250 Cylinder Challenge

8:11 AM, Tuesday April 9th 2024

Drawabox - 250 Cylinder Challenge - Album on Imgur

Imgur: https://imgur.com/a/J8TxCEe

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If this challenge was about teaching me some things about perspective, proportions and foreshortening then I think it worked quite well.

If it was about getting close enough most of the time then I failed. There are too many opportunities for mistakes and they add up until the end. If I miss the mark for a millimeter for example, then depending on the angle and the length of the sides of the box the vanishing point can jump for a handspan and the proportions will be off.

I also have two questions about the cylinders in boxes:

1) When drawing the boxes with dramatic foreshortening and close vanishing points I never managed to align the ellipses to the minor axes AND the vanishing points. One of both was possible. The sides of the boxes which are to hold the ellipses always have a tilt towards the vanishing point on their axes due to the three point perspective.

Is this just a mistake of me in constructing the side as a square or do I miss something else here?

2)With dramatic foreshortening I can imagine that the sides will get distorted and in binocular vision the ellipses will also look distorted. Which means the nearer half of the ellipse will look bigger than the farther half. Would this mean that the halfes on either side of the minor axis will not be symmetrical?

The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Staedtler Pigment Liners

Staedtler Pigment Liners

These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.

Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).

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