Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-07-30 20:26

Generally you're doing very well. Your lines are smooth and confident, and your line weights are well placed to give each box a greater sense of solidity and cohesion. There is one thing I noticed however with your particular use of the ghosting technique, when I watched your video.

Every now and then you'll ghost towards your body several times, then execute away from it. As they are in two different (opposite) directions, the ghosting wouldn't help the execution all that much. It's important to ensure that your ghosting is done exactly as you would execute the motion. Also, I've found that most people do find drawing away from the body to be much more feasible than drawing towards it.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

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

2017-07-30 20:23

Your lines section is fairly well done. You tend to maintain a good degree of confidence as you execute your marks, so your lines come out fairly smooth. This however does not carry over into your ellipses quite as well. Instead, you draw them a little more slowly, resulting in the ellipses coming out stiff and a little uneven. It's extremely important that you apply the ghosting method to every single mark you put down - that means investing the bulk of your time into the preparation phase beforehand, to build up muscle memory, then executing the mark with a confident, persistent pace. This goes hand in hand with why I ask you to draw through your ellipses. It doesn't make a lot of sense if you draw slower, but if you execute your ellipses confidently, you'll find that drawing through your ellipses allows your muscles to correct themselves a little bit on the second pass.

The linework on your rough perspective boxes is a touch on the sloppy site. It's not too bad, but there is some noticeable arcing in places. Make sure you're applying the ghosting method here as well. In addition to this, your hatching lines are quite rough - make sure you draw consistent, parallel lines stretching all the way across a plane from edge to edge, rather than having them floating arbitrarily in the middle. While presentation is not our first priority, it is still important.

Your rotated boxes were a good attempt, although I'm noticing that you do need to exaggerate the rotation of your boxes a lot more, and avoid stretching your boxes out as you did towards the right side of your second attempt. Our brains definitely like things to exist in nice neat grids, so when we rotate our forms away from that, we face resistance. To compensate for this, we need to really push our rotations further than we think we need to. I am pleased to see however that you largely kept the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent. This allows us to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes do definitely need work, but that's pretty normal at this stage. I included this exercise here to introduce students to the challenges of rotating boxes freely without relying on explicitly placed vanishing points.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, but I would 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 be sure to put some emphasis on drawing your ellipses more confidently when you practice those ellipse exercises in the future.

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

2017-07-30 20:05

Well done! Your lines are generally quite well executed, with a strong sense of confidence which helps maintain their smoothness and flow. This carries on into your ellipses, which are looking quite evenly shaped and consistent. For the funnels, it's important that you not leave the actual curving edges out - right now the way you've approached the exercise has no real solid bounds or criteria, so there's less of a sense of whether or not you actually hit your target or not. By including those curving edges, it's clear whether your ellipse fits snugly between them or not.

Jumping ahead, your rough perspective boxes are looking pretty solid. Just be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Excellent work with the rotated boxes exercise. This one was quite challenging, but you did a great job of covering the range of rotations and keeping the system structured and consistent. You're also doing a pretty good job with the organic perspective boxes, but I think a little more attention to this kind of exercise will be beneficial.

So, 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 that 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.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-07-30 19:27

You're actually doing a pretty good job. It will take more practice of course to sort out the alignment of your ellipses, but that's expected. One thing I noticed however is that for the first 200 of your cylinders, you were not quite drawing your minor axes long enough. This got better after that point, so I'm assuming you recognized this yourself, but I'll repeat it here - it's important for your ellipses to rest completely on the minor axis line, for you to have the best chance of aligning it correctly.

I also noticed that your execution of your minor axes is at times just a little bit sloppy - make sure you're applying the ghosting method (including laying down start/end points) so the lines come out as straight as possible. In general, I think you'll benefit from slowing down a little bit and spending more time preparing before executing your marks, which tend to be a little looser by the end of the challenge.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-07-30 19:10

There definitely is a notable difference by your fourth page - I assume those first three were done on your steering wheel. After that point, I think your sense of 3D space and your ability to manipulate these simple forms while maintaining the illusion of solidity improves a fair bit. On that note though, it's important that you do the exercises in an environment that is conducive to you being able to move your arms, and keep your paper stable. I talk about this a little in this point from the FAQ: Is it okay if I do my lessons on the bus, laying on my bed, on the couch, or in other similarly less-than-stable positions?

Here are a couple extra things to keep in mind:

• Try to draw your boxes a little bigger. Overall you don't seem to have run into any significant issues due to the size of your drawings, but as a rule of thumb, it helps to give your brain a little more room to think through spatial problems.

• For this exercise in particular, it's best to keep the boxes from overlapping. As soon as they overlap, they relate to each other in a direct way and that immediately increases the complexity of what we're tackling here. Also, where your boxes did overlap, you didn't draw each one in its entirety, which takes away from some of the understanding of how each box sits in 3D space.

• I noticed that you applied corrections in a few places, but not a whole lot of them. It's understandable if this is because you simply couldn't identify other issues (which makes sense, because you're doing fairly well already, and are more or less at that point). In this situation, I'd recommend using the technique mentioned on the challenge page, which I've pasted below:

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, keep up the good work. I'll mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2017-07-30 19:01

Nice work. Just a couple things to keep in mind:

• When drawing through your boxes, don't be quite so faint. When you attempt to hide your lines this way, you tend to draw them less confidently, and gain less benefit from having them there at all. For all of my lessons and exercises, I want you to adhere to this principle: if you feel a line will contribute to your understanding of how the objects you're drawing exist in 3D space, draw it with full confidence. Don't try to hide it. If you feel it doesn't contribute however, don't draw it at all.

• Try to keep the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent. You generally did a pretty decent job of this, but as your boxes tended more towards towards the far left or far right, the gaps got much larger. Keeping them small allows us to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-07-29 15:56

It's extremely important to submit work from the beginning, and for this reason, so I actually don't allow students to submit a lesson without completing its prerequisites. Each lesson is designed to tackle a certain set of challenges, and if you jump in later on, it becomes considerably more difficult to diagnose more basic, underlying issues. The most effective way for me to teach is for students to start at lesson 1, and then move on once I've marked that lesson as complete, ensuring that they're not bringing earlier mistakes into later work.

So, go ahead and submit lesson 1 and we'll start there.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-07-29 03:52

Congratulations on completing the challenge. You are certainly making some progress with these, but there are a few important points I'd like to mention that should help you along:

• Line quality is very important. Make sure you're applying the ghosting method from lesson 1 to every mark you make. This means investing all of your time in the preparation phase, setting out points for where you want your lines to start/end, ghosting through the motion several times, and executing your marks with a confident, persistent pace. Your results may not be entirely accurate, but as long as you're executing them confidently, they should maintain the same trajectory throughout and come out smoothly with no visible wobbling. This can take a little time to get used to of course, but the biggest problem with line quality is usually that students hesitate, due to a fear of being inaccurate.

• There are a few pages where you crammed a whole lot of very small boxes in. The issue here is that when you drastically limit the room you have to work on each box, you also limit the amount of space your brain has to work through spatial problems. A lot of students tend to have a bad habit where they'll draw smaller if they're not feeling confident about something. This has the side effect of actually making their work worse, because it ends up coming out stiff and awkward. Boxes especially are susceptible to this, as they're at their very core a spatial problem.

• While you definitely put some effort into identifying mistakes, there are quite a few that you didn't quite catch. For these, I recommend using the following method to help identify where your lines don't quite behave correctly, but you're not sure what's wrong:

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.

I'd recommend picking a couple pages of your boxes on which to apply this method, just to see where the convergence of your lines tends to be inconsistent. The biggest part of improving one's skills is actually identifying one's mistakes so they can be learned from.

