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Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-12 15:43

Yeah, that's more or less what it is. Letting go might not be the best wording, but you're essentially doing everything you can to prepare, and then trusting that your arm muscles know how to do what they're told.

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

2016-07-12 12:35

Just doing exercises would be totally absurd, to be honest. You'd burn out long before you got anywhere. The important thing, however, is that when you do the exercises, you put your full focus towards following the instructions to a tee. People have a tendency of getting sloppy, glazing over things, or just skimming and expecting that they understand everything that I ask of them. As long as you follow the instructions, and continue to do the early exercises as warmups, you should be able to avoid letting any particularly foul habits set in.

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

2016-07-11 23:27

One problem that I'm noticing a lot of is that your lines tend to wobble a little. I talk about this issue in this comic as well as here (in regards to superimposed lines), here (in regards to ellipses) and here (in regards to ellipses in planes). Read them all.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, here and there you have a lot of weirdness going on, though it's interspersed amongst fairly solid boxes. I think more than anything, it comes from you getting bored and trying to make the exercise more interesting (at least, that is definitely the case with the first page where you've deviated from just drawing boxes, tried slanting boxes, etc.) I talk about this in red at the beginning of the lesson - follow my instructions to a tee, don't try and change things up. The exercises are meant to be boring, and when you try and complicate things, you end up distracting yourself from what I want you to be practicing.

Seeing some of the wackier boxes on the second page of rough perspective boxes makes me want to get you to read this blurb about the three specific behaviours any given line in one point perspective MUST follow: Guessing, Instead of Knowing. When you don't know how a line should behave, most people will just guess and hope for the best. Instead, you should stop and think, as there are simple rules that govern all of this.

Also, you should go over your completed rough perspective boxes work as described here: Lines Not Lining Up With Vanishing Point. The nature of the exercise leads to the inevitable result of a lot of our lines not quite being aligned to the vanishing point. Going over your homework like this will help you identify where your estimation is at its weakest.

Your rotated boxes are alright (as far as what I expect to see for this lesson), but there are two significant issues. First off, you shouldn't be extending your boxes so far. All of the boxes should be roughly similar in size, so there's no rationalizing having them get significantly longer as they turn in space. Secondly, one thing I'm noticing is that you only really turned your boxes about 45 degrees either way. It's normal for one's mind to fight against the rotation, and cause you to rotate in smaller amounts with each box. One way to get around this is to draw your central box, and then draw each of the extremities (top, far left, far right, bottom) as 90 degree rotations of the center (they're all easy to draw, since they're seen straight on from the side). Then it's just a matter of filling in the rest. Since the rotations are already set, you're kind of forced to fill in the ranges of 90 degrees.

Now, the rotated and organic perspective box exercises aren't intended to come out perfect - or even close. They're just the first taste of the challenges involved in constructing arbitrarily rotated boxes in 3D space. This stuff is hard, and you're expected to struggle a lot, and are by no means intended to nail it by the end of this lesson. We'll get to ironing these issues out.

First, however, I want you to redo the rough perspective boxes, and submit another 2 pages of it to me. Once that's completed, and assuming you've improved after reading through my critique and the resources I've linked you to, I'll mark this lesson as complete. Once I've done that, I want you to move onto the 250 box challenge where you can work further on getting that wobble out of your lines, while also working on your construction of arbitrarily rotated boxes. Be sure to read through the notes on that challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular will help you gain a stronger sense of how each box sits in 3D space, and will help you identify common issues such as your far planes being larger than your near planes.

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

2016-07-11 23:05

Overall you did okay, but there's one fundamental issue I can see through all of your work - your lines wobble. This is a fairly common problem that comes from drawing slow-and-steady, rather than taking the time to prepare by applying the ghosting method, and then ultimately executing each independent mark with a confident pace that keeps your brain from being able to course-correct as you draw. I talk about this in this comic as well as numerous places on the self critique resources page. This issue impacts lines, ellipses and ultimately boxes as well.

Jumping ahead to your boxes, I noticed that your application of hatching lines for shading is really very sloppy. While I get that it's easy to consider those lines as being less important than the rest, the quality of your presentation will be judged by the mark into which was invested the least thought and consideration. To put it simply, don't half-ass things.

The rotated and organic perspective exercises are generally very challenging, and they are for just about everyone. It makes a lot of sense that you'd not like it (although your fondness for a given exercise is entirely irrelevant) - these two exercises in particular were added here specifically to expose you to a very difficult concept: the construction of boxes that have been rotated arbitrarily in 3D space without any explicit vanishing points in frame to rely upon. Long story short, it's hard, and you're not expected to nail it just yet. It's just the first taste.

Now, I am going to mark this lesson as complete. I want you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Here you will be able to deal with the things you struggled with in this lesson - specifically applying the ghosting method to each and every line to achieve straight and smooth strokes, and learning how to get your head around arbitrarily rotated boxes. Be sure to read through all of the notes on the challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. It's this in particular that will help you get a stronger sense of how each box sits in 3D space.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-11 22:58

Well done. I do see your sense of form and space improving over the set. I have a couple concerns though, that you should keep in mind for the future.

  1. As you go through the set, the further you go, the more dramatic your foreshortening seems to get. That is, the far plane becomes smaller relative to the near plane, and does so much quicker. It's important for you to be able to work both in shallow and dramatic perspective, but shallower perspective (where the far and near faces are fairly similar in size) is much more useful, as it implies a much more relatable scale. Dramatic perspective on the other hand speaks to large scale, like seeing the top of a tall building from the ground.

  2. When doing corrections, don't just circle your mistakes - actually draw in the correct line. While identifying your mistakes does help to a degree, actually figuring out what the correct line would be is significantly more beneficial, and will help you recognize what you need to work on much more effectively.

Anyway, congratulations on completing the challenge.

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

2016-07-11 22:53

The flow of your arrows is pretty good, but I'm noticing that your linework is rather hairy and sketchy here. Drawing a single mark with multiple lines, which contributes to that general hairiness, is definitely a bad habit that you should work towards avoiding. Make sure that every mark you put down is the result of conscious thought and planning, rather than reflex and instinct.

