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

2018-06-25 21:43

Very nice work! You're demonstrating a lot of confidence with your linework, which helps keep your strokes smooth and consistent, and also helps you to maintain evenly shaped ellipses. Jumping ahead though, I noticed in your funnels exercise that you had a tendency to have your ellipses slant slightly. Remember that one of the main focuses of the exercise is to keep your ellipses aligned to that central minor axis line, such that the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension.

Your plotted perspective boxes were well done. Your rough perspective is pretty good as well, but there's two issues I'd like to raise. Firstly, always focus on one vanishing point only for this exercise, don't extend it to two. This will help you focus on main challenge of this exercise without the added distraction.

Secondly, be sure to go over your completed work for this exerciase as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Now, your rotated boxes are really the only place where you stray - it doesn't look like you really followed the instructions very closely. You skipped a number of steps, and most notably you didn't draw through your boxes (meaning, you stopped drawing the boxes where they were blocked by other forms - you should be drawing them completely, including the lines on the opposite side of each form).

Your organic perspective boxes were fairly well done. There's plenty of room for improvement here, but that's entirely expected. Both the rotated and organic perspective boxes are intended to be quite difficult for students at this stage, they're really about pushing students to think differently about how forms can be rotated freely in 3D space.

Now, I am going to mark this lesson as complete, but I want you to do two things next. First, I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. This will help you get a better sense of how each box sits in 3D space. Read the notes and watch the video on the challenge page before starting the work - they cover a couple helpful tips that allow you to take full advantage of the exercise. Once you're done that, I want you to give the rotated boxes exercise another shot (be sure to follow the instructions more carefully this time).

Uncomfortable in the post "Tiger Head Construction Demo"

2018-06-25 18:04

Just thinking about that makes me feel exhausted. But the rich part does sound enticing.

Uncomfortable in the post "Tiger Head Construction Demo"

2018-06-25 14:29

That's a great way to look at it, and it certainly lines up properly. Envisioning head construction like creating a scifi helmet of sorts really emphasizes the planar quality and all of the distinct edges, and can make it a little easier to keep yourself from trying to smooth things over too soon.

Uncomfortable in the post "Tiger Head Construction Demo"

2018-06-25 14:28

Hahaha, I see what you mean!

Uncomfortable in the post "Tiger Head Construction Demo"

2018-06-25 01:02

Always a sphere. I use "cranium" as a term because that's the closest thing I've got, but really I'm treating it like the spherical nub at the end of the neck. That's what we're building the whole head around, and I'd treat a human head the same way.

Uncomfortable in the post "Tiger Head Construction Demo"

2018-06-24 23:15

Ahh, I see. You could technically use a box, but the benefit of the form I used is that it nestles into the eye sockets rather nicely, emphasizing that whole puzzle point I mention in step 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "Tiger Head Construction Demo"

2018-06-24 22:46

The only reason I wouldn't start with the muzzle is that it's not terribly useful when you're drawing the entire body. Starting off with a cranial ball, ribcage and pelvis allows you to put all the major masses of the creature all at once, because they're all related to one another by the spine. If you were used to drawing the head starting from the muzzle, then you'd be hard pressed to find a way to easily connect it to the rest of the body without going through the trouble of constructing more of the head.

Uncomfortable in the post "Tiger Head Construction Demo"

2018-06-24 22:45

Hahaha! Maybe that's not such a bad idea.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-06-24 20:31

Here's my critique for that drawing, along with a breakdown of how I would approach drawing that head. At this point between your initial submissions, your goat and your tiger, I think I've covered all of the major issues I've been able to find, and have invested enough time giving you materials to pull from. From here, it's going to be entirely on you to practice applying them, and most importantly reread what you've been given to allow yourself to gradually absorb it.

You are showing progress, but you have a lot of mileage to put in to properly internalize all of the lessons and critiques. With this kind of wealth of information, it's easy and more or less unavoidable that you'd latch onto a few points that were raised, and fail to give others the amount of attention they'd require.

So, I want you to take the next two weeks and do as many animal drawings as you can, using the information you've been given. Keep pushing yourself, especially when it comes to observation of proportions and how things like legs are posed, and give yourself as much time as you require with each individual drawing.

You can spend more than two weeks if you like - that's a minimum, the main focus being that you should only be submitting once through the month of July. This is both to ensure that you give yourself plenty of time, as well as to balance out the amount of time I've put into writing your critiques this past month.

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

2018-06-24 00:03

I'm a bit impressed with the fact that you've been able to manage some pretty solid linework despite being forced to do the work on your bed. Posture's usually pretty important, but it seems you've managed pretty well. Your lines are quite smooth and confident, and your ellipses come out with even shapes that don't show any signs of wobbling or stiffness.

While you did a great job with the lines and most of the ellipses section, I did notice that when tackling the funnels, you ended up drifting from the instructions and possibly didn't watch the provided video which demonstrated how the exercise was meant to be done. This kind of lead you to miss a major point of the exercise, which is to practice aligning ellipses to a central minor axis (such that the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down their narrower dimension). That's definitely something you'll want to review.

Jumping ahead to the rough perspective boxes, you've done well but be sure to go over the completed work for this exercise as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Now, your rotated boxes at a first glance definitely need work - and this is totally normal and expected. This exercise, as well as the organic perspective boxes were included with the intent of seeing what would happen. A lot like dropping a child in the deep end of the pool before teaching them how to swim. What do you mean that's not a nice thing to do? What? No, don't call the cops.

So students are meant to struggle with it, but more importantly it's also intended to push you to think differently about 3D space, and about how forms can be turned within it. It breaks us away from relying on all these plotted perspective lines going back to their vanishing points, while allowing us to think more about what those rules of perspective really mean. So regardless of success, you've certainly accomplished what the exercise was meant for.

That said, when I look closer at your rotated boxes, I can see that your main axes (the horizontal and vertical middle rows of boxes) are fairly well done. You definitely made the boxes far too deep, and this definitely hindered you somewhat, but as far as the front-most faces and their rotations go, you were on the right track. The problem is out towards the corners, where you were faced with the challenging task of rotating them on two axes. When faced with this particularly overwhelming problem, we have a tendency to shutdown and draw what our instincts tell us to. In this case, our brains hate things that aren't set to a grid - they like everything to be nice and parallel, so that's what your instincts are going to tell you to draw. A better response would be to step back and think about how that form currently sits in space, and how it relates to its neighbours. To look closely and see that the boxes are more or less parallel to those around them, and the rotations need to be pushed much further.

I definitely think that the depth of all your boxes was a pretty big factor in increasing the challenge though, so I'd recommend that you try to keep the boxes more equilateral in subsequent attempts. No need to worry about making everything a perfect cube, just try to avoid having things stretch out so much.

It's certainly good to see that you drew through your boxes in the organic perspective exercise. I usually leave students to make the mistake of not doing that (as it's easier to learn why it helps when you're allowed to struggle without it), but it's great that you already jumped on that. There are certainly some smaller issues here and there in terms of keeping the convergence of your sets of parallel lines consistent, but again - that's normal.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge, as I think you'll benefit from the extra opportunity to focus on these freely rotated boxes. Be sure to read the notes and watch the video on that page - you clearly know about drawing through your boxes, but the error-checking method mentioned there is also very useful in terms of getting the most out of the exercise.

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

2018-06-23 20:12

It doesn't look like I have you down as being eligible for private critiques. If you are a patreon supporter, be sure to check your inbox as I reach out to new patrons through there to get their reddit username. If not, you're welcome to post your work directly to the subreddit to have the community review your work.

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

2018-06-22 21:28

It certainly is tricky, and it does take a great deal of getting used to. Alongside that, we need to balance observation, making sure that we're not just constructing arbitrary forms without being precisely aware of which features from the actual object we are trying to capture or represent.

I think you might be rushing a little in this regard, perhaps relying too much on memory over direct observation. Make sure you're only putting down a mark or two before looking back at your reference and refreshing your mental model of what you're attempting to draw.

There's also a couple other things I noticed:

• With the fly's eyes, and really anything, you need to ignore the local colour. You're not colouring anything else in the drawing, so there's no reason to fill the fly's eyes to be solid black. This actually works against you as you try and convey these forms as being three dimensional, because there's not a whole lot you can do with a solid black ellipse.

• When layering the segmentation along the fly's abdomen at the top of page 1, you're again kind of sloppy in how you approach it. You're allowing your segments to cut into the for you've already produced in the previous stage, which undercuts the illusion of form and solidity. You want it to seem like you've taken additional forms and wrapped them around - you don't want to be in a situation where you're subtracting from forms you've actually put in, as that's a lot harder to do convincingly. Take a look at the top right of these notes I've done for another student, as they explain the situation further. I also talk about similar things in these notes.

You are making some definite progress, but I want you to resolve the situations where you draw marks without a proper idea of what you're trying to achieve with a given line. It means getting used to holding yourself back and thinking/observing rather than rushing in and putting down more ink.

