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

2017-10-17 02:33

It's important to follow my instructions in the order they're given. I pointed you to the 250 box challenge because it was meant to prepare you better for the form intersections, and generally improve your grasp of 3D space.

Anyway, your arrows are pretty well done. They look quite dynamic. Your organic forms with contour lines are alright, although they do feel somewhat rushed and sloppy. The grasp of the goal is certainly there, but the forms are sometimes uneven, and the contour lines are a little all over the place. Definitely something you need to work on.

Your dissections' textures are moving in the right direction, though do need to be pushed farther in terms of how carefully you observe. Right now you're observing more than a beginner might, but there are signs that you are filling in some gaps by relying on memory, rather than looking back to your reference often enough. So, things like how various visual elements are distributed across a surface are not always handled as well as they could be (for example, the strawberry's seeds). Your second page definitely is better though, and more complex. On that page, watch how the speaker net wraps around the form along the edges - as the surface turns away, surface detail tends to get compressed. Also, for your reflective metal, your approach resulted in a lot of tiny pockets of white/black, resulting in a very distracting, noisy texture. This is the kind of unintentional use of contrast you should avoid, and you can do so by committing more to solid blacks where possible.

It'd be a good idea to read through the notes over at the 25 texture challenge.

So for the form intersections, as I mentioned, you would have benefited considerably from doing the 250 box challenge as instructed. I'm glad you're drawing through your boxes though, that does definitely help. Your linework is still somewhat sloppy though - definitely need to put more effort into applying the ghosting method. I can see some traces that you have been applying it, but your lines have a tendency to arc here and there, which weakens your forms. Your cylinders' ellipses are not particularly well aligned, and while you used the minor axis in the cone on the first page, the minor axis doesn't cut through the ellipse at all, and doesn't help much. Give the notes on the 250 cylinder challenge a read.

Your organic intersections are demonstrating some of the same kind of sloppiness I mentioned for the organic forms with contour lines. In addition to that though, your forms don't feel grounded on each other - that one across the top is effectively floating there, and there's no sense that any of the others are actually wrapping and sagging around the one underneath them. As mentioned in the instructions, you need to really think about how these forms interact with each other in 3D space, rather than piling them on as though your drawing is two dimensional. It does take time (and again, the 250 box challenge helps develop one's mental model of 3D space), but one of the most important steps one can take is to work towards believing in the illusion they are trying to create. Right now I don't get the impression from the organic intersections specifically that you believe these are forms that exist in a 3D world. What I'm seeing suggests they're still just flat shapes on a flat page.

So, first finish the 250 box challenge. Then I want:

• Two pages of organic forms with contour curves. Focus on building up the illusion of volume, and take your time. You want to make them feel like balloons - if your lines are poorly planned and executed, they won't feel cohesive enough to build any such illusion.

• Two pages of form intersections. Going through the 250 box challenge should help here, as will applying the correction techniques mentioned there.

• Two more pages of organic intersections.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-10-17 01:52

Sorry about the delay! Looks like your submission got caught in the spam filter. I think it is particularly sensitive to link shortners like goo.gl and whatnot.

Anyway, overall great work! The cylinders you drew purely around their minor axes came out very nicely. Solid forms, confident ellipses. Those constructed within boxes do need more work though, so I'd recommend pushing some of your focus in that direction. I think there are two primary issues. The boxes themselves aren't necessarily the strongest, but more importantly, I think when you construct inside the boxes, you get confused as to how the minor axis should be bisecting your ellipses. Remember that the minor axis cuts through the narrower side of the ellipse. In many cases this seems to get kind of muddy, and the alignment kind of gets lost.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "I gave in. We now have an official Discord server."

2017-10-15 21:30

This discord is actually the one started by /u/Jaspii, from a little under two weeks ago. As you well know, I wasn't terribly supportive of the idea, but I did end up going in there to see how it was going, and how it was being run, and I liked what I saw.

I agree with you that reddit is very good at a specific manner of receiving very helpful feedback for your work. The discord isn't at all meant for full homework submissions (the moderators and I discussed this initially), as it's not a very good platform for long, detailed critiques. It's also not where I'd ever consider doing my own patreon critiques - not to mention the fact that I'd go crazy trying to keep track of all the submissions.

What discord has been good for however is a lot of the little questions. We get a bunch of them here - is it okay if I use my shoulder, should I hold my hand over the desk without touching, can I use pencil, etc. There's also a lot of little questions that pertain to individual lessons. Am I doing this right, is it okay if I do this instead, is this against the spirit of the exercise, and so on.

Now I honestly don't like seeing those tiny questions posed here - they clutter up the subreddit and take attention away from the people who've submitted hours and hours worth of work, hoping for some useful critique in return. But seeing them in the discord just makes sense. They're able to have a more immediate conversation, receive clarification if questions aren't entirely clear, and generally make great use of the platform. At the end of the day, the answer may be to just push on through and try even though something is hard. But there's also often much more that can be offered as an answer.

But it's not just that. The discord isn't just a place to ask questions, but it's also there to give a sense of community. This is the part that I didn't expect to see, but in retrospect I was silly not to think of it. These lessons are hard, and it's important to know you're not the only one going through particular troubles, and that you're not going through them alone. Even for the people who primarily stock to the general channel, where people talk about all kinds of things, both box-related and not, there is a strong sense of community which is in my opinion, highly motivating.

In a way, it's one of the reasons I prefer taking classes in person to taking them online. Obviously a discord isn't the same, but it is much closer than the sort of isolation we get when interacting only through reddit.

Every platform serves its own purpose, and so I'm really pleased with how the discord has turned out so far. And with well over a hundred users online throughout the day, I think most other people are as well.

Uncomfortable in the post "I gave in. We now have an official Discord server."

2017-10-15 13:08

It should be set to never expire. I checked the invite's status and it says it's still active.. Are you sure it's expired?

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-15 03:41

Okay, so you have given a great deal to work with here, which is good. But there are still a lot of points you're missing. Take a look at these notes.

The first thing that I noticed is that you're drawing quite small. You've got these large pages, and you're taking up a few inches in the center. Beginners will often draw smaller as a side effect of a lack of confidence, but it generally results in more mistakes, and certainly more stiffness in one's linework. It's particularly bad with your ellipses.

Next, waaay too many contour ellipses. When I see this from students, it almost always means that they don't really understand what the purpose of those contour ellipses is, but rather throw them everywhere in order to compensate. A contour ellipse is there to help describe to how the surface of the form itself turns in space. Since the contour line sits on the surface of that object, we can see how the surface moves and turns based on how the line does.

Including one or two contour curves along the length of a pretty long form is still enough, if not more than enough. So including a dozen is way overkill, and will do more bad than good, as it can stiffen out your form and make it look more man-made.

