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

2016-08-23 19:26

Your contour curves waver a bit. Sometimes they're alright, other times they don't quite wrap around the rounded form convincingly. Always keep in mind that these curves need to follow along the surface of the form, so as they reach the edge (which curves away), the curvature of your contour lines should accelerate and hook back around, continuing on along the other side. There are two things I can suggest that may help:

• Firstly, you're forgetting to draw the central minor axis lines that were used in the exercise description. You use them in your contour ellipses, but not with contour curves. The curves themselves are merely the visible portion of larger ellipses, so the minor axes are still important in regards to making sure they are aligned correctly. A misaligned curve can be much more difficult to work with, in terms of getting that illusion of the line wrapping around the form.

• Try overshooting your curves a little bit, as described here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms. The video linked there is also worth watching.

Your dissections are alright. At times they get a little hairy and sketchy, but in general you're making good headway. That exercise is very much about experimenting with different ways of approaching texture and ensuring that it wraps around the forms. I have one recommendation for you:

• Keep in mind that you're not drawing with a pencil or a ballpoint pen. Felt tip pens behave quite differently, in that ideally there's no midpoint between making a dark stroke or making no stroke at all. You can't control how faint your stroke is, like you could with a pencil. You can't produce different levels of greys. Just black and white. So, accept that as being part of the tool. It's not ideal for creating really nuanced textures, but it does force you to think differently. You can still produce soft transitions between full black and full white, but in order to do this you must use texture to alternate white and black within a small space. When looking at it from a little further away, these white/black marks blend together to create varying levels of grey. If your black marks are more dense, it'll feel darker, if they're more sparse, it'll feel lighter. You can find more information on this here.

Your form intersections are coming along okay, but I have a few suggestions:

• Read the instructions more carefully. I specifically stated that you should stay away from stretched forms, and keep to forms that are more equilateral in proportion. This way we don't have to add more perspective distortion to an already difficult exercise.

• Draw through your boxes, as mentioned in the 250 box challenge. I noticed that you did it once (and that one box came out well for it), but you should be doing it for all of them, especially in an exercise like this, based largely on understanding how each for sits in space.

• The 250 cylinder challenge should help with learning how to construct cylinders.

Your organic intersections are alright. Room for improvement, but you're moving in the right direction. The one that's upside down isn't great, but the one below it is definitely better.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-23 18:53

Excellent work. The difference between those first boxes in May and the more recent ones is palpable. Your lines are considerably more confident, your weights make the boxes dynamic and the hatching is consistent and clean.

It's definitely still worthwhile to go over the set with a different coloured pen to make corrections to whatever mistakes you might see after giving your eyes a chance to rest (overall you've done well but I'm sure if you look carefully you'll find a few). Reflecting upon your mistakes is the most effective way to learn from exercises like this.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-23 18:50

Fairly well done. I have a couple recommendations:

• When doing corrections, try to find a pen that's not quite so thick. I see that you were going in the right direction in terms of trying to draw the correct lines instead of just identifying potential mistakes, but since the highlighters you were using were so thick, they don't really clarify what the line should have been.

• Consider playing more with your line weight in the future - I've got some notes about that on the challenge page

Aside form that, you're doing great. Keep it up, and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-08-23 18:46

For that exercise in particular, I'm on the fence, but leaning more towards just getting used to constructing them from your imagination. Getting your head around things flowing through space without worrying about all the minutia and detail of using reference.

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

2016-08-23 14:12

Ahaha, outside activities.. <___< What are those?

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

2016-08-23 13:40

Haha, thanks. I didn't realize the lesson 1 thread already had so many comments already.

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

2016-08-23 02:34

That's.. actually an interesting idea. Of course, that would totally lock out anyone who wasn't able to put money down (rather than the lottery thing that would at least allow a certain number of people in for free every month). Still, despite that it's a very outside-the-box way of thinking!

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

2016-08-22 23:55

Thanks!

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

2016-08-22 23:55

Honestly I just can't bring myself to have someone work for free, it feels incredibly inappropriate. Of course the alternative isn't terribly feasible either, since paying even a low wage for something that isn't likely to encourage an increase in revenue is unwise from a business perspective. Perhaps the creation of a more community-oriented sister-subreddit would allow people to play that role for each other, rather than dumping the responsibility all on one person. The results of critique by committee will always be less desirable than leaving it to a single person, but at least it wouldn't be unfair.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-22 22:59

Pretty decent work. One thing I noticed is that it can be a little tough to tell which side of the box faces the viewer and which side faces away (since we're drawing through our boxes). Shading in one near plane with hatching lines can help clarify this considerably.

Also, as you continue to work on this in the future, consider playing with line weight to help kick your boxes up to the next level. There are notes in regards to this on the challenge page, be sure to check them out.

Consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-22 22:56

Not bad. Don't forget to go over your boxes with a different coloured pen, making in the correct lines where you notice mistakes. Reflecting upon your work in this way is an important part of improving.

Additionally, as you continue to work on these in the future, it's definitely worth experimenting with adding line weight to your boxes. There's some notes about this on the challenge page. They'll help kick your boxes up to the next level.

Congrats on completing the challenge.

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

2016-08-22 22:41

These, especially on that first page, are much much much much much better. The second page isn't bad, but the first page definitely nails it.

One thing to keep in mind is the importance of that minor axis line - each curve is part of a larger ellipse, and that ellipse should line up with the minor axis (such that the minor axis cuts the ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves). If you get that alignment correct, it becomes much easier to wrap the ellipse around.

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

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

2016-08-22 22:38

Pretty good work. There is one thing that you're not doing nearly as much as you should, and that's drawing through your ellipses. You do it a bit in your form intersections, but you completely neglect it in your organic forms with contour ellipses. If you've forgotten, this is what I mean.

