.

You actually started to play into that with your dragonflys which I quite liked, but here you were playing a little fast and loose with your forms. Take a look at the top left drawing on that page, specifically the middle leg on its right side (our left). Notice how you drew in a simpler form of one of its segments, then went back over it to make it a little more specific, a little more complex?

When doing so, you effectively ignored the shape that existed there underneath, resulting in two distinct stories being told. On one hand, you've got the straighter, rigid segment, and on the other, you've got a more fluid one with a thicker end. You didn't build the more complex information onto the first - you replaced it, resulting in two contradictory stories being told in your drawing, and therefore leaving an inconsistency in the lie being sold to the viewer.

Construction should be approached additively whenever possible - meaning you build directly ontop of your previous forms. If it's got a snaking s-curve, use a regular sausage form to achieve that, then tack on a ball to the far side to create a thicker end and merge that back with your sausage. It's like you're playing with clay or putty - you're building it all up as you go, never drawing over something like it doesn't exist.

Every single thing we put on the page is essentially a solid three dimensional form that now exists in the world. It has to be dealt with.

Those two points are my only real concerns here. Aside from that, you've demonstrated a great deal of improvement overall, and while your proportions are a bit hit-and-miss, that's entirely normal and expected. Our ability to identify those proportional relationships will improve over time.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I want to see 3 more pages of plant drawings from you, demonstrating proper use of the sausage method for constructing leg segments, and avoiding any sort of replacement-of-forms.

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

2019-03-30 18:50

I'd say stick with the ellipse guide. It's definitely on the small side, but most students who've opted for the general master template (rather than selling off their first born for a full set) find themselves similarly limited, so you gotta do what you gotta do. If you find the range of degrees available to you limiting, you may want to experiment with combining the template with some freehanding but as far as size goes, there's not a lot we can do.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction (Patreon Critique Thread)"

2019-03-30 18:46

They are definitely getting there. I'm starting to see your brain working through the spatial problems of understanding how these forms all have to interact with one another, but there are still areas where they're cutting into one another rather than moving aside to accommodate their neighbours.

That is ultimately at the core of this exercise - you're resolving a spatial problem where you've got all these solid sausage forms sitting in the same space, which would be physically impossible. Like a pile of water balloons, you can't have them cut into one another - they instead have to push each other around, sagging and slumping until they find a point of equilibrium.

So start out by putting down a ground plane to help yourself visualize a flat surface. Then place a single sausage just resting there, minding it's own business. Next, pile another one on top - think about how it's going to bend to accomodate this mass beneath it, how it's being pushed up and out rather than cutting right through it. When you're drawing a given sausage, focus only on it- don't worry about the one you're going to draw next. Then repeat the process until you've got a nice pile going. Try drawing from more of an angle (your pages were more from straight-on, try shooting from a 3/4 angle).

The other point worth mentioning is that your linework is definitely looking kind of uncertain at the moment. There's not a lot of confidence there, and you may have slipped back into drawing from your wrist. So here's what I want you to do:

• Reread the lesson 1 and 2 material - you don't need to redo all the exercises, just reread the lesson content and take the time to absorb it. It's all been rewritten since you were last doing drawabox, so there have been some changes and clarifications.

• Do 1 page of organic forms with contour ellipses, then one page with contour curves. Focus on being smooth and confident. Your sausage forms are just simple things, basically two equally spaced spheres connected by a single tube of consistent width (as shown here, later in the lessons). Shake off that hesitation, draw confidently from your shoulder, using the ghosting method.

• Do one page of organic intersections, taking into consideration what I've written above.

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

2019-03-30 18:35

Really, really well done. You've got a lot of excellent use of construction here and demonstrate a great deal of patience and care as you build out every little detail and element of each object. You're making great use of the various techniques demonstrated through this lesson - subdivision, mirroring measurements across an axis, etc. and you're approaching elements like curving lines with a mindfulness for the specificity with which we want them to be crafted. You are at no point shy about your underlying construction lines, and you leverage line weight very effectively to build a gradual hierarchy, clarifying overlaps and allowing the object itself to emerge.

You also chose an solid variety of objects to draw, which certainly brought out many of your strengths, as well as some areas of weakness. One thing that stood out to me here and there was the tendency to struggle with your freehanded ellipses, specifically in choosing a degree that would properly satisfy the criteria that would suggest the ellipse represents a circle in 3D space. Generally what seemed to be off was that you tended to have ellipses with degrees that were a little too narrow, resulting in top/bottom contact points that did not align towards the vertical vanishing point. This was less of a concern when you used an ellipse guide on the camera drawing, so it is fairly understandable. Freehanding ellipses is difficult, and leaves us with a lot of different things to worry about simultaneously. It was also more of an issue on smaller ellipses/cylinders, rather than the larger ones, and was very prominent in this drawing.

If you don't quite remember what the contact point/criteria stuff is, it's all covered in the cylinder challenge.

Aside from that, your work is generally very well done. Keep up the great work and consider this lesson complete. Feel free to move onto the 25 wheel challenge, where you'll undoubtedly face a lot more fun-with-ellipses.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction (Patreon Critique Thread)"

2019-03-27 16:03

Definitely much better. Just one thing to keep in mind - from what I'm seeing, the degree of your contour curves doesn't change as we move through the form itself. Give these notes a read to get an idea of what you're doing wrong with that.

Aside from that, great work. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 3.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Applying Construction to Insects and Arachnids (Patreon Critique Thread)"

2019-03-26 20:12

Rather than whole drawings being flat, it's more parts of different drawings. For example, the legs on the top left of this page end up feeling quite flat, though the body is okay. Same goes for the legs/pincers on the louse.

The top right of this page definitely looks pretty flat as a whole.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Applying Construction to Insects and Arachnids (Patreon Critique Thread)"

2019-03-25 21:13

Overall, not bad! I definitely noticed that you had some drawings where you didn't draw through your forms, or didn't draw them in their entirety (opting to draw only as far as they're not overlapped by another form). These were generally much less successful than those where you drew each form in its entirety - reason being, you get a much stronger grasp of how each form sits in 3D space, and how they all relate to one another.

I honestly think that's been your biggest issue throughout - you've got a lot of drawings where you're not quite as intent on drawing everything completely, and that's where things fall flat.

Secondary to that, you do have some trouble with proportions - this isn't abnormal, as developing an eye for these size relationships is something that happens with practice, but it definitely plays a pretty big role in the drawings that didn't come out quite as well as you may have hoped.

Additionally, make sure you understand what the sausage method actually involves, as I don't think you necessarily apply it correctly all of the time - or even most of the time. Sausages are essentially two equally sized spheres connected by a tube of consistent width. Not any kind of a stretched ellipse, or an uneven shape - sausages can bend and be flexible, and convey the rhythm and gesture of the appendage. No swelling towards one side, no pinching in the middle, none of that. Just a simple sausage form. Legs are composed of multiple of these forms, overlapping, with their intersectional joint reinforced by a single contour line. No contour lines along their lengths, as this'll cause them to stiffen. Be sure to look at this diagram and learn it well.

You can always build on top of these sausages (like if one end of a segment is bigger, you can add another form on top) but they should always exist in this manner as their base.

The last thing I want to mention is that you shouldn't fill things like the spots on a ladybug's shell with solid black. At no other point in these drawings do you attempt to convey the local colour of a thing, so the spots on a ladybug shouldn't be any different - treat them like they have no colour at all, like they're all a flat grey. Cast shadows should be the only thing that get filled in that manner.

Now, you have a lot of successful drawings here, especially towards the end, and while you do ignore certain core principles (like drawing through forms) throughout, you definitely are showing considerable improvement. So I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - just make sure that you adhere to these principles more consistently from here on out.

Uncomfortable in the post "25 Wheel Challenge"

2019-03-23 16:19

Pretty good work overall. I admit that your ellipse guide wheels were vastly superior, but your freehand ones did improve a great deal over the set. One thing I did notice on them in particular however was the tendency to have the inset section (the hub cap, spokes, etc) especially when they were set a bit deeper into the wheel tended to be aligned incorrectly - or more likely, simply given the wrong degree. Because these aren't really that far (in terms of depth) from the outer ellipse on that side of the wheel, generally you're going to find these things to be roughly the same degree. You demonstrated a grasp of this with the ellipse guides, but I imagine it comes down to being able to control that degree.

I do think that for your own sanity, you may benefit from practicing your ellipses a lot more (like, focusing on them in particular in your warmups). That said, they are expected to be very difficult, and your use of the ellipse guide suggests that it's a technical problem that can only improve with practice, rather than an issue of what you do or don't understand.

The only other thing I want to mention is that when you're drawing with the ellipse guide, you should still be defining the back wall in its entirety - draw both ellipses completely, as this will further build out your understanding of the form and the space it occupies. This is, after all, just like everything else an exercise in spatial reasoning.

Oh, and don't think you just have to work with an ellipse guide, or that you have to work purely freehand. You can absolutely mix them up within the same wheel, especially in cases where an ellipse guide may not give you the full range of degrees that you may need.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 7.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2019-03-18 20:42

You've definitely demonstrated a great deal of growth over this set. There are a number of issues that you present early on, but you improve on them throughout the lesson, and while certain issues remain to a degree, many are in a much better state.

What jumps out at me from the beginning is that you tend to get a little preoccupied with detail. Right off the bat, we're seeing a great deal of fur and hair, but the construction itself shows a number of issues. For example, if we look at your squirrel, you're not drawing through your ellipses here, and you aren't making use of the sausage method for your limbs, so they come out quite stiff.

On top of this, your drawings are smaller than they could be - there's plenty of room on the page there, and on others you've fit a couple onto a single page, despite the fact that there are a number of elements that end up getting cramped (like the feet/toes), where additional room to work would definitely serve you well.

I'm also noticing a tendency not to approach your head constructions as shown in the demos. You're filling eyes with solid black (a point I made pretty clear in that point I just linked), and you're not really treating the head like a three dimensional puzzle where the eye socket is defined by things like the cheek bone and the muzzle, before dropping an eyeball in it on which to construct the lids. All of this is missing.

Now, as far as the overall results go, things start getting better as you work through the birds, though I can see you following the instructions much more clearly when you hit the hyenas, especially with the drawing on the bottom of this page. You're drawing through your ellipses more, being more confident with your linework and more mindful of the forms themselves. You're starting to leverage the sausage method more, though I am seeing some segments of your limbs that are still more along the lines of stretched ellipses, which tend to be much more stiff in nature. You're making better use of the eye sockets as well, and there's clearer muzzle construction, though the relationship between the eye socket/muzzle/cheek bone is still somewhat vague.

Onwards I start to see clearer grasp of 3D space and form, and while at times you overuse contour lines (like in the parrots - try to think about what the purpose of each mark you put down is, and what its job is meant to be, and whether or not that mark is really going to be necessary), you're clearly making good headway.

When you hit the elk, you start to slip back into some old sloppiness (your contour curves are both numerous and very sloppy, most with degrees that don't match the orientation of the form itself, and they're also often too shallow to suggest that they're actually wrapping around the form properly). Your attempts at adding the additional masses are also falling flat here, because you're not really adding organic forms here. You're just tackling on shapes and trying to make them feel 3D with contour lines. If you look at this demonstration you'll see how they're actual solid masses that are piled on top. Like muscles and fat, they do not adhere by default to the underlying form, and instead they interact with those forms similarly to the organic intersections exercise.

There are definitely some more successes, but your horses still feel somewhat weak, and I don't see any particularly good use of those additional masses. This suggests to me that you're leaning quite heavily on basic observational skills, rather than translating what you see into three dimensional information that you can manipulate.

Lastly, your hybrid animals are quite well done, and suggest that your ability to work in 3D space is coming along. It seems to be something that shifts back and forth - in some cases you're handling form and space well, in others less so.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do 3 more pages of animal drawings, but with no detail whatsoever. Focus entirely on construction. In particular, I want to see three things, so be sure to choose references that allow you to demonstrate these clearly:

• Head construction. Treat it like a three dimensional puzzle, where the pieces all fit together nicely. I want to see those eye sockets crafted with specific lines defining the edges of the cheek, muzzle and brow.

• The sausage method being used for the legs. Sausages are essentially two spheres of equal size connected by a tube of consistent width. These segments intersect with one another, with a single contour line defining the intersection between them at the joint. Sausages allow you to capture a sense of flow, rhythm and gesture in your limbs, so I don't want to see any stiffness here.

• The additional masses. I don't want to see them drawn as simple shapes - think about how these masses exist as independent three dimensional forms that are added to your construction like clay or putty. You need to resolve this addition as it interacts with your existing construction, just like the organic intersections exercise.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge (Patreon Critique Thread)"

2019-03-14 20:46

Pretty nice work overall! It's important to acknowledge that since cylinders rest so heavily upon ellipses, they are very difficult to wrangle. As such, a considerable degree of struggling is expected. Don't forget - while learning how to control your ellipses and being able to do them freehand is important, it's the sort of thing we develop over a long period of time, to the point that lessons 6 and 7 both allow for the use of ellipse guides.

