Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-05-12 19:23

Well done! One thing to keep in mind is that it's a good idea to draw your ellipses such that the minor axis cuts all the way through it, rather than positioning the ellipse's center point on the end of the line. This makes it easier to align the ellipse, since it's all about the minor axis cutting the ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves. It's harder to get a sense of that when the line only goes halfway through.

Aside from that, very nice work completing the challenge! I like the attention to the minor axes overall, and I'm glad you tried a couple times to construct the cylinders in boxes. When doing that, it's good to remember that the box only serves to construct the minor axis - after that, you still want to be aligning the ellipses to the minor axis.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-11 19:30

You're not limited to using strictly elliptical contour curves - they're much more flexible than that, and are merely lines that run along a form to describe how its surface warps through 3D space. So, you can have a contour curve suddenly hook around the edge to imply a much thicker form, compared to the standard flat leaf: https://i.imgur.com/A6WiIQC.jpg

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-11 15:39

Unfortunately I don't accept homework submissions out of order - because of how the lessons are structured, with each one building on the one before it, I rely on the fact that earlier lessons clearly expose certain fundamental issues that later lessons cover up.

I've collected a bunch of demos I've done for other students - you might find these to be helpful, as they primarily concentrate on the importance of construction. That said, if you want a critique specific to your work, you're going to have to have each prerequisite lesson marked as complete.

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

2016-05-10 18:52

Aagh your insects are gross. That is, admittedly, a pretty good sign - the ones that unsettle me tend to be those that are well constructed.

Your use of form and construction is pretty well done - you're not wrong about the quality going up and down throughout the set, but overall there's a reasonable standard here. I'd say that the ones that seem weakest are likely the ones that went too complex too quickly, rather than solidifying the forms/construction before moving into more complex detail. As the constructional method always pushes, you want to go from simple to complex, never adding any detail that is not already supported by that which is already there. In this regard, the grasshopper stands out as a pretty good example of this. Too much detail, too quickly.

Conversely, the dragonfly at the end is excellent. Each component of the body reads as distinctly 3D, and you can feel exactly where each one connects to the ones around it.

I will point out though that you have a tendency to rely very heavily on crosshatching - this belies the likelihood that your'e not actually looking too closely when it comes to texture, and that you're probably overwhelmed by all of the information there. Take a look at this demo I did a long while back: http://i.imgur.com/a3Lh6ER.jpg. There's a wiiiide array of possible textures you can get from insects, and really from everything, and the majority of them are not simply captured through hatching lines.

Additionally, when you tackle hair, like on the wasp, it's not a great idea to just draw individual strands sticking out. This creates a lot of tension with the tangents between the lines and the object's silhouette, which can be distracting. Instead, it's better to regard these strands of hair as grouping together into tufts. Here's a couple demos that relates to this:

• http://i.imgur.com/Eb6hr0h.jpg

• http://i.imgur.com/a0r47lY.jpg

Anyway, consider this lesson complete and feel free to move onto the next one.

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

2016-05-10 18:39

Honestly, from what I can see, your forms and your general construction are both solid. It's true that your proportions are off ( for the most part it's the thorax being too long), but nailing your proportions is a matter of practice. There's no shortcut to being able to get them right easily.

The thing about focusing on construction though is that even a drawing whose proportions are off can feel solid and well constructed. The forms may be the wrong size, but the way the forms fit together, and the solidity of those forms can still come through.

Expecting any manner of perfection is not going to help you at all. Instead, it'll hold you back - it's all too easy to succumb to the fear of failure, and become paralyzed by it. The fact of the matter is that failure isn't just a possibility. It's not just a likelihood. It is an inevitability, and it is a necessity. If you don't fail, if you don't make mistakes, you won't learn - or at least you won't learn particularly quickly. The quickest route to development is to try confidently, then fail, then reflect on your failures in order to identify your weaknesses, and then consciously compensate for them in your next attempt.

Fixing, on the other hand, implies that the resulting drawing is something of value. It's not. The desire for a 'nice looking drawing' is, if anything, just a distraction, and it makes you afraid when it comes to making marks on the page.

Instead, forge your way forwards with confidence. Look at your reference, identify your most significant form, consider its shape and size and how it sits in space - then draw it. Did you fuck it up? You did - okay, well did you fuck it up really, really badly? Probably not. If it's a little bit off, that's okay - keep pushing forwards. Find the forms that attach to it, and draw those in. Complete, solid forms, adding them like adding balls of clay to a sculpture. Reinforce those forms with contour curves here and there, just to remind yourself that they are three-dimensional, and they behave as such.

And you know what? From the looks of it, that's exactly what you did. You fucked up, but you kept moving forwards. You may have been frustrated as all hell, but you pushed on ahead.

Admittedly, your texture's still pretty bad. You're not really designing the little tufts of hair as they break the silhouette's edge, you're drawing really rough and unplanned strokes, sometimes compounding them into triangles. They're stiff and harsh to look at. Also, your dark area (where the thorax and abdomen come together) is really quite high-contrast, because of all of the blank page shining through the gaps. This kind of noise should be avoided, because it distracts and draw's the viewer's eye, but gives them no pay-off for looking in that area. Instead, you should be filling that kind of area in with solid black, so as to tone down the contrast/noise.

I dug up this demo I did a while ago, in regards to adding tufts of hair to a silhouette, it might be of use to you: http://i.imgur.com/a0r47lY.jpg

Anyway, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one, and keep thinking about forms!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-10 18:14

Generally your drawings are rather nice, though I really want to stress the importance of what I mentioned in the constructional drawing article, which was linked to at the beginning of the lesson. Though this varies throughout your homework, you do have a tendency to draw more in terms of shape, at least at the beginning of the lesson. As you progress, you demonstrate a better understanding of form but this is something that is very important, so I do want to stress it.

Specifically looking at your funghi, I'd like to point you to this demo. Make sure you capture each form completely - don't leave ends open, close them all off in order to ensure their place in 3D space is solidly defined.

I did notice that you have a tendency to use a lot of hatching - in some places it is effective and appropriate, but more often it tends to be overused. There's a couple things to remember here - hatching lines are one possible texture that can be present. One of many. More often than not, when someone uses hatching lines, it's because they have not looked closely enough to identify other patterns that are present in their textures. Furthermore, when you use hatching as you have done, you tend to really ramp up the amount of contrast and visual noise in an area - that is, from all of the alternating dark/light areas. This contrast becomes very distracting, and draws the viewer's eye to an area with nothing of actual worth. For this reason, it's important that if you're adding hatching only to fill an area with shadow, that you fill it in with solid black. Also, in general, it is usually better to add less visual noise, rather than more.