Take the weekend and do two more pages of insect drawings.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2018-06-22 21:18

Nice work! You definitely show a good deal of progress over the set. Early on you've got a lot of places with some pretty significant shifts in the degree of your ellipses from one end to the other. Obviously as the notes mention the far end should be of a wider degree than the near end, but the extent of that shift is a lot like how we deal with the shift in size when dealing with perspective. If something gets small really quickly, that kind of dramatic foreshortening suggests a really large scale. Similarly, a really rapid shift in degree will suggest the same thing. So, it's good to see that you seemed to make those changes a lot more subtle as you continued through the set.

By the end, the vast majority of your cylinders are very well done. There's the odd one (like 204) where the alignment of your ellipses drifts relative to the minor axis, but for the most part you're doing great.

Keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-06-22 00:19

Here's my critique.

The handwriting gets a little cramped at times, so here are the major points (though you should still read through them on the image)

• A ribcage is not a sphere - you should be keeping in mind how the masses reflect the parts of the body they're meant to represent. The ribcage of most, if not all mammals is usually around half their torso. I've mentioned this in a previous critique of your work.

• Your contour curves do need work - they're not too far off, but there is a general sense that they're a bit sloppy and not quite conveying the impression that they run along the surface of the given form and actually wrap around it. We see this on the torso as well as on the cranial ball.

• You're starting the legs quite low and neglecting the shoulder masses

• When constructing sausages for the various sections of the legs, you're sometimes flattening the ends out somewhat. Try and picture the sausage forms as having a ball on either end, and try to capture that full curvature.

• I can see that you're trying to think constructionally in regards to the head, and you're moving in the right direction but I think you need to review that video again (or maybe a few times, even drawing along with them to give yourself the chance to absorb the material a little better).

While these are the specific issues I'm seeing in your process, there are two overarching themes:

1. You're still struggling quite a bit with observation, likely spending more time drawing and not enough time looking at your reference. This results in a number of really significant mistakes (like the legs being all set at a strange angle relative to the body - though I'm assuming that once you made this mistake you decided to just stick with it, which I think was the right call).

2. I don't get the impression that you yet believe in the illusion you're creating. What we're drawing is of course just a series of lines and shapes on a flat page. Using them we're striving to fool our viewers into believing them to be solid, three dimensional forms that exist in a 3D space. Beginners will generally be rather aware of the fact that what they're drawing is all 2D, that they're creating this big lie - but what one needs to do in order to sell the illusion is to buy into it themselves. That's what all these little techniques and tricks are for. Drawing through forms, contour lines, construction, etc. It's all there to fool ourselves, to make it easier for us to buy into this lie. Of course these aren't techniques that we can use so directly in a proper final drawing. The point is that all of these drawings are exercises with the goal of getting you, the artist, to believe that what you're drawing is three dimensional. Once you do that, a lot of the subconscious benefits kick in - when you believe a ball you've drawn is actually a sphere, you'll find it unthinkable to draw a straight line across it - your mark will curve along that perceived 3D surface instead, because anything else would seem silly. You are not yet at this point, and need to keep pushing yourself to try and feel that the simple forms and exercises are solid and three dimensional. As you work through the various constructional stages of a drawing, work towards the impression that what you have on the page feels solid. Solidity and the illusion of form is not something you build up gradually over the course of a drawing as it comes together - it's something that is there throughout, and that has to be maintained (or will ultimately be lost).

One thing I'd like to ask is, how often do you do the exercises from lessons 1 and 2?

I want you to try the same exercise (focusing only on construction, taking photos at the end of each phase of construction) with this tiger.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2018-06-21 21:37

Nice work! It's definitely been a while, but it's good to see that the passage of time hasn't caused your linework to rust. You've definitely got a great sense of confidence and smoothness to your work, maintaining crisp, straight lines and evenly shaped ellipses with no signs of stiffness or wobbling.

You're doing a great job of aligning those ellipses to your minor axes, and maintaining that slight shift towards a wider degree on the far end without being too overt and obvious. That said, there are two things I can see that I'd you should probably have done more of:

• There's a lot of great variety in terms of rotation of your ellipses, but one thing I didn't see much of was turning the cylinders to face the viewer head-on, like looking down the barrel of a gun. This is going to require you to play with foreshortening, which can be tricky while you try to balance your intended sense of scale.

• I saw a couple boxes that were built into boxes, but you will probably want to practice more of these. Constructing cylinders around an arbitrary minor axis is great, but there's always going to be situations where you're not exactly sure how the minor axis for a given cylinder would exist relative to other forms already in a scene. This is where boxes come in very handy, as a box is a lot easier to just drop into a scene relative to other objects. You can then use the box to derive your minor axis and go from there.

Anyway, overall you're doing a great job. Keep it up and consider this challenge complete.

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

2018-06-21 21:26

Really, really fantastic work. Your lines are smooth and confident, you've clearly got your priorities (in terms of accuracy vs flow) in order. This carries over into your ellipses, which are coming out nice and even while maintaining a good sense of control.

Overall you're demonstrating a lot of care with each exercise, and moreover you've clearly taken the time to fully absorb all of the instructions. One of the worst things is when students flip through the instructions and rush to the drawing - it's very clear that you've taken your time at every turn.

Jumping ahead, your rotated boxes are really solid. Your organic perspective boxes are closer to where I'd expect them to be - which basically means that they're heading in the right direction but will need some additional attention. This is totally normal, as both these last two exercises are largely me dumping students in the deep end of the pool without properly teaching them how to swim yet, just to see what they'll do. Needless to say, you've definitely impressed me.

While there are some issues here and there with the convergences of your sets of parallel lines, your lines are still straight and precise, and you're clearly applying the ghosting method all over.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next to get some more work in on those freely rotated boxes. The notes and video there will go over a few techniques and concepts that will help you drastically improve on keeping your parallel lines consistent, so be sure to read/watch them before starting the work.

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

2018-06-21 21:00

Really nice work! I think you've done an excellent job here of demonstrating a lot of patience and care in how you've tackled each exercise, and most importantly, in how you've followed the instructions to the letter. Early on we can see where your super imposed lines start off kind of wobbly, but by the end of that first page, you're already showing an understanding of how the confidence of your stroke is far more important than your accuracy, and the resulting smoother marks carry through the rest of your lesson to great effect.

Your ellipses are solid - smooth and evenly shaped, while also maintaining a good degree of accuracy and control. Your boxes section demonstrates a well developing grasp of 3D space, and I'm thoroughly impressed by your rotated boxes. The first one is excellent - the second is pretty good too, though the rotations on the central axes appear to be just a little more timid than they ought to.

For your rough perspective boxes, you did a great job - just make sure you apply this double checking technique to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift. It does for everyone, but the key is to be aware of it so you know what to compensate for the next time you attempt the exercise.

Your organic perspective boxes are about where I'd expect them to be - that essentially means that you're moving in the right direction, but will benefit from some additional focus in this area. For that reason, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete but assign the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video there on that page before starting the work.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-06-21 20:54

I do agree that your improvement is significant, and it shows best in your follow-up on lesson 1's rotated boxes. That said there are a couple things I can suggest that will help you as you continue to push forwards, in terms of opportunities that were missed here (in terms of taking full advantage of the exercise).

I definitely see improvement in terms of your line quality, in terms of what I mentioned about drawing with a confident, persistent pace. Your initial lines tend to be smoother than they were in lesson 1, with less visible wobbling. That said, when you add line weight, you revert to drawing very slowly and carefully, and wobbling all over.

When you add line weight, it's very important that you get used to applying the ghosting method there as well, and drawing the reinforcing mark with the same kind of confident, persistent pace. Yes, you may end up making a mistake, you may end up in some separation where your lines don't follow exactly the same path - but it's the process and the approach that you need to ingrain in yourself. As you continue to practice it that way, you'll get better, the gaps will shrink, and what will be left will be considerably more confident and smoother linework.

On the topic of line weight, it's great that you were experimenting with different ways to apply it. In the notes I mention an important point you may have missed or forgotten. The specific lines you choose to add weight to have an impact on how effective the use of weight will be.

A box is essentially a collection of lines, and when they're all uniform, that's more or less what it feels like. If you add weight to the lines that define the box's silhouette though (the outer lines), you start to build up this sense of cohesion, where they all belong to a single entity, bordered by these subtly darker lines. It doesn't even need to be that obvious (and generally shouldn't be) - just enough for one's subconscious to pick up on.

Alternatively, if you decide to add extra weight to the internal lines, those that sit inside of the silhouette, you construct the borders inside of your form and start to break it apart. Instead of feeling like a single, enclosed, cohesive form, it emphasizes how these lines are separate from one another. So that's something to avoid.

Lastly, I want to talk about the line extension method, how you've applied it, and what it generally tells us.

There are a few issues in how you applied the technique that reduced its effectiveness:

• It's important to extend all the lines. All three sets of parallel lines need to be extended, as they all need to be tested. It's easy to fall into a false sense of security if you focus only on extending two out of three (which you did quite frequently).

