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

2017-12-22 01:19

Solid work overall. You're demonstrating a good grasp of 3D space and are showing that you are convincing yourself of the illusion of form - which is the first step to convincing others of it as well.

I do have a couple things to draw your attention to however:

• You ultimately ended up getting a good handle on the arrows. One thing that will help push things further in this area is to think about one end of the arrow sitting farther away from the viewer, and another end sitting closer. This allows you to focus on how the arrow moves through all three dimensions of space, rather than falling into the trap of restricting it mostly to the two dimensions of your piece of paper. The page is a window into a larger 3D space, so do what you can to break into that mode of thinking.

• Remember that the dissections start out as organic forms with contour lines. Don't think about texture until the form is constructed and solid, with whatever contour curves are necessary for this. That said, your textures are very well done - you've demonstrated a great degree of variety and a lot of care/patience with each and every one.

• In the instructions, I mention that you should keep away from overly stretched forms for your form intersections. The exercise is difficult enough, bringing in a lot of foreshortening only makes it that much worse and splits your focus. Keep your forms more equilateral. That said you've done pretty well, but always follow the instructions to the letter.

• Your organic intersections are alright, but there's definitely room for improvement here. Your forms feel a bit stiff, and don't always carry the sense of sagging flesh that we're after here. Try and think of these each as being water balloons piled on top of one another. Where they are supported, they'll wrap around the form underneath them, but where they aren't, they'll sag. Keep your forms simple in order to maintain their solidity and focus on conveying their tension and flaccidity.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. You've generally done a good job, and can focus on the points I've mentioned above as you continue to practice the exercises as part of a warmup routine. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-12-22 01:10

Nice work! I really like the structured approach you applied on some of these pages. Overall, I think you've applied the principles quite well, and have demonstrated a good deal of improvement.

One thing I do believe would have helped however is the application of the correction techniques outlined on the challenge page notes (just above the blue video links). Applying these after completing a page would allow you to identify and learn from your mistakes before moving onto the next one. I actually mentioned this when assigning the challenge.

I recommend that you do this for at least your last page, so you can identify where you need to work on things. It becomes exceptionally more helpful when you start to plateau (as we all do when we improve to the point that our mistakes become so subtle that we cannot identify them easily with the naked eye).

Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

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

2017-12-22 01:06

Your first two sections are very well done. Your marks are confident and consistent, which keeps your lines smooth and your ellipses evenly shaped. I'm very pleased to see that you are keeping the flow of your lines at a higher level of priority over your accuracy. Your accuracy is still pretty good, but many students have the tendency to stress too much over it, resulting in stiff or wobbly lines.

Your boxes section is a little haphazard, however, as far as following the instructions goes.

Your plotted perspective exercises aren't bad, but you are running into situations where you end up with a lot of distortion. This of course wasn't explained, but I'll clarify it here.

You can generally see where the safe areas and the areas where you're going to get more distortion will be if you draw a circle between your two vanishing points like this. Everything inside the circle is generally undistorted, while anything outside starts pushing the boundaries of what your eye is willing to accept. The more distance between your vanishing points, the larger the circle. This is generally why the plotted perspective exercises on the last page where done far better.

Things get a little weird when you get into your rough perspective boxes. Firstly, frame your compositions. Secondly, the exercise is to be done in one point perspective. You got that with one of your attempts here, though not the others. It's extremely important that you do the exercises as instructed, and not stray/make up your own variations.

Your rotated boxes and organic perspective exercises do need work, but these two exercises were included here to challenge students to think a little differently about 3D space, and I did not expect perfect work by any stretch. That said, there are two issues in how you approached the rotated boxes:

• You're trying to work off a single central vanishing point. In the instructions, I explain that as a box rotates in space, the vanishing points slide along the horizon, like this. The principle of a vanishing point is that all lines that are parallel in 3D space will converge towards the same point when drawn in 2D. If all your lines go towards the same VP, that means they're all parallel - if a box has rotated, its lines cannot continue to be parallel with an identical box that has not been rotated.

• Keep the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent. This allows you to both keep things more organized, but more importantly allows you to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines.

So when I say that the exercises are about challenging students to think differently about space, the point is that it's meant to break you away from focusing on the rote memorization of perspective rules and trying to plot everything back. You could approach this in a technical, plotted way, but you'd end up drawing back to so many vanishing points that it would become unreasonable. So, you need to try and apply the spirit of the perspective rules, understanding what they actually mean rather than just repeating what you've memorized.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I want you to do two more pages of rough perspective boxes and one more page of rotated boxes (be sure to reread the instructions first before doing the work).

Once you've completed that and submitted it, I'll mark the lesson as complete. At that point, 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, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular will help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Also, the correction techniques outlined just above the blue video links should be applied upon the completion of each full page of boxes.

I mentioned that now in case I forget about it when reviewing your resubmission - but of course, don't move onto the 250 box challenge until I've marked this lesson as complete.

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

2017-12-22 00:41

Overall you're doing a pretty good job. Your lines are generally quite confident, which keeps your lines and ellipses smooth and consistent, which is one of our priorities right now. You're also demonstrating a well developing sense of 3D space. Most importantly, you're reading and following the instructions carefully, and demonstrating an exceptional degree of patience, which will help you immensely as you continue to work through these lessons.

In regards to your question on page 7, focus on just rotating the page to find a comfortable angle of approach. There's no need to stress too much on being able to draw from all angles. As you continue to work, the range of angles that feel comfortable will expand naturally. Conversely, if you worry too much about it, it'll distract you from more pressing matters.