Next, always remember to draw through your forms. If two simple forms combine in some way, you never want to hide one form under the other - drawing both in their entirety will help you better understand how they intersect. This will in turn help you better grasp how all of this sits in 3D space, and in turn will make YOU buy into the illusion that they're 3D. The most important thing is that you yourself are convinced of this lie.

That pumpkin is definitely not great - you've got to make sure that when you establish a simple form in space, that you feel confident that it's three dimensional. In this particular case, defining the 'pole' of a simple ball (the little circle you'll see sitting on the top of my notes there, where you've got a contour line sitting on the form's surface that is a full ellipse) can help you understand the form better as it sits in 3D space. In your pumpkin, that 'pole' was basically right at the top, and this makes it seem like we're looking at the pumpkin from the side, kind of flattening it out. Your contour curves also do not wrap around the form at all, so you should definitely look back at lesson 2's section on that point.

I also definitely hope you're still doing the exercises from lessons 1 and 2 regularly as part of a warmup routine, spending 10-15 minutes on 2-3 exercises at the beginning of each sitting. Based on what I see here, you're definitely getting rusty with those exercises, rather than steadily improving with them, which suggests that you've left them behind.

When you're working with any leaves or petals, it's extremely important that you apply the leaf construction method, starting with defining your directional line of flow and working from there.

When it comes to the texture you showed on the bottom right of my page of notes, you definitely relied far too much on your vague memory and not enough on direct observation. You seem to have noticed the spots, and then decided to draw a bunch of spots. Instead, you need to draw specific spots, arranged in ways that you see in your reference. Working from memory leads to problems, because our memories are inherently faulty - so we have to get in the habit of looking almost constantly at our reference image, taking only momentary breaks to look away and draw particular marks that we saw in the reference. Then we go back to observing.

Of course, texture is not a big deal at this stage - we want to focus entirely on form and construction. That said, if you want to read more about texture, check out the notes on the texture challenge page, where I go over matters of observation in greater detail.

Lastly, when constructing anything cylindrical (like your flower pots), do so around a minor axis to keep your ellipses aligned and consistent.

Keep what I've mentioned here in mind, and try the work for this lesson a third time. Remember to complete everything listed in the homework section - I don't believe you tackled the page of branches this time, unless the two pages containing one branch each was supposed to be it, in which case you need to be filling in your pages more.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-15 02:35

I know you've got a lot of self criticism, but overall you're demonstrating a solid grasp of the main thing I'm looking for - construction. I do have a few things to recommend though:

• In the branches exercise, we go over the approach of drawing a longer, more complex line in segments in a way that causes the lines to flow together naturally (rather than looking separated and chicken-scratchy). You did struggle somewhat with this (you've got to make sure your line segment overshoots the next ellipse and keeps going towards the third ellipse). But anyway, you do manage to get this in numerous places. What's important is to note that you can use this technique wherever lines end up being too complex to hit in a single stroke without ending up stiff and awkward. For example, the darker more visible lines on this page would have benefitted from the approach. Admittedly, you should avoid situations where you lightly sketch your linework and then completely replace it afterwards with a darker stroke. You want to be in the habit of accepting that the first lines you put down are part of your final drawing, and that afterwards you may accentuate parts of existing lines with additional weight - but never outright replace them.

• Always remember that you go from simple to complex. If you take a look at the top left leaf on this page, you'll notice that there are definitely some complexities to its shape that should probably not have been considered when initially blocking it in. As a rule, always start with your basic directional line, then establish two continuously flowing edges that enclose it. From there you can build up and break down whatever additional shape detail is necessary, as you'll already have determined the leaf's flow through space.

• A minor thing - on this page, your flower pot continues down with two parallel lines that stop, with the form left open. Always cap off your forms, even if the actual object extends further. Leaving them open ended tends to flatten things out, while capping them off reinforces the illusion of form.

Keep those three points in mind as you continue to move forwards. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2017-10-14 23:41

Overall, great work. You clearly have a strong understanding of 3D space, the relationships between your forms are solid, and you know exactly what you're doing.

My only concern is that your linework, at least in parks (especially the legs) tends to be more timid than it should be. We can see places where your forms are not drawn to completion, but rather made up of a few strokes, with the rest left implied. That's not a bad thing when it comes to actually producing finished drawing, but keep in mind that these drawings are just exercises to improve your understanding of form and space.

I'm not eager to have someone change their approach when they're already demonstrating a good understanding of what some of our goals are - so I'm going to leave the decision of how to go about it all up to you. I'll likely mention the matter in the same way in the future (regardless of what you choose), but I'll let you know if it becomes an issue that needs to be dealt with, or another one of those if-you-want-to deals.

Anyway, your drawings look great. Keep up the fantastic work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-10-14 23:25

I definitely think you were successful to varying degrees. Your constructions do end up feeling quite sturdy and solid, so that's definitely a big plus. You may have overdone it at times with the contour curves - this usually results in more stiffness to your forms, but I wouldn't say that's necessarily the case with these drawings. I think this is in large part because of the confidence with which you applied them. That said, always keep in mind the purpose of any given tool or technique you're looking to apply - with contour curves, one or two will generally do the trick to reinforce the sense of volume of a form, so adding more on top of that isn't generally necessary.

I think you did a pretty good job with your heads as well, which is generally a point of struggle for most people. You demonstrate more awareness of the forms involved, and seem to grasp how they sit in space in relation to one another.

There's one thing I want to suggest, and it's to do with your legs. What you want to avoid is building your legs out of balls, stretched or otherwise. For example, if you look at this elephant, or this travesty, you'll notice that the legs are basically built up from ovals. This results in a sort of michelin-man sense where you've got regular pinches and inflation. Instead it's better to use something with more direction to it, where if the edge balloons out on one side, the opposite edge tucks in to compensate.

This bobcat/lynx is a good example. Notice how there's a clear sense of flow to the back legs? The forms are directional. Those back legs in particular are very well done for other reasons too - like the fact that you focused your caps/contour lines at the joints, leaving the lengths of each section relatively clear. That's definitely the way to go about it.

As I mentioned before, there certainly is plenty of room for improvement - I think your hybrids could use some work, and they're a gauge for how well your construction is coming together, as it forces you to move away from being able to rely on your reference images. That said, I believe you're not at all far off.

Keep practicing your animals, but I think you'll also benefit from moving onto the next lesson, where you can tackle much less forgiving constructions, as hard-surface, geometric objects tend to be quite challenging in a way that helps formalize your grasp of material from previous lessons.

Uncomfortable in the post "I gave in. We now have an official Discord server."

2017-10-14 23:04

): i am weak.

Uncomfortable in the post "I gave in. We now have an official Discord server."

