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

2017-07-04 22:09

When it comes to ellipses, points could help you get a sense of where you're aiming while you ghost over the motion, but it's a little more of a grey area than it would be with straightforward lines. I'd try it (meaning, placing four points around your planned ellipse), but don't stress too much if you don't feel like it's beneficial.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-07-03 23:21

I can definitely see a considerable improvement over this set. You started out with a great deal of hesitation and uncertainty, but by the end there's a clear intent behind every line, and a growing grasp of how things sit in 3D space. There's no need to send me any follow-up work from lesson 1, though be sure to practice that on your own (you should be incorporating those exercises into a warmup routine, as mentioned in the introduction section of lesson 1).

What I do recommend however is that you apply the approach outlined in the challenge page notes to help better identify mistakes that aren't always entirely obvious to the naked eye:

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.

As we get a better handle on this type of exercise, our mistakes will basically just get a lot harder to notice, so tricks like this can definitely help us to better grasp where we still tend to make mistakes. Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work!

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

2017-07-03 23:18

Definitely much better. Remember that the flow and smoothness of the lines are our priority. Precision comes in second. Always draw these kinds of marks from your shoulder, and generally avoid going over things carefully and slowly from your wrist, as the resulting lines will generally be more stiff, and ultimately those will be the lines that characterize your end result. Even when we add line weight, we do so from our shoulders, and using the ghosting method as much as possible.

One last thing - I noticed that you've got a bit of a habit of going over your lines reflexively. Remember that each line should consist only of one mark, and that every mark should be preceded with planning and preparation. Drawing by reflex is a bit of a bad habit, and we want every mark we put down to be a reflection of our actual intent.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-07-03 23:14

Overall you're doing very well. Your leaves flow organically through 3D space, you're utilizing the basic concepts of constructing primitive forms to build up more complex objects, and you're largely focusing more on that basic construction rather than getting distracted by detail. I have a few things to recommend that should help as you continue to move forwards:

• On this page you've got a few examples of leaves with multiple sections, many of them being maple leaves. It's good that you've experimented with how to approach them - I would recommend treating each section as a separate leaf (so with its own central directional line), and then at the end fusing them all together. Next to the potted fern plant (directly to the left of it), you've got an example where you tried to flesh out each section individually, but that enclosing shape ended up being very complex. Avoid any and all complexity when starting out, and work your way up to it. In general you do follow this rule pretty well, but with these maple leaves you have more of a tendency to skip steps.

• Draw through all of your ellipses. This will keep them evenly shaped, and therefore much more reliable when applied to constructing solid forms.

• Draw through your forms. That potted fern on your first page is a great example of doing it right - you're not hiding any lines, you're drawing each form in its entirety. This gives you a very solid understanding of how it sits in 3D space. Compare this to the potted plant on the left side of this page, and you can see that by not drawing through your cylinders, you end up with forms that feel much less solid. I also noticed that in other similar cases, you started drawing more loosely (like the left side of this page, which are definitely aesthetically pleasing, but don't really serve us too well here. Remember that our goal here is to go through these drawings as exercises that help us better understand how objects sit in 3D space. Drawing through our forms can even apply to situations like the cacti in the bottom left, where you only partially drew the cacti in the back, but did not draw where they were occluded by those in front. This in turn gives us a weaker grasp of how those back ones sit in space.

• Draw bigger. You're definitely trying to cram a lot into each page, which while in theory is great (and actually looks pretty impressive), you're drastically limiting the amount of space you can dedicate to each object. Construction is very much a spatial problem, and our brains benefit from being given more room to think through them.

Anyway, keep up the great work and keep the points I raised above in mind. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

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

2017-07-03 00:03

You're making more progress than you likely think, and I definitely see things coming along at a decent pace. That said, I definitely agree - you're struggling most at the base level of constructing boxes (which itself is not an easy task). If your initial box has issues with its near/far planes, or its angles, this will trickle down into your constructions as they rely upon these cues to determine their own angles and relationships.

I noticed that you haven't yet submitted anything for the 250 cylinder challenge, as recommended at the beginning of this lesson. I'd definitely recommend giving that a shot, and to kill two birds with one stone, try focusing more on constructing cylinders within boxes.

Once you've done that, try another three pages of everyday objects. And as a last point, I've noticed in several areas that you're not entirely following the principle of one-mark-per-line. I see several cases where you've corrected or reinforced lines immediately after drawing them, resulting in a messier drawing. Make sure you're applying the ghosting method as stringently as you can, as it forces you to plan and prepare before every individual stroke.

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

2017-07-02 23:57

Nice work! You've demonstrated here quite a few important qualities that I look for in this lesson. Specifically, you've taken a lot of care when planning out your strokes, and execute them with full confidence and no sign of hesitation. This keeps your lines consistent, avoiding any sort of wobbling or course-correction, and allows you to maintain smooth, even ellipses.

Jumping ahead to your boxes section, you've generally done well though there's a couple things I'd like to recommend.

• For your rough perspective boxes, be sure to go over your completed work for this exercise as described here. This will help you identify where your estimation of perspective is a little off, so you know what to work on the next time you attempt the exercise.

• I can see that you struggled with the rotated boxes exercise. This is completely normal and expected. I've included this exercise, as well as the organic perspective boxes exercise to help you get started with thinking about how to construct arbitrarily rotated boxes in 3D space. That said, there is one thing that would certainly help in your execution here. Try to keep the gaps between your boxes narrower and more consistent. This will allow you to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines, and will overall help keep things structured. Additionally, you should draw each and every line for every box, including those on the opposite side of the form (that would otherwise be blocked from view). Think of it as though you have x-ray vision. This will help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space, and how that changes as the boxes are rotated.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge. Be sure to read through all of the notes before starting the challenge, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This relates to what I mentioned about drawing all of the lines of your boxes.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-07-02 23:50

In general you're doing reasonably well. It's clear to me that you grasp how your forms sit in 3D space and how they relate to one another, so your constructions feel reasonably sturdy. I'm especially fond of how you put your camels together, and the extent to which you studied your coyotes.

There are two major things that I'd like to point out however:

• Firstly, I did notice that you have a tendency to draw smaller and cram more into each page. The number of drawings is definitely great, but beware of the fact that when you draw smaller, you limit the amount of room your brain is given to think through spatial problems. In general, when it comes to spatial challenges, our brains do benefit considerably from having lots of room to figure things out.

• I also noticed that you go over your drawings to clean up your drawings. While I certainly encourage the use of extra line weight to help clarify overlaps and emphasize certain parts of certain lines, I want you to avoid thinking of it as a way to clean things up. We're not going in there to replace underlying "rough work" - the lines we've drawn initially are as much a part of our drawings, so we should not be striving to hide them from view. This also means that you shouldn't be purposely drawing those lines lighter earlier on, as this will have an impact on how confidently you draw (and therefore how solid the forms themselves feel). Keep in mind that these are all just exercises to help develop your understanding of how 3D space works, and how forms can be manipulated within it. Take a look at the coyote in the top right of this page. The underlying construction is totally solid, albeit faint and somewhat hidden. You've even fleshed out how the leg connects to the torso, which is important. The darker lines however start to flatten things out by overruling some of those form relationships made underneath. That very same connection of the foreleg to the torso has been modified somewhat, in a way that no longer feels quite as believable, because it was an addition not made through construction.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so keep those two points in mind as you move onto the next lesson.