Your organic forms with contour curves are coming along okay, though keep in mind that each curve is part of a larger ellipse that should be aligned to that central minor axis line that passes through the form. This will keep the curve at a good angle, which will also help with that illusion of it wrapping around the rounded form.

Generally when drawing these organic forms, it's good to try and keep them fairly consistent in terms of width. Random tapering or swelling will cause them to feel less solid.

Your dissections show a lot of solid experimentation. That's what this exercise is all about, so don't worry so much about the results. Every different kind of texture's going to be a new problem to solve, and while you'll accrue some knowledge through your experimentation, each one's going to present some new challenges to face. Ultimately texture is not our focus - it pales in comparison to the importance of form and construction. As far as my expectations go, you're coming along more than well enough in this section. It's also nice to see how keen you were on pushing the limits of your patience with how intricate and well-planned each texture was. If you are interested in a more in-depth exercise in regards to texture, check out the 25 texture challenge.

Your form intersections are coming along well. One thing that I did notice is that your ellipses (at the ends of cylinders) aren't always aligned correctly. Make sure you start the construction off with your minor axis, and that you sit the entire ellipse along the minor axis line, rather than trying to draw it around the line's end point. The line's purpose is to show you how to align the ellipse - as explained in the 250 cylinder challenge page, the ellipse should be cut into two symmetrical halves by that line.

The other point I want to make is that you should avoid drawing through your forms with faint, timid linework. Draw those lines as confidently as you've drawn the rest. Faint linework tends to be less trustworthy, simply due to the mindset that goes into drawing that sort of a mark, rather than a confident one.

Your first page of organic intersections is so-so, but your second page does show some improvements. Try to focus on drawing those organic forms as being fairly voluminous, rather than having flat, deflated ones in there. It helps the aesthetic for sure, but it also helps you practice how to deal with these kinds of large masses and how they'd interact with one another.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-22 22:27

Reasonably nice work. Your use of line weight is also quite good. The only thing that I caught was that near the end on that last page, you've got a box that just doesn't look right, but that wasn't corrected.

If I'm looking at it correctly (in terms of which side is towards the viewer and which side is away), your near/far planes are dramatically reversed. If I'm looking at it the wrong way, then your angles are all mangled. The box in question is 242.

Anyway, you're generally doing a good job, and your line quality isn't anything to be too worried about. Just keep at it, but for now it's fine.

Consider the challenge complete!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-08-22 22:22

Definitely better. Your overall construction is improving, and for the most part your sense of proportion is as well. Sadly my answer to your request for advice on the proportion front isn't going to change from the last time you asked. It's a matter of practice, and making a whole lot of mistakes along the way.

Your head constructions there on the last page definitely aren't the greatest, and for the most part it's because you're not really breaking it into the underlying forms. Firstly, that initial circle/ball you draw is somewhat misplaced. That ball represents a very specific part of the skull - the cranium, which is the ball mass at the back. The muzzle extends out of that as a box, usually dropping further down. Notice how I tackle it in these examples:

• http://drawabox.com/viewimage/lesson5/bearhead.jpg

• http://drawabox.com/viewimage/lesson5/oryx.jpg

As for contour curves, yours are looking fine to me. I wouldn't necessarily look at my reference for that. The reference tells you what the forms are like, so you should have a goal of how exactly you want to describe that surface when you go back to your drawing to add contour lines. The only recommendation I have here is that you should try not to space them out so evenly as you have on your giraffe's legs. Cluster a couple together, then add one more a little further out. That should be enough.

Anyway, I'll mark this lesson as complete. You've got a ways to go, but you're heading in the right direction.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-22 22:04

Looking pretty good! I definitely don't agree with how you stopped drawing through your boxes halfway through, but I'm glad that you started doing it again some way in. Overall your use of line weight from 12-170 is nicely done. I'd say your last two pages are even better, because it's a little more subtle but still noticeable.

Keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

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

2016-08-22 22:01

Definitely getting better. You're still struggling with anything that involves organic forms (really grasping how they exist in 3D space), but your ability to construct geometric forms seems to be pretty good, as shown in your several pages of form intersections.

Despite the fact that you're struggling, you are improving with those organic forms. The organic forms with contour curves feel more believable, although the curves themselves aren't always all that even (some of them get rather stiff) but this will improve with practice.

Your dissection textures aren't great, but at this point I don't really expect them to be. There are a few things you can focus on to improve here, though:

• Try not to scribble - though as beginners we often fall back to scribbling, it honestly has no real place in the kind of drawing we're doing. We want to focus on rhythms, on patterns, on predictable flow. Scribbling evokes chaos. Often times at first glance the textures we look at appear to be quite chaotic, but if you look deeper, if you really try to find the rhythm, it's there. It's not going to be easy to find, and it may take a lot of practice and repeated attempts, but as long as you force yourself not to draw erratically or randomly, you'll move in that direction.

• Avoid hatching - hatching is a great technique for certain media. Graphite, even ballpoint pens can benefit from it, but with the felt tip/fineliner pens we're using right now, the fact that they force you to draw a super dark mark, or no mark at all, with very little inbetween is simply part of the nature of the tool. We need to learn to embrace that. This means accepting that when you want to fill something in, really fill it in. When you want to make a transition from a solidly dark area to solid white area, you'll need to actually use a sort of texture-pattern to achieve that transition. A texture is really just a bunch of alternating black and white marks, so if you can't rely on modifying how faint your marks are (to create various levels of greys, which our pens don't allow) you're forced to create those alternating black/white patterns. If you stand back and look at such a pattern, it'll actually appear to be more like a grey because your eye will mesh them together. If there's more black than white, it'll appear darker. If there's more white than dark, it'll appear lighter. I talk about this a lot more here: http://drawabox.com/lesson/texture, but don't worry too much about it right now. It's a deep rabbit hole, and properly building up your understanding of form and construction is WAY more important.