• Extend the lines only towards their implied vanishing points - don't bother extending in the opposite direction, it'll actually get more confusing if you do. The extensions are meant to let us study how our lines converge, and whether or not they converge at a consistent rate towards a roughly singular point. If we extend them in both directions, it can sometimes be less clear which side should be converging and which should be diverging.

So, when you study those extensions, keep an eye on the patterns you see. One common mistake (which we can see in 248 for example) is to have the lines within a given set pair off, instead of converging together in the same place. Or, like in 222, you can see a situation where two of the middle lines of a given set start intersecting way faster than the outer ones do. On that topic, these notes may help.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. You may feel free to move onto lesson 2, but be sure to keep working on these freely rotated boxes as well as the exercises from lesson 1 as part of a regular warmup regimen.

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

2018-06-21 20:39

I think this review is going to be pretty useful to you, as there are a number of concrete pieces of advice I have to offer in relation to how you're approaching each exercise, and the process of mark making in general.

The biggest thing has to do with how you're executing your marks. This includes pretty much everything - straight lines, ellipses, etc. When we draw a mark, we have two main priorities:

• Accuracy, ensuring that the line we draw follows the path we intend

• Flow, ensuring that our mark is smooth and consistent, and free of wobbling or wavering

As it stands, you are putting accuracy far ahead of flow, and as a result you execute your marks slowly enough that your brain is able to course-correct as you go. This is extremely prominent in the super imposed lines exercise, and to a lesser degree after the ghosting method has been introduced.

Instead, we need to swap the priorities and put flow first. We want to ensure that at the very least, each and every mark is smooth and consistent, maintaining the same trajectory throughout from the point that it starts. We don't want to see any wobbly lines or uneven ellipses. We don't want to see any signs of hesitation or that we're allowing our conscious brains to interfere as we make the marks.

That's ultimately what the ghosting method is all about - splitting the drawing process into several stages, where we can plan and prepare initially to build up the appropriate muscle memory and increase our potential for accuracy. Finally when we actually touch then pen down and execute the mark, we do so with a confident, persistent pace accepting that any mistakes made from this point are inevitable and cannot be avoided by drawing slowly and carefully.

Mistakes happen - you'll find that here and there your lines don't fall exactly where you want them to, but as long as you draw with that kind of confidence, trusting in your muscles, you will generally achieve smooth, consistent strokes. That is key, as where accuracy will improve with practice and time, the flow of your strokes is always going to be a matter of how you approach them.

As for the rest of the lesson, I'll point out a few areas where you missed some of the instructions and other similar minor problems that I ought to address:

• When applying the ghosting method, don't make the points quite so large. Since this technique is supposed to be used with every single mark you put down from here on in, you don't want these big blots to be so clearly visible - a slight point is going to serve you much better. You just need to be able to see it when you're looking for it, nothing more - and ideally once your line passes through it, it'll basically become unnoticeable.

• When drawing your ellipses, it's great that you're drawing through them - but limit yourself to 2-3 times around the shape. Ideally, 2 is best.

• In your funnels exercise, you have a pretty consistent tendency to slant your ellipses. The point of this exercise is to practice keeping those ellipses aligned to the central minor axis line, so the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension. You'll also probably want to draw the minor axis with a ruler. Each exercise targets a specific skill, and in this case, we're not testing your ability to freehand straight lines. Drawing those with a ruler will ensure that you're set up in the best possible way to focus on the main core of the exercise.

• I also noticed that in some of your funnels, you completely neglected to draw the minor axis. Don't forget to include it, leaving it out rips out a pretty significant part of the exercise.

• I'm glad you went in to apply the double-checking method for the rough perspective boxes, as it's an important part of growing and improving. That said, you didn't apply the method correctly - where you drew the lines all the way back to the vanishing point, the instructions actually tell you to extend your lines as you've drawn them to where they intersect with the horizon line. This gives you a much more concrete sense of how far each line was off from the VP.

• The improvement between your first and latest attempts at the rotated boxes exercise is immense. Really nice work overall, especially towards the left side of the set. On the right, the rotations are a bit shallower, but they're spot on on the left.

• You definitely struggled with the organic perspective boxes, but that's entirely expected. It's meant to be more of an assessment before sending you off to the 250 box challenge.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. You definitely made the right call by moving onto the 250 box challenge, though I would have liked the chance to assign it myself. Reason being, I would have told you to use it as an opportunity to focus on practicing the sort of confident execution of your lines that I mentioned in the first half of this critique. Oh well - I'll go ahead and jump onto that critique next.

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

2018-06-20 21:15

You show a fair bit of progress and growth over the course of this set. There are some recommendations I'm going to make, but where you show most of your improvement is in your ability to observe complex objects and break them down to a finer degree. At the beginning your observational skills weren't terribly keen, and things had a tendency to be quite flat. This is much less so towards the end.

One of the important things I want to outline at this point in the curriculum is the importance of believing in the illusion you are creating. We all understand that what we draw is essentially a series of simple lines and shapes on a flat, 2D page. We leverage various techniques to produce an illusion of depth and form.

It's normal to worry about convincing others of the fact that what you've drawn is three dimensional, but it is far more important to focus on convincing yourself. All of these lessons and exercises revolve around this principle - that the techniques of drawing through forms, drawing contour lines and so on allows us to better believe in our own lies. Once we come to believe in what we're peddling, the little subconscious shifts in approach and technique that come with proper belief is what allows us to sell the illusion to our viewers. That comes naturally, once you're able to fool yourself.

This leads me into one thing I feel you were missing in your drawings, even towards the end. You drew your individual components, but I did not get the impression that you believed anything beyond the idea that you were drawing flat shapes on a page.

One important thing you can do to work beyond this is, when you've got two forms that connect to one another, to actually define how they intersect and connect. Actually establish the area of intersection with a contour line, as if you were to draw over the surface with a marker where the two forms touch.

Getting used to doing this is what will reinforce the idea that these are three dimensional forms. It is quite important that whenever you come to the end of a phase or step of construction, that you are fully convinced that what you've drawn thus far represents solid 3D forms. Never expect that solidity will be something you'll build up or imbue as you go - it's something you start with, and something you strive to maintain throughout.

One other thing I'd like to mention pertains to how you approach your insects' legs. Right now you're drawing each as a series of lines. If a leg is made up of several segments, you'll draw each segment only so far as it is visible. Your lines stop when they meet the previous section.

You should be drawing each one as a complete form. I generally construct mine as sausage forms as shown here, which are specifically forms that maintain a consistent width throughout their lengths, rounding off at the ends - different from stretched balls, which will gradually widen towards the center. Sausages convey a much stronger sense of flow and gesture which is great for legs, whereas stretched ellipses/balls will seem quite stiff (I'm mentioning this because it's a common mistake people make). Where I have two of my sausage forms intersect, I'll reinforce the actual joint, keeping the lengths free of contour lines. I've demonstrated this principle here as well, on another student's work.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do just two more pages. Focus on trying to apply what I've said here, though I understand that the first chunk of it was kind of abstract.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2018-06-19 20:54

These are vastly better in terms of the sense of flow and energy. There's a considerably stronger impression that these things exist in 3D space, and that they move through it in very specific ways.

When it comes to those shadows, I understand that your brush was separating, but I also think that you should probably stick to working completely with the same pen you used to do the rest of your linework, at least for a while. What I can see here is that you're not actually playing with line weight - your lines are uniform, and you've jumped to the other end of the spectrum (adding big blotchy shadows). You're killing a fly with an atom bomb, and likely need the chance to grow accustomed to adding line weight with a regular pen in order to better assess when you ought to take that route, or whip out your brush pen.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Your leaves have shown a lot of progress, and while there's plenty of room for growth and improvement (I can see that when it comes to the branches exercise type stuff, you need to work on the confidence and control of your lines there), I think you should be good to move onto the next lesson.

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

2018-06-19 20:21

You've got a lot of solid work here. What's important is that you're demonstrating a good deal of patience and care in applying all of the constructional methods. You're not skipping any steps, and aren't really relying on any guesswork - you're being pretty careful in subdividing as needed, and ensuring that each decision you make hinges on some other measurement you can pinpoint and produce.

Earlier on, I think some of your initial enclosing boxes tend to be a little weaker, which throws off the construction somewhat - though the fact that you stick to it despite that shows a good degree of control and a lot of respect for the constructional process. Regardless of whether or not that previous step has gone wrong, the decisions have been made, and you keep trucking forwards.

By the end of the lesson, your boxes and generally boxier constructions are coming along quite well. Your cylinders are a little weaker, but more in that they're less consistent. You've got some pretty solid cylinders/ellipses here, though less so here. It's really a matter of practice, but try drawing through your ellipses only two times. That'll get you the benefit of drawing through them but will reduce the amount of hairiness and messiness that can result.