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

2017-07-02 01:21

Better, especially with your organic forms with contour curves. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, but here's a few things to keep in mind:

• You've got to loosen up and draw a little more confidently. This means once you're done ghosting through an ellipse, trust in your muscle memory and don't hesitate. If you worry at this point about making mistakes, your lines will come out stiff.

• Draw through all of your ellipses. You did for most, which is great, but you've still got some circles in your form intersections for which you didn't. The whole drawing confidently thing goes hand in hand with drawing through your ellipses, so if you do one but not the other, it won't really seem to make much sense.

• For the cones/pyramids, check out the demos in this demo dump.

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

2017-07-02 01:09

Very nice work! Your linework is looking very confident, which has helped you maintain straight lines, as well as evenly shaped ellipses. This is going to be important as you continue to move forwards. I also appreciate that you've been quite mindful of the instructions, and even included things from the self critique resources, like double checking your rough perspective boxes.

I definitely agree that you did struggle somewhat with the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes, but this is totally normal and expected. I included these exercises here to get students to start thinking more organically about 3D space, and to start chipping away at the dependency a lot of people have to plotting out all of their perspective. It's definitely challenging, but struggling through it here starts you on the path to developing a mental model of 3D space.

That said, you actually did a pretty good job in both, all things considered. I do have a recommendation for your rotated boxes though. Try and keep the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent. This allows you to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines. This will ultimately help you keep things much more structured as well.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, but before you move onto the next lesson, I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge. 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 your boxes sit in 3D space.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-07-02 01:04

I think it's fair to say that you started off a little timid and unconfident in your approach. Your initial few pages definitely felt a little weak, but not usually in the way that I come across from my students. There was definitely a pattern, that you were tackling things of at least a certain level of complexity, but not quite stepping down a few rungs and working your way back up. For example, your leaves were almost always quite twisty, which can be quite difficult to wrap one's head around. When it comes to getting the basics of understanding how a flat shape can flow through space, a simpler leaf that simply bends a little through its length (rather than folding back on itself, or twisting) can really help to develop the mental model one requires to delve further.

All that said, after page 14, things change considerably. Your drawings pick up a more tangible sense of solidity, your forms read as existing in three dimensional space, rather than sitting on a flat page, and in general your constructions feel more cohesive. It seems like at that point, the idea of construction clicked a little, and this in turn allowed you to draw much more confidently.

There's still one thing I want to stress - more in relation to the previous pages, but it's an important thing to mention. Hold yourself back a little. I see a lot of cases where you've drawn and redrawn the same lines a couple times, or have gone over things to replace previous lines with cleaner ones. If you make a mistake, leave it. The habit of correcting things immediately is a dangerous one to get into. Apply the ghosting method to every mark you put down - this means having to plan each one out, and prepare beforehand. It eliminates the possibility that you're going to be drawing anything reflexively (like how many of us immediately follow up a mark with an extra one).

Just keep that in mind in the future. As you became more confident in your approach, these things definitely decreased, so I'm really only mentioning it in case you slide back in the future. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

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

2017-07-02 00:42

I think you're doing great. Your linework tends to be quite confident and well executed, which helps you maintain smooth, straight lines and evenly shaped ellipses. That said, I definitely want to dissuade you from purposely trying to avoid rotating your page. I understand why you'd want to do that, but at this point it's not going to help. Ultimately since your work is coming out fine right now, take that more as a friendly suggestion rather than a commandment. It'll really only distract you from the things you should be focusing on right now.

I did notice that further along in the lesson, specifically in the rough perspective boxes exercise, your line quality declined somewhat. They still weren't too bad, but they did arc more, and became less accurate. Make sure you apply the ghosting method to every occasion. I'm glad to see that things got considerably better on this front with your rotated boxes exercise, where everything seemed quite precise and solid. You also demonstrated a well developed understanding of 3D space. I actually expect all students to struggle quite a bit with the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes exercises, so you've impressed me quite a bit here.

I'm going to go ahead and mark the lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson, but before you do, I'd like you give the notes on the 250 box challenge page a read. The point about drawing through your forms is particularly helpful, and will help kick up your understanding of how your forms sit in 3D space. This helps in situations like the organic perspective boxes, and forces us to think of things as they exist in three dimensional space, rather than just on a 2D page. Again, you're doing fine at this, but it's a technique I try and push on everyone (especially after most struggle without it).

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

2017-06-30 01:09

Generally looks like you're applying the principles in the lesson quite well. Revisiting the lesson as a whole is definitely a good idea, but don't forget that you're meant to be continually practicing these exercises as part of a warm up routine to keep your skills sharp.

Just a couple things caught my eye:

• Make sure you're applying the [checking]() approach for the rough perspective boxes, once they're completed.

• For your organic perspective boxes, I don't talk about drawing through your forms for this exercise in particular because I want students to have the chance to stumble around a bit (so they grasp the benefits of drawing through forms a little better). Once you are exposed to it as a way to better grasp how things sit in three dimensions, you should apply it as much as possible to further develop your mental model of space. So in your case, it would have been wise to apply it here.

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

2017-06-30 01:06

Nice work! The first thing that crosses my mind when looking over your submission is a pretty important word when it comes to these lessons, and drawing in general: confidence. You're demonstrating a lot of it, and it will come in very handy, now and in the future. It keeps your lines smooth, and your ellipses evenly shaped.

Overall you did quite well, there's just a couple things I want to point out:

• For your ellipses in planes, I'm glad that you largely focused on keeping your ellipses evenly shaped. Make sure that you strive to have your ellipses touch all four edges of the enclosing plane though. If you miss the mark, that's totally fine, but avoid purposely planting them floating in the center. This exercises are all about establishing some sort of a pass/fail criteria (I hit my mark, or I missed) so you can go back and assess your success rate, and determine what about your approach may need to be adjusted. If we're drawing arbitrary things that float in space, we don't really have much to compare against.

• I'm glad to see that you applied the double checking method to your rough perspective boxes. Keep it up.

• The rotated boxes exercise is definitely meant to be very challenging for students at this stage, although there are a couple tricks to it that definitely help. Try keeping the gaps between your boxes narrower and more consistent. This allows you to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding a new line, and ultimately limits your guesswork and keeps things more structured. When it comes to drawing in 3D space, it's important to rely very little on guesswork. Sometimes it's inevitable, but often times if we step back, when can identify patterns that suggest our next course of action. For example, finding near-parallel lines to the one you want to add. If they're close enough, you can more or less draw them as parallel. If they're far away, two of them can help imply a vanishing point, which you can then orient your new line towards.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I would however like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next to get some more work in on constructing arbitrarily rotated boxes (similar to what you faced in the organic perspective boxes). 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 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2017-06-30 00:57

Very nice work! Your arrows are flowing nicely through space, and your organic forms with contour ellipses build up a great sense of volume and solidity. In particular however, your form intersections are excellent. You're showing a really strong grasp of 3D space.

I believe the weakest area in this set is your organic forms with contour curves. They aren't bad, but they're teetering on the fence. It's a pretty common issue for students to struggle with getting their contour curves to feel like they're wrapping around the organic forms, and adhering to their surfaces. In your case, you're pretty close, and just about there, but I feel like if you were to let yourself go a little bit, you'd slip onto the other side. So basically, your grasp isn't 100% there yet.

