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Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-19 19:39

Pretty nice work. One thing that jumps out at me is that a lot of your boxes tend to have somewhat dramatic foreshortening applied to them. Not ridiculously dramatic, just tending in that direction. It's important to practice both dramatic and shallow foreshortening - the latter is somewhat more useful, as dramatic foreshortening speaks to very large scale objects, while the majority of things we'll be drawing will be much more shallow.

That said, your boxes are looking solid, and you're making good use of line weight. Your corrections also appear to be by and large on point. Keep up the good work, and consider this challenge complete.

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

2016-07-19 19:36

Pretty nice work. Your organic forms with contour curves are looking good, though you'll want to start focusing on getting those contour curves to fit snugly within the shape, rather than going beyond (or falling short) of the edges. Your dissections are going in the right direction, and I think the texture challenge will be hugely beneficial to you as far as mileage goes. Your form intersections are solid - the forms are looking consistent and reasonably solid. Your organic intersections are alright, though the forms themselves feel a little bit stiff. The big central one's nicely done, but as you build up, I think you stress a little about having them have to fall in specific locations and behave in certain ways, so you lock up a little bit. More practice will help, of course, and you're still generally showing that you understand the principles of the exercise.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-07-18 17:22

It's still not great, but generally moving in the right direction. These lessons all tackle the same sort of challenge from different perspectives, so I will be marking this lesson as complete so you can move on to try a different angle of approach.

One thing to keep in mind however is that your use of texture is generally not very good. You tend to use a lot of hatching lines just to fill space in, instead of observing your reference carefully, and where you do apply actual texture, you're jumping too far ahead of yourself, trying to figure out how to organize texture before really getting the observation part of it down.

The 25 texture challenge should help you with that. It's a very large amount of work though, so I recommend that you do it alongside other lessons, spreading it out over a long period of time.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-18 17:14

Pretty well done - your boxes are generally improving in subtle ways across the set. Ultimately a lot of it really comes from practice - like you said, the Y is fairly straightforward, but getting the other lines parallel is another matter entirely. Moreover, if they were truly parallel, it wouldn't be so bad, but it's more difficult than even that - they have to be parallel in 3D space, which means that in an ideal world, they all converge at the exact same far off point... which is next to impossible when done by eye alone. But we can be close!

On the point of getting your lines the same length, one helpful point to keep in mind is that the ghosting method's first step simply involves putting down points at the start and end of a line segment. By putting down the points of your corners before drawing anymore lines, you can help estimate these lengths without really having to commit.

Anyway, nice work completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-07-18 17:03

Generally you seem to be getting a better hang of the whole construction thing. You do have plenty of room to grow, but your oryx, pig and lamb are coming along well. As you move forwards, you'll want to mix what you've learned from applying this construction method to the way you approached things beforehand (as I mentioned before, your birds were well done in terms of detail). Another thing to keep in mind is that when drawing larger, you give yourself more room to think through the spatial problems of construction, so drawing smaller (like on your first couple pages) is probably not a great idea.

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

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

2016-07-18 16:44

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - I've let you know what you need to work on, so I certainly expect that you'll continue practicing these exercises as warmups as you continue to move through the next lessons.

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

2016-07-18 16:25

Not bad, though there are some things you can work on.

These are all things you can work on as you continue to move forwards - but you may consider this lesson complete.

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

2016-07-17 21:53

Sorry for missing this one, one always falls through the cracks every now and then.

Your arrows start off a little weak, but they get considerably stronger as you keep practicing them. One of the most significant improvements over the set is that you start maintaining a more consistent width, rather than allowing them to swell and shrink randomly. The only influence for size change should be perspective itself, with the parts of the arrow/ribbon that are closer to the viewer being larger, and those farther away being smaller.

Your organic forms with contour lines start off VERY sloppy, and for the first several pages it really looks like you're not really thinking about how you're using the lines, and are just putting marks on the page. You have to think through these things. You also start off with a habit of immediately reinforcing your lines - this is a common, but bad habit that comes from a lack of both planning and confidence.

Ultimately your work does improve - your contour curves start wrapping around the forms, and your lines get cleaner and somewhat more thought out. One issue that remains consistent though is a disregard for the purpose of the minor axis (the line that passes through the center of the form). As the name suggests, the minor axis is the same line explained in lesson 1, that passes through an ellipse through its narrower dimension, cutting it into two equal, symmetrical halves. All of your ellipses must be aligned to this - curves as well, as curves are merely the visible portions of larger ellipses.

This means it's imperative that as you practice, you draw the minor axis through all of your forms, and you try your best to get your curves and ellipses to adhere to it.

Your dissections are fairly well done. Lots of interesting textures, and a good balance between detail and rest areas. Your form intersections are also fairly well executed, although on your first page your forms tend to have a more dramatic foreshortening than they should, which causes the scene to feel inconsistent. Your later pages use a much shallower foreshortening, which works much better. You've also got some nice use of lineweight here.

