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Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-27 22:13

Your drawings display strong observational skills, and your application of texture and detail is quite nice. That said, a LOT of these drawings fail to follow the constructional process I've laid out.

What I'm seeing, for the most part, is that you're laying down the initial ellipses to 'rough' the drawing in, kind of like a loose sketch. Because of this, your subsequent passes does not build on top of and adhere to the previous steps. The constructional drawing method requires you not to loosely mass things in, but to actually construct the forms. That is, you don't treat them as suggestions - you build up solid forms and then stick to them, adding more forms to the construction as you go to attach additional necessary masses (like the shoulders and such).

I've got an album of demos I've done relating to constructional drawing (mostly with animals, but some insects are in there too) that you can see here: http://imgur.com/a/AFSzb.

The thing to pay attention to is how the initial masses I start off with are balls, not ellipses. They're three dimensional forms. I quickly use the ribcage mass and the pelvis mass to create a sausage-like organic form with a couple contour curves to reinforce the illusion of volume. The important thing here is that as the person constructing this object, I need to be convinced that what I'm drawing is 3D, not simply a bunch of marks on a flat page. I usually am a little less focused on the 3D nature of the legs, instead pushing their simple gesture with a few simple curves, but I'll usually try to mark out their joints to mark out there they bend. This is an extension of an awareness I want to push of how each form intersects with its neighbours. Knowing (and marking out) where those forms intersect helps understand which lines to push and pull, and how everything relates to one another.

Lastly, you're a bit sloppy when it comes to fur textures. The textures on your birds is really quite well done, but when it comes to fur you tend not to think through each stroke, instead just scribbling a few marks here and there. It's important, especially when putting those tufts of fur around the form's silhouette, to really design them so as to make them as effective as possible. In that album of demos, you can see how I've done that specifically with the raccoon.

Anyway, I'd like to see you do 4 more pages of animals - focus on furry, four legged mammals, as your birds are generally quite well done.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-26 18:31

You've demonstrated some impatience here. You've submitted your lesson 3 homework before having the lesson 2 material marked as complete, and both sets of work show me that you haven't really taken the time to read through the material provided.

First off, your lesson 2 revisions are not correct. You are making the same mistakes, not wrapping the contour curves properly around the organic forms. Rather than giving the impression of hooking back around the surface as it turns away from the viewer, they hit the edge and stop abruptly. I provided you with additional notes on this issue, and you haven't really applied them.

Furthermore, in your lesson 3 work, I don't see any sign of you having read over the article on constructive drawing, which was included at the beginning of lesson 3 in red. As a result, your plant drawing as not done well.

I'm going to spend more of my time critiquing this work, as you did not wait for lesson 2 to be marked as complete, and didn't read the material I've already written carefully enough. Redo the organic forms with contour curves again (after reading my critique and the resources I offered more closely), then submit it again. Only move onto lesson 3 when the previous lesson is marked as complete, and read the lesson in its entirety before starting the work.

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

2016-05-26 18:20

Generally pretty good work - there's one area where you do need some more practice however. It's the organic forms with contour curves. There's two related problems here:

The rest of your lesson is fairly well done, though I'd like you to try another page of this exercise to show that you understand the points I've made above.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-26 17:01

I think you're progressing pretty well - you're showing a growing sense of form and construction - your birds feel really well done, and the torsos of some of your four-legged animals are well executed. The important thing though is to remember that the arms and legs and every other part of the animal's body should be perceived as a separate intersecting form. Right now it seems you're breaking away from that constructive mindset, and fall back into drawing individual lines attempting to capture exactly what you see, rather than identifying the underlying forms and then drawing them. It's also extremely important to be aware of how each form connects to the others, to the point that drawing in the intersection helps immensely.

I've written up some notes for you here: https://imgur.com/a/cSxsr.

You'll notice that I also talk about your use of texture - this is definitely an area of weakness for you. It seems that instead of thinking through the shape and design of each individual mark (like the tufts of fur), you focus more on drawing more of them, relying instead on a bit of randomness for each individual one. This results in the marks being fairly ineffective in conveying the sense of fur. Always remember - less is more. It's perfectly acceptable to draw fewer marks, but it is integral that you take care in designing each mark so that it is as impactful as possible.

This demo may also be of use to you: https://imgur.com/RbpiW1J

You've got plenty of room to grow, but you're developing well. I'll be marking this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one. You'll find that the next lesson relates quite closely to the form intersections from lesson 2, and if you haven't continued practicing them (and you should still be practicing the exercises from lessons 1 and 2) you should definitely refresh your memory. The thing about heavily geometric objects is that the idea of drawing the underlying forms and not just what you see becomes significantly more important. Don't let all of the details and complexities distract you - identify those forms and focus on constructing them individually so that they are solid and carry a sense of weight.