Anyway! You're doing a good job and are heading quite confidently in the right direction, so I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. You'll find that the next one is quite similar with a few added challenges (mostly coming from the scale and importance of proportion in vehicles) as well as some advantages - like being allowed to use all kinds of tools (ballpoint pens, rulers, ellipse guides if you can find them). There are also some additional videos that could have been useful here, but that I held back in the interest of not hitting students with too much to think about all at once.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2018-06-19 14:26

Dedicating a page to a single larger drawing (and if you feel it necessary or helpful, the odd notes/study of a specific area that's giving you trouble or whatever else on the side) is usually best. Now I can't actually gauge just how big each of the pages you used in that submission were, but as long as you have the freedom to draw as big as you need to in order to really engage your arm and your spatial reasoning, you should be good.

This may lead some people to ask, "well how do I practice drawing smaller then" - the answer is that drawing bigger gets you used to the kind of confidence and motions that you'll eventually apply when drawing smaller. It just takes time to internalize them enough to realize the difference at smaller scales.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-06-19 00:42

Well, you completed the challenge - so congratulations on that. When it comes to the line extensions, it is of course ideal that we understand why we're asked to apply a certain technique, but at the end of the day, even if you don't understand it just then, deciding not to do it on that basis isn't particularly useful.

That said, it'll help for us to take a look at the boxes on your last page and identify what you should be keeping an eye on when extending those lines. As we know already, each set of parallel lines goes off towards its own vanishing point. The skill we're working to develop is being able to get our shorter segments to converge at a consistent enough rate that they point towards roughly the same vanishing point, some ways off. When we extend our lines, we can see how successful we've been in this endeavour.

For example, looking at 248, you can see that the two central red lines coming down are actually diverging. Because they're quite close to each other (and because the overall convergence of all those lines is very gradual and shallow), those two lines should basically be parallel to one another.

We see a similar thing in 250, except here the overall convergence is a little more rapid. Those two central red lines are diverging, when they should be close to parallel. The blue lines going off to the right though are much more consistent.

When drawing these lines, it's important to think about all the other lines that are meant to be parallel to the one you're working on - including those you've already drawn, and those you're yet to. Looking at how "similar" those lines are to the one you're drawing will tell you what the relationship between them will need to be. When I say similar, what I really mean is the angle between them as they radiate out from the vanishing point as shown here.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. You're free to move onto lesson 2, but these freely rotated boxes are something you're going to want to work into your regular warmup routine, so you can continue to work on getting your convergences to be more consistent.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-06-19 00:26

You are vastly overthinking this, and your solution to dealing with the vast amount of visual information that faces you when looking at your reference image is to panic and draw more. What you should be doing in those situations is drawing less and taking more time to step back and think. This is something I mention in my previous critique, and as a whole, by and large there's no real signs that you're attacking these challenges in any sort of a fundamentally different way. I can see a few changes, but the key points about observation still stand.

So instead of just sending you back to do a bunch of more pages, I'm going to ask you to do one. Draw this goat. As you do so, I want you to take pictures of each individual stage of construction.

This will give me something a little deeper to critique, rather than providing the same comments which don't seem to be helping too much.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2018-06-18 23:41

These lessons have definitely changed a lot over the last few years. To think, lesson 3 once looked like this. Over the course of thousands of critiques, I've become more aware of exactly what I wanted to convey to students, and how they were generally received. I don't doubt that after another few years and another few thousand critiques, the lessons will improve further still. So it's fair to say that relying on instructions from 2015 prooobably isn't the best of ideas.

That said, very much like the lesson between 2015 and now, your work too has gained a much stronger sense of purpose and clarity. Your constructions are considerably more solid, your lines have a far greater sense of intent, and your grasp of space is much better defined. It's a huge leap, from sketching loosely and vaguely to developing concrete constructions for each plant.

Just a couple things to mention:

• On plant 2/2a, you'll still want the central flow line of each leaf/petal to stretch all the way to the end of the leaf. The reasoning is largely psychological - that central line is a representation of the abstract flow and energy of the leaf form, of how the wind and other forces cause that flat object to turn and warp in space. When you stop the line short, you perceive it more as an actual feature present there - something with a finite start and end point - and the result tends to stiffen up a little bit. I'll sometimes even drawn those flow lines with a little arrow head, like it's meant to capture these abstract forces and to detach it from anything too concrete.

• On plant 2a, you got some wavy edges in there prematurely. Remember that you need to construct the simple edges first, and then build waves on top of it.

You definitely showed a good deal of patience and tenacity when it comes to all of the repeated plant drawings - especially that potato plant. I drew the thing once and regretted it, so you must have been losing your mind. So it is with sadistic glee that I point out: you probably could have just taken photos at each stage, rather than drawing them multiple times. That said, I'm sure the extra mileage went a long way.

There is one downside to the way you approached it though - by squeezing several drawings onto the same page, you ended up drawing things quite small. In the potato plant it wasn't a big deal (your lines were pretty confident throughout), but the pitcher plant did suffer from some of the stiffness that comes from cramping your drawings. In the future, remember to draw things bigger and take advantage of the space the page affords. These are all very much spatial problems, and drawing bigger gives your brain the room it needs to think through them properly.

So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one - and make sure you're reading the most up to date material we've got up there :P

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2018-06-17 18:25

While you were not satisfied with your results, I feel you made the right call in submitting them anyway along with your specific concerns and questions. Before we start with those however, I want to start by pointing out that the last submssion fell quite a bit short of this one, so you are showing improvement. I do agree with your concerns however, and I'll do what I can to explain.

The biggest thing missing from your drawings here - and it's essentially an issue in all of the drawings you've done for this lesson - is energy.

Lets compare a page of your arrows from lesson 2 with a page of leaves from this one. The most significant thing I can see is that in comparison, every line in your leaves is drawn more slowly, with a lot more hesitation and trepidation. The lines are not smooth, they do not move forwards with a sense of confidence or energy.

Now, there could be a number of reasons for this - perhaps you're just being hit with the anxiety of attempting something you know has caused you trouble in the past, or perhaps you're overwhelmed by the idea of drawing something that is actually meant to represent something real rather than abstract.

Alternatively, what may be a factor is the fact that an arrow itself is something that conveys and even embodies energy and flow. When we think of an arrow, we think of motion. We think of how it's shooting through space. We don't really perceive it as being the arrow that we're drawing - it's not as limited as that. We think of it as though the arrow is a representation of the abstract. When we draw it, we're trying to capture something that we can barely begin to touch.

A leaf however, has its bounds. It's a concrete thing, and we know where it is and where it isn't. We don't necessarily think of it as being something that moves or is in motion - if we look at a photograph of a leaf, if we don't know better we just perceive a static object.

And so, when you draw your leaves you're not capturing the energy or the punch of an abstract flow, you're drawing from point A to point B. In your mind, how you get there (be it slow or fast) is irrelevant.

The fact is however that it is very relevant. The leaf itself is a product of a number of forces and influences which in many ways makes it near identical to the arrows. The leaf is acted upon by the breeze that catches it, and by the tension forces within itself. It is pushed and pulled and tugged along, and being that it is thin and has virtually no real mass of its own, it does - just like the arrow - represent the forces flowing around it.

I have this habit, when drawing leaves (as well as the minor axes of cylinders or branches, or really any line i want to imbue with some kind of flow). When I'm drawing a single independent line, I'll sometimes give it a little arrowhead at its end. I think you should try that, especially with the initial flow line of each leaf. Think of it as though you are constructing an arrow that is shooting through space - it's all about that perception. The confidence and energy with which you draw the line is extremely important, and it's one of the major things lacking from your drawings in this set. You can see some examples of me drawing with those little arrows on this critique I did for another student (towards the middle-top and the bottom right).

There's no doubt in my mind that at least one of the reasons you're hesitating and drawing slower, wobblier lines is that you're worried about making mistakes. These are complex, layered drawings with a lot going on, and you're afraid that if you allow yourself to draw with the sort of confidence you need, you're going to mess up the entire drawing. This is something you need to work past. You need to accept that a drawing done confidently that ended up going awry is still going to have far more to offer than a drawing done with a shaky hand, full of hesitation and worry. Accept the fact that mistakes happen. Accept the fact that once you put your pen to the page and start executing a mark, any mistake you're going to make is effectively written in stone and that there is nothing you can do about it past this point. So rush forwards to meet that mistake, to meet those failures. Failure is a part of learning, and the path to growth is paved with mistakes.

I hope that helps convey some of the mindset that is required when tackling these challenges. Once you've given yourself the chance to absorb what I've said here, I'd like you to try 4 more pages of plant drawings.

In addition to what I've said here, it's worth mentioning that the leaves you drew with fewer contour lines generally were better. Contour lines have a tendency to give structure and volume, but also provide a little stiffness in doing so. The kind of form you're constructing will determine how much you want to use that kind of technique.