Anyway, keep these points in mind as you continue to move forward. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-10 17:28

Contrast is entirely under your control - just because something is present in your reference image does not mean you are obligated to carry it over. How you sort through that information and decide what to use, and how to organize it, is ultimately part of defining the focal point. The important thing to keep in mind is that once your construction is finished, your object is going to be mostly recognizable. Beyond that, you are free to do whatever you like to push and emphasize certain areas.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-10 17:00

Admittedly, it's very difficult to give you advice without actually seeing what you're doing. It's generally best to bring up these concerns after you've given it a solid attempt and have completed the homework, so I have a nice body of work from which to derive my critique.

Should I try to visualize part of the reference on the page and "trace" it?

Absolutely not - we are not trying to simply reproduce the flat image, we are trying to understand how that object is constructed and ultimately reconstruct it on the page.

Should I imagine it as a bunch of forms and try to copy those instead?

This is closer to what you should be doing. Don't fuss too much over achieving 100% accuracy, instead focus on capturing the simple forms that make up your construction, and doing so in relatively correct proportion. If you look at these two demos (1, 2), you'll see how I start off with simple forms. Each mass is similar to the organic forms tackled in lesson 2, and all I'm doing with them is fleshing out the volumes of my object. As I build up my construction, I add additional forms, always mindful of how each form interacts and connects to those already present. In my mind, these ellipses I draw are not just flat shapes - they're 2D masses, that if I wanted to, I could add contour curves to in order to represent how they occupy 3D space.

I saw that the horse's coat has a fairly simple, smooth sheen to it. Tight hatching seemed to capture that best." Well, how does one go through the process of determining what's best? Is it a matter of practice and experience?

It's a matter of making the wrong decision enough to figure out what the right decision is. Based on the tone of your rant, you seem to be pretty frustrated with the idea of making mistakes. Mistakes are normal, they're expected and par-for-the-course. In fact, mistakes are entirely necessary. You don't learn anything from doing something right the first time, and it seems to me that you feel if you're not creating beautiful drawings, you're doing it wrong - "it" being the exercise assigned to you.

When it comes to texture, there's a lot of different ways to put marks down on the page. Speaking of the smooth sheen of a horse, it's true that hatching is probably an effective approach - but what kind of hatching? If you use short strokes, you'll give the impression of a rather rough coat. Longer, flowing strokes will imply thickness and smoothness. Furthermore, where are you putting those strokes? Different places will have a different amount of impact on the viewer - if you fill on the center of the body, you'll result in a LOT of noise and contrast, which draws the viewer's eye to it. Conversely, if you place your texture in such a way that it breaks the silhouette of the form, and limit yourself to that (not putting much texture in the rest of the form), the impact on the viewer will be much stronger, but in a subconscious sense. Their eyes won't be drawn to it or distracted by it, but by breaking the silhouette, you'll put this information in the forefront of what their brain processes. I've dug up an older demo of that concept here: http://i.imgur.com/a0r47lY.jpg. Basically, before looking at any sort of internal details, your brain looks at the silhouettes of forms first. If that silhouette is complex and broken, it has a much greater impact than information that is conveyed much later (like filling the inside of a form with hatching).

I constantly fail at drawing muzzles, and I think that's because approximation and thinking on the page hurts that area the most.

When you draw a head, you start off with the ball that represents the cranial mass - that isn't the whole skull, but it's generally the mass of the head not including the front of the face or the jaw. This is a 3D form, and just as with the rest of the body you can add new forms to it. Generally when it comes to the muzzle, I like to think more in terms of boxes - so the first thing I'll do is I'll hinge a box-like form (don't get too caught up in things being rectilinear boxes, just the idea of a form with clear planes) off the front of the cranium, and I'll start trying to fit it into the form I see in my reference. Remember, your memory is worthless - you need to be looking back at your reference constantly. This is where all the information is, it's really just a matter of whether or not you can look past the wealth of information to identify what you're after.

I did this demo of a bear's front-facing muzzle a little while ago. The most important thing is to be aware of how each form fits into each other. Everything fits into something else, nothing floats arbitrarily. Everything is grounded in another object. The biggest problem is that people tend to look at faces and their mind reverts to dealing with 2D elements - where an eye, a nose, a mouth, they're all free-floating and can be rearranged however they want. Instead, think of your drawing like a 3D sculpture, which you can carve into, and add mass to. If you want a place to put the eyes, you have to cut in and dig it out.

Anyway, like I said, it's much easier to identify your specific issues when you submit your completed homework. Don't let your frustration get the better of you, and don't fear or be disparaged by failure. It's easy to say, sure, but really you're fighting against your mind here. Once you accept failure as a necessary component of growth and progress, you'll find that it won't hold you back quite like it does now.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2016-05-09 17:17

Really, really nice work. Your proportions are askew in some places (the scooter, the pickup, etc but what's really important to me is your sense of construction. I'm really happy to say that your constructions are really solid. In a lot of places, even when your proportions are off, your forms still have a tendency to feel quite solid.

The proportion will come with practice - it's a matter of experience, as well as patience (as you noticed). That said, with the solid core of form and construction, I don't think it'll take too long to round out sense of proportion.

I do still think there's a lot of value in continuing to pick a few exercises from lessons 1 and 2 to do as warmups before getting down to the day's work, though - from now until the end of time. Your ellipses/cylinders could use some polish, and as you noticed, long lines are understandably challenging.

Anyway, congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching lesson set! Though these lessons have been here for quite a while, there aren't many who've reached the end. Well done!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-09 16:59

Your last two pages are looking pretty good - the second last though is still demonstrating the whole leaf thing I mentioned in the previous critique, where you're jumping into complex detail (wavy edges) too early. The bottom right of this demo I did a little while ago may do a better job of explaining the concept.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-09 15:46

Great constructions, and very nice sense of form. Your textures are also coming along really well - at least when tackling things other than fur. When it comes to hairier subjects, you're really overcome with the urge to cover everything with marks and doing so has two negative repercussions:

1. Too much visual noise - all of the extra marks are creating a lot of contrast between light and dark, which ultimately draws the viewer's eye. Ideally you'd want to draw the viewer's eye to the areas you spent the most care and time crafting.

2. Because you're forcing yourself to draw more marks, you're going for quantity over quality - you're spending less time designing each tuft of fur, and instead end up in some areas just drawing spiky marks. This is especially visible in your work because there's a range of furry textures you've drawn - some with much more going on in them, and some with less.

A few well crafted marks are far more valuable and far more effective than a plethora. By well crafted, I mean taking into consideration their position and their arrangement. Considering how you can make the best use of them - for example, a well arranged tuft of hair that breaks the silhouette of the form is going to read REALLY strongly, making a more lasting impression on the viewer, than that same tuft of hair placed in the center of the form.

Always aim to draw less, when it comes to texture, rather than more - and don't be afraid of merging a large amount of noise into shapes of solid black to take an area that's gotten really noisy and tone it down again. You've done this in some areas (the first rhino), but there are other areas where it would have been a good idea, such as the belly of the sitting gazelle. In this one you really scribbled like crazy to fill it in, but the result was a lot of alternating points of black/white. If you're having trouble filling shapes in with your felt tip pens, a black brush pen can be effective, though at times a little hard to control.