While I will be marking this challenge as complete, as you certainly did achieve the main goal, keep in mind that there is plenty of room for improvement on this front.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-07-29 03:41

I definitely think you've improved over the course of this set, and I believe you've been quite conscientious with your identification of your mistakes. As far as your line quality goes, I think the reason you may struggle more with shorter lines over medium length ones isn't exactly what you say. What I'm seeing is actually signs that you may be relying more on your wrist in those areas than your shoulder. This results in a less stable arc of motion, and causes lines to get quite wobbly.

Overall, while your line quality is also improving steadily, that is definitely going to be what you want to focus on most. The application of the ghosting method is very important, as we use it for every mark we put down. That said, you clearly know what to aim for, and already understand that confidence in one's execution is paramount. It can take time to get used to the ghosting method, but with continued practice it will become second nature.

Don't forget that as you improve, you will find it more and more difficult to identify where things are off, as the mistakes will become more subtle. In that case, it's always helpful to apply the following approach, mentioned in the challenge page notes:

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.

I'd say one thing that would help kick your boxes up to the next level is to play a little with line weight. You'll find notes on that in the 'other tips' section of the challenge page.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2 next. Keep in mind that as with all of the previous material you've tackled thus far, it's important to keep up with all of it as part of a warmup routine to keep sharpening those skills, and ultimately to keep them sharp.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-07-29 03:32

Generally quite well done. There's just a couple things I want to point out.

Firstly, looking at your page of leaves, there's two there in the center that are a little fancier than the others (the spiky one and the maple-leaf-like one with several different arms). For the spiky one, make sure you start that out like the rest - with a single simple leaf shape enclosing the entirety of it, before breaking it down into the individual little spikes. For the other, I'd recommend tackling this as several individual simpler leaves, then combining them all into one. You actually started out correctly, with five different lines establishing the flow of each section, though you skipped the step of establishing the enclosing shape for each.

The other issue comes up in flowers like this one. It's about that initial ellipse, and is a fairly minor point in this case, but is going to come into play a little more in the future. Basically, each step of construction sets bounds for what can come after it. This allows us to have these questions effectively answered, so we don't have to worry about them in subsequent steps, and can instead put all of our effort towards figuring out other elements.

That circle you started out with was meant to establish the bounds of your petals. Ideally, your petals would reach out as far as the edge of that circle and no further. This may end up being incorrect (as we all make mistakes), but getting used to working within the bounds of the mistakes we make and rolling with those punches is an important part of this. By ignoring those bounds, we then have to worry about more elements of our drawing in the next step, rather than breaking it up into many manageable chunks.

Admittedly I actually made the same mistake in my demo, which is why you did it here - so it is entirely my fault. I need to fix that demo when I get the chance...

Anyway, those are the two primary issues I noticed in your work. Other than that, you're doing quite well, so I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

As for your question: The thing is, when we draw using the ghosting method, and more importantly when it's done correctly (and mind you this does take practice), we don't generally use our eyes to guide our hands when actually putting down a mark. We rely on the muscle memory developed through the preparation/ghosting phase of the process. If you're relying on your eyes, then you're also relying on your conscious brain to course-correct as you go, which results in stiffer linework.

Now, as you get used to this approach to drawing (the ghosting method that is), it's inevitable that you will make mistakes. That's perfectly normal - mistakes are always going to be made, it's a fact of life. So don't hesitate and rely on your eyes, even though you know you'll slip up now and then. Always execute your marks with confidence, trusting in your muscles.

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

2017-07-29 03:16

Excellent work all around. Your organic forms with contour lines create the illusion of solidity and volume, and your contour curves wrap around the forms very nicely (a common area of difficulty for students). Your dissections are exceptionally detailed and demonstrate a lot of care and patience in identifying just what makes each surface appear to be rough/smooth/wet/whatever. You've also avoided any kind of randomness or chaos (a common shortcut that produces less than stellar results), and generally (though not always) stayed away from hatching lines, instead opting to really take the time to observe your reference carefully.

Though you may have had trouble with the form intersections, you did quite well with them. Remember that the target of this exercise is more about drawing a bunch of forms together that feel consistent in their sense of scale and their general cohesion. That said, you also did a pretty good job with the intersections themselves, despite this being a particularly challenging task.

Lastly, your organic intersections came out pretty well, demonstrating a strong understanding of how they would rest on top of each other, and sag where their weight failed to be supported.

Keep up the great work and consider this lesson complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-07-29 03:11

Looking pretty good! Just a couple things to mention:

• As far as line weight goes, remember that you should generally be quite sparing with the internal lines, and focus most of your weight on the external ones. More weight on the inside will start to undermine the sense of cohesion and make the box feel more like a series of lines rather than a solid, enclosed form. I do understand that you're likely trying to differentiate the lines oriented towards the viewer against those that you've 'drawn through', but in that case I'd recommend filling just one forward-face of the box with some tight, consistent hatching lines to serve as a visual cue.

• If you find that you start catching fewer and fewer mistakes as you go, don't forget about the following method mentioned in the challenge page notes. As you get better, mistakes will become harder to detect - that doesn't mean they're not there, but it does mean you're on the correct path. To continue improving, you'll have to try other ways to identify where things are slightly 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.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-07-29 03:05

There's a lot of good going on here. I really like the fact that you're building up your masses piece by piece, and your strong observational skills are definitely coming into play in a big way. On top of that, you tend to capture a real sense of liveliness in a lot of these, so definitely keep that up.

There's two things that I would like to point out that should help you continue to develop your approach to this kind of construction.

Firstly, one thing that stands out a lot in a few places is how you regard the actual underlying shapes/forms you place on the page. From what I can see, there's a good chance that you regard the marks you put down as being just that - exploratory shapes placed on a flat page to help you move beyond the lack of grounding inherent to a blank canvas. You place the initial masses, and then build those up, and ultimately it helps you flesh out your drawing - but the end result does not necessarily follow the marks you placed earlier. We can see this a little on the bottom of this page. Notice how the warthog's head's got an ellipse there that is effectively overridden by the darker lines that end up actually making up its head?

This is actually a fairly common way of approaching things, but when it comes to the sort of constructional drawing we tackle here, it's important that you treat every mark you put down as being a solid three dimensional form. Think of it like you've introduced a mass of marble into a 3D space, to which your piece of paper is merely a window. That marble is hard and unyielding. You certainly can't ignore it and have other chunks of marble take its place. Once it's there, it has to be dealt with in some way or another.

Generally we deal with these by building on top of them, or cutting into them. Cutting a 3D form involves having an awareness of how both resulting pieces - the part being cut away, and the part that remains - sit in 3D space. This takes your initial ellipse and imbues it with the illusion of form.

The other issue surfaces with the warthog on the bottom of this page, specifically its head. Overall you've tackled breaking things down into smaller forms quite well, but this is an area where it didn't quite work out that well. It's important to work big to small - so establish your major forms, such as the whole snout of the animal as a single boxy form built off the cranial sphere, then break it down as needed into smaller forms. Something a little like this (i wasn't actually sure what species of pig that is, obviously not a warthog, so i wasn't able to find reference imagery for my demo. instead you get a fictional cute thing!)

Aside from those two points, I think you're doing great. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next one.

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

2017-07-29 02:28

Overall you're doing a pretty good job, and your line quality is generally quite confident and smooth. There's just a few areas I'd like to point out.

• I'm glad that you made a point of drawing through all of your ellipses in the table of ellipses exercise, but it's very important that you apply this to all of the ellipses you do for all of my exercises. It helps by allowing you to draw your ellipses more confidently, so they come out more evenly shaped.

• In your funnels, keep the alignment of those ellipses relative to the central line (the minor axis) in mind. Each ellipse should rest on the minor axis such that it is cut into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension. Additionally, try to play with giving your ellipses a narrower degree at the center of the funnel, gradually increasing as it moves out towards the ends.

• I'm glad to see that you applied the double checking approach to your rough perspective boxes.

• Your rotated boxes are actually fairly well done, though I'd say that you are struggling with covering a full 180 degree arc of rotation in either direction. Part of this is likely because you skipped through some of the earlier steps I outlined in the exercise description, where we set out boxes on either extremity to establish the range we're aiming for. Without a goal like that, we end up vastly undershooting our rotations.