Uncomfortable in the post "25 Texture Challenge"

2018-06-16 18:54

You've done a phenomenal job. Really, really great work. You've demonstrated an enormous amount of care and patience throughout each of these texture studies, which is frankly one of the most important things. But beyond that, your observation skills and your mastery over the all too human tendency to oversimplify, to descend into chaos and to work from our flawed memory is in full display.

You've gone to great lengths here to capture every tiny visual detail for your direct studies, and have been able to organize the wealth of information to great effect on the right there. A lot of these are definitely quite tricky, and you still managed to capture the same impression of tactile quality, the same sense of smoothness or roughness or whatever else when organizing the features from dense to sparse.

Now while I don't have a lot to offer in terms of useful critique, there was one thing that I caught here and there that is perhaps worth mentioning. I get the feeling you may be aware of this yourself, but I need to point something out in order to earn my keep.

On a number of textures where you've got a lot of ridges, a lot of forms that protrude out, like the third texture down on this page, the third down on this page, and the fourth down on this one, you have a tendency to leave some rather strong light edges towards the far right to give those forms just a little bit of definition and presence rather than being engulfed by the darkness. It's an understandable desire, and in illustrations we'll sometimes use rimlighting to this effect, but in these cases I think it would often be better to embrace that darkness. Let the details get a little lost.

Reason being, when we have white and black to choose from, leaving those white edges communicates a sort of very harsh reflectiveness on the surface material, where they can still catch this tiny glimmer of light. If the objects were obsidian, those kinds of sharply lit edges would be understandable, but on rock or plant matter, surfaces that are quite matte and that diffuse light very quickly, it gives the wrong impression. So long story short, don't be afraid to go full dark, especially when all the surrounding area already has. It all comes down to local contrast. areas with a spec of white in a sea of darkness are going to raise questions of "well what is the nature of that area that remains lit that allows it to fight back the blackness?"

In this sense, you can sort of break each texture down into vertical strips, and analyze how much black vs. white you've got present in each one. Since towards the far right of those particular textures you've got maybe 5% white to 95% black, those questions start to arise.

Anyway, that's about all I've got. Really, really great work here. Keep it up, and consider this challenge complete!

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

2018-06-16 18:34

While you have plenty of room for improvement, and haven't gone all the way on the points I mentioned, you have shown enough improvement with each one that I'm going to mark this lesson as complete.

I do think that your biggest weakness right now is with your organic forms with contour curves, as shown here, so make sure to focus on them when doing your warmups. I think the shapes you're constructing initially for each of these forms is a problem as well - get used to creating simple, consistent sausage forms with no pinching through their lengths, and ends that are the same size. You're frequently making things more complicated for yourself than you need to, and in dealing with the additional challenges you add for yourself, you're getting distracted from the main skill this exercise is about.

Your form intersections are definitely better and more consistent, in terms of what I'm mainly interested in (being able to draw a bunch of forms that feel consistent and cohesive, as though they belong in the same space). Your intersections do need work as shown here, but this part of the exercise is definitely quite challenging and I don't expect you to be able to nail them just yet. As your understanding of 3D space continues to develop, and as your mental model of 3D space expands, you'll start to get a better sense of how these actual intersections would work.

While your organic intersections are still a little weak due to the challenges with the organic forms with contour curves, your grasp of how they relate to one another, and how those cast shadows work are definitely better than before.

I'll go ahead and mark the lesson as complete, just make sure you keep working on those organic forms on your own.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-06-16 18:13

You've shown a great deal of improvement over this set in a number of areas. The consistency of your convergences improves a fair bit, as does the confidence of your linework, and the general solidity of your resulting forms (specifically in the development in your use of line weight which helps develop the cohesion between the sets of lines that make up each box).

While I see the issue you describe in various places in the set, I see it much less (if at all) in the last page, and overall it decreases throughout, showing that you are developing a good grasp of 3D space. That said, it is a problem that arises when a student focuses too much on how the different sets of lines are going to meet at their various corners. Your main focus should be instead on, when drawing a given line, all the other lines that are to run parallel to it (including those already drawn as well as those yet to be). The corners will have a tendency to fall into place as long as the convergences are consistent.

As far as figuring out where the corners will meet (and avoiding ending up with line segments that extend too far out), you can leverage the part of the ghosting method that has you lay down points for the start/end points for a given form. Points are a minimal commitment with a much smaller footprint than a full line, so you can certainly lay down points to establish the direction a line is going to flow, and do this for a number of lines before determining where a corner may fall. Overall with continued practice your natural sense for how long these lines should be will continue to develop, but there is absolutely no harm in relying further on estimating things with individual points before committing to the actual lines that are to make up your box.

Anyway, keep up the great work. You're doing very well, and may consider this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-06-15 18:58

Nice work! Overall your boxes are looking pretty solid, and your convergences are fairly consistent - aside from a few cases here and there. Of course, we're more interested in the overall pattern we see throughout your work, which is solid.

The kinds of mistakes I usually look out for are problems where the lines of a single set of parallels start to pair off, rather than converging together at a single point (like the blue lines in 235). Also, issues like the purple lines in 231 where you've got lines that run very close to one another (and should therefore be pretty close to parallel), but their convergences are off leading to early intersections. You see a similar issue in 236 with the purple lines - specifically those two in the center.

As I show here, if we imagine how those lines radiate out form the vanishing point, the if the angle between those lines is small, then those lines are going to be pretty similar to one another. Even moreso if the box is farther away from their vanishing point - since the farther out the box is, the more parallel its lines will be.

Anyway, those are problems that come out here and there, but they're mostly outliers. For the most part you're showing a lot of great work. Keep it up and consider this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-06-15 18:43

It's not uncommon for students to struggle with this lesson, and frankly when you warned me about "terrible" drawings I took it at face value. I was pleasantly surprised when your work didn't quite fall to that standard!

While there's certainly room for improvement, you actually did a pretty fantastic job of applying the core principles of the lesson, and demonstrated a good deal of care and patience. What's most important is that these constructions lean towards feeling solid and believable. In some places proportions may be a little off, in others how you've gone about attaching volumes and masses to a body to fill areas out may not have worked out perfectly, but all in all you're making it very clear that you understand what you're aiming for, and you're heading in the right direction at quite a brisk pace.

As we move from your cats, to your foxes and into your deer, I can see a distinct trend towards being more and more mindful of your forms, how they all connect together, and how everything can be broken down. Where your cats' head constructions are a bit more rudimentary with more guesswork involved, your foxes and deer are considerably stronger in this area. You move to shrink your craniums and focus more on how the boxy muzzle connects to it - which is exactly the direction I would have pushed you in, had I only seen the cats.

I think your koala and kangaroo actually look remarkably successful despite both presenting unique challenges of their own. This shows that you're able to pivot on those core fundamentals of construction to approach entirely different kinds of animals. Rather than learning to draw any one thing, you're learning what binds them all together, and practicing the concepts that can be applied to a much broader extent.

There is one area where I feel like I should mention something more direct, as far as things to keep an eye on goes. It's the feet. From what I can see, they tend to receive less of your attention when it comes to analyzing how they break down into simpler forms. More often than not, your toes are more based on guesswork or direct observation, rather than observation followed with construction. As a result they have a tendency to feel like the weakest part of your drawings, and often feel somewhat flat. I know full well that you're able to do better in those areas, but that they simply haven't received enough of your attention.

Aside from that, really great work. Keep it up and consider this lesson complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson. I definitely think lesson 6 will pose a new set of challenges for you, and you will definitely struggle somewhat - but I'm confident that you'll overcome them. Just remember that lesson 6 and 7 are considerably less forgiving when you try to eyeball details and features, and issues like what I mentioned in regards to your feet will certainly bite you.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-06-15 18:24

Nice work completing the challenge! It is a bit of a pity that you stopped extending your lines after the first 100, as it does contribute a fair bit to one's growth, by keeping you aware of what you should always be working towards. That said, you do show a fair bit of progress overall, and in general you're demonstrating a good deal of confidence with your linework.

I do recommend that you at least take your last page and apply the line extension method, just to get a sense of where you're at now. In addition to this, as you move forwards, consider playing with some line weight to help improve the overall cohesiveness of your boxes. There are notes on this subject on the challenge page, so be sure to give them a read.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

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

2018-06-15 14:05

Complete the rest of lesson 1 now. I generally assign the 250 box challenge to those who need it (which is most people) after they've completed lesson 1.

Also, I noticed that you seem to have disabled your flair on this subreddit - I use flairs to track which students are eligible for critiques, and which lessons they've completed, so it's important that you reenable it on the sidebar (where it says "Show my flair on this subreddit").

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-06-14 23:31

You give me boxes, you give me kitty.... You've made my day a happy one.

You clearly show a good deal of improvement on a number of fronts. I think your lines are well planned and executed throughout, but your confidence in your use of line weight steadily grows over the whole set, and of course your awareness of your convergences (followed by a direct improvement of their consistency) trends upwards all along. By about 180ish, you're pretty consistently drawing boxes that to the naked eye look pretty correct.