Jumping ahead to your rotated boxes exercise, both this one and the organic perspective boxes are really just meant to challenge students into thinking differently about working in 3D space. Both exercises are very difficult, and I do not expect perfect work here. That said, you've done a solid job.

The only thing that I would like to point out in regards to the rotated boxes is that you may want to try and exaggerate your rotations a little more. Our brains like keeping things restricted to grids. When we rotate a form, we break away from that, so our brain naturally fights against that to keep us in our comfort zones. As a result, you will - especially as you work through the beginnings of this - find that your brain tricks you into thinking something is rotated more than it actually is. to compensate, we need to push and exaggerate our rotations in order to cover the full range we're after.

I am however very glad to see that you kept the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent, as this is a pretty important part of the exercise.

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 on the challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular will help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Also, the correction techniques outlined just above the blue video links should be applied upon the completion of each full page of boxes.

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

2017-12-22 00:23

Your work is coming along well. There are a few issues I'd like to draw your attention to, but overall you're showing a propensity for reading through and applying the instructions with great care. Your boxes section is especially well done, and I'm glad to see that you also applied some of the additional notes from the self critique resources. Your rotated boxes attempts came together very nicely, with your last attempt being quite stellar.

The issue that I wanted to point out has to do with how you make your marks. Right now I'm noticing some definite stiffness, that suggests that you're currently a little too focused on the accuracy of your lines, to the detriment of their flow. When you execute a mark, you want to do so with a confident, persistent pace. Once your pen touches the page, all chances to ghost more and to improve your chances at being accurate are gone. You are committed - you must push forwards and trust in your muscle memory. If something goes wrong, them's the breaks. There will always be more chances. If you hesitate though, your line will wobble, and you may achieve greater accuracy and win the battle - but you will have lost the war, undermining the solidity of the forms you may be drawing at the time.

Now, I am exaggerating somewhat. The degree to which this is an issue in your work isn't that high, but it is an issue that you should work towards remedying. Where inaccuracy is something that naturally decreases with practice, the wobbling and stiffness in one's lines and ellipses that comes from hesitation is something that must be adjusted in the methodology one applies. This means it's both easier to fix, but also requires a conscious effort.

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 on the challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular will help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Also, the correction techniques outlined just above the blue video links should be applied upon the completion of each full page of boxes.

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

2017-12-22 00:18

Excellent work with your lines and ellipses. Your execution is very confident and consistent, so your marks come out smooth and evenly shaped. I'm also very pleased to see how conscientious you are about applying the self critique resources notes (like double checking your rough perspective work), and generally applying my instructions correctly.

Your rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes are coming along well, though we will work more on this front. For your rotated boxes, you did end up in a bit of a mess along the edges (probably because the boxes immediately to the left and right of the center were perhaps turned too dramatically, resulting in an attempt at compensating weirdly. It's not abnormal at all to find that you placed the extremities too far out to the side (I do this myself frequently) but perhaps trying to bridge the two wasn't the best way to deal with the problem. Most people just leave the extremities out to the side and treat them like a sort of visual representation of the full arc they're trying to achieve.

One recommendation I do have for this exercise is to try and keep the gaps between your boxes narrower and more consistent. This allows you to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines.

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 on the challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular will help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Also, the correction techniques outlined just above the blue video links should be applied upon the completion of each full page of boxes.

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

2017-12-20 21:48

Hey! It doesn't look like I've got your username down as being eligible for private critiques. If you're a patreon supporter, check your patreon inbox as I send out messages gathering information like one's reddit username within 24 hours of pledging. If you're not though, you're welcome to submit your work directly to the subreddit for a critique from the community.

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

2017-12-20 21:03

Overall you're doing pretty well, and your forms are generally coming out feeling quite solid and your constructions believable. There are just a couple things I want to point out.

Firstly, I wanted to remark that on pages like this one, there seems to be a little bit of detachment between the initial forms of your construction (like that fainter ball/ellipse/thing that you started with) and your final forms. Keep in mind that every form you add to a construction is like a chunk of marble being added to a 3D scene. Once it's there, you have to deal with it somehow, and ignoring it so you can replace it with other later forms is going to undermine the solidity of your construction more times than not. Get into the habit of accepting that these forms are present, and build up around them rather than letting them float arbitrarily.

For your cerasini nymphs, I did notice that you were a bit neglectful of the segmentation of their carapaces - the layering there is a great way to describe the curvature of their forms (free contour lines). A lot of objects will have freebies like this, so it's important to take advantage of them - not just to be accurate, but also to help convey the illusion of solidity. This is how I'd have approached it, with considerably more attention paid to that exoskeletal layering.

Anyway, you're generally doing a good job with the rest of these. I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-12-20 20:40

Well done! You've got a lot of great boxes here, and you've paid careful attention to building each one around its minor axis. This is definitely the focus of the exercise, along with building consistent ellipses, which you've also done well.

The only thing that I feel you may want to explore a little more is drawing cylinders by starting from a box, as mentioned in the video. This can be very helpful especially when you want to align your cylinders relative to other existing forms. It can be considerably more difficult to do this with just a minor axis, since it's much easier to grasp how a box will sit in space (compared to a simple line).

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work.