• Your organic perspective boxes are coming along well, and are about where I'd expect them to be. This exercise was included here to get you started thinking about how forms can be rotated arbitrarily in 3D space, without relying on explicit vanishing points. That said, there's certainly room for improvement, so we'll spend a little more time on this particular matter.

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.

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

2017-07-29 02:02

So there are a few issues that stand out to me. They're pretty standard issues that are common for students at this stage, but they are things we'll have to get sorted.

• For your organic forms with contour ellipses, you need to be drawing through your ellipses. This will keep them evenly shaped and smooth, as you'll be able to execute those marks more confidently.

• Your contour curves don't convey the illusion that they're running along the surface of your rounded organic form. Keep in mind that they're just the visible portion of the larger contour ellipse, and if you look at your contour ellipses, you'll notice that their curvature accelerates as you reach the edge and give the impression that they're hooking back around. Your contour curves are quite flat in comparison. I talk about this a little more here. I recommend trying to overshoot your curves a little as described there, to help your brain draw a link between the ellipses and curves.

• Your textures, despite certainly having been difficult, are actually not abnormal by any stretch. This exercise was more for figuring out where a student sits in regards to the particular skills at play here, rather than achieving a particular set goal. What your textures show me is that your observational skills (or perhaps more accurately, your observational habits) have yet to be developed. Right now you're drawing more from memory - perhaps looking at your reference image a little bit, getting an idea of what's there and then spending the bulk of your time just looking at your drawing as you work on it. This results in you drawing from memory. Our capacity to remember specific details and the arrangement of those details is actually quite pathetic as a species. We're good at remembering simplified versions of things, the core elements, rather than all of the complexities. So when you look away from your reference, your brain immediately throws away the bulk of what you actually saw, simplifying the rest into an iconic or symbolic representation of it. That's why your textures tend to look very cartoony. The first step to fixing this is to get in the habit of spending most of your time observing your reference. Draw less, look more. Look away from your reference only for a second or two to put down a couple of marks, but then look back to refresh your memory of what's actually there. In addition to this, while observing you should try and ask yourself questions about what kind of visual features are present, and how they're grouped and arranged. Ask yourself what makes the surface appear bumpy, soft, rough, sticky, wet, etc. There are more notes on this over at the 25 texture challenge page.

• Your form intersections demonstrate a couple issues. As far as your demonstration of spatial understanding goes, you're actually doing quite well. It's good then that this is the primary focus of the exercise. There are signs however that you're not applying previous concepts as you should be at this stage. Firstly, your line quality is quite loose when it comes to your straight lines - they're quite sketchy, and it's clear that you're not applying the ghosting method to every mark you draw as you should be. I do see you drawing through some of your boxes here and there, which is good, but you need to be applying that to every box so as to better grasp how each one sits in 3D space. Also, when you draw through your forms, don't intentionally draw some of them as being fainter. Don't worry about hiding lines - as far as these exercises go, if a line is valuable to what you're doing, you should draw it confidently. If it is not valuable on its own, then you should not draw it at all.

• Your organic intersections definitely suffer from the same issues as your organic forms with contour curves, as one might expect, though that larger form's not bad. Also, try to keep these forms as simple as possible. Basic sausage forms are all you need. If they taper/swell irregularly through their length, that will undermine their perceived solidity.

So, take some time to read through what I've said here a few times, then I'd like you to give the lesson another try.

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

2017-07-28 18:31

Thanks for pointing that out! That was definitely a bug, where it was checking if a german version of the self critique resources exist, and since one doesn't, it just hid it entirely. Now it should be linking to an english version (if it exists - remember that the self critique resources only exist for lessons 1 and 2).

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-07-27 22:34

As far as construction goes, you're largely hitting your mark here. There's definitely plenty of room for improvement, but it's largely in how you observe your reference images. When we work more from memory, we tend to have more simplified results, so it's always important to keep looking back at your reference frequently, and only to put down a few marks at a time before returning to the source.

The thing about construction is that it is all about 3D space, and building up on the previous stage. You can technically use construction to go much, much further and much more detailed, but the point is that every bit of complexity has to be grounded in something prior to it. The simplest you can get is a simple primitive form - anything more than that needs to rest upon something else.

Anyway, you're generally moving in the right direction. I'd say that along with the observation bit, you could also use some work with the branches/stems exercise, so I'd definitely recommend pushing on that end.

I do however think you should be good to move onto the next lesson, so I'll go ahead and mark this one as complete.

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

2017-07-27 22:16

Definitely better. There's still room for improvement of course, but you're moving steadfastly in the right direction, so keep up the good work. 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"

2017-07-27 22:15

Generally well done, though there are a few issues I'd like to point out. Your lines section is quite well done, as you're maintaining smooth, confident lines. Your ellipses are usually quite good as well, though I noticed here and there that you played with not drawing through your ellipses. This was just once in a while, but I figure it wouldn't hurt to underline the importance of drawing through them a minimum of two times, as it helps to maintain the confidence necessary to keep your ellipses evenly shaped.

Moving onto your boxes, I do think your rough perspective boxes get a little shaky. Firstly, try not to have any boxes cut off the frame, as those don't end up being terribly useful for the purposes of the exercise. Secondly, be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift. Thirdly, I think your application of the ghosting method here could certainly use some work, to help keep up the confidence and smooth execution we saw in the earlier section of the lesson. Lastly, when applying hatching lines, avoid any sloppiness. Make sure your lines stretch all the way from edge to edge across the plane, avoiding anything that floats arbitrarily in the center of a plane, or generally feels chaotic/messy. Presentation is, while not the top priority, still important.

For your rotated boxes, the first thing that jumps out at me is that you didn't draw through your boxes. That is, you only drew the lines that would be visible, not those that are otherwise hidden. Try to approach drawing these forms as though you have x-ray vision. This helps us to better understand how a box sits in 3D space, and how that changes as it is rotated. You'll find that a lot of my exercises and lessons are about far more than just what we see on the surface of a drawing.

You made a pretty solid attempt at the organic perspective boxes exercise. This one is intended to be quite difficult, and is meant to really just get you started thinking about how boxes can be constructed with an arbitrary rotation.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do one more page of rough perspective boxes, followed by one more page of rotated boxes. After that, resubmit your work and I'll mark the lesson as complete. At that point, I'll want you to move onto the 250 box challenge next, before tackling lesson 2. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms, which is more or less what I mentioned in regards to your rotated boxes.

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

2017-07-27 22:07

Nice work! Your line quality is very confident and well executed, you're maintaining some very smooth, well-flowing lines. Your ellipses are much the same, where that confidence is helping you maintain their even, rounded shapes without any sign of hesitation and wobbling. You seem to be very conscientious when it comes to planning out your marks, so keep that up.

You did an equally good job with your boxes section. Your rough perspective boxes started out just a little bit sloppy, but I think your next page was much, much better. Just be sure to go over your completed work as described here. It helps to get a better sense of where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

You certainly did struggle at first with the rotated boxes, and this is about where most students end up with this lesson. It's intentionally difficult, and is meant really to get a student to start thinking about how forms can be rotated arbitrarily in 3D space, with no real expectation of success. You definitely punched through that barrier with your most recent attempt though. Great work. Your organic perspective boxes were also very well done, and demonstrate a strong understanding of how these forms exist in 3D space.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson, though before you do I'd like you to read over the notes on the 250 box challenge page, especially the notes about drawing through your forms. This will help you further develop your sense of how these forms sit in 3D space. You by no means need to complete the challenge, just give the notes a once over.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-07-27 16:11

You certainly are tenacious, having reached 500 boxes. I think you're making progress, but the biggest issue that's holding you back is perhaps the amount of time and focus you put towards each individual box. I could be wrong, but looking over this set it looks to me like you're in a bit of a quantity-over-quality mindset.

