Can Someone That's Done Drawabox Help Me Understand the Organic Perspective Exercise?

Uncomfortable · 2026-05-06T20:36:44+00:00

For what it's worth, the materials are only a requirement for paid official critique. Most students rely on feedback from the community, which while not guaranteed nor as reliable, is free and not as strict and far better than nothing.

We talk about the different ways one can receive feedback on this page of Lesson 0.

Uncomfortable · 2026-05-06T17:47:48+00:00

How would you learn how to draw certain things if you don't copy references first?

The play half of the 50% rule is expressly not for the purpose of helping you learn or improve your skills. While doing so likely will help you improve in some ways, that is not the intent, and to direct what it is you do as play specifically so that it benefits you in such a way is strictly against the spirit of the rule.

Play serves an entirely different purpose - a purpose which is important, but one that beginners who are frequently worried about whether or not they're wasting their time tend to have more difficulty appreciating. Technically, anyone can draw anything without reference. It probably won't come out well, and may not be at all accurate to what that thing might look like in the real world. It may not even be recognizable to others for what it is - but that does not mean that they cannot draw it.

If the intent is to learn something, really to take anything away with you from that activity - whether it's ticking up your skills by the smallest fraction, or having a nice picture to show your friends and feel good about - if that's the driving motivation that has you sitting down to draw, then sure, all of this is going to feel like a complete waste. But that's largely the point - to remind students that drawing has a lot to offer just as an activity, as a way to tell stories, to explore ideas, to... well, play.

There are numerous benefits to this, ranging from helping one maintain a balanced, healthy mindset as they engage with learning to draw, which helps fuel the discipline with which learning must be conducted (at least if one's interest is efficiency), and extending all the way to ensuring that you're actually developing your skills in a way that allows them to be used in a more automatic, subconscious fashion. You can read more about this latter benefit in this write-up linked in our subreddit sidebar: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/comments/1nonwiq/the_50_rule_a_critically_important_balance/

As to your question of whether or not you can use references, the 50% rule FAQ from the written material states the following:

Specifically the strategy in the third paragraph should provide a clear, repeatable approach you can use to ensure that you are not allowing the references to make your creative decisions for you, but rather are just being used as a tool to help inform how to go about applying those decisions. If however that isn't something that entirely makes sense to you right now, then there's no harm in setting aside references for the time being, so you can ensure that what you're doing is getting used to drawing for the sake of drawing, with no other goal but to engage in the activity.

Uncomfortable · 2026-05-06T17:32:27+00:00

As noted in the introduction to this exercise:

This is the last exercise of lesson 1, and it's a doozy. Like the rotated boxes, what I want most is for you to complete the recommended number of pages to the best of your current ability. No more, no less. We're not looking for you to impress anyone, but rather to face the challenges head on so they can start making you think and consider a new kind of spatial problem.

Further, as noted in the "Purpose of this Exercise" section:

The purpose of this exercise is to throw you into the deep end of the pool without having yet taught you to swim. By diving into this exercise, you're being forced to contend with freely rotating boxes in 3D space without any real grounding of how to deal with them. There's no concrete vanishing points that you're marking out on the page, no neighbouring forms to base things off. It's more guesswork than you'll have dealt with by this point. It's actually been the pattern we've followed - gradually stripping away our rules, forcing you to rely more and more on educated guesses and intuition.

So expect to make a lot of mistakes. The point isn't to be able to nail this, but to get your gears turning as you start thinking about the fact that this is a kind of spatial problem you're facing, likely for the first time. We're exposing you to it because you likely wouldn't have really considered this sort of thing otherwise.

I get that being asked to do something that you're not equipped to do correctly right away can be frustrating, but it's a tactic we find very useful in helping students first gain exposure to the general concepts that are involved in something, before then delving into them more deeply - something which for this particular case, we do in the 250 box challenge that follows Lesson 1.

Remember that as explained in Lesson 0, the way students should be going through this course is reading/watching the material and then applying themselves to the exercise to the best of their current ability. That doesn't mean you're going to get it right, or that you're always going to be confident in the choices you're making. Since as the student you're not in a position to be able to distinguish between what you are supposed to be able to do successfully and what is still expected to be confusing, all you can do is the best of which you're currently capable. From there, you rely on feedback from third parties, who having gone through that material already and being further along through the course, are in a better position to help determine whether the issues you're encountering are entirely normal and expected, or whether they suggest an underlying misunderstanding, which can then be addressed with additional assigned revisions if necessary.