Anyway, you've nailed the main focus of this lesson - form and construction. Texture is a secondary issue. So, feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2016-05-07 19:18

Very nice work! Your sense of form is developing really nicely, I can see your mind wrapping around how each piece connects to its neighbours, and how they come together to produce this solid construction. The only thing I want to recommend is not to use any sort of scribbling when doing your texturing. I'm specifically looking at the textured hercules beetle, where you applied some rather scratchy looking texture to its head and underside. The problem with this is that not only does it rely on randomness (which I frown upon), it also creates a LOT of noise and contrast, which draws the viewer's eye to it, but provides no pay-off. Pay-off would be something more meticulously planned and designed, rather than a chaotic pattern. Were I you, I'd have filled that space in with solid black, which would distract and draw the viewer's eye much less.

Anyway, keep it up! Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-07 18:30

Unfortunately I'm going to have to ask you to redo the parts you did in pencil, using ink, as it is a firm requirement of lessons 3-7 that you do them using a fineliner/felt tip pen. The point of the lessons is not to have you show me what you can already do comfortably, but rather to push you beyond your boundaries. For these lessons, this specific medium is a requirement because it forces you to learn certain skills, concepts and values. It makes you come to terms with your mistakes, with the quality and flow of your linework, and so on.

Though since your work is technically not complete, and as a result I am holding off on critiquing it, here are a few tips you should consider applying when redoing it:

• Your linework is quite scratchy when working in ink. You must not break up a single flowing line into multiple segments, as you have in some areas. A single line should be drawn with a single mark, done whilst applying the ghosting method detailed in lesson 1.

• Don't draw slowly and carefully - invest all of your time in the preparation phase of the ghosting method, then when you actually execute the mark on the page, do so with a quick, persistent and confident motion, relying on your muscle memory to drive your hand and not your brain. Do not allow your brain to make course-corrections, resulting in a stroke made up of several individual motions. Draw with a single, continuous stroke.

• Take a look at this demo I did a few days ago for someone else: http://i.imgur.com/xPMeUv8.png. Specifically I'm showing you this for the steps used when constructing leaves, but the top part is relevant as well.

Last of all, I encourage you to reread the lesson in full. Since you missed my point about the felt-tip pen/fineliner requirement, there's likely other things you've missed as well.

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

2016-05-06 19:42

You start off a little weak, but I think by the end of it you've made considerable strides towards understanding how to manipulate form in 3D space, and how to put those forms together to create solid constructions. You've got quite a few nice pages here:

• Page 2 marks the beginning of understanding how to work in terms of constructive drawing.

• Page 4 really starts pushing that

• Page 6 takes a bit of a step back in terms of form (it's kind of flat) but your use of texture is very nice. Just remember that even when you're going to apply texture, your forms should be the first priority - that means not being timid about adding contour curves where you feel they'll help you push that sense of volume.

• 8 and 9 are looking great, with 9 pushing both form and texture/detail in a great direction.

The most important thing is always to focus on the step you're on, rather than thinking about how to make your life easier for later steps. This means draw as confidently and put down as many marks as are necessary for you to really understand how your construction exists in 3D space, rather than worrying about how those marks will show up in the final drawing. Of course, wasting lines is no good, so always consider whether or not the lines are really contributing to your understanding of space and form - but if they are, don't hesitate to put them down.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2016-05-05 20:06

Your drawings are good. They're posed well, they capture a sense of gesture, and all of that good stuff. That said, they're missing some of the core aspects I try to push in my lessons. Everyone has their own way of drawing, and it's not necessarily a good idea to fix that which is not broken, but from my perspective, there are a few fundamental issues with your approach to drawing, as demonstrated here.

• You draw timidly. From the looks of this work, it's done with a ballpoint pen? I can't be sure, but either way, the lesson requires a fineliner/felt tip pen, specifically because it makes it MUCH more difficult to be timid and rough. The point of my lessons and how they're structured is intended to force you to stop and think before every mark you put down. I don't want people drawing by instinct, scratching their lines down before planning and considering whether or not the line should be placed there in the first place. If you're sketching loosely, you're not really considering forms as concrete, solid objects. Instead, you're loosely considering them in abstract terms. This can be okay with simple constructions, but when those forms need to be intersecting and combining with other forms, creating a complex network of volumes, the amount of information you hold in your head often hits its limit. Furthermore, this sort of loose sketching implies a deeper lack of control over your own reflexes and motor skills. Fundamentally, we are all about applying the ghosting method. Identify, prepare, then execute. Every single mark. Over time and with practice it becomes less of a conscious thought, but the steps are always there.

• Extending from the previous point, your application and consideration of form remains in the abstract, rather than the concrete. If you look at this demo I did in the past, you can see how I consciously consider every element I add as a 3D object, like a lump of clay, being added to the construction: http://i.imgur.com/O18BDIx.png. From your drawings, I see an incredibly high level of observational skill, on a linear level - you can see the lines you need to draw, and you can capture them quite nicely. The difference however is that you're not treating them like a part of a larger form, so you lack awareness of how the actual components (torso, shoulder, leg, neck, etc.) fit together, and how they relate to one another in 3D space. This spatial understanding is key when you want to go beyond replicating an image, and consider how the same pose you see from a photo would look from a different angle.

Every approach has its advantages and disadvantages. Your current approach certainly isn't bad, but it is loose, and less grounded in form and solid construction. Yours does however have a very nice gestural, energetic quality to it.

As for your questions, the head one's fairly easy to consider - again, it's all about forms. You draw the cranial mass (that head-circle-thing), and then try to place everything else relative to it. A more constructive approach would be to consider that cranial mass as a sphere, off which more forms are extruded and connected to create the general muzzle structure. Here's a quick demo of what I mean: http://i.imgur.com/HglXa3N.jpg.

As for the texture, the issue lies more with taking the time both to observe the textures more carefully (your observation of form is solid, but you seem to get rather overwhelmed when looking at detailed textures), and taking the time to really design and craft the shapes of the spots. Yours don't look like someone tried to match up the pattern from their reference image - it looks much more like you saw "SPOTS!" and then went to task drawing what your memory told you spots looked like. Always remember that your memory is flawed (ha!). Don't spend any more than a second or two drawing before looking back at your reference image, and don't just give up and let yourself do a sloppy, rough, approximative job. No one ever learned anything by cutting corners.

Anyway, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but if you want to do some more animal drawings attempting to apply a more constructive approach, feel free to submit them. Otherwise move onto the next lesson, where I believe you're going to find that if you don't apply a more concrete, constructive approach, you'll struggle considerably.

Oh, by the way - read this article: http://drawabox.com/article/construction.