Now, you've demonstrated a great deal of care and conscientiousness when working through the first section of this challenge. You're very mindful of identifying the accurate minor axis of each ellipse, rather than letting the one drawn initially distract you. Overall you're pretty close in your judgment. There are a few places where the far end of your cylinder is a touch too similar in degree as the near end, but for the most part you have a good shift that is noticeable, but still quite subtle, so as to suggest a normal degree of foreshortening and scale.

When tackling the cylinders in boxes, your strategy of marking out the contact points is by no means cheating, and frankly, is a solid approach similar to how we place the minor axis down in the previous section. Knowing what you're aiming for helps a great deal, but we still have to exhibit a lot of control to actually hit those points as intended, and as you can see it doesn't always happen.

That said, over the course of the set you demonstrate a tightening of the range of your results - even early on you have the odd successful one, but their frequency increases as you push through, demonstrating a greater reliance on skill rather than luck. There are still some serious outliers though where you may be getting a little confused. For example, when we look at 81, your ellipses there are treating the major axis (the line that bisects the ellipse across its wider span) as though it were the minor axis, giving you a very wrong result. You do seem to pick up on that mistake soon after though.

All in all, you've done a good job. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 6.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2019-03-14 19:50

You have definitely put a great deal into this set! And it has certainly paid off in several important areas. There is still room for improvement, but I can see a lot of very specific, targeted practice, as well as the growth that has come of it. You clearly spent a lot of time struggling with heads, and while there's more room for improvement, you've come a long way.

To start with, your organic intersections are quite well done. I'm getting a good grasp of how they relate to one another, and how their individual volumes and masses are resolved against one another to settle in a sort of equilibrium, where their volumes are respected, but nothing interpenetrates.

This understanding of volume and relationships comes through in even your earlier animal drawings, both as far as they apply to organic forms, as well as the more geometric elements. The first pages definitely start off cartoony, but are still quite effectively solid, with a good grasp of 3D space. The biggest issues here are instead to do with proportion, which will largely be developed through further observation and practice as you hone your ability to asses what you see. When it comes to constructing things on the page, you're already coming along quite well.

I do want to talk a little about the fur on this page. It stands out because it, unlike the rest of your construction and decisions, staunchly contradicts the illusion you've otherwise created. The fur is made up of marks on the page, not really demonstrating an awareness of the other solid forms that are present, but rather just adorning a drawing, rather than something that really exists in the world.

Notice how in some places your jagged lines cut back into the silhouette of the forms? In doing so, they most egregiously contradict the solidity of those forms, making it very clear that they're just shapes on a page. Whenever possible, we try to build additively - piling forms on top of forms. When we have to work subtractively, we have to be very careful, making it very clear that we understand both the pieces that remain and the pieces that are removed as they sit in three dimensions - these jagged fur shapes do no such thing, and so they bring the rest of the construction down to their level of flatness.

The fur itself isn't designed with any particular sense of intent. They're just arbitrary spikes you've drawn, frequently with continuous strokes (back in lesson 1, though this will have been covered after you completed this lesson in a more recent update, we talk about lifting the pen at every sharp corner where the trajectory takes a significant change.

When we draw with a single continuous stroke, we tend to fall into the trap of just mindlessly repeating a pattern of movements, rather than attempting to ensure that every stroke reflects an intentional design. Here you've replaced the quality of intent with quantity resulting of going on auto-pilot, and the results reflect that.

This one's fur is definitely a step up. The tufts of fur are better, there's not as much cutting back on the forms, etc. Still room for improvement but a move in the right direction. In this same drawing, I do want to point out the feet - they're quite simplistic, and drawn in such a way that how they occupy 3D space isn't entirely clear. You've started them off as a ball, which certainly can work, but we don't achieve any real understanding of the various major planes of the paw (the top, the sides, the front), and so it ends up feeling very vague, and therefore not very solid or convincing. I touch on this briefly at the end of this step.

I'm also noticing a common tendency to work with cranial balls that are simply far too big. It tends to make the heads somewhat swollen and bloated. Remember that the cranial ball is not the whole of the head, but instead is merely the element upon which everything else is built up. You have more reasonably sized cranial balls throughout your work, but you do have a tendency to waffle back and forth. Always err on the side of smaller - if it ends up being a bit too small, you can always add more forms on top to build back up, whereas if it's too big, it becomes much more difficult to resolve. That really goes with construction as a whole - you can always work your way bigger, but stepping back is risky at best.

Jumping over to your birds, I find that you're frequently skipping between two different tactics - on one hand, you've got some drawings where the torso feels a little more flexible (like the duck on the bottom right of this page and the top left of this page), where they feel a lot more lively and believable. The less believable ones tend to have torsos that are very stiff, like the owl, and the bird to the left of the duck. On top of the stiffness of their torsos, the center line in these tends to be very off, leading to a rather confusing and uncertain construction. All in all, these fail the believability tests, while the more flexible ones feel considerably livelier.

Coming back to the fur, on this page you're definitely going overboard, and again going in favour of quantity over intentionally designed tufts of fur. Remember that our goal here isn't to perfectly render all the fur, but rather to merely suggest that the form has a furry quality to its surface. A few tufts along the silhouette, focusing on slightly longer and more flowing bunches (rather than shorter ones which tend to read more as stiff and spikey) are going to be a lot more successful. You can see how I apply fur to this raccoon.

One of the major weaknesses in your struggles with the head constructions - though they definitely do improve over the course of the set - is that you're not really dealing with them consistently as a three dimensional puzzle, as it's described in the lesson. The head is not a ball with a muzzle and two independent eyes. The eye sockets themselves are positioned against the muzzle, against the cheekbone, the brow, and so on. These are all individual components that fit together. The "footprints" of these elements (the space they occupy on the cranial ball) should never be drawn as ellipses as you do in certain places, because this shows no regard for the different puzzle pieces that make up each edge. Instead, we draw an independent line, like a knife cut, defining the edge of each individual neighbouring piece. These cuts are drawn mindfully of the curvature of the cranial ball, considering how the slice moves through three dimensions and not just as an ellipse, which is really just a flat shape.

The third of your antelope is somewhat better in that regard. You don't have as clear a footprint, but I can see a better integration of the muzzle and the brow ridge, and how they define parts of what becomes the eye socket.

Beyond the eye socket, I also tend to see that the balls you construct within them tend to be small and misshapen, and therefore don't really have the capacity to uphold a more believable construction of eyelids and so on. It's really just a shape and never reads as being three dimensional in most cases, so that's something you're going to need to work on.

Finally, your hybrids are quite interesting, and well done. There' some stiffness, but the relationships between the forms are certainly believable, and you're demonstrating a well developing grasp of that. There's plenty of room for improvement across all your animals here, but I'm pretty confident that you're headed in the right direction, and simply need more mileage - and perhaps a review of the individual demonstrations and lesson material.

For now though, I'm pleased to say that I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 6.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2019-03-13 23:13

I'm glad you were able to get so much out of it! And it's clear you definitely understand the goals of the exercises and lessons, and they definitely seem to have clicked for you. Best of luck as you continue to move forwards and apply what you've learned here! Earlier you mentioned that part of the journey is the end - but this is in fact just the beginning of yours!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Applying Construction to Insects and Arachnids (Patreon Critique Thread)"

2019-03-13 21:03

This critique is for /u/creakinglemon's homework submission.

Right from the beginning, it was clear that this work was very well done. You're demonstrating a really solid grasp of 3D space and form, and how these forms all relate to one another. You're compounding the simplest of forms to create complex, tangible, and believable constructions, and have a good eye for proportion and generally understanding where some of the hidden components connect to one another (like where the legs connect to the thorax along the underside).

There are however a couple of points I want to draw to your attention.

First off, your contour lines. I'm noticing two major things here - first off, you sometimes use a lot of them. Not quite as many as I see from some students, but definitely a few more than you actually need. Sometimes it's fine - like the fly on the bottom right of the first page, its abdomen comes out looking segmented, which works visually. They're contour lines that are probably reflecting things present in your reference, so that's fine.

But like on the dragon fly near the end, along some of your crabs' legs, and so on, there's a few that aren't really doing much of anything. The trick about contour lines is that you always have to think about what their purpose really is. Sometimes you've got a form that really just needs to have the way its surface flows through 3D space defined more clearly. Sometimes however, you're just drawing them because they seem to be the thing to do. If ever you can't quite explicitly explain why you need one, you probably don't. And this is all the moreso when you've already got one or two present on a form. They rarely need so many.

The other issue here is that you do need to be a little bit more careful with wrapping them around your forms convincingly. When you've got clear plane separation where the surface takes a sharp turn, you're conveying this quite well. But when your curves reach the edge of a rounded form, hitting the edge of the silhouette, you don't always hook them around in a convincing manner to suggest that it continues along the other side. This tends to flatten things out. You do this moreso when you're drawing very small contour lines, or a bunch together in a tight space.

This flows into another major point - how you're drawing legs. Now you're definitely experimenting with a number of different approaches here, but one I don't see you leveraging nearly enough (which really should serve as the foundation of every leg, even if you build up more complex forms on top), is the sausage method. Here you've got sausages (basically two equally sized spheres connected by a tube of consistent width) defining each segment, and they overlap and intersect at their ends. This intersection of forms is then reinforced with a single contour line, right at the joint. This technique serves to give us a solid basis that does not require any further contour lines along the lengths of our segments (where they tend to stiffen things up), while also allowing us to maintain a smooth, gestural rhythm.

I see you coming somewhat close in certain places, but you end up using what are effectively stretched ellipses. These have the roundedness at the ends stretched over the course of the whole form, which actually works to stiffen it a great deal.

The last point I wanted to mention was something I see on occasion - where you draw an underlying form, but then ignore it. A good example is the top left of this page. Notice how you constructed its body with a cylinder capped off with a cone? That cone was constructed - added to the scene as a solid form, but then ignored in favour of the segmentation that you then drew over it.

Construction is all about every form you place in the world being solid and present. You can't simply ignore them, any more than you could ignore a giant block of marble that crashed into your bedroom. You have to deal with it somehow. If at all possible, we try not to work subtractively, instead building up around that basic form, layering further forms on top. This often means that our initial forms are skinnier or smaller than the end result will be, so we don't have to cut back into them.

If we do have to work subtractively, then we have to treat it as though we are actually carving into this form, demonstrating a clear awareness and understanding of how both the piece that is cut away and the piece that remains exists in 3D space. This usually means leveraging the use of contour lines, drawing through forms, etc - pulling out all our bag of tricks to convey that both pieces are solid and three dimensional. It's generally quite a bit more difficult, and not often required.

So! With that, I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I've given you a number of things to keep in mind as you move forwards, so be sure to apply them as you move into lesson 5.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Applying Construction to Insects and Arachnids (Patreon Critique Thread)"

2019-03-13 18:30

Old thread got locked, those of you eligible for private critiques can post your work here.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2019-03-12 19:52

Hot damn this is spectacular work. You're really demonstrating an exceptional understanding of construction and the material in general, and you were wise to leverage H2DR throughout all of this.

Your initial form intersections there are reasonably well done, but I am noticing that when it comes to the freehand boxes, your convergences are still pretty much all over the place. I think it comes down to maybe needing to slow down and think a little more about the lines you're putting down before you actually draw them. From the rest of your submission you clearly have a good grasp of 3D space and what you're doing, so it really must just be a matter of rushing and getting just a touch sloppy.

The freehand boxes for your cylinders-in-boxes are actually quite a bit better, which merely reinforces the likelihood of the previous case being laziness over anything else. You're demonstrating a solid comfort level when it comes to constructing those ellipses within their planes, as well as judging the proportions of the square ends in order to achieve plausible circles in 3D space.

Now, throughout your car drawings, you're clearly demonstrating a good grasp of how you these complex objects are composed of simple forms all compounded together. Early on you do start to play around with proportions, with some components coming out a little too small and others too large, but your strong understanding of construction comes through here, as regardless of those inaccuracies the results still feel solid and believable. It doesn't look like you, the artist, have made a mistake - but rather that whoever built the vehicle did so incorrectly, and you were simply recording what was there.

As you push through, your assessment of the proportions improve a great deal, and your attention to detail really brings your drawings to life. At no point do I get the feeling that any of these details are pasted on like stickers - they all feel like the result of forms that are present in the construction.

One thing that did stand out to me was specifically on your Mahindra Jeep CJ-4. If you look at its headlights, just above the grill, I noticed that the fixture around the bulb itself reads as though it's paper-thin. It's getting pretty small there, but the line is definitely prominent enough to create the impression that there's no thickness there, and that the edge jutts out.