Your contour lines/organic forms are looking good, though I noticed you didn't do a whole lot of contour curves on their own. The three you did look solid though, so I won't ask you to do more. Note, though - it's ellipse not eclipse.

Your dissections are looking good. Lots of variation, lots of different textures, and plenty of visual information. One thing I noticed is that in some areas, where you try to fill areas in, you do so with very tight hatching which results in small white spots showing through. This is bad, because while solid black is very low-contrast, throwing a lot of white spots in there makes it extremely high contrast, noisy and distracting to the viewer. When you fill something in, make sure you fill it in with solid black. Half-assing it will have negative effects. Also, look into doing the 25 texture challenge, though be sure to spread that one over time as you move into the next lessons.

Another thing I wanted to mention about texture is that in general, fineliners allow you to work in stark black, and stark white. As pens die, you get a sort of grey area where they're able to make faded strokes, but I encourage you not to take advantage of that - the result is always going to be muddy and unpleasant. Same goes for most uses of cross hatching, or hatching in general - there's a few places where it makes sense, but you shouldn't use it just to quickly fill in an area with tone - at least, not when you're drawing with fineliners.

Your form intersections (not interactions) are reasonably good. I see you drew through one of your boxes on the second page of the exercise, but generally you'd benefit immensely from doing this for all of them. It helps you get a sense of how the forms sit in 3D space, which in turn helps you grasp how they should intersect with one another.

As for line weight, the last paragraph here might help: Line Weight. In form intersections, the best way to leverage line weight is to use it to demonstrate overlap, where the form that's in front is going to have more weight (on that overlapping line segment).

The organic intersections are alright - the second one has a bit of weirdness with that top sausage that seems to be supported by absolutely nothing, but generally you've captured a decent sense of how each sausage sags and weighs against its neighbours.

I really like the cross sectional drawings you included at the end there, by the way - they're very well done and demonstrate a solid sense of form and space, perhaps in a way that didn't come through as strongly in other exercises.

Feel free to move onto the next lesson. Oh, and by the way - if you've unchecked the "Show my Flair" on the sidebar, I use the flairs to keep track of who's completed what so it'd be best if you could leave that on.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-07-11 22:42

I'm seeing a lot of issues, some of which I advised against in the notes or in previous lessons. For instance,

One thing that may help is to, for now, draw from photographs rather than from life. Drawing from life is a great way to practice, but right now it may be putting far too much on your plate. Once you get the general sense of construction down, you'll be able to move back to that.

Also, as I mentioned above, your initial exercises are well done (aside from not drawing through your ellipses) - it's a matter of applying what you did there to your constructions. Please redo the 8 pages of plants. Also make sure that you're still doing exercises from lessons 1 and 2 as warmups.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-11 22:21

Nice work completing the challenge. One thing you can keep in mind - when doing corrections, the most effective way to do it is to actually draw in the correct lines. You'll get much more out of that than simply circling things and writing notes.

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

2016-07-11 22:16

Pretty well done. Your arrows flow nicely, your contour curves generally wrap nicely around the organic forms (the one in the bottom right corner of page 5 is very flat). Your dissections show a good start with texture - a lot of complexity, along with a good balance of noise/rest areas. To keep pushing yourself in that area, the 25 texture challenge is a good bet, just be sure to spread it out over time while tackling other lessons.

Your form intersections are pretty solid, though it's clear you've gotta work on your spheres, specifically keeping your perfect circles even and smooth, and tightening the ellipses up in general. Your organic intersections are well done, and show a growing understanding of how these different voluminous forms interact with one another.

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

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

2016-07-11 14:03

I have some bad news for you - you did all of the homework in pencil, and it's pointed out in the homework sections of Lesson 1 that you must complete the exercises in the required media if you want to receive a critique. You can read about why I insist people work in ink (ideally felt tip pens although I allow ballpoint for lessons 1 and 2) in this article.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-07-10 21:05

I see some improvements (you're adhering to your initial mass lay-ins more), so that's good. Overall there are a lot of areas where you can improve. For instance, you're not drawing through your ellipses, your initial masses don't really line up with the parts of the body they represent (that is, ribcage and pelvis - your ribcage needs to be larger, and both pelvis/ribcage should be set at an angle that represents the animal's actual respective components). Also, you're missing the bulk/form of your animals' shoulders, and in the case of the bird, its thighs. There's a lot of form going on underneath that you're not really paying attention to. It's true that often times it's somewhat hidden under fur, feathers, or what have you, but it's visible if you look for it - and you need to look deeper.

Here's a demo I just drew up for you that shows just how much there is going on underneath, all of which you should be incorporating into your drawings: http://drawabox.com/viewimage/lesson5/oryx.jpg

I'd like you to do just two more pages, and then either way I'll let you move onto the next lesson. Ultimately part of me is considering letting you move ahead right now, and let you continue to work on your animals on your own, but I want just a little bit more assurance that you understand what you should be aiming for before I leave you to pursue it on your own.

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

2016-07-10 19:05

Very nice work! Your lines and ellipses are solid. For your rough perspective boxes, I recommend that upon finishing the exercise, you go over your completed work as described here: Lines Not Lining Up With Vanishing Point. This will help you identify areas where your estimation of perspective is weaker, so you know where to focus the next time you attempt the exercise.

Also, your experience with the rotated/organic perspective boxes is right on point - the whole point of those two exercises is to rip you away from the "formula" manner of thinking. It requires a good deal of failure and struggle, but you have to force yourself to push the rules into the back of your mind (they're still relevant, but not at the forefront) and just try to jump into the deep end of wrapping your head around 3D space.

Now, your organic perspective boxes do need work, but you've made good progress. These two exercises are really just the first exposure to the challenge of rotating these boxes in space, and you're not expected to nail them just yet.

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, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This will help you get a more solid grasp of how each box sits in 3D space, and will highlight common mistakes, like where your far plane ends up larger than your near plane.

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

2016-07-10 18:46

Pretty well done! There's a couple issues but they're all fairly common and will be ironed out in time.