Don't forget to draw through all of your ellipses - your spheres are looking rather lumpy and awkward.

Lastly, your first page of organic intersections is not great, but your second page is somewhat better in how the different forms wrap around one another. The biggest issue I see here however is something I really want to make clear:

Never use broken lines. Whenever you draw through a form, do so with a single, continuous, unbroken stroke. As soon as you break a line, you lose its flow and direction, and it cannot be regained. As a result, every time it breaks, your trajectory will shift slightly, causing a serious drop in precision and a general decrease in the solidity of the result. Always use continuous lines. Making a pretty drawing is not a major priority for us, and while we always want to be mindful of whether or not we're being frivolous with how many lines we put down, if a line has value (such as one being used to draw through and understand a form and how it sits in space), it should be drawn with full confidence.

I'll be marking this lesson as complete, as you've improved considerably over the various sets. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-17 18:30

Generally pretty good. There is some wonkiness here and there that you should go back and draw corrections for (as the challenge page mentioned, you should go over your completed work with a different coloured pen, drawing in the correct lines where you feel you made mistakes). Still, the confidence and solidity of the constructions is coming along fairly well.

As for keeping your focus up, when you feel it waning, it's always important to give yourself a break so the quality does not rise and fall needlessly.

Anyway, good work completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-07-17 18:07

It's likely due to the time that has passed since your last attempt, but you're really not applying any of what I explained in my last critique. In your mind, you are not perceiving the things you're drawing - the basic elements - as 3D forms. You still only treat them as though they're flat, 2D shapes on a flat 2D page.

You draw those initial cranium/ribcage/pelvis masses as circles, not 3D balls. Moreover, you're drawing them all more or less as perfect circles, not deforming the ribcage and pelvis to match the forms they represent (the cranium's still a perfect sphere, but the others are not). Furthermore, you're just drawing those basic steps, and then moving on to draw whatever it is you see. You're not constructing, you're not thinking through the steps, you're just going through the motions of it and then doing whatever you like.

I'm not going to mark this lesson as complete, because you're struggling with really grasping the instructions and applying them, and the whole concept of breaking things down into solid 3D forms is something that becomes far more important in the next two lessons. Here there's some degree of flexibility, since we're primarily dealing with organic forms, but when you get into geometric constructions, it will effectively kick your ass.

Now, if you look at the lesson 5 page, you'll see that at the bottom there's a relatively new "other demos" section where you'll find demos dealing with constructing your animals with solid 3D forms, layering organic forms on top of each other to create the bulky masses of the animal's body, and so on. You'll also find a demo on how to deal with constructing the heads (which you mentioned you had difficulty with), and other useful topics as well.

Read through it all, and give it another shot. Also, you should read (or reread as the case may be) the article on constructional drawing. The main thing you're missing is that you cannot lay down any detail that is not supported by what is already present in your construction. Everything must be built on top of existing forms, adding more and more complexity in successive passes, not just stamping things on with no scaffolding to help hold it up.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-07-17 17:49

Looking good! I'm glad to see that you experimented with both construction approaches, and that you're getting pretty good at aligning your ellipses against a preset minor axis. Keep up the great work.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-17 17:47

Nice work! Your sense of space overall does seem to improve over the set. One thing that I do want to advise you against though is the super thick outlines you've added here and there (kinda looks like it was an attempt at correcting little mistakes or something). Regardless of why you drew them, you always want to be nuanced with your use of line weight. If you start getting super thick, it's going to have the unwanted conesquence of flattening the overall shape out, making it more graphic.

In general though you're doing well, and your corrections seem to be on point. Keep up the good work!

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

2016-07-16 23:26

In general your understanding of the concepts is alright, and moving in the right direction, but your execution is sloppy.

In your form intersections, many of your boxes have near/far plane size relationships issues (despite drawing through your forms), and some of your corrections are off - for instance, the top left of your third page of the exercise. Also, you've complicated things by drawing stretched/elongated forms, something I explicitly asked you to avoid in my instructions.

Your linework in your organic intersections is sketchy and timid - every mark you put down should be done so with confidence, not impeded by the desire to draw something clean or pretty. Furthermore, when you have areas that you want to fill in with black, fill them in completely and try to respect the edges of those shapes that you've set out. Specifically I'm referring to the cast shadows, which have little white bits, and bits where your little strokes penetrate the silhouette's edges. It's a good idea to smooth this stuff out after the fact.

Generally your contour lines are okay, but you should think more about what degrees to use in each contour ellipse/curve. The degree represents how the circular disc (the cross-sectional cut of the form) is rotated through space, so if it's got a small degree it's turned away, if it's got a very large degree it's turned towards the viewer. I talk about this in this video.