It's definitely a minor issue, but is the sort of thing you want to keep in mind, as these kinds of matters of thickness in forms does tend to be noticeable.

Another thing I wanted to mention was that your drawings appear to follow a process where you put down your construction lines (I'm assuming with a ballpoint pen, as the lesson allows and encourages). You build everything up wonderfully, and then once you decide you're done, you come back over it with a different pen - something a little darker, a little more noticeable, and you separate out the 'real' lines from the underlying construction.

This is definitely understandable, as these constructions require so much complex linework and subdivision, but it is still something that I don't want to encourage in these drawings. That is, jumping to a different kind of pen to replace the underlying linework.

There are two main reasons for this:

• The most obvious one is that it does cause us to change how we draw those lines. Not only do we stiffen up in our attempt to match them well (and admittedly you have matched your lines quite well), but it also has us draw those marks while thinking about our drawing in two dimensions. We're no longer establishing forms in 3D space, but rather focusing on lines that exist on the page.

• It robs our drawings of some of the subtlety of steadily increasing levels of line weight that creates a nice hierarchy for our drawing. When we add line weight with the same pen, we can only increase that weight so much with each pass, so there tends to be a spectrum of weights in a finished drawing. Here there are some cases where you have that (in your Royal Enfield Bullet 500 especially) but there's still that jump from the construction lines to your final ones.

All in all, it helps a lot to acknowledge the construction lines as an inherent part of your final drawing. It gives your final result a lot more dimension and character, and avoids things that risk contradicting the illusion that your drawing is 3D.

I definitely admit that the second attempt at your fighter jet was definitely more dynamic, but I found that the first one's proportions were more reasonable, with the second one looking both a bit shorter from nose to tail, as well as having a shorter wingspan. The second one does have much nicer volumes, however, and that first has the same issue of things coming to a paper-thin edge if you look at the intakes beside the cockpit.

I have to admit, when I hit your last few pages of cars, I made an audible noise. This was earlier in the day when I was just glancing at your submission, so I can't remember what I said - but I remember it was loud and profane. You did a damn good job here.

Your constructions handle nuance, proportion and things as delicate as curves in an extremely deliberate and well thought out manner. Your mercedes and lamborghini are especially stunning. My only complaint here is the focus on hatching. This definitely hurt your overall presentation, as it draws so much attention to the cast shadow below the car and draws it away from the real juice in your details and forms. It just has so much contrast packed into a limited space that it can't help but grab your eyes.

Instead, I'd recommend going with either a solid black shadow, or perhaps even better, just the outline of the shadow itself. The outlines can work wonders when dealing with the shadows we use to ground our constructions - but as far as the shadows being cast by forms onto other aspects of the construction itself, filling them in completely and leaning into the binary nature of the pens themselves (either putting down a full black mark or no mark at all) would definitely have been more effective here.

Anyway, as you can tell from the tone of this critique, you've done a fantastic job overall and have thoroughly completed this lesson. I'll go ahead and mark it was complete, and with it, the whole dynamic sketching/constructional drawing curriculum. Congratulations on beating the final boss!

Usually this would be where you'd have the option to go and collect your treasure (the treasure chest challenge), but you've already completed it, so I haven't much else to offer you for now.

In the coming months I'm looking to add material covering both an illustration-based curriculum, focusing on composition, narrative, storytelling, etc. as well as a design-based curriculum, looking at form language, use of proportion, and how to iterate on ideas. Unfortunately those are a ways off - so just make sure you maintain your pledge through the rest of this month so you get charged at the beginning of April, and then you're free to do as you like.

I hope you feel drawabox has helped contribute to your understanding of form, construction and 3D space!

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge (Patreon Critique Thread)"

2019-03-09 18:47

Honestly your work here is fantastic. You're demonstrating here an enormous degree of patience and care with each and every cylinder - not just in the pretty solid accuracy you've got when it comes to aligning your ellipses to their minor axes, but with the thoroughness of your analyses after the fact. It's very easy, when you've got an ellipse with a minor axis already drawn through it to assume that it's an accurate representation of the true minor axis, but you've very clearly taken your time to found the real one even when it's only off by a degree or two. It's that kind of care that will continue to push you through all of these lessons, and that has contributed to your growth not only in this challenge, but as a whole since you started.

You're definitely developing a good instinct for the alignment of your ellipses, as well as the degrees that would best suit a given plane (considering the contact points and so on). There certainly is room for improvement, but you're getting more consistently in the territory of "good enough" as far as passing at a glance goes, and you'll certainly continue to improve on this front as you plow forward.

Keep working on having your ellipses touch all four corners of their enclosing plane though, and on tightening the ellipses up. You've got many that are within solid margins (as far as the separation between the lines of different passes on the ellipse), and you're definitely maintaining a great deal of accuracy, but every now and then the ellipses either get loose in an attempt to reach out and touch a last edge of the plane, or they fall short. Just something to keep an eye on.

You're doing great here, and are showing a lot of improvement and some excellent habits - keep it up, and consider this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto the 25 wheel challenge next.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2019-03-09 01:54

So my next step with drawabox (somewhere mixed in there with rerecording some of the newer videos that have particularly awful audio), is to tackle two new lesson sets. One will cover topics relating to design, like the use of shape and form language, proportion, how to approach idea iteration, etc. and the other will cover matters of illustration - composition, storytelling, guiding the eye, etc. These, assuming I do a decent job in making them, will hopefully help you out on your journey, as these are important skills to learn.

In the mean time, proko's definitely a good place to look, and working on figure drawing in general - especially from a constructional standpoint (also check out Michael Hampton's books) is a good idea.

Ultimately while there are plenty of really excellent free resources out there, I really can't stress enough the value in spending some time taking classes from instructors like those who teach at CDA/Brainstorm (in person) or CGMA/Schoolism (online, though I can't vouch for these myself, I have heard lots of happy students). At the end of the day, a career is going to have some degree of investment to it, so start budgeting/planning for that early if at all possible.

Lastly, you may want to check out the Foundation patreon or their gumroad, as they've got a lot of handy videos. Definitely not the same as a live instructor or anything, but I studied under one of the founders (John Park) at CDA, and he really opened my eyes to a lot in regards to design.

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

2019-03-09 01:28

To start with, your form intersections are really well done. The linework is confident, and while your boxes aren't perfect, everything feels pretty solid, and the intersections are entirely on point. It all demonstrates a very strong grasp of the relationship between these forms in 3D space.

You did a pretty good job with your follow-along for the bluetooth speaker. I noticed that you changed from the initial box you'd put down. Generally I don't recommend doing this, but that said you approached it in a manner that didn't do much harm to your drawing. You didn't fuss around trying to make the initial box work, you simply drew another box, and while it can result in some minor visual confusion, it isn't too distracting.

Your barrels had a couple of issues - firstly and most notably, the proportions are off. That's not really a big problem, as it's a fairly normal place for students to struggle, and it is definitely something you'll continue to improve on. That said, I will point out the two major problems with your proportions here. The ends were too small, leading to too sharp a tapering on either end, and at least on the first part, the barrel ended up being far too long.

The issue that I'm more concerned about however speaks to how the iron bands were approached. They were drawn as though they were paper thin, and given no thickness or visible rim. As a result, they ended up feeling rather cartoony. Try and remember that all objects thicker than paper will have some degree of visible thickness to them. You won't be able to simply wrap a 2D strip around another form - and perhaps more importantly, you'll have to remain aware of how the form breaks through the silhouette of the form it's wrapping around. Here you left them quite flush with the barrel itself (although admittedly, I did the same thing in my demo).

I quite liked the second mouse attempt, and I felt you went into quite a bit of depth in your construction and subdivision of the enclosing box. I do want to advise you against the clear distinction you have here from your construction lines and the "final" drawing. In general, stay away from situations where you put down an underdrawing, and then go back to replace the lines with darker strokes. Here in particular it looks like you may have gone over with a completely different pen altogether.

Line weight is about building a hierarchy - not a clear distinction, but rather a gradient from lines that are pushed back, and some that are pulled forward. Weight is added to parts of existing lines to help clarify overlaps or reinforce sections of silhouette that may be getting lost, and you'll often find a line getting a little thicker, and then transitioning back to being thin. The biggest problem with trying to replace the entirety of lines is that we tend to stiffen up when we do it, trying to match the underlying line perfectly. Every mark we put down - including the addition of extra weight - should be done with a smooth, confident stroke, rather than the slow, laborious stroke that tends to be used here.

The rest of your drawings are all pretty well done. I especially liked the stapler - while it was much simpler, that doesn't make it any less valuable in my eyes. Often times picking a simpler subject matter can allow you to focus in on the core principles, allowing to make better use of it as an exercise.

The camera however was definitely my favourite of your set. Solid use of minor axes and inset ellipses, and I especially loved the dials along the side. Really fantastic work.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. You've clearly shown a good deal of growth over the set, and while there's always room for improvement, you're doing a great job. Feel free to move onto the 25 wheel challenge, which is a prerequisite to lesson 7.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2019-03-08 01:24

I loooove your segway and the speeder thing right after it. Both look very slick, and are exceptionally well constructed. I do think that on the segway the tires could probably stand to be a little plumper, but aside from that they came out feeling very solid and believable.

The two cars were okay, but there was definitely some steps skipped on that first one (the cab of the car seems a bit flimsy, though the main body feels fairly well constructed), and there are some definite proportion issues. I also noticed that your wheels are slightly misaligned - the degrees of the ellipses cause the wheels to feel as though they're slanting inwards slightly, like the car is a little too heavy.

That said, both of these were vastly improved over your last submission - the constructions feel considerably more confident, and there is considerably greater awareness of how the different components all fit together - even the smaller ones that we may feel the urge to deal with more as detail/texture, rather than constructed form. All of this is a fantastic move forward.

The last thing I wanted to point out was that your helicopter's a bit of a bixed bag. The rotor mechanism is very well done. There are a lot of ellipses that come together, and it can definitely be quite tricky to manage, but you pulled it off. The main body of the helicopter however feels a little cartoony. The main form of the chassis isn't too bad, though that center line down the windshield is definitely off. I think the biggest problem here is that you used the box you started with as something of a suggestion, rather than continuing to build off it with more solid forms. As far as the curvature of that windshield goes, don't forget about this concept introduced in lesson 6 - of curves being inherently vague and insolid. In order to make a curve that feels more tangible and specific, we want to stick as closely to a specific arrangement of straight lines before smoothing them out at the end.

All in all, I think you've shown considerable improvement, and are coming to grasp the material quite well. While there is still room for improvement, that honestly is entirely expected - this stuff comes with practice and time, and drawabox is all about ensuring that you're equipped well enough to take the rest of the journey on your own. I feel confident that you are prepared on that front, and so I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson - and with it, the constructional drawing curriculum - complete. Congratulations.

There is still the 100 chest challenge, though it is entirely optional. You've defeated the boss, and it's up to you whether you want to mess around with its treasure. Congratulations!

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

2019-03-04 01:32

Hmm... I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be allowed to construct them independently, so you can at least experiment with it to see if it helps.

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

2019-03-04 01:08

I don't think you've gotten rusty at all! For the most part, you're actually doing a fantastic job in demonstrating an understanding of how your forms fit together in 3D space. You're also focusing on building up from simple, easily-constructed forms, never jumping into anything too complex too early. There are a couple issues that I'd like to draw to your attention, but by and large you're doing great.

The first thing I noticed was really minor - in your organic forms with contour curves, remember that the sausage forms are basically two equal spheres connected by a tube of consistent width. You're pretty close to this, but there are a couple places where you're either stretching out the curvature of the sphere portions at the ends, or where one of the ends is larger than the other. It doesn't sound like anything that important, but it can make it a little trickier to apply the contour curves, and may take your focus off their alignment.

The next thing I noticed was pretty consistent through most of your drawings, and that's how you're approaching this as though you're putting down an underlying construction, and then coming back over it to replace lines with a cleaner, darker stroke. There is a visible distinction between your fainter construction lines and those that might be considered "final", and this is not an approach I want you to be applying. For the most part, it tends to imbue the drawings with a sense of stiffness (usually coming from attempting to match the underlying lines as closely as possible, and therefore slowing down out of a fear of making mistakes, rather than executing those marks with the same kind of confidence we use everywhere else). It also has a few other negative effects, like encouraging us to ignore the underlying basic forms (for example, adding features that aren't actually there when going over with the "final lines" rather than adhering to the construction itself). It also encourages us to try and hide those construction lines by drawing them more faintly and again, less confidently.

It's important to treat everything as being a part of the final drawing. Line weight serves only to build a visible hierarchy between those lines, and to clarify places where forms are overlapping. Line weight should be applied to limited sections of lines where this is needed, and should always be blended back, so a single line may vary in weight throughout its length.

It's worth mentioning that this drawing was generally drawn quite a bit more confidently, and so the visible spectrum of weights made the drawing quite a bit nicer, and the forms more believable. You clearly never threw that information aside and put lines down thinking only in terms of how they sit in 2D space here - each line flows in and out of the canvas.