Firstly, with your funnels, there's two things I want to stress about this exercise. First off, make sure all of your ellipses are aligned to the minor axis - that is, the line running down the center. The minor axis should cut each ellipse into two equal symmetrical halves. Secondly, you missed the part of the exercise where the ellipses should decrease in degree as they reach the center of the funnel. Basically, they should be getting skinnier as they reach the center.

Next, a strong recommendation - after completing the rough perspective work, go over your completed homework as described here: Lines Not Lining Up With Vanishing Point. This helps you identify where your estimation of perspective is off.

Next, your rotated boxes are alright (although the corner boxes tend to get skewed), and your organic perspective boxes are a little bit all over the place. None of this is surprising, or below my expectations - both of these exercises are only intended to introduce you to the challenge of constructing boxes arbitrarily rotated in 3D space with no explicit vanishing points in frame. You're more or less expected to have a lot of difficulty.

So, I am going to mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next to get more practice with the boxes. Be sure to read through the notes on that page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms - it's this in particular which will help you get a stronger sense of how each box sits in 3D space. Also, when you go through the challenge, be mindful of applying the ghosting method to your lines. If you compare the lines you drew in your ghosting exercise, and those drawn for your organic perspective boxes, you'll notice that the latter are considerably wavier than the former.

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

2016-07-10 18:23

Your arrows are pretty decent. Your organic forms with contour lines are alright as well, but one thing that you're not quite doing is using the minor axis line (the central spine) to align your curves. The minor axis should cut each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves. If an ellipse is misaligned, you'll end up with the resulting curve either having the shape being thrown out of whack where you've tried to wrap the line around the form, or you'll end up not successfully wrapping the curve around the form at all on one side.

Your dissections are a good start, although they certainly need a lot of work. One thing I'm seeing is that you're trying to rely on the faded lines of a dying pen to create a sort of half-tone. The main feature of a felt tip pen is that it traditionally gives you full black at various weights, and nothing else. Rather than trying to get around this, work within these restrictions. Give the 25 texture challenge a read when you get the chance, and I highly recommend that you work on it gradually as you move through the next lessons.

You're definitely struggling with your boxes, you've got a LOT of near/far plane size relationship issues going on. Your form intersections are alright, though there's plenty of room to improve. Another issue I'm noticing is that you tend to apply some fairly dramatic perspective to many of your boxes (keep the foreshortening shallow, the organic perspective notes from lesson 1 talk about this), and you're using some stretched forms (as opposed to equilateral ones as you were instructed), which definitely makes things more difficult than they need to be.

Lastly, your organic intersections are alright, though again we're seeing the curves not being aligned to the minor axis, leading to a lot of them being a little skewed.

I am going to mark this lesson as complete, but you've clearly got a lot of things to work on as you push through the lessons. The box issue is a big one, but it won't hit you until you hit lesson 6 - but when you reach that point, it'll hit you hard if you haven't been able to sort it out by then. Still, that's a long ways off so you should have plenty of time to continue practicing the lesson 1 and 2 exercises as warmups, hopefully enough to fix these issues.

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

2016-07-10 17:44

There's one thing that stands out to me in the quality of your linework - this isn't entirely abnormal or uncommon, especially for a beginner, but it is something to be aware of. Right now your lines are very static and uniform. The same line weight all the way through.

As you practice, one thing you should try is to taper your strokes a little bit at the beginning and end. You can do this by applying just a little bit less pressure to your pen as you make contact with the page, and a little less pressure as you lift your pen up. This will add just a touch of dynamism and life to your lines.

This can also happen if you're simply drawing too small. I can't really tell what scale you're working at or what size your paper is, so I can't say if this is the case. That said, if your drawings are too small, your pen tip will be significantly larger relative to the drawing size, resulting in very thick-looking, clunky lines.

Another thing I see is that your lines - especially your ghosted lines - tend to wobble a bit. This lines up with the previous issue, as they both likely come from drawing too slow-and-steady, instead of drawing confidently after taking the time to plan and apply the whole ghosting preparation method.

Looking at your super imposed lines in particular, I noticed that when it comes to your straight lines, you only really played with one (relatively short) length of line, not even trying to venture into anything more challenging. Those longer lines are harder, and you will screw them up - but that's part of practicing. You're going to fail, and given that you stick with it and don't give up, you're going to fail a LOT. Failure is your friend here, as it is a necessary part of the process required to improve. You also seem to avoid longer lines in your ghosted lines exercise.

I noticed that you didn't draw through your ellipses-in-planes exercises, but I'm glad to see that you did for the other ellipse exercises. These look reasonably good.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, there's two things I'd like to note. First of all, the angles of your horizontals and verticals seem to be a bit all over the place. This may be due to a lack of understanding of how those lines should behave (in which case, read this: Guessing, Instead of Knowing), or it may be because you're not putting enough time and effort into applying the various steps of the ghosting method - that is, identifying where you want your line to go (and putting down points to mark the start/end), ghosting through the drawing motion to build up muscle memory, and finally executing with a smooth, confident stroke just fast enough to keep your brain from micromanaging and attempting to course-correct as you draw. My guess is that it's a combination of the two.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that it's important that you go over your completed rough perspective work as described here, to double check the accuracy of the estimation of your perspective: Lines Not Lining Up With Vanishing Point.

Your rotated boxes are alright, but keep in mind that you should not be trying to correct your mistakes by drawing new lines on top of them. This only results in a bigger mess, and draws the viewer's attention to your blunder. If you make a mistake, try and see if you can incorporate it into your drawing (not really an option in most of these early exercises), or just leave it be and keep going.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes are definitely rather rough. Your first page is alright, the second shows a considerable amount of struggling with understanding how the boxes sit in 3D space. This is completely normal, and you are by no means expected to really have a solid grasp on the challenges of this exercise by the end of this lesson. It's really just intended to be a first introduction to the concept of rotating a box arbitrarily in 3D space with no explicit vanishing points in frame to rely upon.

Now, it's clear that you do have a lot to improve upon, but I am going to mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. This will give you the opportunity to both work on your arbitrarily rotated box constructions (like the organic perspective exercise), while also allowing you to practice your application of the ghosting method and work on reducing the uniformity of your lines. Be absolutely sure to read through all of the notes on the challenge page before starting the work - especially the tip about drawing through your forms, as this will greatly impact your ability to understand how each box sits in 3D space, and will make certain common mistakes much more obvious to you (so you know to correct them as you move forwards).