Lastly, with your texturing, you're jumping ahead of yourself, trying to move onto the phase of learning how to organize and interpret texture before really pinning down your ability to observe and transfer it in all of its noisy, detail-dense glory. I strongly recommend that you take a look at the 25 texture challenge. Give the notes there a read, and then try doing the work bit by bit alongside other lessons.

I am going to mark this lesson as complete, because you do seem to generally understand what you should be aiming for, but your execution leaves much to be desired. Be sure to continue practicing these exercises as warmups as you move forwards.

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

2016-07-16 22:38

Not bad, but I've got a couple of suggestions.

Firstly, your lines are well done, but your ellipses feel a little stiff and wobbly. I talk about this issue in a few places, and I'll list them below, but essentially it's a matter of balancing putting all of your time into applying the ghosting method's preparation techniques to build up muscle memory on the spot, and then executing with a swift, confident stroke. It can be difficult to find the right balance, and it does look like you're moving in the right direction, but right now it appears that in certain areas your ellipses are showing signs of course-correction while drawing.

The extra notes and resources on the issue can be read here:

Also, it helps to always remember that in exercises such as the funnels, the minor axis line should be cutting your ellipses into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower axis.

Next, I strongly recommend that you go over your completed rough perspective boxes exercises as described here to help identify areas where your estimation is at its weakest: Lines Not Lining Up With Vanishing Point.

Additionally, your application of hatching lines is rather sloppy. Try to maintain consistent, parallel lines that go all the way from edge to edge.

Lastly, you clearly struggled with your rotated and organic perspective boxes, but this is completely normal, expected and intentional. These exercises mark only your first dance with this particular challenge, and you are by no means expected to nail it by the end of this lesson.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next to get more familiar with constructing arbitrarily rotated boxes. Be sure to read through the notes on that page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. It's this approach that will help you gain a stronger sense of how each box sits in space, which will ultimately help inform your decisions as you draw them, and will also highlight any mistakes such as those where your far planes end up larger than your near planes.

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

2016-07-16 22:18

Generally pretty well done. Your arrows, organic forms with contour lines, dissections and form intersections are fairly solid. Your organic intersections are alright as well, though here and there you've got a few issues with the general solidity of your forms. Specifically, always try to keep the width of your sausage-forms consistent (no tapering in their midsection or swelling at their ends) and keep an eye on general... deflation, to put it plainly. For instance, towards the right side of the first set, you've got one there that's just given up on life.

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

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

2016-07-16 22:08

Generally your work is pretty well done, though I am catching a little bit of a wobble in your linework, so you should continue to work on achieving a confident pace after taking the time to apply the preparation techniques of the ghosting method. You're doing reasonably well at it, but there's a little tweaking to your pace that needs to be done in order to achieve truly smooth lines. This goes both for straight lines and ellipses.

Next, the hatching lines you used in your rough perspective boxes is sloppy. Draw consistent, parallel lines that stretch all the way across the planes from edge to edge. Nothing falling short.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes are coming along well, though there is plenty of room for growth here. This exercise was primarily included as a first taste of this sort of challenge, so this is entirely expected.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through the notes on the challenge page before starting the work, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This approach will help you gain a more solid sense of how each box sits in 3D space, which should help inform your constructions.

As for your question - if the lesson's homework section says to use a tool, then that is the tool you must use if you wish to submit for a critique, no exceptions. Lessons 1-7 specifically require ink (ballpoint is allowed for lessons 1 and 2, though felt tip is preferred, and required for 3-7), and later lessons aren't quite so firm in their requirements. Now, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by outlines/sketches, but in principle the construction methodology doesn't work with loose, rough or approximate sketches at all, in case that's what you're referring to.

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

2016-07-16 22:01

Decent work. Your arrows are fine. Your organic forms with contour curves are coming along well - they wrap around the forms nicely. One thing to keep in mind though is that these lines don't have much nuance to them - that is, the lineweight is very uniform through the entire stroke. One thing to work on is applying slightly less pressure as your pen touches down and as it lifts up from a stroke, just to add a slight taper at the ends. This isn't something to stress about too much, but as you get used to it, it'll make your drawings a little less stiff.

It looks like the texture exercise was a good idea, and you did well there, as well as with the second page of dissections. The 25 texture challenge elaborates on this concept a little bit, though it's a great deal of work and isn't entirely necessary based on what you're exhibiting here.

Your form intersections are alright, but your boxes are more often than not, showing a slight near/far plane size issue. Keep in mind that the ghosting method's first step is to mark out the start/end points of your lines. This can help you plot out your lines without drawing them, in case you're relying too much on guessing with your box constructions. Placing the points of all your box's corners can help you get a handle on that and avoid issues where your far planes come out larger than your near planes.