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

2016-05-24 21:06

I think you're showing some improvement to be sure. Your first page isn't great - there's really no use of contour lines to speak of, and over all it feels quite flat. The next drawing, and all of those subsequent to it start to demonstrate a more confident understanding of how to use form, and how to reinforce it. There's still plenty of room for improvement, but you are making considerable progress.

One thing I want to stress above all else is to keep things simple. There's a lot of detail in everything we look at, and it's very easy to try and get caught up in trying to convey it too early. The wasp, for instance - a lot of the additional lines on its body can be quite distracting through the process. Focus entirely on establishing its core forms (the sausagey abdomen, the circular thorax, the rounded, triangular head). Once those feel very solid, then you can start thinking about building more complexity on top of them.

Anyways, I encourage you to move onto the next lesson - getting too caught up in a single subject matter can be counter-productive. As I mentioned before, each lesson teaches the same thing from different angles, and while they're ordered in such a way that each one builds upon the last, stagnating on one can rob you of the chance to see the same problem through a different, potentially clearer lens.

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

2016-05-24 21:01

Not bad. I am noticing a few issues with your organic forms with contour ellipses - your ellipses are rather stiff, because you're not drawing them confidently enough. You're focusing all of your time on drawing them carefully, rather than putting that time towards ghosting through the motion and preparing to draw, before executing the mark quickly and confidently. Also, remember that the spine line that passes through the organic forms is the minor axis of your ellipses, and they should be aligned to it as such. If you don't remember what the minor axis is, refer back to the lesson section of the ellipses part of lesson 1.

When you start off with the contour curves, you definitely struggle with the idea of wrapping those contour curves around the forms. Over the set you do improve, although there is still plenty of room for growth. The minor axis thing applies here as well, and you're falling short in that regard. Remember that each curve is just the visible portion of a larger ellipse that wraps all the way around - that ellipse needs to be aligned to the minor axis.

I think you're doing a decent job with your dissections. You start off REALLY timid, not entirely willing to texture all the surfaces of your forms, but as you move through the set you grow bolder and more confident, and the textures reflect that. Good work there.

For the ellipses in your form intersections, same thing goes as what I described for your organic forms - draw those ellipses confidently. Your first priority is to achieve smooth, even shapes. Drawing slowly and carefully will only cause them to come out bumpy and uneven. Also, I think it would be a good idea for you to tackle the 250 cylinder challenge, as there's some additional instruction on how to construct cylinders there that should be of value to you.

Anyways, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. Remember to continue practicing these exercises regularly as you continue to move forwards through the lessons.

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

2016-05-24 20:52

You're generally doing fairly well. One thing I noticed that you're not doing however is drawing through your ellipses, as was introduced in lesson 1. I expect you to do this for every ellipse you draw for my lessons.

Aside from that, the only area of weakness I noticed was your dissections, where it seems to me that you need to be taking a closer, more focused look at your reference images, pushing yourself not to rely on your memory, and to look back at your reference after every second or two of drawing. It's very easy to try to rely on memory, thinking it's accurate, but it's not. Our brains have a strong tendency to immediately oversimplify things we've seen.

I've included some notes about your dissections here: https://imgur.com/a/cZHdS.

I'll still be marking this lesson as complete, and I encourage you to pursue that goal of completing the box and cylinder challenges, as it will help immensely.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-24 20:35

In terms of construction, you have shown some improvement. That said, you're still very, very loose and fast, rather than thinking through your marks. Instead of drawing solid, complete forms, you're still just drawing individual lines. This ends up reading as being quite flimsy as though your objects carry little to no weight of their own.

Here are some additional points: https://imgur.com/a/IiZrM

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

2016-05-24 20:18

Very nice! Big improvement. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2016-05-23 15:35

What you refer to as your 'baseline' for shallow foreshortening isn't really accurate. When a box has shallow foreshortening applied to it, rather than dramatic foreshortening, its far plane is very close to the same size as the near plane, only slightly smaller. You generally make the far plane very noticeably smaller, which carries certain implications in regards to the overall scale of the scene, and throws off its cohesiveness.

As I mentioned in my critique, do not use forms that are overly stretched in any one dimension, as this is a very frequent cause of the foreshortening issue (although not the only one, it can happen with more equilateral forms as well).

Responding with questions if you have any is perfectly fine, but after receiving a critique, it's a waste of time (both yours and mine) to attempt to defend your case. At the end of the day, everything I've said is entirely based on the work that I see - not your personal motivations or how you were feeling at any given time. While I am fully capable of misinterpreting things, those who take my critiques at face value tend to be those who benefit more.

Ultimately, it is not my goal nor my responsibility to convince you that perhaps your standards for certain things - like patience, rushing and focus - might be lower than they should be. I merely tell you what I see, and it is your choice to decide whether my assessment and my opinion is something valuable that you feel will help you improve. If it is, accept my critique in its entirety. If it isn't, there are other instructors and methods of learning that may be more effective for you in particular.