2017-10-14 23:04

With the lack of cues on how to interpret that statement, I'm going to imagine that what you said is more like the kool-aid man crashing through a brick wall. OH YEAH.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-14 22:54

I definitely think you've shown some marked improvement from the beginning to the end of this set. It took some iteration to be sure, but you definitely stuck with it and now your leaves do push into the third dimension - though there's plenty of room for improvement on that front. I think this page especially serves as a good example of the concepts you've grown to grasp, so you're definitely heading in the right direction.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I think you'll benefit much more from tackling this matter from a fresh perspective (with the subject matter in the following lesson), and you've shown that you should be ready to tackle it anyhow. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Twitch Streamers Doing Drawabox"

2017-10-14 21:54

Hahaha. Well, let me know if you end up making some videos. I'm going to be replacing the FAQ sticky with one that lists community resources (like the faq, active twitch streamers and youtube channels who do drawabox and the discord server). I'd be happy to include you, when you've got some drawabox content.

Uncomfortable in the post "I gave in. We now have an official Discord server."

2017-10-14 21:49

The way you phrased that post makes it feel like I offered you money to do so :P

But I'm glad you're liking the discord server!

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-10-14 01:15

Very nice work! Your confidence and general construction improves considerably over the set, and your end results come out looking very solid. It's great that you were applying the line-extension method earlier on, though it would have been beneficial to apply it all throughout. I find it's best to finish a page, then go over it with that approach and mark in your corrections. Maybe one page a sitting or something like that. Ultimately as you improve, the mistakes you make tend to become more subtle and less noticeable - they're still there though, so this approach is important to continue improving in those smaller ways.

Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete!

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

2017-10-13 02:28

The first two points aren't important. It's extremely easy to get caught up in the specifics of a given drawing, and a lot of students tend to get overly concerned with how faithfully they're reproduced their subject. Ultimately, that's not what this course is about, so when I critique work, I'm looking for other queues that suggest that you're grasping the material.

Most importantly, it's the plausibility of your constructions. Yes, you may accidentally make a form look flatter (that is, as if it'd been squished down) than it does in your source, but take away the reference image and there's not much sign that it's incorrect. The bigger problem would be if the form itself was flat (as in no longer looking three dimensional, but rather just another shape on the page).

So, while observation is important (as it influences your use of proportion, and the precision with which you match your reference), these lessons are about constructing things that feel real. The skill being trained ties in more with being able to then go on to create something new that feels like it could be real - be it from multiple reference images, or off the top of your head. You are currently showing that you're barreling down that path at great speed.

Other artists however who focus purely on observation may be able to perfectly match the proportions and features of a given photograph in high detail will fall apart when asked to draw the same creature from a different angle, or in a different pose. While at this point you may struggle with that still, you will manage far better.

That's why the next lesson ends off with hybrids of animals, where students are unable to rely entirely on reproducing a single image. So, yes - you're doing perfectly fine.

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

2017-10-13 01:31

You've got some great stuff here. Overall your constructions are really solid. I especially liked the whip scorpion, the tick, the scorpion fly, the pillbug and the male stag beetles. Usually I keep that list to two or three things, but I kept flipping through your drawings and found more and more that I liked. Your use of texture was also well done - fairly sparse and light, enough to communicate the surface quality in most cases, but not nearly enough to distract the viewer and compete with or undermine the form and construction.

While there certainly were some that were weaker, you're demonstrating that you've clearly learned from the blunders and circumvented them in your follow up attempts. Over all you've shown a considerable improvement in your confidence and general execution of form over this set.

Sadly, I don't have a whole lot of negative to offer. Every point I think to raise, I see you having conquered it in a later drawing. What I can offer though is that for this photo, I'd recommend treating the forms of the abdomen and thorax as two separate forms each - one for the inner section, and another for the shell that wraps around it.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-10-12 23:59

Oh crap, sorry for missing this! My backlog failed me for once - I think I was critiquing a crapload that day, and I must have thought I'd critiqued yours and marked it completed.

Anyway, your work is looking great! You're clearly very patient, with every stroke being prepared for, thought out, and confidently executed. Your use of line weight is also well done, for the most part. Lastly, with all of your careful correction, I can see considerable improvement over the set. You started out with a good sense for how to make your forms feel solid, but over the course of the challenge, you definitely made big strides towards improving the alignment of your lines.

Anyway, consider this challenge complete and keep up the great work!

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

2017-10-12 01:02

Definitely better. I'll go ahead and mark the lesson as complete, though be sure to continue practicing these in your warmups.

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

2017-10-11 22:10

I'm not sure you necessarily understood what I meant by the overshooting technique. Your organic forms with contour curves also aren't quite there. Take a look at this. The far right is what you should be aiming for right now. The center is the ultimate goal, but don't worry about that right now. The left is what you're currently doing.

Also, I noticed that some of your forms tend to be a little more complex - they've got wavy edges and irregular bulges and the like. For now, stick to absolutely simple sausage forms, as these are the easiest to give the illusion of volume and form. You'll find in later lessons that we always start our constructions out with the simplest possible components, because they can maintain a sense of solidity far easier than anything more complex - and then we build up from there.

Your extra pages of arrows are coming along well.

Try another two pages of organic forms with contour curves.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-10-11 21:54

Nice work - I definitely see a considerable improvement in your confidence and the execution of your linework between the first page and the last. I do have a couple recommendations to make however:

• When doing this kind of exercise in the future, try not to have any overlaps between your boxes. The reason for this is that in doing so, you're adding an extra dimension of complexity to the exercise, which in turn could potentially distract you from its main goal. Keeping each box a little more isolated from interacting with its neighbours (just spacing them out on the page, no need to quarantine them with their own frames) allows you to focus on its construction in a vacuum.

• I also noticed that when you had your forms overlap, you did not draw the sections of a given box where it would be occluded by its neighbour. In general when doing these lessons, it's a very good idea to draw through your forms whenever possible - this includes drawing each form in its entirety even when it's blocked by its neighbours. This helps you keep in mind that the form is three dimensional, and not just a flat drawing on a flat page.

• Correcting with red pen after drawing them is perfectly fine, and moreover it's encouraged in the instructions. We use a different colour to help distinguish the correction phase from the drawing phase, so there's little risk of building up any sort of habits involving reflexive correction. I do however recommend that you apply the line extension method to your corrections as well - this is described on the challenge page notes, and I'll paste it below as well. It helps to better grasp where your lines are off, especially if it's not entirely clear to your eyes. We often run into these less-obvious mistakes when we improve past making the more obvious ones.

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.

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"

2017-10-11 21:46

Very nice work! You're presenting a great body of work, and demonstrating a pretty well developing grasp of the constructional method. I don't see any major areas where you've jumped into forms that are too complex too early, so in general things tend to feel quite solid. For the most part, you also balanced your textures well so as to keep from undermining your underlying constructions.

On the topic of texture, I do think I preferred the ones where you were a little lighter with it - for example, this coconut crab had a fairly sparse application of texture, but it fit well and helped convey the surface quality of its carapace as well as any other.