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

2016-07-10 17:16

Your arrows are looking good. Your organic forms with contour lines are well done too, though you missed the step about drawing your minor axis (the central spine that runs through the middle of the organic form). Your ellipses are supposed to be aligning to this (if you've forgotten, reread the bit in lesson 2 about the purpose of the minor axis of an ellipse), so it's important that you not skip this step.

Your dissections are alright as far as observation and complexity goes, but one thing I'm noticing is that you're exhibiting the common habit of treating the marks that make up your textures as being lines, and only lines. Keep in mind that all textures are made up of very small forms on the surface of your object, and that the marks we draw are in fact the shadows cast by these forms. Shadows are not limited to lines, but can expand into shapes which in turn can merge with their neighbours, creating large areas of solid black. Be sure to give the 25 texture challenge a look.

Your form intersections are generally well done - you're drawing through your forms confidently, but you're clearly planning out each stroke.

Your organic intersections have me a bit puzzled. I see two sets of lines in some of them, where you appear to have done an underdrawing, then replaced the lines with darker, cleaner marks. The problem with this approach is that the clean-up pass is always significantly more stiff - you get preoccupied with accuracy that you draw slow-and-steady, completely obliterating the flow of the lines.

Don't do underdrawings - like you did in your form intersections, plan your lines out and then execute with confidence. If you make a mistake, it's not the end of the world. And if you happen to make a mistake, don't correct it - this only creates a bigger mess and draws the viewer's eye right to your blunder.

I can see that through the set, you struggle with the idea of having different organic forms wrap around those around them - and this is the core of the exercise - but you do improve. Another area where you stumble is the alignment of the contour curves themselves (which harkens back to the lack of minor axes in your organic form with contour line exercises).

Anyway, overall you've done decently. You have room for improvement, but I'm going to mark this lesson as complete and leave you to continue practicing these exercises on your own as warmups over time, while you move ahead with the next lesson.

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

2016-07-09 19:03

You've generally done some pretty solid work here. You start off a little sloppy with your first page or super imposed lines, but you correct that by the next page. Ultimately, your lines and ellipses are well done. Your boxes are as well, for the most part. I do want to mention that in your rotated boxes, you've got some where you've drawn each box in its entirety, and others where you've clipped off boxes where they end up hidden behind a neighbour. I want to stress the importance of drawing each box completely, even if they are hidden by another. This exercise is very much about understanding how those boxes sit in 3D space, and how that changes as they rotate. You can't really get a sense for that if you only draw a box partially. Keep this in mind when you do this exercise in the future.

Your organic perspective boxes do have some issues, but you're doing better than my standard for this lesson. This exercise is just a first taste of the challenge of freely manipulating boxes in 3D space with no explicit vanishing points in frame to rely upon - I expect people to struggle considerably, and I don't expect them to conquer the challenge by the end of this lesson.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next, so you can get some more practice with the idea of manipulating boxes in 3D space. Be sure to read through the notes on that page before starting the work, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This takes what I mentioned about the rotated boxes to its furthest extent, drawing even the lines on the hidden side of a box, so that the entire box is clearly defined. This helps you understand how it sits in space, and also emphasizes common mistakes, like near/far plane size relationships being reversed.

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

2016-07-09 18:46

Your arrows are good. Your organic forms with contour curves are alright, but make sure you align them to the minor axis (the center line going through the organic form that you drew some of the time). This will help towards being able to hook your contour line around at the edge of the form to reinforce the illusion of roundedness and volume. I notice that you didn't do organic forms with contour ellipses at all. Read the instructions more carefully in the future, please.

Your dissections, as far as the textures go, are looking a little simplistic. This happens when you rely too much on your memory when drawing textures, and don't spend enough time observing your texture. You may want to look into the 25 texture challenge to help sort this out as you continue to move forwards. Texture ultimately is not the focus of our lessons, construction and form is - so you can work on your texture steadily as you go.

Your form intersections are alright, although you should be drawing through all of the ellipses you draw for my lessons. This isn't a suggestion, it's a requirement. It keeps your ellipses even and and helps you avoid stiffness or wobbling, of which there is much in yours.

Your organic intersections are technically demonstrating, at least in places, what I'm looking for (the interaction between the different organic forms, where they wrap around and sag around one another). That said, they don't look great - your execution could be a lot better. Your linework is really timid here - you should be drawing every mark with confidence, after taking the time to plan it out and applying the ghosting method. Don't sketch, don't chicken scratch.

You clearly have a lot of room to grow, but you are demonstrating most of the things I'm looking for, so I will mark this lesson as complete. Keep in mind that you are expected to keep on top of practicing the exercises from the first two lessons pretty much until the end of time, as you continue to move forwards.

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

2016-07-09 17:40

Your work is generally very well done. Great constructions, and very meticulous texturing. I might even be inclined to suggest that your textures are a little bit overdone - they're almost overwhelming. At this point you'll want to start thinking about how to imply more detail than you actually explicitly draw in, so as to avoid the problem of creating too much visual noise. I talk about this in the 25 texture challenge.

Also, you may want to look at these two demos/notes in regards to drawing fur:

Keep up the great work - 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"

2016-07-08 19:33

Be brutal? As you wish!

Now, on the front of these organic perspective boxes, I'm going to recommend that when I mark this lesson as complete, you move onto the 250 box challenge. At that point, you should read through all of the notes on that challenge page, ESPECIALLY the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular will help you get a fuller sense of how each box sits in 3D space, which will allow you to identify when your angles are off, and when your near planes are coming out smaller than your far planes.

BEFORE that, however, I want you to do one more page of the table of ellipses (draw through your ellipses, and draw them with a confident pace - don't wobble). I also then want you to do two pages of rough perspective boxes - do them in one point perspective, and when you're done go over them in that method I mentioned to check how far off your estimation is.