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

2016-05-05 19:42

You've done quite well. The main focus of the exercise - form construction - is your biggest strength here, and you clearly have a good sense for manipulating those forms in 3D space and conveying them as solid elements.

Your texture is definitely not particularly well developed, though it's not a big deal right now - I always say that you can go through all of the lessons without drawing a single texture, and if your understanding of form and construction is solid, you've understood the core of what I'm trying to teach. That said, if you want to push these to the next level, I strongly encourage you to take more time to really observe the different kinds of textures that are present on your subject matter.

More than that, there's one very important fact that helps rendering click in some peoples' minds. Texture is the result of tiny forms on the surface of an object. What you see as the texture, and what you capture in your drawing, are not the forms themselves, but rather the shadows they cast. Think of how a tiny raised bump casts a very subtle, curved shadow. Now, consider the fact that you are currently attempting to capture all of your textures in terms of lines - but shadows aren't just lines. Sometimes they seem to manifest that way, but really they are much more flexible than that. They can start out thin, but swell to greater weight and thickness, and they can even come together to fill entire swathes of surface with solid black. If you try to think entirely in terms of line, you end up somewhat limited in the kinds of textures you can capture.

Take a look at this demo I did a while back on the textures found on a beetle, and pay special attention to how my lines fuse together into larger shadow shapes: http://i.imgur.com/a3Lh6ER.jpg.

The last thing I wanted to mention is that I noticed you submitted lesson 4 and 5 at the same time. To be honest, I wasn't terribly pleased about this. The fact that your understanding of form is very solid assuages my frustration, but at the same time, it implies certain things about the value of the critiques you're receiving. Each lesson builds on the one before it - so if you had made some major mistake here, I would have asked you to toss your next lesson's work out, redo chunks of this one to fix the problem, and then redo the following one. It's largely because the same theoretical issue would be present in the next set, so there would be no point in me critiquing it. Needless to say, it would not be an entirely pleasant process for either of us.

But, on the bright side, your work is well done, so I'll overlook it this time! Consider this lesson complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-05 19:35

I added an additional point about texture to my previous critique - just pointing it out here since I squeezed the edit in fairly recently, so you may have missed it.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-05 18:59

Your sense of form is generally okay (although that pepper at the end is very, very flat), though I'm concerned about your general application of line. You have a tendency to be very sketchy with your linework, rather than patiently thinking through every mark before putting it down on the page. Each line you draw should be captured with a single mark, and you should never reflexively reinforce a line you've just drawn with another. It's very important to apply the ghosting methodology to your general linework.

Also, since you did this lesson so long ago, it's likely that you have not reread it since - be sure to read over this article which was linked at the beginning of the lesson. Also, go over the demos as well, especially the one that shows a couple drawings of a leaf. Look at how I focus on conquering different aspects of the leaf one at a time. First defining how that leaf flows through space with the center line, then enclosing the space of the leaf by adding two simple curves, one on each side. Then I use this scaffolding I've put down to add any sort of additional complex edge detail, like wavy edges, thorns, tears, etc.

I'd like to see another two pages of plant drawings.

Edit: I forgot to mention this - you have a tendency of using hatching lines way too much when applying texture. Hatching lines really only represent a fairly limited subset of possible textures, but people are used to using them in general as a sort of shorthand for "i have no idea what goes here". Whenever you get the urge to apply hatching lines, stop yourself and take a really close look at your reference image. Try to identify the different visual patterns and elements that exist there, and ask yourself whether or not hatching lines are necessarily the best choice. Most often they're not.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-05-04 19:41

Pretty good work. Congrats on completing the challenge. I'm glad to see that you paid special attention to constructing your cylinders around a set minor axis. I do want to mention however that you should absolutely be drawing through each of the ellipses you draw for my lessons. Yours are pretty decent, but I still insist upon it. If you're not sure what I mean by drawing through, I explain it here: Draw Through your Ellipses.

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

2016-05-03 19:41

Try not to think of those forms as being ellipses - instead, treat them as though they are organic forms (like from lesson 2). When the forms are more even and symmetrical, I generally will treat them like ellipses (and draw through them to maintain that evenness), but otherwise I try and capture the overall volume of the form. Despite not necessarily being entirely elliptical, you'll find the organic forms are still fairly simple. When drawing those lines, remember to draw from your shoulder and maintain a confident pace so as to keep your line smooth and steady.

Also, I noticed in your drawing that you were getting caught up in some superfluous details - spots and markings, for instance. Those have no bearing on the overall construction, so for now they'll be rather distracting. Try to focus entirely on the forms, establishing their volumes, and figuring out distinctly how each one intersects and connects to its neighbours.

Here's a quick critique/demo from your spider drawing: http://i.imgur.com/ejRIunO.png - as a side note, way to pick a super gross spider auuugh i have to go bleach my eyes.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-02 20:06

Some of these are quite nice - especially pages 5 and 6, where your sense of form is definitely conveyed more strongly. I did notice though that your approach to leaves is not quite how I had instructed from the article on constructional drawing. I did a little demo for how you should be approaching leaves in the future - although technically this same methodology applies to everything: http://i.imgur.com/xPMeUv8.png.

Generally you've done reasonably well though, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-05-02 19:27

Nice work! I'm glad to see the conscientious attention to detail, fleshing out every single box. One thing I do want to remind you of though is the hierarchy of importance. That is, the role the box plays, and what your ellipses should be aligned to. To be honest, you seem to have done most of these quite well, so this is really just for the sake of me having something to offer after all your work.

Basically, the box helps you align your cylinder, but it really only exists in order to create the correct minor axis, since it generates two points (the centers of the far/near planes), between which you can place that line. Once the box is constructed, you can use it as a general suggestion of how big your ellipses should be, but when it comes to alignment, you follow the minor axis. You'll find that the alignment between fitting the ellipse inside of the plane, and following the minor axis are a little different from each other. This can get a little confusing for people, so I always insist that the minor axis is what carries the most weight.

Anyway, great work completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-05-02 17:44

There's a lot of nice stuff going on here, but there's one key issue I'd like to point out. When drawing your leaves, you always jump into somewhat more complex edge detail, specifically the little waves and curling that we see there. By doing so, you're tackling a lot of separate challenges simultaneously - achieving the correct overall flow of the leaf through space, maintaining cohesion across the multiple bends and folds along the edges, etc. Instead of doing it all at the same time, it's better to start off simple, and then progressively build up complexity in successive passes.

• First, define the flow of the leaf by drawing its center line.

• Then establish the space it encompasses by defining its edges with simple curves.

• Once your basic leaf is constructed, then you can start adding the more complex edge detail upon this existing scaffolding.

This is the core premise of constructional drawing and is demonstrated specifically in this demo. It does lead to a lot more linework in your drawing, but all of that linework is valuable in helping you understand how the form exists in 3D space.

