Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals (new 50min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-18 04:34

Old thread got locked, submit your homework here.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-16 19:47

Really great work! Your sense of form and construction is coming along great. All of your lines are looking very confident and well planned. You appear to be drawing everything that is necessary for you to understand how your forms sit in 3D space, and nothing extraneous. I'm also really pleased with how your contour curves deform with full awareness of how the surfaces turn in space (like your hercules beetle's shell).

In some areas you do need to watch your proportions, like the wasp's thorax being a bit large (maybe, I'm not 100% sure about this, but in my experience they tend to be more spherical rather than oblong), but generally you're doing really well. Also don't forget to draw drop shadow shapes, it helps to ground your object in your environment.

Consider this lesson complete, and feel free to move onto the next one! I'm planning on making the new material for lesson 5 (new demos, intro video, etc.) tomorrow, so don't start on it until the lesson's been updated.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-16 16:17

There isn't a whole lot aside from practice. Try comparing the relative sizes of the different components of your object - for example, see how many of its heads will fit into its abdomen, then once you have your head established you can use it to roughly gauge how big your abdomen would be on the drawing itself. A lot of it is a matter of mileage however, getting used to doing it over and over, and messing up a lot.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-09-15 19:40

Pretty nice work! I'm glad to see the careful attention paid to the minor axis. Even in the few where you didn't draw them, I can see that you were trying to visualize them in your mind's eye. This is of course tricky business, and they didn't come out as solidly as those with explicitly drawn minor axes, but they're moving in the right direction.

There is just one thing I really want to stress - the importance of drawing through your ellipses. As I've mentioned in my lessons, I fully expect you to draw through each and every ellipse you draw for my lessons. Yours are looking decent as is, but there is some minor unnevenness in places, and some stiffness in others. When it comes to constructing cylinders, the shape of the ellipses you use is extremely important in conveying the illusion of solidity, so it's necessary to do everything you can to nail a confident, smooth ellipse. Drawing around the shape an additional time before lifting your pen will really help reinforce that muscle memory and build confidence in your muscles' ability to excel in this area.

Anyway, other than that, you've done very well. Consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-09-13 20:48

Looking pretty nice. Just a couple of important things that I'd like to remind you of:

• Draw through your ellipses! Each and every one you do for my lessons. Your ellipses aren't bad, so they haven't hindered your cylinders too much, but there still is a touch of stiffness in them that comes from drawing them more slowly and carefully, rather than confidently.

• When you draw your cylinders inside of boxes, you're not quite following the procedure correctly, in that you're forgetting about the minor axis. The method goes as follows: You construct a box, then find the midpoint of two opposing faces (by drawing the diagonals of those faces and finding where those diagonals intersect). Then you draw a line between those two midpoints, this line becomes your minor axis. Then you draw your ellipses aligned to that minor axis, and use the box as more of a suggestion, since the minor axis and the box will disagree with each other slightly. Lean more towards following the minor axis than the box, but use the box to determine general size/proportion.

Aside from that, nice work. Consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-13 20:44

Not a real critique, but those are looking pretty nice. Just gotta keep an eye on your proportions is all. Constructions are looking good. Also, just a heads up - I'm planning on revamping the material for lesson 5 this Saturday, so I'd hold off on starting on that lesson til I update the demos and add an intro video.

Uncomfortable in the post "25 Texture Challenge - fleshed out into an actual challenge for those of you struggling with how to render different materials"

2016-09-13 14:14

That's a really nice way of differentiating the two - I'll definitely use that in my future explanations to particularly confused little minions. And thanks for the extra donation by the way! It's much, much appreciated :D

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-13 01:07

Well, you still apply the ghosting method to ellipses. You draw through them 2-3 (really 2 is best) in order to help the confidence of your execution. Before executing you still have to ghost through the motion, planning and preparing it. But if you're asking about the 'a single mark' portion, technically it's still one continuous mark, it just happens to go around twice.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-12 23:40

In these new photos, it's much clearer that it's the same pen. The problem isn't that you're underdrawing beforehand or overdrawing afterwards, but rather that you're approaching it with the mindset that your first lines will be replaced.

This of course isn't happening all of the time, but it is happening frequently enough - the best thing to help in this area would be to force yourself to think more before putting down any marks. Don't be exploratory with your linework - plan, visualize, prepare then execute a single mark for every line, and do so confidently.

A rule of thumb I usually follow is that with any given form, I'm not going to reinforce the line weight around the whole thing - usually I add line weight on one side, so the original line should hold up where I haven't decided to add more.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-12 23:08

Hm, that's really strange. That said, the main point about 'replacing' lines is still valid, whether the lines are drawn with a different pen, or if they're just drawn to be fainter initially before being sured-up with a darker stroke. Draw all your lines to be relatively equal, then come back and reinforce the especially important ones to organize things.

Uncomfortable in the post "25 Texture Challenge - fleshed out into an actual challenge for those of you struggling with how to render different materials"

2016-09-12 20:12

Oh wow, you poor thing >__> You weren't actually supposed to do the challenge, it was just there like a scary story about the boogeyman to make all the children behave! Just kidding.