One thing I recommend for this kind of situation is to overshoot those curves ever so slightly, so they hook back around and continue just a bit along the opposite side. This helps bridge the gap between the full ellipse and the partial curve, and gets you used to the kind of accelerated curvature we need as it comes to the edge. I explain this a little further in these notes.

I'd like to see just one more page of organic forms with contour curves before I mark this lesson as complete.

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

2017-06-30 00:50

Sorry for the delay. Work's still got me bent over a barrel, and it doesn't seem to end. Somehow on the few bits of time where I'm not working or sleeping, I'm catching up on homework critiques.. bah.

This is a pretty good start. While there's definitely room for improvement, I see a lot of great signs that you're working towards thinking in terms of 3D form. In a lot of these drawings, you're building actual solid masses and considering how they exist in relation to one another. This fly, though simple, is a great example of this. One thing to notice about this fly is that it's made up of really simple elements. Its head, thorax and abdomen are all basic balls. There's no complexity there, just nice, solid forms. This makes for an excellent basis on which to build up the rest of your construction, and you've not allowed yourself to get distracted by detail.

Conversely, take a look at this wasp. Notice how the thorax and abdomen aren't quite so evenly shaped? This immediately undermines the illusion of solidity, as you're trying to develop more complexity before you've really built up a good base. Once you've got some solid forms down, it doesn't take a lot to carve into them, or add pieces on top. (In case I haven't mentioned this in the past, 'carving' is the process of adjusting a drawn form where you understand how both the remaining section, and the part being cut away, sit in 3D space - this is different from just drawing some arbitrary change on top of an existing shape, as it requires you to really know how things exist in space).

Also, look at the stinger of the wasp - notice how it reads as being completely flat? This wasn't introduced as an additional form on the end of the abdomen. We haven't defined how it connects to it. Lastly, the contour curves don't wrap particularly well around the form. I believe this is because you may have gotten caught up in the patterns/designs of the wasp's stripes, rather than focusing on just reinforcing the 3D form. If you look at the fly, those are much better executed.

Here's a few demos I've done in the past regarding the construction of insects. It's really mostly about building up with really simple, even ball-forms, but also take a look at how I tackle the legs and maintaining a sort of flow to them:

• One

• Two

• Three

I think you're moving in a good direction, and I believe you'll benefit from a little extra exploration towards construction more like your fly, and less like your wasp. I'd like to see another four pages of insect drawings.

Keep up the good work!

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

2017-06-28 14:10

Just a couple things to keep in mind in regards to those:

• I noticed that you're overshooting your curves slightly. I'm pleased to see this, as it will help you continue to achieve that illusion that they're wrapping around the surface of the form.

• Watch the alignment of your curves and ellipses - they need to be aligned to the central minor axis line, such that the minor axis cuts through the ellipse (in the case of a curve, it'd be the full ellipse of which the curve is only a section), splitting it into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension.

• Give these notes a read, it should help clarify the specific degrees of each ellipse means about the circle it represents. Right now your choices there feel a little bit arbitrary.

Anyway, I do recommend that you continue practicing that stuff as regular warmups, but I'll go ahead and mark the lesson as complete. Go ahead and move onto the next one.

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

2017-06-28 13:53

I'm not entirely sure you read through that much of my critique. You're definitely including the minor axis now (I should definitely remove those example links, they're probably doing more harm than good), but you're still:

• Not drawing through your ellipses. You need to be doing this for every single ellipse you draw for my lessons, in order to get used to drawing them evenly shaped and confidently. Right now yours are stiff and wobbly (and at times still more capsule-shaped), and don't maintain a proper elliptical shape as a result.

• Not wrapping your contour curves around your organic forms properly. The notes I linked you to suggested that you try overshooting the curves slightly as they hook around, to kind of bridge the mental gap between drawing a partial curve and a full ellipse. You don't seem to have tried this.

Additionally, for your form intersections, don't add any line weight or extra passes. Focus entirely on the initial pass, drawing everything using the ghosting method, and executing your marks as confidently as you can. Following up with any kind of a clean-up pass is going to distract you from this, and going to result in you drawing more slowly and stiffly, before you've gotten a handle on the kind of confidence we're after.

Try those three pages again.

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."

2017-06-28 13:06

If I understand what you're saying correctly, it's probably not a significant issue, so long as it isn't impeding you from controlling your use of your pen. If you're still able to hit the marks you're aiming for, and maintain smooth strokes, then don't go out of your way to change what feels natural to you.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-06-27 02:44

Those are indeed the criteria to which I'm referring. In one and two point perspective, the contact points above and below the ellipse to its enclosing plane are indeed going to be directly above and below each other. It's three point perspective where this changes slightly, with the introduction of a vertical vanishing point. In all three cases, the contact points need to be aligned to the VP, it just so happens that in one and two point perspective, the VP is at infinity so those lines run perfectly up and down.

You are correct that when you are unable to draw an ellipse that fits both criteria, it means that given the two vanishing points that define the box itself, the face enclosing your ellipse is not perfectly square. This actually makes it quite challenging to figure out how to draw a perfect square/circle in perspective once your vanishing points have already been defined. For the most part we rely on getting it close enough, though we do improve on this with practice.

For those particular cylinders, 241 and 243 look pretty solid. 244 feels like it's a little slanted, as does 245.

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

2017-06-27 02:37

It looks like you did not include the organic forms with contour ellipses, or the organic forms with contour curves exercises. As for the others, your work is coming along, but there are some points I'd like to mention.

• Your arrows flow nicely, although they mostly flow within the confines of the two dimensions defined by the page you're drawing on. Give these notes a read. It's important to try and push your mind into that third dimension, to treat the page as more of a window to a larger three dimensional world rather than defining the limits of the entire space.

• The dissections exercise is largely meant to let me see how you deal with texture, so I know how what kind of practice you'll benefit from. In your case, something I'm seeing a lot of is that your textures tend to be quite simplified and somewhat cartoonish. This tends to occur when our observational skills haven't yet been fully developed. It's quite normal among beginners, and what it means is that you need to get used to drawing what you see, rather than drawing what you remember seeing. When we draw from observation, beginners will often spend lots of time studying their reference, then lots of time drawing. This results in them drawing more from memory than from direct observation. The moment we look away from our reference, our brains toss out a great deal of the information we'd seen. It's an evolutionary trait that's great for processing large amounts of data and identifying patterns, but can make it quite challenging to reproduce something as it is. Instead, I want you to get used to spending most of your time looking at and observing your reference image, with momentary breaks of a second or two to put down a couple marks before returning your gaze to the reference. While looking at your reference, ask yourself questions about how the details you've identified are arranged, and what exactly gives the surface the visible quality of being bumpy, smooth, sticky, wet, rough, etc. I recommend that you take a look at the 25 texture challenge. The notes there cover the points I've mentioned here in much greater detail, and the challenge itself is designed around building up your observational skills first, before delving into how to organize that visual information in a way that is pleasing to the eye.

• Your form intersections are fairly well done. Your organic intersections are alright, although the specific contour curves are a little on the fence in terms of how they wrap around the surface of each form. This is something I'll be able to critique more effectively once you show me the exercises specific to this aspect.

I'll complete this critique when the remainder of the lesson has been submitted.