For your organic intersections, and really for organic forms in general, try to keep the forms as simple as possible - this means simple sausages that don't taper or swell at all. I noticed in your organic intersections the one laying on top of the pile towards the right side feels kind of deflated and flimsy. This is because it actually swells out a lot as it goes to the far right.

You are demonstrating some better points in this exercise however - your sense of how these different forms interact with one another is improving.

Overall, I'm pleased with your progress. You have a lot to improve on, and I'm sure you know that you're still expected to continue practicing the material from this lesson and the last one as warmups (pick two or three exercises each day to do for 10-15 minutes).

That said, 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"

2016-08-22 21:46

That definitely did cross my mind, but it just so happens that the vast majority of homework submissions are for those two lessons and the box challenge. The downside is that this wouldn't cut down my workload all that much.

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

2016-08-22 21:42

Haha, it is rather bittersweet! I certainly don't regret this pickle I've found myself in, not one bit.

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

2016-08-22 21:35

I do believe that is somewhat out of the scope of that exercise, but you do bring up some important points. I've always been on the fence in terms of going into matters of light and shadow beyond understanding them as an extension of lines (so that people loosen up and feel more comfortable in regards to letting their lines grow into larger shadow shapes). Since texture is not my focus at all, and since people tend to become very distracted by it whenever it's mentioned, I try to steer away from it entirely and focus on the basic constructions instead. As soon as you mention shading (which is why i specifically talk about cast shadows rather than form shadows), students stop worrying about using silhouettes to convey proper 3D form.

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

2016-08-22 21:31

Nope! Currently the furthest along is /u/Zoogdier with 14 out of 15 lessons done.

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

2016-08-22 21:14

I know you've been struggling a lot, but it's really inspiring to see just how hard you push yourself to face those challenges head-on, instead of shying away from them. You've definitely gained a lot of ground because of that tenacity!

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

2016-08-22 21:06

And thank you for your pledge! Is it alright if I list you on the drawabox thank you list as /u/novechr?

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

2016-08-22 19:49

That's definitely a legitimate fear! We'll have to see how that turns out, and I'll just have to tweak my numbers to balance out the number of free slots and the number of patrons receiving critiques.

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

2016-08-22 19:47

Whenever someone becomes a patron, I get an email notification. Then when I have a chance I reach out to the person to get their reddit username. Since it's pretty obvious which patron you are, I'll go ahead and note that down.

Additionally, is it alright if I list you on the drawabox.com thank you list by your full name, or should I use another alias like your reddit username? (And thanks for the pledge by the way!)

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

2016-08-22 19:06

Thanks! And also, thank you for helping support the community.

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

2016-08-22 18:46

Thank you for the kind words. It's comments like that which have helped me continue with this for these two long years.

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

2016-08-22 00:29

To be honest, I don't have a whole lot to offer. You've done a solid job at every exercise. Your organic forms with contour curves successfully convey the illusion of volume. Your dissections demonstrate some excellent variety of texture. Your form intersections feel solid and cohesive. Your first page of organic intersections is okay, though your second page is better. I do think however that the choice to fill your shadows with hatching was a mistake, and weakens the result. You should be more willing to fill things in with solid black, and it would have been beneficial here. This can be difficult at times to do with a pen - brush pens are helpful. That's all a pretty minor point though.

You've done a great job, so keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2016-08-22 00:24

I've been critiquing all day, and I told myself that I've got a pizza coming soon and that I could just push yours off til tomorrow - but I scrolled through it and something about it made me want to critique it now. The pizza's probably going to come while I do this.

You start off weak. Your arrows are okay but leave a little to be desired (it's mostly the arrow heads really, the body section is fine), your organic forms start off with a lot of pinching and swelling which kind of undermines the solidity of the overall form. Generally you seem to grasp the core of the exercises, but they're not super great.

Usually when you see this at the beginning, you expect to see it all throughout. Yours was different, however. Over the course of the lesson's homework, you improve CONSIDERABLY. Your first page of organic intersections looks deflated and depressing, but the last page is excellent. Each form feels solid and confident, and the way they wrap around each other and interact feels completely believable.

Your first page of form intersections starts off with that same sort of "well i guess it's okay" impression but they become more solid as well. There's still room for improvement, but you're getting there - especially that page where you remarked that the right side is pretty nice - I agree, it's very nicely done.

For the form intersections, don't bother with any hatching - when it comes to capturing solidity of form, and the illusion of volume, you never want to rely on hatching lines or any sort of shading/lighting. In the case of basic geometric forms, it's more a matter of constructing those forms confidently and getting the angles of your lines, the degrees and alignment of your ellipses, and so on right. The rest doesn't matter at all, although line weight can help to make individual forms feel much more cohesive and feel more put together.

Now what really blew me away were your dissections. You were clearly uncertain at first, but you pushed through it and made some massive headway. You experimented with loads of different kinds of textures and approaches to fleshing them out, and it really paid off.

At the end of the day, this is what I'm looking for from my students. It's easy enough to try something, to read the notes at face value, and to decide "I don't get it". But this is a free service, and even those who donate donate faaaaar less than one would pay to an actual drawing instructor. This means that instead of paying with currency, you pay with effort and tenacity. And you've done that in spades.

