Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-06-15 19:55

The confidence of your linework, and your line weights in later boxes are quite well done. One thing to keep in mind though when applying the ghosting method is that you want to avoid any sort of reflexive drawing. That is, putting down any marks that were not driven by planning and consideration. One common example of this is when people draw a mark, and then immediately draw another on top of it. This is usually a result of a lack of confidence, feeling that the line needs to be reinforced in order to make it more correct. Note that this is separate from adding line weight, which is itself a distinct action, driven by its own conscious planning and intent.

Lastly, I agree - you really would have benefitted from drawing through your boxes (it's why I mentioned it specifically when asking you to do the 250 box challenge). I'll be marking this challenge as complete, but I definitely support any desire you may have to do more.

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

2016-06-14 21:44

Pretty solid work - there's only a couple minor things that I'd like to mention. First off, as you approach your contour lines on organic forms, it's generally best to draw the contour ellipses/curves such that they align to the minor axis (the line that passes through the center of the form). I see here and there that you deviate from that significantly in a few places (though for the most part you're doing it fine). You'll find that those deviations are generally much less effective at describing the volume of the form.

Secondly, a very minor point - just an observation that while your textures are coming along nicely, you do appear to need to continue focusing on being able to transition from texture to blank space. This is fairly normal. Additionally, try to allow yourself to think not simply in terms of line. The marks you're putting down represent the shadows cast by little forms on the surface of your objects. These are not limited to line, but can have greater width and area, expanding into shadow shapes and ultimately merging with their neighbours to create larger areas of solid black. I noticed that you started playing with this notion in your beetle texture, but it's something you should play with in all your textures.

As for your question, it's absolutely still worth continuing. The important thing is that even while you may not practice daily, you should do so regularly. Also, ensure that you keep up with the exercises from lessons 1 and 2. Every day that you do draw, set aside the first 15-20 minutes, choosing a few exercises to do that day as a warmup before getting down to that day's work.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "A Break for Uncomfortable - For the month of June, free critiques will be on hold. They will resume July 1st."

2016-06-14 13:54

Thanks! You'll be receiving a message from me in a little bit through Patreon's messaging system to do some housekeeping and to confirm your reddit username.

Uncomfortable in the post "Peter Han's Dynamic Bible - The legendary dynamic sketching instructor's finally launched the kickstarter for his personal notes and lectures!"

2016-06-14 13:50

I've actually got To Draw is to See right next to me - it's a phenomenal collection of beautiful drawings and is definitely worth every penny. It's icing on the cake that the proceeds go towards supporting Norm's children. As mentioned in the sidebar, it was Norman Shureman's work that really spurred the whole dynamic sketching approach to drawing, of which Peter Han's work is an interpretation (with mine being a further derivative of Han's). While Norm drew inspiration from others, he was definitely the one who firmly established it as a part of Art Center College of Design's curriculum, making it the bedrock of countless concept artists and entertainment designers.

I did want to make one correction though - Norm was not killed by a student. He was attending a party, where another attendee became belligerent and seemed to become overcome with paranoia. This man was asked to leave, but later returned with numerous concealed weapons. During the struggle to relieve him of these weapons (a hunting knife and at least two firearms), Schureman was shot in the abdomen and passed away the next day. He had stepped in to help remove a threat to everyone present, putting their lives and safety ahead of his own, and he should be remembered both as a great educator as well as the hero he was.

Uncomfortable in the post "A Break for Uncomfortable - For the month of June, free critiques will be on hold. They will resume July 1st."

2016-06-14 00:27

Doesn't really matter, but I went ahead and corrected it anyways.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2016-06-13 20:05

Your work is coming along well. There are a few areas of weakness that I'll mention in a second, but generally you are moving right along in the correct direction. These kinds of constructions tend to be particularly challenging, both due to their geometric nature, as well as the scale of them - which, despite being drawn from photo reference, actually has an impact on how we perceive them.

Okay, so there's two things that I'd like to mention:

• Your ellipses. Your ellipses definitely need work, and I certainly hope that you haven't abandoned the exercises from lesson 1 and 2. As you continue to move through the lessons, and really until the end of time, you should continue to pick two or three exercises each day from that set to do as warmups before moving onto that day's work. These are skills that will take time and persistence to develop, and will impact the quality of your work immensely. On a related note, be sure to check out the 250 cylinder challenge. It includes notes on how to construct a cylinder and the importance of the minor axis, things you seem to have missed out on before attempting this lesson.

• When constructing an object, there's often a point where the student will move away from construction and draw the rest of the object's details by eye. This makes a lot of sense when you're drawing organic things, like animals where you don't want to consider the form of each lock of fur, or scales, or whatever else. When it comes to geometric objects, on the other hand, I find that those who excel will never actually move away from construction. They generally don't do any sort of a 'cleanup' pass, to redraw their object on top of their construction lines. The forms they've constructed are their object, and at most they add line weight here and there to emphasize some lines over others. They never replace them, however - this is something I'm seeing in your drawings a lot.

