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

2018-01-07 17:05

Overall you're doing okay so far. Just make sure you're continually pushing yourself to draw from your shoulder (the kind of wavering I'm seeing - when some lines are a little bent in the middle, but otherwise fairly smooth - suggests that sometimes you might be falling back to drawing from your wrist).

Also, your homework for a lesson should be submitted all at once - in the case of this lesson, you'd want to submit lines, ellipses and boxes all simultaneously as described in the homework section.

Lastly, what tool are you using to draw? It's probably just the poor quality of the photos, but some of these look like they're done in pencil. All of the work should be done in ink, ideally fineliners/felt tip pens. Please take a little more care in taking pictures that aren't too blurry. The last page was particularly difficult to make out.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2018-01-07 05:04

You should go ahead and post this directly to the subreddit and have other members of the community review your work and offer advice. You can also hop onto the discord server and have folks there look at your stuff.

This thread is reserved for those who help support drawabox through patreon - in return, I critique their work. They do however have to adhere to certain requirements (drawing with the required tools, starting with lesson 1, etc).

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-01-07 00:40

Damnit. I don't save those, so I wasn't able to recover it. I redid it here.

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

2018-01-06 23:03

You've done a pretty solid job across the board. Just a few things I wanted to bring your attention for the future:

• For the arrows, right now you're mostly restricting yourself to the two dimensions of the page, and having your arrows flow within them. You don't experiment a whole lot with the depth of the scene, so there isn't very much variation in the exaggeration of foreshortening. Try to play with thinking about one side being closer to the viewer, and the other being farther - and exaggerate the sizes of those ends (closer being much larger, farther being much smaller).

• Great work for your organic forms with contour lines. Just try to avoid overly complicated forms. Sticking to simple sausages will generally allow you to focus most on the important parts of the exercise.

• Your dissections are a good start, but they do highlight a need to work on your observational skills. What I'm seeing is somewhat cartoony textures - they tend to be oversimplified, which comes from not looking at your reference frequently enough, and relying too much on your memory. I explain the issues with this in the texture challenge so give the notes there a read.

Your form intersections are solid - you've done a great job at establishing your forms so they feel consistent and cohesive within the same scene.

Finally, your organic intersections demonstrate a good sense of how those different sausage forms interact with one another.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 3. You should absolutely continue doing these exercises (along with those from lesson 1) as part of a regular warmup routine. You can also tackle the texture challenge, but keep in mind that unlike the box and cylinder challenges, that one should be done in parallel with other lessons over a longer period of time.

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

2018-01-06 22:51

You start off on the right foot - your super imposed lines are smooth and confidently executed. Your ghosted lines are alright, but as you continue on, I can see a certain degree of stiffness becoming apparent in your work. It becomes much more noticeable as you get into your ellipses.

The reason for this stiffness is that you're prioritizing accuracy over the flow and smoothness of your lines. It's a pretty normal issue, and to rectify it, you have to push yourself to accept that once you touch your pen to the page, any mistake you may or may not make at this point is written in stone, and nothing can be done to avoid it. Hesitation will not save you - so all you can do is push through with a confident, persistent pace and execute the mark you've already ghosted and prepared for, focusing now only on trusting your muscle memory and maintaining a consistent trajectory.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, your work here could use a little fine tuning. Specifically, make sure you keep your horizontals parallel to the horizon, and your verticals perpendicular to it. Furthermore, make sure you're applying the ghosting method here.

Also, for the rough perspective boxes, be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

All these points are mentioned in the rough perspective boxes video, which was added fairly recently. I've done so for all exercises in lessons 1 and 2 (it was a big of a christmas gift to the community), so be sure to check them out when you get a chance, as they may clarify things you may be unsure of.

Your rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes definitely have considerable issues, but this isn't abnormal nor unexpected. Go ahead and watch the videos for them (they're linked in the lesson), but I will tell you that I included these two exercises here not with the expectation that students would be able to nail them, but rather to get students to think a little differently about 3D space.

Now, I am going to mark this lesson as complete. You have much additional practice to do, but as these exercises should be done as part of a warmup routine from here on out, you will have that opportunity. What I want you to do next is to tackle the 250 box challenge. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video on that page before starting the work. This challenge should help you better grasp how boxes sit in 3D space, and how to manipulate them in your mind.

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

2018-01-06 22:31

You've done very well here. Just about all of the exercises have been executed exactly as I've instructed, and you've done so with a great degree of success. Your arrows initially were somewhat restricted to the two dimensions of the page, but as you continued to practice them, you started breaking more into the third dimension, exploring more of the depth of the larger 'space' available to you.

Your organic forms with contour lines are solid - the only recommendation I have here is that you stick to simpler forms, rather than going particularly wacky with lots of branches and such. Reason being, when we get into constructional drawing, you'll find that we'd never construct a form in that way - we'd build it up as many simpler forms which would then be connected together. Also, don't forget to leverage that minor axis line - it's important for ensuring your alignment, so don't be so quick to abandon it. The long-term goal is to internalize these concepts, but you should be continuing to draw with them for a while to come.

Your dissections are great - lots of variation in your textures, and none of them get particularly busy or distracting. You're also demonstrating strong observational skills, as well as a good sense of how to organize the hierarchy of visual information.

You continue the trend with your form intersections. Your forms come out looking quite solid, and most of your intersections are spot on. In general, I do recommend starting pyramids off as boxes (I discuss this in the new form intersections video), so it's completely fine for you to approach them in that manner. After all, this is all about construction - we start out from the simplest possible form and work our way up. Starting out with a box is entirely normal, and not something you should be so eager to 'practice away'. Like the minor axis, you'll eventually internalize that understanding of 3D form, but I still want to see you starting everything dead simple and working your way up for all of my lessons.

Lastly, your organic intersections do a good job of demonstrating your understanding of how all these forms relate to one another, how they sag under their own weight when they are not supported and so on.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 3. You can tackle the texture challenge as well, but that one should be done in parallel with the other lessons, rather than all at once like the box/cylinder challenges. Same goes for the chest challenge, which you'll see is a great deal of work.