Lastly, your organic intersections leave much to be desired. Right now they don't convince me that you have a sense for how these forms exist in 3D space, and how they interact with one another. They are improving a little bit between the two pages, but you really need to keep your mind on how one form would go about wrapping around another. Also, it helps to keep the thickness of a single form fairly consistent throughout its length, rather than allowing it to taper in its midsection or swell out at its ends.

I'd like to see one more page of organic intersections before I mark this lesson as complete. Try and consider how the contour curves you've drawn around your forms are curved, and try to match that with forms that rest on top.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-07-16 21:50

Generally pretty decent. There's some issues, the biggest of which is your heavy use of hatching (or more specifically in your case, scribbling). You should never scribble haphazardly, but moreover you're using hatching as a standard fallback for texture, rather than really taking the time to actually look at the surfaces in your reference and capture the textures there. In that sense, it's not so much that you didn't do a great job at texture, but rather that you didn't do texture for the most part. The 25 Texture Challenge is definitely something you should start on - though you'll want to do it alongside your other lesson work, since it takes a lot of time to complete.

As far as your construction goes, it's coming along reasonably well. Plenty of room for improvement, but that will come with time and practice, especially as you tackle the problem from different perspectives in later lessons.

For your morel mushroom question: this demo took way longer than i expected. As for the other question, that's part for the course. You're going to make all kinds of mistakes, fail all kinds of ways. It's part of learning - just reflect upon what went wrong, and keep it in mind for the next drawing. That said, the mistake you made here is that you didn't follow the construction method for petals and leaves, starting with the center line and building around it.

Anyway, I'll be marking this lesson as complete. Go ahead and move onto the next one.

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

2016-07-16 15:34

At this point, worrying about proportion is just going to complicate things - so your goal of making perfect cubes is going to distract you from the more important challenge of constructing solid forms with the correct angles.

There are ways to achieve specific proportions, but that is all outside of the realm of what I teach my students, because it involves a shift towards the more technical aspects to perspective. Our approach is more organic and approximate, to reduce the overhead that comes with plotting out all of your vanishing points and measuring points and whatnot.

What you should keep in mind in regards to proportion is that the first box in a scene - regardless of how it appears visually - can be used to determine how proportion works within that scene. Basically how things scale on different axes can vary considerably, based on the focal length of your scene, how you decide to use your vanishing points, etc. but it is all essentially summarized by the first box you draw. If that first box is a perfect cube, then every other box you draw has to adhere to it as a rule. Of course, using a very long, stretched box as your rule is going to result in a very weirdly distorted scene, but technically it'd still be correct. Still not something we'd want to use, though.

Long story short, don't worry about it. Just draw your boxes, and focus on making them appear solid and weighty.

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

2016-07-16 15:00

Colour is technically somewhat separate from texture, so you'd still want your keyboard pillow to transition to a pure white. The bar of pure black on the left, and the bar of pure white on the right should be completely unassailable and untouchable. It can be somewhat difficult in your mind to separate out the little shadows cast by the forms themselves, from the colour of the material, but do your best.

Aside from that, you're generally going in the right direction, although some of your textures (specifically the wood texture) feel a little sketchy and rough. Remember that your marks should be more deliberate, and that you should be doing this exercise with a felt tip pen.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-15 19:17

Your boxes are coming along well. One thing to keep in mind when doing corrections is that you should always focus on the sort where you actually draw in the correct lines. It isn't terribly useful to point out wobbly lines and such, because those aren't the result of a conscious decision, but rather stuff that will improve as you practice. Here you want to keep your eye on mistakes you made because you did not understand how the lines should behave. Those are the sort for which you can always actually draw the correct lines in after the fact.

As you continue to move forwards, make sure you try to play with your use of lineweight (which was mentioned in the notes for this challenge).

I only mention that because you alternated between drawing in the lines, and writing notes/circling things.

As for your funnels, they still do need work. Your third (on the bottom of the page) is wrong, in that the line (the minor axis) is cutting through the wider dimension. That would make it the major axis rather than the minor axis (review the notes in the ellipse section, there's a diagram showing the anatomy of an ellipse).

The other two are getting there, though you're still having trouble pinching down the degree of your ellipses, as they're still fairly consistent except where you hit the center.

Think of it this way - your furthest extremes should be circles, and your absolute middle should be so narrow that it's basically a flat line. Don't be afraid to let your ellipses overlap.

Anyway, keep up the good work. While you've got a ways to go, you're making good progress, and may consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-15 19:07

Nice work. The general confidence and solidity of your constructions has definitely improved over your set. I'm really pleased to see the wealth of corrections. Keep up the great work, and consider this challenge complete!

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

2016-07-15 16:34

The goal here is not to draw pretty things - so the fact that certain textures won't come out well isn't really a factor. In truth, there aren't really any textures that are easier than others, or more essential. Some may be a little more challenging to identify, but ultimately everything is just patterns made out by little shadows playing across the surface of an object.