The last point I wanted to raise was that when constructing legs, you vary in where you apply the sausage method. Sometimes you skip it outright (like the centipede's legs), sometimes you apply it correctly, and sometimes you're close but tend to make the ends of the segments shallow, more like the edge of a cylinder (like on this spider).

The sausage technique follows a few simple tenets:

1. The segments are constructed with sausages, meaning two equal spheres connected by a simple tube (though we don't draw all these forms since it's a fairly simple one to knock out).

2. We ensure that two segments intersect visibly - they don't barely touch, they plunge right into one another's ends. You can think of it as though they share, or come close to sharing, the the spheres on their ends.

3. The joint/intersection of those two sausages is defined clearly with a contour curve. This reinforces the illusion that they're 3D forms, and frees us from having to apply any other contour lines through their lengths where they risk stiffening the construction.

This process forces you to understand how they exist as 3D forms, how those forms relate to one another, and so on.

Anyway, overall you're doing quite well. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, but be sure to apply these principles in the next lesson, as the same sorts of challenges will indeed come up.

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

2019-03-01 20:47

Nice work! Overall you've done a pretty great job and demonstrate considerable improvement over the course of this set, especially when it comes to your ability to manipulate and resolve form and construction in 3D space. There are some issues that came up here and there - some of which you seem to have fixed on your own and others that still linger, and I'll try to touch on each one.

The first thing that jumps out is that while your organic forms with contour ellipses are very well done, the ones on the third page with contour curves are often times drawn with a curvature that is too shallow as it reaches the edge of the form. The issue you're encountering is explained in these notes. Now, I can see your use of similar techniques in your insect constructions, and there they're done much better.

Jumping into the wolf spider you've got at the beginning there, you're handling the overall forms quite well. One thing that jumps out at me has to do with the sausage method you're applying to the legs. You are indeed constructing the sausages well, but you're missing the (surprisingly important) step of drawing a contour line right at the joint between the sausages, defining their intersection. You'll notice it in this diagram - along with the sausages being layered on top of one another, there's an additional curve added at the joint. This serves to reinforce both the understanding of how these two forms interact in 3D space, and also furthers the illusion that both forms are three dimensional without having to add additional contour lines along its length (something you did on the forelimbs of the weevil you drew later on). Adding contour lines along the length of a similar sausage form can often serve to stiffen it up, so reserving them for the joints can help us maintain their fluidity and solidity simultaneously.

On the same page as the wolf spider, you've done a great job with the ribbing/contour curves along the insect on the lower half of the page's abdomen. You're also layering forms quite well, though the head there can serve to be divided up into more individual forms and built up more gradually. You can think of these heads as more of a 3 dimensional puzzle with many interlocking components - this is something we'll expand on when we get into lesson 5.

On the ant drawing, I did notice that the legs certainly started to stray from the sausage method, and as such they end up feeling a lot less sturdy. Remember that the sausage method calls for a form of consistent width being used for each segment - additional masses (like how the ant's leg segments are much larger towards one end) can be added after the fact with the addition of a ball towards that end which can then be merged into the larger sausage. It comes back to the overall principle of construction working from simple to complex through the continuous addition of more simple forms.

Also, on the ant's abdomen, I noticed that while your segmentation was fairly well done, it didn't push past the silhouette there, which definitely weakened the resulting impact.

I quite like how the head and thorax of the insect beneath the weevil was constructed - we get a pretty nice sense here of the top and side planes of the form, which helps push the illusion that it's all 3D.

For the dragonfly, watch the curvature of your contour lines along its abdomen - the top edge is okay, but if the curves were extended past the bottom edge, they'd fly right off the form. This kind of shallowness of curvature breaks the illusion that the line is wrapping around the underlying form.

Nice work breaking into detail/texture on the flying ant. I do want to address one thing though - don't rely on hatching lines as you have here. It's often used when we don't really want to think about texture and instead are focusing on shading for shading's sake, which as explained back in lesson 2 (though all of that material was updated since you last went through it) is not what we're looking to do in these lessons. Using hatching allows us to ignore the texture that is actually present - instead, take care to study that reference image carefully to find any textural information present. The fact that much of this flying ant's abdominal exoskeleton is quite shiny is in itself texture, and the hatching lines suggest a different kind of surface quality than what is there. Instead, when things are shiny, we tend to have very distinct blocks of black/white, rather than alternating gradients. Along the thorax and head, we can see some wrinkles and little pockmarks, which can also be leveraged.

Additionally, on the abdomen you noticed some of the little droplets of water, and seem to have tried to capture them as little circles. As explained here, instead of trying to enclose things like this fully, any forms that make up our textures and tend to wrap around other larger forms are better implied by drawing the shadows they cast, rather than attempting to enclose their silhouettes.

I can certainly see your strategies in regards to texture evolving and developing as you push through, and there are definite improvements on this front. Notice that this idea of focusing on the shadows cast by the forms present on a surface can be applied in most cases when it comes to texture - even on the dragonfly's wings, where you've drawn something of a grid (which becomes quite visually noisy and distracting). Since shadows are subject to how much light is being shined on the object, we can control the detail density as needed, as long as we focus on putting down the cast shadows rather than thinking of our marks as being enclosing linework. The texture analysis exercise from lesson 2 (a new addition that came with the recent update to the website) discusses controlling detail density further.

Anyway, throughout the homework set you demonstrate an increasing grasp of how these forms can be combined to create solid and believable objects, and are continually pushing your understanding of 3D space. Keep up the great work, consider this lesson complete, and feel free to move onto lesson 5.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2019-03-01 00:29

Your work is coming along quite well. There are a few things I do want to bring to your attention though, but by and large you're demonstrating a good grasp of the material that will continue to develop with time and practice.

The first thing that jumped out at me was that in your organic intersections there, your linework, while not altogether stiff or wobbly, definitely felt a little hesitant at times. I think part of this had to do with how you drew the initial lines, and perhaps more of it had to do with how you attempted to add line weight to them after the fact. Remember that no matter what manner of mark you're putting down - be it an initial construction line or a stroke to reinforce an existing mark, you want to put it down with the ghosting method, concluding with a confident execution drawn from the shoulder in order to ensure that it carries a strong sense of flow and a consistent trajectory. The cast shadows were definitely a nice touch, but I do feel like they may have somewhat served to cover up the underlying problem of the linework being just a little uncertain.

Now, I really liked the bird on the right side of your first page of animal drawings (#2). The core of its body, head, and its legs were very well constructed and demonstrated a solid understanding of how these forms all connected to one another. The branch that it was resting on definitely felt notably flatter however (it doesn't seem you put much thought into how it existed as a form, and instead jumped right from its basic silhouette into the little details on it). The wings were also a little too quick to jump into the feather detail, which was then quickly abandoned. It does seem like you were experimenting here and not entirely sure of how to tackle wings, so I'll give that one a pass - experimentation is fraught with failure but should never be discouraged. Just make sure that you focus on breaking everything down into individual forms. The bird's right wing (the one towards the middle of the page) is clearly made up of two separate forms for the different sections of the wing - here you've fleshed it out as a single more complex shape, rather than breaking it down further.

For #5 to #7, one thing that definitely jumps out at me is that you have a tendency to approach some of the fur a little sloppily. It's actually not too bad, but if you look back at some of the newer material for lesson 1 (which admittedly was added after you completed that lesson), I explain that it's not a good idea to zigzag your lines back and forth. Instead, divide your strokes up into those with different trajectories, lifting your pen and starting another at every sharp corner. The biggest reason for this is that when you zigzag, we have less control over the actual intentional design of, say, the tuft of fur, and we also have a tendency for our intended path to degrade as we push onwards. I also want you to take a little more time to think about each individual tuft - in this regard you're headed in the right direction, as I can see you thinking about how these clumpings of fur break the silhouette, but a little more time (along with more practice) will definitely help make this appear more natural.

I did notice that when you draw your eyes, you frequently leave out the eye socket, or construct the eye socket as being separated from the boxy form of the muzzle. Remember that this eye socket really is important - it is carved with individual segments to ensure that it feels cut into the cranial ball, and it fits into the other forms of the head as though it were a three dimensional puzzle.

To this end, I do think that the tendency to divide the page up to accommodate multiple drawings is also hindering you. Construction, especially as we get used to it, benefits from being given as much room as possible. Instead of putting two or three drawings to a page, dedicate an entire page to each drawing and draw big, so even the intricate construction of the head is given enough room for you to solve its spatial problems.

I really love the camel you've done for #17. You've done a great job of capturing its legs, the solidity of its body, and the generally awkward manner in which it runs. The additional mass for the hump you added to its back is better than the same technique applied elsehwere in your drawings (in that it wasn't just dropped on top, but rather attempts to wrap around), but it's still not quite right. The mass you've drawn comes to a very sharp corner, like it's had a section cut out from its inside before fitting snugly against the camel's torso. Instead, take a look at this quick diagram I did for a student a while back. Notice how the mass for the hump is more similar to the full sausages from the organic intersections exercise? All we're doing is piling simple forms on top of other simple forms - that simplicity is the key. The more complex you make a form, the more difficult it is for it to stand on its own.

Now, I feel like your kangabexapus, more than anything, tells me that you really are absorbing the concepts of construction, and while you do struggle here and there, it is absolutely sinking in. These hybrid exercises force you to work not only from reference, but to solve complex spatial problems that cannot simply be resolved by relying purely on observation - and you've done a pretty great job here and the result is, while entirely strange, oddly plausible and believable.

So - keep up the good work, and while there's still plenty of room to grow, you're well on your way. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one. I believe that'll be the 250 cylinder challenge, as that is a prerequisite for lesson 6.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge (Patreon Critique Thread)"

2019-02-28 02:19

Honestly, while you definitely had some struggles throughout the second part of this challenge, you did a pretty fantastic job. As you push through, the alignment of your ellipses improves, as do the general proportions of your boxes. There are mistakes here and there, but while you say you're a little sloppy when it comes to the error analysis, you are doing a good job of identifying the alignment of your minor axes and contact points.

Now obviously taking more time to analyze the patterns in your mistakes will certainly improve your overall rate of growth, but as it stands, I can see a definite upward trend. I think the most common mistake I see has to do with the degree of the ellipse being a little too narrow, which throws off the alignment of those contact points. We can see this in 250 and 244 - but it's uncommon enough to tell me that it's something that's gradually diminishing.

I certainly do recommend that you continue doing these as part of your warmup (not too many at a time, as they are time consuming, but a few here and there, and if you're running low on time then even the ellipses-in-planes, modified to try and focus on creating square planes rather than just arbitrary quadrilaterals, can really help.

Also worth mentioning - your linework is quite confident, both on your ellipses and for the straight lines. There's not a lot of stiffening - sometimes your ellipses get a little uneven, but that's pretty normal when it comes to mushing them into some of the more awkward planes.

So! Keep up the good work, and good luck pushing through the rest of lesson 3. Remember that the goal isn't to impress me, it's just to do the work to the best of your ability so I have a body of work that I can assess and use as a basis for my advice and suggestions regarding your next steps.

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

2019-02-28 01:56

God damn. Phenomenal work here. Not only are you absolutely fastidious on breaking everything down to its smallest degree of necessary subdivision, but you're demonstrating exceptional understanding of 3D space, and an enormous amount of patience. Every single detail is laid out with precision and care and treated as a form with volume and solidity to it, rather than just a sticker that's been pasted on.

Now, there's clearly growth over the course of the set - your razor is absolutely incredible, and the game controller is fairly well done. The wristwatch pales in comparison, though is still fairly well done. What stands out most as one of its weaknesses is the fact that the strap doesn't quite stay firmly within its enclosing box, and as a whole, its curves are not precise. As explained here, when your curve strays that far from the straight lines you might use to help define it, it starts to feel vague, like it could potentially represent any number of configurations of straighter lines.

You did a much better job of this with the soap container, though in this one the areas where you went back over lines to add line weight ended up getting a little wobbly and stiff, as these strokes were drawn with minimal confidence. Always remember - if you're freehanding, every mark should be put down with the ghosting method, meaning planning and preparation are separated from the confident execution. While this certainly can result in mistakes, we can't allow the general loveliness of your drawings detract from the fact that these are just throw-away exercises focusing on spatial understanding and the control/confidence of your linework.

For your paper lamp, one thing that stands out is the texture along the lamp shade. There's two main concerns. Firstly, the texture is heavily based on line, though the wrinkles do often get large enough to cast a little more of a shadow. Always remember that, as explained here, the lines we draw as part of our textures aren't actually lines - they're just the shadows cast by the variation in form along the surface, and these can grow thicker. Don't be afraid to push this further.