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

2016-05-22 18:35

You're getting very, very, very distracted. It's not really about sticking to the assigned minimum, it's about actually completing the minimum and not replacing it with your own exploration. There's a reason that this is written at the beginning of lesson 1 in red:

Approach these exercises with a blank mind. Do not rush. Demonstrate patience. Spend the hours required to give each exercise the attention it requires and deserves. Do each exercise as it is prescribed in the lesson. Often times I see people stray a little, trying to spice things up and make things more fun. While creativity is lovely, you risk missing some of the core concepts that each exercise has been designed to convey. Just be patient - it'll be over soon, and then you'll be able to get to the fun stuff.

Do every exercise exactly as it is described - do not blend it with your own things, and don't blend multiple exercises together on the same page. Each exercise has a specific purpose and goal to it, and it is very important that you understand what that is. I am going to ask you to redo the entire lesson, from start to finish, to drive home this point. But before that, I'll give you a critique based on the biggest weaknesses I see.

Your arrows are fundamentally alright, but they have a tendency to be very loose. It's very much about understanding how the 2D ribbon forms flow through 3D space, which you're doing an okay job of, but when it comes to adding the arrowhead, things fall apart a little. It really doesn't feel like you're putting much time and focus into each individual arrow, so the understanding we're after doesn't seem to stick. Furthermore, your application of lineweight isn't great. I fully expect applying line weight to a curved line to be rather difficult, but based on your question about whether or not you should ghost it, your current approach doesn't seem to be particularly effective.

At the end of the day, ghosting is one technique that you can use to help increase the fluidity and the accuracy of your linework - your application of line weight doesn't seem to be terribly accurate, so clearly you should use the tool that will improve that. The ghosting technique isn't just about drawing with a confident pace to maintain smoothness, but the act of ghosting itself is what counteracts the inherent inaccuracy that comes from drawing fast. If you want to improve your accuracy, ghost and prepare more.

Your organic forms with contour ellipses are really hairy. You're drawing through your ellipses way too much (do it 2 or 3 times max, ideally 2), and they're also not always aligned to the spine/minor axis line. Remember that the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension. It also helps to maintain a fairly consistent width in your organic form - simple sausages are really ideal here, because they're straightforward but allow you to grasp the purpose of contour lines just as much as more complex forms. When I say consistent width, I mean avoid areas where the form pinches or swells excessively. Keep the distance between the two sides of the organic form fairly even and equal throughout its length.

When you get to contour curves, your curves aren't wrapping around the rounded forms convincingly. You can read more about this here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms. Before even beginning to deal with this, you seem to start experimenting with shading. You'll notice I never actually teach how to shade - there's a reason for this. People always rely on it very heavily to describe form, and I find this to be a crutch. Before even beginning to think about light and shadow, you can already give a very solid and clear sense of how a form turns in space by using its silhouette and a few additional, well placed and well-designed contour lines. Once you understand that, and really grasp how a form sits in space, light/shadow just falls into place.

Your dissections are decent, though you could stand to focus on designing each stroke more. You tend to be more sloppy when drawing a lot of similar marks - the sheer quantity of it causes the quality you imbue in each individual one to drop. Understandable, but you're clearly not a terribly patient person, so you need to fight against that natural tendency and force yourself to focus on every mark you put down.

Your form intersections aren't going well, but that's also because you're doing something I specifically advised against in the lesson. You're incorporating a lot of longer, stretched forms (long tubes, long boxes, etc.) rather than sticking to relatively equilateral forms and shallow foreshortening. Longer forms bring too much perspective distortion into the mix, complicating an already challenging exercise. I am glad to see that you're drawing through your forms, but I don't want to see these tiny clusters of two or three forms - focus entirely on filling an entire page with a single network of forms. It's very easy to abandon sets - just push all the way through regardless of your mistakes.

For your organic intersections, again - fill a page, and don't draw so small (it restricts the amount of room you have to think through spatial problems). Also, I'd advise you to work with basic, short sausage forms, instead of these overlong snake-like things. Also, incorporating a ground plane as a starting point can help: http://i.imgur.com/tY6wPYK.png.

Anyway, like I said - do the whole lesson again, and think through every stroke you put down. Don't mix exercises, and don't try to spice things up. A lot of these exercises are boring, but you'll have to get used to that.

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

2016-05-22 18:10

Very solid work! I really don't think there's that much benefit in comparing your work to that of others - at this stage, a lot of people tend to not know their ass from sunday brunch when it comes to identifying the good and bad points in their own work, so they end up either being completely ignorant of their blunders, or they fixate on entirely unimportant issues and ignore the overall strengths of their work.

Despite your struggles, your arrows do a good job of flowing through 3D space, and their twists and turns are convincing and believable. Your organic forms with contour curves do a decent job of wrapping around the forms, though I do want to point you to the significance of the minor axis/spine line that should be passing through the center of each organic mass. You use this in your contour ellipses exercise, but it's equally important with contour curves, as it helps to align them. Each contour curve is the visible portion of a larger ellipse that wraps all the way around the form, and the minor axis line must cut each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower axis.