Don't be afraid to fail, just jump right in and do the best that you can. You will fail, and you'll fail miserably, but it won't kill you to have done so - and most importantly, you'll learn from those failures.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-07-15 00:16

Nice work pushing through and completing the challenge. There's two points however that you can definitely work on, and to an extent you already touched on one of them:

As I said, you've done a good job of pushing yourself and finishing the challenge. You've got plenty of room to improve, but you do have time - these cylinders will be extremely relevant come lesson 6 and 7, but aside from a sprinkling of them in lesson 2 you'll have a stretch where you can keep fitting them in as warmups so as to keep working at these problems.

Ultimately the solution to any issue is an awareness of it, repeated, conscious attempts at facing it, and time.

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

2016-07-15 00:07

Nice work! Your arrows, organic forms and form intersections all demonstrate a solid understanding of the concepts we're after. Your organic intersections were okay as well, though when you have a form wrapping around another, you have a tendency to cut it off a little early: http://i.imgur.com/nfkLLZQ.png

As far as the odd mistake, remember that I'm not looking for perfect work. I'm looking for signs that you understand what you're after, so I can confidently leave you to practice this stuff on your own, while moving through the rest of the material. Even if it's full of blunders, if I can derive the sense that you know what to aim for and that you're just bad at the execution, then chances are I'd let you pass. Your execution, of course, was for the most part spot on.

On the flipside, I'm very much against doing things "because I really wanted to." Your wish to submit it all today matters not in the slightest, and it's something you need to contend with. Our petty desires can often get in the way of the things that will allow us to develop, and will inevitably hold us back.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-07-14 23:51

Very nice work! Your cylinders feel well constructed and solid, and I'm pleased to see you experimenting with a variety of ways to build them. Consider the challenge complete!

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

2016-07-14 23:49

Nice work. Generally you draw with a lot of confidence, which keeps your lines straight and your ellipses smooth and even. Your sense of space is also fairly well developed, which shows with your boxes.

One thing I have noticed though is that you tend to 'shoot from the hip' in a sense - that is, I don't see a whole lot of thought and planning behind each line, and after you draw a mark, I see signs of you reinforcing them reflexively (in a way that comes more from a need to mask mistakes, rather than attempting to add more lineweight). It's a common issue, especially with those who've been drawing for a while and are largely self taught.

As you move ahead, try to hold yourself back. It's all the more important that you apply the ghosting method - that is, the three step process that requires you to think and prepare before every stroke. It's long, it's tedious, and it's going to make you feel like you want to jump out of your skin, but if you stick with it you'll develop strong habits that will in the future merge with your confidence to produce clean precision.

Here's a couple points I think you should read through:

Also, while I'm not going to absolutely require you to do this, I strongly encourage you to take a look at the 250 box challenge. It's the perfect, painfully tedious exercise for you to work on holding yourself back and sorting out your habits.

Anyway, consider this lesson complete!

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-14 23:44

You definitely do improve over the set. A couple things to keep in mind though is:

Anyway, good work completing the challenge.

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

2016-07-14 23:39

Pretty good work. Your lines and boxes are fairly well done - the main thing that you need to work on are your ellipses. Specifically, yours are a little stiff and wobbly, as you are making the common mistake of focusing too much on your accuracy, to the detriment of the general flow and evenness of their shapes. This generally comes from drawing the ellipses more slow-and-steady, rather than with a confident pace.

I talk about this issue in a few places:

One recommendation I have, in regards to your rough perspective boxes (which were generally done quite well) is to go over your completed work as described here: Lines Not Lining Up With Vanishing Point. Due to the nature of the exercise, we estimate and approximate our perspective, so it's inevitable that it'll be off a fair bit. This helps you identify where you tend to be weaker, so you can tweak your approach to reduce those mistakes.

Lastly, I'd like you to give this a read: Draw Through your Forms. This isn't something that was included in the lesson, so you weren't expected to apply it - it's just an approach that I believe will help you as you move forwards. It will help you gain a stronger sense of how each box sits in 3D space, which is key to understanding how to rotate and manipulate these forms.

Anyway, I'll be marking this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one when you feel ready.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-14 23:29

Your boxes are looking good, and they certainly improve over the set. Your application of line weight isn't particularly disappointing either, so I think you're being too hard on yourself. You're not going to achieve anything close to perfection this early on - but yes, you're right, the superimposed lines exercise will help with this.

On the topic of line weights though, one thing I did notice was that you generally applied more weight to the front lines (to differentiate the near/far sides of the box, since you were drawing through them as requested). The problem here is that in the notes, I talk about the importance of keeping your internal lines lighter and your external lines - the ones that define the silhouette - a touch heavier. You missed this last part, and as a result had heavier internal lines, which worked against a general sense of cohesion and togetherness for each box.

A better approach to distinguish the faces that are oriented towards the viewer is to pick one and fill it with simple hatching lines.