Mostly.

You did some pretty great work here - I'm loving the vast array of experimentation, and the wide variety of textures you've chosen. With 25 textures, I guess the well starts to run pretty dry, so I imagine it can get tricky to find more textures to draw. Overall you've done a good job, but there's a few minor points I want to mention.

Firstly, whenever you have an area that is meant to be solid black, always fill it completely - think about the actual shapes you're designing. There's only a few areas that I noticed this, but it's primarily those little unintentional white slivers amongst a sea of black that are very clearly unintentional. Basically the important thing to remember is that you want to convey intent - even if your particular approach to a texture is completely absurd, if it looks intentional, people will roll with it. Here and there you get a little scribbly, so that sense of intent diminishes (not uncommon, admittedly, after you've drawn a bazillion of these things).

The other thing I wanted to mention was that it's important to be aware of the tool you're using - it's a felt tip pen, and it draws in a certain way that is different from how, say, a pencil will behave. So applying the mindset one has when drawing with a pencil won't always work particularly well. The fish scales kind of came across to me as something that falls into this kind of category - they would have worked quite well had it been done with graphite, but having been done in ink, the execution felt a little less certain.

That said, sometimes it's unavoidable. There's a lot of textures that ink is really awful for. At the end of the day, it's a learning tool - you're forced to actually consider what those transitions are all about, forced to weigh the lights with the darks, and forced to draw things with much more intent than you might require when drawing with a pencil or with paint.

Anyway, you've done really well, and I can see that you've learned a fair bit. Keep up the good work, and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-12 20:00

Pretty well done! Your general use and understanding of form and construction is coming along well. I do have one biiiiig thing to point out though - I'm noticing that you appear to be drawing in phases - first laying down marks with a lighter (perhaps grey) pen, then going back over it with a black one and refining your shapes.

The problem with this approach is that it relies heavily on the idea of replacing lines and doing a sort of clean-up pass. This almost always undermines the confidence of your marks, as you're focusing more on trying to match up your lines with previous ones, rather than focusing on the solidity of a given form. This in turn can very much flatten out a construction.

Instead of approaching it in this way, it's better simply to rely upon adding line weight to key areas after the fact to help pull some lines forwards, and push others back, making the important lines clear, and making some other marks less significant in the hierarchy of the drawing. The difference here is that instead of replacing lines with new ones, you're emphasizing ones that already exist.

Your general approach is good, but I do want to see you attempt 3 more pages in this manner.

Aside from that - and you don't have to incorporate this into your drawings just yet if you don't want to, but I figured it'd be worth mentioning - right now you're focusing more on establishing those black form-shadow shapes rather than actually thinking about texture. This is more or less okay, as I'm not forcing anyone to delve into texture, but the use of form shadow does make me think that you're making some attempts into actually getting detail in there. If this is the case, try and think about how the black areas transition back into the whites. Consider where you have soft transitions, and where you have hard ones. I talk about this more in the 25 texture challenge, and have done a specific demo about how I apply this to various insects here.

Uncomfortable in the post "I dusted off my sketchbooks from when I took Dynamic Sketching with Peter Han back in 2013. Figured you guys might like to see me floundering with the material."

2016-09-11 04:31

Yeah, I was really happy with how that one came out! Unfortunately it wasn't a close enough stylistic match with the company I was testing for.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"

2016-09-09 19:57

I won't be giving in-depth critiques or paintovers, but I can give you a few tips on things to focus on:

• Keep in mind what the height of the horizon means - it's the eye level. If the horizon is high, the viewer's high above everything else (like looking out from over a cliff). If it's low, they're very low to the ground, like seeing the world from a rat's point of view.

• Try not to be muddy, it becomes much more difficult to control your values this way. Instead, take your brush opacity/flow off of pen pressure. Additionally, you may find that working off a line sketch may make it more difficult to avoid the loose, muddiness. Instead, focus on creating 2D shapes rather than line sketches, and then carve into those shapes once your composition is settled, to add complexity and interest. Starting off with a line sketch is also going to lead to a lot of dark lines where they shouldn't be (remember that super dark tones should only exist very close to the viewer).

• A lot of your compositions tend to be somewhat unbalanced - may want to read the notes on balance again.

• Remember that composition exists separately from the actual content of your images. You may want to experiment a little with just focusing on creating interesting shapes, then interpreting those shapes to figure out what'll fit in there. I do that a bit in this video.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-09 19:32

There's nothing wrong with moving forward with practicing your digital media right now - just don't forget to practice the exercises and lessons traditionally as well.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-09 02:24

Pretty nice work! Your sense of form and construction is coming along great, so you're definitely heading in the right direction. You do also have some nice textural experimentation here and there, but there's two points that I'd like to raise:

• When it comes to construction, try to hold yourself back a little. Think more before you put down a mark. It's very common for people to want to feel out their marks as they draw them, and honestly at times I'm guilty of this too. That said, it really pays to get used to economizing your use of line (it's one of the reasons we use ink after all). If you think on the page instead of visualizing your marks before you put them down, you end up with a lot of strokes that don't actually serve any clear purpose. Trying to apply the ghosting method more stringently will help you reduce this, since it forces you to consider the purpose of each mark before you make it.