Generally your alignment is fine, but this is something I really stress for this exercise.

Your dissections are looking really nice - lots of great experimentation with texture, and you're demonstrating solid observational skills as well as the willingness to use a wide array of visual patterns (instead of how a lot of beginners tend to just stick to using hatching all over the place).

Your form intersections demonstrate a solid understanding of space and how those forms relate to one another, and your organic intersections are pretty decent at showing the tension and interaction between all of the blobby masses as they push and sag against one another.

You're moving in the right direction, and are making great headway. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2016-05-22 18:04

I'm glad to say that your timidity and your general sense of form and construction has improved considerably, and that pushing you forward to this lesson was the right decision. The various parts of your insects definitely feel considerably more solid, and you do a decent job of capturing their volumes.

I think you're doing a good job of experimenting with different approaches to adding detail/texture to your insects, with some approaches not working out so well, and others coming out somewhat better. One thing I noticed here and there were these short contour-curve-ish lines that you've got on areas like the black ant's abdomen. Honestly I don't think they're a particular great idea - they're not really pushing the illusion that they're wrapping around the form (because being so short, it's hard to really get that curvature right), and they end up feeling like just a bunch of individual, uniform lines. Uniformity is something that generally comes off as boring - so you'll want to space things out irregularly, vary line weight, etc. especially when dealing with organic subject matter.

I think your ladybird spider and your darkling beetle came out quite nicely, and I especially like how you've merged a lot of the small little bits into larger areas of solid black where that detail gets very dense. For more ideas on how to apply that in different ways, you can take a look at this demo I did a long while back: http://i.imgur.com/a3Lh6ER.jpg

Anyways, you're developing nicely, and you're on the right track. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2016-05-22 17:56

Your organic forms with contour ellipses are pretty well done. When you get into contour curves however, you run into a couple issues: http://i.imgur.com/O58dqFM.png.

Specifically, your curves don't quite wrap around the forms properly all the time (more about this here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms), and you're also not quite using the spine/minor axis line to align your curves. The minor axis should cut each of your ellipses (your curves are really just the visible portion of a larger ellipse that wraps all the way around) into two equal, symmetrical halves through its narrower dimension.

Moving ahead, your dissections are fairly well done, as are your form intersections. Your organic intersections do a pretty solid job of demonstrating volumes and especially the tension between the different forms as they rest against one another. There's still some of that same problem from the organic forms with contour curves where the curves don't quite fully wrap around, but to a lesser degree. I think when it's put into context as these solid blobby forms, you inherently convince yourself more solidly of how they exist in 3D space, causing you to do a better job.

Still, before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do one more page of organic forms with contour curves. Try to channel what you've got going on in the organic intersections, but really push and exaggerate how the curves accelerate and hook around at the edge.

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

2016-05-22 17:34

Pretty nice work across the board. Just a few little things I want to mention:

Aside from that, your organic forms, dissections and intersections are all quite well done, and demonstrate a solid understanding of 3D space and well developed observational skills. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-20 20:55

Generally you're doing quite well. The primary issue is that you tend to be quite timid when it comes to pushing the constructional aspect of your approach. You draw the additional marks that help you understand how the forms you're drawing interact with one another quite faintly, if you draw them at all, as though you're preoccupied with the cleanliness of your final drawing. The final drawing is entirely unimportant - what matters is the construction.

Here are some demos I've done for other students that stress the importance of construction, and specifically understanding how the different forms intersect with one another. One thing you fail to include more often than not is the mass of the shoulder (as a simple organic form) and how that shoulder mass intersects with the torso.

When drawing your dog snouts you did a pretty good job of fleshing out how the snout form connects to the cranial mass (the initial ball) of the head. When drawing wolves you didn't factor this in as much, which resulted in a weaker construction where features tended to float in space more rather than being grounded and anchored in the underlying forms.

Based on what I'm seeing, you have pretty strong observational skills - that's saving your ass when you get too relaxed with your construction. Of course it's good to have strong observational skills, but in a situation like this it can easily make one overlook the underlying problem. Make sure you push that construction much harder when you practice this material in the future.

Anyway, your work is coming along well, so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-20 20:24

Hooooonestly, I don't see signs that you actually read the lesson, or the constructional drawing that was linked at the beginning of the lesson.

To start with, you're not breaking down what you see into its base configuration of simple forms - you're seeing lines, and drawing lines, so as a result everything comes out quite flat. Secondly, you're drawing contour curves without really thinking about what their purpose is - they're a tool, and using the tool poorly a hundred times is still going to look worse than using it correctly once. I'll admit that my first demo is a little sloppy as far as contour curves goes, but I still put thought into the curvature of the surface they're intended to describe.