Ultimately, I think this demo (from this gallery which you should check out if you haven't already) is a good example of how to approach construction. Construct as much as you can out of boxes and cylinders, and don't worry about superfluous detail. If there's a detail you feel is important, construct it out of more boxes/cylinders - do not simply draw it on by eye. Once you're done all of this, you can round out your corners (as I did on that spray bottle).

Anyway, I am going to mark this lesson as complete, but if you'd like to submit more work for this lesson in the future, feel free.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-06-13 19:43

You do show some progress - you start off quite weak in your constructions, with forms that maintain little to no solidity. Your last handful of pages do improve on this front, so I'm going to focus my critique there.

The first thing that jumped out at me is your overuse of hatching lines - you rely on them almost entirely to fill in spaces on your forms. There's two issues here - first off, there is no need to fill things in. It's perfectly fine to leave a surface blank, and it is considerably worse to fill it in with hatching when it does not match the texture of the object you're drawing. You see, hatching reflects only a very small subset of possible textures, and it's not one that comes up frequently in natural objects. This leads to my second issue - people tend to use hatching as a shorthand for texture when they do not take the time to observe their references carefully to identify the little textures and patterns present. I can see some overall macroscopic details that you've added, but after features go beyond a certain scale, you just switch to hatching.

There's another major problem with your use of hatching in particular - you're drawing straight lines that cut all the way across your forms. This has the negative effect of completely flattening out those forms, as the details that rest upon a surface will describe the curvature of that surface through space. If you draw straight lines, this communicates to the viewer that the surface itself is flat. Basically it functions just like contour curves.

Beyond how this communicates information to the viewer, it does tell me one thing - you yourself are not yet convinced that the forms you are drawing are, in fact, 3D and solid. You still perceive them as flat drawings on a flat page. This is fairly normal, especially for beginners, and it is one of the core goals of this entire set of lessons. All of the constructional drawing, the contour curves, the build up of forms, it all exists purely to convince you, to fool you and to make you buy into the lie that the page upon which you are drawing functions like a window into a whole other world. Once you have achieved this (and there's no shame in not getting there yet, or even for quite some time), you will find yourself unable to draw straight lines across a rounded surface as you have done here. It'll be more like trying to draw perfectly straight lines across a pear with a permanent marker. Your brain will fight against it to maintain the illusion.

Next, two more problems that are related. They both come to the use of contour curves. First of all, you do certainly need work wrapping those contour curves around the forms so that they appear to wrap around convincingly. I know you mentioned that you haven't been drawing with pen for a while - I'm going to assume you also mean that you haven't kept up with the exercises from lessons 1 and 2. As you continue to move through the lessons, you should still be picking two or three exercises from those first two lessons each day to do as a warmup. You certainly haven't left those exercises behind - it's important that you continue practicing them to keep building up those base, fundamental and technical skills.

The other issue in regards to contour curves is that you have a tendency to, rather than really think through and plan the application of one curve, you compensate by drawing lots of them. It's the old quality vs quantity debate - and here, quality wins out every time. A dozen quickly drawn, poorly thought out curves isn't worth half a single well executed mark. I often find that two or three are the most I'll ever need on a form. Also keep in mind that when you space them out regularly on a form, this is going to give a more man-made, manufactured appearance. Spacing them out irregularly on the other hand tends to look more natural.

Last of all, make sure you go through the article on constructional drawing (even if you have already, it often helps to reread these things), and to go through the demos posted in this gallery. I'm finding that even while you draw your constructions (which are better developed by the end of your set than the beginning), you are still very much preoccupied with your details and your texture. Do not allow yourself to be distracted. Focus entirely on the step you're on, and remember that construction is infinitely more important than detail. Draw each form in its entirety, and strive to capture their volumes and solidity. Don't be loose, plan all of your strokes in advance and apply the ghosting technique as much as possible.

Oh, one more thing - imgur lets you edit your images after the fact, applying rotations where necessary. Critiquing work that isn't upright is significantly more difficult for me, so please ensure that they are adjusted correctly next time.

Please try the work for this lesson again.

Uncomfortable in the post "Since I'm not doing free critiques this month, I dug through the demos I drew for individual students - here are some of those that should help you guys with some of the more common, general challenges"

2016-06-11 22:33

What you refer to as the normal way is just.. incorrect. The curves don't follow the trajectory of the entire ellipse that wraps around the form. The curve itself needs to accelerate and wrap around the organic form as it reaches the edges, so that it can give the impression that it is hooking back around and continuing on along the other side. When we draw the whole ellipse, we don't make this mistake. Overshooting the curve is the same deal - you're actually drawing it continuing on, so your curve comes out more correctly. Ultimately the goal is to achieve the correct curvature without overshooting, but first you need to get accustomed to what the difference is, and why one tends to get it wrong when drawing the visible curve alone.