Aside from that, your general sense of form and construction does seem to be well established. Also, looking through the bulk of your work, I can see areas where you've applied this same concept (like building up palm-like branches and the like). Just know that it should be applied across the board. Always start off as simple as possible, and then hinge more complex detail on simple scaffoldings.

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Oh, I wanted to mention that if you're the one who pledged via patreon under the name 'something_gnu', check your patreon inbox. I sent you a message there with a little bit of housekeeping.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-05-02 17:28

Nice work completing the challenge. Here's a couple tips that will help you as you continue to more forwards:

• The notes on the challenge page, and the video itself, really emphasizes the importance of the minor axis when constructing your cylinders. It's this minor axis that determines the alignment of both ellipses. Be sure to revisit those notes to refresh your memory of how to use this excellent tool.

• I strongly advise you not to do a rough pass, followed by a clean-up pass. We can see instances of this in how you've tackled your ellipses, drawing through them initially (which is good) but doing so faintly (which is bad), then attempting to more carefully draw a cleaner ellipse on top to replace the initial one (which is worse). This 'cleaner' ellipse demonstrates a lot of the shortcomings of drawing slowly and carefully - your lines wobble, and your ellipse comes out not quite as well shaped. It may well be more accurate, but you've sacrificed the flow of the mark to achieve this. All of your time should be invested in the preparation phase (ghosting and the like), before executing with a quick, confident stroke and in the case of ellipses, drawing through them. So, instead of doing that first step with a fainter line, do so with confidence. Then, instead of doing a clean-up pass, you may want to instead simply reinforce parts of your stroke with more line weight to help organize the hierarchy of lines. The difference here is that instead of replacing the lines you've drawn, you're emphasizing those that already exist.

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

2016-05-01 16:49

Hm.. no.. I think we need to take a different direction with this. I think there may be some improvement in your general understanding of space, but your execution is still very much off.

Let's set the insects aside for a bit. For the next week, I want you to spend a minimum of 20 minutes a day doing the organic forms with contour curves exercises from lesson 2. Focus on drawing simple sausage-like forms (no complex branching or anything like that), and focus on drawing from your shoulder. Just fill up pages with them, pages upon pages upon pages. I'm hoping this will help remedy some of your shaky, uneven forms, and remind you of how to take advantage of contour curves as a visual communication tool. It'll get boring, but hopefully 20 minutes a day won't be too difficult to sit through.

After the week is up, I want you to first reread the last critique I gave of your beetle, look closely at the demo, and then try to reproduce it. Then, do one more insect drawing of your own - do not go into texture, focus entirely on form and construction. Then submit all of that, along with all of the organic form exercises.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-04-30 15:52

Oh, yes, it does seem to you stopped doing that on your own. Good on you! As for the cylinder challenge, doing it certainly has its own advantages, especially when it comes to the form intersection exercise in lesson 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-04-30 02:45

Don't worry about posting in the wrong thread - we all make mistakes sometimes.

Anyway, I'm glad to see that you are making considerable progress with your boxes. I have just one comment to make - I noticed that when you draw the lines that exist on the opposite side of the form (drawing through the boxes), you have a tendency to draw broken lines, or very timid lines that skitter across the page, rather than being straight and solid.

I strongly encourage you not to do this - I totally understand why you're approaching it that way, but the problem is that as soon as a line is broken, it no longer is able to maintain its flow and direction. Often times broken lines will have small shifts in angle with each segment, unlike a single continuous mark that flows in a single direction. Keeping your lines continuous will help considerably in the long run.

Aside from that, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.

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

2016-04-30 01:05

There's definitely some improvement over the set. At the beginning, you have a clear tendency to chicken-scratch your lines, most notably with the moth. I'm glad that you tone that down considerably as you progress, though there are still some other issues I'd like to bring to your attention.

Rather than explaining it entirely in writing, I ended up doing the bulk of my critique as a demo: http://i.imgur.com/N3OcGpp.png. The main points to focus on are:

• Always force yourself to remember that you're not transferring a 2D photograph onto a 2D piece of paper. You're studying how the object represented in the photograph exists in 3D space, then reconstructing it as a series of 3D forms on the page. It's very easy to lose track of the 3D aspect of this process, so you constantly need to remind yourself that every element you add is an independent form - you need to understand exactly how it sits in 3D space and how it relates to the other forms in the scene. Contour lines help immensely here, but you need to apply them in such a way that they really describe the curvature of the surface in order for them to be completely effective. Of course this takes time and practice, but keep pushing yourself to think in terms of 3D space, and imagine that your pen tip is carving over a 3D form, not on a flat page.

• The process we use does not involve creating a rough sketch, then cleaning up. The shapes and forms we put down during the first stages are the very same lines that make up the finished drawing. If you think about it in terms of everything being forms, you can't really consider the initial lay-in to be some sort of approximate, loose sketch - they're solid forms, so if you need to make adjustments, in your mind it needs to be as though you're carving those adjustments. It's very easy to change things in a 2D drawing, but if you think about it strictly in 2D, you'll lose the sense of volume and solidity.

• Line weight is an important tool - be sure to reread the notes on how you can use it from the box challenge: Line Weight.

Right now your textures are pretty hectic and noisy. When it comes to making something seem hairy, don't focus all of your attention on the interior of the forms. Really, you don't need to touch the inside much at all - all you need to do is break up the silhouette of the form, adding tufts of hair to its edges.

You also have a tendency of being very chaotic and scribbly, and you absolutely need to tone that down. It's because of this that your textures end up overwhelming - you're drawing much more than you're thinking, hoping that adding more lines, more ink, will convey what's stuck in your mind. Stop. Take your time and think through your problem. Consider how you might be able to achieve your goals with fewer strokes on the page.

Anyway, for now I don't want you to think about texture at all. Right now we are going to focus entirely on the form construction - I'd like you to do 6 more pages of insects, stopping just short of the texturing step. The drawings should be completely recognizable by use of form and construction only, without having to add surface detail.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-04-28 23:13

There's a few considerable issues here, but amidst all of that, I see a few interesting signs of certain concepts clicking in your mind.

The first key problem is that you're very eager to put marks down on the page, and because of this, you put far more ink down than is necessary. You're not thinking before drawing each mark, not planning out the strokes - instead you're sketching roughly, somewhat erratically, and then adding more ink to attempt to cover up any resulting mistakes. Less is always more. A few well placed marks will always look much stronger than a dozen trying to accomplish the same thing. The unfortunate thing is that figuring out how to place those few marks is difficult, so we often fall back to this messier approach, which doesn't allow us to improve. Facing difficulty head on, and failing multiple times is necessary to make progress.