• When moving onto the detail phase, there's a fine line between things that look like intentional, carefully observed and conveyed texture, and things that start to get a little too chaotic and scribbly. I see a lot of examples where you're drawing what appear to be form shadows (the big blotches of black). This is fine, but there's two things you should consider. Firstly, where those shadows have soft and hard transitions (soft edges use texture-patterns to gradually go from dark to light, using the carefully-designed alternating marks in a tight space to convey different values when seen at a distance). Secondly, which areas should be full black. When you fill in such an area, make sure it gets filled in completely. Little errant slivers of white can really have a negative impact, because they become very hot and distracting due to their contrast with their neighbouring tones. When something draws the eye, but it ends up being an unintentional, undesigned feature, it will often decrease the perceived quality of the drawing. Long story short, be more intentional with your rendering, and spend more time observing the textures present in your reference image and use them to your advantage to convey those soft edge transitions.

Anyway, aside from that, really nice work. I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one. You may however want to wait a bit before you do - I'm planning on revamping the lesson 5 material for September 17th (it'd be sooner but I'm on vacation away from my workstation), and it'd probably be worth waiting for me to make those changes.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2016-09-09 02:12

The unfortunate truth is that you're generally going to have to find a side view of the same kind of object. It's generally not too difficult, since most vehicles are reasonably well documented on the net. Even if you only manage to find a low resolution image, you can compare it against your main image to place things. As you improve on these sorts of observational skills, you won't need to rely on multiple images quite as much. When I was doing this lesson myself, my instructor actually took us to an old military museum (actually more of a parking lot with a bunch of old tanks and things in it), so we were able to walk around them and study them in person.

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

2016-09-07 19:11

Not bad, but there's a couple of things I really want to stress.

• Doooooon't do a sort of initial line, then "final lines" type of thing, as you've done here with your orange lines, followed up with your black ones. I totally understand why you did it that way, but it really puts you into the mindset of "replacing" your initial lines. What you want to be focusing on instead is leveraging your line weights to help organize your linework after you've drawn in those initial lines. Rather than replacing your lines, your focus should be on emphasizing certain important ones. Your initial lines should be drawn confidently, not with the intent for them to be hidden. It just impacts your mindset negatively. Also, keep your eye on your ellipses - since you attempted to replace them, you didn't draw through them with your black pen, and they ended up being uneven.

• The 250 cylinder challenge explained the use of the minoraxis to construct your cylinders (which can also be applied to your cones). Don't toss that aside, it's really important.

• Your use of hatching's pretty sloppy. Keep your lines parallel and consistent, stretching all the way from edge to edge across the plane. Also, hatching almost never works well (at least in ink) on spheres. Don't try and rely on hatching to actually add solidity to your forms, because that won't work - what's important is maintaining those silhouettes and line weights. For a sphere, that means making sure your ellipse is even and smooth.

This sort of geometric construction is tough, so don't stress too much. You're heading in the right direction, you've just got to continually remind yourself about the importance of these concepts, like your minor axis, how to use line weights, etc.

Maybe do another form intersection for your own sake, then take another stab at the lesson 6 homework.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-06 20:23

Hm... Personally, I never really handled proportion quite like that. As a result, my proportions were never quite.... super-accurate, but they were generally in the realm of "good enough" while giving me a lot more flexibility. That said, there wasn't any real trick to it - it came with simply practicing my observational skills (perhaps without relying on those kinds of initial marks).

A lot of it has to do with how I think when laying in my initial shapes. It's a lot easier to build up proportion when you've just got a comple of basic forms to worry about. Rather than putting in the little marks (which kinda has you thinking more in terms of 2D rather than 3D), I focus on how each major mass relates to its neighbours. This is the sort of understanding that persists in three dimensions, and can be manipulated freely rather than being restricted to the composition of the photograph.

Looking at those grasshopper studies, they've got solid proportions from what I can see, because whether you're aware or not, you're putting thought into how it all fits together.

I attack vehicles in that sort of CAD manner largely because they're so complex. I see no reason not to apply it to anything else, and if it helps, go for it. It tends to help a lot more for geomtric constructions though, which can fairly easily be constructed within a box that you subdivide to create a sort of 3D grid to carry over your 2D proportion-study information. Doing that for organic subject matter may result in some stiffness, but you can always start off that way and then loosen up the reins once you've hit your stride and figured those general proportions out.

Uncomfortable in the post "I dusted off my sketchbooks from when I took Dynamic Sketching with Peter Han back in 2013. Figured you guys might like to see me floundering with the material."

2016-09-06 20:06

Yep, it's all felt tip pen. The lines going back to the VP appear lighter because I've added more weight to other lines. Everything is relative, so if some lines are thicker, your range expands and the thinner lines appear lighter.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-06 19:21

Lovely work. Really solid constructions, your leaves flow nicely through space, and your line weights bring everything together and make your constructions feel so solid and tangible. I also like the gestural, organic quality to your stems. They maintain their even thickness and feel solid, but you can really feel them swaying with the breeze.