The other point was just to keep an eye on the alignment of the wrinkles. Here you're definitely meaning to make the wrinkles run parallel to the main axes of the plane, but there is a bit of variation. Everything in a drawing comes down to intent - as long as you look like you made a decision intentionally, it won't look wrong. It may seem like a strange decision that you've made, but they'll question your sanity rather than your skill. And that's a-okay.

Anyway, coming back to that razor - really fantastic. If I had to nitpick something... put a little bit of cast shadow under the screw on the head. It'll help make it pop out just a little bit.

So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Keep up the fantastic work and feel free to move onto the 25 wheel challenge, which I'm sure you'll blow out of the water.

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

2019-02-27 20:47

Yup, they count, but make sure at least half of your pages are drawn from other references.

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

2019-02-27 18:23

Yup, I did. Keep in mind that lessons 3 onwards have higher tiers. If you're not sure which tier is set for a given lesson, it's listed where you find the link to the critique thread.

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

2019-02-27 01:42

Yeah, you can do that - just keep in mind that the second half of that challenge gets quite difficult, so be patient with it.

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

2019-02-27 00:01

These are definitely much, much better, and I will be marking this lesson as complete. The one thing I want to point out to you is that by adding line weight in the way that you are, you are taking fantastic, confident lines, and making them stiff and wobbly. Don't do this.

I actually talk about this in the video for this exercise, saying that line weight should be applied with a confident, persistent stroke, utilizing the ghosting method as you would when putting down the original mark. Furthermore, you shouldn't generally try to add weight to the entirety of a line, but rather only at key sections of existing lines to clarify certain overlaps. Here you've really made your lines wobbly and even scratchy, and it takes away from your overall result.

I'm really glad that you provided the before/after images, as I would not have been as comfortable marking the lesson as complete.

Do keep an eye on how you draw the minor axis lines for your cylinders as well - I can see that you're putting these down somewhat sloppily, causing them to look more like afterthoughts. They're better than before, but please - apply the ghosting method to every single mark you put down. Above all, it is just a matter of patience.

Anyway, go ahead and move onto lesson 3.

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

2019-02-26 23:57

Fairly nice work overall, but I have a few things to point out.

Firstly, your arrows are looking pretty good - they flow nicely not only across the page, but through all three dimensions of space. At the same time, you're maintaining smooth, confident linework.

Your organic forms with contour ellipses are okay, but you're definitely stiffening up with those ellipses. It's clear that you're hesitating as you draw them, rather than pushing forwards with the kind of confident, persistent pace that'll help you to maintain the integrity of its shape. You're definitely very focused on the accuracy of each ellipse (and you're doing a good job of keeping those ellipses snug between the edges of the form) but your main priority should still be maintaining evenly shaped ellipses. Only once you're able to do that, should you start worrying about accuracy and control.

Your contour curves are definitely a little better, though still on the stiff side, just to a lesser degree. You're doing a pretty decent job of keeping the ellipses properly aligned to your minor axis line, which is good. Just keep pushing yourself to draw with more confidence, being sure to apply the ghosting method (which forces you to invest time in the planning/preparation phases rather than into the execution phase), and to draw from the shoulder. Drawing from the wrist can also contribute to stiff ellipses and curves.

Your texture analyses are quite well done. The first and third studies (left side of the exercise) were a little simplistic, but the middle one there demonstrates a great deal of focus and observation. It's clear that the marks you're putting down reflect actual details present in your reference image, where as the first and third are drawn more from memory, trying to follow a set pattern.

On the right side however, you've done a pretty fantastic job and are demonstrating a good use of that textural information as a tool to convey varying levels of density.

For the most part your dissections continue to carry this over, though the quality varies as you experiment and play with different kinds of texture. There are a few where you're not quite wrapping the texture around the form believably (like the iguana scales on the first page), but you're generally demonstrating an awareness of this and striving to tackle it, with many solid successes.

Your form intersections definitely demonstrate a good grasp of 3D space and how these forms all relate to one another in 3D space. The only issue I'm seeing is that when you're intersecting with a rounded object (with a sphere or a cone), you have a tendency to draw the curve of the intersection to be quite shallow or at times reversed. It definitely takes a good deal of development of one's grasp of 3D space so this isn't surprising, but it is a particular area you'll want to focus on as you move forwards.

This does improve as you continue to move forwards however, and I don't see any intersections that are outright wrong on your last page - just a little shallow in their curvature.

Finally, your organic intersections demonstrate a good understanding of how this exercise involves stacking objects with independent volumes, and trying to resolve how they can all sit together in a way that makes sense. Your linework (especially where you add additional line weight) does get a little stiff at times, but overall you've done a good job of demonstrating the understanding of how these forms sag against one another, and you've moved well beyond the idea of simply drawing flat shapes on a flat page.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 3.

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

2019-02-26 00:46

You've got some good stuff here, and a number of important signs that you're absorbing the material. There are also some issues in your approach that I will identify so you can work on them as you move forwards.

To start with, your organic forms with contour curves were fairly well done, but there were a couple there that stood out. Now, I think it's fair to assume that these were just slip-ups, but I want to point them out just in case.

We're looking at the bottom left corner of the first page, and the top left corner of the second page. The issue is with the little contour ellipse you added at the end. Based on the contour curves, those ellipses are on a surface that is facing away from us, though the way it's been drawn suggests that you intended for that end to be facing towards us. This kind of conflict causes visual confusion that undermines the overall illusion we're trying to create.

Now, as I said, these were anomalies - the rest of yours were quite well done, so I'm guessing these were just little mistakes.

Moving onto your insect drawings, I'm very pleased with your general use of construction, and especially with how you wrapped segmentation around underlying forms to create that sort of layered look, along with having those pieces break past the silhouette. I was especially pleased with your fly scorpion - every part of that felt very solid (though the markings along the wings weren't particularly great, but they didn't take away from the drawing too much).

You're also, for the most part, doing a good job of being mindful of how different forms connect to one another, defining their intersections to help reinforce the illusion of form.

One of the biggest issues I noticed was simply that you have a tendency of drawing rather small. You've got a lot of space on the page at your disposal, but you tend to take up only a fraction of it. As a result, your forms feel a bit cramped and stiff, and this gets in the way of the illusion we're trying to create.

One of the casualties of this size issue is that your leg segments' sausages don't really have enough of an overlap to be able to really define how they connect to one another properly. As you can see in this demo, drawing the segments large allows us to get a nice view of how they're interpenetrating each other. Defining the clear contour line at the joint in turn helps imbue both segments with a strong sense of solidity and form. You are doing this in yours, but because everything's so smushed together, the effect is negligible.

I'm also seeing a few places where you're attempting to apply some sort of shading through hatching to your drawings. As explained here, we don't bother with shading for shading's sake in these lessons. Now, this usually happens because a student is trying to figure out how to approach adding texture and detail. Hatching lines, as you've used them there, tend to be the first technique they think to use. It often serves as a sort of generic stand-in for the actual texture that is present in the reference image, and for that very reason, you should stay away from it. Instead, if you want to apply texture, it's important to take the time to really study what is present in your reference image and carry over very specific pieces of information, only looking away from that reference for a moment or two before refreshing your memory once again.

Of course, the scale of the drawings also plays a role in making it quite difficult for you to add detail. There's just not a lot of room to play with, and all the marks end up feeling very thick in comparison to the drawing as a whole.

Now, by and large you are doing a pretty great job as far as the construction goes, so I am going to mark this lesson as complete. As you move into the next one, be sure to draw everything bigger. Take full advantage of the entire page you have before you, don't limit yourself to a limited portion of it. When you do decide to tackle detail, I recommend that you take a look at the texture analysis exercise notes from lesson 2 (this was updated since you last attempted it), as well as the rest of the notes from that lesson. Detail is all about studying your reference closely, and refraining from relying on your memory.

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

2019-02-24 21:23

So your understanding of the intersections has definitely vastly improved - that's a big victory. The forms themselves, and how they relate to one another in 3D space, is still pretty iffy. My biggest issue is that it still looks like you're rushing through it.

I'm not seeing signs that you're ghosting through your lines, your minor axes are usually kind of sloppy, your ellipses don't align to the minor axis all that well, and your pages are far from filled. It all comes down to how much time you're putting into each page.

So I'm going to ask for one more page, but I want you to apply the ghosting method properly to every single mark you put down. I want you to plan every single stroke, execute with confidence, and fill the page completely. Also, watch the foreshortening you're using on your boxes - they're constructed better than before, but you want to keep them relatively shallow (not too much convergence, vanishing points far away). This will help you keep the sense of scale more consistent across all the forms, as explained back in lesson 1.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2019-02-24 20:59

Overall

So in summary, you're applying a lot of the major concepts of construction quite nicely, and while you have struggles throughout you are demonstrating a considerable degree of growth. That said, you do have a long ways ahead of you, and Drawabox is just the start. The rest comes down to your own mileage and practice, but there are some key areas that you're going to want to focus on:

• Ellipses, cylinders and wheels. Obviously access to an ellipse guide would be hugely beneficial here, so I am taking into consideration that your ellipse guide was quite small, and not always an option. That said, cylinders and ellipses are a particular challenge for you, both in alignment, keeping the ellipses smooth and even, etc.

• When it comes to detail, you handle it well in certain cases, but frequently resort to a sort of oversimplification that comes from falling back to a cartoonier view of things. This suggests that you do need to work specifically on observation, making sure that when you put down a mark, you're only looking away from your reference for a moment - and that the mark you're putting down relates specifically to some piece of detail or information you're trying to carry over. Obviously this is something you need to balance against the overall construction, but even those constructional decisions need to be based on what is present in the reference image.

• Proportion kind of falls into the previous point. The more drawing studies you do, the more carefully you observe your separate proportional studies you use along the way will gradually improve your eye.

The last thing I wanted to mention was something you did throughout these drawings that ended up being a rather poor choice that you were warned against. From the instructions (in the homework section):

You are welcome to use an ellipse guide, a ruler, and a ballpoint pen if you wish. No pencil or digital media, and stick to one kind of pen for your linework (though a brush pen can be used to fill in large dark areas if appropriate).

Here you did your construction work with what I assume to be a ballpoint pen, but went back over your drawing with a fineliner to replace the linework. This is something I've always advised people against, as early as lesson 2. Don't do an underdrawing and then go over all of your lines to distinguish the final drawing from the underlying construction. Doing so tends to have a few negative impacts:

• Usually results in your linework being a lot less confident, you end up falling into the trap of drawing more slowly in order to match the marks underneath.

• Your base line thickness ends up being heavier and less subtle, making things look somewhat cartoony (something you already struggle with).

• Those lines are drawn focusing not on drawing the given form as it sits in 3D space, but rather just drawing lines on a flat page, which can serve to break the illusion especially earlier on as you're still learning.

In the future, avoid this kind of process when you're doing these kinds of exercises - because at the end of the day, it's all just exercises. You can absolutely continue to add line weight to key areas to clarify overlaps with the same pen you used to draw the construction lines, but it should not be in a manner where you're replacing existing lines. You're just giving a sense of hierarchy to the lines that already exist, and doing so with confident strokes in limited areas.

Anyway! You've got a long ways to go, but you've taken Drawabox about as far as it will take you. The rest is just practice, and perhaps looking back over some of the lesson material to refresh your memory in those areas (the lesson notes on lesson 2 are especially important, as they go over the general mindset of thinking in 3D, tackling texture/detail, etc.) So I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the drawabox lesson!

The treasure chest challenge is obviously still there for you to try if you'd like to, but it is technically not a part of the main curriculum - so you'll be getting the completionist role on the discord as well.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2019-02-24 20:58

Whew! You've clearly worked your ass off on this one. Overall you've demonstrated a considerable amount of growth, especially if we look at the overall progress since you started with Drawabox. There is going to be plenty of room for improvement, but in the interest of not having you die halfway through the critique from an anxiety induced heart attack: I am going to mark this lesson as complete. You've successfully defeated the drawabox monster.

To start with, your form intersections are definitely demonstrating a nicely developing grasp of 3D space. Your linework there is still a little bit hesitant, so I do think that overall your freehand linework needs a greater focus on the use of the ghosting method (investing your time in the planning/preparation beforehand, then executing with a confident, persistent pace). Remember that this also applies to when you're adding line weight too - don't add it with a slow-and-steady stroke, it's got to be confident all the way through.

The same applies to the cylinders-in-boxes you drew near the beginning. When you get a little nervous or anxious, to have a tendency of investing your time during the execution phase, drawing the strokes more slowly and carefully, which results in a visible wobble. Also watch the direction in which you extend those lines - there are some cases here where you've extended them in the wrong direction. I am pleased to see the extra practice in this area though, as it's definitely valuable especially as you move into this territory. Ellipses are killers, and the more comfort you can build up on this front, the better.

So I'll try and go over your drawings with some quick points:

Hearse

• It marks a great start, with clear focus on constructing everything out, relying on subdivision and such to build up your sense of scale.