Secondly, something that caught my attention in your work was the size of the sketchbook you're using. I could be wrong, but it looks to me to be quite small - perhaps 5"x8"? If I'm right, this is definitely causing you some trouble, as it is forcing your drawings to then be even smaller (you're cramming several into each page). When working small, you leave yourself with very little room for your subconscious to work through spatial problems. Furthermore, the thickness of your pen tip comes out looking considerably fatter relative to the overall drawing, so even the thinnest strokes you can manage tend to look clunky. It doesn't help that at this stage, your pressure control is fairly limited. Overall there's a lot about your approach that is already making this difficult task several times more challenging for you.

I recommend that you work on loose printer paper (8.5x11). It'll give you more freedom to work through the spatial challenges in your mind, won't cause you to fuss with pages trying to fold back over (if you do go for a sketchbook in the future, ring-bound is often better because you can fold back pages completely), and there's the added benefit of people simply being less precious with their drawings when they're on loose sheets. Sketchbooks are daunting.

I did see a little something developing, however, when I looked at that mushroom drawing. You're very clearly not afraid to allow your lines to fuse into larger swathes of black space, which is good to see. That said, your rendering is still being approached with a lot of focus on hatching lines, both to create surface texture and to fill in shadow shapes. Always remind yourself that hatching represents one kind of texture, one that is not often seen in nature. Don't be so eager to fall back to it, as it is almost always a sign that you have not looked closely enough at your reference image to identify the subtler patterns and rhythms that exist there. Also, if you want to fill a shadow shape, it's better to properly fill it, not leave it half-filled with hatching lines.

That said, I don't think you should be worrying about texture right now. Construction and form comes first, with texture a far, far, far second. I'd like you to try this homework again, considering what I've mentioned above. Don't apply any texture until your very last two pages, instead focus entirely on creating solid constructions. Here's a few specific tips to keep in mind:

• Apply the ghosting method to every single mark. Never draw without thought

• Draw from your shoulder, and think about whether or not a long, smooth stroke will do the job much better than whatever series of short segments your arm is itching to put down.

• Do the lesson 1 and 2 exercises (pick a couple each day) as a warmup before starting this stuff. It's very clear to me that you've let that stuff fall by the wayside.

• When you draw a form as part of your construction, make sure you close that form. Don't leave them open without any sort of cap or end, this immediately flattens the form out.

• Place contour lines strategically - two or three, carefully placed, will be far more effective than a dozen placed haphazardly. Also, remember that spacing them out evenly will look more man-made, while having them at irregular intervals will look more natural.

• Less is always, always more. Your instincts tell you to draw draw draw draw. You must rein them in, and remind yourself to draw only what is necessary to convey your idea, or to help yourself understand what it is you're drawing, in terms of how those forms sit in 3D space.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-04-28 19:08

Unfortunately I'm pretty adamant about the ink thing for people who submit homework, so I won't be able to accept your lesson 1 submission. Good to hear you've got someone else to comment on your progress though. Definitely helps to have an external judge.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-04-28 15:16

Honestly, I think you might want to go back to the beginning and go through the homework in ink and submit it for a proper critique, just to ensure that you're getting the most out of the lessons instead of just spinning your wheels.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-04-28 15:10

Quick-ish is right, your work is really sloppy, and I don't really think you're going to get much benefit from rushing through things like this. If you really hope to improve, you need to take the time to focus and be patient.

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

2016-04-27 12:31

Unfortunately, no. My reasoning against accepting homework done digitally goes beyond the disconnect that comes with a regular tablet, but rather hinges upon the medium itself. I explain that in detail here: http://drawabox.com/article/ink.

While there is certainly benefit to doing the lessons digitally, I do not recommend it until you've been able to go through the exercises in ink, so that you fully know what to expect of yourself when completing them.

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

2016-04-26 21:45

Definitely better. Still lots of room for improvement, but you now seem to understand how to approach the material, and it's just a matter of practice now. Well done! Also, that snail looks fantastic.

I did notice that your hair texture on the spider was still quite scribbly and hectic. Remember that it's not imperative for you to fill in every space on the object - even just adding those tufts along the silhouette's edge can be enough to communicate the idea that the spider is hairy. Less is often more.

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2016-04-25 20:30

Ahh, I see what the issue is here. Your first step, where you start to lay in your construction - you're being far too timid and careful. You're afraid to put ink down, afraid to make mistakes. It's the lack of confidence that has a fundamental impact through the entire course of your drawing.

You're not drawing through your ellipses - likely because you don't want your construction to show up in your final drawing. Don't think of your lay-in like something that will mar your results. Your lay-in is part of your drawing, it is the very core of it.

The process you need to take is as follows:

• Draw your initial forms - forms, not shapes, these are 3D masses (think in terms of organic forms) which intersect with each other. Be aware of where they intersect, as this will help you think in terms of 3D space. Remember that while two 2D shapes intersect at points, 3D forms intersect in 2D shapes, whole slices/cross-sections. You may want to actually draw in this shape of intersection between your forms. When drawing your initial masses, don't be timid - draw them like you'd draw anything else. No need to use too much line weight, but there's absolutely no need to try and think ahead in terms of making your lines easy to hide. If you find that your lines are coming out overly thick and clunky due to not yet being able to fully control your pen pressure (this is normal), simply working bigger helps, because the thickness of your lines will ultimately be smaller relative to the size of the overall drawing.

• Add on more forms to continue developing your construction. In successive passes, break down simple forms to add more complexity where it is required.

• Remember to be confident, but not sloppy - don't just draw whatever comes to mind, think about what you want to add next, and how it will contribute to the construction.

• Once your construction is finished, now you can pick out certain lines to reinforce with additional line weight - adding thickness to some lines will in turn cause other lines to recede in your drawing. This step allows you to organize what you have in front of you, adding structure to what can sometimes seem a little bit chaotic.

• Finally you can add texture - one thing I noticed in your work is that you have a tendency to think very much in terms of line. Don't be afraid to let lots of lines cluster together to create clumps of solid black. Texture that is made up of lots of individual lines tends to get very noisy, while letting things mass together helps reduce that noise and contrast.

I'd like to see you do the same thing I requested last time (four more pages, multiple photos each), applying what I've outlined above.

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

2016-04-25 18:56

One thing that jumps out at me is the tail of that dragonfly - you established a cylindrical form for the tail, fleshed out its volumes, then entirely disregarded them and built separate segmented forms. Admittedly, the segmented forms were better thought out as a starting point, but they lacked the contour lines and general construction. Your initial lay-in is not a rough sketch that you use to approximate your forms, ultimately to be replaced. The lay-in is a construction made up of solid forms, all of which come together to produce your object. Don't think in terms of rough sketch >> clean drawing. I talk about this at length in this article, how you start off with a simple form and gradually build up complexity in successive passes.

Also, you're still completely reliant on hatching when texturing. All in all, you haven't really incorporated much of my previous critique.