Lastly, I especially like that you didn't go too far out with the difficulty of your subjects. Each one you've done here certainly is challenging in its own way, but it all lines up very much with the specific challenges outlined in the lesson. You focused much more on reaaaaally nailing each one rather than going too crazy with your subject matter, and it paid off very nicely for you.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-06 18:50

Excellent work. Your constructions are looking really solid, but also quite confident and your use of line weight really ties everything together. Your experiments with texture also add a nice touch to drawings that are already quite successful, and I'm glad to see how many different approaches you used (instead of trying to apply the same kind of methodology to wildly different surface qualities).

I'd say your moth's furry texture was okay, though a little loose (but still way better than most of the furry textures I see at this stage from students). You can find notes on how to tackle fur in the 'other demos' section of lesson 5 but I'll also try and cover it when I update that content.

For most people I'd recommend taking the opportunity to reflect upon previous lessons, tighten up their constructional skills with plants and insects and whatnot, but you're doing very well already so I see no issue with you jumping over to Lesson 14 for a bit.

Keep up the great work and consider this lesson complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-06 18:36

Really nice work. I'm especially loving your constructional studies, it clearly demonstrates your understanding of how each bug is constructed from a variety of forms. Moreover, your particuar use of more geometric forms is very interesting.

It does look like you do need some more work on keeping your proportions in line (this is largely a matter of spending more time really looking at your reference as you draw, and keeping yourself from falling into the trap of working from memory, which can happen even after a few seconds of looking away). I am very confident in your sense of form however. For example, your initial studies of the grasshopper are looking really strong. The final drawing is a little less so, and I think it's because you actually break away a little bit from the constructional approach you used for the studies. Just use the exact same approach - build right on top of those simple forms.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that while I'm loving the dynamism of your line weights, you could do with toning the overall weights down a bit. When the lines start to get a little too thick, it starts to look more cartoony. Keep up the nuanced tapering/swelling of your lines though, just scale down your maximum weight and adjust everything else to match.

Keep up the great work and consider this lesson complete. Oh also, as I've been mentioning to others, you maaaay want to hold off on moving onto the animals lesson just yet - I'm planning on updating it as I have the others for September 17th (if all goes according to plan). It'd have been updated sooner, but being away from my workstation makes things rather difficult.

Uncomfortable in the post "I dusted off my sketchbooks from when I took Dynamic Sketching with Peter Han back in 2013. Figured you guys might like to see me floundering with the material."

2016-09-06 03:52

Hahaha, yeah, I'd just quit my job (not at all like that, but a guy can fantasize, right?)

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-05 21:58

I see what you mean - generally you're not doing too badly, but the issue is that drawing from an image puts a lot more pressure on you to really look and study your reference. A reference image contains a lot of information, and it's up to you to really sort through it and figure out what the different components are. What those basic construction forms are that you should be starting with.

When you follow one of my demonstrations, I already do that for you. You still are building up some nice constructions (page 7's beetle thing is quite nice) but you really need to focus a lot more on looking at your reference and studying it closely. One major shortfall that I'm seeing is the legs - I honestly can't be certain, but the legs that I'm seeing don't often match up with the kinds of angles and bends and lengths that I'm used to seeing for these kinds of critters. I feel like you may be working more from memory there than from actual observation, causing you to make mistakes in these areas.

So, overall you reaaally need to push how much you really LOOK at your reference. Don't draw for more than a couple seconds without looking back and work on your sense of what the core forms should be, when appyling the constructional method.

I definitely approve of your intent to draw more insects, but from what I'm seeing you are moving in the right direction. So keep at it, but I'll be marking this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one when you feel you've had enough of insects.

Actually, you might be better off sticking to the insects until I have the chance to update lesson 5 with new content. I'm out of town right now, so as it stands the plan is to do that for September 17th. Starting with the animals before then might be a little less productive.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-05 21:24

Old thread got locked, submit your homework here.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 15: Exploring an Environment"

2016-09-05 20:14

I do accept critiques from new pledges this month, but I'd actually already decided to critique yours regardless - consider it a freebie in honour of you reaching this lesson. Also it's not a particularly tough critique since you're doing a good job.

Your layouts and constructions show a strong grasp of the spaces you're building. I'm not necessarily looking for any kind of exact and precise sense of every little measurement of the scene, but rather a sort of continuity that embodies the idea that your mind is moving around the space. In a way this is the culmination of all of the stresses on construction and form.

I especially love your high angle shots - you're really quite good at those, and they give a great sense of the space and construction.

Now, if I had to suggest something, it'd be this - I'm not particularly concerned with your composition (bottom two shots are kind of stale, but whatever, it happens) but what I do think would be more valuable is for you to spend more time on the research phase, building up a table of reference images for whatever kind of environment you're building.The gas station was reasonably well done, but the first one doesn't totally feel entirely dressed. The forms and space you've established are solid, but it really goes a long way to add those touches of decor, of flavour, and so on to push it all the way. Right now I'm getting a churchy/temple vibe. Maybe a strange court room where the judge is an urn? It's kind of hard to tell. Each of these shots would be great jumping off points to go to town and further develop your narrative and do some great world building.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-05 19:59

You've got some pretty solid constructions there throughout your work - sometimes you drop the ball a little (like the pot on the right side of page 4 which has no bottom and is left open) but other constructions come out fairly well, especially in your later pages (which I assume were influenced by the changes I'd made to the lesson).