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

2016-07-08 19:03

Pretty solid work across the board. Your arrows are good. Your organic forms with contour lines are pretty well done, though when it comes to the contour curves I feel that you're just at the cusp of grasping the idea of wrapping your lines around the rounded forms - that is to say, you're getting it, but you're at that point that if you lose focus on it, you'll slip back. Always keep in mind the idea of how those forms curve, and so the contour line too must accelerate as it reaches the edge and hook back around.

Your dissections are pretty good. Here and there you kinda fall into the pit of scribbling and using randomness, but this is pretty rare and most of the time your textures are well planned and thought out. I also like the wide variety of textures and materials you've attempted, and that the majority of them are wrapping around the organic forms and deforming appropriately.

Moving ahead to your form intersections, mainly what I look for is not the intersections themselves, but whether or not the forms appear to be consistent in foreshortening and generally feel like they belong in the same scene. You've achieved this fairly well. Some of your boxes and cylinders could generally use some work (should probably take a look at the 250 box and 250 cylinder challenges if only to read the notes on how to approach constructing those forms).

Lastly, your organic intersections are well done - you've captured the general sense of interaction between the different organic forms very nicely, I can really feel each form wrapping around those around it.

Keep up the good work - I'll be marking this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-07-07 18:48

Your observational skills are fairly good, but that is pretty much what's carrying you through here. Your underlying constructions aren't very strong, because you're not perceiving the components of your lay-ins to be 3D forms. You're treating them as loose, approximate sketches, or flat shapes.

Take a look at the animal/insect demos in this big demo gallery.

There's two main things that you're missing. First off, the three balls we draw, are 3D forms representing three specific parts of the body. The cranium (part of the skull), the ribcage and the pelvis. The cranium is generally more or less a perfect sphere, while the pelvis and ribcages are not - they're stretched and angled to match the orientation and size of the parts they represent.

Next, you combine the ribcage and pelvis into a sausage-like torso (this demo demonstrates this concept.

This leads into the second issue - when you draw the neck, connecting the head to the torso, you need to be mindful of the fact that the neck connects and intersects with the torso in a specific location. If you don't take these intersections into consideration, you very easily fall into the trap of thinking in terms of 2D shapes, rather than 3D forms. This initially jumped out at me in your seagulls, where there's no distinction whatsoever between the neck and the torso.

This is extremely important when it comes to connecting your legs to the torso as well. If you let things just bleed into each other, you're not really thinking about how they all fit together as separate forms and components - you're just thinking of reproducing the photograph, which means transferring 2D details with no construction going on.

I'd like you to try another 4 pages of animals. For the first three, focus entirely on construction - don't do any details or texturing at all. On your fourth page, you may expand into detail, but make sure you still put plenty of thought into your construction.

Uncomfortable in the post "Fundamentals of Painting - a blog with some interesting articles specifically on painting"

2016-07-06 20:49

That's a perfectly reasonable requeat, and definitely something everyone should do before taking advice. I did some hunting and found his artstation account: https://www.artstation.com/artist/hai

Ironically enough, his drawing fundamentals are sorely lacking, but his sense of colour and composition is pretty good - luckily those are the points his articles focus on, so I believe it's still worth reading what he's written.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-06 19:19

You're definitely making some headway - when you started off, your boxes were a bit of a mess, and upon finishing, they're considerably more solid. Still plenty of room to improve, both in box construction and line confidence, but you're getting there.

One thing I want to stress is the importance of drawing all of your lines with confidence. I can see instances where you're trying to draw your 'hidden' lines more faintly, but as a result they tend to be straight less often than your more confident lines. I totally get why you chose to do this - to differentiate between the two sets of lines so you know which planes face the viewer - but there are better ways. For instance, after you've drawn all of the lines, applying the ghosting method and executing each one with confidence, you can add hatching to one of the front-facing faces.

Anyway, keep up the good work, and congratulations on completing the challenge.

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

2016-07-06 19:09

Many of your initial lay-ins are fairly well constructed, but I believe as you start to get into texture and detail, you pay much less attention to form and construction, and get too caught up in the detailing. Your texturing is really nice on some of them (rhino beetle, scorpion) but ultimately even the best texturing will fall flat when applied to a weak construction.

When it comes to construction, one extremely important thing to keep in mind is that you are at no point drawing a loose approximate sketch of any sort. Looking at the rhino beetle, you roughed in the body with a few very loose ellipses. The ellipses you draw here aren't just ellipses - they're actual solid forms that intersect with one another, and you're using them as the base for this construction. Once you have that basic form constructed (the lay-in), then you can start building up complexity in successive passes. At no point are you ever drawing a line that isn't supported by the construction that already exists at that point. Looking at your rhino beetle again, you drew the ellipses for the body but then your actual drawing of the abdomen/thorax/carapace didn't really adhere to what you'd already put down. You used the initial lines as a suggestion, so you strayed from the foundation you were building up.

I'd like you to do three more pages of insects - on the first page, focus entirely on filling it up with lay-ins, no detail at all. No loose/faint drawing, followed by cleaning it up. Construct from the ground up, building simple forms and then breaking them down to add complexity. The next two pages can be dedicated to more detailed drawings - remember that detail is not king here. Don't go overboard with it, and absolutely do not try to overshadow your construction with texture and visual noise.

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

2016-07-06 19:00

Oh no, that's not what I meant. I mean thinking of the textures themselves in terms of being three dimensional - that the marks that capture the texture are actually shadows being cast by small forms. On the other hand, when you think in terms of just a pattern, it lacks the dynamism that you might get when you consider actual shadowplay.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-06 18:48

That's a whole lot of boxes! You certainly improve over the set - one thing that I do notice though is that near the end you start getting a little sloppy with your linework - things don't meet at corners properly, lines waver a little, etc. Pushing yourself a little is fine, but working when you're really tired and getting very sloppy is going to build up bad habits.

Also, when doing your corrections, don't just identify mistakes, actually draw in the correct lines. I notice that you kinda fell off in terms of doing corrections - for example 299's near/far plane situation is way off.