Now, we know better once we extend our lines, and that's something that's going to continue to haunt us for quite some time, as the desire for perfection always does. But the most significant thing I see, especially towards the end, is a clear sense of how your lines are much more than just their drawn segment. You show yourself to be aware of the line's nature, as it continues on towards its vanishing point, and how it relates to the lines around it. Where at the beginning you could only grasp the lines as independent actors whose relevance to you was limited to their little dance upon the stage, you now see them as they go home, kiss their children good night, and cheat on their spouses.

Aside from getting you out of my hair for 69 days, that is exactly what this exercise is about. Understanding that there is a great deal more than what we see. There are patterns and relationships in everything. It's not something I can just explain to someone - it's a conclusion they need to come to themselves. All I can do is brandish the whip.

So, consider this challenge thoroughly complete. Go on, feel free to move onto lesson 2.

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

2018-06-14 23:21

Overall, your work has demonstrated a good deal of growth and development. It's always nice to see things start off uncertain and steadily improve over the course of the assigned homework set. As you continued to tackle different objects, experimenting in your methodology and continuing to develop your understand of working in 3D space, the quality of your results (in their solidity and general believability) continued to rise. I have no reason to think that this will not continue, so I am more than satisfied with your results. So, rather than picking on individual drawings, it's definitely going to be more productive to directly address the concerns you mentioned yourself.

On the topic of drawing a cube, I actually have an answer for you in video form. It's something I introduce as part of lesson 7: Measuring in Perspective: Constructing to Scale. It discusses how to construct a unit cube and to extend that as needed. I don't discuss that as part of lesson 6 because we're already facing a lot of complex concepts and this one gets particularly hairy. It utilizes some of the principles I mentioned in regards to the cylinder challenge (drawing ellipses in planes that represent proper circles). So instead, for this lesson I leave students to get accustomed to estimation, and to gauging things by eye.

Most people notice that these lessons tend more towards developing skills that pay dividends for those who move into concept art, where quick iteration is extremely important. So, while being able to construct things to scale in a variety of ways is important, training one's eye and gut sense plays a big role when you've got to hammer out quick sketches to explore your own designs.

Anyway, long story short - there are ways to measure this out. There are even more concrete approaches that involve plotting all your perspective out, but of course we don't really fuss with that here. The technique in the video is about as far as we go.

Now, practicing tables like you showed there could definitely be helpful, but it's important to remember that the rate of foreshortening applied to your box isn't always going to be the same - so while that table has a single box rotating on two axes, an important feature it's missing is what happens when that box moves closer to the viewer, as well as farther away. When the box moves closer, the rate of foreshortening gets much more dramatic, with the convergences of sets of parallel lines getting rapider. Conversely, when the box moves farther away, the convergences flatten out, becoming shallower. This factor plays a considerable role when it comes to estimating the lengths of your lines.

Ultimately, the best approach to improving on this front is a combination. Apply the methodology described in the video sometimes, but also be sure to do a good deal of drawing by eye as well. The former will get you more used to the kinds of measurements that come into play when constructing cubes, while the latter will get you used to gauging for yourself where those lines should end. And of course, expect a lot of failure.

In fact, following the principles in the box challenge, you could freehand your boxes and then go back to check them with the technique suggested in the video (by drawing an ellipse within each plane and checking how far off they are from meeting the two criteria that determine an ellipse to represent a circle in 3D space).

Moving on from that topic, one thing I do want to mention is that your sense that things went better when you constructed from a larger enclosing box is definitely spot on. While you're more reliant on whether or not you nailed that initial box, pinning down proportions as well as the specific relationships between different forms within that enclosing box becomes a good deal easier (especially in cases where things are piled on in an organized fashion - when things are connecting to each other at all angles, it can pose a greater challenge).

That approach also helps avoid issues like what we see in the food processor on the left side of this page. If you look at the base of the cylinder and its top, the planes enclosing each end are actually rotated quite a bit relative to one another. This disconnect resulted in it being quite a bit easier to have the top plane sloping at an angle quite inconsistent with its base, resulting in a cylinder that looked off. Your attempts on the subsequent page came out much better because those relationships between forms were a lot stronger and better enforced.

Anyway! You really are doing a great job. I saw the video you made for this lesson, and it made me laugh.. and laugh.. and laugh. I might be a bit of a sadist - but I am glad that while this lesson wasn't exactly fun, that you did feel like it showed you how much you've grown. Also while you may not be entirely aware of it, you really are doing well. Your results here are certainly above the average.

So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.

I'm not actually sure what your goals with these exercises are, but while lesson 7 is technically the last of the curriculum, I have plans to delve into topics involving shape/form language, manipulating proportion and other topics intrinsic to the creation of fresh designs (be it character, vehicle, prop, etc). This is something I'll be pursuing as soon as I'm done rebuilding the drawabox website (which I'm doing right now). I'm actually quite interested in seeing you work through those, if they suit your fancy. Given that you already have a fair bit of figure drawing experience, you'd definitely be a prime candidate for that kind of material. I hope you'll be sticking around to give those a shot as well!

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

2018-06-13 22:20

I'm not going to critique this, because you skipped the majority of the issues I pointed out with your first set.

Reread my last critique, then reread the material and rewatch the video for each exercise I asked you to redo before doing the work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-06-13 22:18

As I scrolled through the first half of your drawings up up to the jaguar, I could see signs that you were vaguely applying the principles of construction, but alongside that there was a lot of sketchy, vague behaviour, and generally skipping steps to jump into more complex forms without laying down the appropriate scaffolding and structure to hold them up.

It's a common problem, but in this case it wasn't in the usual way I tend to see from students. You showed a stronger grasp of 3D space, and a greater drive to block everything in with voluminous forms, but it was just that vagueness - where for example the jaguar's cranial ball wasn't fleshed out as a solid form, and where it was left floating within the eventual head (rather than having built up directly on top of the cranium to create something more solid).

I was pretty much ready to start drawing all over those pages, until I came across your camels. That's the point where your intriguing detour, your winding stroll, rejoined the main thoroughfare and perhaps to even better effect. Your wandering may have been worthwhile after all.

Your camels, komodo dragon and the wolf's head came out quite nicely. The other wolf drawing was alright as far as construction goes, though I thought at first that it was meant to be a warthog so your proportions around the head were definitely off.

You're doing quite well at this point, but that vagueness is something you're still going to want to combat. As you construct, it's important that you take the time to ensure that every form you put down feels solid and three dimensional at the end of each phase - don't put down something vague with the expectation that you'll solidify it further later on. Solidity is something that is maintained or lost - not found at a later point. Once lost, it is extremely difficult to reclaim (to the point that it's generally not worth trying).

Also, make sure that all your forms are firmly related to one another in some manner. That is to say, don't leave earlier constructional elements floating arbitrarily within others - for example, the neck on your hybrid, and its head. You risk ending up with areas that feel flatter because they may lack a proper basis in 3D space.

Now, to be 100% honest, while the risk is there to end up with things flattening out, yours aren't, because your sense of 3D space is developed well enough to the point that you believe in the illusion you're crafting. That is ultimately the goal, and what all of these drawings are for. Each drawing is an exercise to help train your belief in the lie you're peddling, and to develop your understanding of 3D space.

When doing these exercises, you must be careful not to skip steps - because then you're not doing an exercise, you're just drawing a pretty thing. The exercises are meant to serve a purpose, so it's a meaningful distinction.

Oh, one last thing - the contour curve directly in the midsection of the torso of your hybrid's got a pretty wide degree. It should probably be much flatter, if you consider the fact that based on the positioning of the rest of the body, that cross-section would be more or less flowing directly perpendicular to the angle of view (whereas that degree suggests it's slightly turned towards the viewer).

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson, but keep what I've mentioned here in mind. You'll find that lesson 6 and 7 are particularly unforgiving when it comes to skipping steps.

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

2018-06-13 01:19

That is entirely up to you. The cylinder challenge should be done before you get to lesson 6, but you can do it earlier than that if you like.

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

2018-06-12 21:02

The only mistake you've really made is in your linking. And frankly, we can live with that - because your homework here is phenomenally done. The link you provided actually points to your overall imgur gallery (showing all your albums), rather than this specific album for your lesson 1 work. No issue here, but as your number of albums accumulate, it could be one in the future.

Anyway! Frankly, everything is spot on. You're executing each mark with a great deal of confidence and control, demonstrating both smooth flow with every stroke as well as a high degree of accuracy. This carries over into your ellipses as well, keeping them evenly shaped.

Throughout the boxes section, you demonstrate a strong sense of space, and a careful attention to detail (and to the instructions). The last two exercises - the organic perspective boxes and the rotated boxes - were intended to be beyond the abilities of students at this stage, but frankly, you really nailed them. You captured a full range of rotation with clean, solidly constructed boxes, and also managed to establish arbitrarily rotated forms that felt sturdy with a fairly consistent convergence towards their implied vanishing points. As far as the naked eye is concerned, you did great. There are little issues here and there if one takes the time to actually check all those convergences, but that is far and beyond what we're asking for here.