As for your other question, those kinds of form studies are great, and won't hinder anything. Feel free to do them as you please.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-01-06 22:13

You demonstrate a great deal of improvement over the set. Earlier on, you're very clearly more focused on detail/texture than construction, and when you start out, you seem distinctly distracted by what you will eventually draw. As you push on through, your focus tends to shift and your grasp of the forms that you're constructing tends to get much stronger.

It still wouldn't hurt to try doing drawings that are just construction, so you forego all texture/detail distractions altogether, but you definitely tackled most of that issue without having it pointed out.

The only other issue I'm seeing is that through most of this, there is a great deal of wasted linework - you're quite scratchy and haphazard often times, and definitely need to step back and think more before you put down your marks.

Aside from that, you're doing great. Your horse-fish-lizard-raccoon chimera really goes a long way to demonstrate your grasp of construction. That exercise in particular really falls apart if you haven't developed a strong enough grasp of how all your forms fit together, so it works as a pretty effective marker for whether or not you're ready to move onwards.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-01-06 22:03

You do show a fair bit of improvement over the set, but it's very true - you do struggle with proportions. It's a matter of observation, and I think that is where you are at your weakest. There are definitely a lot of places where you're missing key aspects of the relationships between elements of the bodies you're drawing - the angle of the head/beak on that first one, the distance between the front and back legs on the bear.

You do have some more successful pieces, like this wolf, this booby and this kangaroo, but there are definitely still some issues.

I've outlined them here. In addition to this, I noticed that you're really going quite heavy on the contour lines. I often see this when a student isn't entirely sure about what their purpose is, and as a result just puts them all over and hopes for the best. Don't.

Usually just one, maybe two will be more than enough. Add them sparingly, and when you do, step back and think about what you're trying to use them to achieve. They are to run along the surface of a form to accentuate its volumes and highlight the flow of that surface. Each one you add will also stiffen that form - so for example, with legs, it's often better to use them at the joints, and leave the length of a section of a leg more free to flow unimpeded.

I'd like you to try another three pages of animal drawings, taking into consideration what I've said here.

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

2018-01-05 22:10

Overall your work is very solid. Your lines have been executed with great confidence, as have your ellipses - resulting in marks that are smooth and straight, and ellipses that are evenly shaped. Your boxes also demonstrate a pretty well developed grasp of space, with your plotted perspective boxes coming out nicely, and your rough perspective boxes demonstrating a lot of the qualities I focus on in my critiques. I'm also pleased to see that you applied the double checking method from the self critique resources.

You certainly did struggle with the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes, but this was entirely expected. You did apply the instructions to the best of your ability, and did so patiently and with care. I don't actually expect students to nail either of these exercises, but rather included them here to challenge students to think about 3D space differently from the standard vanishing-point-perspective exercises.

You're demonstrating a good grasp of this, but a little extra focus in this area will help immensely. I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes on the challenge page and watch the video before starting the work.

Also, since you mentioned that you'd done this work over the course of a few months, I did want to point out that I actually added specific videos to each exercise explaining its purpose, demonstrating its execution and discussing certain pitfalls that students somethings stumble into. I strongly recommend that you give them a watch in case there have been any misunderstandings in your absorption of the material that I have not caught here.

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

2018-01-05 22:05

For one, my mechanical skills still need practice.

Of course they do. The point to submitting your work for critique is not to impress me - it's just so we can make sure you understand what you should be aiming for with each exercise. You'll still be practicing these exercises as part of a regular warmup routine.

One of them was not understanding what makes a square in space. For the ellipses in planes exercise, I tried to make the planes specifically squares, and I often failed.

I really wouldn't recommend trying to add your own challenges to these exercises - not yet, anyway. The matter of keeping things square in 3D space is something we talk about in later lessons (to a degree, anyway), and it is a deceptively complex concept. By worrying about things that are not actually a part of the exercise, you potentially distract yourself from what the exercise is actually about. None of the exercises ask for perfect cubes.

So, onto your work.

Your lines section is looking alright, though there is a little bit of wobbling that I'm noticing early on. It's minimal, but always keep in mind that when you execute a mark, your main priority is to maintain a consistent flow and trajectory to your line. Worrying about accuracy will cause you to hesitate, and will cause your line to wobble as your brain course-corrects. At this stage, especially when applying the ghosting method, you must accept the inevitability of mistakes, and know that the time to correct them has passed. Once that pen touches the page, any mistakes that may or may not occur are written in stone - you must still push forwards with confidence, and accept the outcome.

Looking at your ellipses, I think it's quite possible that you're attempting to draw them more from your wrist than your shoulder. They're generally not too bad, but there is some inconsistency and irregularity to their shapes, and they often end up feeling a little more loose than they ought to. This is something you'll want to continue practicing, to be sure.

Jumping ahead to your boxes, the plotted perspective boxes exercise was done very well. Your rough perspective boxes are also pretty solid, but be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

You also really nailed the rotated boxes - this exercise was meant to be quite challenging, and was included here largely to get students to think about space and form a little differently, rather than expecting the exercise to be achieved successfully. The organic perspective boxes was a similar exercise, and while you did pretty well, there is more work we can do here.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. You should move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video before starting the work. Also, you mentioned that your lesson 1 work was done over the course of several months. In the last few weeks, I added videos to each exercise, detailing and discussing how they should be approached and demonstrating certain pitfalls. I highly recommend that you give them a watch when you get the chance, just in case there were any misunderstandings you had that I did not catch here.

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

2018-01-05 16:10

That is exactly what I'd expect them to look like. The lines separate because when you execute them, you're maintaining a consistent trajectory. When that trajectory is slightly off when starting out (which it is undoubtedly going to be), the lines are going to separate towards the far end. The alternative would be to execute more slowly, with more hesitation, resulting in a wobbly line that keeps trying to veer back towards the goal, continually overcorrecting.

I talk about this in the self critique resources here.

So, you're doing exactly what you should be. The separation will decrease with practice and over time, but especially with the longer lines, it's something you're going to see for a long time.