The result of this is:

• Your lines are sometimes solid, but frequently they end up wobbling considerably. Are you applying the ghosting method? Are you investing the majority of your time in the preparation phase and following through all of those steps, before executing with a smooth, confident pace?

• You've definitely got to push that extending-lines approach to checking the angles of your lines. There are a lot of boxes that are very obviously skewed, but there's no attempt at figuring out what's wrong or correcting them. While drawing more boxes is definitely good, it's the correcting of them that is going to teach you the most. By facing your mistakes, you force yourself to think more about how your lines need to behave in order to convey a form that feels solid. After you complete a page of boxes, you should go back over it and be meticulous. Use a ruler if you have to.

• Draw bigger. Our brains require a great deal of room, especially early on, to deal with spatial problems. If your boxes are primarily cramped in a limited amount of space, you're really shortchanging yourself.

• I definitely like the fact that you explored a wide variety of types of foreshortening, from shallow to dramatic. That said, I think shallower foreshortening (where the far end of a box isn't that much smaller than the near end) is going to be much more useful to you, and so you should lean more towards that. Reason being, dramatic foreshortening (where the far end is considerably smaller than the near end) conveys a very large sense of scale (like looking up at the top of a building from the road). As such, most of the objects you'll find yourself drawing will be much smaller, so you'll want to nail those down.

If you're getting kind of bored with simple boxes, you may also want to look into the advanced box exercise.

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

2017-07-27 15:24

Ah, that makes perfect sense. There is no spanish version of the self critique resources for lesson 2, as I gave up on having the lessons translated before we got to that. Having it translated wasn't that big of a deal, but actually reformatting all of the text and updating the images was way too time consuming, and it didn't increase traffic enough to warrant it.

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

2017-07-27 15:23

No harm in it.

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

2017-07-27 06:14

Much better on all counts. As for your question about how to hold the pen, it's purely about ink flow. Some pens are definitely better on that front than others (and even within the same brand you'll find some pens perform better than others). The one consistent thing is that the ink generally flows better when the pen is perpendicular to the page, hence the 90 degree thing. If you find that the ink is flowing just fine at another angle, then that's fine too. I don't usually give it that much thought, though I think due to repetition, I have the habit of drawing at a 70-80 degree angle.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one. Also, in regards to the self critique resources link, I checked this morning and it's in the same place it is in lesson 1, above the submit homework link. Here's what I see. If that's not what you see, send me a screenshot and I'll look into it.

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

2017-07-27 06:10

Excellent work! Your line quality is very smooth and confident, and that confidence continues on to keep your ellipses evenly shaped. This is an extremely important part of the mark making process, and really works wonders for the flow of your linework. The biggest thing students at this stage tend to struggle with is keeping their lines from being wobbly, so you've definitely got a huge leg up already.

You're also demonstrating a really solid grasp of 3D space with your boxes. I have only two recommendations:

• For your rough perspective boxes, be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift. This is perfectly normal, and is simply a good way to figure out where you need to focus your efforts.

• Give the notes on the 250 box challenge page a read. You by no means need to complete the challenge, as you're already demonstrating a good sense of how to manipulate forms in 3D space, but some of the notes there are generally quite helpful. The tip about drawing through your forms is especially useful when it comes to understanding how each box sits in 3D space.

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

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

2017-07-27 06:03

While there certainly is room for improvement, I think you're pushing quite enthusiastically in the right direction. That teapot actually looks quite impressive, and I imagine with all of its ellipses it would be extremely challenging to pull off. There are a couple additional ellipses I would have blocked in for that (like for the knob on its lid) to add structure, but overall you did a pretty great job with it.

After all of the previous lessons being fairly focused on looser, more organic constructions, this one is often a bit of a rude awakening for most students, as they're really forced to come to terms with boxes in a way that stress-tests their ability to construct them. Like you, most find that they're not as well versed in that basic concept than they once thought. It's totally normal to feel that way, and it is definitely a strong truth - we all need to practice our boxes more. It's why I named the site after that one thing that matters most.

When it comes to curvy forms, the best thing you can do is to ignore their curves for as long as you possibly can. You can look at a curvy line as being representative of a wide variety of possibilities. In that sense, a curving line on its own can be very vague. It's not great for building with, especially not for our purposes. Alternatively, a straight line is clear - it captures a single possibility, and does so with conviction. Because of this, it feels solid and forms made with straight lines can often feel much sturdier and more reliable.

When you jump too early to curved lines, you sacrifice that sturdiness. Instead, I always strive to flesh out my construction to a high degree with straight lines, so that when I finally round off my corners, the 'range' of possibilities is already so limited and well defined that the curves maintain the same sense of solidity.

If that seems a bit confusing, try to focus on the idea that there is one correct curve for whatever it is you're drawing. Others may approximate the correct line, but they'll feel less solid and real. This demo I did a long time ago for another student may help a little.

Another major issue in the same vein can be seen looking at your router drawings. Notice how your router's edges aren't snug against the enclosing box? They're arbitrarily floating in space. The enclosing forms that we construct are not merely an exploration of space - they define the bounds of what we build, and allow us to avoid guesswork down the line.

To end on a happy note, while I feel you could have stuck to straight lines and box-like forms much longer, the camera came out quite well. Since you're moving in the right direction, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I do think there's a lot of room for growth however, so you should definitely keep up with practicing this sort of material.

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

2017-07-26 01:29

Overall you're doing quite well. Your arrows flow nicely through space. Your organic forms with contour ellipses show that you're taking the time to align your ellipses correctly.

Your organic forms with contour curves are moving in the right direction, although I'm noticing that in a lot of areas your curves aren't quite wrapping around the organic forms correctly. They need to be hooking back around as they reach the edge, so they give the impression that they continue on along the other side. I talk about this a little bit in these notes, and I recommend that you try the 'overshooting' method demonstrated there.

You also neglected to include the minor axis as demonstrated in the lesson. Make sure you do this in the future. The curves themselves are merely the visible portion of a larger ellipse, so the minor axis is still an important tool for understanding how to align them.

Your dissections show a lot of different approaches to a variety of different textures. I do agree that there is a bit too much hatching going on, and that in general it's best to simply avoid hatching altogether, which forces you to think more about what's going on in your textures. Still, you're doing a pretty good job as it is.

Your form intersections are solid. The forms themselves are quite well constructed, and you're able to maintain a fairly consistent sense of scale and cohesion between all of the different forms. The intersections themselves are also reasonably well done, although this is not the main focus of this exercise and is generally considered to be quite difficult.

Your organic intersections could definitely use some extra work. The main issue is that they read as being quite flat, largely because of the issue I pointed out regarding your organic forms with contour curves. I also want to recommend that you try and keep these forms as simple as possible. Basic sausage forms are best, as more complexity will generally undermine the solidity and illusion of three dimensional form.

I'd like you to do two more pages of organic forms with contour curves, followed by one more page of organic intersections.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-07-26 01:13

A year is certainly a long time! It's good to see that you haven't gotten rusty in that time, as many do. Your linework still appears to be quite confident. My only concern is that you're a little bit loose at times, and sometimes prone to skip steps. For instance, if you look at the wrinkles on the right most petal of this flower, you'll notice that you jumped right into that complex information, rather than starting with the simplest possible representation of the flow of that petal through 3D space. Similarly, I think it would definitely help to put a little more attention towards how you craft the initial line we use to establish the basic flow of a petal. The earliest steps are always the most important, and it's important to consider how this line flows through all three dimensions of space. When one rushes through this step, it's easy to get caught in the trap of thinking about how lines flow merely on the page itself, which of course is two dimensional.

I'm of course being a little nitpicky here, as most of your work is very well done. The only other thing that I want to mention is that it's important not to leave forms open at any time. An example of this is the flower pot towards the right side of this page. Notice how you leave the bottom of the pot open ended, as just two lines that stop suddenly? Leaving a form open like this immediately flattens it out. It's much better to cap it off with an ellipse, as this will reinforce the volume of the form you're trying to capture.