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

2017-06-27 02:27

Your work, as always, is definitely coming along great. You're demonstrating a strong grasp of 3D space from multiple angles. Your arrows flow very nicely, exploring all three dimensions rather than being limited to those defined by your page. Your organic forms maintain a strong sense of volume and form, reinforced by well executed contour ellipses. Your contour curves also wrap properly around each form, adhering to their surface, but there's definitely a lot more wobbling visible here, so I'd definitely encourage you to keep on top of that. Always remember to apply the ghosting method, so that your execution is confident, rather than hesitating as you go. Again, remember that mistakes do happen, and we only hesitate when we allow our fear of making mistakes govern our actions.

Your form intersections generally look pretty solid, and they improve considerably over the several pages. Just be careful about being loose with your lines. I noticed that you do sometimes correct mistakes automatically (rather than just leaving them alone), or sometimes immediately reinforce a line with an extra stroke. In general you're actually pretty good about holding yourself back in situations like this, but I still see cases where your lines are visibly different from just adding extra line weight.

Your organic intersections are generally pretty well done. I think that same wobbling I mentioned for your organic forms with contour curves applies here as well, so you've got to get used to applying the same confidence you achieve elsewhere to these kinds of curves, but in general you're demonstrating a good grasp of how these forms interact with one another.

About the texture - you're doing perfectly fine. In fact, you're a little ahead of where I'd expect people to be for this particular lesson (albeit about where I'd expect you in particular to be, as you've demonstrated a better grasp of most things). As you've likely seen from the last lesson, I have a tendency to introduce particular concepts, and get students to start thinking about them, by dropping them in the deep end of that particular pool. In this case, it's a matter of just seeing how a student approaches dealing with a large amount of visual information, and having it wrap around more concrete forms.

Moving onto the 25 texture challenge next is definitely a good idea, to help organize your approach to texture, and to put your energy to a more efficient use. That said, make sure you don't try and treat that challenge like the other two - it's not meant to be done all at once. Rather, it's meant to be spread out over time. You'll benefit much more from tackling one texture at a time, and giving yourself the chance to really absorb what you've learned from it, and to grow from that experience. Figuring out how to tackle different kinds of texture is very much a matter of experience. While there are common principles that connect a lot of different kinds, it is important that you learn them by doing.

One recommendation that I have for now is to try and rely less on generic sort of hatching lines. Try and commit to solid areas of black or white, and if you want to create a transition area between them, try and find an appropriate pattern that exists inside of your reference image. Hatching lines tend to be used more as filler, where a student hasn't quite looked deep enough to find something more suited to the surface they're trying to create. Additionally, as mentioned in the texture challenge notes, always remember that the lines you're drawing are actually just shadows cast by the tiny forms that exist along the surface of your object. Because they are shadows, they can be blasted out if lots of direct light is applied to them, or they can merge together when there isn't enough light hitting that side of object. Don't be afraid to have large areas of white or black, but rather try and treat the areas of texture, and of higher contrast (where you have lots of black/white marks together in a small space) as a sort of precious commodity. If you apply them all over, things will get noisy and distracting. Rather, we want to use those areas to control how the viewer's eye moves over the drawing, from focal point to focal point.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson. And again, thank you for increasing your pledge once again!

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

2017-06-26 11:16

Focus on the boxes for now.

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

2017-06-26 01:30

Very nicely done! Across the lesson you've demonstrated a lot of careful attention to my instructions, which certainly warms my heart. That makes this critique a little easier than others.

Your lines are generally fairly smooth, but I detect just a hint of stiffness and wobbling in certain areas. Keep in mind that the flow of your lines is also the highest priority (more important than accuracy). Once you start executing a mark, it's important to maintain the same trajectory, even if that means missing your intended target slightly. Here's an exaggerated example of what I mean, with the super imposed lines as context.

It may seem a little counter-intuitive (since we're raised often valuing accuracy above all else), but the flow and smoothness of our work is something that is more dependent on how we approach things, while accuracy will always improve with practice.

The same principle applies to your ellipses, which again are fairly well done, but do have a touch of stiffness to them that throws off the evenness of their shape. Ghost through the mark during the preparation phase, but once you commit, trust in your muscle memory and focus on drawing confidently so you produce an ellipse that is smooth and even.

Jumping through to your boxes section, you've generally done a very nice job. Great to see that you're double checking your rough perspective boxes. Also, your rotated boxes are very solidly done, even though I fully expect students to struggle with this exercise, as well as the organic perspective boxes. I do still believe you'll benefit from some targeted work on constructing arbitrarily rotated boxes in 3D space, but you're doing great as it is.

So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes 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 Box Challenge"

2017-06-26 00:46

Nice work! I can definitely see your struggles in certain areas, but I'm very pleased to see the care with which you went over with corrections, and that you applied the extending-lines approach to finding where your mistakes were. As your box constructions are certainly improving, I'd definitely recommend also experimenting with adding line weight to help solidity your forms. Be sure to read the notes about how to approach this on the challenge page, in the 'other tips' section.

About fighting with your wrist, remember that most of your linework should be done from the shoulder, with your wrist locked. This includes the lines you're drawing here, as our main focus when drawing them is on their flow and smoothness. The wrist is used on a fairly limited selection of lines, as explained here. Our shoulders are also able to sustain much more drawing without cramping (once you've gotten used to it, that is), and stand up more effectively to repetitive stress injuries. Drawing too much from your wrist can be quite dangerous.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-06-26 00:42

Nice work! I can definitely see that you struggled in certain areas, but your confidence definitely improved over the whole set. I certainly agree that your work has a tendency to get a little hairy, especially when you lose confidence in the shape of what you're drawing. I definitely encourage you to limit yourself to two or three rounds tops (two is really optimal), as you're planning to do. Also try and slow down when applying weight to your straight lines. I don't mean slow down when executing, but rather, try to draw less and spend more time planning and ghosting through that motion before executing. I definitely noticed hairiness here too, where you seemed to go over and over and over a line, seemingly dealing with inaccuracy by drawing more rather than taking a step back and thinking through the process.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that you should be sure to give this video (linked in the challenge page) a watch if you haven't already. It covers how to construct ellipses inside of planes, which you don't seem to be doing correctly. There's two major criteria described in that video, and it's an important thing to internalize as you move forwards.

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

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

2017-06-26 00:36

Overall, fairly well done. There is one major issue though that I'm seeing, which plays a role in your general approach to things, so it rears its head throughout the entire lesson. It is however a pretty common problem: you hesitate when drawing your lines, which results in strokes that are wobbly or stiff.

This happens because you're stressing too much about drawing accurate lines, and end up executing the mark slowly so your brain has the chance to course-correct as you go. These course-corrections are what ultimately manifest as wobbling. While accuracy is important, our first priority should always be the flow and smoothness of our strokes. This means that we need to be executing our marks with a confident, persistent pace.

Ultimately that's what the ghosting method is all about, and why it should be applied to every mark you draw. It splits the process of mark-making into multiple steps. First we focus on preparing, building up muscle memory and getting used to the motion we'll be using to draw. This is where we invest all of our time, and where we do what we can to improve our chances of being accurate. Once your pen hits the page however, you're committed - you need to maintain the same trajectory you started with, even if it's a little off. Mistakes happen, and if we fuss over trying to avoid them while drawing, our lines will wobble, and our work will always lack the confidence of smooth, straight strokes. I summarize this notion in this comic.

So as I mentioned, this issue is prominent in all of your lines, even to a somewhat lesser degree to your ellipses. Also for those ellipses, remember that ghosting still applies here, as that preparatory phase is what will improve your accuracy. I noticed that a lot of your ellipses in the tables of ellipses tend to be floating in their set spaces, rather than fitting snugly. This is a common result of not spending enough time preparing beforehand.