As svendogee and Aera mentioned on the discord channel, make sure you complete the entire lesson when submitting work for critique. That'll help me give you a fuller breakdown on where you need to improve, with more useful advice targeting your particular issues.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-01-05 02:34

You're doing quite well. I think you're striking a bit of a balance between your clear propensity for drawing largely from observation, and the kind of construction and grasp of solid, 3D form that we're pushing here through these lessons. You're demonstrating an understanding of how everything is built up through smaller, simpler masses, and are showing that you grasp how the different forms connect to one another in 3D space.

I especially liked your pigs. While the drawing is a little loose, you're still demonstrating a solid understanding of how all the forms come together, while also giving each piggy its own sense of character and vigor - something that can be lost when focusing too much on forms and solidity.

Keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

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

2018-01-05 02:26

Your first page of super imposed lines is excellent. Your second page definitely has considerably more wobbling, so always push yourself to execute those marks with confidence, focusing on keeping the trajectories consistent and smooth over trying too hard to match the underlying guide line. Overall you're doing well in this area though.

Jumping ahead to your ellipses, they're looking quite smooth and evenly shaped, so based on what I've seen of your work previously, you've made significant strides here. You're managing well with ellipses and circles of all kinds of sizes, so keep that up.

You seem to have left out the whole boxes section though. I know you may have lost some pages, but... you know. Drawabox. Gimme some boxes.

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

2018-01-05 02:23

Nice work! Overall you're doing quite well - your lines and ellipses sections are solid, as you're executing your marks with a lot of confidence, which keeps them smooth and even. This is what we're after - we want to keep that trajectory consistent, focusing on the flow of our lines over accuracy.

One note about the funnels exercise - as your ellipses move in towards the center of a funnel, your degrees should shrink, and as they move out towards the extremities, the degree of your ellipses should increase towards becoming a full circle.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, I do feel like you're being a touch sloppier than you could here, so your lines wobble a little more in some places, and your hatching isn't quite consistent. Make sure that hatching stretches all the way across the plane from edge to edge, and keep them parallel.

You've done an excellent job with the rotated boxes. Your organic perspective boxes are coming along well, but I think we'll benefit from getting a little more work in on this area.

I'll mark this lesson as complete, but 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 before starting the work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2018-01-05 01:58

Certainly moving in the right direction, though you'll want to keep practicing the branches to keep those lines flowing smoothly together. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-01-05 01:56

Good work completing the challenge. I'm glad to see that you applied the extension method, though extending all of them would always be better. I understand that it gets cramped and messy, but that frankly doesn't really matter. Presentation certainly is important (like taking the time to apply your hatching lines where you choose to with patience and care, keeping them consistent and parallel and stretching them from edge to edge rather than scribbling or having sloppy ones floating arbitrarily on a plane), but even more important than that is what you learn from your exercises. With each extension, you learn about the kinds of mistakes you tend to make so you can keep that information in mind for your next page.

I did actually notice one thing - as you progress, you tend more towards drawing boxes with more dramatic foreshortening, moving those vanishing points in closer to the boxes. If I had to guess, I'd say this was your response to what you identified with the extension method.

Being able to draw boxes with vanishing points that are quite far away (therefore having shallower foreshortening) is still very important - perhaps moreso than dramatic foreshortening, as it suggests forms that are of a smaller and more relatable scale. So, make sure you practice these as much as you need to in order to be able to execute them well too.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2 - but be sure to continue practicing boxes as part of your warmups.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-01-05 01:51

Your grasp of construction is coming along, but it certainly has a ways to go. You do seem to be aware of some of your issues (being overly scratchy and thinking on the page instead of trying to visualize and ghost your marks selectively, along with needing to continue to develop your sense of observation).

Another issue that I really want to highlight is the importance of treating the forms that you add to your scene as being solid, and not ignoring them when it seems convenient. A good example of this is in the duckling drawing, where you've drawn the ball for the ribcage but go on to draw over it with no consideration for the form you placed there previously. By ignoring your previous forms like this, you undermine the illusion of solidity you are creating, and flatten out your image.

I talk about this in some of the newer videos, like the scorpion demo.

I'd like you to also give the two new demo videos for this lesson a watch, as they comment further on the use of construction and how to approach drawing an animal's head.

• Constructing an Otter

• Drawing an Animal Head

Then I'd like you to do another four pages of animal drawings. This should give you the opportunity to demonstrate drawings that are less scratchy, as you've already identified the reason that happened. Do these drawings with no texture or detail whatsoever, so you can focus on capturing the construction and forms of your animal.

By the way, while this bunny does have its issues, it is certainly adorable.

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

2018-01-03 20:18

Sounds to me like you naturally slow down when you come to the end of a line (whether you're drawing the rest of the stroke quickly or not). You'll have to work on practicing stopping your stroke suddenly.

Also, you should probably be asking this question directly in the subreddit so others can answer as well.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2018-01-02 18:01

For the most part the areas you chose to highlight were fine, except for maybe areas like the sun-roof where you but a fairly equal amount of weight around the entire opening. I do agree with adding more weight to the entire thing, but I'd put just a little bit more on one side over the other (to show dynamism, similarly to how I discuss line weight in the notes on the 250 box challenge page).

As for how to do it, I'd add weight by going over an existing mark one, or even a few times to build up weight as needed. BE SUBTLE. You don't need your weights to be shouting at the viewer. The weights are something that speak to the viewer's subconscious, not their waking mind, so it only barely has to be noticeable.

I'd like you to try one more drawing, and put that brush pen away.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2018-01-02 17:58

There is definitely a lot of good here, in terms of your application and understanding of constructional techniques, and while you start out more sketchy and vague, you do improve on that front throughout the set.

There is one considerable issue however that you need to tackle: patience. You have definitely improved a fair bit, but your linework is still somewhat rushed, and as a result your marks don't bear the hallmarks of each being planned individually and executed using the ghosting method. You still are to a degree caught up in wanting to flesh things out quickly, and end up using far more lines than is necessary, with those lines often times missing the mark. More than anything, it is a matter of breaking a habit. Don't allow yourself to think directly on the page - split each mark into forethought and planning, followed by confident execution. It does take longer, but your forms will come out feeling considerably more solid for it.