Lastly, shading is not important. You'll notice that in all of my demos, I only add shading once the forms are all fully fleshed out and the whole thing is constructed and recognizable. I don't use shadow to help emphasize the idea of 3D form, I use it to help organize the image, simplifying areas that have gotten too noisy and helping emphasize some forms over others. Shading isn't something you should be occupied with at all. Your main priority should be focusing entirely on the construction of your object.

Firstly, here's some notes on your homework: http://i.imgur.com/kLBugvc.png

Next, here are some demos/notes I did for other students that should help you understand what all this construction business is about:

There's also a lot of demos on the construction article. Reread all of the material and try this lesson again.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-19 19:05

Your use of form and construction certainly improves over the set, starting off a little on the weaker end and gradually growing sturdier. Your line quality still has a tendency to wobble, for the same reason I discuss in this comic. Also, I've got a couple different demos I've done in regards to constructing leaves that you should take a look at - I've noticed that with yours, you don't really establish a particularly strong sense of how the leaf flows through space (which comes largely from starting with your center line and thinking through how it moves through 3D space):

Generally though your work is coming along well, and you're moving in the right direction. I'll mark this lesson as complete, so you may move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-05-18 21:09

Pretty nice work completing the challenge. One recommendation I do have is that you should try to draw your ellipses such that the minor axis line penetrates all the way through them, instead of drawing them around the end point. The whole principle of the minor axis cutting your ellipses into two equal, symmetrical halves, is much easier to see when it goes all the way through. This in turn makes it easier to see where you've done it correctly, and where your alignment is slightly off. Also on this point, it's a good idea to draw through all of your forms right now (in regards to the cylinders where you didn't draw the full ellipse for the far end), and remember to draw your ellipses with confidence, focusing on relying on muscle memory instead of letting your brain guide your hand. This comic definitely applies.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-17 19:23

I think you're demonstrating some solid development as to your understanding of construction and how to consider your plants as a series of connecting 3D forms. There's plenty of room to grow, but generally you're moving in the right direction, and you will continue to develop with time. I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but there is one bit of advice I have to offer.

Always think about how your different forms connect to one another in three dimensions. It's very easy to focus entirely on the forms themselves, and then to be rather vague about how they intersect, but that intersection tends to go a long way to really push the believability of whatever it is you're drawing. Here's a quick example of what I mean: https://i.imgur.com/EIdJZJp.jpg

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-17 18:55

The first page isn't great, but after that I think the concept of construction starts to sink in deeper. The dogs are great, the ostrich's body feels very solid and voluminous (though the legs are a bit weird), and I think the horse marks that point where things start to click a little bit.

It's still really important to spend lots of time carefully observing your subject matter as you draw, and not getting too caught up in any one thing. That is to say, focusing too much on construction to the detriment of observation is bad, as is focusing too much on observation at the detriment of construction. The important thing is never to rely on your memory, and never to draw without considering how everything fits together in 3D space and how what you're drawing is anchored to the rest of the forms. I think the rhino on page 3 is a good example of forgetting to observe your reference carefully.

Still, I think you've got a lot of good stuff there, and you're making great headway. So, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson. I do want to warn you though, with the next one you may want to go back and refresh your memory in regards to form intersections, because that's pretty much the core of what any sort of hard-surface objects are. Just a bunch of boxes and cylinders stuck together.

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

2016-05-17 17:46

Thanks for the resources!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-16 22:32

There is improvement here, but you're also thinking way too much about texture and rendering in your later drawings, to the point that it is distracting you from your initial construction. I really, really want to warn you against using crosshatching - it's a very common way to fill space in without actually bothering to really look at the texture that is present on the object you're drawing. Crosshatching can be used in a very small number of cases where it actually represents the texture that is visible - none of the cases where you used to really apply. So, next time you get the urge to use crosshatching on something, stop yourself and observe your reference closely. Try to identify the subtle visual patterns, the rhythms and flows of marks that give the surface the particular appearance of being smooth, rough, wet, sticky, etc.

Another point about crosshatching is that it is really, really not a good choice for simply filling an area in. Crosshatching contains a lot of alternating areas of light and dark, which results in a lot of visual noise, a high contrast area that immediately draws the viewer's eye but gives them no reward for looking. In this way, a solid black is much better. Looking at some of your drawings, the later ones look like they were drawn in ballpoint pen. I can't be sure, but if this is the case, you should be using fineliners/felt tip pens for all of them.

I also noticed that in your sunflower, your leaves are not particularly well constructed. They start off as loose masses, rather than clearly planned constructions, and so that basis carries through the entire process - so even while your later steps are better, they're resting on an unstable foundation.

I do feel that in general, your use of contour curves is somewhat lacking - even leaves that are not rounded in form can benefit from having contour curves that really stick to the surface as it bends through space. If you look at this demo, you can see how near the edges the contour curves hook around to give the impression of a little bit of thickness to the leaves, rather than making them paper thin. You also have a tendency to overuse contour curves, hitting them with greater quantity, but putting less thought and care into each one. If a contour curve is not well thought out and designed, it's pointless. Don't go dropping wireframes all over, hoping it'll result in a successful drawing. You've got to really think through your spatial problems, and in your mind's eye perceive how each form exists with its own thickness and volume, and how its surfaces warps through space.