Jumping ahead, for your rough perspective boxes exercises, it's important to 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 when next attempting it.

It definitely seems that for your rotated boxes exercise, the 33 attempts paid off. You're generally doing quite well here. Mind you, this exercise is meant to be very difficult. I don't necessarily assign exercises expecting students to be able to complete them perfectly, or even well. There are times where it is beneficial to get students to try tackling them now, knowing full well that they will struggle. In this case, the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes exercises force you to start thinking about how forms can be rotated arbitrarily in 3D space. All I ask is that you put forth your best effort for every exercise, and devote the time necessary to do that.

Your organic perspective boxes are coming along in this fashion, though we'll certainly get some more work in here.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. This is both to get more work in on arbitrarily rotated boxes, but also to get more practice applying the ghosting method and drawing smooth, confident strokes. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms - which you applied in some of your boxes in the organic perspective boxes, but not all of them. Those were you did tended to be somewhat better, as drawing through your forms helps you to better grasp how each box sits in 3D space.

Oh, about drawing from your shoulder - it's completely normal for it to feel weird. We're generally most practiced using pens/pencils from our wrists, so performing a similar act in such a different way naturally feels awkward and strange. It takes time both to get used to this, and also to develop the different muscles that are used when pivoting from the shoulder. Be sure to keep at it, even if it feels uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-06-24 02:00

Ellipses certainly are challenging, but from what I'm seeing you're doing a pretty good job of it. I mean, I guess the ones you discarded may have been worse, but it's important to remember that mistakes and blunders are totally par for the course. They're not just inevitable - they're necessary.

Your cylinder constructions are looking very solid, and I particularly like some of the variations you've implemented here - like drawing several cylinders on a single minor axis. I'm also pleased to see that you made several attempts at starting with a box. Some more of these would definitely be better, as this approach tends to be very useful in later lessons (like lesson 6), but you're doing great as it is.

The only thing I want to point out is that you do have a lot of cylinders where your minor axis extends from the center of each ellipse. Remember that the purpose of the minor axis is to help with alignment, so actually drawing each ellipse so it falls entirely on the minor axis (being cut through completely by it) is going to be much more useful in terms of gauging whether or not it was lined up correctly. Being able to see whether or not you did it correctly is definitely a big part of the learning process.

Anyway, great work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. By the way - thanks for increasing your pledge! I really appreciate it.

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

2017-06-24 01:57

Over all you've done a pretty solid job. You've got a lot of interesting experimentation with all three dimensions of space with how your arrows flow. Your organic forms with contour lines are generally pretty well done as well. You've definitely done a good job of nailing the contour curves, getting them to wrap around the rounded forms nicely. With that one particularly odd form near the upper left of that page (with the super wavy contour curves), I'm glad that you realized it was a bit of a dead end to pursue. Not necessarily bad as an exercise, but focusing on simpler sausage-based forms is definitely a much more effective way to get your head around this particular challenge. In the next lesson, we'll get into construction, which is all built around the idea of building things up from their simplest state - this experiment is a great example of starting something way too complex. In this particular case, I'd draw three separate sausages alongside each other, and then let them fuse together. This way you'd maintain the solidity of the simpler forms.

I did want to point you to these notes in regards to your contour ellipses. You're making good headway in that area, but I just wanted to make sure that you understood how the degree of each ellipse relates to the circle it represents in 3D space (and more specifically, the orientation of that circle).

Very nice work with your dissection textures. The only recommendation I have in regards to this is that it's best to treat each organic form as though it's merely another organic form with contour lines exercise, with no thought to the fact that you'll be adding texture. This way you end up with a nice, solid form on which to wrap your textures. Here I definitely get the distinct sense that you were a little more timid with those contour curves, because you were a little too focused on the next step. Always keep your mind on what you're doing in a given moment.

Great work with the form intersections. Your forms feel very solid and well constructed, and I'm very glad to see that you started off with just boxes, and then moved into more complex forms. The only thing that I did notice was that, especially with the box-only one, you did let your foreshortening get a touch too dramatic, which has a tendency to throw off the sense of scale. While not being a major culprit of this kind of issue, your boxes rest a little in the grey area between nice-and-shallow, and too-dramatic. If you don't remember the bit about shallow vs. dramatic foreshortening from lesson 1, give this a read. Things definitely get better on this front in the later attempts at the form intersections. On top of just getting the forms to feel consistent, you're also doing a great job of the intersections themselves (which are just the icing on the exercise-cake).

Lastly, your organic intersections are looking fairly solid. If anything, I suppose I'd recommend drawing them a little bigger (to give your brain more room to think through spatial problems), but overall you're doing a great job of demonstrating an understanding of how those forms interact with one another.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one. And by the way - thanks for increasing your pledge! It's much appreciated.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-06-23 20:03

You're doing a pretty good job, but I distinctly noticed that you didn't quite get into the correction phase of the challenge. It's particularly important, as the whole process of learning really does rely on being able to go back and identify one's mistakes. After a certain point, it does start to get much more difficult to identify mistakes as they become more subtle (and as your understanding of 3D space hits a particular plateau). In order to push beyond that, I recommend using this approach when marking in your corrections, which was 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 think this should help clarify the issue that you're encountering with not quite being able to figure out how to make sure the perspective is correct.

Anyway, that recommendation is primarily to help you make better use of the exercise. As far as the challenge goes, you've drawn 250 boxes, so I'll go ahead and mark it as complete. Make sure that you do apply the extending-lines approach to at least a couple of your pages of boxes, so you get a good sense of where things are going wrong.

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

2017-06-23 19:58

I've got a few moments before I need to get back to work (I've been pulling 12-15 hour days all week, and I have to keep pushing through the weekend and into next week! I might die!), so I'm jumping in to give you a critique. Hooray!

Your work is fantastic here. You've definitely got a very clear understanding of form and construction, and you're pushing those concepts to the full extent to create insects that feel both three dimensional and solid. The thing about successful drawings is that while certain marks may be missing (like the connection area between two forms), it's very clear that you still understand exactly what those marks would have otherwise described. You merely were able to visualize them in your mind, without having to put them down concretely. This ultimately is the goal that we strive towards.

The only thing that I want to stress is to be careful with your contour curves. I noticed that in a lot of cases, while your forms definitely suggest that you fully understand how those surfaces move through 3D space, your contour curves tend to be drawn a little more sloppily, and are a little rushed, so they don't quite deform along that surface too convincingly. It's usually just a matter of taking a little more time.

So, keep up the fantastic work and consider this lesson complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.

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

2017-06-22 13:47

Your lines and ellipses sections are very solid. You're executing your marks with confidence, which keeps them smooth and even. Your boxes however are definitely a challenge, although this isn't entirely abnormal.

The first thing I want to mention is that I do purposely include some exercises that are intended to be too hard for the skill level of the average student at that stage - in this case, that includes the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes.

Before we get to those however, for your rough perspective boxes, make sure you draw your horizon line, and more importantly, follow my instructions exactly as they're written and don't leave any part out. The horizon line is important as all of your horizontal lines should run parallel to it, and all of your verticals should run perpendicular to it. Based on your work, you know this. Having the horizon drawn serves as a useful reference/guide to maintain that relationship. The frames also work in this manner, but neglecting to add an important guide will result in work coming off a little wonkier than it otherwise might.

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 is off, so you know what to work on in the future.