I really did like this wasp drawing, but for its abdomen, I definitely would recommend having put down a couple contour curves or ellipses along its length, to help give you reference for the actual layered features that are there. Basically, since none of those segments wrap all the way around the form, but rather are a little offset from each other, I think the layers extending towards the back ended up feeling a little off. Having drawn a couple of underlying contour lines would have helped you maintain their curvature.

I'd also recommend a few contour lines to help reinforce the praying mantis' core, as they tend to be the sort of forms don't hold their volume as easily as others.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Keep up the great work - there's definitely room for improvement, and that will happen with continued practice, but you're absolutely heading in the right direction. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-10-11 21:37

Looking good! Overall your use of the techniques is coming along great, and you've got quite a few solid constructions here. For example, the staplers definitely stand out, as do the mouse and speakers.

I do believe there are some places where the initial box didn't come out too well, and that kind of hamstrung you for the rest of the drawing - but I'm glad you pushed on through instead of scrapping them and starting anew. It's important to be able to roll with the punches, and accept these things as exercises, rather than being too focused on perfection.

For the desk lamp, I'd recommend trying to establish a stronger relationship between the two boxes (the base and the head piece) - likely by starting the whole thing in a larger enclosing box. This would ultimately help you keep things aligned. Right now it's not bad, but it does feel slightly skewed.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one, but be sure to keep up with your box and cylinder practice.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-10-11 13:43

Wellll I can't (that'd be a pretty nice feature), but I've added your submission to my backlog anyhow. I'll critique it later today when I get back from work. Thanks for catching the threads being locked though, I've added new threads for those lessons.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2017-10-11 13:41

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

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

2017-10-11 13:39

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-11 03:14

Looking good! The flow of your leaves is coming along nicely. I agree that 5 came out pretty well - flattening things out in this particular case isn't actually a big worry, because the forms themselves are flat. It's just that they're flat shapes that flow through 3D space, so as long as you capture that sense of fluidity, you're golden. That's why the constructional process focuses first on establishing that directional line to summarize its flow.

Overall you're demonstrating a solid grasp of construction in regards to this topic. The very last page is definitely kind of weird (it's unclear how those leaves connect to the stem, and in general it's quite rigid and stiff) but the rest of the pages are well done.

So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one, where you'll encounter more constructional challenges, but from a slightly different angle with a different subject matter.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-11 01:24

Pretty solid work! Just a few things to keep in mind:

• Good idea to draw through your boxes in these constructions. So for example, the pots in this page.

• You've got a maple leaf there that you jumped into with too complex a shape. Always start as simple as possible - in this case, build up the individual sections using the regular leaf construction method, focusing on the flow of those initial lines to drive the flow of each section individually.

• Also for your leaves, they're generally okay but they are somewhat restricted to the two dimensions of your page and don't explore the third dimension too much. Try and think about how they flow from a point farther away from you, to a point that's closer.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-11 00:27

Very nicely done! You've got a great body of work, and you're demonstrating a lot of flowing leaves that explore all three dimensions of space, and an assortment of different kinds of solid constructions. My only concern as it stands right now is that you should try and draw a little bigger. You're not running into any problems at the size you're working at, but in general you do risk ending up with stiffer results when you draw smaller. Better to be safe than sorry in this case, and giving ones self more freedom with space helps to better explore the forms themselves.

One other thing! You posted under the wrong account again! I'm going to continue attributing the lesson completion flair to -PixelManiac-, but in the future you've got to stick to the same account. I track both eligibility for critiques and lesson progress using flairs, so jumping around makes it more difficult to do so.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-11 00:16

So what stands out to me the most right now is that your lines are very stiff. There's no real fluidity to your strokes, nor is there any subtlety to your marks. You're probably drawing your strokes quite slowly and carefully, rather than with any degree of confidence. It's an issue I raise frequently in ever lesson up until this point, but you haven't quite worked past that mental block that lets you loosen up.

Additionally, your leaves seem to be restricted to moving across the two dimensions of the page, rather than moving through 3D space. I actually raised this issue initially with your arrows - although looking back through my critiques, I realized that I totally forgot to include a link to some of the notes I had made on some of your lesson 2 work. I dug up the page I was supposed to link to: https://i.imgur.com/Yfr9JEO.png

The part there towards the bottom is still relevant - about figuring out which side is coming from farther away, and which side is closer.

Overall, I think there's a lot here that suggests you're not really reading through the material as carefully as you should. You need to be drawing through your ellipses, drawing through your forms, starting everything as simply as possible, and so on. I'm not sure if you read through the article on constructional drawing, either.

So, here are some notes on one of your current drawings. I'd like you to take another stab at the lesson. Oh, and here are some other notes on common pitfalls at this stage.

Uncomfortable in the post "Twitch Streamers Doing Drawabox"

2017-10-09 16:20

It's definitely something that is difficult to really grasp until you see someone else fumbling around and making mistakes themselves, but continuing to push on through.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-09 00:12

Very nice work! You're demonstrating a lot of solid understanding of the material here. Your leaves are drawn confidently with a strong sense of direction for their flow, and you're breaking them down properly into various steps to ensure that the details and textures don't distract you from the more fundamental levels of construction. Your branch exercises also demonstrate a very good understanding of solid form, and you carry that over into your plant drawings very nicely.

I think your experimentation at the end with allowing yourself to be bolder than you otherwise feel comfortable with really paid off. Often times jumping into that headfirst doesn't necessarily go that well, but it's still absolutely important to do so - and I'm glad that in this case, it did work out nicely.

I have just one teeny tiny recommendation for your work, and it's a bit nitpicky. On the pot at the base of this drawing, notice how it gets cut off at the bottom, with two parallel lines just kinda.. stopping? This will generally flatten out a form. Instead, what you want to do is cap it off (in this case, with another ellipse), even if the actual object doesn't end there. Just keep that in mind in the future.

Anyway, 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 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2017-10-09 00:05

Pretty nice work with your arrows. When doing these in the future though, it'd be worthwhile to try and think about which part of the arrow is farther away from you, and which part is closer. Thinking more about the depth of the scene in this way can help you push the development of your mental model of space. Right now many of your arrows tend to move across the two dimensions of your page, but not the third of the world you're drawing in.

For your organic forms with contour ellipses, you're generally doing okay though I do recommend that you give thes notes a read. They should help give a little more context to the degree of your ellipses.

For your organic forms with contour curves, for the most part you do need to work on getting your curves to wrap properly around the form. There was actually one where, aside from forgetting to include your minor axis line, you did great - it's the one at the top right of this page. For your others though, you need to have your contour line's curvature accelerate as it comes towards the edge of the form, so it gives the impression that it's hooking back around and continuing along the other side. Try applying the 'overshooting' method that I describe in these notes. Also, like I mentioned before - don't forget to include your minor axis line. Treat this exercise just like the contour ellipses, except that you're only drawing a portion of each ellipse. The alignment which your minor axis helps with is still important.