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

2017-12-20 20:38

Your first two sections are well done. Your lines are smooth and consistent, and your ellipses are confident and evenly shaped. I'm glad to see that you're doing a good job of focusing on the flow of your marks rather than fussing too much over their accuracy.

Your boxes section does have some rough patches - primarily with the rotated and organic perspective boxes exercises, though these two were focused primarily on getting students to think differently about 3D space, rather than expecting perfect work. That said, with your rotated boxes there are clear places where you skipped important instructions - for example, you didn't draw through your boxes, and often left out the steps where you mark out your extremities. It's very important to follow the instructions as written.

Also, you should not be laying out your pages so haphazardly. The assigned homework requests a certain number of pages for each exercise, so you should reserve entire pages for each one rather than mixing them together in this way. I want your attention to be focused entirely on one exercise at a time.

Your rough perspective boxes are generally fine, just be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift. Also the lesson definitely asked for far more than just one of these - you did mention that you'd lost some pages, but in the future please submit all that is requested, even if it means redoing what you've left behind.

You'll notice that at the beginning of the lesson, I mention that these exercises are meant to become part of a warmup routine, so it's not like you wouldn't be doing more of them in the future anyway - so there's no reason not to avoid redoing them now.

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 all of the notes on that page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Also, the correction technique outlined above the blue video links should be applied upon the completion of each full page of boxes.

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

2017-12-20 19:57

So I definitely think that the way you've kind of spread out the work over time is hindering you. I totally get that you've got school, finals, etc. and you can only devote so much time to this kind of work, but as a result, you are definitely forgetting a lot of important concepts covered in earlier lessons.

That isn't to say you aren't having some successes - you certainly are. Also, a lot of the mistakes I see you making are more a matter of forgetting not to approach things in a particular way.

I've outlined all the major issues I've seen from this set on this page of notes. Many of these points are things I've mentioned in previous redline notes I've given you - it's very important to keep revisiting the material especially when you've got long gaps between drawing sessions.

The especially important points listed there are:

1) Drawing complete forms, not just letting them stop when something else overlaps them

4) Respecting your construction and not using line weight as an excuse to replace those construction lines. Every form you add is like adding a solid mass of marble to a 3D world - once it's there, you can't just ignore it. You need to deal with it. So then drawing a line that deviates from the existing construction without adding the appropriate structure/scaffolding to support it will result in your drawing looking flat.

5) Solidity comes from simplicity. You cannot start a form out like some complicated blob, it needs to be simple. You can then build up and combine multiple simple forms to create more complex ones that still hold onto the same sense of solidity, but you cannot just jump into a more complicated stage and expect it not to come out flat.

Also, another area you definitely need to think about more is observation. Look more, draw less. You're dealing with a lot of guesswork in some of these. Others are better demonstrations of observation, but you've got a significant number that show the kind of sloppiness that comes with simply not taking your time and paying attention. It's normal to become overwhelmed by these things, because there's a lot to discern and take apart. We usually respond to being overwhelmed by just guessing and drawing and hoping for the best. Instead, respond by stopping, taking a step back and looking closer.

Lastly, how big are you drawing? It's hard to tell the scale of your pages, though some of them look kind of stiff and cramped. The wolf spider looks like a good size, but in many of the others your linework tends to look heavier in comparison - it may just be because you're pressing harder, or because they really are just proportionally quite small.

So instead of asking you to do a bunch of pages again, I'm going to ask for just one. One drawing of an insect - preferably something you find to be easy, but not done from one of my demos. If you can apply the principles I've mentioned in my redline notes, I will mark the lesson as complete. Like before, no detail, no texture. Construction only.

While you're drawing it, I want you to take pictures at every stage of construction.

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

2017-12-19 06:55

The ellipses in planes are a touch better, but overall it's just the same problem to a lesser degree. You have to focus on loosening up and not deforming the elliptical shape.

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

2017-12-18 06:12

Overall, pretty nice work. Your execution of your linework is generally smooth and confident, which is great. I did catch a couple things though. For your ellipses in planes, you neglected to draw through your ellipses, and focused too much on accuracy to the detriment of the flow/smoothness of the shapes. Keep in mind that our primary goal is always to make marks that flow consistently and maintain a consistent trajectory. It's easy to get caught up in the accuracy of things, but this causes us to slow down and stiffen up.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, be sure to go over your completed work for this exercise as described here.

You did a great job with your rotated boxes, and demonstrated a well developing understanding of how to think about forms in 3D space. There's definitely room for improvement (especially in the organic perspective boxes), but this is totally normal and expected.

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 on the challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Also, the correction technique described just above the blue video links should be applied at the end of each full page of boxes.

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

2017-12-18 06:07

Overall you did a pretty decent job. One area that jumped out at me though was your ellipses, especially the table of ellipses exercise. When drawing these, you're demonstrating a lot of stiffness, fussing too much over the accuracy of your ellipses and as a result you've deformed many of them. Maintaining the flow of your marks and the evenness of your elliptical shapes is paramount. We do this by ensuring that we apply the ghosting method, ultimately executing each mark with a confident, persistent pace and trusting in our muscle memory. This allows us to draw smoother lines and hold true to the ellipse's intended shapes.

You're also demonstrating some laxness when it comes to drawing through your ellipses. I really insist that you do this for each and every ellipse you draw for my lessons. It works hand in hand with drawing your marks confidently.

Aside from that, your work is solid. I'm glad to see that you applied the double checking approach to your rough perspective boxes, and your rotated boxes came out pretty well. The organic perspective boxes do need work, but we'll be tackling that from a slightly different angle.