Anyway, keep up the good work. Congrats on completing the challenge.

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

2016-07-14 23:24

Your constructions are coming along well, and your general use and understanding of form is solid. There's a few areas where things get a little bit weak, but this is inevitable over a set of many drawings. The first of these is the scorpion, which isn't badly done, but definitely suffered from being drawn relatively small (compared to the other drawings). Smaller drawings result in having less room to think through spatial problems. The other problematic one I saw was the crab spider at the end, whose abdomen feel a bit flat. You can see how even that middle contour ellipse there goes off the form in order to maintain its own integrity. This also shows me that you were more than likely aware of the issue - in which case not trying to correct it was probably the correct decision (since corrections draw attention to mistakes).

As far as things getting busy, I don't really see a whole lot of that. I'm pleased with your comfort level with letting your details merge together into larger areas of solid black - this approach definitely helps keep the noise levels down, as it reduces the contrast in those regions.

In general, you're doing well, so keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2016-07-14 23:10

Generally good work. Your lines are smooth and straight, ellipses are confident and even, and while you did struggle with those last two exercises (which is totally expected) you did a pretty good job with your boxes.

Moving forwards, you'll want to keep working in your accuracy with your ellipses (although the smoothness you're achieving is still the top priority, so if you find that faltering in the name of being more accurate, go back to focusing on keeping things confident and smooth). Also, take a look at this: Draw Through your Forms. This particular approach should help you get a better sense of how your boxes sit in 3D space, which is key to being able to manipulate and rotate them freely.

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson when you feel ready. Keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-07-14 13:03

Last thread's been locked, so you can post your homework submissions here.

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

2016-07-14 03:30

I don't give critiques until you complete all sections of a given lesson. Like I said, the requirements are written there in the homework sections.

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

2016-07-14 02:32

Yes, that's fine.

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

2016-07-14 02:04

As long as you complete the homework with the necessary requirements (outlined in the homework sections, in regards to quantity and tools used) you're welcome to submit your work for critique.

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

2016-07-14 02:00

Yes, these lessons are targeted both at those who are complete beginners, and those who have experience but are self-taught, and therefore have holes in their fundamentals. For both groups, the remedy is the same - to go back to the beginning and build their foundation from the ground up.

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

2016-07-13 19:18

Your constructions are looking solid! Definitely a big improvement, everything tends to feel considerably more solid. The only (minor) thing I noticed was with the forelegs of the big (rhino?) beetle on page 2. Just seems you didn't start them out as simply as you could have, and as a result they ended up a little flat and flimsy. The rest are good, though (even its back legs are well done).

There's always room for improvement, but you're back on track and clearly understand the concepts much better than you did before. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2016-07-13 19:14

Very nice work! I'm always a big supporter of going back to lesson 1 if you've let things go for too long. A lot of people, when they do that, find that they've forgotten big chunks, but it seems that your work's still going strong. Your lines are straight and smooth, your ellipses are tight and confident, and your boxes generally demonstrate a solid grasp of 3D space.

There's only one part that I'm not 100% happy with, and that's your rough perspective boxes. Where your other exercises are very exact and well thought out, the angles of these lines are a little bit off here and there. The main thing to keep in mind is that in one point perspective, every line follows one of three possible behaviours. It's fairly common for people to get a little frazzled and feel the need to guess as to how a line should be angled, but the solution is instead to just step back and think about it for a second.

Assuming that all of the boxes run parallel to the ground plane, All your horizontals run parallel to the horizon and your verticals run perfectly perpendicular to it. All the lines that go off into the distance converge towards the vanishing point (this one's obvious). In your rough perspective boxes, I see your horizontals slanting slightly, and the same goes for your rough perspective boxes. From the looks of it, it's somewhere in between your not fully grasping those behaviour-rules, and you just not ghosting enough or being particularly warmed-up (resulting in you knowing where you want the lines to go, but the lines not cooperating). Anyway, definitely something to keep in mind.

Anyway, your work's generally solid, so feel free to move onto the next lesson. Also, since it's probably been a good while since you were last at this point, I definitely encourage you to read over the notes on the 250 box challenge page. You don't need to do the work, since your sense of space is fairly solid already, but the tip about "drawing through your forms" is one that generally helps a lot of people really solidify that grasp of form and how the boxes sit in space. Also, the notes on the 250 cylinder challenge page are also worth reading, since I don't really cover elsewhere how to tackle constructing them.

Oh, and I hope you don't mind - since you're starting from scratch, I've cleared off your flair badge progress, so you can start with a fresh slate.

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

2016-07-13 19:00

Generally well done. I do get a slight overall sense that you don't think or plan quite as much as you should before putting down a mark, but in general you did a fairly decent job. Here's a few things to keep in mind:

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge, both to practice thinking more and preparing more before you draw, and also to get more general practice with constructing arbitrarily rotated boxes. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that page before starting the work, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This approach in particular will help you get a more solid sense of how each box sits in 3D space.