One last thing - I'd like you to give these notes a quick read, as I think they should be useful. Once you do, feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2017-07-25 11:59

No need to submit the rough perspective boxes to me. Also, it's exactly right to pace yourself and to take breaks whenever you start to lose focus. Keep up the good work!

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

2017-07-24 23:50

Very nice work! I was a little concerned when you said you spent a couple of days on it, at the rate of an hour per day. In my mind that meant two hours, which usually is waaay too little, so naturally I was worried you'd rushed. Thankfully your work demonstrates a great deal of patience, care and discipline. Your line quality is generally quite nice - you execute your marks confidently, after taking the time to plan and prepare, so they come out both smooth and accurate. Your ellipses are much the same, and due to that same confident execution, they come out fairly evenly shaped. For the ellipses though, I would recommend limiting yourself to just two times around each ellipse, as I think you will get the best results that way, based on your current work.

Looking at your rough perspective boxes, I think you've generally done a good job as far as the spatial aspect of the exercise goes, but I do believe that the quality of your lines has dropped somewhat, relative to the previous section. Make sure you're applying the ghosting method to each and every one of your lines, and execute your marks as confidently as you have elsewhere in this lesson. They're a little bit more hesitant here, and that shows through the slightest of wobbling.

Additionally, 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 a little bit.

Your first attempt at the rotated boxes exercise was definitely a little weak (although frankly that's perfectly normal at this stage), but your second attempt corrects all of the major points that I would have raised. For example, you started keeping the gaps between your boxes narrower, so you could use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines. You also started drawing through more of your boxes (whereas before you did only for a few), which overall gave you a better grasp of how each box sits in 3D space, and how that changes as they are rotated.

I do believe that your organic perspective boxes need some more work, but this isn't abnormal at all at this point. Both the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes exercises were intentionally included in this lesson with the expectation that students would struggle. By working through them here, you're introduced to the challenges of rotating boxes freely in 3D space. This causes you to start developing a more structured mental model of how things can be manipulated in three dimensions.

Specifically though, I think you definitely used foreshortening on your organic perspective boxes that was way too dramatic. That is to say, your far end of your boxes were waaay smaller than your near ends. This causes the sense of scale to be thrown off quite a bit, as dramatic foreshortening tends to imply a very large scale (like looking at the top of a tall building from the street).

I'm going to go ahead and 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, which I actually mentioned a little in regards to your rotated boxes, will help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space.

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

2017-07-24 23:33

In general you're doing a pretty good job. Before I critique your work though, I do want to mention that in the lesson I stress the importance of rotating your page to find a comfortable angle of approach for a reason. The approach I push upon my student focuses heavily on being able to split tasks into smaller parts, and handling one such part at a time. Don't complicate the exercises by adding another element to them - stick to the instructions. The range of angles you can draw without rotating the page will, surprisingly enough, increase naturally without any extra effort from you. It's actually due to our natural laziness, in that rotating the page every time expends a great deal of energy.

So, as long as you can, I want you to consciously force yourself to spin the page. Over time you will face more and more resistance, and will as such find yourself subconsciously deciding, "do I really need to spin the page or can I nail that line from here". As such, your range will increase.

Now, since you draw on a desk easel, I can definitely see that it would be considerably trickier for you to rotate your page. If you were showing significant signs of stiff lines and poor flow, I would advise you to draw on a flat surface so you can actually rotate your page. Since this is not an issue however, I'll leave it to you to make the decision of how you wish to work.

For the most part, your lines are looking quite smooth and confident. I noticed some wobbling in your ghosted lines exercise however, where there are minor signs that you're executing your lines a little too slowly (or perhaps not tackling them in ideal conditions). Your line quality is generally fine in the rest of the lesson though, so whatever the issue is, you seem to get over it. Your ellipses also seem to be drawn quite confidently, which is great and keeps them quite even. I did notice however that some of your ellipses-in-planes aren't quite touching all four enclosing edges. That's definitely something you'll want to consciously try to remedy.

Very solid work with your rough perspective boxes, and I'm pleased to see that you applied the double checking method as well. Your rotated boxes are alright, although I did notice that the further your boxes go out from the center, the more you need to exaggerate their rotation. The outer boxes definitely look to be levelling off. This is pretty normal, as our brains prefer things to exist on consistent grids, and rotating things in this manner actively works against that. As such, these rotations need to really be pushed and exaggerated in order to get the desired result.

Ultimately the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes have been included here in order to get you to start thinking about how forms rotate in 3D space without concrete vanishing points to rely upon. In this regard, I don't expect students to nail either of these exercises. That said, you're doing a pretty solid job across the board. I'm also quite pleased to see that you drew through your boxes in the organic perspective boxes, and it definitely seems to have had a positive effect. I usually withhold this particular bit of information, so students are given the opportunity to stumble a little without it, before I point them to the 250 box challenge where it is covered.

Anyway, keep up the good 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 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids"

2017-07-24 02:38

There's definitely a lot of good going on here, but there's one fundamental issue that I'm seeing across your work that should be fairly easy to fix once pointed out.

Basically, the issue is in how you perceive and handle the masses you start out with. Based on what I'm seeing, you treat the initial ellipses you lay-in as a general sketch, figuring out where you're going to put your 'real' lines. As a result, they tend to be purposely fainter, and also tend to be more or less ignored - not playing a role in the final drawing beyond being a guide by which to place later lines.

Instead, I want you to think of every mark you put down as defining a solid form that exists in 3D space. Instead of thinking of it as a flimsy ellipse on a flat piece of paper, think of it as a solid ball of marble being introduced into a three dimensional world. You can't simply ignore a solid chunk of mass like that. You need to deal with it somehow, once it's been placed in the world. You need to either build on top of it, by adding new forms to it, or you need to cut and carve into it. Carving specifically means to cut away pieces in a way that leaves you aware of how both the piece that remains, and the piece that is removed, sit in 3D space. This is integral to developing the belief that you are in fact drawing something three dimensional, not just a two dimensional drawing on a flat page.

Here are some notes on the topic, and here are some others on more general pitfalls that are worth reading. Overall you're doing quite well, but this is something quite fundamental to the idea of construction that will help you apply the method better in the future.

Also, try and avoid going over your work to uniformly increase the line weight, or replace lines with a "clean-up pass". Adding line weight is fine, but that is something that is generally done to portions of a larger shape, usually to clarify overlaps in local areas, rather than outlining the entire form all the way around.

I'd like to see three more pages of insect drawings, applying what I've mentioned here.

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

2017-07-24 02:16

Great work! Your line quality is very confident and consistent. I think when you started out with the super imposed lines, you were a little bit shakier, but that improved rather quickly, and the rest of your lines were much smoother.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, I did notice that your line quality here fell apart somewhat. It doesn't look like you were applying the ghosting method here. Instead, you seem to have been drawing your lines much more slowly, investing the bulk of your time into the execution phase, rather than spending all your time planning/preparing, before executing with a confident, persistent pace. You've shown with previous exercises that you're fully capable of drawing lines that are smooth and straight, so you've got to keep that up here as well.

You did a pretty solid job with the rotated boxes, just one recommendation here. Try to keep the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent. This allows you to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes are coming along well, though there is certainly room for improvement here. This is completely expected however. Both the organic perspective boxes and rotated boxes exercises were included here merely with the intention of getting students to start thinking about how they'd go about constructing arbitrarily rotated boxes. It's totally normal for students to struggle with this 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 notes on that 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.

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

2017-07-23 02:03

Well, it's called drawabox for a reason :P

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

2017-07-22 21:29

Your work is actually very solid. Your lines are confident, you're very conscientious about applying the ghosting method, your ellipses are evenly shaped, and your grasp of 3D space is coming along well. Just a couple things to mention:

• Be sure to go over your completed rough perspective boxes exercises as described here. This helps you to identify where your estimation of perspective is off, so you know what to focus on during your next attempt.