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, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Also, the correction technique described just above the blue video links should be applied at the end of each full page of boxes.

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

2017-12-17 02:59

Nevermind my last message! I just got the email from patreon, it was just a little delayed. I've added your submission to my backlog, so you should receive a critique tomorrow. Thanks for the pledge!

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

2017-12-17 02:57

Hey, mjjordy. It doesn't look like I have you down as being eligible for private critiques. If you're a recent supporter on patreon, check your inbox as you'll have received a message from me asking for your reddit username. Otherwise you're welcome to submit your work directly to the subreddit for a community critique.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-12-16 19:34

Very nice work! There's definite improvement over the set - although you did start out with a certain sense of confidence in your solidity. I noticed as well that your line weight became more subtle as you went on (earlier on it was pretty heavy-handed and didn't look that great). The subtler ones however provide a great sense of dimension and dynamism while improving the overall cohesiveness of the form.

I'm also very pleased to see how consistently you applied the line-extension method and clearly learned from it as you went along.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work.

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

2017-12-16 19:31

Fantastic work. You're demonstrating an excellent sense of form and construction here. There are however some pages where I think you get too preoccupied with making a clean, pretty drawing and as a result skip over important steps. For example, on your scorptions, you're not drawing each form in its entirety (like the segments of its claws) - you draw them until they get blocked by a neighbouring form, which results in those shapes/forms being more complex, and therefore less solid. Always follow the process of working from simple to complex, especially when that requires you to draw through your forms. The end result is unimportant, and it can be organized and clarified through lineweight.

While it is important to be mindful of line economy, it's more about making sure the lines you put down are worth something, rather than just trying to cut corners.

I really liked this page of spiders. Overall you were pretty light on texture (which is totally fine), though where you did add textures you had a bit of a tendency to rush through it a little - in the future, try not to use hatching, and try to look more closely at what kind of textures are present on the surfaces you're drawing. When you draw marks for those textures, remember that the marks we see are the result of shadows being cast by small forms - these shadows can blend together into larger areas of pure black. Texture, like everything else, should always look deliberate and planned. You can read more about this on the texture challenge page.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. While I did have some things to say here, you're still doing very well. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-12-16 00:27

I think you may have meant to submit this to the subreddit rather than to this thread. This thread is for those who support drawabox through patreon.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-12-16 00:26

Sure, you can send me your new boxes when you've got some done.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-12-14 17:00

While you are covering a range of rotations, I suppose you're right - most of your boxes are seen from the top, so it would be good to explore more from the underside as well.

On the advanced boxes, you did fine. There box you started off with was a little off (which is entirely normal, as I mention in the video), with the front face on the right side being a little too small, but you rolled with that pretty well and compensated for the errors as they accumulated. The only thing I noticed was that you don't seem to have found the center of the top/bottom planes, at least not that I can see. As a result, I think the lines you draw across those planes that would pass through the centers don't end up doing so. Finding the center points of your planes early is definitely important, as it allows you to gauge your error-compensation a little better.

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

2017-12-13 22:08

Pretty solid work. Just a couple things to point out:

• For your super imposed lines, you've got some wobbling going on. When you execute your marks, instead of stressing over the accuracy of your stroke, the most important thing is maintaining a consistent, smooth trajectory. If you hesitate and fuss too much over how accurately you follow your intended path, your line will wobble all over with all the course-corrections you make. So once you decide to commit to a mark, execute with a confident, persistent pace. I expand on this principle in relation to this exercise in these notes.

• Your ellipses are looking very solid - they're a much better example of confident execution, so I do believe you understand the principle (especially since I talk about it in regards to ghosting, which is after the super imposed lines exercise - so you didn't inherently do anything wrong).

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

• Great work with the rotated boxes.

• Your organic perspective boxes are coming along well - there's more work to be done here, but you're about where I'd expect you to be for this lesson.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Before you start the work, be sure to read through all of the notes on the challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. In addition to this, the correction technique outlined there above the blue video links should be applied upon the completion of each full page of boxes, so you can steadily learn from your mistakes without breaking up the flow of your work.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-12-13 22:03

You've done a good job working through the challenge and drawing through each and every form, and have demonstrated a fair bit of improvement over the set. I do realize that I assigned this to you quite a while ago, so it's not surprising that you may have missed some of the additional notes I added to the challenge. That said, it is important to refresh one's memory of the notes frequently, as we are all bound to forget things quite easily - especially when there are considerable gaps in our timeline.

The important thing that you have missed is my stressing the correction phase. Specifically, the following technique used to identify where your lines are off:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

It is best to apply this technique upon the completion of each page of boxes, but you should still pick the last page or two and apply it there anyway so you can identify where things are off.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

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

2017-12-13 22:00

Overall you're doing pretty well, though I do have a few things I can point out.

• For your arrows, try and consider one end of the arrow as being farther away from the viewer, and the other end being closer. Right now your arrows move to a limited degree through the depth of the scene, but generally stick to the two dimensions defined by the page itself. By thinking about one end as being situated much farther away, you can explore that depth to a much greater degree.

• Your organic forms with contour lines are coming along well, and you clearly understand what you should be aiming for. There are however some places where your contour curves do not quite hook back around enough as they reach the edge of the form. This suggests that you're still getting used to the idea, and need to continue to be mindful of it as you practice. It can be quite easy to slip back if you don't keep your mind on the need to accelerate that curvature. The overshooting method I describe in these notes can definitely help.