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

2016-07-13 18:51

Pretty well done. I'm not looking for perfect work - what I'm looking for are signs that you understand what you should be aiming for with each exercise, so that you can continue to practice them on your own while moving through the lessons.

There are just a couple things I want to point out. Firstly, this doesn't exactly relate to your lessons, but I noticed that when going over your completed rough perpsective boxes, you used broken lines to plot the lines back to the horizon. In this particular case, since you used a ruler, it's not really an issue. For any other purposes however, especially when freehand-drawing a line, you should absolutely avoid using any sort of broken lines. As soon as a line is broken, you will not be able to recover its initial flow, so its direction will inevitably shift a little bit. So when people draw through forms (which will be important in a little bit), those who do so with broken lines end up experiencing more problems than those who do so with solid lines. Just something to keep in mind.

Next, your rotated boxes are pretty good. It's clear that you struggled, and everyone does - part of the point of this exercise as well as the organic perspective one to give you the first taste of a very challenging subject. That is, the manipulation and construction of freely rotated boxes in 3D space. It's very hard, and you are not expected to nail it by the end of this lesson (or even come close).

Generally you're approaching the exercise well, but there is one thing I want to point out on that front - your horizontal boxes (from left to right) don't rotate enough. You reach roughly a 45 degree rotation relative to the center box to either side, when you should be aiming for a full 90 degree rotation. You get somewhat closer when doing your vertical rotations.

This is fairly normal - when allowed, your brain will fight against rotating these forms, because it wants to work on a solid, easily-understood grid. The way to avoid this is to draw your center box, then draw all of the extremities (far top, far bottom, far left, far right). Each of these will be a full 90 degree rotation, so it's going to be fairly easy to draw - you'll be looking at its side face dead on. Next, you can fill in the gaps between the extremities and the center. Since your 'rotation goal' is made fairly clear and is unavoidable, you're forced into tackling larger intervals of rotation to fill those gaps in.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes aren't bad. As far as my expectations are concerned, you're doing better than many have upon reaching this point. There is plenty of room to improve, of course. So I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, and ask you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through the notes on that page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This approach in particular will help you gain a more solid grasp of how each box sits in 3D space, ultimately allowing you to get more comfortable with rotating them, and identifying your own mistakes.

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

2016-07-13 18:42

The issues you mentioned are problems everyone faces with this exercise. When going over their completed homework (which you don't seem to have done for this latest set), students are meant to identify the mistakes where their lines don't line up with the vanishing point. It's inevitable, because of the nature of the exercise (relying entirely on estimation and visualization). You're meant to fail a lot, and continue to do so, gradually failing less and less over time.

Your new set looks good, so I'll mark this lesson as complete. Make sure you go over your completed work as I mentioned, and then go onto the 250 box challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-13 18:38

242, on the first page, is a good example of a box whose far plane is larger than its near plane. This is what you want to look out for, and ultimately correct (by having your lines converge just slightly as they move further away from the viewer). The corrections you should be drawing focus on identifying your mistakes - not so much in terms of wobbly lines, but in the mistakes in your understanding of space. That concept of further away = smaller is something you need to grind on quite a bit. Going over all of your boxes and finding the ones that contradict this basic rule, and ultimately drawing in the correct lines, is what will gradually allow you to identify these mistakes more easily, and then ultimately stop making them altogether.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-07-13 18:33

The problem is not so much in terms of your construction. Generally those forms are fine, though if anything had to be improved on that front, I'd recommend focusing on how you draw your initial center line, around which the rest of the leaf is constructed. The exercises I added to this lesson last week discuss the concept of a line flowing through 3D space, rather than simply cutting straight across a page. Anyway, you're doing fairly well already on that front.

Your problems all come in with your application of texture. You are not at all communicating anything to do with the actual material the leaves are made of, you are merely attempting to fill it all in. I can see quite clearly that you are not comfortable with leaving any surface in the focal circle blank, and so instead of focusing on demonstrating texture, you're trying to capture value (light vs dark).

To put it simply, don't do that. Your concern with light and shadow is distracting you considerably, and it's causing you to severely over-render your drawing. As a result, your textures overpower the forms in your drawing, and everything flattens out.

For the most part, you're only really applying one kind of 'texturing' - hatching lines - which do not actually reflect the texture of the leaves themselves. You're not taking the time and care to really look at your leaves and see what is going on there, what kind of patterns exist, and so on.

The fact of the matter is that most of these leaves are very smooth. There isn't much in the way of little raised forms on their surfaces, and it's these raised forms that would cast little shadows, which in turn create the lines and patterns one sees as texture.