Another thing I believe will help is to try and draw bigger. The matters of construction that we are now wading into are very much a spatial problem, and our brains handle those kinds of challenges much better when given more room to think. You do appear to give yourself more room later in the lesson, but I still felt this was important to emphasize.

Lastly, with your branches, watch how the segments flow into one another. Right now there is a visible break of flow, moving from one segment to the next - I always recommend aiming your segment towards the next ellipse, and overshooting slightly, so your next line will flow directly over the previous one. I explain this further in the new 'branches exercise' video linked from the lesson.

I also posted a couple full demo videos where you can see how I make my marks in a deliberate manner, thinking before each one.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to draw just one more page - focus entirely on each mark, and take your time. I think limiting the scope of the assignment to just the one drawing will help you to keep from rushing, enough to show you what can come of a greater demonstration of patience and care. That alone should be enough to improve your work considerably, as I do believe the understanding is there, but it's being held back by impatience.

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

2018-01-02 17:45

You've got a lot of good work here, but I did notice some issues worth pointing out. Identifying them should help you improve a fair bit.

The biggest issue I see is that when you execute your marks, you are overly focused on the accuracy of your lines. You draw slower and stiffen up because you're afraid of making mistakes. We can see this in your super imposed lines (where you have a wobble from drawing too slowly), as well as in your ghosted lines and ellipses where there is a clear sense of stiffness.

As I explain in this comic, you need to loosen up. It's important to take your time and focus on accuracy only as you apply the preparation phase of the ghosting method. Once your pen touches the page, you're committed, and can no longer hesitate. Whatever mistake you may or may not make is now written in stone, and nothing can be done to avoid it. All you can do is trust in your muscle memory and execute the mark with a confident, persistent pace so as to maintain a consistent trajectory. That line may miss the mark a little, but that is perfectly okay. There will be hundreds of thousands of lines in your future, and this is just one drawing of many. If you make a mistake, it doesn't matter that much. What's more important is that you get used to drawing with greater confidence.

Jumping ahead to your boxes section, your plotted and rough perspective boxes are done quite well. I would like to warn you away from deviating from the exercise as it is written though (like the more interesting variations you added to your rough perspective boxes). You did just fine, but in general doing so risks distracting you from the main focus of the exercise. Also, be sure to go over your completed work for the rough perspective exercise as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

For your rotated boxes, you do seem to have missed a few useful instructions:

• Draw through all of your boxes, including the lines that exist on the far side of each form. this helps you to better grasp how each box sits in 3D space, which really is the meat of this exercise.

• Keep the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent. This allows you to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines.

Your organic perspective boxes are coming along fairly well, though I would like you to explore freely rotated boxes a little bit more. So, I'm going to 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 on that page before starting the work.

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

2018-01-02 17:35

Sorry for the delay in my response, I've been caught up with making new video content, but that should be done for now.

Overall you're doing quite well. Your lines are smooth and straight, and your ellipses maintain an even shape - both of these points come from the fact that you're executing your marks very confidently, and not getting too caught up in accuracy during the execution phase. You're also clearly taking the time to plan out your marks using the ghosting method, so keep that up.

One thing I noticed is a pretty minor point, but it's worth mentioning. In your rough perspective boxes, you've got some hatching on your boxes, but it's been drawn quite sloppily. It's important that whenever you choose to add something to a drawing, that you never half-ass it. If you make the decision that something else should be included, you need to treat it as though it is as important as any other part. In the case of hatching, make sure you keep your lines consistent and parallel, and stretch them all the way across the plane from edge to edge.

Also, for that same exercise - be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Your rotated boxes came out very well, which is pretty exceptional as this exercise was meant to be very challenging for students at this stage. The purpose was less about getting students to nail the work, but rather to get them to think about rotating forms in 3D space a little differently.

Same goes for the organic perspective exercise, although here while you did quite well, I can see some minor areas where some extra work will definitely benefit you in solidifying your grasp of 3D space.

I'm going to 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 before starting on the work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2018-01-02 02:28

It really looks to me like you're adding your line weight with a very thick pen or marker, and as such have limited control over the weight of the lines you're drawing. As a result, your weights are not subtle.

I actually mentioned when I asked for the extra drawing for you to use only a ballpoint pen. To add line weight with that, not to resort to a different tool. What kind of marker are you using here?

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2018-01-02 02:26

I think there's a considerable amount of improvement over the set. What I notice most though, is that there are a lot of signs that you are perhaps allowing yourself to be a little too quick, a little too rushed, and a little too sloppy with each individual cylinder, in the interest of getting more of them done.

Don't forget to ghost in your lines. Try and keep your minor axis as straight as you can - the extra focus on preparation before execution will help in that area. Ghost your ellipses too. I think you adhere to this much more near the end than you did through the first big chunk, so I think you understood this yourself.

Ultimately while there is a lot to conquer here, you need to keep your mind on the cylinder that you're drawing at a given moment - more specifically, on the mark you're about to put down. When faced with a large task with many similar tasks, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking three or four steps ahead.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. As I mentioned above, you do show considerably improvement by the end in how you're approaching this. Keep those points about patience and focus in mind as you move through the other lessons.

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

2018-01-02 02:18

Overall you're doing well. The sense of solidity of your boxes improves over the set, as does the confidence of your lines. I do have a couple recommendations though:

• If ever you find yourself getting confused when looking at one of your boxes (with that illusion where we're not sure which side of the box faces towards us), try filling one of the front-facing faces of your boxes with some tight, consistent hatching to serve as a visual cue.

• Right now you're extending your lines in both directions - you only really benefit from extending them towards their implied vanishing point. If you extend both ways, it can get confusing sometimes, as you may see convergence in the wrong direction and end up thinking it's still correct. Always think about which side goes towards the VP.