• Your dissections were well done. You've got a lot of great variety and experimentation going on here, which is exactly what I want to see.

• Your grasp of 3D space is demonstrated well by your form intersections - the only thing I want to draw your attention to here is the way you drew a lighter underdrawing, and then cleaned up your lines with a darker pass. Throughout my lessons, I want you to avoid drawing in this two-phase manner. Adding line weight is perfectly fine and encouraged, but keep in mind that line weight should be applied locally - not to the entirety of a shape or line, but to a section of a line in order to demonstrate how it overlaps another form. Also, make sure that you do not dedicate any focus to drawing your lines lighter at any point. Each and every mark should be executed with confidence - if you're worried about keeping it light so you can clean up later, you'll be devoting fewer mental resources to keeping your forms solid and consistent. You can always add dimension and draw attention to the 'important' lines with line weight later on, but while you're constructing you should be purely focused on construction only.

• Nice work with the organic intersections - the contour curves here are hooking around nicely, and you're capturing both nice volumes and a good sense of how these forms interact with one another.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Poll: Drawabox Weekly Challenge Theme 003"

2017-12-13 20:55

It looks like it's in the lead! It definitely would be a great topic. Luckily the higher scoring topics will carry over to following weeks' polls, so even if it doesn't win, we'll definitely end up doing it sooner or later. Definitely hoping it wins this week though. I love painting bottles.

Uncomfortable in the post "Poll: Drawabox Weekly Challenge Theme 003"

2017-12-13 02:48

Drawing bottles is my jaaaaam.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-12-12 23:44

Overall, very nice work. While there's always room for continued growth, you demonstrated a lot of improvement in both your constructions and your general confidence in how you deal with these solid forms throughout the set. I'm very pleased to see how thorough you were with extending your lines back towards their implied vanishing points. You're also clearly making good use of the ghosting method, and I'm glad to see that you're marking in points before committing yourself to particular lines.

As it stands, your approach is fine. I just hope that you applied those line-extensions upon the completion of each page rather than at the end of the whole set (as this allows you to learn from your mistakes throughout). I have no reason to think that you didn't do this, but I figured it was worth mentioning just in case.

Keep up the great work and consider this challenge as complete.

By the way, I'd been going through my records a week or so ago, and I noticed that you had pre-paid for critiques, with that period coming to an end on December 13th. Since you've only submitted lesson 1 and the box challenge, I'm going to go ahead and extend that up until the end of March - so feel free to continue submitting your homework for critique until March 31st.

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

2017-12-12 23:41

Overall you're doing quite well. I do just have a few things that caught my attention:

• Your ellipses are a touch stiff. When making marks, we have two major priorities - accuracy and flow. Right now you're putting a little too much emphasis on accuracy, to the detriment of your flow. Make sure you're applying the ghosting method to each and every mark, and when your pen finally hits the page, don't allow yourself to hesitate or worry about accuracy any further. Once you make contact, any mistake you might make have effectively already happened - all you can do is push through with a confident, persistent pace and move onto the next one. The priority at this point is making a mark that flows smoothly, with a consistent trajectory. This applies to ellipses as well as to straight lines, although you're doing fine with the latter.

• Be sure to go over your completed rough perspective boxes work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

• Your organic perspective boxes certainly do improve, but I'll admit - the organic perspective boxes exercise as it was described isn't the best way to practice this particular challenge. I assigned this exercise and the rotated boxes (which you did a pretty solid job with) largely to force students to start thinking about 3D space in a different way. There are still some noticeable areas where your far planes come out larger than near planes, which is tricky to remedy in this fashion because we don't even fully flesh out those far planes.

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. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that page, and pay special attention to the tip about drawing through your forms - this in particular will help you get a better sense of how each box sits in 3D space. Also, the correction methods outlined just above the blue video links should be applied at the end of each complete page of boxes, as this will allow you to learn from those mistakes throughout the set without breaking up your flow.

Of course, if you've already completed the challenge then feel free to submit it - I just hope you paid careful attention to the notes and did the things I mentioned above.

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

2017-12-10 19:35

I can definitely see a hell of a lot of improvement in your understanding of form and construction, even across this set. So great work with that! Overall you're demonstrating a sort of internalized grasp of 3D space, which is definitely what we're looking for.

Your textures do still leave something to be desired, but that will improve with time and practice. This page in particular felt quite disorganized. Try and consider where your focal point is, and how you want to guide the eye around your piece. Also, lesson 5's got some tips on how to approach drawing fur/hair.

The only other thing I wanted to mention is that you can probably ease up on those contour curves. A couple here and there is fine, but try not to suggest that there's a sort of wireframe thing going on. Things started to get a little excessive on this one.

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

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

2017-12-10 19:17

Overall you did a pretty good job, and while your form intersections started off quite timid and uncertain, they improved considerably and ended up coming out rather solid by the end. I also noticed that you had some struggles with your organic forms with contour curves (making sure that the curves wrap convincingly around the forms) - you were making good progress and were kind of riding the fence on that one, so just keep on top of it as you continue to practice in your warmups. It's pretty easy to slip back into forgetting about wrapping the lines along the surface of the form, so you've got to make sure that you remain consciously aware of that.