At the end of the day, it's an extension of the idea that in order to convince others that what you're drawing is in fact 3D forms with weight and volume to them, you need to first convince yourself. If you still think you're drawing 2D images on a flat page, then these mistakes are inevitable. As you slowly begin to fool yourself into buying into that 3D illusion, however, your hands too will alter how they draw marks due to subtle shifts in how you perceive what you're drawing.

Think of it this way - say you draw two circles on a page. Circles are just 2D shapes, but let's say your brain is convinced that the one on the right is actually a sphere. Right now, what's apparent on the page is identical between the two. But now, say you want to draw a line across both of them. For the one on the left, the flat circle, you'll draw a straight line across. There's nothing stopping you from doing this, it's just flat. The on on the right however, you're convinced that it's a sphere - so your brain will fight against the notion that you could simply draw a straight line across it. Instead, in conforming to this illusion, your line will arc to wrap around it, following the contour and the surface of the perceived form.

So, back to the question, overshooting your curves is similar to drawing the full ellipse, but you're slowly reducing the amount that you overshoot until eventually you don't need to do it at all. It's like training wheels.

Uncomfortable in the post "Uncomfortable's Unsolicited Advice: Drawing Lines That Aren't Shitty"

2016-06-11 01:49

Yeah, there's definitely lots of value in that. My instructor kinda split figure drawing into two equally important components. Gesture and structure. Some people focus too much on gesture, and their figures end up being flimsy with no substance or believability. Others focus too much on structure and end up being stiff with no life to them.

The approach I espouse definitely leans more towards structure. The way my instructor put it was that you will likely focus very heavily in one direction, learn the crap out of it, and then switch to the other direction to reign yourself back. Then repeat the process again and again, gradually coming closer to a point of equilibrium.

Uncomfortable in the post "Uncomfortable's Unsolicited Advice: Drawing Lines That Aren't Shitty"

2016-06-11 01:22

Oh, I see, you're still talking about your figure drawing class. Don't mix different sets of instructions. If your professor gives you an exercise to do, do it exactly as they have instructed, and if you need clarification, ask them.

There's a lot of danger in mixing instructions on things like this. While there are many approaches to tackling a problem, you are not going to understand why a certain path led to your destination until you reach there. So, if you pick some instructions from one source, and some from another, you're more likely to end up away from where you intend to go.

That's why when people take my lessons, I insist that they take everything they already know and set it aside, to follow my instructions to the letter. Once you have reached your destination, you'll understand why you were asked to do things a certain way, and at that point you'll know enough to decide what worked for you and what didn't.

All that said, I don't see anything wrong with doing 120 figure drawings and carefully planning out every line you draw. Sure it'll take a long time, but no one said it wouldn't. But that doesn't matter right now - if your instructor tells you to do something a certain way, and you're doing that work for their class, then it's their call.

Uncomfortable in the post "Uncomfortable's Unsolicited Advice: Drawing Lines That Aren't Shitty"

2016-06-11 00:44

You are doing it.

If you decide to do the lessons I post on drawabox.com, forget about your 'style' and focus on following the instructions. Plan and think through every mark you put down. Apply the ghosting method as though your life depends on it. It takes a lot longer, and you will naturally fight against it.

The lessons rely heavily on the requirement of working in ink - when drawing with a felt tip pen, you don't have the liberty of being loose and sketchy, then cleaning up. You'll just make an indiscernible mess. You need to think about which lines are of value, and which ones are not. It's not at all about drawing only your final lines, but rather understanding what is a waste. You'll learn about a lot constructional lines that are of great value.

More than anything, remember that the fundamentals of drawing have no style. Style is something you lay on top when producing something of artistic value, it is not something to factor in when learning the underlying skills. Style is a matter of how you interpret this stuff, and in order to develop a style you must first learn what it is you are interpreting.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-06-10 23:43

Stellar work. Both your constructions and your texturing are coming along great. On your first page, I noticed that you start your leaves off a little more complex (incorporating the wavy edges rather than starting off with simple curves and adding the waviness in a subsequent pass) but I see you improving upon this in later drawings. I'm also pleased to see the wide variety of textures in your drawings, you're clearly exposing yourself to a wide variety of visual patterns, and are demonstrating a good understanding of form even at the finer, microscopic levels.

Initially, looking at one of your early cacti, I was going to point out that your use of lines in your texture were flattening the forms out - then I saw your cross-section and realized they in fact were intentionally flat! So rather than pointing it out as a mistake, I'd like to commend you for the smart use of your tools.

The only thing I want to mention is that you're not drawing through many of your ellipses. You're generally handling them okay anyway, but when you reach more circular ellipses, the little bits of unnevenness and stiffness tend to become more visible, so it's ever more important to draw confidently in a way that having the multiple passes allows. Drawing through your ellipses is more about training you to draw confidently for the future, rather than the immediate result. Anyway, I'll leave that up to you, as while I do encourage you to practice in that manner, I don't want to mess with a good thing.

Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Uncomfortable's Unsolicited Advice: Drawing Lines That Aren't Shitty"

2016-06-10 18:55

It's not about one being good, and the other being bad. The problem is that beginners tend to rely so heavily on quick, loose sketches with no semblance of structure or planning that when they need to slow down and think through their problems, they are unable to. When it comes to constructional drawing, taking the time to draw specific lines (rather than approximate, rough ones) is imperative, otherwise your basic forms come out looking less solid, which then impacts the resulting construction.

Uncomfortable in the post "A Break for Uncomfortable - For the month of June, free critiques will be on hold. They will resume July 1st."

2016-06-10 15:33

You'll have to hold onto it until July 1st, and submit it then.

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

2016-06-09 20:08

There's a few issues that I noticed.

• In your oragnic forms with contour curves, you're not successfully wrapping those curves around each form in a way that convinces the viewer (or yourself) of the fact that they follow along the surface of the form. As they reach the edge, those curves should accelerate and hook back around, giving the impression that they continue onto the backside. I talk about this common issue here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms. It's also important that you be mindful of the purpose of the spine line that goes through each organic form's center. This line represents the minor axis, to which all of the ellipses should be aligned (such that they are cut into two equal, symmetrical halves by it). This applies not only to contour ellipses, but also to contour curves which are really just the visible sections of larger ellipses that wrap all the way around the form.

• Your dissections are progressing decently, but you need to push yourself further in terms of carefully observing your reference image. Don't rely on your memory - the second you look away, the information you saw will be drastically simplified by your brain in an attempt to process all of this information. You have to look back at your reference after drawing only a few marks, so you're always working from an accurate representation of whatever it is you're drawing.

• Your form intersections aren't terrible, but there are a couple issues that hindered your approach. First and foremost, you missed the point that I made in the notes about not drawing forms that are overly stretched in one dimension. This adds a lot more complication to the spatial problems you have to figure out. Essentially you're taking a tough challenge and making it that much tougher.

• Your organic intersections suffer from the same problems as your organic forms with contour curves, though beyond that it's important to think through how those forms are going to sag and droop against each other under their own weight. Try to think about taking a big, sausage-shaped balloon filled with water and dropping it over your outstretched forearm. Think about how it's going to sag over either side, and how the tension's going to increase on the balloon's material as it strains to find equilibrium.

Anyway, I'd like to see another page of organic forms with contour ellipses, one more of organic forms with contour curves, and one more of the organic intersections.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-06-08 18:39

Your constructions are coming along pretty nicely! I think the most successful pieces are the ones where your sense of construction spills over into how you deal with your textures - continually breaking things down into smaller and smaller levels of granularity, rather than drawing a distinction between "now i'm done my forms" and "now let's start thinking about texture."

In the drawings where you do draw more of a distinction between texture and construction (which inherently is not a bad thing, I just think it marks a shift in how you think), I think you tend to rely more on hatching lines rather than thinking about all of the different kinds of details and itty-bitty-forms that are present there to cast their little shadows and generate various patterns. Hatching lines can be nice, and they certainly can work for a variety of subject matter, but I think it's important to extend your reach beyond that and really take the time to look closely at your reference images.

The only other thing I want to mention is pretty superficial, but - your ellipses, the ones you use to mark out your focal points, are pretty awful. They tend to be quite uneven, and you seem to try and relieve this issue by adding more line weight - which kind of only makes things worse. Remember to ghost through your ellipses first, and draw them with a quick, confident pace. If you bungle something, don't make it darker and more visible, just let it be and move on.

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2016-06-08 18:31

On the topic of brushing up - more aptly, you should really be keeping up with the exercises from the first two lessons (that is, once the corresponding lesson is complete) as warmups, doing them regularly rather than letting them fade from your mind. The lesson being marked as complete doesn't really signify that you're finished - rather that you've started, and that you understand the goals of each exercise so that you can work towards achieving them on your own. Ultimately each one will take a great deal of time to master (really mastery isn't a tangible goal), but continuing to work on them regularly will result in noticeable improvements to these base technical skills over a long period of time. So, the recommendation is generally that you pick a few from your pool of exercises each day, so that they stay on rotation and none of them get left behind.

Anyway, onto your homework - generally your work is pretty solid. You demonstrate a solid grasp of the organic forms with contour curves, as well as with the form intersections (that is, drawing forms together within the same space while maintaining a sense of cohesion) and your organic intersections. Your dissections are successful to varying degrees, but I think you may be jumping a little too far ahead with some of these.

With your textures, you're jumping ahead to the idea of organizing your details into a clear hierarchy - what comes before that is developing the ability to observe, identify and carry over the vast amount of complex detail visible in your reference without simplification. The result will be very noisy and poorly organized, but in a way you can think of it as making your mess first, then learning to sort through it. Right now you're not yet accustomed to the mess itself, so when it comes time to organize it, you're left without much to organize.