Aside from that, great work! Keep it up. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-01-02 02:10

Great work! Your boxes' construction improves a fair bit over the set, as does your general confidence and line quality. Your weights are subtle, but they go a long way to really reinforce the sense of cohesion and solidity of the forms. Needless to say, I'm also very impressed with the patience and care you've applied to double checking the convergence of the lines of so many of your boxes. This is exactly what I want to see with this challenge.

Keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2018-01-02 02:01

Overall you're doing a pretty good job, but I did notice a few things that are worth mentioning.

• In general you are a little (or very much) too preoccupied with the detail in your drawings. While your constructions are still pretty decent, this does have the tendency of holding students back a little, as they put more of their focus towards making a pretty final result, rather than really pushing the limits of their use of construction. One obvious side effect is drawing your construction lines to be purposely faint. This often results in a construction that has been drawn far less confidently, in the interest of hiding lines that will not be a a visible part of the final product.

• I notice that you have a tendency of 'cleaning up' your lines. That is, going back over the lines you truly intend to commit to and replacing them with a darker line. This may be the way you interpreted the use of line weight, but that is not correct. When we draw our construction lines, we draw them all to be equally confident, focusing only on the execution of smooth, consistent marks. This results in a lot going on, so we do need to organize it using line weight. We apply weight not to the entirety of an existing line, nor do we seek to create new, heavier lines. All we are doing is finding portions along existing lines and adding a little additional weight to those sections. Again, not the entire line, but just part of it, in order to clarify where one form overlaps another. Trying to go over the entirety of a line usually results in drawing slowly and carefully, which in turn throws the smooth confidence of our initial marks out the window.

• Many of your leaves are nicely constructed, but some of the more complex ones tend to neglect some of the basic steps. For example, when you've got leaves that have several different arms, you seem to stop following the technique of establishing your flow lines. In these cases, I would first apply that technique to the whole leaf (establish the flow and create an "enclosing" shape for the whole thing), then apply that technique again to each individual section. I explain this in the leaves exercise video, which was posted today.

• For the branches exercise, I notice that you tend to have a lot of rigidity, where there is a clear break in the flow of your lines at each ellipse. What this tells me is that you are attempting to correctly implement the matter of drawing your entire branch in sections/segments - but that you're only drawing from one ellipse to the next. What you should be doing instead is drawing from one ellipse, through the next, and towards the third. I explain this in the branches exercise video (also posted today), though it was mentioned in the step-by-step demo as well, where I talk about "overshooting".

• I noticed that you have a tendency to not draw through your ellipses. Please make sure you draw through each one two full times before lifting your pen for every ellipse you draw in these lessons.

I certainly do think you're ready to move onto the next lesson. Just be sure to keep these points in mind. I also really want to stress the importance of moving from simple to complex. Whenever you're approaching a part of a drawing, think to yourself - do I have enough constructional scaffolding down to support the visual information I wish to add next, or is what I wish to add too complex? If the latter is true, then you need to work your way up to that complexity, starting at the simplest of forms and shapes.

Uncomfortable in the post "Two more things to top off the holiday season: 7 more videos (targeting lessons 3-5) and all previously patreon-only demo recordings are accessible by all!"

2018-01-02 00:10

Here are direct links to the new videos, though they're all linked in the lessons where appropriate:

• The Leaves Exercise: https://youtu.be/hrjD6l-P1IM

• The Branches Exercise: https://youtu.be/B42OHBTIIAY

• Drawing a Hibiscus: https://youtu.be/pio-yyLw1po

• Drawing a Cactus: https://youtu.be/4gOOLNlSmZE

• Drawing a Scorpion: https://youtu.be/B_g4D2_lyL0

• Drawing an Otter: https://youtu.be/B2y-GKKT9sM

• Drawing an Animal Head: https://youtu.be/rMvT04OKBMQ

Also, as mentioned in the title, all the recordings of demos that were previously restricted to my patreon supporters are now available to everyone. They're linked directly from the lessons as well. They're nothing that special, as they don't have any audio explanations, but at least you can see my process in realtime, alongside reading the written content.

Don't forget - it's new years, so lots of people are out and about on reddit posting about how they'd like to learn to draw this year. So if you see such a post and feel /r/ArtFundamentals and drawabox have helped you, make sure you share it with others!

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

2017-12-31 01:46

Is there any particular reason you cancelled your pledge before paying for the critique you already received?

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2017-12-31 01:35

Sorry, I must have missed this when you posted it yesterday. Thanks for the reminder.

This construction is looking considerably better than before - you're paying far more attention to your forms, and how everything sits in 3D space, and are not getting noticeably caught up in detail in a way that undermines the overall construction. The only issue I'm noticing is just that your wheels have no visible tires - you've got the outer most ellipse defining the wheel, but then your next ellipse is tucked inside, so it looks like there's no thickness.

I demonstrate what I mean here. In the same image, I threw some quick additional line weights in and simple shadow shapes to help separate out your major forms. Remember that the focus here is to separate things out - you've got a lot of linework, so some simple, subtle additional weight to sections of certain lines (largely to clarify where one form overlaps another) and blocking in certain areas with solid black to accentuate the forms next to them will go a long way. Don't go overboard with this.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-12-31 01:17

Nice work completing the challenge. I do have a few recommendations for you, though you are certainly progressing with the confidence of your constructions and the use of line weight.

• Draw your boxes bigger - constructing boxes like this is very much a spatial problem, and our brains benefit from being given more room to work. I'd recommend drawing them about twice as big as you are now.

• On the challenge page, there's a correction technique I describe above the video links, where you go back over your completed boxes and extend your lines back towards their implied vanishing points to see how exactly they're converging. This helps considerably to identify mistakes and to learn from them. The new video I released last week also explains this approach. It's extremely useful, and it seems you haven't taken advantage of it. In the future, be sure to apply that method - and I strongly recommend that you at least take your last page of boxes and apply it to each one there, so you know what kind of mistakes you tend to make.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so go ahead and move onto lesson 2 - though I do recommend that you continue to practice drawing freely rotated boxes in the future.