That said, I don't have much other advice to give you, so you'll have to think on what I've said and the links I've given you. You're doing okay, but you have plenty of room for improvement, and your constructions could be much more solid. Whether or not you choose to apply my previous advice is your business, so I'll mark this lesson as complete and let you move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-04-23 23:55

Very nice work! I'm loving the variety of orientations, sizes, proportions and configurations. The only recommendation I have to offer is that it might help a little more to draw your minor axis all the way through the cylinder, rather than between the centers of your ellipses. Remember that its purpose is to cut each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension. If the line only penetrates halfway through an ellipse, it's harder to catch mistakes where the alignment is a little bit off.

Anyway, great work completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2016-04-23 22:57

There's a lot of good stuff here, but when it comes to leaves, you're missing some of the key concepts in regards to constructional drawing. More specifically, when you deal with wavy, complex edges in your leaves, you generally tend to jump right into that complex detail, rather than starting off with simpler shapes and forms as described in the constructional drawing article. It was linked at the beginning of the lesson, and some parts of your homework do demonstrate that you likely read over it, but I'd like you to take another look and pay special attention to the demos on the page dealing with leaves.

Secondly, you're drawing confidently, which is good, but you're also drawing quite loosely at times, which is not. A loose, sketchy approach will undermine the solidity of the forms you're building up - be sure to close your shapes and forms, rather than leaving them open and half-drawn.

Lastly, you're relying FAR too heavily on hatching lines for your textures. Sometimes your lines are well organized and structured, other times they're rather sloppy. In general though, you need to be pushing yourself beyond thinking about every texture in terms of short hatching lines. Look closer at your reference images, look for other kinds of visual patterns that you can leverage. Also, don't scribble. There were a couple drawings where things got rather chaotic and uncontrolled.

I'd like to see three more pages of plant drawings. Like I said before, there's a lot of great stuff here, but you've got to tighten up your approach. Think more in terms of constructing your object from closed forms in 3D space, focus on building up complexity instead of jumping right into it, and push yourself to go beyond your comfort zone in terms of texture.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 15: Exploring an Environment"

2016-04-23 01:16

The last thread for this lesson had been locked for like four months, but no one noticed til now. Well, here's a new thread for it!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"

2016-04-23 01:13

The last thread for this lesson had been locked for like four months, but no one noticed til now. Well, here's a new thread for it!

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

2016-04-21 21:59

Yes, you should be doing warmups before drawing every day - it's not only a matter of benefitting from repeating the exercises daily, but it will also impact the quality of the drawings you do that day. It helps immensely to spend a little bit of time getting in the groove of things before focusing on whatever lesson you're doing that day. A lot of people find that if they start cold (jumping straight into the lesson material) they struggle more, and waste more time. It's like jogging - you'll run better after stretching and walking a little first.

That said, you don't really need to warm-up for more than 15-20 minutes. As I mentioned before, pick one or two exercises from lessons 1 and 2. You don't have to do the full amount the lesson requested, how much you do is entirely up to you.

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

2016-04-20 22:44

There are only a couple pages of these that really demonstrate very much understanding of the material in the lesson - the rest are examples of what you mentioned, your habit of rushing and getting caught up in the sensation of drawing, and doing so without actually thinking.

Your cerechus chrysomelinus and your ant are both alright, but they also show tell-tale signs of rushing and generally being sloppy, drawing without putting much thought into the marks you're putting down.

If you remember from lesson 1, a huge part of the approach to drawing we espouse is the application of the ghosting method. The method itself is all about thinking before every single stroke you put down. You certainly are not accustomed to this, and likely haven't really kept that in mind, so you really should go back and reread that material. Sketching loosely and hoping things come together simply will not do.

my hand starting scratch the paper in chaotic movements

To put it simply, don't allow yourself to do this. Before you put any mark down, you must think about the mark you want to draw, consider what it adds to the drawing, and what purpose it serves. Furthermore, when you draw a form, make sure you draw complete forms. Don't get caught up in thinking about your final result - we're not in this to create beautiful finished drawings, this is all about understanding how the forms come together to construct solid representations of what we're studying. Your current haphazard approach does not do anything to develop your sense of form or 3D space, because it is demonstrating very little awareness of what solid, complete forms exist in your construction, and how they interact with one another.

From the looks of it, you haven't really kept up with the exercises from lessons 1 and 2 - even after having them marked as complete, you should be continuing to do them regularly, picking one or two each day to do as part of a warmup routine. Those exercises aren't ever 'finished'.

Make sure you go back and reread those lessons to refresh your memory. Furthermore, make sure you read this article on constructional drawing.

Lastly, once you've done that, and once you've revisited the things you've forgotten, I'd like you to try this lesson again.

As for your questions:

1. There's nothing wrong with learning from multiple sources, but do not combine them until you are finished absorbing the material from a given source in its entirety. People have a tendency to blend everything they're learning all at once, and they end up missing the most important facets of each in the process. For instance, when doing my lessons, I expect you to follow everything described in the lessons exactly as it is written.

2. While it's okay to practice working digitally simultaneously, in your specific case I would be a little cautious. Digital media has the tendency to make beginners develop bad habits (mostly related to rushing and being impatient). These are issues you're already wrestling with, so it might be better to put off working digitally until you've been able to get those things under control. That is entirely my opinion, of course.

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

2016-04-20 22:31

Alright, there are a few issues which I detailed here: http://i.imgur.com/leK3rBM.png. You'll find that i've outlined numerous technical approaches you can tweak and adjust, but also a lot of it is how much time you put into observing the image as you lay in your initial forms. For example, your starting ellipse for the head was at a completely different proportion, so you ended up correcting this later on - this entirely undermines the idea of constructing the object from forms, since you've instead treated that initial lay-in shape as a rough sketch rather than the basis for the construction.

Also, I'm a bit puzzled by what drove you to take photos from a million different angles, but none from overhead. In the future, only take photos overhead, those set at an angle have various degrees of distortion due to one end of the page being further from the camera than the other.

With those notes in mind, try another four pages of insects. Remember to spend the majority of your time observing your reference, and look back to it continually - never work from memory. Also be sure to keep looking for naturally occurring details that describe the curvature of the forms (natural contour lines), and use them to inform your decisions.

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

2016-04-18 18:35

Looking through your work, the overall conclusion I'm coming to is that you may not be investing as much of your time and focus on the lay-in/construction phases. Most specifically, your contour curves are falling short - they don't fully convey the sense of wrapping around rounded forms, so they don't push their volumes. Looking at your work from lesson 2, I know you are capable of doing it quite well - perhaps you've just fallen out of practice. Remember that you should be keeping up with the exercises from lessons 1 and 2, picking a couple each day and doing them as warmups.

Furthermore, remember that you're constructing an object out of 3D forms - in this case, mostly organic forms. You've got to keep that suspension of disbelief in your mind, that these forms you're drawing on a flat sheet of paper exist in three dimensions. On top of that, whenever two 3D forms intersect with each other, their intersection is a 2D shape - you should be aware of how these forms are intersecting (since they're mostly simple organic sausage-forms, your intersections will mostly be ellipses), and you should draw them in.