• Your proportions were admittedly off (I think the top section was too tall, and the wheels too small) but by and large this is not uncommon to see at this point, and you were definitely focusing quite well on dealing with individual, simple forms.

• Your wheels' axles were off in their alignment, especially the front wheels. I don't see any clear minor axis being utilized there, so that was likely a major factor.

Truck

• The alignment of your wheel axles is much better here, though you don't seem to have relied on a minor axis line for the front cylinder.

• The proportions seem to be considerably better here as well.

• There's probably much more that can be done in terms of breaking the major forms down further, but it's definitely a good start.

Steam Roller

• Your overall construction is coming along quite nicely here, and the use of overall subdivision is quite effective.

• Proportions seem to be within reasonable margins

• Generally when you find your construction spilling out of the confines of your initial enclosing box, it may not be a bad idea to add an extension to that box (adding another quarter or eighth to the box after the fact).

• The massive ellipses for the front cylinder definitely tripped you up visibly, but you rolled with it as best you could and handled it fairly well. The ellipses are obviously a bit uneven, but that's not surprising.

Plane.. thing?

• I'm actually not sure what this is supposed to be, but your construction looks very specific. To a degree this means that the use of form is reasonably believable, but that the object you're trying to draw is something I'm not entirely familiar with. What is more likely is that you very much missed the mark, but your constructional drawing skills kicked in and focused on making the major forms feel more believable. I would definitely like to see the reference you used for this one.

Locomotive

• Here's where we're kicking into something more interesting! You're breaking your object down into a lot of great forms, and are definitely aware of how they all fit together.

• Some of the really small forms (like the rivets for example) fall more under the category of 'texture', and therefore would be better captured through the shadows they cast, rather than trying to enclose them fully as explained in some of the newer lesson 2 material).

Moped

• Definitely a lot of organic, smooth curves going on here, and I think you struggled most with capturing the specifics of their character.

• One thing that definitely applies here from lesson 6 is what I mentioned there about how to handle curves. I think you broke things down quite a bit, but I'm not seeing the kind of adherence to an underlying, boxier, more specific construction that keeps all of your curves in line. They still seem rather guessed at and approximated, rather than being hammered out fully with straight lines, then smoothed out as a finishing touch.

Tank

• Proportions definitely played a big role here. This seems to be a sherman tank, which is generally much shorter in length, and quite squat.

• The perspective on the barrel doesn't quite match the rest of the tank, but I am pleased to see that you utilized a minor axis line to establish its alignment.

Ship

• Here proportions come into play again. The overall construction is actually quite nice here (with the curves being much more specific and precise than the moped's), but the proportions make it feel much more like a toy.

Lawn Tractor

• This one is definitely my favourite - the construction is solid, there's a lot of complexity but you generally construct everything. Nothing's pasted on like an after-the-fact detail, it all feels like solid forms.

• Generally good use of shadow shapes to separate forms from each other

• Would have benefitted from a cast shadow on the ground (not filled in, but just the outlines of one)

Snowmobile

• I quite like the front section, all the forms seem well aligned with one another.

• If you look at the treads on the rear belt there, you'll notice that they're actually not aligned correctly. They should be running parallel to the width-wise construction lines, but they actually set off at a bit of an angle.

• Again, with textural things like tire treads, while these are forms they are better captured using the shadows they cast rather than outlining them completely.

Hearse

• This one definitely fell... short of the proportion study. The top lengthwise study was pretty accurate, but the result ended up feeling extremely truncated.

• That said, rather than making it seem wrong, it ended up feeling more like a mini cooper converted into a hearse, which while not what you were necessarily after, is still merely unlikely rather than impossible. And even kind of neat.

• Your wheels' alignment are off - from the way they're drawn, they appear to be slanting inwards.

Wagon

• Your overall construction's pretty good, and you seem to be quite faithful here to your proportion studies.

• The cast shadow is definitely off - towards the front we can see it tuck in, which is fine, but as a result the shadow should spill out towards the back to compensate.

• The slatted window shutters there definitely come off as overly simplistic, and a bit cartoony. As do your wheels. Likely would have benefitted from closer observation of your reference.

Apparently I've gone over the post limit so this will continue in a reply to this comment

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

2019-02-23 01:04

Your arrows are definitely quite well done, and you're focusing quite a bit on the confidence and fluidity of your strokes. When it comes to the compression of your arrows with perspective however, remember that this applies to both the thickness of the arrow as well as the space between the zigzagging lengths. Give these notes from the lesson a read to better understand what I mean.

Your organic forms with contour curves are alright, but they have a few key issues:

• Your forms should be simple sausages. Two spheres connected by a tube of consistent width. No pinching through the midsection, tapering, etc. This will help you to focus on the core challenge of the exercise, without getting distracted.

• You are definitely rushing. This is actually the case across the entire lesson, where you're moving forward before fully thinking through what you're attempting to achieve with your marks. In this case, your ellipses are not very well controlled. They're often too big or too small to fit snugly between the edges of the forms, their alignment is frequently slanted, and so on. Drawing confidently is fantastic, but you need to make sure that you ghost through your lines beforehand as you plan and prepare before each stroke. Make sure you go in knowing full well what you plan to put down, rather than just jumping in.

• Your contour curves are a bit hit and miss - they're also rushed, and due to the alignment issues, they're not always giving the impression that they're wrapping around the forms correctly.

The whole texture section of the lesson really is intended to be quite difficult, and it's often something quite new and challenging to students. I don't by any means expect perfection here, and having students struggle a great deal is entirely normal. What I'm seeing in your case appears to be an urge to capture things quickly, in a sort of impressionistic fashion. This can be quite interesting, but doesn't actually suit the purpose of what we're focusing on here. More than anything, as I've mentioned before, you need to slow down and think. Take the time to observe the reference carefully, and only look at your drawing for the few moments it takes to transfer one or two *specific details or marks before returning to your reference image. As explained in the lesson, our human memory isn't well suited to this kind of task, so we have to continually refresh it, and simply cannot rely on it for even short periods of time.

Your dissections were better, though there are still plenty of places where you appear to be rushing through, trying to capture things in as few marks as possible, or oversimplifying. I very much liked your corn texture, and the use of cast shadow there. Other textures however, like your carpet, definitely relied much on repeated patterns rather than careful observation.

Jumping forwards to your form intersections, you definitely do struggle here but improve considerably over the set. Your linework is still rushed, but you're demonstrating a considerable improvement in your understanding of how these forms exist within the same space, and your ability to convey a consistent sense of scale. Your organic intersections are similar - you've definitely pushed those forms to be more complicated than they should be as per the instructions, but you are demonstrating that you understand how these exist together, and are drawing them as objects with independent volumes that need to be taken into consideration, rather than pasting flat shapes on top of each other on a flat page.

So this submission suggests a few things:

• You're rushing. Not always reading the instructions as carefully as you should, not taking as much time as each mark demands, etc.

• You have a strong understanding of 3D space and grasp many of the overarching concepts.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I want you to do 4 pages of organic forms with contour curves. Reread the instructions for the exercise before attempting it. I want to see that you can be patient and plan things out. I know full well you are capable of doing an excellent job at these exercises (the texture-based ones are understandable, but everything else is well within your reach currently), but you need to slow down and think.

Also, much of this lesson appears to have been done with a pen that is much thicker than the recommended size (around 0.5mm), and the impact is visible. Try to use a more appropriate size from here on out.

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

2019-02-23 00:44

Yup, you are indeed still eligible.

To start with, your work on the arrows is quite well done. They flow quite nicely across the page. One thing that I'm noticing is that in some cases (though not all), you've got the spacing between the zigzagging lengths of arrow remaining the same, while the thickness of the ribbon remains the same. Remember that perspective compresses all space, so the distances in between will also shrink, as explained here. It's worth mentioning that the bottom right of your second page of this exercise is a good example of this done correctly.

Your organic forms with contour lines are quite well done. Your lines are fairly confidently draw, they're mostly fitting snugly between the edges of the forms, I'm seeing the degree shifts (though in your contour curves this seems to be inconsistent, read these notes in case you don't know what I mean).

Your texture analyses are phenomenal. You're demonstrating both really sharp observational skills, and a pretty excellent understanding of the concepts. One recommendation I have though is on the middle one, where you've got some really dense areas of black and white in the cracks. This results in some really distracting visual noise. This kind of high density contrast can draw the viewer's eye in an unintentional manner, so I'd recommend controlling how you use it a little more directly. In cases like this, being more willing to combine more of the little specks into larger areas of black would probably help reduce the effect.

Your dissections were similarly well done - you're taking the same concepts you executed wonderfully in the analyses and wrapped them nicely around these forms. The only one that didn't come out all that well was the 'other snake skin', where it didn't quite wrap around the rounded form convincingly. Just a matter of compressing the scales more along the edges.

Finally, your form and organic intersections convey a really strong understanding of 3D space and the relationships between both geometric and organic forms in 3D space. While I usually frown upon students adding little extras, your little king and queen of the pile are adorable - and I'm happy to say that as you knocked it out of the park, your little additions obviously did not distract you from the focus of the exercise.

So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 3 and keep up the great work.

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

2019-02-23 00:29

Pretty nice work on the arrows - they flow nicely across the page. One thing to keep in mind though is that to make them seem as though they're coming out of the depth of the page (rather than going across it), you want to play with compressing all of space as we look farther and farther away. Right now you're playing with the width of the arrow, but the space between the various lengths of the arrow, as explained here, also should be getting compressed.

Your organic forms with contour lines are quite well done. You're drawing through your ellipses and keeping them fairly evenly shaped, you're generally doing a good job of keeping them pinched between the edges of your form, and your contour curves wrap nicely along the form by hooking at as they turn. I am noticing that while your contour ellipses' alignment is generally looking pretty good, some of your contour curves are slanting a little bit, so keep an eye on that.

What stands out to me most when it comes to the texture analysis, it's that you're enclosing every element you draw completely. In the lesson, I talk about understanding that the lines we draw don't actually exist - they're just representations of the shadows that are cast by the forms that are present. When we handle the forms that make up texture, there's often a lot of little forms present, and drawing each one in its entirety tends to result in too much noise and chaos. Instead we draw the impact they have on their surroundings - the shadows they cast. These shadows can merge together, or can be blasted away by a direct light source, as explained here. This gives us the freedom to control the density and transition from concentrated detail to more sparse areas fluidly, rather than having sudden and more delineated changes.

The textures in your dissections are definitely a bit better, and you are showing an improvement in your overall observation. I especially like the avocado, though the rocks are still fully delineated from one another, so it shows you still have room to improve on that front.

A couple things stand out to me in regards to your form intersections:

• Your boxes do need work, and aren't quite as good here as they were by the end of your 250 boxes. It's not that you've slid back or anything like that - it's just that you're faced here with a complicated problem, and as a result, you're not putting as much time into each individual line, and each individual box, as you did back then. No matter what the challenge before you, don't let the complexity of it overwhelm you from focusing on the smallest elements. Take the time to draw the boxes properly, thinking about how your sets of parallel lines converge towards their shared vanishing points. Also, sticking to shallower foreshortening here will help maintain a more consistent sense of scale across the many forms.

• When you start working in cylinders and cones, you end up ignoring one of the instructions from the lesson: avoid using stretched forms. Be sure to read the instructions to the lesson carefully immediately before tackling it.

Along with what I've mentioned so far, your intersections are generally off base. When tackling the pages with multiple kinds of forms, you're definitely showing that you don't fully understand how the intersections work. As seen here, the intersection between that box and sphere wasn't drawn on the sphere at all.

Now, this is admittedly a very complicated exercise, and it does take time to understand how it all works. I do feel however that you may be responding to the overwhelming nature of the exercise by guessing randomly, rather than thinking through the problem. As mentioned in the instructions, the intersection line sits on both forms simultaneously, as explained here. Give those notes another read, as it may take a few run throughs for it to start making sense. It's kind of line a venn diagram, where you've got two circles overlapping one another.

Lastly, your organic intersections are a bit varying in quality, but while your cast shadows are inconsistent (as explained here), they do demonstrate that your understanding of 3D space and the relationships between these forms is developing. You're not drawing them as though they're 2D stickers being pasted on top of one another - you clearly grasp that they exist within the same three dimensional world, and are being stacked in a way that requires their individual volumes to be sorted out.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to reread all the material on form intersections and attempt two more pages of the exercise. Take your time drawing each individual form. Don't rush, and don't panic - if things stop making sense, step back and take a break. Read the material and watch the video again, and them come back to it.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2019-02-22 21:38

So you definitely set yourself to complete the challenge, and that you did. You pushed through and drew all 250 boxes. That said, there were some choices you made and steps you skipped that made the exercise somewhat less valuable than it could have been.

To start with, you stuck through extending your lines for the first half or so, which is good. But from what I can see, you didn't necessarily think very much about what those line extensions were telling you.