Anyways, you can continue working on that sort of thing as you move forwards - for now, I believe you are ready to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-06-07 16:27

I appreciate the thoughtfulness - but unfortunately I can't accept homework submissions right now. If people were able to submit throughout the month to hold their place in line, I'd end up with a hundred and fifty critiques waiting for me on July 1st. And then I'd cry. A lot. You'll have to hold onto it and resubmit in July.

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

2016-06-06 20:01

Pretty solid work! Generally you're doing a good job. Your dissections and form intersections are especially well done. The only area of weakness I noticed were your organic forms/organic intersections and for the most part they're fairly well done too. On the organic forms with contour curves front, I want to point out that you do need to work on aligning your ellipses (each curve is part of a larger ellipse) to the minor axis (the spine that goes through the center of the form) such that the ellipse is cut into two equal, symmetrical halves by the line.

For the organic intersections, try and keep in mind that each form has weight to it - think about how they'd sag against one another, and wrap around each other. Convincing yourself that these forms are solid and tangible is more than half the battle - once you start perceiving them as real objects, you'll find it much easier to convince others of that as well.

Anyways, these are things you can continue to work on as you move forwards, so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Since I'm not doing free critiques this month, I dug through the demos I drew for individual students - here are some of those that should help you guys with some of the more common, general challenges"

2016-06-05 16:13

In the lesson, I describe how each 'sphere' (technically not a sphere, I usually refer to them as balls because they can be stretched and manipulated in ways that no longer them qualify for that distinction) represents a specific part of the body. They are by no means arbitrary, and their shape and angle relative to the spine is based on the part of the body they reflect.

The 'head' ball represents the cranium - this is not the head in its entirety, but rather the spherical portion of the skull, onto which the face/jaw is attached. The upper-body ball represents the ribcage, and the lower-body ball represents the pelvis. While this overall constructional approach differs in some ways from purely observational drawing, it is at its core still hinged upon the fact that you need to observe and study your reference very carefully. It's just that you're identifying these somewhat hidden, simplified features rather than getting encumbered by all of the detail all at once.

Uncomfortable in the post "A Break for Uncomfortable - For the month of June, free critiques will be on hold. They will resume July 1st."

2016-06-04 20:23

With most lessons, students are welcome to attempt later lessons on their own, but if the one they're currently on is submitted with core problems, then they'll be expected to redo later lessons once those problems have been resolved.

With the box challenge, I pretty much always mark it as complete upon submission, since the challenge is more about reaching the number. That said, be sure to read through the material that is available there carefully. Draw through your boxes, be mindful of line weight, and when you're done go back over it to mark in corrections, paying close attention to your near/far plane size relationships as mentioned in the notes.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-06-03 20:03

I think you should be good to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-06-03 19:49

Your boxes are coming along nicely! Now, the first step at this point would be to take a break - you've earned it. Once that's done, I strongly encourage you to go over those boxes with a different coloured pen and try to find and correct mistakes that you've made. The most common mistakes here will be areas where your far planes come out larger than your near planes. I can see several examples of that, and the fact that you've drawn through many of your boxes should make this easier to identify (since each and every plane is defined in its entirety).

Going over your work and identifying the mistakes is one of the key aspects of this general approach to learning. That is, to try, to fail, to reflect, and to consciously apply what you learned from your reflections the next time you attempt the exercise. These corrections will play the role of reflection, since you really have to think through what you may have done incorrectly, and draw in the more correct lines.

Anyway, that said, you did a good job completing the challenge! Keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Since I'm not doing free critiques this month, I dug through the demos I drew for individual students - here are some of those that should help you guys with some of the more common, general challenges"

2016-06-03 19:17

Aw, you're makin' me blush.

Uncomfortable in the post "Since I'm not doing free critiques this month, I dug through the demos I drew for individual students - here are some of those that should help you guys with some of the more common, general challenges"

2016-06-03 18:05

Glad you like it! I definitely think you'll benefit from reversing that manner of thinking, focusing entirely on building up your form first before worrying about any details.

Uncomfortable in the post "Since I'm not doing free critiques this month, I dug through the demos I drew for individual students - here are some of those that should help you guys with some of the more common, general challenges"

2016-06-03 16:37

At this stage, a couple well-placed contour curves will help you recognize how the surface of your ball form turns and bends in space. It's this warping surface that separates a 2D circle from a 3D sphere, so contour lines can help you describe it visually, forcing your mind to acknowledge that feature of what you're drawing.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-06-03 02:42

I'm about to go to bed, so I'll be critiquing your work some time tomorrow afternoon or evening - but I wanted to draw your attention to something. You linked only to one page, which seems to have about 27 of your boxes. Having put so much time and effort into them, I'm sure you'd like me to see them all :P

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-06-03 01:46

I'd say that one's definitely on the more complex end of things. It follows principles similar to leaves (a flat object flowing through space) but it also behaves similarly to a 3D form because it encloses volume (despite being open on the bottom). That said, while I understand your mentioning gravity here, it's actually much less of a factor than you might think. Hair, drapery, that sort of thing is entirely governed by gravity as its folds and locks cascade off of other supporting forms. This particular plant has a lot of tension in it, and more or less holds its own form. Despite gravity it still curls back up around the edges.