Lastly, your texturing tends to be rather scratchy and half-assed. Looking again at your lesson 2 work, you're clearly capable of far better than this. Don't rely on hatching lines, look clearly at your reference images and identify the visual patterns, flows and rhythms that exist there. Consider how the visual elements are spread out across a surface, if it's even or clustered in small groups, or however else. When it comes to hair, try to avoid drawing every little strand, and instead consider how those strands clump together. Leveraging the silhouette of your shape (breaking up the silhouette's edge) can allow you to convey texture very effectively without having to fill in the entirety of the object. You can find more information on dealing with hair/fur here: http://i.imgur.com/Eb6hr0h.jpg

I'd like to see four more pages of insect drawings, and for each drawing I'd like to see photos after the construction stage, and then after the texturing stage.

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"

2016-04-17 17:04

The approach we're using - that is, estimating things approximately, instead of plotting out everything and applying all of the rules of perspective exactly, certainly does have its shortcomings. For instance, with our approach there's no exact way to draw a perfect cube. Distances in our scenes are interpreted in relation to one another - you can technically draw any box (within reason) and claim it to be a perfect cube, after which point every other form you draw must conform to that.

Knowing how much smaller to make your boxes based on how far they are is, again, a matter of considering how the boxes relate to one another. If you look at the drawing on the right of this image (which I did as a critique for someone else a while back), you can see how I've pointed out how each box's size relates to one another. It's all about how far away they are from the viewer, and which ones are closer or further. Those in the corners are going to be the furthest away, (think about the Pythagorean Theorem - c^2 = a^2 + b^2, where c is the distance of a corner box - let's say top-right for example's sake - from the viewer, while a is the distance to the top-center box and b is the distance to the left-middle box).

You make a couple arbitrary assertions of your own (my smallest box is going to be this small, my biggest box is going to be this big) and every other size in between falls in.

Now, despite this perhaps overly technical explanation, rather than fussing over all of this, I encourage people not to overthink it. There's a lot going on, and because of that your first several attempts are going to be terrible failures with inconsistent proportions. Through attempting the exercise multiple times (even after the lesson is marked as complete, which is only to say you're going in the right direction, not that you've reached your destination) you'll subconsciously develop a sense of 3D space and how those forms relate to one another, while only keeping a shadow of the concepts I've mentioned above in the back of your mind.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-04-16 21:31

I generally use google image search, though both lessons 3 and 4 have links in their homework section to some fairly high-res reference images on flickr.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-04-16 20:55

You're certainly making progress over the course of the set! Nice work completing the challenge. One suggestion I have is that you may benefit from having the minor axis line cut through the entirety of both ellipses, rather than stopping half-way between each. The important thing is that you align both ellipses to the minor axis, such that the minor axis cuts both into two equal, symmetrical halves. It's easier to accomplish this when drawing the ellipse so all of it sits on top of the line.

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

2016-04-15 23:40

Nice work! I have to say, the bed bug gave me flashbacks - when I was taking the dynamic sketching course at concept design academy, the room I was staying in had bed bugs, and worse still, I didn't have a bed frame - my mattress was directly on the carpet.

Anyway, your forms and constructions are excellent. I get a clear sense of your volumes, and your understanding of space. Your textures are at times a little weaker - I'd say that when you try to push the boundaries and go a little more complex in your textures, you tend to fall back on scribbling to various degrees. I'd say it's a particularly controlled form of scribbling, but I can still see that sort of randomness within certain defined parameters. When seen from far off it's not a huge issue, but if you look up close you start to see the chaos.

I encourage you to continue trying to approach it with more control than that - think about the flow and rhythm of the textures - even when a texture may appear to be random and chaotic, there is always an underlying structure and direction. Here's a demo I did a while back of some insect-specific texturing: http://i.imgur.com/a3Lh6ER.jpg

Anyways, textures are a minor part of the work - our main focus lies on form and construction, which you handled phenomenally. Keep up the great work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Edit: There's one last thing I wanted to mention - I noticed that the fine control of your pen pressure, and the general nuance and subtlety of your linework has improved significantly since your first submission for the plants lesson. Well done!

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

2016-04-15 23:06

You may have struggled, but I'd say you came out on top - many of these drawings are very well constructed, especially the soap dispenser, the mouse and the adapter.

Your weakest area generally involves cylinders, more specifically ellipses. This is fairly normal, as they take quite a bit of practice to nail down. That said, be sure to check out the material at the 250 cylinder challenge if you haven't already. Looking at your drawings though, I get the sense that you have. I do want to remind you in that case about the relationship between the near/far ellipses of a cylinder - the end closer to the viewer will generally have a smaller degree, so it'll be narrower. The water bottle on the right side of page 1 has that ellipse at the base of the cap that seems to be wider (of a higher degree) than the base of the bottle, which makes it read a little strangely.

Anyway, you're doing very well and are definitely moving in the right direction, so keep up the good work. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2016-04-15 13:38

1. No idea what you mean by this. That said, the super-imposed lines exercise will generally diverge on one side from your goal, so you'll definitely see some separation at the end even though you're doing it correctly. The goal is of course to have the lines sit perfectly on top of each other with no separation, but that takes far more practice than the first lesson requests. All you're doing here is showing me that you understand what to aim for.

2. Right now you're more used to drawing confidently once you've got that momentum before the pen touches the page. Unfortunately this approach will not allow you to draw as accurately as you'll need to, and you'll end up with a lot of lines that start too early, or start too late. Just because a particular approach is easier doesn't mean it's better - it simply means you don't have enough practice with the other method. What you need to practice is your ability to draw with a confident pace despite starting from a resting position. When ghosting your lines, make sure you're repeating the same motion - that is, starting from a resting position at the fixed point, not before it.

On the topic of not understanding how to move your arm from your shoulder, try doing this exercise:

• Hold your arm up in front of your chest and pivot your hand at the wrist back and forth, familiarizing yourself with the limited range of motion it offers.

• Then lock your wrist and pivot your arm from the elbow, back and forth. This will give you a considerably wider range of motion as you move your arm back and forth, again familiarizing yourself with how it feels.

• Finally, knowing what it feels like to move your elbow, lock that joint (as well as your wrist) and try moving your arm from the shoulder joint exclusively. Being familiar with the movement from a particular joint should make it somewhat easier to also cease and lock that movement altogether. This in turn will allow you to familiarize yourself with what it means to draw from your shoulder.

When I was getting used to it, I'd perform this exercise whenever I felt a little bit uncertain about how I was moving my arm. It's a quick thing you can do in five or ten seconds to refresh your memory. The other important thing is not to pivot at multiple joints simultaneously - a lot of people try to get by moving their arm from their elbow and shoulder, but I don't recommend this for beginners as it makes the motion rather muddy instead of deliberate and controlled.