• When doing the rotated boxes exercise, it's important to draw through your boxes. This means drawing every single line that makes up a box, regardless of whether or not we'd realistically be able to see it. Think of it like having x-ray vision. By seeing all of these lines, we gain a better grasp of how a form sits in 3D space, rather than just how it sits on the 2D page. This exercise is all about how things sit in space and how that changes as they are rotated, so it's a pretty important part of this exercise. That said you generally did a pretty good job with this exercise, though it is clear that you didn't follow the steps I laid out (which will bite you in the ass in the future).

• Your organic perspective boxes are coming along great. This exercise was expected to be a struggle for most students, and while you're doing far better than I would have expected, I can definitely see areas where a little extra practice in this area could go a long way.

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 the notes on that challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms (which is what I mentioned in regards to your rotated boxes).

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-07-22 21:13

Generally pretty well done, and I see a marked improvement over the course of the set. I do have a few things to suggest however:

• Draw through your forms - specifically more geometric forms, like cylinders and boxes. For the cylinders, be sure to draw them around a minor axis line, to help keep your ellipses aligned. If you're not sure what I mean, take a look at the notes/videos on the 250 cylinder challenge page.

• I'm seeing a whole lot of hatching lines - I'd strongly recommend to avoid their use entirely. They're not inherently bad, but people tend to use them as a stand-in when there's more complex, interesting and specific textural patterns going on. Defaulting to hatching lines will cause you to automatically skip over putting in the extra effort to identify and attempt to replicate what is actually present in your reference image. Hatching lines will also cause a lot of contrast, where you've got areas of light and dark in high concentration in a small space, which can be quite visually distracting. Also, avoid any sort of randomness/chaos. In most of these drawings, you showed a willingness to really sit there and draw out all of the individual little leaf forms, so I think it's fair to say that you learned from the mistakes made here. Scribbling simply never yields good results, because it's very obvious to the viewer that what you drew did not follow any kind of intent or planning.

Aside from that, keep up the good work. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Frequently Asked Questions: I compiled a bunch of questions I felt were being asked rather frequently, so read through this list before asking your own."

2017-07-21 01:19

Perhaps you should consider cancelling your patreon pledge, and then repledging when you're in a better position (financially and health-wise). I generally trust my patrons to honour their pledges, so there's no need to pay up-front or anything like that (in case that's the reason you were going to start the work next month). Basically, if you pledge during August, you can submit work immediately after pledging, even though you wouldn't be charged til September 1st.

Uncomfortable in the post "Frequently Asked Questions: I compiled a bunch of questions I felt were being asked rather frequently, so read through this list before asking your own."

2017-07-21 00:15

In that case, I'd definitely speak to a doctor if possible, but at the very least, give it some time to heal and don't push yourself too hard with it. While later down the line it won't be as difficult, when you first get used to drawing from your shoulder (and develop those muscles), it can be quite taxing and I imagine it could easily aggravate an existing injury.

Uncomfortable in the post "Frequently Asked Questions: I compiled a bunch of questions I felt were being asked rather frequently, so read through this list before asking your own."

2017-07-20 23:56

Logically you'd have to make do with drawing from the elbow. Sadly I've no knowledge of shoulder injuries or anything of the sort, so I can't really tell you how to handle that. I am assuming by a bad shoulder, you are referring to some kind of physical issue rather than the usual issues everyone encounters when first learning to draw from their shoulders.

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

2017-07-20 21:51

You are absolutely demonstrating an exceptional grasp of form, construction and 3D space. Your insects generally feel very solid, and give a sense of tangibility and believability, as though they're sitting in an actual three dimensional world rather than just on the flat page. As that is the primary focus of my lessons in general, you're more than ready to move onto the next lesson.

The only shortcoming I noticed was in your use of hatching. It's not really a shortcoming in most areas, but it is something I wanted to raise. It's very common for students to use hatching as a way to convey simple shading here and there, which is generally fine on its own as long as you're aware of how those hatching lines function as contour lines. One place this stands out is the black widow on the first page. Notice how you have straight lines coming down its abdomen? These lines immediately flatten out that form and make it read as a flat circle, rather than a bulbous, voluminous mass. This is extremely important to keep in mind.

There are times where we want to flatten our forms out, from a compositional stand point. For example, sometimes the far legs on the other side of a creature can be distracting, and so we flatten them out in order to draw more attention to the volume and form of the legs facing us. What's important is that this is intentional, and not done by accident.

It's also important to know that hatching is often used by students as a shortcut when they don't want to really look into what textures and detail is present on an object. Alternatively, this is an excellent opportunity to practice one's texturing and rendering skills, and for that reason, I generally encourage students not to use hatching lines at all when drawing actual objects. It's not uncommon for students to not even realize that they're skipping over this whole other part of the drawing.

When it comes to insects, there can be all kinds of textures present on a surface, and we can leverage the shadow areas of our drawings to suggest different kinds of surface quality. I explain this in greater detail in these notes, so I recommend that you give them a read. Those notes also go over the importance of observation, and drawing what you actually see rather than what you think you see. This comes into play a fair bit when we look into some of the hairy legs you've drawn here, where those hairs look to be drawn more from memory than from actual observation.

Anyway, as I mentioned before - you've nailed the core of this lesson, and are demonstrating a fantastic understanding of form and 3D space. 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"

2017-07-20 21:41

All in all, not bad. You seem to be understanding how your forms relate to one another, and there does appear to be a sense of solidity to your forms. You're also applying a variety of interesting approaches to your textures, depending on the particular surfaces you're describing.

Before all that though, first thing's first: DRAW THROUGH YOUR ELLIPSES. I pointed this out in my last critique, it's very important that you do so. As it stands, your forms are okay, but they do have an inherent unevenness to their shapes that ends up making the silhouette of the form more complicated.

Simple forms read as being solid and three dimensional far more easily than complex forms. So, we always strive to start out dead simple, and then build up that complexity. That isn't so much the problem here - it's just that where you intend forms to be simple, they have that slight unevenness that comes from executing your rounded shapes more slowly (to compensate for the fact that you're not drawing through them). Draw them with a confident pace, and through the rest of my lessons, make sure you draw through them as instructed. I know Scott Robertson has a different opinion on how one should approach ellipses, but as you are following my lessons, you should follow my instructions to the letter. Doing so will improve your muscle memory, and in the future you will be able to do as you please with greater confidence.

Now, the fact that you're not drawing through your ellipses suggests an issue that is also reflected in how you approached this crab. Notice how in its legs, your forms are not enclosed, rather they bleed into one another. The issue I'm seeing is that you're stressing the cleanliness of your resulting drawing over the actual purpose of the exercise itself.

It is, after all, an exercise like any of the others we've done in these lessons. It's an exercise in combining a variety of different kinds of solid forms to create more complex objects, and understanding how each of these forms sit in 3D space and how they relate to one another. If your priority is set on the end result being clean and pretty, you will not be spending as much of your brain power on understanding the spatial problem before you. Presentation is important, but the overall goal of the exercise is paramount. So, while we don't waste lines, we should be entirely willing to put down lines so long as they help describe how that form sits in 3D space. If a line contributes to that goal, then it should be included. Otherwise it should be left out. In this particular case, you should ensure that your forms all feel solid and enclosed.

One last issue I noticed is that I noticed a couple areas where you somewhat ignored the initial forms you'd laid down, as though they were a rough sketch for getting a sense of space. That is certainly one way of doing it, and it's not inherently wrong. Just remember that the way we're approaching these drawings is as though we're placing solid chunks of form - let's say it's marble - into a three dimensional world. Then we work around that form, carving it in places and building it up in others, to create the resulting object we want. In this regard, we cannot simply ignore a form that has been placed on the page. We need to deal with it in some way. I expand on this a little bit in these notes.