The thing about these lessons is that when you move on from a lesson, you're not technically finished with that material. Each lesson from 3-7 tackles the same topic of construction, and the establishment of solid forms from many different angles. Each perspective on the matter does come with emphases on certain aspects, and the order of progression is tailored to take advantage of this, but at the end of the day you're not out to master one thing, then move onto the next.

Anyway, to answer your question, this is one of the more complex forms that I wouldn't worry too much about right now. Feel free to try them out and see whether or not you can think through this spatial and constructional problem, but if you stumble don't worry. What I do want you to focus on right now is basic form constructions (combining solid, voluminous organic and geometric forms to build up the stems and masses of your plants) and the construction of flat forms like leaves and petals, and capturing how they flow through space convincingly.

While I'm on break this month, tomorrow I'm going to post a big collection of some of the more useful demos I've done as part of peoples' critiques in the past. A lot of them will focus on capturing that flowing aspect of leaves, and a lot of others will focus heavily on the notion of construction. Keep a look out for it.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-06-01 13:26

Unfortunately, today marks the first day of me being on break for the month, so free homework submissions are on hold. You're welcome to resubmit on July 1st, when they reopen.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-31 19:49

Very nice work. Your general sense of the constructive approach, as well as your application of texture is coming along great. Early on your use of contour curves is a little shoddy (they're not really wrapping around the forms that well), though this improves as you move through - largely because you end up using contour ellipses instead of contour curves. I do however see a trend that overall your lay-ins are a little bit on the loose side. Your drawings come together as you develop them further, but I'd say you'd probably benefit from taking more care with drawing each line, planning it out and considering it carefully before putting the mark down.

As I mentioned, your use of texture is coming along great. I think you're demonstrating both solid observational skills in identifying the textures that are present in your subject, as well as strong organizational skills. There's still lots of experimentation going on, which is certainly a good thing. The Titanopsis 01 page for instance is really, really noisy (as you mentioned yourself) but at the same time the care with which you've drawn each detail certainly counteracts that. There's no randomness, and there's clear structure to it all. That said I'd probably encourage you to allow things to come together into solid black more easily. You do this to a degree, but your threshold is fairly high leaving a lot of high-contrast areas and fewer solid black ones.

I do like how you approached your live oak. Tree tops are definitely beyond the scope of this lesson, and it's really intended to be something the student figures out on their own by extending the concepts - which is exactly what you did, though perhaps earlier than I would have expected. All that said, I would definitely encourage you to consider the form of the treetops more before jumping into the texture portion. You approached texture well, but overall the treetops end up feeling somewhat flattened out. you went from loose ellipses straight into detail, rather than considering their volumes as organic forms.

Anyway, you're doing great. Consider this lesson complete and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "A Break for Uncomfortable - For the month of June, free critiques will be on hold. They will resume July 1st."

2016-05-31 12:53

Hm, it'll be a little more complicated. You will certainly have to submit each lesson one at a time, but the problem here is that each lesson builds on the one before it. If there were significant mistakes in an earlier one, those mistakes will impact your work in later lessons.

So, start by submitting lesson 1 - if it's generally done well with no major issues, I'll mark it as complete. Otherwise I'll ask you to make some revisions - if the issues impact your work for the next lesson, you'll be expected to redo it before submitting. Of course, like this post says, free critiques will be on hold through June, so I don't really think it'll be possible to get it all in before then.

Uncomfortable in the post "A Break for Uncomfortable - For the month of June, free critiques will be on hold. They will resume July 1st."

2016-05-31 12:48

Thanks! I just sent (what I assume is) you a message through patreon's messaging system to confirm your reddit username and do a little more housekeeping.

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

2016-05-30 20:02

Generally you've done exceptionally well. I really like the lengths you've gone to build up each construction, carefully considering the forms separately instead of the object as a whole. I do agree that your water kettle is a little off, and I believe it's because the angle of the minor axis of the top ellipses is different to that of the ellipses of the base.

Another thing I wanted to mention is that with your clock, I think the area where you used an especially thick line, you may have benefitted more from drawing two ellipses - one inset within the other - to establish a sense of thickness. The heavy line still reads more as being quite thin in terms of form. There are times where varying line weight can give a slight impression of thickness, but it's generally in subtler situations, where the difference in weight isn't too considerable, and where the space simply would not afford two separate lines to be drawn.

Anyway, you're doing great - feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "A Break for Uncomfortable - For the month of June, free critiques will be on hold. They will resume July 1st."