Your approach to detail and texture is coming along, but I have a few tips. Firstly, I think you might be jumping into the whole "organizing your textural detail" phase a little too early. If you look at the 25 texture challenge you'll see how I talk about the two phases of learning how to approach texture - the first phase being getting used to really observing, drinking in all of the detail and visual information, and then conveying it on the page without worrying about organizing that information. The second phase is, of course, giving it structure and building a hierarchy. You're coming along well in some ways, but I think you're still at that first stage, so you need to focus more on that rather than the later one.

Also, I see that you tend to use a lot of hatching lines. This isn't always a bad thing (page 5 is okay, at least in what you were trying to do to capture the flow of the leaves' fibres) but In other areas you fall into the common trap of attempting to use hatching as more of a fallback to fill in space. Doing this usually discourages you from actually taking the time to study the textures present in your reference, and becomes a shorthand for "I don't know what goes here but I don't want to leave it blank."

Texture and detail is of course completely secondary to construction and form, so just be sure to keep these points in mind as you continue to move forwards. I'll mark this lesson as complete, so go ahead and move onto the next one when you're ready.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2016-09-05 16:29

I'm glad to hear that you've been making use of my lessons. Unfortunately due to the massive amount of work involved in doing homework critiques, there are certain requirements that I have in place to help keep the workload more manageable:

• Lessons must be completed in order, waiting for me to give my critique and mark a lesson as complete before moving onto the next one

• Lessons must be completed using the required tools listed in that lesson's homework section (1-7 requires ink, 3-7 specifically requiring felt tip pens)

• One month out of every three, I restrict my critiques to patreon supporters only (to give myself a break).

I'd love to be able to give critiques to everyone, but unfortunately it's just not possible. Even with these restrictions, I end up with over 200 critiques to do every month. I'm likely to increase the restrictions and change how all of this is handled in the near future to reduce the still increasing workload.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-05 02:29

Oh right, your micron question - microns are perfectly legitimate felt tip pens, so they're totally acceptable.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-05 02:04

Pretty nice work! When it comes to filling in those black spaces (which can be a pain with a regular 0.5mm pen) a brush pen can help considerably. Also, I really feel that the second last page shows a serious drop in quality (perhaps the break of 10 days caused you to forget a lot of the important concepts of building up construction and such, as your leaves seem to be somewhat rushed, with little focus on establishing that flow-line and so on).

That said, the other pages are looking pretty solid. You did a good job of replicating my demonstrations, and then did a reasonably solid job of carrying that information over to your other drawings. You probably could do with toning down the number of contour curves on your cacti and tree trunks, but generally your forms are feeling very solid and the whole approach of building up with successive passes, adding more and more complexity, is working well for you.

As for that ten day break - if the pages are in chronological order, that last page marks a sort of return to the strengths you demonstrated previously. You're being more careful, and applying the steps correctly.

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 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-05 01:58

This is why I strongly believe that beginners shouldn't be allowed to have opinions - I think this is all fairly well done. Your linework is confident, and your sense of construction and form is coming along well. Your leaves flow nicely through space, and your more geometric forms are looking solid.

I have just two points that I'd like to mention, but like I said - pretty good work. First off, I think you are a touch too eager to draw marks on the page, and could stand to hold yourself back just a little bit to think through your lines more and apply the ghosting method more before you set them to the page. There's a bunch of extraneous lines that serve no purpose that probably shouldn't have been drawn in the first place. Really, it's that sort of loose sketchiness that comes from thinking on the page, rather than thinking in your mind before executing your marks.

The other point is in some ways related - you should probably avoid using hatching lines when it comes to filling in shapes or suggesting detail or texture. Beginners generally use hatching as a shorthand that keeps them from really looking at the textural information that is actually contained within their image - it basically says "I don't know what goes here, but I don't want to look more closely and just really want to fill in this space". Avoiding it as a rule, at least for some time to come, is definitely a good idea as it forces you to come to terms with certain things you may be skipping. Generally since these lessons focus way more on construction than texture, I'm more concerned with your forms. This relates more to that secondary detail phase.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-04 16:57

Patreon flair seems to be showing up fine to me. Anyway, your work is pretty well done! Your constructions generally demonstrate a solid sense of form and construction. There are a couple issues, but overall you're doing well.

The first thing that jumps out at me is that in you're very much drawing texture and detail much as though you're drawing with a pencil. Keep in mind that felt tip pens and pencils are veeeery different. With a pencil, you can build up value, creating a gradient of tone. With a felt tip pen, every mark you put down is generally going to be full dark or close to it. So, attempting to play with making fainter strokes (which only really occur when ink flow isn't optimal) is probably not the best road to take.

Instead, try and take advantage of the pen's strengths - for example, insteado of trying to control the darkness of a stroke, the general way to build up gradation and transition between white and black is to have alternating marks of white and black within a small area of space. I discuss this more on the 25 texture challenge page.