It's true that the dissections were clearly difficult for you, but that's totally normal. You can think of this particular exercise, at least this first attempt at it, as a sort of test to determine how you handle this particular kind of challenge. Textures are quite difficult, so there's no expectation for you to be able to nail them just yet. I do recommend however that you give the notes on the texture challenge a read, especially on the subject of drawing from careful observation. As it stands right now, you're definitely relying a bit too much on memory, which is why your textures tend to look oversimplified.

Also, keep in mind that your forms are rounded, so the textures themselves have to wrap around. This would make the texture compress along the sides, where the surface turns away from the viewer.

You're making good progress with your form intersections. There certainly is room for growth here, but generally you're heading in the right direction. The only thing I want to stress though is the importance of drawing through your boxes. You usually did, but there was the last two pages where you skipped over that step.

Lastly, your organic intersections are looking solid (aside from the contour curves not quite wrapping around properly).

So, I'd like you to do four more pages of organic forms with contour curves before I mark this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-10-08 23:35

You are definitely making some big strides forward, but one thing that I noticed is that texture and detail is drawing your attention away from where it needs to be. You're caught up in getting those details right, and as a result focus less on the underlying construction of the object. This is entirely understandable, because animals tend to have a lot of complex detail to them, but it's very important that you look beyond that and focus on the structure.

On a related note, I also noticed that your underlying construction was drawn with a noticeably fainter line - a sign that you were attempting to keep the construction lines hidden. When we actively go to such lengths to hide linework, it makes it difficult at best of times to also draw those marks with the kind of confidence we need right now to keep the lines smooth and the ellipses evenly shaped. Without that, our forms end up less solid and fail to maintain the illusion of being three dimensional. From there, the construction falls apart, and the details placed on top end up being, to exaggerate, something like makeup on a pig.

Construction is everything. Don't let yourself forget that.

So, I wrote out some notes for you along with some helpful tips about how to deal with legs and such. I'd like you to give the lesson another shot, but this time no detail and no texture. Just construction. Also try to draw a little bigger, I noticed some of your drawings seemed to be a little small (when compared to your handwriting). I mean, you may just write really big, but your forms had the kind of stiffness that suggests not giving yourself enough space.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-03 23:22

You're generally doing well, but there are a few things I want to point out.

Firstly, when you get to [this page](), which seems to be roughly where you move on from matching the demos to trying to draw from reference images, you have a tendency to jump into higher levels of detail too early. Construction is all about starting as simple as possible. The idea is that any detail we place on the page needs to be supported by the information that's already there. The absolute simplest kinds of things (basic forms, lines that follow a single, consistent trajectory, etc.) can exist on their own, but anything more than that requires some kind of scaffolding to hold it up without it feeling flat.

So, in terms of the actual steps for drawing one of those large palms, you'd approach it as mentioned here. Another issue on that page is that there are places where you've allowed shapes to stop where they are occluded by other elements. You should be in the habit of drawing through everything, as though you have x-ray vision. Don't get caught up in the cleanliness of the end result - while presentation is important, at the end of the day the exercise is about what you learn about how these forms sit in 3D space. Exploring each form in its entirety will allow you to grasp this. Focusing only on what you can see in your reference image will limit you to learning about how it sits in that two dimensional photograph.

The last thing I want to mention also deals with the leaves - for the most part, your leaves currently come out somewhat flat. This suggests to me that at the moment, you're still somewhat focused on how those leaves exist on the space defined by the page you're drawing on - that is, the two dimensional piece of paper. There isn't a lot of movement through the depth of the scene, so your leaves have a strong tendency to flatten out. I go into this a little further on these notes, so give them a read (specifically the top left, about the arrows, though the whole page is worth going over).

I'd like you to do two more pages of the leaves exercise (from the beginning), then four more pages of drawings from reference (preferably those with a lot of leaves). Aside from that, your use of branches, and your construction of cylindrical flower pots is coming along well. There's room for improvement, but you're heading in the right direction in that regard.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-10-02 23:31

Very nice work! You may feel you struggled, but you definitely made some considerable leaps between the beginning and the end.

While the hyenas and the lions had some good points, you really hit your stride as you hit the first set of ostriches. From there, your understanding of form and space came together quite well, and your drawings gained a sense of confidence that usually comes from a sense of knowing-what-you're-doing. And the results reflect the truth in that as well.

The hybrids are specifically intended to test just how much you actually understood and learned about construction, as they force you to manipulate those forms in 3D space, rather than just being able to reproduce the 2D images we use as reference. There certainly were some hits and misses in that section, but looking over your work as a whole, I think more of the trouble came from being a little daunted by the task itself, rather than not being capable to tackle it. It's important to take these things one step at a time, and to break them up into parts - decide how you want your different animals to be fused together (and don't go too crazy), then break them up into their individual forms and build them up as you would any other construction. I do think that with some additional practice, and maybe letting yourself warm up to the challenge a bit more, you'll be able to nail that area as well as you did the rest.

That aside, you did 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 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2017-10-01 20:20

You're generally demonstrating that you know what you're doing, but one area you seem to struggle with is focus. I know the exercises get boring, but it's extremely important that you not allow yourself to get distracted and go off the rails when completing these exercises, as it becomes rather easy to miss the core of what a given exercise is trying to teach you. Keep in mind this bit from lesson 1:

Approach these exercises with a blank mind. Do not rush. Demonstrate patience. Spend the hours required to give each exercise the attention it requires and deserves. Do each exercise as it is prescribed in the lesson. Often times I see people stray a little, trying to spice things up and make things more fun. While creativity is lovely, you risk missing some of the core concepts that each exercise has been designed to convey. Just be patient - it'll be over soon, and then you'll be able to get to the fun stuff.

It's really important.

With that (mostly) out of the way, you're doing fairly well. Your arrows do a great job of flowing through all three dimensions of space, instead of being restricted to the two dimensions of your page. You're also successfully using contour ellipses and contour curves to capture the volumes of your organic forms.

On the contour lines, there's a few things I wanted to mention:

• I noticed a trend where your contour lines tend to rest slightly outside of the form, rather than directly on the surface - definitely will want to work on this).

• You're also neglecting to draw your central minor axis lines when doing the contour curves. These should not be left out, as it's an important part of correctly aligning those curves.

• In general, making the organic forms complicated doesn't actually make this exercise more helpful, and can potentially become distracting. Sticking to simple sausages is probably best so you can focus on the process of drawing lines that rest along the surface of a given organic form.

Your dissections do have a few issues as well:

• First and foremost, remember that this exercise is meant to be done on a base identical to what one would draw for the organic forms with contour lines exercise. That is, draw that base as though you did not intend to add texture afterwards - don't try to hide the lines, or anything like that.

• In your older dissections, you certainly went pretty crazy with those textures - your direct observation of reference images did need some work (you can read about that in the texture challenge page's notes, but you definitely demonstrated an incredible degree of patience.