There are very, very subtle veins, which you may hint at very very slightly, but they're virtually invisible. Considering how you're struggling with this, you should go look at the resources on the Texture Challenge page.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-07-13 14:22

Each lesson tackles the idea of constructing form and breaking down objects from different perspectives. While they're roughly arranged in an order that tends to help gradually expose you to more and more challenging subject matter, needing more work on any given lesson does not preclude you from continuing onto the next one. In some cases moving to a different angle of attack can be beneficial.

Lessons 4 and 5 specifically deal in more organic form constructions, while 6 and 7 focus entirely on more geometric forms. One thing to keep in mind though is that where working with organic subject matter is more forgiving when you jump away from purely working in construction and fall back into the trap of working more from observation (focusing more on details and just pasting them on wherever you see fit), geometric constructions will generally fall apart. The important thing there is to forget about detail, forget about what each object actually is, and just see them as a bunch of simple, primitive geometric forms jammed together.

Also, before tackling lesson 6, you may want to take a look at the 250 cylinder challenge in case you haven't yet learned how to construct cylinders.

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

2016-07-12 19:50

Looking very good! You start off a little weaker, but your constructions improve significantly over the set, as you get more confident with the subject matter. I'd say that with the very last page, they dip again slightly (perhaps you weren't quite feeling it at that point) but the majority of your other pages show a good to strong sense of form and construction, and your texturing is generally well thought out, with a good variety of patterns, and a nice balance of visually dense/detail-heavy areas against simpler rest areas.

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

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

2016-07-12 19:48

Pretty solid work! You've done a great job across the board - your lines are smooth and straight, your ellipses are even and confident, and your boxes demonstrate a reasonably good sense of space. I'm glad to see that you applied the double-checking method to your rough perspective boxes, and in general, your rotated boxes are actually quite well done (despite your struggles).

At the end of the day, the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes are intended to be perhaps overly difficult - they represent the first exposure to the challenges of constructing arbitrarily rotated boxes in 3D space, something that you are not expected to fully grasp by the end of this lesson.

As I mentioned, you did a good job with your rotated boxes. Your organic perspective boxes are somewhat weaker, but still at or slightly above where I'd hope them to be for this lesson. One issue that I am seeing across the board with this particular exercise is that you tend to apply more dramatic foreshortening (the rate at which the far end of the box gets smaller than the near end) than you should, resulting in the scene looking somewhat awkward and not as cohesive as we'd like. I talk about this more here: Inconsistent Foreshortening Between Boxes in the Same Scene.

I'll be marking this lesson as complete. One thing you may want to do (though I'm not making this mandatory for you) is the 250 box challenge. At the very least though, I insist that you read through the notes on that page, focusing especially on the tip about drawing through your forms. This approach will seriously improve your understanding of how each box sits in 3D space, which is often the key to improving one's construction of these freely manipulated forms.

Feel free to move onto lesson 2 when you're ready.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2016-07-12 19:40

Well done! Generally your sense of construction and your adherence to the geometric stage of things (that is, holding off on going into detail and treating things as simple geometric forms for as long as possible) has paid off. From what I can see, I definitely think you'd benefit form at least looking at the notes on the 250 cylinder challenge page as you definitely need a crash course on constructing cylinders (doing the challenge would actually be a good idea). Also, your weaker constructions often go that way largely due to a weaker initial box - so if the box you start off with is a little skewed or lopsided, you that trickles down into the rest of your drawing.

That is, in many ways, good news - just stay on top of practicing your boxes (this comic comes to mind).

I especially liked your volkswagon beetle, and the race car on page 12. Keep up the great work, and consider this lesson complete.

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

2016-07-12 19:36

Looking good! Your arrows are smooth and your organic forms' contour lines wrap around fairly well giving a decent sense of volume. Here and there though I am catching your contour curves getting just a little bit... I don't want to say sloppy, but I just get the sense that sometimes you don't think through the curve quite enough. They still come out okay, but I feel like if you allow yourself to relax too much on that front, you might start slipping back.

Your dissections are good - nice variety of textures, and you're approaching them with a reasonable amount of complexity while taking care to organize and structure them so as to avoid really dense areas of visual noise.

Your form intersections are looking solid. I'm especially pleased with your organic intersections, the individual sausage forms really give the impression that you understand how each form interacts with its neighbours, properly considering their weight and tension.

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

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

2016-07-12 17:23

The first paragraph of the challenge description says as follows,

You'll have 25 rows (obviously broken up onto different pages), each row will be roughly 2.5 inches tall, starting with a square of that height and width on the left.

Each row pertains to a different texture, so you're dealing with 25 textures - but you're drawing each one twice. The bottom of the challenge description includes an example of a completed row. In the square on the left, you draw the texture trying to observe it as carefully as possible, packing in as much detail as you can manage. In the rectangle on the right, you try and use that texture as a tool to transition from dark to light.

These are two separate exercises, and the first part of each texture (the high-detail square) should be done for all 25 rows before starting any of the transitional ones.