I've also done this additional demo for your sunflower: http://i.imgur.com/eYjok8z.png

As I mentioned earlier, you have shown some improvement. There's a LOT of room to grow, but I'm generally not eager to keep students at this lesson, as plants can be a very frustrating topic. The next one, insects, tends to be much better for learning how to deal in form, and how to leverage contour lines that already exist naturally in your subject matter. As such, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete and ask you to move onto the next one. Before you do so however, be sure to read through the resources I've given you in this critique and the previous one to make sure you haven't missed anything.

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

2016-05-16 02:19

You're free to approach it in that manner, but don't get caught up in the idea of "finishing" one lesson before moving onto the other. What I am teaching here is not so much how to draw, but rather how to practice, and I have no expectation that a student will be able to draw a perfect insect, beautifully rendered, by the end of this lesson. My expectation is that you are able to convey a solid construction, with complete and well-established forms.

Ultimately each lesson is teaching the same thing, though from different angles - so what you are practicing here will also be a big part of the next lesson. Always attacking a problem in the same manner is not necessarily the most effective approach - switching to a different subject matter (such as going from insects to animals) can help to refresh your perspective.

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

2016-05-15 21:15

Oh crap, you're right! That totally slipped my mind. Thanks for pointing it out!

Uncomfortable in the post "Added some notes on how to approach rotation in perspective - beware, I have no idea if this is technically correct, it's just what makes sense to me, and that's the best I can offer"

2016-05-15 20:34

You should definitely mark out where you want your lines to start/end (just like in the ghosting exercise). The only thing you not doing on the paper is drawing lines that go all the way back to the vanishing point - that's what you're visualizing in your mind's eye.

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

2016-05-15 18:57

I just skimmed through to see all of the characters, and oh wow, the mushroom people are absolutely adorable.

As for taking a long-ass time, yes and no. This stuff started to click for me around 2013, when I took the plunge, quit my job, and went to Los Angeles to learn the stuff I've put in my lessons. Before then, I'd been actively teaching myself to draw since 2003. Ten years of second guessing myself, not trusting my arm, having no confidence to speak of and assuming that there was just a ceiling for me that didn't exist for everyone.

Choosing to trust your muscle memory is a plunge you have to take. It's not something that develops with time, it's not something some people can do and others can't - it's just something you do. It's a decision you make, a conscious one, letting go of all of the mental blocks that tell you otherwise.

So, you do it, you draw your line, and it comes out HORRIBLY. You've failed. You took that step, you failed miserably, now what do you do? Does this mean you're not cut out to draw? Not at all.

You were supposed to fail. That was the expected result. The first failure of hundreds, of thousands. But there's nothing wrong with that. The people who are currently unable to draw with confidence are horrified at the prospect of failure, like a single failing is going to represent the straw that broke the camel's back. A single failure is all it is. It's the worst that can happen, and frankly there's nothing bad about it.

Coming to terms with that is hard, but it's also immensely freeing. If the worst that can happen in your perspective has happened, what is there left to fear?

Anyway, the last point I want to make failure is the expected result. More than that, it's necessary. No one ever learned anything by doing it right the first time. You try, you fail, you reflect upon what specific things you did wrong (by yourself or with the help of others), and then you do it again while consciously trying to compensate for your revealed weaknesses. That's what practice is - revealing, facing and conquering your weaknesses.

I'm actually thinking about making the next comic on this topic. I think it makes sense to cover more abstract concepts in the comics, rather than dealing with specific techniques. Confidence, fear, failure, etc. are things everyone struggles with immensely, and it's probably the biggest thing that holds people back - in drawing, and in pretty much everything else. At least in drawing, the worst thing that happens is you draw a shitty drawing. Apply that to mountain climbing, and the worst that could happen is somewhat more... dire.

Oh, and yes, salt. I am very salty.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-05-15 18:24

I certainly meant minor axis. http://drawabox.com/images/lesson1/example_ellipseanatomy.jpg, http://drawabox.com/images/lesson1/example_ellipseminoraxis.jpg

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

2016-05-15 18:14

Very nice! Your forms feel muuuuch more solid now, than they did with your plants, and as a result your constructions feel considerably more believable. Your texturing is coming along well decently as well - it's certainly not the main priority of any of these lessons, but I'm glad to see you starting to move away from such heavy use of hatching lines, most notably in your scorpions' claws and flies. You're still relying on them a fair bit, but the shift is noticeable, and it's a good sign. You'll have to continue working on shedding yourself of that crutch, of course, but it'll happen over time.