• Your first page of newer dissections left a lot to be desired. You did demonstrate greater control as far as keeping your details to the silhouette's edges, and so on, which is definitely good. You also seem to be focusing more on rendering (that is, light and shadow) than texture. Shading is not the goal here. You are meant to attempt to communicate the presence of different surface qualities. You'll find that in these lessons, there is an intentional neglect of dealing with matters of shading, primarily because unlike many other approaches to drawing, we ensure that form is captured in the line phase. This means that shading no longer becomes a necessity to convey the illusion of form, and instead becomes a tool we can use at our leisure to other ends. Shading for shading's sake is not something we do much of.

• This page is much closer to what we're after.

Your form intersections are alright. I'm going to staunchly ignore the page with all the shading, and focus on the other three. This page is fairly successful, though in it you do ignore the instruction to avoid stretched forms and stick to those that are more equilateral. This is because stretching your forms brings far too much foreshortening/perspective into the mix, which complicates an already difficult exercise. Also, on the topic of foreshortening, if you look at the central box, you'll notice that its foreshortening is a little dramatic, and suggests that the box's scale is somewhat inconsistent with the other forms around it. I discuss this a little bit in these notes from lesson 1.

The other two pages are noticeably sketchy and haphazard, especially this page where you've neglected to use the ghosting method in a lot of cases. Maybe your pen is dying, I'm not really sure, but there's a lot of chicken scratching going on. You're also drawing through your forms much less here.

Lastly, your organic intersections are fairly solid and do a good job of conveying how those forms sag on top of each other.

So, things to take away from this critique:

• Don't get distracted. Follow the instructions to the letter, don't add your own frills. You've clearly got a lot of creative energy and enthusiasm, so be sure to channel that into other drawings. Just not here.

• Don't be sketchy. Avoid using scribbly hatching lines, try to avoid adding additional rendering to your forms (cast shadows like in the organic intersections are totally fine, just avoid shading for shading's sake).

• Don't try to purposely draw lines faintly so they won't be visible in the final drawing. The final result does not matter. Each of these drawings is an exercise that is meant to teach you something. The same goes for the drawings in latter lessons - even though you're drawing insects, plants, animals, etc. each one is an exercise to teach you about form, 3D space, construction, etc. Purposely trying to hide your constructional linework will result in you putting focus and energy into something that is not what you're supposed to be learning.

Keep all of that in mind as you continue to move forwards. 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"

2017-10-01 19:40

Nice work! Your use of construction is, for the most part, coming along great. There's certainly room for growth, but you're heading in the right direction. I especially like how you handled things like the ladybug's open shell on the right side of this page - they feel distinctly three dimensional, and the contour curves were used to great effect in establishing their distortion through space.

This praying mantis is also quite well done, specifically its arms and legs. The thorax flattens out somewhat, but the rest feels quite solid. Despite having no contour curves, the arms still capture a good sense of form. This is ultimately what we're working towards - the point where the student is themselves convinced that what they are drawing is three dimensional, resulting in little imperceptible shifts in how they draw specific things that better capture the turning of form. It's hard to describe, but the fact that it's occurring here and there is a good sign. It'll still be necessary to keep working through your constructions step by step, but basically - just keep doing what you're doing, and your skills will continue to improve.

The one area you're not doing that great is texture/detail. An example of this is this page. There are a couple issues there. Firstly, you're scribbling those marks (very close to using hatching, which I advised you against in my last critique). You need to take the time to carefully observe your reference images to identify the kinds of specific marks and patterns that exist there, rather than being general and vague. Take a look at this image from the 'other demos' section for an example of different kinds of textures one might find on a beetle's shell.

The other issue is that right now you seem to be using texture (or in this case, scribbling/hatching) as a means to convey light and shadow. It's not uncommon for people to feel that 'shading' is important, because in a lot of methods of drawing they rely on it to convey the illusion of form. In our methodology, this is not the case - by the time we go beyond the constructional linework, we've already captured that illusion of form. Therefore light and shadow is no longer something we must achieve, but instead becomes a tool we can use to other ends.

What we actually want to do here is communicate the surface quality of our objects. Remember that our goal is ultimately 'visual communication' - we're not replicating our reference images, we're communicating with our drawings what is communicated in the image. One of those aspects is, as I mentioned, the texture of those surfaces.

The texture itself is made up of yet more forms, but they're very small, and follow the surface they sit upon. The marks we actually put down to suggest their presence are the shadows they cast - this means that these marks are not necessarily lines, but rather shadow shapes that can merge together when necessary to create large swathes of black. You haven't been afraid to do that at all, which is great - but when we have large shadow shapes, what we end up relying on to communicate is the edges of those large shapes. These have to be designed, and must be the result of specific choices and decisions. This is why scribbling won't be enough.

On another note, while much of your construction is coming along great, there are some areas where you get a little sloppy. For instance, in your scorpion, the thorax/abdomen and especially the layering of those plates along its back is excellent, but you definitely skip some steps with its pincers.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-09-30 16:18

That is certainly fine, and encouraged.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-09-30 02:53

What you've struggled with here - finding the motivation and the patience to carry on - is definitely something everyone faces, and the way we start out these drawabox lessons definitely brings that to a whole new level. It's not something I hide. The exercises, especially at the beginning, can be as boring as all hell. They're repetitive and uninspired at their very core.

This aspect of it is a lesson in and of itself, and it's a tough one to conquer. Being forced to do things that are boring, that aren't interesting, and that are repetitive and despite all that, to give them your full attention and your full focus, is a skill one develops over time, and is a skill that pays itself back several times over.

A big part of this is learning to focus on what you're working on at a given moment, and not to look ahead. Doing so leads to distraction, and we cannot do our best when we are distracted. Whether you're assigned ten boxes, twenty, a hundred or five hundred - what matters at a given moment is the box you are drawing right then. Again, that's a mindset that takes time to develop, but it is a necessary goal to move towards. Giving you 150 instead of 250 in order to cater to that distraction would not solve the problem, but rather encourage it.

Instead, when given a body of work that seems excessive, you can conquer it by simply spreading it out. You submitted your lesson 1 work about four or five days ago. Let's say it was five, and that you chopped away at the challenge every day. That makes for 50 boxes per day.

The first thing that comes to mind is that there is no deadline - you're welcome to spend as many days as you wish, though it is of course recommended that you work fairly regularly. Let's say you took ten days instead of five - you're down to 25 boxes a day, a much more manageable number. When not drawing boxes, you might draw other things, letting the exercises take up only a portion of however much time you've given yourself for drawing in a given day. Drawing things that make you happy is definitely an important part of keeping yourself from burning out.

Alternatively, even splitting your boxes into multiple sittings throughout the day (what about two sittings, 25 boxes per sitting, over five days?) can break up the monotony. Ultimately, this is about being faced with a challenge and conquering it within its stipulated terms. You cannot negotiate your obstacles away, but there are other things you can change.