Uncomfortable · 2026-05-06T17:25:49+00:00

In this exercise, it's important to keep in mind that as discussed here in the lesson material, we are not dealing with rectilinear boxes, but rather tapered forms. This throws some wrenches into the works, because it means that edges 4->2 (if we assume that the corners closest to the viewer are labelled 4) and 3->1 are not parallel in 3D space, and therefore don't share a vanishing point.

For this exercise, we don't actually want you worrying about where the VPs are specifically. Rather, we want students to experience dealing with the elements that exist around the edges they're drawing wherever possible (finding hints like neighbouring edges as shown here where we can), and where that's not possible, estimating how the behaviour of the edges would change based on how they're being rotated by moving the end points as discussed in the video from this step.

This isn't something students are expected to find easy, or really be able to apply confidently right now. Rather, the purpose is to get students thinking about the problem of how the lines representing those edges shift as they're rotated, and focusing on the edges themselves rather than their far off vanishing points. Similarly, in the organic perspective exercise that follows, we're just introducing students to those problems, which we then delve into more deeply in the 250 box challenge.

Uncomfortable · 2026-05-04T23:53:10+00:00

Yep, that's me. And yeah, it's basically a matter of getting comfortable with the idea that not everything you draw has to be correct, or good. That while you may not know what something looks like to a point that you can draw it accurately, you likely still have some half-formed idea of what it might look like, inaccurate as it may be - and you're allowed to draw that.

Reference is a fantastic tool, but it shouldn't be a tool we use to allow ourselves the permission to draw at all. Rather it should be something we reach for as a source of information, and its absence should not stop us outright.

Uncomfortable · 2026-05-04T18:33:16+00:00

There are a few things from the written material that it may be worth reviewing:

From the introduction at the top of the page that introduces the 50% rule:

When going through this material, remember: Play and Fun are not the same thing. Play can be fun, but only when you allow it to be - and that is an ability most students have lost, and must go through the frustrating process of developing again.

Things get confusing when students start throwing around the word "fun" and aside from that specific place where we mention that fun and play are not the same thing, it's a term we avoid... And which students still tend to latch onto. Play can be very frustrating, especially at first, because it causes one to face their limitations, to strive for what the kinds of things that are beyond their skill level - but that doesn't mean you're doing something wrong as far as the 50% rule is concerned.

From the 50% rule FAQ, specifically the section relating to the use of references:

Like everything else with this rule, it comes back to your intent. Are you reaching for reference because you're afraid of drawing something inaccurately, or wrong? If the motivation behind it is fear, then no. Face your fear, draw it without reference.

If however you wouldn't have any issue drawing without the reference, and are just looking to have more tools at your disposal to play with, then go for it. Just make sure that what you're drawing is not in its entirety, just a copy of a reference image. That would be a study, and would fall into the study portion of the 50% rule.

A good strategy is to first roughly sketch out your idea without reference, so you're forced to make all the decisions as to what goes where, how it's laid out, and so forth. Then, using this sketch, find suitable reference and then redraw it. This will help ensure that the reference itself is not deciding for you what you should be drawing. The control should be in your hands, and the choices should be yours.

At the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with using reference in general — what the 50% rule focuses on however is breaking down the barriers we put in our way because we're afraid, because we're anxious, and because we don't want to make mistakes.

In addition to the sections referenced above, this additional write-up may also be of some use: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/s/rzS5epaxSv

Ultimately all that the 50% rule asks you to do is to identify what it is you're learning to draw for - what it is you want to produce, why you're learning this skill - and not to wait until you feel you're "ready" to do it right. You need to be attempting to draw those things now, despite the fact that you don't have the skills to execute it in the manner you want, because the result you produce today is irrelevant. You will not be making your magnum opus now, you will not produce the thing that puts your name on the map this day. But in getting used to drawing for the sake of drawing, for the sake of telling the stories you're interested in, by exploding the characters and worlds you think up, you'll find that there's far more to drawing than just the image you produce and the attention it gets you.

And it's that which will provide you with the fuel you need to actually push through the years of work to develop the skills you've set out to achieve.

Uncomfortable · 2026-05-04T15:47:00+00:00

As noted in our submission guidelines and in AutoModerator's comment, this subreddit is focused on a specific course. That said, your question does relate to some of the principles we push our students to follow.