The other thing I want to mention that it's very easy to fall back to applying hatching lines all over, but it's really just a shorthand for "I don't know what goes here, I'm not going to look carefully at the surface to identify the textures present, but I REALLY want to fill in the space." It's often something beginners do that keeps them from even considering what that more complex textural information might be.

The last thing I want to mention is that the flower pot on the calla lily - I can see that you pointed it outyourself as being rushed. It may be worth while to at least look through the 250 Cylinder Challenge to better understand how cylinders can be constructed, and the various principle involved.

Anyway, you've generally done a solid job. Your construction is pretty well done, most of my concerns lay with your approach to texture, which is really a secondary priority. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "State of the Union - September vacation, and dealing with the overwhelming number of homework submissions"

2016-09-04 03:10

1. I definitely don't stress perfecting one lesson before moving onto another. These lessons are intended to teach you how to practice - I'm not teaching you how to draw, I'm teaching you how to learn how to draw. You do the required amount of homework with the intent of getting a sense of what each exercise is asking of you, and what you should be aiming for. I mark a lesson as complete when I'm confident that you're going in the right direction. Mastery is a target, not a location you'll actually reach. Especially with lessons 1 and 2, they're collections of exercises that you should practice regularly. So no, you're free to do whatever you like alongside the exercises and lessons. When you do the lessons though, follow them to a tee - don't add anything external. That is, no information from other tutorials, no ideas of your own - get your head around what the lessons describe, and once you really feel confident in it, then you can consider it against other things you've learned.

2. Plenty of people go through the lessons on their own, making their own decisions on whether or not they're ready to move onwards. I'm also likely going to create another subreddit for drawabox students to critique each other and get input.

3. It's not a question of how long - it depends on the person. What matters is that you put in your absolute best effort towards completing the minimum required amount. An hour a day is a substantial amount, but you might find that it'll take you a week or two to get through one lesson. Just make sure you don't rush and do sloppy work. If it's not the best you're capable of, then it's not going to help much. Of course, even if your best is awful, that's still worthwhile.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"

2016-09-03 23:44

For a first shot, these are a fantastic start! There's plenty of things you can work on, and a handful of principles you're forgetting (which is totally normal, these get ingrained with repetition), but you're moving in the right direction. Keep at it - this is the sort of thing that requires LOAAAADS of practice, so doing them frequently will definitely yield some significant improvement.

Over here I've put together some little notes and comments, but more importantly I painted over most of your thumbnails (I ran out of time before I could finish them all). Some important things to keep in mind:

• Don't split your canvas in halves - always think in thirds rather than halves.

• Push your value range, there's a few here that tend to stay within a fairly limited range of greys

• Super foreground elements REALLY help to draw the viewer into the frame - these are overlarge things that cover just a bit of your composition and are otherwise cropped out. These are always going be the darkest things in frame.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-03 22:51

Generally not bad. The areas where you filled large areas with black probably would have been better managed with pushing your line weights though (to clarify line weights). The heavy blacks feel a bit out of place since they're fairly isolated as cast shadows, rather than there being heavy blacks all over to demonstrate other kinds of lighting. Since we're not really looking to capture lighting right now, it's probably not worth delving into just yet.

Another thing I want to stress is that looking at your drawings, I'm getting the sense that your general process is to draw things in faintly, then come back and replace the lines with more final strokes. This is inherently different from simply adding line weight (which is rather than a replacement, an emphasizing of certain existing lines). There's a few reasons this is not ideal, but in this case the most prominent is that it downplays previous contour information you've added.

Instead of thinking so much about the final result (and how clean it is as a drawing), focus on drawing each stage with full confidence. Don't draw any marks to be "invisible". Any mark you put down should have purpose and intent behind it. Afterwards you just add weight to key lines instead of all of them, to reinforce points of overlap or to add a little bit more dynamism.

Lastly, you have a LOT of contour ellipses in your branches, and they're mostly unnecessary. Don't attack this with a quantity over quality strategy. Draw them only where necessary, and take the time to draw them carefully (and draw through all your ellipses!). Keep in mind what their purpose is - to describe the curvature of the surface of a form. One or two will do that just fine, you don't need a dozen per square inch.

Where you're struggling with detail and texture, it's always an issue of observation. Your skills in that area are just budding, so with time and practice they will improve. Always keep in mind that the details and lines and marks you generally see are the result of bits of form casting shadows across the surface of an object. You're not drawing the little bumps on something, you're drawing the shadows they cast. Think hard on that concept, as it can take a little while to sink in, but understanding the difference between drawing a thing, and drawing how it impacts its surrounding area will have a considerable impact on how you see these objects.

Now, I am going to mark this lesson as complete. Go ahead and move onto the next lesson, but make sure you apply what I've mentioned here as you continue to move forwards.

Oh, and one last point: https://imgur.com/a/33Fcl

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

2016-09-03 22:16

I think your sense of form is definitely improving, and while you started off applying waaaaay too many contour curves at the beginning, you seem to ease up by the end of it, focusing more on the purpose of the curves rather than simply using a quantity-over-quality strategy. Page 7, the beetle (hercules beetle, is it? or possibly a rhino beetle, I forget which is which) is looking pretty nice.