Drawabox is a lot of work. That's pretty much what you signed up for, so expect more of that ahead. Don't, however, go forward thinking that you need to get it out of the way - the point is not finishing the lessons and reaching the finish line, because you're running laps around a circular track. Recently someone asked me what they should do after completing 7. My honest answer was that it wouldn't be a bad use of their time to go back to lesson 1 and revisit all of it. I have a student who's currently doing just that (well, they completed lesson 5, then decided to go back and start over), and they're doing vastly better now with this material than they had been previously.

The repetition, and the iteration is key. Each exercise is not about drawing something that looks pretty, but rather about what the exercise itself teaches you about controlling your arm, about understanding 3D space, and about constructing complex objects from simple forms. This is inevitably going to arise from doing it a lot, and it's for that reason that I always remind my students that having a lesson marked as complete does not mean you're done. That you should expect to continue practicing these exercises for a long time to come.

Anyway, onto your boxes - congratulations on completing all 250. That is certainly a big feat. Some of your boxes are better than others, perhaps where you were able to focus more, but others do show signs of distraction. There's several strewn about where you haven't drawn through the forms (though I'm glad that you did it for most).

I'm pleased to see that you tried to apply the extending-lines method for identifying mistakes, though there's two things I'd like to recommend on that front. Firstly, it's best to apply that method to all of your boxes. A good pattern to get into is to fill a page each sitting, then upon completion of that page, go back over it to mark in your corrections and identify your mistakes. I wouldn't say any of your pages are really full (technically doesn't matter to me, but it tends to be far more motivating to have a page filled to the brim at the end of a sitting rather than several pages with large open spaces and gaps - it's remarkable the impact a filled page can have on your psyche). Avoid scratching out your mistakes as well - if something goes wrong with a box, it doesn't matter, just keep trucking forward with it and complete it anyway.

The other point about the extension method I wanted to make is that the point is to extend those lines as they move further away from the viewer, rather than closer. I think there's a lot of cases here where you did the opposite, and tracked their behaviour as they move closer to the viewer and diverge. You really want to note their behaviour as they move towards their implied vanishing point, as it's their convergence that can tell you where things have gone wrong.

Lastly, I'd recommend filling one of the near-facing planes with some tight hatching lines to help give a visual cue as to which side is facing us. Drawing through your boxes, as good as it is in terms of helping us to better understand 3D space, can lead to an unfortunate illusion where we can perceive the box in a few different ways.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. There is certainly room to grow here, but you're moving in the right direction. Oh, on the topic of motivation, it may not be entirely related to the particular troubles you were facing, but this short bit on the topic is worth reading.

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

2017-09-28 03:28

Very nice work across the board. Your arrows do a great job of flowing through all three dimensions of space. Your organic forms with contour lines establish fantastic, and solid volumes. Your dissections explore a wide variety of textures, and you avoid any sort of one-size-fits all approaches, taking the time to tailor each texture to the effect you're attempting to reproduce.

Your form intersections are generally well done, though I do want to discourage you from using underdrawings as you've done here. I believe I mention it in the instructions - don't get caught up in trying to hide your lines, and don't worry about the permanence of mistakes made in ink. Both of these things will impact the confidence with which you draw, and that is one of the main things we're attempting to develop and train. Your grasp of 3D space is clearly solid, as demonstrated here, so you need to trust in that and draw each mark confidently as you have done with all your other exercises. If you make a mistake, that's fine. It's not the end of the world.

Also, I noticed that for many of your forms, you drew through them (which is fantastic), but there were others where you neglected to do so. Remember that these exercises (both in this lesson, and those in future lessons, even when drawing actual objects) are all about developing one's understanding of 3D space. The end result doesn't matter - we're not here to draw pretty things. We naturally are going to have a desire to make things look nice, and when we're starting out, we may have the sense that all of that extra linework takes away from that - but it's entirely necessary, and a part of what makes the exercise valuable. Anyway, eventually you'll start to realize that this approach to drawing has its own visual appeal, especially as it exhibits the confidence of the artist.

Lastly, your organic intersections are great, and show a good sense of how these forms sag under their own weight when they are not supported by their neighbours.

Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2017-09-28 03:21

I can certainly say with confidence that you've made a massive leap forward compared to the last time you attempted this exercise. Your understanding of construction is vastly better, and while in a few places there are some proportional mishaps (although they're not that major - and being an observational issue, it'll get better with practice as long as you focus on it), the majority of your drawings here feel plausible due to the focus on form and building up the illusion of solidity. Your linework in general also appears to be considerably better controlled, with a lot more subtlety to it.

As you move into the next lesson, you'll find yourself drawing more fur. In the notes there I touch on ways to tackle it that certainly could have applied here - specifically, drawing individual tufts rather than straight lines coming off your surfaces perpendicularly. When you get into that, remember that each line should be drawn individually, the subject of its own planning and intent. The odd perpendicular line like that can be useful to draw one's attention (because it tends to call for it quite strongly), but if overused it'll become distracting.

Anyway, keep up the great work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2017-09-26 21:49

Pretty nice work, though I do have a few things to suggest. Before that though, both scanner and camera are fine, but regardless of what you use, please don't combine them into one massive image. There are times where I want to refer to specific pages or drawings, and not being able to link directly is a bit bothersome.

Anyway, here are some things I noticed that are worth mentioning:

• Your arrows are looking good, flowing nicely through all three dimensions of space (rather than just being limited to the two dimensions of your page)

• For your organic forms with contour curves, you're generally doing well but you do need to continue practicing maintaining the ellipse-like curvature of those curves. Remember that they're just like the ellipses, except only a portion of them is visible. More practice will help you solidify your grasp of that. Also, in several cases you do seem to be getting a little sloppy with those, so remember to take your time with each one, applying the ghosting method to prepare beforehand and then drawing each stroke confidently.

• Your dissections have a few issues, but the biggest one that I noticed is that you're not covering all of your surfaces. There are plenty of area that you haven't bothered applying any texture. Remember that you're doing these exercises for your own benefit, so leaving them half done like that is against your own interest. Additionally, take care to spend more time observing your reference images, and make a habit of continually looking back to them. Otherwise you'll end up working from memory, drawing what you think you remember seeing, which is never accurate. I explain this further in the notes on the 25 texture challenge.

• Your form intersections are generally fine, though it's best to do this exercise as a single system of many different forms together filling the page, rather than several smaller ones of a few. I think I mentioned this in the exercise notes. Also, remember that the exercise is about drawing forms that feel consistent together within the same space. The focus is not on the intersections themselves, as those are generally a fairly advanced topic.

• Your organic intersections were well done.