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

2017-12-31 01:14

Generally good work. You're executing your lines with a lot of confidence, which is keeping them very smooth. You're also maintaining the same for your ellipses, which maintains their even shapes. I am noticing though that when you apply the ghosting method, your lines tend to trail off as they end, often shooting past their intended end points. As you continue to practice this technique, try to get a little more control over where those lines end. Right now it seems like you're drawing in a direction from a particular starting point, but letting the mark end where it feels like ending.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, it does look like you didn't quite use the ghosting method here (or at least not as much, or not as carefully) - your lines tend to waver and wobble a lot more. Remember to apply that technique to every single line you put down - it's not just an exercise, but rather the approach that should be applied to everything.

Your attempts at the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes exercises were pretty solid. As I've mentioned in the lesson, those exercises were meant to challenge you into thinking differently about perspective and 3D space, rather than expecting perfect work.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I do want you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through the notes on that page and watch the video before starting the work.

As for your question, yes - for any line that requires a smooth, consistent flow (which was all the lines in this lesson, and the vast majority of non-detail lines you'll be drawing for later lessons), you want to draw only from the shoulder pivot. You'll also generally want to be rotating your page in order to find the most comfortable angle of approach, so you're only really focusing on drawing lines in a particular angle - or as Scott Robertson puts it, "mastering drawing a single line."

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

2017-12-31 01:05

That is certainly a step in the right direction. You're drawing much more confidently, so they flow much better and are generally smoother. As you continue to practice, your control/accuracy will improve, but you're on the right track. Keep up the good work.

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

2017-12-29 23:29

Overall you've got a lot of good stuff here, but there are a few points I noticed that I'd like to point out:

• In your super imposed lines exercise, I noticed that you've got fraying on both sides of your lines. This tells me that you're executing your marks confidently, which is good - but also that you're not taking the time before each mark to line your pen up at the correct starting point. I explain this a little further in these notes.

• Your ellipses are coming along well, but you'll want to continue working on both the confidence of your execution (which keeps them smooth and evenly shaped, which is our top priority) and your control (second priority, keeps your lines more together and fits them in their intended spots). Be sure to apply the ghosting method here (if you're not already), as it tends to help with both of these points.

• When you decide to apply hatching to any of your boxes, don't half-ass it. No scribbling, keep your lines parallel and consistent, and make sure they all stretch all the way across the plane from edge to edge. Otherwise it'll just look sloppy and it'll take the quality of presentation down for the whole exercise.

• It seems like for your rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes, you didn't quite apply the ghosting method to your lines. My guess is that you may have gotten somewhat overwhelmed by the task, and as a result forgot to do so. Make sure you apply the method to each and every mark you draw - make a habit of planning things out before you draw them, and separating the planning/execution phases so you can execute with more confidence and more trust in your muscle memory.

• For your rotated boxes, it looks like you missed a couple of the instructions - like laying out your extremities (step 3), and keeping the gaps between your boxes narrower and more consistent so you can use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines.

Anyway, aside from that, you're doing a great job. 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 content before starting the work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-12-29 23:06

Overall you're doing an excellent job. I especially love this mushroom, though many of your leafed constructions (like this one) also came out very well. I do have a few recommendations though:

• When possible, build on top of a form rather than creating a simple form and then creating something new inside of it. For example, your cactus. It feels more like you had a cylinder, and then you built a separate form inside of it when doing the main trunk. It would have been more successful had you added bumps to the silhouette onto the existing form - that is, building on top of the existing form rather than trying to make some of it go away, as you did with the branches.

• Using the same cactus as an example, when you've got a bumpy or wavy surface, don't draw a singular wavy edge - it will almost always look unplanned. Instead, you want to break things up into individual segments wherever their trajectory changes. As long as a trajectory is consistent (so a straight line, a continuous curve, or even a curve that accelerates) you keep it as a single mark. But bumps like you have along the silhouette of your cactus are really made up from individual elements - so you don't want to be blending them all together into one. You also don't want to end up in a situation where you're going to ignore the whole previous stage of construction to create a whole new line - so adding individual bumps to the existing cylinder will maintain the solidity of the previous stage.

• In some places (perhaps this page) you are going pretty heavy on the density of your contour lines. Keep in mind what their purpose is, and don't go overboard. A couple lines will usually be more than enough to communicate the curvature of a surface. Too many will start to look more man-made, especially if they're evenly spaced out like a 3D mesh.

Anyway, aside from that you're doing great. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2017-12-29 05:06

It doesn't seem I have you listed on my records as being eligible for private critiques. If you are a patreon supporter, be sure to check your patreon inbox, as I'll have sent you a message to collect your reddit username. Otherwise you're welcome to submit your work directly to the main subreddit for a free critique from the community.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2017-12-28 19:11

I'm really glad you included the preliminary stage of that pick-up truck, as it highlighted one major issue with your approach.

You're treating your drawing as though your construction is a plan, and then executing your "real" drawing on top of it. That is, your interpretation of applying line weight essentially involves replacing all of the existing linework. This is not correct, as it results in you drawing your subsequent lines slowly and throwing away a lot of the solidity of your construction.

Line weight should not be applied as though they are new lines - instead, line weight is to be added to certain parts of existing lines (not even the whole length of a line). Line weight is used largely to clarify overlaps and add hierarchy to a drawing. It is not the method by which one adds additional detail.

Give this video a watch. It's a new video I made regarding lesson 2's form intersections, but I explain the issue there as it's not entirely uncommon. I mention the issue around 16 minutes in.

Another thing I noticed was that with the planking that makes up the sort of fence that encloses the back of the pickup, the individual boards do not show any thickness in your construction drawing. You're also not drawing through those forms - you've got them stopping where they are hidden by another form. Drawing through your forms is still important. You are doing it for the most part in other areas, which is good - and overall your constructional drawing is very well done, I just figured it was important to point that out.

I'd like you to do one more page. Start out by doing a front and side proportional study (so you'll have to find something you can see from multiple angles) and really focus on figuring out how all your forms are situated. This should help you keep your proportions together a little bit better.