In general though, you really need to keep on top of your proportions. Take more time figuring out in general terms how big things should be. Find a solid sample of measurement (say, the thorax of the insect) and try and find the scale of other things in relation to that. For exampe, perhaps the forelegs are two thoraces long, or something like that. Additionally, always strive to contain the entirety of your drawing on the page. Sometimes you simply can't avoid having limbs cut off and such, but try to plan ahead for that when you know your insect's got some wildly large appendages.

There is surely plenty of room to improve, but I think you're making good progress - especially on those last two pages. As such, I will be marking this lesson as complete.

I do want to let you know that I hope to update the lesson 5 content (as I have done for 3 and 4) on September 17th. I'd do it sooner, but since I'm out of town I don't have access to the tools I need. You may want to consider practicing previous lesson material further, or looking at the texture challenge, or even just taking a break and drawing other things for a bit before then, as I hope to really expand on how the constructional method works in terms of drawing animals, in ways that the current lesson does not quite nail.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-09-03 18:57

The giraffe is moving in the right direction. With your zebra, I believe you're getting a little distracted from the core construction (I'm glad to see that you did that extra page of sketches without details and texture). Though I do want to mention that when it comes to that first page with the zebra head, you got REALLY scribbly when filling in the muzzle, and from what I can see there's very little construction going on when it comes to the zebra's neck. The mane seems to come out of nowhere and isn't terribly grounded.

Overall, I think I want you to hit pause for a bit - I'm in the awkward position of being away from my workstation (I'm out of town, visiting my parents for a couple weeks). Over the past few weeks, I've been seriously revamping the dynamic sketching lessons, adding long intro videos discussing basic concepts and redoing all of the demos with fresh recordings. I've done this with lessons 3 and 4, and 5's next on my list.

All of these changes focus much more on this idea of construction (which crystalized in my mind over the last several months, after writing these lessons). Now, I plan to do the same for lesson 5 soon after getting back - I guess it'd be somewhere around September 17th.

What I'd like you to do is to go back and watch the videos for lessons 3 and 4, and go through the demos as well. This'll refresh your understanding on exactly what I mean by construction. Then, take a load off and wait for me to post the new content for lesson 5 - I know it's a pain to wait, and I'm sorry for the delay, but I think this is the best I can offer right now since I'm out of town.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-03 17:28

Overall you're doing great. This is really what I'm after - there's room for improvement, and there's definitely some here that are less good than others, but you've got some nice ones that really show me a growing understanding of form, construction, and even the use of line weight to really emphasize your overlaps and generally increase cohesiveness across all of the forms present.

I'm loving how you're drawing your stems - they feel solid and confident, and they flow nicely from one to the other. The knots, almost like the knuckles in a person's hand, are a great touch and demonstrate an understanding of the subject matter that really pushes the believability of your drawings.

Sometimes you do have a bit of a tendency to go a bit loose with your contour ellipses. The pitcher plant's a good example of this, so work on tightening them up. In the main drawing on that page, I actually get the sense that the one ellipse that spills way outside of the form feels more correct, and that the curve should have actually come out that far - but at the end of the day, we're drawing with ink so there isn't a whole lot of room for adjustment and fixing.

Also, I do think that your blobby cactus could have used a bit more in the way of contour curves - just one here, one there to reinforce the volumes of the cactus itself. The vase is looking pretty nice though - good construction. Keep that up and I think you'll breeze through the relatively challenging lesson 6 (once you get there).

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

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

2016-09-03 16:00

Ah! Sorry to have missed that. I've added it to my list, so you'll be getting a critique in a few hours (probably - things are hectic here at the moment so I steal away to write critiques whenever I can).

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

2016-09-02 19:58

Unfortunately free critiques are closed this month. You can check out the state of the union post for more information.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-09-01 20:33

Looking very nice. Some of your stems in the drawings themselves are a little uncertain (I'm not sure if you drew them before or after actually doing the stems exercises, but they are definitely small and somewhat cramped so that's a factor), but when you do them as isolated exercises they're pretty solid. Your leaves in general are pretty good, though again the isolated leaf exercises are very well done. I also really liked your mushrooms.

Overall, what I'm looking for is all there. Solid forms, a good sense of construction, and so on. You're absolutely moving in the right direction, so keep it up.

When it comes to texture (which of course is not important at all right now), there's certainly not a whole lot going on. If you are interested in working on that side of things, you should definitely take a look at the 25 texture challenge. Right now it looks to me like you need to work on your observational skills first and foremost. Another important point is to understand that felt tip pens really are fundamentally different from working in graphite or ballpoint. Where ballpoint is more like permanent graphite (which can vary in the faintness of the stroke), felt tip is always going to produce a full dark mark, with the thickness of the stroke depending on how much pressure is used. Therefore things like hatching/crosshatching, or subtle shading really isn't the way to go. That texture challenge will help explain what to look for when it comes to analyzing and studying the texture of an object.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "State of the Union - September vacation, and dealing with the overwhelming number of homework submissions"

2016-09-01 20:20

I actually touched on this in the post. There's a lot of complexities involved, but long story short, it'd compromise on my morals (free labour for something that generates money for me), it'd compromise on the quality of the work and therefore the reputation of drawabox and /r/ArtFundamentals (from my perspective, better to offer good quality critiques to a few people than low quality stuff to many), and volunteers are understandably less reliable than people who actually have a financial stake.