So, I'm absolutely going to mark this lesson as complete. I ask most students at this point to move onto the 250 box challenge, but I'm going to leave that as optional for you. What I will ask however is that you read through the notes and watch the video there, as there are techniques for box construction and more importantly error checking that will prove to be extremely useful as you continue to solidify your mental model of 3D space. You'll probably want to do at least a handful of boxes to put into practice those concepts, but the full 250 is entirely up to you.

You're welcome to move onto lesson 2 as soon as you're ready. Keep up the fantastic work.

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

2018-06-12 20:55

So you've definitely got some good here, as well as areas that need a little more work. It's clear though that you've worked pretty hard at this.

• Your arrows flow pretty well through space, but I definitely think you show improvement on your second page. On the first they feel a bit stiff (mostly because they're pretty small). You do need to work on how you're applying additional weight here and there though - you shouldn't be able to see where the additional stroke starts or ends, it needs to blend into the original line more smoothly.

• Your dissections are coming along pretty nicely. There's definitely room for improvement, but as far as what I'd expect at this stage, you're showing a lot of patience and care with how you approach each one. You're not afraid of taking your time. The next step is going to be a matter of spending less of your time drawing and more studying your reference continually (only looking away for a couple moments at a time, to put down a few lines that directly correspond with some feature on your reference ). Right now I can see signs that you're working a lot more from memory, where you look away for longer periods and rely on what you can remember. Our human memories aren't really designed for this kind of task, as they're prone to throwing out huge swathes of information in interest of simplifying things. Over time your memory will improve as your brain rewires itself to focus on what is actually important, but for now you've got to continually look back at your reference and refresh yourself. This kind of thing is totally normal to see though - if you want to read more about it, you can check out the notes on the texture challenge. I did notice areas where you were trying to compress the texture towards the edges to show how the surface turned away - great work there, keep it up.

• Your form intersections with boxes only came out pretty nicely - you show a good understanding of how they all relate to one another in space. The only issue here is that the foreshortening on the boxes is a bit too dramatic, and it throws off the sense of scale. Try to keep your foreshortening fairly shallow when you're handling a lot of forms together within the same scene.

• Your second page of form intersections is definitely more of a struggle, but there are a couple things that would have helped. Firstly, draw bigger - you were a little overwhelmed by the challenge involved here, so you cramped up and ended up drawing things quite small. This had an adverse effect on your ability to think through the spatial problems involved. Secondly, I mentioned in the instructions that you should avoid forms that are stretched in any one dimension, and to stick to those that are more equilateral (roughly the same in all three dimensions). The extra stretch brings perspective into the equation a fair bit, and increases the complexity of an already difficult exercise.

• Jumping back to your organic forms with contour lines, your second page of contour ellipses is much better, though you'll want to keep working on drawing those ellipses with more confidence (to alleviate that last bit of stiffness you've got there).

• Your organic forms with contour curves specifically do need some work. Firstly, it looks like for the most part you're using the same degree for each of your contour curves. As I explain in these notes, you need to factor in how the orientation of each cross-section changes relative to the viewer as you move along the length of a form. Shifting the degree to be narrower/wider as needed helps give a better sense of perspective and space. Secondly, you need to work on getting those contour curves to fit snugly between the edges of the given form. The illusion we're trying to produce is that the line runs along the surface of the form, so if it ends up outside of it, or inside, it'll break that illusion immediately. I know it can be tough to have that kind of control over the curve, but it's an important part of this effect.

• One other thing to pile onto the organic forms with contour curves, is that when you're drawing your curves (and frankly, lines in general), try not to apply too much pressure, and where possible, try and have your lines taper a little on the ends. If we press too hard, or draw too slowly, the weight throughout the line ends up really uniform, and the strokes feel like they've come to a sudden and abrupt stop. Getting used to lifting the pen slightly as you come off a stroke (where appropriate, of course) can help give more subtlety to a mark and make it feel livelier. It also becomes quite handy when you need to add line weight, as it allows you to blend your strokes into each other.

• Your organic intersections suffer from similar issues, but there are a couple additional things worth mentioning. When doing this exercise, try and think that you're piling up water balloons. Keep the forms simple, just big sausage forms. Avoid having them pinch through their middle, or swell awkwardly. Also, when drawing the cast shadows, remember that shadows are cast upon other objects. The shadow is not tied to the object that casts them (which seems to be more of what you're doing), but they instead run along these other surfaces.

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

• 2 pages of organic forms with contour curves.

• 1 page of organic intersections

• 1 page of form intersections with a variety of types of forms. Remember what I said - keep your foreshortening shallow, draw bigger and don't stretch your cylinders.

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

2018-06-12 20:19

Really phenomenal work! You're demonstrating an excellent grasp of space here, as well as the relationships between forms. You're also showing that you're very patient and careful in your observation when it comes to the textures of the dissections, and and are clearly developing a good sense of how to organize the overwhelming amount of visual information to properly convey each surface without getting into visual noise and distraction.

To be completely honest with you, I can see only two areas that are worth mentioning, as places that could see improvement, and it's honestly very minor. They're both related to the organic forms with contour lines.

• Firstly, watch the angles of your contour ellipses/curves when your form is twisting/turning drastically. You have a tendency to be slightly off from the alignment with the minor axis line.

• Secondly, when drawing your contour curves, continue to work on getting the curve to sit snugly between both edges of the form. This is obviously quite challenging as it requires a good deal of precision and you're honestly not that far off. That said, having a little gap there breaks the illusion that the curve is sitting on the surface of the form, so it's an important place to focus your efforts.

Aside from that, you're really doing very well. Keep up the fantastic work and consider this lesson complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2018-06-11 20:33

Very nice work overall. You're demonstrating a good deal of confidence with your linework, which helps keeps your lines smooth, and your ellipses evenly shaped. When it comes to the execution of lines, it's definitely the sort of thing one learns and develops their skills with in phases. First we focus on nailing the kind of confidence that keeps our lines smooth, as you've done. Then we work on our control - this is something you still do need to work on, as you've got a pretty big habit here of overshooting your lines. It can be a little tricky to find a balance between the two, but that is ultimately what you need to work towards next - getting your lines to fall between the start and end points you put down without undershooting or overshooting them.

Overall though I'm very pleased with your work. You're showing a lot of care with how you approach the exercises, and are demonstrating a well developing grasp of 3D space in your boxes section. You really nailed the rotated boxes, which is notoriously difficult. Your organic perspective boxes are coming along well, though there are inconsistencies with how your sets of parallel lines converge towards their implied vanishing points (which is entirely expected at this stage). We'll work on that next.

So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge. Along with having the opportunity to further solidify your grasp of 3D space and your handling of arbitrarily rotated boxes, it'll also give you the chance to improve your control over your linework (in terms of overshooting). Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video on the challenge page before starting the work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-06-11 20:27

There are definitely a number of things that we need to address here. To be completely honest with you, I get the feeling that you may not have given yourself a good enough change to read through all of the material and watch the videos carefully enough. You may have been a little too eager here, to jump in and draw some cool animals and in being so, you slipped up on a number of areas we've covered already in previous lessons.

Here are some things I observed in regards to some of your pages, but the the key takeaways are as follows:

• You need to observe your reference images more, and draw less. That is to say that you're not taking the time you need to really grasp what you're looking at. You spend too much time looking away from your reference, and as a result, you draw from your memory rather than constructing your solid forms based entirely on what is actually present. Human memory is not designed for this. As soon as we look away, our brains try to throw away as much data as possible, simplifying everything as much as it can. What remains is a symbolic representation of what you had seen that just doesn't contain enough information. Over time as you do these kinds of studies, you'll rewire your brain to retain more important and pertinent information, but you are far from that point right now.

• I can see that you're pushing yourself to think about construction and 3D forms, and that's great. Half the battle is, however, understanding how each form you add relates to the actual reference you're drawing from. For example, when you're laying in the rib cage mass, you have to of course figure out where the rib cage sits, how it's oriented, and how large it is. Without relating your forms back to the masses they're meant to represent, your constructions will feel stiff and unnatural.

• You definitely need to work on your contour curves. Many of yours don't wrap convincingly as though they run along the surface of a rounded form - they tend to come out too shallow. Not all, you've got some that are alright, but this is definitely something that is hitting you hard. I strongly recommend utilizing the 'overshooting' method discussed in these notes

• We talked a lot about how to approach the construction of legs in my critiques of your last lesson - you don't seem to be implementing any of that here. I particularly stressed the importance of placing a contour curve right at the joint, where two sausages connect to one another. In many of your constructions you're still putting contour curves on either side of them rather than at the joint. You're also not dealing with flowing sausage forms at all.

It is quite clear that you need to take a lot more time to process the information in the lesson, and to apply it. I'd like you to go back and do 8 more pages of animal drawings, once you've had the chance to go through the material again. Furthermore, I want you to do your drawings with no detail or texture, focusing entirely on construction. You are definitely getting distracted with the prospect of drawing something detailed, and that's at least part of what's causing you trouble.