Back to the rotated boxes. As I mentioned, this one's particularly difficult, and is meant to be. One thing that will definitely help however is to keep the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent. This allows you to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines, as when they're close enough together, you can effectively draw them as running parallel to one another. This not only removes some guesswork, but also tends to make the set of boxes much more structured. The biggest issue with your attempt is that it was 80% guesswork. That said, I'm very glad that you still pushed through and drew all your boxes, rather than giving up halfway when things started to go wrong.

Additionally, I noticed that you didn't quite draw through all of your boxes. That is, drawing them in their entirety, with all of their lines (including those that are blocked by other boxes, or that exist on the opposite side of the form and would not normally seen). It's important to approach these things as though we have xray vision, as this gives us a better sense of how those boxes sit in 3D space, and ultimately this exercise is all about understanding how that changes as they are rotated.

Now, I am going to mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next to get more practice in on rotating boxes freely in 3D space (like the organic perspective exercise). Be sure to read through all of the notes on that challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms, which is effectively what I mentioned in regards to your rotated boxes. Understanding how your forms sit in 3D space is critical, and the purpose of these kinds of exercises is to start developing and building up a model of three dimensional space in your mind. This of course takes time, and it'll start out rough, but your understanding of space will improve with practice.

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

2017-06-22 13:38

Not bad, but there are a few things that jump out at me that definitely should be pointed out:

• You did not draw any minor axes for your organic forms with contour ellipses or contour curves exercises. These are extremely important when it comes to aligning the contour lines so they run perpendicular to the flow of the form. This was highlighted as being quite important in the instructions, so make sure you reread them and follow them more carefully.

• Your contour curves don't quite hook back around as they reach the edges of your organic forms. This results in us not being given the impression that they actually run along the surface of a rounded object. Give these notes a read, although I should mention that in your organic intersections you handle this much better.

• You're doing a great job of wrapping patterns around the organic forms in your dissections. The major issue here is that what you're drawing are in fact mostly patterns rather than textures. The difference being that patterns are completely flat, like wallpaper. Texture is made up of smaller forms that cast shadows (which are ultimately the things we perceive as "lines". Be sure to read over the notes on the 25 texture challenge for more information on this.

• In your form intersections, I noticed that you're not drawing through your ellipses. More over, the ends of your cylinders are less elliptical and more capsule-shaped. Aside from this, your spatial reasoning for these constructions is pretty solid.

Aside form that, your work is generally coming along well, with your arrows and organic intersections being quite well done. I'd like you to do the following:

• One page or organic forms with contour ellipses

• One page of organic forms with contour curves

• One page of form intersections

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

2017-06-22 13:31

Very, very nice work. Your constructions are very solid, and despite the struggles you mentioned with ghosting, as far as I'm concerned you're executing those lines very well in the vast majority of cases. Slip-ups and mistakes are normal, they happen. What's important from there is how we deal with them, in order to downplay them, and that's working out well for you.

The primary mistakes I'm seeing relate more to the alignment of ellipses to their enclosing planes, maintaining ellipses that represent circles in 3D space (as opposed to being too squished or what have you, there are a couple of extra videos in the next lesson that will help solidify this for you). What's important though is that your actual approach to construction, with lots of subdivision and the minimizing of any guesswork means that you're absolutely moving in the right direction. The rest - which itself is coming along great - will improve with practice and time.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-06-22 13:27

Overall, you're doing great. You're at the point where the mistakes are much more subtle and more difficult to identify at the first glance. At that point, extending your lines back during the corrections phase becomes very important, as it helps to make those hidden mistakes much more obvious. I noticed that you did that here and there, but definitely make a habit of doing it more frequently, and doing so for all three sets of parallel lines, rather than just some of them.

That issue about drawing small is a common one - people tend to do that out of fear, though it actually causes more problems. Our brains benefit considerably from getting more room to think through these spatial problems, so when we limit the amount of space we're giving ourselves, we end up fumbling a lot. Of course with practice, we get better at dealing with smaller spaces, but we kind of have to work back to that.

Anyway, like I said - great work. I'll mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2 (or the cylinder challenge, if you'd prefer to do that first).

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

2017-06-22 13:22

That looks much better! As for your question about line weight, I definitely want you to keep using the same pen weight rather than grabbing a thicker pen. Reason being, it forces you to get used to a greater degree of pressure control. Just make sure that you're using a pen that allows you a greater range of line weights (I recommend a 0.5mm tip).

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-06-21 15:36

I definitely think you started out rather weak, but as you mentioned yourself, things really started to come together and improved overall over the course of the work here. I'm especially pleased with your deer/horses, where you're demonstrating a much more solid grasp of 3D form and construction, and are also demonstrating a much more careful observation of your reference images.

It is clear that there is plenty of room to grow, but you're definitely on the right track. There's only one particular thing that I want to draw your attention to - it's how your animals' legs connect to their torsos, especially the horses and deer. It seems that the way you draw them, they're more connecting around the bottom of the torso. Your lines do imply a shoulder form, but the actual form you draw for it is incomplete (often only the underside is drawn). Make sure you draw those forms completely, rather than only drawing them partially. This will help you better grasp the particular volumes at play.

Additionally, one thing you may want to practice is to draw two balls in space near one another (basically your ribcage and your pelvis), and to connect them into a sausage form. A lot of the solidity of the animal you're drawing hinges on how solid its torso feels, so getting used to nailing this more thoroughly will definitely help.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one. You may also feel free to submit 8-page sets of animal drawings in the future for further critique.

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

2017-06-21 15:27

Generally quite well done! I'm going to be a bit more brief and direct than usual, since I don't have too much time (thanks to my ridiculous work schedule), but thankfully I only have a couple points to raise:

• For your dissections, they're generally coming along great. My main recommendation here is to try and reduce your use of hatching. People tend to use it to fill areas in, but they don't end up really giving much thought to what's actually present. Don't be afraid to fill areas in with solid black, or even to leave surfaces blank. These are active decisions, while hatching tends to be that last little bit that people give up on. Overall you're very fastidious and observant with your textures, so there's just a couple of places where this is a problem. Examples: Rusted metal, tree bark. Alternatively, you did use hatching with the shiny metal, but this was more directly planned so that sort is fine.

• For your form intersections, you roughed your forms in lightly, then went over them to clean up your lines. Avoid this approach in the future. Worrying about being fainter will cause our confidence when drawing to decrease, which in turn has negative effects on the linework. More than that though, when we come back to add the darker lines, those in particular tend to be drawn more slowly and carefully, so our 'clean' lines tend to be quite stiff. Remember that adding line weight is not a matter of replacing your linework to clean it up. When adding extra weight, we're emphasizing lines that already exist, and doing so only in key areas (often to emphasize overlaps or perform other such clarifications). We use the ghosting method, and we draw confidently here too. Because the scope is often smaller, mistakes are less noticeable than if we were replacing entire shapes, but either way, if mistakes are to happen, that should be accepted as an inevitability. Drawing confidently always comes first. Again, what I'm saying here is exaggerating the issues you're actually experiencing - you're mostly doing fine. Just keep this in mind in the future.

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

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

2017-06-19 18:37

That should be okay. You could probably just include your warmups with your homework submissions.