Your arrows are pretty good, but I do want to recommend that you note which end of the arrow is farther from the viewer and which end is closer, and try to exaggerate the perspective/foreshortening of that. This will help you explore all three dimensions of space, rather than sticking to just the two dimensions of the page.

Your dissections are a good start - I do think that you'll want to work on your observational skills more. Give the notes on the 25 texture challenge a read, as they go over this in more detail. This is more or less what I expect to see from the dissections at this point - they're an exercise that are meant to show me where you are with your observation rather than expecting you to achieve some kind of particular standard.

Lastly, watch your linework in some places - when you're uncertain of yourself, you tend to get quite sketchy, and fall into the bad habit of reflexively correcting mistakes, resulting in messier results and a lot more attention being drawn to your blunders (since they've been darkened with extra marks). Every mark you put down should be the result of forethought and planning - fight against the desire to draw more instinctually.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one, and keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-12-10 19:11

Overall you're doing fine, but there are a couple things that caught my eye. Before that however, I want to point out that your general grasp of form and construction is coming along well. You're moving from simple to complex appropriately and not skipping any major steps in the process.

The things that I noticed were this:

• When you draw your branch exercises (and use those techniques in your drawings) I noticed that you're still largely attempting to construct the edges in one go. In the instructions I mention that it can help considerably to build them up as segments (but being sure to have the segments flow smoothly into one another so as to avoid a chicken-scratchy look). This usually means drawing from one ellipse past the second and towards the third before lifting your pen, then drawing from the second ellipse past the third towards the fourth. Continuing on past and aiming towards the next is what ensures that your lines overlap nicely and kind of blend into a single mark while maintaining better control of the form you're trying to construct.

• On this page, you attempted to apply texture to the soil by largely.. scribbling. Dont' do that - relying on randomness is only going to result in textures that don't feel convincing. As irritating as it may be for a complicated texture, you've got to draw each mark with a sense of purpose and intention. This means taking more time to observe carefully and really identify the rhythms and patterns that are present in your texture.

Aside from that, well done. I'm especially pleased with the smooth flow of your leaf forms. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "100 Treasure Chest Challenge"

2017-12-09 17:03

I realized after recording myself saying '100' on the video that this was asking a hell of a lot. But I can't admit weakness in front of you lot or you'll eat me alive (that's a thing!) so 100 chests it is! AHAHAHA.

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

2017-12-08 00:29

Very nice work! Your lines section demonstrates a lot of confidence in your execution, resulting in smooth, consistent lines. This trickles down into your ellipses where they are mostly coming out very evenly shaped without much stiffness or wobbling. The only area where I do see a hint of stiffness is with your ellipses in planes - this is actually pretty common, as most people get a little preoccupied with fitting the ellipses into the awkwardly shaped planes, and as a result will tend to hesitate a little more. It's just something to keep in mind - the confidence of your execution and the evenness of the resulting mark is what's most important, above accuracy.

Your boxes section is fairly well done too. For your rough perspective boxes, just 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 were very well done - this exercise and the organic perspective boxes were included here largely with the intention of being difficult. Rather than expecting perfect work here, I'm giving students the opportunity to think about 3D space in a somewhat different way. That said, you did a really solid job here. Aside from the slight assymetry of scale (which is not a big deal), your boxes are arranged with a good grasp of 3D space.

Your organic perspective boxes are coming along, although we will want to do a little more work in this area. I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Move onto the 250 box challenge next and be sure to read through all of the notes on the challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. In addition to this, the correction technique outlined above the blue video links should be applied upon the completion of each full page of boxes.

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

2017-12-06 01:41

Very nice work! Your lines are generally quite confident and smooth, which is great to see, and those rotated boxes are exceptionally well done - which is no easy task, most people struggle immensely with them and no one's really expected to nail them at this stage. They're just there to push students to think about 3D space in a different way.

Just a few points to mention:

• That one page of ghosted lines near the beginning - the lines seem just a touch wobbly and stiff. I don't see this elsewhere, but it does seem like you executed those marks a little too slowly, and not with enough confidence to keep them smooth. Hesitation is bad! After taking your time with your planning, execute your marks with a confident, persistent pace to keep them consistent.

• Don't forget to frame your rough perspective boxes, and when you're done go over them as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Your organic perspective boxes are about where I'd expect them to be - they're in the vein of the rotated boxes in that most people find them to be quite the struggle. There are definitely issues, but those are entirely normal.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. As for the next step, based on your organic perspective boxes I'd generally recommend moving onto the 250 box challenge, but you did complete that already. I'm not actually sure if you did them before or after completing lesson 1.

If lesson 1 was completed after the boxes, I'd recommend doing another 100 boxes (remembering to draw through them and apply those correction techniques). If you did lesson 1 and then the box challenge, then go ahead and move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-12-06 01:34

Overall your work is excellent. There are a few places where I'd chastise you, like the bonsai tree you remarked upon yourself (don't scribble or rely on randomness!) but overall you're demonstrating an excellent grasp of form and construction.

I have just one point that I want to bring to your attention - for your branches, you primarily seem to have been drawing the lengths of each side in a single stroke. In my instructions, I mention that you should draw them in segments, while taking care to ensure that the segments flow together nicely in order to avoid a chicken-scratchy appearance. The way I achieve this is by drawing a line from one ellipse past the second towards the third - then drawing another from the second past the third towards the fourth, and so on. By making sure that we go past and aim towards the next with each stroke, we ensure that they flow on top of each other (as much as we can anyway).