Now when it comes to line weight, I'm not too familiar with the particular approach of Scott Robertson's that you mentioned. That said, your use of it generally seems fine to me. Generally my goal with line weight is to help clarify overlaps. It's a simple goal, and it's particularly important when we've got all of these forms sitting on top of each other in this drawing. Line weight is generally applied to sections of a line, rather than the whole thing, and giving a line a bit of thickness will help give it a sense of dominance over any other lines it may intersect with. It also allows us to maintain a sense of continuity (thick line obviously doesn't flow into a thin line, so it's going to flow into the other thick line of the intersection) though this is rarely unclear on its own.

One thing to consider though is the name of Scott's technique - atmospheric line weight. I'm certain the technique has applications in all areas, but that name does suggest that it is especially useful when applied to larger objects, where parts of those objects would sit far enough away from us that the illusion of depth needs to come into play. 'Atmospheric' is likely a reference to atmospheric perspective, which is the visual illusion that causes far away colours to generally be lighter in value and less saturated, due to the amount of air between your eye and the target. The particular choices involved in the technique may be focused on creating the illusion of depth. This can be useful at smaller scales, but not quite as much.

As far as texture goes, I quite like this spider. I think the willingness to go so bold with your large shadow shapes is important. How you approach the edges of those shadow shapes is what implies the content of the shape itself, and I think you broke up those edges quite well in certain places. The long straight edge could have used some more breaking up though. I also like the fact that you created a focal point with your texture, being quite sparse with it elsewhere, but focusing quite a bit on the thorax and head, and tapering off from there. The ladybug and crab seemed considerably more spread out in that regard, and didn't do quite as good a job of guiding the viewer's eye.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson, but make sure you draw through your ellipses!

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

2017-07-20 21:17

Much better! Your lines are definitely much smoother. Your ellipses have improved as well, though they still have a bit of a ways to go in terms of maintaining an even shape. I believe that will come with practice, so just be sure to keep pushing yourself to execute those marks with a confident pace. Your rough perspective boxes are looking solid, but don't forget to go over them as described here.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so go ahead and move onto the 250 box challenge.

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

2017-07-20 21:14

Generally quite well done! Just a few things to keep in mind:

• Your lines generally flow pretty well, but there is just the slightest touch of stiffness to them that is present in your ghosted lines, and a little more apparent in your ellipses. Generally you want to make sure that when you execute your marks, you do so with a confident, persistent pace. Once you reach the execution phase (after you've invested all of your time into the preparation/ghosting phase), don't hesitate or worry about accuracy. You've already done what you can in that regard, at this point your responsibility is to trust in your muscle memory, turn your brain off and just maintain a consistent trajectory. You may make a mistake, but this is perfectly fine. Just make sure your line is smooth.

• Your rough perspective boxes are looking great. I do recommend though that you go over your completed work for this exercise as described here. This will help you identify where your estimation of perspective is off, so you know what to focus on when you attempt the exercise next.

• Great work on the rotated boxes exercise. This one is particularly challenging, and you did very well.

• You did a pretty good job with the organic perspective boxes as well, all things considered. This exercise (and the previous one) were included here without the expectation that students would be able to nail them. Instead, they're meant to introduce students to the challenges of rotating boxes freely in 3D space. There is certainly room for improvement, but you're generally doing well. One area with this exercise that definitely needs work though is how you execute your linework. I'm noticing here that your lines are somewhat sketchier. They're not chicken scratch by any stretch, but they are rougher than elsewhere, which tells me that you're not necessarily applying the ghosting method as stringently as you have elsewhere. Remember to plan out every mark, and that every line should consist only of a single mark. Don't correct your mistakes (doing so usually makes the blunder darker and more noticeable, whereas leaving it alone tends to make it disappear). Also try to avoid any sort of reflexive behaviour, where you draw an additional mark without thinking it through and planning it out.

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 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.

Uncomfortable in the post "Frequently Asked Questions: I compiled a bunch of questions I felt were being asked rather frequently, so read through this list before asking your own."

2017-07-20 21:05

Couple things worth mentioning:

• Building up a stylistic approach with no underlying foundation is generally unwise, especially when you're trying to copy someone else's stylistic choices. What you see Jazza draw is not the limit of his understanding of anatomy, form, perspective, etc. - it's a subset of it, and the choices he makes are informed by his grasp of the fundamentals. By jumping in without that understanding, you're basically trying to drive a car with no engine. Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not extremely important. While you don't have to learn hyper realism or anything liek that, it is important for you to ground your abilities in reality. Learning to capture the illusion of 3D form, learning the proportions of the body, how to capture gesture, etc. Once you've learned these more concretely (which mind you takes a lot of time and practice), you can apply that understanding when drawing simpler cartoons/comics.

• Similarly, what Jazza does in 5 minutes is built upon years of practice. For you it takes longer and looks worse because you don't have that prior practice backing you up. What you're experiencing is completely normal.

Long story short, your goals are not just this, or just that. Your goals sit at the end of a much longer, more involved, and much more fulfilling road than you expected. You certainly can continue to practice cartoons in isolation, but you'll be lacking an important foundation and will continue to struggle without it.

Also, this subreddit is geared towards a very specific set of lessons (those on drawabox.com) and so questions posed here are usually related directly to that material. If you'd like a place to ask more general questions, try /r/learnart or /r/learntodraw.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-07-20 19:41

Overall you're doing fairly well. There are some issues that stand out to me, but as far as construction goes, you're moving in the right direction.

One of the things that jumped out at me had to do with your branches/stems exercises. You're constructing the lengths of each branch out of line segments, going from one ellipse to the next. This is totally fine, and is mentioned in the lesson. What's important to note however is that you allow the ends of these segments, as they pass their target ellipse, to go off the flow of the overall branch. As a result, the next line you draw does not go directly on top of it, and you get these little loose ends all over. It's important to work on getting them to flow together.

Another thing that I noticed was that the leaves of your plants tend to be a little stiff. The first step of constructing a leaf - that is, establishing the central directional line - is extremely important, as it tells us how that leaf is going to flow through space. The next step is taking this simple line and giving it greater area by enclosing the general bounds of the leaf. Both of these steps rely heavily on simplicity and have nothing to do with specific detail.

The last thing I wanted to mention was about texture. Keep in mind that we're primarily focused on construction, so anything to do with texture and detail is really a minor concern. That said, I'm sure it will be of significance to you as you continue to move forwards. When it comes to texture - when it comes to anything, really, but especially texture - observation is key. What I'm seeing in your application of texture is that you tend to rely more on memory than direct observation. You'll look at your reference image plenty, but you'll spend long periods of time just drawing.

You see a general pattern playing out in your reference image, but what you draw does not actually reflect things that are present in the original object. Instead, you're drawing the patterns that you think are there. It's important to get into the habit of looking at your reference constantly, taking only a moment or two to put down a specific mark before looking back again. I go over this in much greater detail in the texture challenge notes.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, as you're moving in the right direction. I do however want you to take a look at these notes about common pitfalls students tend to face at around this point. They focus primarily on the idea of what it means to draw in 3D space, rather than simply across a 2D page.

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

2017-07-19 20:58

So there's definitely some solid stuff here. I especially like this spider, specifically its main body. I think you're still struggling quite a bit with the legs, in that you're making the different sections of the legs way too complex, wobbly and inconsistent. For example, take a look at this guy's legs. They're all over the place, they swell at strange places, and taper in others. It doesn't feel solid. What you may want to practice is just creating simple little noodles that connect to each other, like my little 'flowww' side drawing in the fly demo I linked to you before.

That said, this is an issue that is more specific to insects, so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete and let you work on it yourself. In the mean time, you may move onto the next lesson and get started on the animals.

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

2017-07-19 20:50

Your arrows are coming along well, and explore a great deal of depth instead of just the standard two dimensions of your page. Your organic forms with contour lines are establishing a pretty good illusion of form and volume, and those contour curves do a good job of running along the surface of the forms and wrapping around.