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

2017-06-19 13:25

Much better! I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

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

2017-06-18 17:55

Honestly, this is very well done. Your lines are straight and smooth, with very little (mostly no) visible wobbling or stiffness. Your ellipses are evenly shaped, and while you're clearly striving for accuracy, you're not letting it get in the way of the flow of your lines. You're also very diligent in applying everything I've covered in the notes.

I have just a couple things to suggest:

• For your rotated boxes exercise, try and keep the gaps between the boxes narrow and consistent. This frees you up to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines, which effectively takes guesswork out of certain areas since you can just draw particular lines as being parallel to others.

• Since you're redoing lesson 1, you technically know certain things that I throw in a little later - like the importance of drawing through your forms when rotating boxes arbitrarily (like in the organic perspective boxes exercise). I purposely refrain from mentioning that here, because I want students to stumble a little, before I give them that useful tip. Once you learn about drawing through your forms however (as you did when tackling the 250 box challenge), I'd hope you'd apply it across the board. Keep that in mind in the future. While your organic perspective boxes here are done quite well, there are a few little places where I think the additional spatial awareness offered by drawing through your forms would have helped.

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

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

2017-06-18 17:46

Your form intersections are looking solid, though your organic forms with contour curves show the same issue as before. See what I mean. I also noticed that you're not applying the 'overshooting' method described in the notes I linked you to previously. This can help considerably as it helps bridge the gap between the full ellipse and the partial curve.

Lastly, you do need to work on your ellipses as well. As far as their purpose in terms of contour lines, that's fine, but in general they're quite stiff. Make sure you practice the lesson 1 exercises to get used to drawing them more confidently.

I'd like to see two more pages of organic forms with contour curves before I mark this lesson as complete.

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

2017-06-18 17:38

Nice work! Your lines and ellipses have all been drawn with a strong sense of confidence, resulting in lines that flow very nicely, and maintain a consistent trajectory, as well as ellipses that are smooth and evenly shaped. That's a very big part of what I look for in the homework for this lesson.

For your rough perspective boxes, I'm glad to see that you applied the double-checking method for your perspective, but it's important to apply it to all of your lines, rather than just some of them.

For your rotated boxes exercise, I think you did a pretty solid job (i fully expect students to struggle here, and you did better than most). One recommendation I have however is to keep the gaps between your boxes fairly narrow and consistent, so you can use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines. Being able to take the guesswork out of certain cases and just draw lines as being effectively parallel helps keep things more structured.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes is a solid attempt. Just like the rough perspective boxes, I expect students to struggle here. The purpose is to get them to start thinking about how to rotate forms freely in 3D space, instead of being tied down to explicitly plotted perspective.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, but I think you'll benefit from moving 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 should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space.

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

2017-06-18 17:20

In general your constructions are actually fairly well done. There are just a few things that you're rushing through, and as a result are skipping some steps. Firstly, make sure that you're constructing anything elliptical first as a plane (as they're easier to align to an existing surface). In the cylinder challenge, there's a link to a video on constructing circles in 3D space, and how to fit an ellipse into a plane.

Also make sure you subdivide and apply those methods for mirroring details across the center of a box more stringently. You seem to be relying more on guesswork in certain cases, resulting in lines that don't sit where they should. It may help to review some of my demos, as I stress this quite a bit.

Lastly, your line quality is rather wobbly, as you're drawing quite slowly and stressing accuracy over the flow of your lines. I understand why you'd be doing that, but you must remember to apply the ghosting method to every single line you draw, planning beforehand before executing confidently. This will open you up to lines that miss their mark, but it is entirely necessary for you to be able to produce smooth linework.

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"

2017-06-16 21:12

Nicely done! You start out a little bit weak but things really pick up quickly and your sense of construction and form vastly improves. Here are a couple things to keep in mind though:

• It's important to figure out the connection area between any two forms. It's often going to be represented with a contour line. For example, take a look at these poorly drawn spheres (i had to draw them on a shitty old tablet i have at work). The red ellipse there is the connection area between them, where they fuse together. Understanding this connection will help you better flesh out your construction.

• Remember that everything you put down on the page is a solid form, not a loose sketch. Like dropping a piece of marble into a 3D world, you can't then decide to ignore it and draw something else. That form needs to be carved and cut, and effectively dealt with in some manner. If you were just drawing 2D shapes on a page, you could certainly decide to ignore parts of it. Since we are constructing solid things, we must respect the tangible, solid, firm nature of what we create. A good example of what to avoid is how you've created some loose ellipses for the thorax and abdomen for this grasshopper, and then drawn an entirely different shape on top. Also, I mentioned that you need to cut/carve - what this effectively means is that you need to be aware of both the piece left over and the piece that is being cut away, and how they exist in three dimensions (rather than just as shapes on the page).

• You're also being a bit sloppy with your contour curves. Overall other elements of many of your drawings hold it up, but you need to be more mindful of having those contour curves wrap around the forms, accelerating as they reach the edges and hooking around. Make sure you're practicing the exercises from the basics lessons - in this case, specifically the contour curve exercises.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson. Just be sure to keep these three points in mind, as they are quite important.

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

2017-06-16 14:34

Very solid work. Your linework is generally smooth and confident, and your ellipses are quite evenly shaped and consistent. I did notice that in your ellipses in planes exercise, you do sometimes get a little caught up in conforming the ellipses perfectly to their enclosures. This is fine, only so long as you maintain the consistency of that elliptical shape. Don't let it get deformed.

For your completed rough perspective boxes exercises, I recommend going over them as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective is a little off. Identifying mistakes like this helps to guide you in regards to what needs your attention the next time you attempt this exercise.

Your rotated boxes exercise was alright. One issue that I did notice is that you aren't quite pushing the rotation of those boxes hard enough. This is a pretty common issue, as our brains like things to be neatly aligned in grids, and will actively fight against us when we try and break free of that. It's often necessary to really push and exaggerate rotation in order to break free of the comfort area our brain clings to.

This exercise, along with the organic perspective boxes one, are actually included in this lesson with the expectation that students would struggle. It's largely so you start thinking about how forms exist in 3D, and how they relate to one another, in order to begin the development of a mental model of 3D space. It's perfectly normal that you've struggled here.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, and you've done quite well. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge to get some more work in on 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. 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"

2017-06-16 14:27

In general, this is very well done. Your lines are smooth and confident, your ellipses are evenly shaped, and your boxes carry a strong sense of solidity, and a well developed understanding of 3D space. I do have a couple of recommendations to make, however.

• One thing I noticed is that to varying degrees throughout the lesson, and especially where you're pushed to struggle with more spatial problems (like the organic perspective boxes), your lines get a little hairy. It's important to exert a little more self-control. Every line we put down should be the result of planning and forethought. Students will often come in drawing a little more reflexively, putting down a line then immediately following it up with another. This is a habit that you need to work to avoid. Of course, adding line weight is different, so long as you are actually planning and ghosting those additional strokes each time. Overall, minding this will help clean up your linework considerably.

• For your completed rough perspective boxes exercises, be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to be at its weakest.

• For your rotated boxes exercise, I noticed that along the top, you weren't quite pushing the rotation of those forms far enough. Our brains naturally want to keep things aligned in neat grids, so at times you do have to fight against your own brain and really exaggerate rotations to break away from what feels comfortable. Additionally, it can help to keep the gaps between your boxes more narrow. In general you do seem to be keeping the gaps consistent and parallel, but the closer those boxes are to each other, the more reliably you can use neighbouring lines as hints when adding new marks.