Anyway, you're heading in the right direction. There is room for improvement, but it's coming along. I think you've certainly drawn plenty of boxes for now, so feel free to move onto lesson 2 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"

2016-07-06 18:30

The most important area that this particular dynamic sketching exercise fails to emphasize is the notion that what we're drawing are the little shadows cast by the small forms that make up the texture. It's very easy to miss the mark and get caught up in creating patterns (which are simply 2D designs) rather something more closely applicable to real materials. Patterns are certainly useful, but they steer you too much towards continuing to think in 2D instead of 3D.

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

2016-07-06 18:14

I definitely took a lot from that exercise, although I always felt like it treated the matter of observation, detail, etc. as being far simpler than it really is. That said, the whole idea of moving from super dense to sparse is certainly taken from there.

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

2016-07-06 17:09

One thing people don't often realize is that you should not expect to draw well when you first tackle these lessons. You should by no means hold onto your work until you stop being embarrassed by it. You're not submitting it just to boast about how beautiful your drawings are - you're submitting failure to help identify what is going wrong.

Those who swallow their fear and accept the inevitability of failure, and the necessity of that failure, are the ones that ultimately make progress.

Uncomfortable in the post "Fundamentals of Painting - a blog with some interesting articles specifically on painting"

2016-07-06 16:08

If you look beyond the overzealous push to get your email address, some of the articles on this website have a fair bit to offer as far as understanding some of the concepts that pertain specifically to painting (whereas drawabox is more about drawing, though there's lots of overlap). I've only had the time to skim through them, but I'm confident that it's definitely worth a read through.

The subjects they cover are about painting in general, with plenty of examples pulled from the old masters - that is, not specific to different paint media, but conceptual things that can be applied to both traditional and digital media.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-06 00:03

Yes, keep at it. This stuff won't produce results immediately, you have to keep pushing yourself to find a pace that will allow your brain to stop course-correcting as you draw. It takes a great deal of practice to really get comfortable with using the ghosting method, it's not just a matter of doing it or not, it's a matter of figuring out the nuance and rhythm of doing it correctly. This takes time.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2016-07-05 21:26

I think you'd likely benefit a lot form completing the 250 box/cylinder challenges - the earlier lessons don't deal too much in geometric construction but once you get here, it's painfully difficult to avoid. It doesn't help that we haven't really dealt with cylinders explicitly yet (unless you chose to do the cylinder challenge on your own), so it's no wonder that you'd find them quite challenging.

Looking at your work, setting aside the general construction of boxes and cylinders, proportion is definitely a concern. It takes a great deal of repeated practice to really get a sense of how to take the 2D proportion studies you did (which were well done) and transfer them to 3D. When the overall box that you start with isn't entirely solid, however, it gets even harder.

I think overall, despite these challenges, you're on the right track. A lot of it is going to come from a hell of a lot more practice, but what's important is that you're taking each construction and pushing it all the way through to the end. Also, I think your work does improve overall as you push through, and your focused practice on cylinders has helped.

One thing I want to recommend is that you try and keep your constructions in the realm of primitive 3D forms as long as possible. There's always a point where we transition into saying, okay these last few details don't need plotting, we'll just slap them on. Try to keep this as late as possible, or even go ahead and skip that step altogether. Detail isn't important here at all. What's important is getting your geometric forms to fit together properly, to make sure that their proportions are correct and that they align with one another as they're meant to.

Oh, one other thing that comes to mind - one of my instructor used to do a lot of really heavy construction drawing with all sorts of lines, and then he'd take a sheet of tracing paper and lay it on top, and then do his detail pass. In this particular case, this may be worth trying out.

Anyway, I'll mark this lesson as complete, since from here on it's just going to be a shit ton of practice.

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

2016-07-05 21:15

At the end of my last critique, I asked you to move onto the 250 box challenge next before moving onto lesson 2. I get that you did this beforehand, but you should not be submitting work to me that you know is wrong when I have already told you what to do to improve on it. It doesn't speak highly of your regard for my critiques, and the time I take to write them.

I'm going to be ignoring your form intersections (aside from pointing out the fact that your hatching lines are very sloppy, you should be more conscientious, drawing consistent parallel lines that stretch all the way across the plane from edge to edge with nothing floating in the middle, no scribbling or zigzagging, etc.), since critiquing them now would be a waste of time. I will however give you comments on the other portions of your homework.

I'm not sure what you misunderstood as far as those first couple pages of arrows go - the description of the exercise and the example there talks about considering how arrows twist and turn and flow towards or away from the viewer (rather than having no depth). Your subsequent pages are solid, though.

Your organic forms show a few significant problems. Firstly, when drawing your forms, try not to have them pinch and swell in various areas. This kind of complexity undermines the solidity of your form, and makes it that much harder to reinforce the idea that these are three dimensional objects. Sticking to simple sausages whose thickness remain fairly consistent would be ideal as far as this exercise goes.

Your contour curves tend to be very messy and poorly thought out, especially at first. You're not drawing any of your minor axes for the curves (the lines going through the center that should help you align your ellipses), and it's very clear that in your boredom you deviate from the lesson and start doing your own thing at times. I get that this stuff is tedious, but I expect you to focus entirely when doing this work. If you get distracted, lazy or tired, take a break or push it off til the next day. No one is holding a gun to your head and telling you to finish immediately. The more you deviate from the exercise and its instructions, the more likely you are to miss its point entirely.

In your dissections, your application of texture - as far as observing your reference images and carrying that information over into your drawing is quite good. You have a good eye for detail, and despite the lack of patience in the earlier section, you seem to be quite focused here. There is an overall issue with how you apply the texture, however - your forms are rounded, like sausages, but your application of texture does not wrap around some of them very convincingly. An example of this is the metal panel (which admittedly, is more of a pattern than a texture - the texture would actually be the metal surface itself). Here you can clearly see the pattern cut straight across, as though it were flat. You need to remind yourself that you're wrapping the textures around the forms. That is one of the reasons that I insist on starting off the dissections as simple organic forms with contour curves (which you did not do).

Your organic intersections are okay - not great, and generally your contour curves aren't doing a great job of really wrapping around the forms themselves, and their alignment is off at times as well. What I do like about them though is for the most part, you're doing a good job of understanding how the forms would interact with one another.