2016-05-30 18:09

I guess there have been a few of times it took me 3-ish hours to go through a full day's critique, but in general it takes me roughly one hour. That goes up and down depending on how awake I am, and whether or not I'm focusing 100% on critiquing or if I'm doing other things in between. At times I've had more success in dealing with them quickly by staying in the office a little later and tackling them from there - the work-oriented environment helps keep me on track, and my desire to go home keeps me from writing critiques that are too long-winded. For the most part, an extra hour of my day is manageable, but I am scared of the day when the number of critiques doubles. The number of critiques I get per day has stayed in roughly the same range for quite a while now, but the possibility of it increasing is quite high. The day it becomes too difficult to manage, I guess I'll have to put a stop to free critiques altogether.

As for your first question, if you mean how many submissions I get during one of these supporter-only months, I get about a quarter of the usual amount. For example, in March I got 43 submissions, in December I got 40. Considerably fewer than this past month's 160 (so far).

Uncomfortable in the post "A Break for Uncomfortable - For the month of June, free critiques will be on hold. They will resume July 1st."

2016-05-30 18:00

Thanks! I caught your pledge, and I was going to send you a message through patreon to do some housekeeping, but I'll do it here instead - is it alright if I list you on the thank you list on drawabox.com by your reddit username, or is there another name you'd prefer?

Uncomfortable in the post "A Break for Uncomfortable - For the month of June, free critiques will be on hold. They will resume July 1st."

2016-05-30 13:43

Hahaha, yeah. I'd love to take a complete break, though that just wouldn't be fair to the people who actually do help fund this whole mess. On the flipside, these months also does help encourage more people to support drawabox financially, so I'm ultimately a bit on the fence. Part of me wants them not to pledge to get an immediate critique, and another party of me wants them to.. aaaaaaaah.

Uncomfortable in the post "A Break for Uncomfortable - For the month of June, free critiques will be on hold. They will resume July 1st."

2016-05-30 12:45

You are most welcome!

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

2016-05-30 01:36

As long as the silhouettes of two forms overlap when drawn in 2D, they have the potential to intersect. It's entirely your decision as to whether or not they intersect, or if one is in front of the other.

See?. There's lots of potential intersections!

Uncomfortable in the post "Peter Han's Dynamic Bible - The legendary dynamic sketching instructor's finally launched the kickstarter for his personal notes and lectures!"

2016-05-29 23:25

Yes and no. While my lessons are very heavily based on what I learned from Peter, they're also contain many of my own interpretations and observations, and emphasize what I believe to be important while skipping over what I feel is distracting. Since my approach has diverged in this way from Peter's, you could end up getting your wires crossed.

I definitely encourage people to learn from many different sources, but when learning from a given source, they should focus entirely on it and what it teaches. Once you have completed its lessons or exercises, you can step back and think about how that meshes with what you've learned previously, throwing out that from either side that doesn't work for you, and keeping what does.

That said, Peter's an amazing teacher and I'm sure there's a wealth of knowledge in that book that I would not be able to give you.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-29 04:57

Honestly, the notes aren't that important. They're of additional value once you've spent enough time and focus on the actual forms you're drawing, and the overall construction. That said, when it comes to your construction you're doing an okay job. You seem to be grasping many of the concepts, and are working towards applying them effectively. There's a few things I'd like to point out, but generally you're doing well.

Firstly, when drawing any forms - in this case, a lot of your cylinders - make sure you cap them off on both ends, even if your drawing cuts off halfway through. For example, the bottom of your mushroom was left with two lines open. This causes your drawing to flatten out, and more importantly, will weaken your sense of what you've drawn as being a solid 3D object. Our main priority here is to really fool you as the artist into thinking that your 2D drawing is actually a window into a world containing real 3D forms.

Secondly, when you draw leaves, it's important to start off with the center line to establish how that leaf flows through 3D space. I noticed that you did not do this with many of your leaves, and the result is that they come out a little more stiff, with less of a sense of how they're twisting and turning. Here's a helpful demo on that subject: http://i.imgur.com/A6WiIQC.jpg

The only other thing I have to suggest is for you to loosen up a bit with your linework - right now it's quite stiff. By loosen up, I don't mean to be more careless when drawing - From what I can see you're thinking through your spatial and constructional problems a fair bit, and I'm glad to see that. What I mean, however, is that when actually drawing those marks, you want to do so with confidence. Don't make slow, belaboured strokes, and be mindful of how you can taper and thicken a line by varying pressure as you draw. A lot of your lines are quite uniform right now, like you're pressing as hard as you can (or close to it) on the pen as you make every mark.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Peter Han's Dynamic Bible - The legendary dynamic sketching instructor's finally launched the kickstarter for his personal notes and lectures!"

2016-05-29 02:10

... Definitely very good to know! Shame on me for not watching it before jumping to conclusions.

Uncomfortable in the post "Peter Han's Dynamic Bible - The legendary dynamic sketching instructor's finally launched the kickstarter for his personal notes and lectures!"