Keep up the fantastic work and feel free to move onto the next lesson. You should be proud of yourself. Kind of makes me laugh that you were the uppity student who called me rude for pointing out that you didn't draw through your forms last week... I'm glad my curtness wasn't enough to drive you off.

...Now where's that pizza.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-08-22 00:11

Hm.. You're very scribbly in the way you approach things, and your approach to construction is quite rough and loose. You tend not to really apply the ghosting method - that is, thinking through the mark you want to make, preparing to draw it and building up the muscle memory by ghosting through the motion, and then executing it once. You get way sketchier than that, trying to think through things right on the page.

Thinking on the page is something you really want to avoid, because there's no way to do it without being scribbly, chaotic, and ultimately wasteful. That's why we use the constructional method. We build things up slowly - the lines we do commit to the page aren't wasteful, because they help us to better understand how each object exists in space, giving us supports and scaffolding to build up the more complex shapes and visual information.

I do have a bit of good news for you - I actually redid a HUGE chunk of lesson 3 just last week (and did the same to lesson 4 yesterday). I added a 40 minute intro video that explains how construction is applied to plants, and what kind of basic forms you can think about. I also redid all three demos, showing a wide variety of plants with a very specific use of construction to achieve them.

When looking through the demos, keep in mind how at no point do I get scribbly or sketchy. I stop, I think, I plan, and I execute each individual mark. The only thing keeping you from doing the same is a question of patience. Whether the quality comes out to be the same doesn't really matter - regardless of whether or not your results are great, what's important is that you get practice applying that method.

I'd like you to try another four pages of plant drawings, after you've had the chance to re-digest the lesson content. It's been something like two months since you last did this stuff, so I can only assume you've forgotten some things.

Additionally, remember that even though lessons 1 and 2 are marked as complete, you're still fully expected to continue practicing that material. Pick two or three of the exercises each day to do as a warmup for 10-15 minutes total. It's very easy to forget some of the important lessons you learned in those exercises, so you need to keep on top of it constantly.

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

2016-08-21 23:55

There's some good, and also some less good here, but overall I'm feeling pretty positive in regards to your direction. Your understanding of form is reasonably good - the biggest weakness here is that your line quality is various degrees of bad. You range from being a little impatient to being ridiculously sketchy and rough, with some chicken scratching thrown in there for good measure.

So, where you excel is your sense of 3D form and space, and to varying degrees your grasp of construction, while your weaknesses are the more base-level technical skills that don't take a whole lot to fix.

Looking back at your last lesson's homework (which was submitted almost a year ago, jeez), your line quality is waaay better there. Everything is much more purposeful and planned out, likely because the previous two lessons are still fresh in your mind. After this year long gap, you've fallen into bad habits and forgotten entirely about things like the importance of applying the ghosting method to each and every line you draw.

Keep in mind that after completing lessons 1 and 2, you're supposed to be continuing to practice those exercises regularly - picking two or three exercises each day to do as a warmup before moving onto that day's work.

Anyway, here are your main issues:

• Not ghosting your lines - you're very rough and sketchy with your linework, you should be thinking and planning before executing each mark. Look back at the description of the ghosting method in lesson 1 - there's three specific steps, and you should be applying each one to everything you draw. Keep in mind that these lessons have changed and evolved somewhat since you last did them.

• You tend to draw very timidly and faintly initially, largely because of your sketchy approach. You should be drawing complete forms with confident strokes. No chicken scratching, no trying to make your lines super faint and barely visible. You can come back afterwards to add line weight and help organize everything afterwards in order to clean things up. While drawing the initial construction, you don't want to worry about being clean. You want to worry about not being wasteful, and about creating solid forms. For example, look at the red ant - there's nothing solid about the abdomen on the larger drawing at the top. You loosely sketched it with many independent lines, rather than laying it in as a single, solid elliptical ball-form.

• Don't draw as though you're drawing with a pencil. This is similar to the timid thing, but it extends into how you approach texture. You tend to use a LOT of hatching lines. You should be using a felt tip pen for this lesson, and the strength of that tool is that it is made to create strong, dark marks on the page regardless of how much pressure you use. A proper felt tip pen with strong ink flow will only vary in terms of the width of the mark made, not in how faint it is. This is entirely different in nature to a pencil, so you don't want to use the same techniques. Think about drawing with full dark shapes, and consider how to transition from them to the full white areas by using little texture-patterns. Don't use hatching don't take advantage of the fact that some of your pens may have weaker ink flow (or be running dry) to achieve fainter marks.

Now, it just so happens that I spent all of yesterday updating this lesson. Last week I updated lesson 3, adding a 40 minute intro video and 3 new demos, this week I did the same thing to this lesson. You should go back and look at the new content for lesson 3, then look at the new stuff for this one. It should better explain how I want you to apply the general use of construction, and might catch you up on some of the general shifts drawabox has gone in the last year.

Then I'd like you to try another four pages of insect drawings.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-08-21 21:21

You're improving, but there's a lot of holes here, I find. I actually further developed the lesson content just last weekend - I added a 40 minute video going over introductory concepts, along with three new demos. Since you're a patreon supporter, you should have access to the video recordings of those as well.

Right now there's a few issues that I'd like to touch upon. Keep in mind that the existence of problems is inevitable - but being able to put our finger on them means that you should be able to solve them with some direction.

• General stiffness of your line work. You have a tendency to draw a little slowly, which allows for your brain to course-correct while you draw, resulting in slightly stiffer or more wobbly lines. The solution to this is to draw with a more confident pace, going just fast enough for your brain to no longer be in charge. Trust in your muscle memory, and in order to develop that muscle memory, remember that you are expected to apply the ghosting method to every mark you draw. Additionally, a few months ago I created this comic strip that discusses this particularly common issue: http://drawabox.com/comic/1.