I'm going to ask you to do the entire lesson over, taking into consideration the things I've said here. Of course, before you do this, I expect you to go back and do the 250 box challenge. Overall, you need to work on how closely you follow instructions - both in my critiques, as well as within the lessons themselves. You skip a lot of things I've clearly written out, so you should be more mindful of reading what I write, and when necessary, rereading it as well.

Oh, about your question - use a 0.5mm pen only. I insist people work only with a single pen size because it forces you to control your pressure in order to achieve different line weights, rather than switching to a different pen altogether.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-05 20:59

It's coming along decently. Couple things to be aware of:

Anyway, good work completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-05 20:56

Excellent work. Confident lines, solid corrections/review, and solid forms. And seven extra boxes, oh my! Keep it up, and congratulations on completing the challenge.

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

2016-07-05 20:55

The second one is very well done. The other two not so much, so as you move forwards focus on achieving what you did with the second one. In general, it's still important to be mindful of how you're aligning your contour curves (either draw in, or visualizer the minor axis line passing through the center of the sausage form, that's what your ellipses should be oriented to).

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

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

2016-07-05 20:47

I'm kind of puzzled as to why you went with such ridiculously complex organic forms this time around. The complexity of the forms is introducing all kinds of other problems and are really undermining the basic concepts we're trying to nail down in the first place.

Look at the way your forms get skinny in places, and then swell up elsewhere. This kind of inconsistency makes it very hard to look at the forms and interpret them as actually having weight, solidity and volume to them. All I want you to do is draw simple sausages.

Secondly, your contour curves and ellipses pay no heed to the minor axis lines (the central spines). They should be aligning to them as mentioned in the lesson (the minor axis of an ellipse cuts the ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves).

Thirdly, your contour lines are very heavy, which again undermines the overall cohesiveness of the form. Try to have more nuance in your lines - vary the pressure you apply to your pen throughout the stroke, rather than keeping it uniform.

Lastly, your dissections are alright, albeit quite cartoony and oversimplified. This tells me you're likely working much more from memory than observation. It's very easy to fall into the trap of relying on memory - it'll happen if you're looking away for a little too long, because you convince yourself that you know what you saw, when in fact you don't.

We're going to do this again. Give me one page filled with sausages with contour curves. Filled, completely, to the brim. Pack it in with sausages.

Take a picture of it, then on that same page, turn the sausages into dissections. Cut out sections between contour curves and add texture to the different faces, taking the time to really look at your reference images, and continuously look back. Don't go more than a moment or two without looking at the image.

Do that correctly, and I'll let you move forwards. Before you do any of this though, I strongly recommend that you go back and read the material. It's been a month, you've DEFINITELY forgotten most of it.

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

2016-07-05 20:34

Better, albeit sloppy. I'll be marking the lesson as complete, but be sure to keep on top of this so as to reinforce what you've learned and to keep yourself from slipping back. A few other things to keep in mind in terms of sloppiness:

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-05 20:20

There's lots of room to improve, but completing this challenge is a big step towards that. Looking at your set, it really does look like your focus decreased as you went through it, almost as though you tried to complete the whole thing in one sitting. That would certainly be silly. Working while you're tired is going to cause you to do sloppy work, so it's better to take breaks in between and space it out.

About your issues with predicting - remember that the ghosting method (which you should be applying to each and every mark you draw) starts off by setting out the start and end points of the line. You can plot out your box prior to drawing the lines themselves by setting out these points. Also, it was very unwise of you to stop drawing through your forms. When you started doing that, it seemed to be less about thinking about how each box fits together, and more about just completing the challenge.

Lastly, drawing your corrections in highlighter was probably not the best decision. The corrections (which should be done for the entire set) are not just about identifying mistakes, but marking in the correct lines. You can't really do that with a large highlighter.

I'm marking the challenge as complete, but only on the technicality that you did draw 250 boxes. You need to work a lot more on this, and do so conscientiously. As it stands, your current sense of form and 3D space is going to make the form intersections in the next lesson very difficult for you.

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

2016-07-05 20:14

Better, though your contour curves still aren't ideal. If you were to draw ellipses to match up with your curves currently, you'd find that the ellipses would curve much more dramatically as they reach the edge. Your curves more often than not give the impression that if we were to extend them, they'd fly right off the form rather than hooking back around.

I'll mark this lesson as complete, but be sure to continue working on this as you move forwards.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-05 20:12

Pretty nice work! Your boxes are clearly improving over the set, both in form and in confidence. It does appear that you need more work on applying line weight, but that's not entirely abnormal - it can be challenging, and you have to remember to maintain the confidence of your stroke whilst sticking to the line you're drawing. The super imposed lines exercise from lesson 1 should help with this.

About one of those last boxes, 249 - the angles are off, causing the farther end of the box to be considerably larger than the near one.

Anyway, nice work completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-07-05 20:10

The overall impression that I'm getting is that you're jumping in too far, too early. You're focused very much on complexity and on detail, and your more basic components suffer for it. For instance, your contour curves generally don't wrap convincingly around their forms, and the center lines of your leaves - which the entire leaf should be built up around and depends upon - are stiff and poorly thought out. Each contour curve should be crafted thinking about how that line runes along the curving surface of the object. Each leaf's center line should be designed by thinking about how this simple, flat object is going to be moving through space, from being closer to the viewer, to further away, rather than simply being a line moving across a flat page.

When it comes to detail, you're very much trying to imply detail rather than putting it down explicitly. It's true that this is our goal, but you're running before you can walk. You need to slow yourself down, and think through everything you do - observe your reference carefully, and don't draw for more than a few moments before looking back at it. Don't let your brain simplify the things you see, and it will do that if you look away too long and start relying on memory.

Here are some notes I've drawn over your homework. I think it would be wise to revisit the organic form exercises in lesson 2 - you should actually be doing the exercises from the first two as warmups regularly, so as to keep yourself from forgetting the material, and to keep improving upon it.

Ultimately, I'd like you to try your hand at this homework again. Try to stick to simpler forms and constructions. The cactuses are a good bet, large floating leaves are also good. Complex trees and whatever that stinkhorn thing was probably aren't a good bet at this point.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-04 21:56

I want to make clear that what I said was merely about technicalities. I don't want to argue.