For example, if we look at box 150, and study the lines going off towards the left, we can see that these four lines are converging in pairs - one pair for each plane. This tells us that when you draw a line, you're focusing too much on the relationship that line has to the ones with which it shares that plane, rather than how all four lines are coming together at a far off vanishing point.

This kind of self-reflection is what allows us to grow. We draw a page of boxes, then we extend the lines for all of them and identify the patterns of mistakes we tend to make, and compare them to what we're trying to achieve. Armed with that information, we move onto the next page purposely trying to address the mistakes we saw before. Then we check that page for errors and repeat the process.

Extending the lines and analyzing the results is a key part of what makes this exercise valuable. Simply drawing boxes is useful to a point, but there's a lot more to be gained from this relatively simple process. So in that, you did miss out quite a bit.

As such, before I mark this challenge as complete, I'm going to ask for another hundred boxes. Take your time, analyze your results, and think about what you're trying to achieve with each and every line you put down.

When you go to draw a line, don't think about the lines with which it shares a corner, or with which it shares a plane. Focus only on all the lines that run parallel to it, the ones that converge towards the same vanishing point - including those that haven't yet been drawn. Everything else is just a distraction.

Then, as shown here, you can think about the angles at which those lines are going to leave the vanishing point. Those with smaller angles between them will end up running close to parallel to one another by the time they reach the box. This is a little trick you can use for the middle lines of a set, since they tend to be very close together.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2019-02-22 21:20

Nice work completing the challenge! By and large you've done a pretty good job and are demonstrating some confident linework and solid construction. There is however one major issue that you've run into that really needs to be pointed out: you only applied the line extension to two sets of parallel lines, rather than to all three. As a result, you've been improving a great deal on maintaining the convergences of the lines running towards the left and right, but the more vertical lines actually are running into a great deal of divergence.

For example, if we look at 242, 250 and 227, at a glance we can see that the vertical lines separate as they move farther away from the viewer. That's definitely something you're going to want to get a handle on, and as you move forwards, make sure that when doing this kind of exercise that you apply the line extension method to all lines. When we focus too much on some, the others tend to compensate and while we see improvement on one front, it's that other one that starts to deteriorate further.

You've still done a good job overall, and your boxes do a good job of appearing well constructed - it's just after a closer look that these mistakes become more obvious.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up with this kind of exercise as part of a regular warmup routine, but feel free to move onto lesson 2.

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

2019-02-21 20:36

So this is a pretty mixed set - there's some areas that are going quite well, and others that will definitely benefit from a little extra guidance.

To start with, your arrows definitely flow fairly well through all three dimensions of space, but I have a couple recommendations:

• Your lines waver at times, so definitely work on drawing your strokes with confidence, applying the ghosting method as needed. It's actually quite minor here, but you will see me mention this again in relation to other exercises.

• Remember that as explained here, perspective compresses everything as it moves farther away, including the space between objects. So as your arrow loops back and forth, moving further away into space, the space between these lengths of the arrow will also compress, bringing them closer together.

Your organic forms with contour ellipses are pretty good, though in a few places I definitely see your ellipses getting deformed. Always draw with that confident, persistent pace to keep them evenly shaped. Also watch their alignment - you're generally on point here, but there are a few that don't quite sit on the central minor axis line correctly. Lastly, when it comes to the sausages themselves, remember that sausages are essentially two spheres connected by a tube of consistent width. I'm seeing you stretching the roundedness at the ends out quite a bit. Keep that focused on either extremity and leave the length of the sausage consistent in its width.

When you get to the contour curves, you are definitely drawing these a little more stiffly. Again, use the ghosting method. Plan and prepare all you need, but put that mark down with a confident, persistent stroke, so as to keep it smooth.

Jumping ahead to the texture analyses, these are meant to be pretty challenging for students. Your observations along the left side are fairly well done, though they do suggest that there's room for improvement when it comes to the kinds of information you pick up from the objects you study. This is pretty normal.

When you get to the right side, I do see a degree of oversimplification that suggests to me that you may not be looking at your reference as frequently as you ought to. Always remember that our memories are not really designed for this. Human memory is designed to throw away any unnecessary information and focus in on only the core elements that are relevant to our survival. As such, the second you look away, a lot of the information specific to what you're trying to capture gets tossed away. Because of this, you must get in the habit of continually looking back at your reference, refreshing your memory and ensuring that every mark you put down somehow reflects an element you see in that reference - even when you're reorganizing that information as we are in this part of the exercise.

That said, your bricks are showing a grasp of how we want to focus more on cast shadows, which is good to see.

For your rope, you did make one common mistake - instead of focusing in on the rope's texture, you actually started drawing its major forms. For that gradient, you drew a physical rope, which is not what you're meant to do here. You're supposed to unwrap the texture that rests on the rope's forms and lay them flat.

You actually managed texture muuuch better in the dissections exercise, and covered a nice variety of them with a much stronger demonstration of observation. While there's still some that come out a little cartoony (like the bamboo and carrot), you've got many others that are handled quite realistically, like the artichoke and avocado. You're definitely moving in the right direction here.

Starting out with boxes for your form intersections was a good call. I'm glad you drew through these, though there is definitely plenty of room for improvement with those convergences (like the stuff we covered in the box challenge), as well as with your linework. You're still wobbling and wavering at times, so again - a confident, smooth execution is key. Don't hesitate when you put your marks down, accept that the opportunity to avoid mistakes has passed, and that the only thing you can do is push forwards with the mark. If you make a mistake, it's not the end of the world, but if you hide behind a slower execution, you'll be giving in and accepting a wobbly line.

Your other form intersections are okay, but they do suffer from one major issue: you didn't follow the instructions that carefully. As explained here, you're supposed to avoid forms that are overly stretched in any one dimension.

Your organic intersections are getting there (the first attempt is better than the second), but there are a few issues:

• Again, linework is rather wobbly and uncertain.

• The organic forms themselves are complex - stick to simple sausage forms. Don't pinch or swell them through their midsection, as explained here.

• Especially in that second attempt, I'm seeing a tendency to think of these more as being flat and two dimensional, as though you're pasting stickers on top of one another. Remember that these are forms you're piling on top of one another in 3D space. Think of it like they're filled water balloons that you are stacking.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do the following:

• 1 page of organic forms with contour curves. Keep them simple, keep your curves smooth and even, and keep the roundedness towards either extremity of the sausage forms.

• 1 page of form intersections. When drawing your forms, especially boxes, be mindful of the nature of your sets of parallel lines. You have to think about how they're meant to converge towards a shared vanishing point. Also, use the ghosting method. This means taking the time to plan and prepare before every stroke and execute with a confident, persistent pace. This is for every mark you put down. Students who try and avoid the ghosting method, or rush through it, naturally try and push that time investment to the execution to be more careful, but this only results in a wobbly line.

• 1 page of organic intersections. Again, keep the sausages simple, and think about how you're stacking forms in 3D space, not just as 2D shapes on the page.

For each of these exercises, make sure you reread the instructions immediately before attempting it to ensure that you're following them to the letter.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2019-02-21 20:02

The first three or so drawings show a gradual absorption of the material, with plenty of struggles, but a lot of signs that you're starting to internalize the lessons and apply them to greater and greater effect. When you start out, the proportions of your wheels are definitely off. If we look at the front driver side wheel, we can see that on either face of that box you constructed, the ellipses' contact points to the upper and lower edges don't align vertically (as they ought to given the 2 point perspective).

The overall construction of the body of the car however is coming along quite nicely, and I'm actually very pleased with the way you've built out the front. There's a clear awareness of form and construction, and you're mindful of how those forms turn in space, where there is thickness, rather than simply drawing a series of vaguely related lines on the page.

As far as the wheels go, your second page is a step in the right direction. The ellipses seem more appropriate, with the minor axis and contact points being aligned more correctly (still not spot on, but getting into the territory of being able to pass at more than a glance). You've still got a good construction for the body, though the proportions feel a little unnaturally exaggerated here up front, and the construction seems a little more simplistic, compared to the previous drawing. I do quite like how you've handled the back though - the proportions there are quite solid.

The truck on the third page is similar to the previous page. Overall reasonably well done, but the extreme perspective of the shot results in some definite exaggeration of the proportions that throw off the sense of scale to a degree. The cab's windshield definitely starts to get rather wide (probably should have been tucked in a little further), but I think the use of hatching to separate out the drawing was quite effective.

Now why am I focusing so much on your first three drawings? Well, because I still want to feel like I serve a purpose here. There isn't much to say about the other drawings, because they are all fan-friggin'-tastic.

I don't know what happened, but something seems to have fallen into place. Your understanding of form, the balance and subtlety of detail, the grasp of how all your forms come together in such specific relationships... it's all spot on. You clearly have gone beyond seeing these as simple drawings on the page and have punched right through into fully grasping that you are constructing solid, tangible, real objects in a 3D world.

I'm not sure if you've gone back to read some of the newer lesson 2 material, but where I talk about believing in the lie you're creating, this is exactly what I mean. You've been lost to madness, and there's no coming back. You believe in the illusion you're creating, and you're making everyone else believe in it too.

It's not just a matter of the constructions improving - the overall confidence behind your linework is hugely improved, and your line weight is subtle but adds such dimension and clarity.

Despite the sleekness of the stealth bomber and the tangible grip of the formula 1 racer's tires, that last drawing is by far my favourite. I actually do think that you may have made the windshield a little too wide again, but the character you've captured in that curvaceous cab, and the solidity of those wheels is absolutely mind blowing.

You've done a fantastic job, and despite not submitting the 25 wheel challenge prerequisite you sneaky sneak, I'm going to mark this lesson, and with it the whole constructional drawing curriculum complete. Congratulations on working all the way through drawabox, and on sticking with it for nearly a year and a half.

There still is that 100 chest challenge if you're interested in taking a swing at it, and there will be lessons in the near future on design and on illustration, but as far as I'm concerned, you have defeated the final boss. As such, I'll be giving you that coveted completionist role on the discord, which along with the envy of IDoHateBread, will also give you permanent access to the patreon discord channel for life.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge (Patreon Critique Thread)"

2019-02-21 19:43

Great stuff! I can see a great deal of improvement overall, and while I can see that it was definitely a pretty big struggle, you never held back from applying the additional correctional techniques and reflecting upon your work to better identify how to move forwards. The first chunk of the work definitely showed a considerable increase in your accuracy when it comes to aligning the ellipses to those minor axes (though you were fairly good at this to begin with, the improvement is visible). The cylinders in boxes was definitely a whole other challenge altogether.

While there's still plenty of room to improve on this front, you're showing considerable growth on multiple fronts. Your estimation of proportions (in keeping faces proportionally square) is much more consistent, the alignment of your ellipses within those enclosing planes, and even the convergences of your boxes have improved a great deal.

One thing that I do want to point out is actually more in relation to the boxes themselves - watch out for situations where you get a little caught up in the lines that share a plane. I can see a number of places where of a given set of 4 parallel lines, they tend to converge in pairs (the members of each pair sharing a plane). Always remember that the relationship between these lines goes beyond the shared corners and planes - it's all about the sets of lines that share a vanishing point, and how all four converge towards that point. So when you're putting that line down, always think about all the lines it is meant to converge with, including those that have not yet been drawn.

Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto the 25 wheel challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2019-02-21 16:51

/u/lindsayturtle

One thing I want to add is that here and there I see a tendency to, out of every set of four parallel lines, to have one of the middle ones veer off slightly. This is a pretty common problem that can be improved upon by thinking specifically about the angles at which the lines leave the vanishing point. Those two middle lines tend to have pretty small angles between them, and as such, by the time they reach the box (especially if they're very close to one another) they'll run virtually parallel to one another. This means even a slight convergence or divergence will appear very obvious, whereas letting them run perfectly parallel will generally look pretty correct (as long as they're within a certain margin of proximity to each other). These notes expand on the point.

Anyway, keep up the great work!

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

2019-02-19 03:57

Nice work overall, though there are a few points I'd like to raise.

To start with, your organic forms with contour curves - many of these are pretty well done, but they're a little hit and miss. Most on the first page are pretty weak, aside from the bottom left corner which is well done. There's a couple main problems:

• The sausage shapes themselves are irregular. You want to keep in mind that these sausage forms are essentially two spheres connected by a tube of consistent width. This means all the roundedness is on either end (rather than stretched along the length of the form) and the width remains constant along the length of the sausage.

• Your contour curves often fall out of alignment with that central minor axis line, and as a result end up being drawn a little stiffly or unevenly.

Keep these points in mind when doing this exercise. You've got more successes on the second page, but there are still some weak ones mixed in there.

Your work applying the carpenter wasp demo was well done. The texture you attempted to add to its wing was definitely a bit of a misadventure, but by and large you focused on the use of solid forms and construction and executed them effectively. Your layering of segmentation over simple forms came out pretty well, though I do still want you to focus on how these forms wrap around the underling rounded form, as where the lines get smaller, you get a little sloppier in keeping them from flattening out.