Keep up the great work! The change from the last lesson is REALLY noticeable. Feel free to move onto the next lesson. Also, I wanted to share this collection of other demos I've done - it might help as you move onto the animals. What I believe might be most important to you right now is the raccoon that demonstrates how I tackle fur, almost completely capturing it as tufts that break the silhouette of an object with almost no hatching applied to the interior. Any detail that modifies the silhouette of an object will read 10x as strongly as detail applied to the inside - you can use this to convey complex textures (like hair and fur) without having to go nuts and end up with really high-contrast areas.

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-05-15 18:07

Nice work! Your cylinders are coming along great. There's two minor issues that I noticed, but generally you've made clear progress and are heading in the right direction. The two issues are as follows:

Anyway, great work completing the challenge!

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

2016-05-14 23:42

Thanks for the plug on your tumblr! As for my name, I guess it's just my natural state of being. I am comfortable in my discomfort. It's who I am!

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

2016-05-14 23:41

Man, unsolicited as it may have been, I really appreciate this! I honestly have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to layout, so your breakdown of flow was very helpful and I'll be sure to apply it to the next one. I'll also definitely check out those books you suggested. Thanks a lot!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-14 21:05

Certainly wouldn't hurt!

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

2016-05-14 20:57

Generally you've done very well! Your form intersections and dissections are very well done, and your organic intersections are solid. The only issue I want to mention relates to your organic forms with contour curves - your curves are overshooting right off the forms, which is contrary to their purpose. Remember that these lines are intended to wrap around the 3D forms, running directly along their surfaces. Therefore as the surface turns away, the curve should also be hooking back and wrapping around the form.

I often encourage people to overshoot their lines to really push this sense of wrapping around, but not quite as you've done it. Instead, it's like you're simply drawing more of the ellipse. The ellipse does not extend off the form, it fits snugly against it. I talk about this more here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms.

Now, all that said, you're doing it correctly when it comes to your organic intersections. So, just to confirm that you understand the concept, I'd like you to do one more page of organic forms with contour curves before I mark this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-14 20:37

There's quite a few issues that I noticed - which is good, because it means there's a lot of things we can adjust about your approach.

I've scrawled a bunch of notes, basically what I said here, over one of your pages: http://i.imgur.com/9TJqRY5.png. It may help put some of the points in context. There's also a step-by-step construction of a leaf, which you should follow carefully.

I'd like you to do another four pages of plant drawings, let's see if we can get some of this stuff sorted out.

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

2016-05-14 20:13

Keep looking at it! Don't avert your eyes!

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

2016-05-14 19:22

Thanks! I certainly hope my devious marketing plan works out well.

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

2016-05-14 19:21

To be honest, there just wasn't enough room. I'm trying to work out a decent balance between light education and visual interest, while avoiding an overly large comic. More than anything, this comic and those to follow it are intended to be more of a marketing tool than a teaching one, intended to plant a seed in the reader's mind and draw them to drawabox.com for more information.

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

2016-05-14 19:04

Textures is a good one, I can think of a few ways of approaching a comic on that topic. For constructing boxes, have you looked at the resources available on the 250 box challenge page? There's also a link to a video there that people seem to like.

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

2016-05-14 19:03

Basically the problem is that people tend to think that the best way to get good linework is to be very cautious and careful while actually drawing their marks on the page. They do this so that they can make adjustments and correct while they're drawing as soon as they see themselves going off-course.

The very advantage they're after - being able to course-correct while they draw - is what results in wobbly, shaky and stiff lines. What is a wobble in a line, but the brain making little corrections along the way?

So, the ideal approach is to separate your mark-making into several steps. This is something I deal with quite heavily in Lesson 1, it's called the ghosting method. There's diagrams and such under part 1, exercise 2.

  1. First you identify the mark you want to make, if it's straight, curved, wavy, elliptical, etc. and find the most comfortable angle of approach. You may want to rotate your page, since drawing at certain angles are much easier than others.

  2. Next, you prepare. This is primarily done by ghosting the line, something I mention in the comic, but don't go into detail on. I might go into it on the next comic. Basically, you mark the start and end point of your line with points, and then go through the motion of drawing the mark without actually letting your pen touch the page. You let it hover a little but over instead. You repeat this over and over, with a quick, confident pace, familiarizing your arm muscles with the motion that's required of them.

  3. Finally, you execute the mark. As you ghost through the line, once you feel confident in your ability to hit it, you let your pen touch the page at the starting point and without skipping a beat, repeat the motion you've been practicing.

The whole idea is that you want to draw just quickly enough to get your brain to stop interfering and micromanaging. You don't want your line to be the result of several independent motions stitched together (which you get when drawing slowly), you want to achieve a mark that is the result of a single motion only.

The downside to drawing faster is that your accuracy will suffer - that's why there's so much stress placed on the preparation phase, to counteract this inevitable drop in control. Ultimately, it is much, much easier to practice away problems with accuracy, than it is to practice away a wobbly line.

Furthermore, over time you will find that the speed you need to draw at in order to shut your brain up will decrease as you get more familiar with this whole process. This means that eventually you'll be able to regain some of the control that comes with drawing slower, without worrying about your brain interfering.