I totally get it, and I'm glad that you responded. You're in a position a lot of people put themselves in - and while it may not seem like a matter of being 'special' it very much is. When faced with challenges, we are given two options - we can either fight tooth and nail to achieve our goals, or we can stop and give up.

Giving up is remarkably difficult - not as difficult as pushing onwards, but one cannot easily call it quits without hating themselves. And so, we look for reasons why others could continue where we could not. We try to set ourselves apart from the rest, we try to make ourselves special, special in the sense that it's okay for us to stop.

The best way to approach this problem is to give up your agency. Let someone else - in this case, me - tell you exactly what to do, and to follow those instructions as closely as you possibly can. No room to interpret, no room to add flairs or personal touches, just following orders. Your own mind is filled with doubts and worries, filled with excuses and reasonings why you had to do things a little differently, why you had to deviate from the plan. This is completely normal - I can tell you this from experience, because I was filled with a million excuses myself when I was younger.

For the corrections, there's no need to add any sort of commentary. All I want you to do is go back over the boxes with a different coloured pen, and where you see mistakes - like, say where a far plane is larger than a near plane - draw in the correct lines. No arrows, no circling, just corrections.

As for the difference between the ghosting exercise and actually applying that method to drawing something a little more complex, you're absolutely right. It is a lot more challenging, and it's a struggle. You're taking something that you were fully capable of, and you're adding more steps. Instead of juggling one ball, you're now juggling three.

But you can simplify the problem. Remember that the ghosting method starts off with marking out your start and end points - your A and your B. There's no reason why you can't think through your box construction by laying out points first, and then applying the ghosting method to connect those points together with straight, smooth lines. If you try and tackle it all at once, you will be overwhelmed. If you break it up into smaller bits, and tackle those challenges one at a time, you'll have less to deal with. It'll take longer, but you do have time.

Ultimately, if your arm gets tired, then take a break. You've done the challenge itself, so you've no need to draw another 250 boxes - but it is absolutely in your best interest to throw some boxes into your warmup routine. Keep in mind that you're using muscles here that haven't had much training - it's like walking after a lifetime of sitting down. Those muscles will get stronger, so long as you keep practicing.

There's one last thing I wanted to say - though those lines are wobbly, you're not outside of the range of submission quality I've come to see over the past couple years of doing this. Keep that in mind - despite your condition, you are still standing here with the rest of us, still pushing all the same. Your dysgraphia may make you work harder, but that will ultimately be something to be proud of when you look back on your accomplishments.

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

2016-07-04 19:55

Generally pretty good. I do see you struggling a fair bit with the dissections and the form intersections, but for each of those you've pushed through and improved considerably by the end of each set. The only exercise I feel that is really lacking is the organic intersections, where your forms don't really feel to convincingly hold up their volumes - rather than feeling like firm, heavy sausages (or like water balloons, which I feel to be the better comparison), some of them feel rather.. deflated. It's important to remember that the more complexity you add to the edges of your form, the more you will undermine their solidity. The wavier they are, the flimsier they'll feel.

As for your question about pyramids, check out the fourth image in this album: http://imgur.com/gallery/udZZ8

I'd like to see you do one more page of organic intersections before I mark this lesson as complete.

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

2016-07-04 19:37

Your arrows are solidly done. Your organic forms with contour ellipses are good, those with contour curves are alright - though it's important that you continue drawing the central spine/minor axis line, as your ellipses and curves should be aligned to it, and leaving it out can result in some issues with the orientation of your curves.

Your dissections are very well done - lots of great detail work, and clear examples of careful observation. Your form intersections are okay, but there's a couple issues here I'd like you to work on:

Your organic intersections aren't great. The contour curves are a little sloppy, and I'm not entirely convinced of the volumes and roundedness they're meant to describe. Also, while doing this exercise try to think about each form as being a sausage-shaped balloon filled with water. The volume can shift around, but the tension in the balloon's skin holds it all in place. Imagine dropping such a balloon over your outstretched forearm, and think about how it would sag over it, weighing down on either side of the limb. It's that sort of interaction you want to capture when having one organic form lay down against another.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to try the organic intersections once more.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-04 19:18

Good work completing the challenge. One thing you definitely need to be more mindful of are the issues where your near/far plane's size relationships are reversed. You're doing this quite a bit, all throughout your set so this makes me wonder if you're aware of it.

For example, if you look at box 249, the base of it is very clearly considerably larger than the top. Considering that in 3D space, these two planes are identical in size, the rules of perspective state that the one that is farther away should be smaller.

I'm glad to see that you managed to finish off the whole set, and your sense of space and construction is improving steadily - just make sure that you push yourself to be more aware of these kinds of mistakes. Including them in your warmup is definitely a good idea.

Anyway, congrats on completing the challenge!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-07-03 16:27

Your work's rather hit and miss, but I suppose that's kind of normal at this point. Some of your constructions were quite well done, such as:

In general though I did find that while your textures are moving in the right direction, you tend to deal with any sort of small, complex bits with more randomness than you should. Don't ever draw little marks without considering what you're drawing - always put thought behind it and continuously look back at your reference to see what the patterns actually look like. Also, when you're combining areas of texture into solid black (which is good), what you need to be thinking about is how that black transitions into white - it does so by use of texture patterns. Some edges may be sharp, where it goes directly from black to white, others are going to transition by having texture in between.

Also, I noticed that you don't tend to draw through your ellipses - make sure you go back to doing that. Every ellipse you draw for my lessons and submit to me should follow this methodology.

Here are some additional notes.

I am going to mark this lesson as complete, but continue working on this stuff as you move forwards.

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

2016-07-03 16:13

You're getting better, but there's plenty of things you can work on. Keep on top of it as you move forwards - for now, I'll be marking this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-07-03 15:57

Your boxes are looking pretty good, so good work completing the challenge. It does appear that you could have done better to read the notes on the challenge page more carefully though. Most importantly, the bit about going over your boxes with a different coloured pen to mark out corrections and identify mistakes is important. Another important bit is to practice applying line weights to your forms.

That said, you did the main core of the challenge very well. Just be more mindful of following instructions, as this will bite you in the ass in the future.