2016-05-29 00:08

I appreciate the thought - I'll definitely keep it in mind!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-28 16:57

I can't offer you much since you haven't completed the previous lessons up to this point, so I don't have the context to give you well formed critique (and completing prerequisites is one of my rules). That said, I do have this demo on approaching fur that I use in my critiques of others' work: http://i.imgur.com/RbpiW1J.jpg.

One problem a lot of people have is that they try to cover their entire drawing in texture, which results in a lot of visual noise and high-contrast areas. The viewer's eye gets really distracted and overwhelmed, which gives the impression that the drawing is garbage.

Instead, you can focus your detail on the silhouette of your object, and leave the interior largely blank. The trick to this is that the viewer's eye sees your drawing in multiple phases - first they identify the general shapes, identifying the silhouette. Next they see the internal detail in terms of value changes (different levels of light/dark). Lastly, they see the colour changes. Each subsequent phase is of significantly less importance, so it takes a lot more effort to convey information with any sort of impact.

Conversely, this also means that the very first phase - the silhouette - can convey information with an immense amount of impact with very little effort. In this case, by breaking up the silhouette with little tufts of fur, the viewer's subconscious immediately picks up that the whole thing is very furry, even though the interior of the form is blank. This allows us to really cut down on the amount of visual noise and distraction in our drawing, focusing on only what is necessary to communicate the idea.

When you do this however, it's important that each tuft is carefully designed - a lot of people will just half-ass it, and it'll still look rather poor. Take the time to consider how each line curves, and ensure that your tufts are solid shapes of their own, rather than individual lines coming off tangentially from the object.

There's another explanation of the concept here: http://i.imgur.com/Eb6hr0h.jpg

Uncomfortable in the post "Peter Han's Dynamic Bible - The legendary dynamic sketching instructor's finally launched the kickstarter for his personal notes and lectures!"

2016-05-28 16:50

Hahaha, perhaps. That'd get complicated though, and I'm not a fan of complication. I might just settle for the PDF tier and a lot of moping and whining.

Uncomfortable in the post "Peter Han's Dynamic Bible - The legendary dynamic sketching instructor's finally launched the kickstarter for his personal notes and lectures!"

2016-05-28 16:50

I totally missed that actually - it absolutely should be, in terms of the information it conveys. I'd still love to have the physical thing though ):

Uncomfortable in the post "Peter Han's Dynamic Bible - The legendary dynamic sketching instructor's finally launched the kickstarter for his personal notes and lectures!"

2016-05-28 16:48

I actually totally missed the PDF tier. I guess I'll get it, but I'm still salty about the book!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-28 16:47

It is about understanding how the forms work in 3D space, but there's a purpose to that as well. When you learn to draw constructively, you force yourself to think about those forms rather than just what you see in the photo. You have to think about what is plainly visible, as well as what is hidden. Through this, you gain a fuller understanding of the object itself, and are able to unchain yourself from the reference image, wrapping your head around how that animal might look were it seen from a different angle, or posed differently. This allows you to use reference images much more flexibly, instead of having to find the perfect one to match your purpose.

Remember though that this overt constructional drawing where you build up forms in repeated passes is an exercise. It forces you to think in terms of those forms, so far, far in the future when you've started to really get a handle on this approach, you'll be able to rely less on overt construction on the page, and do more of it in your head (since you'll see and understand the forms on a more subconscious level). This understanding of form will make your drawings more believable, and you'll sell the illusion of form more convincingly. Right now it's very easy when drawing strictly from observation to draw something that comes out rather flat, because you haven't dealt in complete forms or considered how those forms interact with one another.

Uncomfortable in the post "Peter Han's Dynamic Bible - The legendary dynamic sketching instructor's finally launched the kickstarter for his personal notes and lectures!"

2016-05-28 05:03

Peter Han, the instructor I had at Concept Design Academy, has launched his kickstarter for his Dynamic Bible - basically his personal notes on the material for the Dynamic Sketching class he teaches. That is, the course I took, and from which I derived much of what I pass on through drawabox. Drawabox is my own interpretation on the material, with what I believe to be superfluous left out, and what I believe to be important emphasized.

This book is right from the source, and it's likely to be a wealth of knowledge I could never hope to impart myself. So if you can, I strongly encourage you to pick up a copy.

Unfortunately, it's limited to the US only, which was really disappointing to me, since I live in Canada. Damn damn damn damn.

Edit: I totally missed the PDF copy. It's still not the same as a beautiful physical copy, and does nothing for my book collection, but hey - the informatin's there, so it's still worth getting if you're outside of the United States.

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

2016-05-28 02:49

Looking better. I'll mark this lesson as complete, so go ahead and move onto the next lesson. Be sure to read all of the material this time.

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

2016-05-27 23:46

The wrapping is definitely improving, but it looks like you didn't understand what I meant by alignment. It's related to what I had been saying previously, in regards to the minor axis line. The minor axis cuts the ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves. If you draw the ellipse around the minor axis line such that this is not the case, then it is not aligned correctly. Take a look at this and try one more page of organic forms with contour curves.