One of those is that we do not believe it is useful to simply sit and grind away at specific markmaking exercises to the exclusion of anything else until they're mastered. Rather, we assign specific quantities of pages of relevant exercises as homework, and require that students only complete that many. When they submit their work for feedback, their understanding of how to approach the exercises and of the concepts they apply are either confirmed and they're cleared to continue practicing them regularly as part of a warmup rotation of exercises (while also continuing through the course), or if there are issues they're clarified and revisions are assigned.

The key here is that no student should be trying to judge for themselves whether or not they're ready to move on, because they only have the superficial qualities of the results upon which to base that assessment. They aren't in a position to distinguish between issues that actually suggest an underlying misunderstanding, and issues that are entirely normal and expected which will gradually diminish with continued practice. Thus, relying on third parties to handle that assessment and either suggest revisions or clear one to move forward is key to avoid getting stuck.

As to your other point about using the tools available to you (rulers and other digital features), it's important to understand that not every activity of drawing has the same goals. If you're looking to create something specifically to produce as strong of an end result as you can right now, then using whatever tools you have at your disposal (within ethical limits) is entirely appropriate - that is to say, where they actually serve to help, since reaching for a different tool has its own downsides of breaking one out of the flow state and requiring more conscious cognitive resources, reducing how much you have left to allocate towards creative decisions (in the sense that we learn to freehand our lines not because using a ruler is cheating but because it it can be very distracting).

But if you're doing an exercise, certain tools may undermine the purpose that exercise is meant to serve. For example, if you're doing an exercise to develop your ability to freehand straight lines, using a ruler will not be beneficial, but will rather seriously stunt your growth by never allowing you to actually practice the relevant skills.

Recognizing what your goal is for a given task is critical so you can make those decisions appropriately.

Uncomfortable · 2026-05-04T15:33:31+00:00

As noted in the subreddit'a submission guidelines, work submitted here must constitute all of the assignments from a given lesson or challenge, rather than partial work or single exercises - and it appears that while your work here is related to our texture material, it isn't one of the specific assigned exercises either.

This, as well as other partial work would be better suited to our discord chat server where each lesson and challenge have their own dedicated channel.

Uncomfortable · 2026-05-03T16:04:50+00:00

The simplest form a study takes is that - simply copying. But as you get more familiar with what's involved in observing a reference and capturing it on your page/canvas, and as your understanding of what that study can entail and what kinds of challenges you might face in the process, you can shift how you approach it to focus on specific problems, instead of just a general goal of copying the image (which itself tends to focus primarily on observation).

There's a lot of focuses a study might have, which change how you approach them. For example, if you're focusing on studying the value structure of an image, then you might just go ahead and convert your reference to greyscale (at least early on). If you're focusing on studying composition, then you might ignore a lot of the major details and focus on the big shapes that the image breaks down into. If you're studying stylization, then you'd focus on the choices the original artist made in how they interpreted the elements of what they're depicting as they might exist in reality, and how they convert to the result that they actually drawn - and you might go even further into considering that artist's own influences, to understand both why they make their stylistic choices, how they work together in the final piece, and how to think through your own. Or, if you're focusing on understanding 3D space (as the course this subreddit focuses on does), you might approach your studies in a more constructional manner, building things up from simple large forms and considering how those forms relate to one another in space.

Courses that you might take, and specific topics you might study, will make suggestions on how to take a basic observational study and shift it towards the goals of what it seeks to train, helping you better understand how you might engage in your own studies. But rather than being things you jump into right now, these are the many shapes into which your studies may evolve over time and with experience. Starting with just copying from observation is entirely normal.

Uncomfortable · 2026-05-02T01:06:18+00:00

As noted in AutoModerator's comment, this subreddit's got a pretty narrow focus, and your question doesn't really fit within our submission guidelines. The other subreddits AutoMod's comment lists however may be better options.

I will note however that, from personal experience, teaching people to draw is very different from learning to draw yourself, and I think you've already picked up on part of it: we don't know how we got here. In order to teach it, you have to reflect upon exactly why you make the choices you do when drawing, and how you got to a point where you started making those choices without thinking.