• You have a tendency to leave shapes and forms open-ended, which immediately flattens them out and ruins their flow through space. When a form is open-ended, its surface area kind of bleeds out into the page itself (which is 2D). You don't want it to contaminate the illusion your drawing is attempting to convey. Close off every shape, cap off every form.

Aside from this, I believe that the points I raise in the new introduction to drawing plants video should help you to better understand how to approach constructing your drawings. Also, don't forget that though lessons 1 and 2 are marked as complete, you should still be continuing to practice that material regularly. Pick two or three exercises each day to do as a warmup for 10-15 minutes before starting your main work. None of these lessons end with you mastering the content. The goal here is for you to grasp the concepts I'm trying to convey, and for you to understand what you should be aiming for long-term. It's easy to get discouraged if you forget that.

I'd like you to try the homework for this lesson again - don't forget that there are two additional exercises (which you should do before starting the plant drawings) - leaves and stems, the latter of which you seem to have missed.

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

2016-08-21 20:32

Good news! Your form intersections look fine. You definitely got overly stressed focusing on part that I mentioned as not being all that important - the intersections of the forms themselves. The core of the exercise is about drawing forms that exist in the same space and appear cohesive and consistent. You managed that well, and your intersections are pretty good too.

Jumping back to your organic forms with contour curves, you need some work here. Your curves are not at all wrapping around the forms convincingly - they need to accelerate in their curvature as they reach the edges, giving the impression that they hook back around and continue on along the other side. I talk about this in greater detail here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms.

Your dissections are hit and miss. You've got some good ones, and some less good ones - there's a lot where you tend to fall into the habit of scribbling and relying more on randomness rather than intentional marks, and those tend to be the ones that come out worse. Additionally, you definitely want to be more willing to fill areas with solid black rather than creating extremely high-contrast, noisy areas where you've got tiny slivers of white in a sea of black. For example, the darker areas of your avocado texture have little bits of white in there that probably shouldn't be there. Also, the hatching you used to fill in the shadow on your copper pipe isn't the best choice. Here it appears pretty much as though you wanted to fill those blocks in - in which case you should have filled them in completely, with solid black.

Alternatively, long lines of varying widths running along the length of the copper pipe would also look fairly decent. Something like this: https://i.imgur.com/PzkC5p8.png.

Anyway, there's more information on the use of texture on the 25 texture challenge page.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do one more page of organic forms with contour curves - try overshooting your curves a little bit as they hook around (I explain this in that link I mentioned).

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

2016-08-21 20:00

Pretty nice work. For your organic forms with contour curves, at times you get a little lazy with them - you've got to be way more mindful when drawing those curves. I think you understand what to do, you're just not putting much effort into it. Focus on each curve individually, don't just repeat the same motion a few times thoughtlessly and move on.

Your dissections are fine, though you should be more willing to create solid areas of black rather than maintaining a sliver of space between the densest area of hatching. Don't think of the texture lines as being lines - think of them as being little shadows that are cast by small forms on the surface. Shadows are free to merge with one another, creating large areas of black. This will also reduce the amount of unintentional visual noise you may be creating.

Also, while I think your work meets my expectations for this exercise, if YOU Think you got lazy with it, don't submit it. I expect to see your best work. An apology for a mistake noticed after the fact isn't worth much - going back and redoing it when you know you're capable of better is worth much more.

Lastly, your form intersections and organic intersections are both pretty solid. Your contour curves are again a touch on the sloppy side, but they still do a reasonable job of reinforcing the illusion of volume.

I'll mark this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-21 19:41

Congrats on completing the challenge. Here's a couple things that might help moving forwards:

• Your set leans a little bit more towards boxes with particularly dramatic foreshortening. Be sure to practice just as much (if not more) with boxes with shallower foreshortening, as they tend to be way more common. Dramatic foreshortening implies a larger scale (like looking at the roof of a tall building from the ground floor, the roof's going to be considerably smaller), shallow foreshortening (where the near and far plane are relatively close in size, the far plane being only slightly smaller) implies a more relatable scale, like objects you can move with your hands.

• You filled one of your front-faces of your first box (number 1) with hatching. I definitely recommend doing this for all your boxes, as it helps to clarify which sides face the viewer and which sides face away. This can get a little tricky to discern while drawing through boxes, which also makes it difficult to figure out if you've accidentally drawn the near plane as being smaller than the far plane in certain situations.

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

2016-08-21 19:14

Not bad. Your organic forms with contour curves are a little bit on the fence, in terms of the curves wrapping convincingly around the forms (an issue I go into detail with here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms). I definitely recommend trying to overshoot the curves slightly as I mention in that link. Most of yours are okay, but they're at that point where I feel that if you were to relax a bit, you might slip back into the curves not quite running believably along the surface of the form.

Your dissections are coming along well. With your egg plant, you combined two rather different approaches (the solid black areas and hatching lines). Generally I would lean more towards the solid black, but with a greater mindfulness of how the edges of those black shapes would actually contain a sort of textured gradation in areas where you might want a softer, more gradual transition from light to dark rather than a hard, immediate one. I talk about this in the 25 texture challenge page. It's not a problem, of course - this exercise is all about experimentation, learning what works and what doesn't, so figuring out what things you probably shouldn't combine is plenty valuable.

Your form intersections are alright, though you appear to have ignored one of the recommendations I made in the exercise - to avoid forms that are overly stretched in any one dimension. Try to stick to more equilaterally proportioned forms for this exercise in the future, so as to not introduce too much perspective distortion into an already complex challenge.