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

2016-05-14 18:48

Mm, certainly. This is my first foray into comics in quite a while, so it's definitely highlighted issues in regards to business, clutter and long-windedness. I hope to improve on those in the future.

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

2016-05-14 18:46

I'm certainly hoping to find ways to streamline my process and make more!

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

2016-05-14 18:45

Ahaha, yes, that's the bitterness in me seeping out. But I'm glad you liked it!

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

2016-05-14 18:44

It certainly is rather mean spirited! To be honest, I have next to no experience when it comes to writing comics, so at least for the time being, I'm relying on the quiet bitterness that buds within me. Hopefully over time, I'll develop more in that area and will think of more genuine ways to spread the message.

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

2016-05-14 17:34

Jams his advice down glah's throat with a toilet plunger

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

2016-05-14 16:29

Decided I'd try a slightly different approach at marketing - in the past, laying out some flashy flyer-type images has been a little hit and miss, so this time I'm trying something a little more engaging. Comic strips! I figured they'd could be a pretty effective way to deliver very simple conceptual lessons. The first one's on wobbly lines.

Admittedly, comics are surprisingly difficult. Between crisp line art (anyone who's seen my art knows that I'm strictly a digital painter, which allows me to get away with a lot of vague, implied detail rather than making clear decisions on where things go), clearly defined and designed shadow shapes, and so on, it's a real challenge. Then on top of that, there's laying down dialogue and delivering a point concisely with as little text as possible. We all know how long winded I can be, so that's definitely not something I'm used to.

But hey! It was fun, and I'd like to do it again. These won't be a regular thing, but I'd like to make more in the future.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-13 23:04

Very nice work! Your sense of form and construction comes through very clearly in these. Moving forward, I'd say there's still some work that could be done on your proportions (the horse's legs seem a little small, at least the front ones) but generally as far as construction goes, you're doing very well. The rest of this will come with time and practice.

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson!

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

2016-05-13 22:46

I think these new drawings do go further to demonstrate a developing understanding of how your forms exist in 3D space, and how they fit together. There's still plenty of room for growth, but you've made a lot of progress in the last week. Feel free to move onto the next lesson!

Also, one minor point - when doing the organic forms with contour curves exercise, don't forget to add the minor axis line that passes through it - it's important for aligning your contour ellipses, and the contour curves are just the visible sections of larger ellipses.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-13 22:14

Your work starts out pretty nicely with your birds, and generally there's a pretty decent level of quality across the entire set, but there is a major issue that becomes quite clear as we go through it - the importance of transitioning from shape (the initial ellipses we use to block in the cranium, ribcage and torso) to solid forms with well defined volumes as early as possible.

The rhinos on page 9 are a good example of this problem. You start off blocking in the ellipses, but then jump straight into drawing strictly from observation, rather than deconstructing the forms in your reference and reconstructing them on the page. Remember that we're not simply seeing and copying - we're building it up.

This is a pretty common problem I come across, and as such I've done a few demos on the topic that I can share with you. Many of these demos are very relevant - the first two, the one with the cat, the one with the horse, etc. The others are certainly good to look over as well, as they touch on other important issues. Still, the issue you want to deal with first and foremost is solidifying that concept of working with form and construction.

If you look at the first demo, the most important thing I do early on is to construct a solid, sausage-like torso between the ribcage/pelvis masses. I do everything that's necessary to make it three-dimensional in my mind, including using contour curves to show how the surface warps through 3D space. From there, I tack on more 3D forms. The thing about thinking about your 3D subject in 2D is that things aren't really anchored in space. It's like you have a bunch of little cut-out pieces of paper and you're taping them together in a collage. Conversely, when thinking in three dimensions, everything needs to be solidly anchored in space to something else. For example, you can't simply draw the muzzle part of the head - you've got the cranial ball-mass, so you can hinge a box-like form off of that and build on that to create a solid, convincing construction.

More than anything, it's about how you think and perceive what you're drawing. Your own believe in the space you are defining on your page - the 3D space, that is - shows through in your drawing. Initially we need to rely heavily on tricks like drawing through forms, adding contour curves, etc. to convince ourselves of the illusion we're crafting. Later on, it'll be much easier to trick yourself, and therefore all of your viewers as well.

I'd like you to try another four pages of animal drawings - focus entirely on the constructions, with no texture or detail.

Uncomfortable in the post "An Ongoing Record of Homework Submissions"

2016-05-12 22:25

Homework can be submitted as a comment in the lesson's post on this subreddit. Each lesson page has a yellow/orange button on the top that says "View Homework Submissions on Reddit", which will take you to the reddit thread associated with that lesson. You'll have to host the images themselves elsewhere though - most people use imgur. Before submitting, go over the self-critique resources for that lesson (blue button on the top of the lesson, though right now they're only there for lessons 1 and 2), and that you've met that lessons' requirements in terms of medium, prerequisites, etc.