I think you should be okay to move onto the next lesson, but make sure you continue working on these exercises as part of a warmup routine, along with the exercises from lesson 1.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-09-26 20:50

Congrats on completing the challenge. I do have a few observations to point out that should help you moving forwards:

• Be sure to continue working on your use of the ghosting method. Right now I do sense a hint of stiffness in your linework, which suggests to me that you may be executing your marks a little slowly, rather than doing so confidently with a persistent pace. The steps of the ghosting method are important, as by investing your time in the preparation stages instead, you can maintain a reasonable degree of accuracy while continuing to execute your marks with confidence.

• I'm glad to see that you did apply corrections in some areas, but I do think you'd benefit from being a little more thorough in that area. Specifically using the line-extension method described in the lesson (which I saw you apply a few times) is quite important, and following it up with specific corrections to the box itself.

It's best to do the corrections immediately after completing a page (rather than doing them at the end of the full set). This allows you to learn from those mistakes during the challenge, and also gives you a much smaller set to tackle at any given time. This in turn makes it easier to be conscientious when doing them.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-09-26 20:45

There's a lot of excellent work here. Many of the pages demonstrate a very good grasp of the material, both in terms of capturing the solidity of your forms, and constructing more complex objects from them. I think where things start to go a bit awry is when you started to tangle with texture.

It had two different negative impacts. Firstly, it seems to me that when you started a drawing knowing that you'd take it to full detail, you ended up somewhat more distracted while going through the process of construction, resulting in forms that did not feel quite as solid. Secondly, as you mentioned yourself, many of your textures ended up being more related to what you thought you saw, rather than what was actually present. Scribbling is never a good technique to use, because it sidesteps one's own specific intent. Your marks end up being erratic rather than planned, and that very much comes through in the drawing.

The other point I wanted to raise on the matter is actually what you'd said about how you attempted to use texture.

I tried to use texture less in a way to capture how the plant looks and more as a tool to enhance my 3d effect

While what you said isn't inherently wrong, that in combination with the results you achieved suggests to me that you were perhaps not just using the texture to enhance, but rather relying on it somewhat to achieve that end. That is ultimately not texture's job. The illusion of form, of its solidity and of its weight needs to be captured in the constructional phase. What we add texture to must already be fleshed out in that manner.

The thing about texture is that while its application can in ways reinforce those aspects, one should instead look at it as though texture has a greater risk of undermining that structure and solidity. Texture rests on the surface of a form - if that texture is applied in such a way that it describes the surface differently from how the underlying construction was established, that contradiction breaks the illusion for the viewer. The more texture you place, the more you risk falling out of sync with what you've already established.

So, in the future when applying texture, don't use it to establish those qualities. Instead ensure that it follows what has already been set down, and that it falls in line with the problems you've already solved in previous stages.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. While the more detailed work falls apart somewhat for the reasons I mentioned here, the earlier pages of construction are very well done, and that is what I am most focused on. In parallel with these lessons, you may also want to slowly chip away at the texture challenge to help you rely more on intentional, planned and observed marks.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-09-26 20:30

Excellent work. It's great to see the tenacity with which you approached this exercise, taking the time to extend all of the lines of all of your boxes, applying your corrections, and so on. You're generally doing great, but the only recommendation that I have is in terms of the degree to which you extend those lines. At the moment the extension is quite minimal, because of how packed the pages are, and so the benefit is equally slight. You'll definitely pick up on much more if you extend them to half, or even the full length of the original line. Also remember that you only really need to extend towards where the implied vanishing point is going to be, as it is the convergence (not the divergence) that tells us where we may have messed up.

Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-09-25 21:26

Yes, that's fine. Just don't use them for anything important.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-09-25 21:00

Nice work. Your constructions definitely improve over the course of the set, as does your general line quality. It starts out somewhat shaky and uncertain, but becomes considerably more solid. One thing that I noticed was missing though was a technique relating to boxes that I mentioned in the 'how to draw a cylinder' video. That is, finding the center point of a plane (which you can use on either end of the box to find two points between which to construct your minor axis). To recap, if you take a plane and draw lines diagonally across it from corner to corner (forming an X across the plane), where the two lines of the X intersect is the middle in perspective of that plane. This gives you a building block you can use, instead of guessing where that minor axis should go.

Aside from that, good stuff. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-09-25 20:39

It's always nice to see when my advice to go away for a week pays off - these are significantly better than before. You're demonstrating much better control of your linework, far more patience with each drawing, and a much better grasp of the material in the lesson.

The only suggestion I have is that you should try and stay away from using hatching lines for texture for the time being. People have a tendency to use hatching as a sort of one-size-fits-all solution for areas with more texture, but it just keeps them from looking a little closer at the specific patterns and rhythms of value that exist in their reference images. Additionally, hatching has the tendency of creating a lot of sharp contrast in small spaces, which causes a lot of visual noise. This becomes quite distracting, and robs us of the control of the viewer's gaze. Instead, considering where you want to put more contrast, and where you want to have your darks or your lights blend together into a larger, more solid (and less distracting) mass allows us to tow the viewer's eye around the image more intentionally.

If you want to learn more about that in particular, I'd recommend taking a gander at the texture challenge. Keep in mind though that if you plan on attempting that challenge, that it is meant to be done over a longer period of time, in parallel with other lessons.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-09-25 20:17

You're making decent progress. As far as construction goes, you're demonstrating a solid use of forms, and a good grasp of how they interact with one another when coming together to build up to these various animals. One thing I did notice though was that you definitely are a bit heavy with the contour lines - it's important to consider before drawing a mark, whether or not that line is going to contribute something meaningful to the drawing. When it comes to contour lines, consider whether or not those already present are already doing the job you expect of the one you're thinking of adding. Usually a couple contour lines across the length of a form is enough. Overdoing it has its downsides, in that it'll make your forms appear more stiff.

The biggest area where you can improve is with your observation skills. There are many examples where things have gone great, but there are others where what you've drawn is not quite the result of what you see, but rather what you remember seeing. Looking back at your reference frequently is imperative in order to avoid the pitfalls of our own faulty memory. It's generally a good idea to keep looking at your reference as a default, looking back to your drawing only long enough to put down a mark or two before turning back to the reference.

For example, take a look at this duck. It's definitely hard to imagine that the duck actually had that wide of a stance.

Overall you're heading in the right direction, and are showing that you do understand much of what was conveyed in the lesson. There is, as always, plenty of room for growth, and you'll find that as you continue to practice this material that your control of your lines will improve, and that your sense of which lines are core to your drawing and which are more superfluous will certainly get better. What I'm most pleased to see is that you are fully accepting of the fact that these drawings are each in themselves just exercises, and you're not really getting caught up in the final result, focusing instead on learning as much as you can from each attempt.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-09-25 14:47

It doesn't seem I have you down as being eligible for having your homework reviewed by me specifically - if you're a recent patreon supporter, check your patreon inbox, as I'll have sent a message gathering information such as your reddit username. Otherwise you're welcome to submit your work to the subreddit to receive a critique from the community, which is of course completely free.