Also, remember that the sausage method of constructing legs involves a fair bit of emphasis being placed on the single contour line placed at the joint between two sausages. It's critical to help reinforce the illusion of form without having to rely on contour curves placed along the length of the form (which tends to stiffen things up). Take a look at these notes again to see what I mean.

Your first ant there is coming along decently, though I do see certain places where you're not quite employing the sausage leg construction. You do a much better job of this on the second drawing, which is actually extremely successful. The forms feel quite solid, your segments are voluminous and believable, and the whole thing feels real. The center line you've drawn along the abdomen was definitely somewhat off, but the rest is quite well done.

You carry this through the rest of the drawings. In some places you slide back a little, then regain ground in other drawings, so it's clear that you still are coming to grips with the concepts and letting them solidify. This will continue to happen through practice, but by and large you're demonstrating growth in the right direction. What is shared across most of these drawings is that you're clearly thinking in 3D space - you're showing awareness of how the forms intersect and relate with one another, and you definitely grasp how these drawings exist in 3D space, not just as a collection of lines on the page.

The last thing I want to point out is that you do definitely still struggle in the few areas you try to add texture, especially along the wings - for example, on the dragon fly. The most important thing to keep in mind is that texture is not a flat pattern that sits on the surface of an object like wallpaper. It is made up of a series of solid three dimensional forms. Rather than drawing the lines that enclose or define these objects, as there are so many of them and they are so very small, we instead draw the impact that they have on their surroundings.

As described in the updated lesson 2 material, we capture this impact by drawing the shadows they cast. Instead of thinking of the marks we put down as being uniform lines separating space into sections, we use shadows to suggest where forms exist, and how far off they rise off the surface (with objects rising higher casting larger shadows). We can also have the freedom to manipulate the nature of the light source that might cast these shadows in order to make texture more apparent in some areas, and less in others.

I also recommend you read through the new notes on the texture analysis exercise, as they explain how to control texture in this manner.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 5.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2019-02-17 17:36

Rather than passing this onto the TAs, I'll go ahead and take this critique since it's technically in response to one I'd already given. Yeah, the extra 100 were definitely the right call, and you've shown a good deal of growth over them. In many cases, you definitely show an improved sense of the convergences, though this is primarily focused when the vanishing point is very far away, and the lines effectively run parallel to one another. When you actually do need to deal with some convergences, you still end up with cases where you don't quite follow some of the advice I gave you previously:

When you draw a line, don't think about the lines with which it shares a corner, or the lines with which it shares a plane. Think only about the other lines with which it is parallel - that is, the ones with which it shares a vanishing point. Think about the angles at which those lines leave the vanishing point, specifically the lines that have a small angle between them (usually the middle lines of a set of 4 parallel lines). If the angle between them is smaller, then by the time they reach the box they'll be running virtually parallel to one another. That's an important and useful fact to keep in mind while drawing these boxes. I explain this further in these notes.

If we look at this one for example, from page 10, you'll see that the blue lines converge in pairs. This is because you were focusing only on the lines that made up each individual plane, rather than considering all four lines of the given set, and how they'd converge towards a single vanishing point.

These two from the same page, if we look at their blue lines, the convergences are definitely better, though those middle lines are diverging. This is a pretty common problem and it's easy to make - those two middle lines have such a small angle between them that they barely converge, so if you do happen to mess up their angles even a little bit, you're going to see them either cross way too early, or they'll diverge as they do here. This is what the notes I provided previously address specifically. Lines that converge towards the same vanishing point that are so close to each other are going to run virtually parallel to one another.

Now you are making headway compared to before, and I'll certainly be marking this lesson as complete. That said, you should reflect upon the advice that I'd given you before (and that I've quoted here). With every single mark you put down, you need to be aware of all the lines that are going to be converging towards its vanishing point, including those that have not yet been drawn. All other relationships between these lines aren't all that important - it's all about these convergences.

So, you can consider this challenge as complete. I see that you submitted your lesson 2 work, but as per the two-week rule I won't be critiquing it now, as that's the third full lesson submission in two weeks (a period in which you should only be receiving two). You can submit it on March 3rd.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2019-02-16 18:10

Great work! You're demonstrating considerable skill when it comes to being able to rotate these boxes freely in your head, and you're doing a great job of conveying the sense of weight and overall cohesiveness of the form with your line weights. Your convergences are generally coming along quite well too.

Based on the comments you mentioned in your submission though, I do want to really emphasize one thing - it's normal for students to preoccupy themselves with, say, the back corner and how those "interior" lines converge to it, but that isn't what you should be focusing on while drawing your lines. Though it's counter intuitive, there's not a lot to be gained from that. Instead, when you put a line down, rather than thinking of how that line shares a corner with two others, or how it shares a plane with three others, think instead about the lines with which it shares a vanishing point. Think about how they all converge towards that singular point - including the lines that have not yet been drawn - and focus on making that happen. Think about the angles at which those lines leave the VP, and the angles that fall between them. The smaller the angle, the more parallel those lines will run to one another by the time they reach the box itself.

Now all in all, your convergences are actually quite good. I do want to point out though that you do have a tendency in many of these to have lines that run perhaps a little too parallel (in 2D space that is) - adding just a touch more convergence in these cases will help. In some cases, when you strive for complete isometric parallelity, you risk having those lines actually start to diverge a little as they move further back in space.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work and feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2019-02-15 20:52

Nice work! I can see a considerable improvement not only in the consistency of your convergences and the solidity of your resulting boxes, but also in the confidence of your linework. You seem a lot more sure of yourself, and your lines suggest a greater sense of intent, rather than just putting strokes down and hoping for the best.

There is of course still room for improvement, though you're headed in the right direction. One thing to keep in mind as you continue to move forwards is that when you're putting a line down, don't get caught up thinking of the other lines with which it shares a corner, or the lines with which it shares a plane. These can lead to certain inconsistencies that I see sporadically through your work, especially places where you've got sets of parallel lines that converge in pairs too early.

Instead, think about all the other lines with which the one you're drawing shares a vanishing point. That is, all the lines that run parallel to it, including the ones that have not yet been drawn. Think about the angles between them as they leave the vanishing point - those with a minimal angle here will end up running effectively parallel to one another by the time they reach the box itself. This is particularly critical with the central lines of a given set (where they usually run pretty close to one another, and even a slight deviation in angle will result in an early convergence, or even divergence).

I expand on this concept in these notes, so give that a look.

One other thing I'm noticing is that for the most part, you seem to be focusing on boxes that have really, really shallow convergences - where the lines barely come together at all. It's a good idea to explore boxes that have shallow convergence like this, as well as those with more dramatic foreshortening (where the vanishing points are much closer), and those in between these two extremes.

Aside from that, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2019-02-15 03:01

Unfortunately it hasn't been a full 2 weeks since your last submission (on February 9th), so you'll have to hold onto these and submit them on the 23rd. A quick glance does suggest that you rushed through these however (one of the reasons this 2 week period is imposed). You only extended the lines for a few of them, so you didn't really benefit from the kind of reflection and self-analysis that is stressed for this exercise.

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

2019-02-13 23:16

There's definite improvement over the set - both across your organic intersections (where the first one was kind of weak bot those that followed were well done) and in your bug drawings as well. The last one was for the most part in line with what I was hoping to see.

In the middle though, there are a couple issues I want to address.

In this one, what stood out to me the most was that you drew your initial construction lines pretty faintly. Always make sure you're putting each and every mark down with full confidence - don't rely on line weight to separate the underdrawing from your 'final' drawing - all the lines are meant to be part of that final drawing, line weight simply clarifies how different forms overlap one another.

In this one your major masses felt somewhat hesitantly drawn, resulting in them - especially the abdomen - coming out rather stiff and uneven. Make sure you're drawing these rounded forms from the shoulder, and doing so using the ghosting method so as to keep up the confidence of your stroke.

There was actually one issue I noticed in your last drawing that also stands out. When drawing your leg segments, you're not quite following the sausage method. Be more mindful of the sausages themselves - they're effectively composed of balls connected by a tube of consistent width.

When done correctly, you don't need to add contour lines to the length of the form - you need only apply them at the joint itself to define the intersection between the two sausage forms. This is hugely beneficial because the contour lines along the length of a form like that can serve to stiffen it up.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. There is still plenty of room for improvement, and I recommend that you draw along with the demos so as to ensure that you absorb as much of the lesson material as possible. You are moving in the right direction though, and will be able to continue refining these concepts as you attack the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2019-02-13 22:55

Nice work! There's definitely a fine sense of fluidity to your linework and it imbues your drawings with a strong sense of flow. Throughout this set, I can also see your understanding of 3D form and construction as whole developing, though there are a few places where your approach can be adjusted in order to yield better results.

What stands out quite a bit to me is how you're approaching your leaves. You put down the flow line for your leaf, and you construct your simplified leaf shape around it - but when it comes time to put down any sort of further complexity or edge detail like on the right side of this page, you treat that underlying construction as more of a suggestion. You'll adhere to them loosely, but you'll zigzag around them as needed. This undermines the kind of solidity we're trying to carry through every pass of construction. Back in lesson 2 I talk about the concept of drawing being similar to lying, and how when you tell a lie you need to keep your story straight. You can't contradict yourself, otherwise you'll undermine the illusion you're creating.

In order to follow that principle, construction is all about building directly on top of the previous phase. We can add forms to what we've already constructed, or carve back into it, but we can't outright ignore it. I explain this further in the context of this exercise in these notes.

If you have more complex leaves that break away from the standard single-flow-line pattern, then you may want to combine that process as shown here.

Another thing I noticed was that you sometimes have a tendency to draw lines a bit too loosely. The biggest example of this is this page. Here, I'm not getting the impression that each line is planned and prepared for beforehand (using the ghosting method), or that each mark is drawn with confidence. Instead, it looks specifically as though you're going out of your way to leave as little of a footprint on the page early on, so as to leave it cleaner for when you add detail and texture.

If you want to go into detail and texture, you're absolutely welcome to - but the way in which you approach the earlier phases of drawing and construction should not change. You should be ghosting through each and every line, and drawing every stroke with the same kind of confidence.

Now when it comes to texture, you certainly did have some struggles, but you also had some decent successes. On this page, we can clearly see where you relied very much on hatching on that larger leaf. This didn't go well because it doesn't really suit the medium we're using to draw. It works great with graphite, or even with ballpoint pen, but when we're working with fineliners that put down a strong, bold mark the moment it touches the page, we need to find alternate strategies to communicate with our viewer.

Always remember that - you're not here to reproduce the texture you see in your photograph perfectly. You're meant to learn how to process the information that is there, and find some way to communicate it to the viewer. This means you don't necessarily have to put every little piece of information down - implying it more carefully through use of shadow as explained back in lesson 2 and controlling the density of your details puts you in control. You are not a slave to the photograph you're working from - it just gives you the tools that you may choose to use.

Now the drawing across the top there on the set of smaller leaves is VASTLY more successful. We can see where details transition from being sparse to dense, and where they get dense we don't get the kind of scratchy, unintentional white/black noise we see in the bigger leaf. Instead you're not afraid to merge those shadow shapes into large swathes of solid black.

The problem with creating "noisy" effects with hatching is that it becomes very distracting to the eye. You lose control of where the viewer is looking, and it generally results in an unpleasant drawing. Making the decision to go full black, or to control how dense your texture is at a specific point allows you to determine exactly how the viewer is going to interact with your drawing. It also leans into how these tools work - as I said before, we're working with a specific medium that behaves in a particular fashion, and we need to work within those limitations, not try and turn our pens into pencils.

For this reason, try to stay away from any kind of hatching lines. Hatching is generally used as a sort of generic texture or sort of marks that people will use when they want to convey light and shadow. I explain in this section from lesson 2 why we avoid shading in this manner altogether. When we do decide to add form shadows like that, it is always as a means to some different end. The shading itself is not the goal, it's just a tool.

When it comes to smooth surfaces, as you mentioned, how I handle them depends. If it's smooth and metallic, I'll probably add a few strong streaks of solid black along the surface of the object, to kind of create a sense of reflectivity. If it's smooth but not particularly metallic or reflective, then I'm more likely just to leave it blank in most areas, being very careful with any detail I choose to add.

Now, rounding back to your construction, I did notice that you were sometimes a little sloppy with your contour lines (like on the flower bulbs on the far left of this page). Always remember that whenever you put a mark down, you've got to think about what its purpose is meant to be, and how that mark can best serve that purpose.

Lastly, your branches are coming along, though keep working on getting those segments to flow smoothly into one another. Ghosting through your lines, drawing from the shoulder, and rotating your page as needed will continue to help eliminate those little visible tails. That said, it is a difficult skill to develop, so keep at it and don't feel that you need to be able to do it perfectly right off the bat.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 4.