Lastly, your organic intersections aren't great, but they are okay for the time being. There's a few things you should continue to consider:

• Firstly, and probably the more minor point - if you want to fill in a shape (like those shadows), fill them in completely. Don't leave little slivers of white in there, it's going to become very noisy and distracting. Brush pens can be quite useful when filling in larger areas with black.

• Secondly, always keep in mind how each form is going to interact with its neighbours. Try to imagine taking a sausage-shaped balloon and filling it with water. Then consider what it would be like to drop that balloon over your outstretched arm, such that either side of the balloon droops over each side, with your arm supporting the center. Those sides of the balloons will sag considerably, while the tension in the balloon's skin tries to hold it all together. I believe right now, that sense of tension is somewhat lacking in your organic intersections. That's totally okay, of course - that's your goal, and with practice you'll be able to achieve it, so long as you know what you're aiming for.

Anyway, you've generally done well. I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2016-08-20 16:22

Nice work! Just a couple of suggestions.

• For your organic forms with contour curves, don't leave out the minor axis lines, to which each ellipse (and therefore your curves, which are just the visible portion of larger ellipses) should be aligned. If you leave them out, you risk drawing the curves at a slightly skewed angle, which causes them to wrap around the 3D form decently at one end, but miss the mark on the other.

• Your form intersections are coming along well, but you seem to have ignored one important point I mentioned in the exercise description - avoid forms that are overly stretched in any one dimension, like some of your pyramids and cylinders. This brings perspective very heavily into play. The exercise is already challenging enough as it is, so it's best to stick to more equilateral forms (think of the proportions of a cube), and focus just on getting your forms to feel consistent and cohesive within the same scene. All that aside, you still did a pretty good job.

• Oh also for the form intersections, when drawing cylinders, try and get those minor axes to penetrate all the way through both ellipses. Those ellipses are meant to be aligned to the minor axis, so it's easier to achieve this if they're sitting on top of the entire line, rather than just half. Look at the 250 cylinder challenge's notes for more information on this.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-08-20 16:17

Your cylinders are coming along well. The only significant thing that I noticed that you should work on is that your ellipses tend to be more or less identical in terms of their degrees - if you recall from the notes there, the end closer to the viewer is usually a little bit narrower. Not by a significant amount, but a little more than you've done here. Keep that in mind as you move forwards. Aside from that, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-20 16:15

Nice work! Your general sense of space and confidence with these boxes has definitely improved over the set. Your corrections also appear to be on point. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2016-08-19 23:59

It's about as good a start as I'd expect. Vehicles are tough, and the best way to approach them is to consciously think of them as a collection of basic forms arranged in a particular way, rather than the object itself (the same schpiel I've mentioned in the past). This is specifically why your first couple drawings (the truck and the train) come out more successfully than the later ones, where you tend to be thinking a lot more about the object itself, rather than the forms.

You are improving though. One thing you're continually missing is the use of the minor axis when constructing cylinders. In the case of wheels, definitely draw one big cylinder across the whole axle of a pair of wheels (which I see you doing later on in the lesson, so good job on that), but also start them off as a box first in order to get the alignment right. Construct a box, find the center point of its two opposing planes, draw a minor axis between those two points and then use the minor axis to construct your cylinder.

Also, DRAW BIGGER! You're a Forbes 30 under 30, you can afford the paper! When you lose confidence, it's totally normal to draw smaller, but this is going to hamstring you. Right now you need a fair bit of room for your brain to think through the spatial problems involved. Trying to work in a third of a page is going to limit you in that sense, causing you to make quite a few mistakes that you may not have otherwise made.

Anyway, keep at it. Vehicles are going to take a while to properly solidify, but ultimately it will pay off. I look forward to seeing your full set.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-19 23:23

Congratulations on completing the challenge. You're certainly making progress, but keep at it (while you continue to move forwards through the lessons). Here's a few extra things to be aware of:

• When going back over to do corrections, don't worry about 'mistakes' where your lines have overshot or something like that. Focus on mistakes where you believed something to be correct initially, but upon revision found it to be wrong.

• Never use dashed/broken lines for anything. They're untrustworthy. As soon as a line is broken, its direction will shift slightly. Do this several times over, and your lines going to have a significant trajectory shift. Stick to solid, straight lines.

• Additionally to practicing achieving solid boxes (and continually honing the use of the ghosting method to achieve straight lines), you should give some thought to playing with line weight to add some dynamism and added solidity to your boxes. Check the notes on the challenge page, there's some on the use of line weight that should be helpful.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-19 23:14

Congratulations on completing the challenge. Looking at your boxes, one thing's got me really, really confused. You're shading in one of the box faces (which we usually do to one of the front faces in order to clarify which side is facing the viewer and which side is facing away, since it can get confusing when drawing through the boxes. More often than not though, the plane you're shading in is way more likely to be the far plane.

If you drew these boxes with that particular plane intended to be the near plane, then a whole heck of a lot of these are backwards, with their near planes being smaller than the corresponding far planes. What I think is more likely the case is that you went back and shaded them in after the fact, and just shaded in the wrong face much of the time.

Let me know though if that's not the case, as the whole near/far plane size relationship is quite important, and is something we'd definitely have to correct.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-19 14:41

I leave that completely up to you, but I leave you with the option to submit more boxes to me for critique.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-18 22:36

Congratulations on getting through all 250 boxes and completing the challenge. I have to admit that I agree, your attempts to add line weight are *super chicken scratchy, and there's no reason for that. Look at this page. It should look familiar, as it's your super-imposed lines exercise. The lines there are waaaay longer than any of the marks on these boxes. I'm not sure what you're doing differently here, but your approach is certainly different. You are DEFINITELY capable of doing much better than that.