Your dissections aren't bad. I think there's a lot of interesting experimentation going on, which is what I'd more or less expect to see at this stage. Different textures need to be tackled in different ways, so it's important to see you trying to approach each one in a way that is specific to the texture you're trying to produce. That said, I do want to encourage you to spend some more time observing your reference image, and less time drawing. Try to build up the habit of continually looking at your reference, taking only a moment or two to draw a couple lines before looking back. This will ensure that you don't fall into the trap of drawing from memory. Our memory is pretty poorly designed for this kind of thing, so we end up dropping a lot of important information if we spend too much time without looking back.

Your form intersections are reasonably well executed. You'll definitely want to use shallower foreshortening on your forms (especially your boxes, as well as your cylinders). This means drawing them such that their farther end is not dramatically smaller than their closer end. This kind of dramatic perspective is reserved for representing objects at very large scales (like the top of a tall building when seen from the street), and using it in this kind of situation throws off the sense of scale between different forms.

Additionally, make sure you draw through your boxes, as discussed in the 250 box challenge. This will help you to better grasp how each box sits in 3D space, which is important when you need to deal with the relationships between different forms.

Lastly, your organic intersections are okay. They're not great, but they do demonstrate the relationships between the different forms, and how they support each others' weight, or sag where there is no support beneath them. In general I think this will get better with practice, and that you're moving in the right direction. One suggestion I have though is that if you look at the top most form on the last page, you'll see that it swells and tapers multiple times through its length. This somewhat undermines the perceived solidity of the form itself, and makes it feel a little flimsy. It's important to keep the width of the form more consistent through its length.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one. Be sure to continue practicing these exercises as warmups though.

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

2017-07-18 20:39

The first lesson is always daunting, but I in no way am asking for perfect work. All I want to see is your best attempt, so I know what advice to offer you. That's certainly what you've submitted here, so I have several helpful things to suggest.

The first thing that jumps out at me is that your lines have a tendency to be quite wobbly. This is a very common problem, and it happens because we have a tendency to want to stress the accuracy of our lines, and any time we veer off course, we desperately want to course-correct. As a result, we draw slow-and-steady, careful not to rush.

The problem is that those course-corrections manifest as the little wibbles and wobbles in our line, and the resulting lines end up having very poor flow. Instead of prioritizing accuracy, we instead need to focus primarily on the smooth flow of our linework. In order to achieve smoother lines, we need to execute our marks with a more confident, persistent pace. It's important not to hesitate. Mistakes will happen, that's a fact of life, and it's perfectly acceptable.

So where drawing more confidently will inevitably decrease our accuracy, we compensate by applying the ghosting method. We invest all of our time in the preparation phase, finding a comfortable angle of approach and building up muscle memory. Just make sure that once you've done all of that, you are fully accepting of the fact that your line may not come out right. Again, perfectly fine. Just make sure it comes out smooth, even if it veers off course.

This principle applies to all of the lines we draw - straight, curved, wavy, even and especially ellipses. Ellipses that are drawn slowly tend to come out quite stiff and awkward. This is certainly the case with yours, and it's again something I see quite often. I actually stress the importance of drawing through one's ellipses because it takes some of the pressure off, allowing you to compensate when drawing a little more confidently. So right now, doing so may not make all that much sense - but when you draw through your ellipses when drawing with a faster pace, it should start to make a little more sense.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, I do get the impression that you understand what you should be aiming for, but your linework tends to get quite sketchy the more you stress over your results. It's important that you apply the ghosting method to each and every line, and adhere to the rule of drawing only one mark for every line you want to put down. If you make a mistake, don't correct it. Correcting by reflex can be a bad habit, and is one that many at this stage need to work out of their system. That's why the ghosting method is great - it forces you to plan and think before every single mark you put down, basically making it impossible to draw by reflex.

For this exercise in particular, I recommend that you go over your completed work as described here. This will help you identify where your estimation of perspective is off, so you know what to work on the next time you attempt it.

Last, the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes are difficult. Very difficult, in fact, and everyone struggles with them to varying degrees. I by no means expect students to nail these. Instead, my hope here is to expose students to the challenges involved in rotating boxes freely in 3D space. By facing it here, we get those gears to start turning in your head.

For the rotated boxes, there are a few tips I'd like to offer that could help when doing this specific exercise:

• Keep the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent. You actually did a decent job of this in most places, but where you didn't, things tended to go a bit south. The reason this is important is that it allows you to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines.

• Draw through your boxes. That basically means, draw every line that makes up your box, even those that exist on the other side of the form, that you wouldn't normally be able to see. This sort of x-ray vision gives you a better sense of how a box sits in 3D space, and how it relates to the forms around it. You did this for some of your boxes, but as you went further out to the sides, you did so less and less.

For the organic perspective boxes, as I mentioned before, make sure you apply the ghosting method to each and every mark you put down. One mark per line.

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

• One page of planes.

• One page of the table of ellipses exercise.

• One page of rough perspective boxes.

In all of these cases, make sure you apply the ghosting method, and execute each mark confidently. Do your best during the preparation phase to avoid mistakes, but don't hesitate when you actually make the mark.

Once you submit those three pages, I'll mark this lesson as complete. Then I'll want you to move onto the 250 box challenge next to get some more practice in with those freely rotated boxes. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. As I mentioned before, this will help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. It's the key to drawing boxes like this, which I purposely withheld for the organic perspective boxes, so you'd better understand why it's such a useful approach.

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

2017-07-18 19:53

In general I think you've done a lot of great work here. The computer mouse is quite well done, as are the air fresheners. I also like the fact that even when things go somewhat wrong with your initial enclosing box (which seems to happen quite frequently - definitely want to work on your boxes), you adhere to the construction that's in front of you, and work within the bounds you've set out for yourself.

I certainly agree that it is largely going to be a matter of practice. Your approach is correct, it's merely a matter of continuing to acquaint yourself with boxes and cylinders. As such, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. The next lesson is definitely more of the same, so make sure you do more box/cylinder warmups before, and while you attempt lesson 7.

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

2017-07-18 19:49

Definitely a good start. One thing that jumps out at me though is that your execution of your linework is a little bit hesitant. Basically when going through the mark making process, you're definitely more focused on accuracy, and that causes you to execute each mark a little bit more slowly, to allow your brain the opportunity to course-correct as you go. This in turn causes little wobbles to manifest in your linework, breaking the flow of each line.

While accuracy is important, it comes in second to maintaining the smooth flow of a line. So when you start executing a line, it's important to maintain the same trajectory all the way through, even if you end up being a little inaccurate. We can achieve this by drawing with a more confident, persistent pace, which keeps our conscious brains from interfering, and trusts more in our muscle memory. In turn, proper use of the ghosting method (where we invest all of our time into the preparation phase, before execution), will help improve our accuracy, even when drawing confidently.

This applies to everything - straight lines, curves, even ellipses. Ellipses can really stiffen up when they're drawn too hesitantly, and I definitely see some of that in your work. Drawing through your ellipses essentially gives you a little bit more leeway to be more confident with your drawing, instead of overstressing the need to be hyper accurate. It is however ideal to draw through your ellipses two full times before lifting your pen. Three is also acceptable, but aim for two.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, you're doing well. I do however want to recommend that you go over your completed work for this exercise as described here to help identify any areas where your estimation of perspective is a little bit off.

You made solid attempts at both the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes exercises. I do want to mention that these exercises were included here with the expectation that students would struggle. They're really meant to be a first introduction to the challenges faced when rotating boxes arbitrarily in 3D space, and no one's expected to nail it just yet. All I want to see is your best effort, and you certainly put that forward.

I am going to mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. This will give you the opportunity to practice those arbitrarily rotated boxes a little more, while also letting you practice your confident execution of your lines. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that 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, and will help you develop a better eye for those angles between your planes.