Then, as you did with the pickup truck, apply the 'measuring in perspective: constructing to scale' technique against your proportional studies. Try and limit your guesswork - notice how the cab of the pickup reaches up to some arbitrary height that has not been defined by earlier measurements/construction? Build out a 3D grid that encloses the entire object and stick to it.

Lastly, use a ballpoint pen for the whole thing as I mentioned in my last critique. You're too tempted otherwise to be heavy handed with your work. I don't want any clean-up passes, just pick and choose where you can apply a little extra line weight to clarify how certain forms overlap.

It'd be great if you could take progress shots as you did this time, though perhaps even more of them. One after every individual pass of the constructional method, so I can get a fuller sense of how you're going about it.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-12-28 18:45

Overall you're doing pretty well, but I noticed that you didn't apply the correction technique mentioned in the lesson. It's explained in the paragraph just above the video links, as well as in the new version of the 'how to draw a box' video.

This approach (of extending lines towards the vanishing point after having drawn the box) really helps to identify the core of how your box sits in 3D space, and how the rules of perspective have been applied to it. The usual problem occurs when our lines (which are parallel to one another) do not converge in a consistent manner towards the same VP. By identifying the mistakes this way (ideally upon the completion of each page of boxes), we get a better sense of what to work on the next time, instead of working a bit blindly.

That said, you're still doing pretty well. Your lines are confident, your box constructions are fairly solid, and your use of line weight is coming along well. The last thing I'd like to recommend is that instead of applying additional line weight to the front-facing internal lines, you may want to instead fill one of the front-facing faces with some tight, consistent hatching to serve as a visual cue. The issue with adding weight to your internal lines is that it can break up some of the cohesiveness of the overall form.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work, and be sure to apply that line-extension technique at least to the last page of your boxes, to see where you can improve.

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

2017-12-27 02:14

You had some great successes with your first and last pages, but those beetles definitely gave you a hell of a time. So I drew out some steps on how I'd approach thinking through handling its head. It probably covers the approach better than if I'd just written it out.

Overall though your grasp of form and construction is coming along well. I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-12-27 01:45

Overall, pretty good. A couple things caught my attention though.

• On this page (i think it should link directly but I'm not sure - this is why imgur is better!), on the right side. Notice how the leaf's edges are wavy, going back and forth over their simpler construction? They're essentially ignoring that more basic construction, rather than adhering to it. You'd want the furthest extent of that waviness to align to the original construction, with the waves either going up or down from there - rather than going both up and down. Always adhere to your underlying construction, don't ever outright replace it.

• Check out this page. See that branch stretching across the top there? The edges are wobbly. You should be applying the techniques explored in the branches exercise here, specifically constructing your branch's edges in segments, going from one ellipse past the second towards the third, then from the second ellipse past the third towards the fourth (so these two segments overlap and blend together). This allows you to avoid a chicken-scratchy effect (if they do successfully flow together) while keeping a lot more control over your lines.

• I did notice that you're not drawing through a lot of your ellipses.

Aside from these three points, you're doing well. I'd recommend practicing your leaves and branches a little more (perhaps as part of your warmup alongside the lesson 1/2 material), but I am going to mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-12-27 01:37

Nice work! Just a couple things to take note of:

• When you're positioning your ellipses on that minor axis, make sure the minor axis cuts through them entirely - rather than placing them on either end of the line. It'll help with aligning them a little better.

• It does look like you missed out on the opportunity to practice with constructing cylinders in boxes, which is definitely a worthwhile exercise. Reason being, boxes are much easier to align and position in space - so once you've got a box down, if you can use it to construct a cylinder, you're going to be set for a lot of challenging situations.

Aside from that, great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Or I would.. if it weren't already. :P

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

2017-12-27 01:34

Very nicely done! Your lines are smooth and steady, and your ellipses are evenly shaped with no visible wobbling or stiffness. Both of these are for the same reason - you're executing each mark with confidence, and trusting in your muscle memory. More over you're clearly preparing before each stroke. All of this is excellent - keep it up.

You're also demonstrating a solid grasp of 3D space, and have even done an excellent job at the rotated boxes - which was intentionally supposed to be more challenging than most students could manage at this point. Admittedly you did miss some of the early steps (fleshing out the extremities in step 3 or so) but you still did fine.

The organic perspective boxes are certainly getting there, though some additional work with rotating boxes freely in 3D space is definitely warranted.

Lastly, for the rough perspective boxes, be sure to go over your completed work on this exercise as described here. This will help you identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

So, I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge. Be sure to watch the video there and read through all the notes on the page before you begin.

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

2017-12-27 01:29

Okay you did pretty well here. The construction of the body is solid, the only thing I didn't like at all is how you handled those eyes. They're not just little dots, they're actually solid forms.

I do get why you drew them in solid black though, because you were trying to replicate the colour you saw. You gotta keep pushing yourself to think in terms of form, ignore the local colours, all the lighting and the rendering. Just focus on what you actually know to be there.

Anyway, like I said - you did a pretty good job, so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. The next lesson will continue to push your ability to observe your reference, and to think about things in terms of form. I strongly recommend that when you do the next lesson's homework, that you focus again purely on construction and ignore texture for now.

Uncomfortable in the post "17 new videos - one for each exercise in lesson 1 and 2, and more!"

2017-12-25 20:31

Yule Tidings, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! In honour of the holiday season, I spent the last couple days recording a whopping 17 new videos - an intro video detailing how to approach the lessons, one for every exercise in lessons 1 and 2, and a new version of 'how to draw a box'.

You can find all the videos on this playlist, though they're also all linked individually from the exercise instructions on the lesson pages.

While lessons 3-7 did have more video content, the most important lessons (the basics) were sorely lacking in it. Hopefully this should make things easier for those of you who struggle with absorbing information in a purely textual format. The videos still should be watched alongside reading the lessons, but I'm hoping that this will help you guys catch certain instructions that you might otherwise miss or forget by having them repeated in different formats.