Next, here are your ghosted lines from the last lesson. Again, they're way longer than the lines you used for these boxes, and significantly straighter and smoother. Could it be that you weren't applying the ghosting method, or perhaps in the face of drawing 250 boxes, you got a little overwhelmed and didn't put as much effort into it?

That's not abnormal at all, but it is something to work on. Specifically, it's developing a disconnect between the volume of work before you (or perhaps the repetitiveness of it), and the amount of effort or time you invest in each individual task. It's purely psychological, and relates more to patience than actual skill. You have the skill for it, you're just rushing.

Now, the last thing I want to add is that you're drawing your boxes ridiculously small on the page. This is also going to be a factor when it comes to the construction of the boxes themselves. When you work smaller (which is a common way people tend to try and deal with a lack of self confidence), you end up creating two major problems that tend to make your boxes worse:

• You make it far more likely that you're going to start drawing from your wrist (which is probably what you're doing all throughout, which makes the wobbly and scratchy lines understandable - though not forgivable)

• You rob yourself of the space you need to properly think through spatial problems, leading to all kinds of blunders when it comes to thinking through the rules of perspective.

So, like I said - you drew your boxes, so you have completed the challenge. These are some things you'll definitely want to keep in mind as you move forwards. Having been confronted with the stark difference in your previous work and this stuff, you'll probably want to draw some more boxes for your own sake. Like I said, you've already proven yourself to be capable of waaaay better. You've just momentarily forgotten.

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

2016-08-18 22:28

Ahahaha, you thought it was going to be easy. That's rich. Geometric constructions are immensely difficult for everyone, because unlike more organic subject matter (like the stuff we've covered in the last three lessons), these aren't forgiving at all. While the other lessons kind of nudged you towards being more constructional, thinking about basic forms, and giving you a gold star whenever you moved a step or two in that direction, this lesson's like a hostage-taker holding a gun to your head and shooting you in the face if you even start to think about these objects as anything but primitive 3D forms. It's pretty scary.

So, I'll be blunt. You haven't done particularly well at this lesson, but there's a lot of very clear reasons as to why your approach didn't work, so if we can get you to change your approach, your results should improve.

• As, as you said, you didn't actually finish the 250 box and cylinder challenges. You should not have jumped into this lesson regardless, you should have put all of your focus into those basic challenges first, so you had the chance to receive a critique on them. Think of the boxes and cylinders like your basic tools - you've walked into a construction site with a rubber hammer.

• Looking at your cylinders, I see parts of what would constitute a well constructed cylinder spread out across your work, but not a single one that's actually solid. You're using your minor axes in some places, but most of those don't actually have straight lines for their edges. Instead of constructing a cylinder, then building more complex forms around it (like in some of those mugs and lotion bottles) you jumped right into the weird swoopy curves. Don't skip steps, and focus on drawing primitive, basic forms arranged to match your objects - NOT drawing the objects themselves.

• The only cylinder I see with straight edges is in the core of your kettle, but its edges are super faint and timidly drawn. Additionally, all of the other forms are way more complex right off the bat. I don't see any basic boxes, or anything else. You're jumping in too complex, way too early.

• The glass cleaner spray bottle is pretty good (aside from the massively disproportionate head/nozzle). You've actually drawn the various boxy sections and built it up in successive stages, adding more complexity each time. The label, admittedly, was a total waste of time and effort, but the construction of the main bottle is well done. That's the concept you need to apply to everything.

You're going to try this again - but first you're going to complete and submit both challenges. Then when you come back to attempt this exercise again, you are not actually going to draw the objects. You are literally going to draw primitive 3D forms arranged to match whatever object you're trying to draw. Think of it like doing form intersections, but where you don't have to invent the configuration of the forms - you're just filling in the bulk of whatever object you're basing it off. Remember that you can manipulate these forms to an extent - like how with the spray bottle you didn't just use straight, rectilinear boxes, you had some angles skewed and slanted purposely.

Also, focus on forms with solid volume to them. Avoid flimsy things like glasses.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-08-18 12:25

Hm... I think anything with four legs would be fine.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-18 02:14

Wow, you're right - you really start to hit your stride after that first hundred. Once you get into your second hundred, your confidence hits a real high point. It's funny how line weight does that - flimsy uniformly-thick-lined boxes will always feel a little flimsy, but adding just a little bit of dynamism, even if the boxes themselves are still weak helps a lot. Then that added confidence boost helps to bring the construction up to match, and everything starts going well.

You've done an excellent job. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-08-18 02:10

So there's a lot of good, and a lot of less good here. The first thing that jumps into my head is the size of the pages you're drawing on - they seem to be pretty small, and as a result each drawing feels rather cramped. You're not giving yourself a whole lot of room. Secondly - and I could be wrong about this, but - it looks like you're drawing all of this in ballpoint rather than felt tip (either that or your pens have really shitty ink flow). This has the effect of allowing you to be considerably sketchier and less thoughtful with your mark-making. There's a lot of very faint constructional marks, which technically shouldn't be possible with a decent felt tip pen, and that fundamentally undermine a great deal of what I'm trying to push with these lessons.

I am seeing a lot of basic consideration for form and construction, and a growing grasp of how everything fits together. I especially like your camels - they show an excellent sense of the intersection of the different forms, and many of the later ones capture that illusion of three-dimensionality with very little wasted linework.

That said, your proportions (as you mentioned yourself) get pretty bad at times. Fundamentally the problem there is that you're simply not spending enough time looking at your reference image, so you're missing key elements, and then these missing bits snowball into more significant problems. You simply cannot trust your memory. You need to be constantly looking at your reference image, looking away only momentarily to draw a mark or two before looking back. Any more than that, and what you've gleaned from studying will quickly be oversimplified by your brain in its attempt to understand.