Overall I'm quite pleased with the understanding of 3D space that you're demonstrating. I'll be marking the lesson as complete - generally if a student was struggling with the organic perspective boxes at this point, I'd send them onto the 250 box challenge. This certainly isn't the case for you, but I am still going to ask that you attempt the challenge. In this case, the goal would be to get that reflexive/hairy linework a little more under control. Since you tend to do it more when forced to think through arbitrary rotations for those boxes, I think it'd be a good opportunity to improve on that front.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-06-16 14:18

Pretty nice work! Congratulations on completing this challenge. Here are a couple recommendations as you continue to move forwards:

• I noticed that for a lot of these constructions, you drew your ellipses around the ends of the minor axis line, with the minor axis starting and ending from the center of the ellipses on either side. Instead, try having the ellipses sit such that they are completely on top of the minor axis, with the line cutting through them completely. This will give you a better sense of their alignment, and will allow you to more easily spot instances where the ellipse isn't quite cut into two equal, symmetrical halves.

• Try your hand at constructing cylinders from boxes as well. This video (linked in the challenge notes) should help if you haven't watched it already. Boxes are much easier to construct when dealing with more complex systems of forms, so starting with a box and then building a cylinder inside of it can help considerably to keep things aligned nicely, and positioned exactly where you want them.

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

2017-06-16 14:14

These are definitely better. I'll mark this lesson as complete. I do want you to give these notes a read however. I think it'll help you better understand what the degree of each contour ellipse/curve really describes about the circle it represents in 3D space. Right now it seems like the degrees you're using for those ellipses/curves are a bit arbitrary, so this should help give some reasoning behind it.

Feel free to move onto the next lesson when you feel you're ready.

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

2017-06-16 14:12

This is a solid first attempt, but there are definitely a lot of areas in which I'd like to adjust your approach. I think you'll see considerable improvement from this, as they're the sort of issues that come from not yet understanding how to best use the tools at your disposal (specifically, your arm).

So the first thing that jumps out at me is that your lines are quite wobbly. This happens because you're very focused on the priority of maintaining accuracy. When you draw, you do so slowly and carefully, taking your time and making sure that whenever you go off-track, you consciously course-correct. Every course-correction manifests as a little wobble. There is another major priority however, that ends up being forgotten - the maintenance of a smooth flow to your lines.

In truth, if you had to rank these two priorities, flow be given more attention than accuracy. This may seem counter-productive to beginners, but bare with me. Accuracy will naturally improve with practice, and we've got some tricks (like the ghosting method) that will help here. Flow, however, is a matter of approach. The wobbles occur as a direct side-effect (or even the primary result) of the fact that you're drawing carefully, that you're trying to stay on track. Therefore it's the approach you're using that's causing the lines not to flow smoothly.

The solution is to draw your marks with a confident, persistent pace - to draw quickly enough that your brain does not have the opportunity to course-correct as you go. Once your pen touches the page and sets a course, you want to maintain that trajectory until the line is complete, with no shifts or changes, even if you happen to go a little off track. You effectively accept that once your pen touches the page, there is nothing you can do to avoid any mistakes that may occur, and so you must accept the possibility that the line you draw won't be the line you meant to draw. As a result however, it will be smooth.

The ghosting method is used to offset this decrease in accuracy - we invest all of our time in the phase before actually executing a mark, ghosting through the motion to build up muscle memory, so that when it comes time to make the mark, we can trust in that muscle memory rather than in our conscious thought.

All of this is a very common issue that beginners face, so much so that I even wrote a comic about it. It applies not just to straight lines, but to curves and ellipses as well. An ellipse that has been drawn too slowly and carefully will look stiff and uneven. You'll find that the whole draw through your ellipses thing that I insist upon will make much more sense if you draw more confidently. Right now, while drawing more slowly, it doesn't really serve any purpose. That's probably why in a handful of cases, you stopped applying that technique. Remember that as you move forwards through the exercises, I do want you to draw through all of your ellipses.

So that covers the issue of your lines, and applies to the first two sections. For the boxes section, I have a few recommendations:

• Make sure you go over your completed rough perspective boxes exercises as described here. This will help you identify where your estimation of perspective is off, so you know what to work on when next attempting this exercise.

• For your rotated boxes, it looks like you missed a couple important instructions. Firstly, you need to be drawing through your boxes. Notice how in my demonstration, I draw all of the lines that make up each box - even the ones that are occluded by neighbouring boxes, as well as those that exist on the far side of any given box? Every single line should be drawn. This will help you to better understand how each box sits in 3D space, and how that changes as the box rotates. Secondly, keep your gaps narrow, parallel and consistent. This will allow you to use neighbouring lines as hints when drawing new lines, which in turn will keep the whole set together. Since you are largely guessing when adding new lines, rather than taking advantage of the clues around you, the boxes tend to drift apart.

I'd like you to try your hand at this lesson again. I know it's asking a lot, but I think you'll benefit immensely from it, and will be in a much better position to move forwards once you've had the chance to properly apply what I've said here.

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

2017-06-16 13:56

Sorry for the slight delay - the last few weeks have been rough at work, and this last one has been worse than most.

I'm glad that you mentioned your mistake with the pen thickness - at first glance, it definitely seemed like something of concern, as your pen generally looked to be struggling all the way through. Just be sure to pick up a proper 0.5 before starting future exercises.

In general you're doing a pretty solid job. Your lines flow well, and are drawn confidently. This keeps them straight where they need to be, and keeps shapes like your ellipses more evenly shaped, avoiding any kind of wobbling or stiffness. You're also showing plenty of evidence that you've continued to apply the ghosting method through your box exercises, which is exactly what I like to see.

For your rough perspective boxes, be sure to go over your completed work as described here. This will help you to identify where your estimation of perspective is off, so you know which areas need more work in the future.

As for your rotated boxes, this exercise (as well as the organic perspective one) has been included here with the full expectation that most students would struggle quite a bit. Rather than expecting perfect work, the exercises serve to get you to start thinking spatially, to start developing a mental model of 3D space. This isn't something that will develop immediately, it does take time - this is the first step towards that.

I do agree that you're having some particular trouble spanning over the entire 180 degree rotation - your boxes cover a narrower range, and you're not pushing that rotation quite far enough. One thing that may help, is instead of just building your boxes from the center out, do the opposite. Try building them from the extremities (that we define early on, which are rotated a full 90 degrees relative to the center) towards the middle. Regardless of what trick you use to fool your brain, what matters is that you really push that rotation. Our brains naturally want to keep things neatly aligned in grids, and so will fight against us when we try and move off those perfect alignments.

As for that other point you mentioned, about the approach you've used in the past of sketching lightly then building up from there - you'll find that as you move through these lessons, that's an approach we staunchly discourage. That is, approaching things with timidity, trying to hide our initial marks, not committing until we're well into the drawing. This often results in forms that don't feel solid, and constructions that just don't quite fit together.

Always remember that the end result is not our focus. We're not in this to draw a pretty picture that we can pin up on our refrigerator door. We could just as well tear up every page upon its completion, and we would have lost nothing. We're doing these exercises for what they teach us about drawing, about understanding 3D space, and about understanding how forms relate to one another. It does take time to shift your manner of thinking in this way, but ultimately it will develop with practice so long as you continue to remind yourself that everything is a drill and an exercise, and that the end result is irrelevant.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I think you'll benefit from moving onto the 250 box challenge next to get more work in on constructing freely rotated boxes. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular will help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space.