It's for that reason that I am going to open up a second subreddit for more community-oriented question-answer/discussion posts, so people can help each other outwithout directly impacting the reputation of the core service.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-08-31 21:39

Old thread, post your homework here.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-08-30 20:08

By a 'dumb' stylus, do you mean one that's not pressure sensitive? I don't recommend drawing on anything that doesn't have pressure sensitivity - if it does have it, and you already own it, then go ahead and use it. Note that I also allow people to use whatever media they're comfortable with for lessons 8-13, though I have plans to completely scrap and rewrite those lessons when I get the chance.

Anyway, yeah, you can do them in parallel. I don't necessarily think it's the best idea, but it's not an awful one either.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-08-30 17:26

Ahhh.... hm.. In some ways you're going in the right direction, sort of, but in a lot of ways you're forking off into a whole new trail. I'm not sure if you've seen thus far, but I've been in the process of updating these dynamic sketching lessons, clarifying certain topics and updating the demonstrations.

The next one on my list is for this lesson, but unfortunately I'm out of town on vacation and won't be able to make those changes until.. probably September 17th. That said, rather than giving you a critique on these right now, I want to wait until I can create this new content and properly explain what I mean by construction, form, etc.

It's a bit odd for me to be asking you to wait like this, but there are some things you can do. Go back through lessons 3 and 4, and look through the new content. Each lesson's got a 40 minute video of me explaining just what construction means and how it applies to that particular subject matter. The new demos also do a better job of using construction (which as a concept I really solidified after writing these lessons initially), and as a patreon supporter you should have access to the recordings.

In that time, it'd probably be worthwhile for you to practice those subjects a little bit - maybe a couple pages each - and then try a few more pages of animal drawings. Sorry about this.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-08-30 17:15

Experimenting is always good, so never shy away from that. Your work here is generally really quite good. With the line weights... there's no real trick to them, to be honest - it's a lot of practice, but I probably would go about it more like the stems, in sections, rather than trying to reproduce an entire ellipse on top. That said, It would probably still be helpful to try and do a modified version of the super imposed lines exercise, drawing an ellipse, then drawing another ellipse on top of it and trying to match them up.

One thing I do want to mention is that you are a little heavy-handed with your line weights right now. Try and be a little more subtle. For example, 214 is looking pretty good as far as line weight goes (even though your line was off by just a little bit when adding more weight, it still looks okay). Alternatively, 248 is waaaay too heavy - but I think you probably knew that.

In general though you're moving in the right direction and are making some solid progress. Keep working on those weights, on those constructions, and also on tightening up your ellipses whilst maintaining the smooth, even shape.

Keep up the great work, and consider this challenge complete!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-08-30 16:23

On the point of drawing bigger, the ones I was referring to in the previous set were taking up like half of the page or less, leaving a lot of empty space. A4 should be fine, just make sure you use the space you're given.

You're moving in the right direction - you have a LOT of room for improvement and growth, but beyond a certain point I find that keeping you at this lesson is a little less productive. Here's some additional things to keep in mind, but I'll be marking this lesson as complete.

• Whenever a form gets cut off early, don't leave it open-ended (like two parallel lines that just stop) and don't simply let it get cut off at the bottom of the page. Actually cap it off. So, in the case of a stem, there should be an ellipse at the end as if you cut the stem clean with a knife.

• Work on keeping your stems' widths consistent. That is, the two lines should generally stay the same distance from each other. At the same time, you want to keep your lines from becoming stiff - this is very hard, and takes a lot of practice, but just like your ellipses, remember that you want to strive to draw your curves confidently, following enough preparation to maintain their accuracy. You will make a LOT of mistakes, but if you attempt to reduce those mistakes by drawing slowly and carefully, you will not break free of that stiffness.

• When using contour lines and contour curves, instead of simply dumping a bunch on your drawing, think about what their purpose is and where you can place them in order to best achieve that goal. They exist to describe how a surface bends through space. Two or three well placed and well drawn contour curves will work a hundred times more effectively than a dozen placed haphazardly. Additionally, try not to space them out too evenly, as this tends to look more man-made.

Like I said, I'll mark this lesson as complete. You do have a ways to go, but tackling this problem from other angles and subject matter may help you grasp the material more easily.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-08-30 16:06

Continuing from this pointis fine, but make sure your drawings focus on construction rather than detail. If your constructions aren't solid (or aren't moving in that direction), I'll likely ask you to redo some.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"

2016-08-29 23:28

Yeah, that's moving in the right direction. As with everything else, it'll improve both with continued practice and observation, as well as with additional practice with other topics (like form construction, figure drawing, etc.) as these shots tend to combine all of them, with composition serving as the glue that binds them together.

I look forward to seeing your thumbnail sketches.