Lastly, I'm hoping to create a handful of more videos for lessons 3-7, so keep an eye out for those.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2017-12-25 07:07

Overall I think you are grasping the principles of the lesson quite well, but you're definitely getting too caught up in detail/texture. As far as the construction goes, this tank is definitely very well done, but you have varying levels of quality later on. I believe this is because you allow yourself to focus too much on detail too early, and as a result you distract yourself from really hammering out the construction as well as I know you can.

When it comes to the actual texture though, I also do think that what you're really doing later into the homework set is attempting to shade/render your drawings under the guise of texture. That's why you're using so much hatching and cross-hatching - it doesn't actually reflect the surfaces of your objects, but rather is a sort of lazy catch-all.

The main mistake there is that rather than trying to leverage these tools to render the light and shadow on our object, instead we're using light and shadow as a tool to help communicate important things about our drawing. We leverage shadows to help separate our forms out from each other so they're easier to understand (similarly to how we use line weight). We use the edges of our shadow shapes, and the areas where they transition to light in order to communicate information about the surface textures.

At no point are we just shading for the sake of shading. It's always to some other purpose, and if no other purpose exists, we just don't bother to do that. As long as you think about it in this manner, you're not going to end up in situations where you either use hatching just for the sake of it, or where you attempt to use your pen the way you might use a pencil (by trying to create those sort of value gradients).

Now, I definitely think you're demonstrating a good deal of understanding in regards to construction, but you've kept yourself from properly demonstrating the extent of it. I'd like you to do two more pages of vehicle drawings. This time, do it with a ballpoint pen and use a ruler. Both of these things were allowed in the instructions there, because I want you to focus entirely on the constructions rather than other aspects of drawings we've emphasized in the past. The ruler will help you execute precisely the straight lines you're after, while the ballpoint pen will allow you to be somewhat less heavy-handed with your linework. If you can get your hands on an ellipse guide, that'd be great too - but they're often prohibitively expensive, so don't feel like that's a requirement.

I don't want you to apply any texture or detail whatsoever. Focus entirely on construction and take those solid forms as far towards the likeness of your intended object as you can.

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

2017-12-25 06:30

Definitely better. You could still stand to keep the gaps between your boxes narrower in the rotated boxes exercise (I mentioned this in my last critique, though if you didn't quite follow what I meant, give this video a watch - it's brand new, hot off the presses).

Also, be sure to go over your completed rough perspective work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the 250 box challenge next.

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

2017-12-25 06:23

Very nice work! Your linework and general execution is very smooth and confident, which keeps your lines consistent and your ellipses evenly shaped. As a result, your first two sections are spot on.

For the rough perspective boxes, be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

You did a great job with the rotated boxes. The only thing I caught was that the second one (don't know if it's the second attempt, or if it's just in an arbitrary order) doesn't have you drawing through the boxes as you should be. The first one's very well done though.

Your organic perspective boxes are certainly coming along well. There is some room for improvement here, but you're definitely doing better than what I'd expect for this stage.

Keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. I've even just uploaded a brand new 'how to draw a box' video, so be sure to give it a watch.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-12-23 20:34

Lovely work! Overall you're demonstrating an excellent grasp of form and space, and are applying the principles of construction very well. There are just a couple of things I want to draw your attention to.

• On the page of leaves, dead-center, there's a leaf that appears to have a wavy, zig-zagging edge to it. Above it, there's a similar one that was done much better. The important thing here is that in general, zig-zagging a single stroke should be avoided. Each stroke should have one concise trajectory - as soon as the trajectory changes, start a new stroke, rather than trying to change it without lifting your pen.

• On page 9, top left, you've got a lot of leaves. Admittedly you've nailed their flow very nicely, and captured the forms well. That said, I want you to maintain the habit of drawing through all of your forms and applying the full leaf construction method for all of your forms through all of my lessons. Don't cut corners, you really need to get that stuff hammered in before you allow yourself to let the steps transition more fully to simply being visualized rather than drawn.

Aside from that, great stuff. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

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

2017-12-23 20:21

I'm a man of much patience! I'm not going to get angry at you, but I will cut on occasion with a scalpel. That shit hurts.

So there are two primary issues here. First off, you picked a downright shitty reference image. It's very low res, and it's hard to tell what's going on. If you're using google image search, hit 'tools' and set the size to large.

The other issue is related to the first one, but is definitely a problem of its own - you've got very clear signs here that you're not really looking at your reference image all that much. There are basic proportional issues, which aren't entirely abnormal, but if you look at the back leg (the one that bends into a triangle and tucks back under the abdomen), your version of this is totally different.

I stressed the importance of observation in my last critique. I'm not really sure what the deal is - it was far less of an issue here - my only guess is that you've gotten rusty and are rushing ahead with your drawing despite that.

Here are my notes for this one: https://i.imgur.com/ZArIDCH.png. Try again. Pick a higher resolution reference image and take your time actually looking at what you're doing.

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

2017-12-23 19:48

Overall you're doing a really good job. You're demonstrating a pretty good grasp of form and construction in most areas, resulting in objects that look and feel believable. There are two things that I'd like to bring to your attention however.

Firstly, when scanning your work, you've got the contrast ramped way up, and it makes it considerably more difficult for me to see your underlying construction lines, as the fainter ones tend to get blasted away. So while I can see hints that you are drawing through all of your forms properly, it's not always that easy to tell.

The other issue - which actually pertains to your approach to construction - is about this rhinoceros beetle, specifically how you've gone about building up its head. The way you approached it suggests that you're building it up in two dimensions - that is, blocking in the silhouette, rather than actually considering the forms that are present. Because of this, you end up with no options but to jump straight to the more complex stage of construction (the horn, the swooping carapace of the head, etc.) and as a result those elements end up lacking the structure.

Instead of thinking of the head mass as being something that encompasses the entirety of the head, think of it as the core building block, on top of which the rest of the head is constructed. Like a ball that holds everything else together.

Aside from that, the rest of your constructions are quite well done. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.