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

2018-06-10 18:39

Really, really fantastic work. Your lines are confident and smooth, maintaining a consistent flow all throughout, and helping keep your ellipses evenly shaped. You show no hesitation or wobbling, and are clearly trusting fully in your muscle memory as you execute each mark. You carry this through the entire lesson, as you follow the instructions to each exercise to the letter, demonstrating a great deal of care and patience.

Now usually the one place I'd pick on to offer advice and critique is the rotated boxes. Most students struggle with it considerably, so it's ripe for nitpicking (even though I don't by any stretch expect success on this front - it's more about getting students to think differently about 3D space).

That said, you've done an exceptional job. Your rotations are steady and consistent, and you've covered the full range with great success. The only issue I can see is at the very corners, which is a notorious point of difficulty. On each of these boxes, you've distorted the form a little to make that "top" face visible - though at that rotation, it should be facing away from the viewer, and therefore that extreme corner has been pulled out further than it ought to be. You can see this in my demonstration.

Your organic perspective boxes are coming along great as far as this lesson is concerned. There are some inconsistencies with the convergence of sets of parallel lines towards their implied vanishing points, but that's entirely normal and expected. We'll be working on ironing that out next, and taking your grasp of 3D space (which is already developing well) and solidifying it.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through the notes and watch the video there before starting the work, as there are a couple useful techniques that should help you continue to develop your skills and solidify your grasp of this material.

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

2018-06-10 18:31

Overall, fairly good work, especially through the first two sections. Your lines are confident and smooth, and your ellipses are evenly shaped. The only issue I noticed was in your funnels exercise, though it was minor. Just take a little more care with keeping your ellipses aligned to that central minor axis, so the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves.

Moving into the boxes, in regards to the rough perspective exercise specifically, this is an area you'll want to focus on. While you demonstrate a general grasp of what you should be aiming for, there are areas where your horizontals or verticals slant. In regards to this, give these notes a read.

In addition to this, you don't appear to have applied the error-checking technique mentioned in the video for this exercise. It is also described here, and is an important part of identifying the patterns in the mistakes we make, so we can learn from them.

Your rotated boxes are a good start - I'm pleased to see that you're keeping the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent, so as to keep the whole set more structured. That said, as far as rotations go, the boxes on the outside of the set actually end up rotating in the opposite direction relative to their neighbours, resulting in a sort of bump that flattens out, rather than a sphere (at least on the left side - on the right side, the boxes remain more or less parallel with no real rotation there).

If you take a look at where the vanishing points lie for each box, and identify how the vanishing points slide as the forms are rotated (as demonstrated in this animated diagram) you'll see that the behaviour is off.

Your organic perspective boxes are a good start. While there's various inconsistencies with how the sets of parallel lines converge towards their shared far-off vanishing points, this is entirely expected. This exercise, as well as the previous one are both particularly challenging at this stage, and are more about pushing students to think differently about forms rotating in 3D space.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video there before starting the work. Also, please refrain from working on lined paper next time.

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

2018-06-10 18:18

Really, really nice work. Your lines are confident, your ellipses are smooth, and you've followed the instructions for each and every exercise to the letter with a great degree of patience and care. This is exactly what I like to see from these homework submissions, and they generally make for an easier time writing critiques.

The confidence of your linework specifically helps you maintain a smooth flow to your lines and a nice, even shape to your ellipses. Definitely keep that up.

Now, the last two exercises of this lesson - the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes - are meant to be perhaps too challenging for students at this stage to really nail, but they're really about pushing them to think differently about 3D space, and how forms can be rotated within it. Moreover, it's about understand that scenes are not bound to 1, 2 or 3 point perspective (as many are left believing after the standard sort of perspective lesson). So the goal isn't really to expect perfection from students.

While your organic perspective boxes fall in line with that (with a fair bit of inconsistent convergence of sets of parallel lines, and the sort of thing that we'll delve into in greater detail next), your rotated boxes are really well done, and very close to being spot on. For that reason, rather than waving it off with a "well I didn't expect perfection", I figured I'd point out one area where this could improve.

If you look at this, you see the relationships between the boxes at the extremities with their immediate neighbours, specifically in how their vanishing points slide. For most of these you're sliding to a degree - I want you to push it even further as you come to the edge there. Rather than having the vanishing points slide the same amount each time, it's something that should accelerate, sliding more and more as the face that was initially facing forwards comes to face off towards the side. At the same time, the other VP would be moving closer and closer to infinity (I explain this a little further in these notes).

One thing worth mentioning about the organic perspective boxes is that your line quality drops pretty significantly here - likely because the challenge of constructing the arbitrarily rotated boxes becomes somewhat overwhelming, pulling more of your focus away from applying the ghosting method. This is definitely something you'll want to work on, as there will be many challenges where what you're drawing ends up being somewhat overwhelming. Maintaining the technique of thinking, planning and executing your strokes is always going to be the key to your success.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video linked there before starting the work.

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

2018-06-09 18:17

Honestly, that's really something that comes mostly through practice. There are some little tricks and techniques for gauging proportion, but they relate too much to looking at your reference as just a flat 2D image and comparing the shapes themselves. That's not something I want you to delve into just yet, not until you've got a solid grasp of how everything exists in a 3D world. So for now, just do your best with the proportions, and focus more on the act of constructing things from a series of solid forms.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-06-09 17:24

I think you've done a lot of really fantastic work here, and have demonstrated a good deal of growth in relation to this subject matter. As you move through the set, the mistakes become more subtle - which is exactly what we're aiming to do. Perfection is a far off target, but you're certainly heading in the right direction.

One issue that is still apparent in your later boxes becomes a little clearer when you look at boxes that are more stretched, like #250. The issue is that lines that make up a given plane will tend to converge with one another as a pair, rather than also sharing a vanishing point with the opposite plane. For example, the lines on the top plane going off to the right side will converge together much sooner than they intersect with the lines going towards the right of the bottom plane. Of course, since all these lines are meant to be parallel to one another, they should ideally be converging towards a single far-off point. What this tells us is that the lines belonging to any one plane have a tendency to converge together a little more rapidly than they should.

It's a common issue, but definitely something to keep in mind.

I think at the very beginning you were playing around with line weight - I definitely recommend you continue doing that to help kick your boxes up to the next level. It's true that I want you to draw all your lines with pens of a single thickness (ideally 0.5), but experimenting with line weight by going over existing lines with a confident stroke will work wonders in improving the general solidity and cohesiveness of your forms.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

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

2018-06-09 17:18

Throughout the set, you show definite progress, but I find that as you push through, your priorities shift from focusing on a solid underlying construction to fussing over texture more and more. If you look closely, you'll see that you spend less time on the earlier steps and more on entirely superfluous details. This results in a drawing that feels less solid, and that overcompensates in areas that don't solve that problem.

For example, if you look at this page, you'll see that there are a few major issues with how the construction has been approached and used:

• The construction phase itself feels flat - you need to be taking the time to ensure that by the end of a given phase, what you've drawn feels solid and three dimensional. You need to believe in the idea that what you've drawn is 3D, because you will only be able to convince your audience that it's not just a flat drawing if you yourself believe in the illusion you're creating.

• You're not even actually following that underlying construction. You shift the abdomen over and end up ignoring what you drew previously. Construction is all about breaking a drawing up into a series of decisions, and making them one by one. If you then go back in and decide to ignore and remake a decision, you're going to severely undermine the drawing as a whole. One a decision is made, you need to follow it for the sake of keeping your drawing solid and believable.

One last issue that I noticed was that you have a tendency to struggle a little bit with the alignment of your major masses. If you look at your wasp and ladybug, specifically at the thorax and abdomen, the center lines you've drawn along the forms do not actually feel as though they run along the actual centers of those forms. As a result, when you try to align them to one another, something feels distinctly off.

You do have areas where you have much more success with this - for example, this spider (though as a side note, your hair/fur texture is extremely scribbly, a quality that should be avoided in favour of more planned, thought out strokes over randomness and chaos). The major difference here is that when you drew that center line, you were focusing on how that line ran along the surface of the single abdomen form, rather than trying to think of how it'd flow across all of them. You considered how the abdomen existed as a 3D form. In the other ones, you were thinking more of the whole drawing as existing on the flat page. So in the future, focus on each form independently, then align them to each other as they sit in 3D space.

Now, I do believe you're making headway, but you fell off the rails a bit and got distracted. To get you back on track, I'd like you to do four more pages of insect drawings, but this time I want you to focus only on construction, on the use of solid 3D forms with no detail or texture whatsoever. As construction is a process that involves building up your drawing over the course of a number of phases, ensure that every phase is well planned and that each one results in something that feels solid as though it exists in 3D space. Don't make the mistake of intending to solidify things in later phases, as that's not how it works - you start with solidity and carry it through.