Aside from that, you're doing very well. You're obviously going to want to practice handling things with complicated textures more (maybe take a look at the texture challenge) purely because of the stress it's causing you (not because your textures don't look good - they're fine, aside from the bonsai tree which admittedly still looks okay despite using an inadvisable technique).

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"

2017-12-06 01:22

Excellent work. You're hitting most of the major points I look for in this lesson. Your lines are confidently executed and well thought out - this keeps your straights smooth and consistent, while also keeping your ellipses evenly shaped and avoiding any sort of wobbling or stiffness. Your boxes also demonstrate an excellent grasp of 3D space - you did a great job nailing the rotated boxes as well as the organic perspective boxes, despite both of these exercises being included here with the intention of providing students with a bit of a struggle (and mainly to give them the opportunity to think about space a little differently).

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. In most cases I'd ask students to move onto the 250 box challenge next - I'm not going to ask that of you, but I would like you to read through the notes on that page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This may come in handy later on, as it helps immensely when understanding how each form sits in 3D space relative to one another.

Keep up the fantastic work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-12-06 01:18

Very nice work! Overall you're doing great. Your constructions show a good sense of space and construction, and you still seem to be minding your forms even when you move into the territory of adding texture.

There is one thing that caught my eye though - in your branches, you seem to be trying to tackle the long, flowing lengths all in one go, which causes you to slow down and have your lines wobble somewhat. If you look at the instructions, you'll notice that I actually mention that you should try to construct them in segments, while taking special care to ensure that the segments flow smoothly together (so as to avoid looking like chicken scratch). We do this by drawing a line from one ellipse past the second towards the third - then drawing another from the second past the third towards the fourth, and so on. By making sure that we go past and aim towards the next with each stroke, we ensure that they flow on top of each other (as much as we can anyway).

Aside from that, 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 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-12-06 01:09

You definitely do get better over the course of this. The pug's a bit of a mess (admittedly it's also a difficult one), the baby rhino's a little less bad (also a difficult one with those weird ass feet) and after that your constructions are pretty decent. I do still want you to pay more attention to your observation though, I've marked in this image how there are some important things you've missed. The shape I shaded in on the left side of the forelegs is important - look at the negative space along the side of a form can help you notice certain angles that are present in a reference image.

So. I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Keep at it, but feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-12-04 23:33

Very nice work. Your boxes look solid, and your line weights really add a lot of cohesiveness to each construction. Ultimately, extending the lines for the vanishing points is most useful in cases like this, where your mistakes are effectively unnoticeable. They're likely still there, but not easy to identify without techniques like this.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to apply the technique now to one out of every three or four boxes. Despite the clutter, it'd still be worthwhile. Of course it'd involve somewhat marring your pretty arrangements and constructions, but at the end of the day they're only disposable exercises - not works of art.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.

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

2017-12-04 01:18

That's certainly looking much better. Keep up the good work, and remember that you're welcome to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-12-04 00:00

Definitely better. Still room for improvement, but that'll come with continued practice, so I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. The one thing that did catch my eye though was that the construction for this page seems to have been done with a lighter pen, or perhaps a pencil. Don't do that - use the same pen all the way through.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-12-03 23:58

That is actually considerably better. There are definitely places where your observation is still not great, but your construction has improved a fair bit. For the most part, your animals look somewhat more plausible and solid. It's definitely a big step forwards.

For now, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. You've got a LOT of work to do on observation in general, but I think you should be ready to move onto the next lesson. You'll likely find the next one to be very unforgiving, so the main tip I'm going to give you is to think as much as you can in terms of solid, geometric forms. Only round out your corners at the very end, as many people have a tendency to treat their hard surfaced objects like organics and lose a lot of their structure in doing so.

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

2017-12-03 23:55

Very nicely done! The photos are crap, but the work is very solid. Your linework is smooth and confident, keeping both your lines straight and consistent, and your ellipses evenly shaped. You're demonstrating a pretty solid grasp of 3D space as well, and really nailed the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes exercises.

The only minor suggestion I have is that when you're doing your organic perspective boxes, it's important to draw through each box completely. I didn't actually mention this in this lesson on purpose - I usually have students give it a shot and struggle for a bit, before pointing them to the 250 box challenge where all of this is explained. That said, I don't think the challenge is entirely necessary for you right now, as you're already demonstrating a good sense of space. So just give the notes there a read through.

You did actually draw through some of the boxes there, although in most cases you didn't, and also had your lines stop where they were blocked by other boxes, so I figured it was worth mentioning, as this can really help one to understand how each box sits in 3D space, and how they all relate to one another.

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

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

2017-12-03 23:49

Very, very nice work. Almost all of your work is exceptionally well done. I have only a few minor points about a couple things.

• For your super imposed lines, you're stressing a little too much about accuracy over the flow and smoothness of your lines. As mentioned here, when you execute a mark, I want your first priority to be maintaining a consistent trajectory. Don't allow yourself to course-correct as you go - even if the direction you're drawing is a little off, stick to it and keep that line as smooth as you can.

• Your ellipses are generally well done, but there is a touch of stiffness to them. It actually lines up with the previous point - this occurs because you're stressing the accuracy point over flow, and so when you execute the mark, you're hesitating somewhat rather than pushing through and trusting in your muscle memory. In general when you execute a mark after some healthy ghosting, I want you to do so confidently. All the time for hesitation is over - from the time your pen touches the page, any mistakes that may occur effectively already have. So all you can do is get it over with and move onto the next.