Actually drawing a 2D breakdown of the proportions is a very good idea, and it's something I stress in later lessons (specifically when dealing with vehicles with lots of complex parts). In order to benefit from it though, actually draw those proportion studies.

When it comes to texture - specifically fur - you tend to be very erratic. You scribble fur in varying degrees, use a lot of hatching, where you should instead be filling things in with solid black (you're drawing with ink, not graphite, so don't treat it as though you're drawing with pencil - be mindful of how working with ink means accepting the limitations of that medium, instead of trying to avoid them). At a base level, your approach to the various textures - like the fur, the rhino's skin, and so on - are good. The problem then is that you're trying to work way faster than you are capable, and aren't taking the time to properly design those little marks and features.

A good example this is how you deal with fur on your bears - you make the right decision of trying to draw it in along the silhouette. The problem is that you just scribble that fur on, it's ratty and chaotic and you have gone to no lengths to actually shape and craft it in a specific manner. Think about what those drawings would look like if you filled their silhouettes in with solid, flat black. The edges would be tattered and unrefined. They'd look sketchy, instead of intentionally carved. That's why it doesn't look good.

This is at least in part because your pens aren't forcing you to come to terms with these little sketchy details. Since the ink isn't full-dark, it's not screaming at you every time you put a mark down without thinking it through, or planning it.

Now, despite all of that talk about texture, I want you to submit four more pages of animals - with absolutely no detail or texture whatsoever. Focus entirely on nailing your proportions and observing your reference images carefully. Do the work with a solid felt tip pen with clean, black lines. No rough or light sketching, only well planned, confident strokes. And as for that last question - yes, if you make a mistake and you can't find a way to incorporate it into your drawing, do your best to just roll with it.

People generally don't resubmit lesson work unless I ask them to. This doesn't mean I'm against it, but what you should definitely consider is the massive amount of work I have to do every day, and the fact that every additional critique adds a considerable amount to my plate.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-08-18 01:41

There's a fair bit of good here but there are a few fundamental things you're not doing correctly, which is having a considerable impact.

So firstly, don't treat your initial masses as loose suggestions. Each one - that is, the cranium, the ribcage and the pelvis - are concrete masses that represent those specific parts of the body, and you are to build on top of them. In many of your drawings, your initial masses are left floating inside of other forms you add in subsequent passes. Those subsequent forms - for example, the torso - should snugly encompass the ribcage and torso.

Think of it like sculpting. You've created your simple masses of clay for each of these things, and then you cover them in tinfoil, creating a sausage-like form with one of those major solid masses at either end. You wouldn't be able to have those masses floating around inside, because they wouldn't be grounded.

Look at this overdrawing for more information: http://i.imgur.com/bXgRJ60.png

Overall, it's really important to recognize that every form is 3D, and that you're building out a form construction. All of the details that come afterwards are completely unimportant. All that really matters is that construction. Looking at some of your drawings, you do understand that, but you don't always apply it. For instance, the little seal head made up of simple forms in the bottom left of this page is a more correct approach, though I don't see you doing that in the larger drawing. Instead, I see you adding the additional features of the head without any underlying construction to support it.

Also, on that same page, I wanted to bring up the particular way you're approaching drawing texture. Texturing with ink is, needless to say, difficult. Adding on the fact that texture is not the focus of any of these lessons, there's no expectation for you to be able to nail it. That said, one thing that's making it somewhat more difficult is that in these drawings you're actually treating your felt tip pen as though it's a pencil. Instead of taking advantage of the pen's benefits (being able to fill with a strong, solid black), you're still trying to hatch and sketch, like working with graphite.

Looking back on some of your pages from the last lesson like this one, you do know how to work with ink. It just slipped your mind a little bit. Use the dark blacks, fill them in (a brush pen could help here), and don't be so eager to cover everything with detail and texture. Focus on your transition areas (where you want to have a more gradual shift between white and black) and on your silhouettes.

I do see examples of you trying to get those tufts of fur along your silhouettes, like in this drawing. The core problem here is that each tuft is pretty erratic, you're not focusing very much on each individual one. You're relying more on quantity than quality. It's very important that you design each tuft of fur, creating a shape that will read clearly as part of that silhouette. Try to picture in your mind what the animal would look like if its entire silhouette was filled with pure, flat black. All you'd see is the edge detail. With this rodent, the edge would be fairly ratty, kind of unclear and messy. You don't want messy - you want planned and designed.

I really like your zebras. There's some things off about them (proportion, the specifics in regards to their leg constructions and such, you may have gone too complex too early), but overall the torsos and the masses there feel confident and well constructed. You're not covering them in all sorts of erratic attempts at texture - they're clean and every mark is much more deliberate than elsewhere in your drawing. It looks very much as though you were applying that Oryx demo, and it seems to be working to your benefit. Those problems in regards to proportion and such are merely signs that you need to be more careful in terms of observing and studying your subject - that is, look and study more, draw less.

Anyway, you're moving in the right direction with that, but it's important that we focus on making these shifts towards having a greater respect for the solid masses in our constructions, and also a respect for the pen itself (not treating it like a pencil - hatching almost always looks awful in drawings like this).

So, I want to see four more pages of animal drawings, but with absolutely NO texture or detail. All I want is construction. I know you're capable of doing a good job of it, you just need a few little pushes in the right direction.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-08-18 00:56

When adding line weight, you draw your lines normally and more or less uniformly, then go back over them like the super imposed lines exercise from lesson 1. If you're using the recommended 0.5 felt tip pen, you should be able to get a decent range of line weights depending on how much pressure you apply.

As for your other question, from what I understand of your question, no, that's not a rule.