• Jumping all the way ahead to your organic perspective boxes, your attempt here is solidly done. Admittedly this exercise does have some issues (primarily your far planes being larger than your near planes in certain areas) but this is totally normal and expected. This exercise is meant to be challenging, and was introduced here to give students the chance to start thinking about 3D space a little differently.

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 all of the notes on that page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Also, the correction techniques outlined there above the blue video links should be applied upon the completion of each full page of boxes.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-12-03 23:42

Looking good! I'm glad to see that you applied the correction techniques to each of your boxes. You were definitely quite patient through the construction, and your grasp of 3D space has developed considerably through the full set. By the end your forms are looking confident and cohesive.

The only recommendation I have as you continue to move forwards is to play with more boxes with shallower foreshortening, as those will actually come into play moreso than those with dramatic foreshortening. That is to say, play with the idea that your vanishing points are further away, so your parallel lines converge less.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

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

2017-12-03 23:02

You're doing quite well. In general, the drawings where you focused primarily on construction were more successful than those where you pushed more into the realm of detail and texture. You're doing alright on that front, but I do want you to always remember that construction is paramount. People often have a tendency to get caught up in knowing that they're going to move onto detail, so they'll put less attention towards their construction. Always treat your drawings the same, and consider detail/texture to be more of an after thought.

Another issue I noticed was in the very last page. Notice how you started out by laying in those two ellipses, but then ignored them for the rest of the drawing. In general, you don't want to be treating your phases of construction as being something you can easily ignore. Treat it as though you're adding solid masses of marble to a 3D world - if you want to change them after the fact, you need to cut and carve into them, which is a process where you're aware of how the resulting pieces (the piece you're cutting away, and the piece you're leaving behind) sit in 3D space. If you allow yourself to treat the forms you draw with less regard, then you will fail to fully convince yourself of their solidity, and in turn will fail to convince the viewer of that same thing.

Aside from that, really great work. A lot of your constructions are very solid and well put together - I especially like the fly and the scorpion. The weevil was also one of your more successful detailed ones.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-12-02 21:35

Congrats on completing the challenge. Your understanding of 3D space definitely improves over the set. I do have a couple things to point out to you however:

• Are you applying the ghosting method to your linework? Where your lines tend to wobble, and your tendency to automatically correct your linework as you draw (leaving a lot of messiness) suggests that you're not. Remember that this method and all of its steps should be applied to every single mark you put down.

• In my critique for lesson 1, where I assigned this challenge as your next step, I stated "The bit about correction techniques near the beginning is also important, and should be applied upon the completion of each page of boxes." You don't seem to have followed this instruction at all. You should go back and read through the notes on the challenge page - specifically just above the blue video buttons, where I describe the technique that should be used to determine whether or not there are mistakes in your boxes' constructions.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Definitely be more mindful of following the instructions in the future, and be sure to go over them with the correction method. Better late than never.

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

2017-12-02 21:30

They're getting there, so I'm going to ask you to move on. You still need to practice the fuck out of these as warmups though, especially with aligning the curves/ellipses properly to the minor axis.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-12-02 20:43

Generally you're doing okay, but one thing stood out to me a lot. In a few of your pages, you're not drawing your forms in completion - you're leaving shapes open, and also at times not drawing through them (allowing them to stop where they are blocked by other forms). An example of this issue can be seen on this page.

Remember that we're not simply reproducing what we see - we need to understand how each component sits in 3D space. Currently the way you drew those components was more akin to focusing on what you see in the two dimensional reference image, and merely reproducing those in 2D, with no intermediary step to define the 3D understanding of the forms themselves.

Just like with the arrows from lesson 2, you want to understand where the shape begins, and how it moves through space as it reaches its other end.

Another issue is that on this page, take a look at your leaves. You flesh out the basic form of the leaves (albeit way too loosely - this is not a sketch, you need to aim for some degree of precision and cohesiveness, don't go leaving so many gaps between your lines). But once you do that, you kind of ignore it when you move onto your next phase of construction. At best you use it like a loose approximation of your leaf, but then draw on top of it without adhering to its structure.

The point of this process is to build up your construction - each phase is built upon the last such that the previous one is a scaffolding. If you think of it like constructing a building, you can only deviate so far from your scaffolding, otherwise your structure will fall apart. You can however use one level of scaffolding to build more scaffolding, and so on until you can achieve a more complex construction that still retains its initial solidity.

I'd like you to do four more pages of plants while keeping these points in mind.

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

2017-12-02 20:19

Overall looking very good. Your lines are smooth and confident, and your ellipses maintain a clean, even shape. You're not showing signs of hesitation upon executing your marks, so you're avoiding the sort of wobbling that happens if you worry too much about maintaining accuracy as you draw.

I do have a few things to mention in regards to your boxes though:

• For the rough perspective boxes, just be sure to go over your completed work as described here

• You didn't draw through your forms on your first rotated boxes attempt, so I'm glad to see that you corrected this on your second try. The one recommendation I have there is to try and keep the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent - this allows you to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines and generally keeps things more structured, keeping you from guessing more than you have to.

• You had a good attempt with the organic perspective boxes. The point here is not to do perfect work, but rather to get students to think about 3D space in a different way. It's expected to be a struggle at this point.

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 all of the noteso n the challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Also, the correction techniques mentioned just above the blue video links should be applied upon the completion of each page of boxes, so you can learn from your mistakes.