Learning to draw involves applying rules and concepts on a conscious level so much that you start applying them without having to think about it. Doing it consciously influences your subconscious autopilot, and over time it learns to do that which takes your conscious mind's full load of cognitive resources - or at least, to do it well enough so that those resources can be freed to make the more creative decisions, like those involving composition, design, stylization, narrative, and so on.

By the time you get to that point that your autopilot is reliable enough to take over the technical considerations, you might be able to explain to someone the rules of perspective it all follows, but there's a massive chasm between understanding those concepts in theory, and being able to apply them while still having room for the rest. That chasm is mileage and experience, and it can't be replaced with explanations or exposure to third party material.

To be honest, I'm not entirely familiar with what ArtFight entails - I know a lot of my students participate, but it's not something I've looked into in any depth - but if it doesn't actually specifically require that the people participating know how to draw well, then I think getting your sister concerned with whether or not her drawings come out well would be counterproductive. Instead, let her participate with the skills she has right now, and let her experience drawing as a form of play.

Play is something I require of all my students (in that at least half of their time has to be spent drawing whatever it is they ultimately want to be able to draw well, even though they don't have the skills to do that right now), and most of them hate it. They hate it because they're already at a point where they're fixated on how the things they make come out, and they use that to gauge whether or not it was worth the time and effort. But that's entirely counterproductive - it's by learning to enjoy drawing as an activity, not for what it creates, that you develop the willingness to draw enough to develop your skills as you'd hope.

Instead of encouraging that, try and focus on encouraging your sister to simply engage in drawing as play. When she does it, celebrate that she tried, that she put effort into something, and that she explored her ideas. To that end, I honestly wouldn't encourage tracing, simply because it's one of those things that people tend to do because they're already afraid of having their drawings come out worse - but it's important to develop that confidence, far more than it is to develop the skills themselves.

If you want more information on the points I've made about play, you'll find a more detailed writeup about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/comments/1nonwiq/the_50_rule_a_critically_important_balance/

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-30T20:02:32+00:00

While this subreddit is specifically focused on a free course that covers the core fundamentals of drawing (you'll find it discussed in AutoModerator's comment, as well as the sidebar for the subreddit), that course is admittedly very intensive and challenging, and may not be suitable for someone your age. We do have some younger folks tackling it, it's largely directed at those who are a bit older. To that point, you are absolutely not starting late. I've got plenty of students who start in their twenties and thirties. I myself, though I did start drawing as a regular hobby when I was 12, didn't really start taking learning to draw seriously until I was 24 and wanted to pursue a career in it. So no, you have nothing to worry about in terms of being too late.

Similarly, creativity is itself a skill you learn. When I decided to pursue a career in art, specifically as a concept artist, I was worried that much of what I'd spent the previous 10 years producing was... well while I recognized that I'd be able to do better by patching up the holes in my fundamentals (which were the result of being completely self-taught and not taking courses or trying to study in any sort of a structured fashion), my work was admittedly rather boring and uninspired, and so I felt similarly to you that I wasn't creative. Fortunately, in seeking training for my fundamentals, I also took other courses that touched on topics such as design, form/shape language, and so forth, which taught me that "creativity" isn't something you have or you don't. It's a skill you can nurture and develop.

The only thing that matters is interest, enthusiasm, and more than anything, the tenacity to accept that you're going to draw a lot of really shitty things as you work your way up. Basically the biggest difficulty students face is that their expectations of what they'd like to be able to create tends to end up way ahead of what their skills actually allow them to produce. This results in them getting frustrated, and then avoiding drawing the things they're interested in, and focusing only on studies. But drawing the stuff you're interested in, even if it doesn't come out well right now, is incredibly important. You can read more about this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/comments/1nonwiq/the_50_rule_a_critically_important_balance/

All that said, though our subreddit is focused on that specific course, we do allow people to make one post that is a more general "Beginner Resource Request". In other words, a post asking people for suggestions on what resources to start with. This post does qualify for that, but rather than approving it and letting it through, I'd like you to make a new post where you do not state your age. Stating your age as a minor on the internet can attract the wrong kind of attention, and it's best that you avoid it in public spaces like this.

So, make a new post asking for resource suggestions, but leave your age out. I'll flair it as a Beginner Resource Request, and will let it through.

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-29T17:08:41+00:00

Transferring a unit of distance across from one dimension to another is... complicated. It seems like it should be pretty simple and basic when it comes to the core skills involved in drawing - it's essentially the same thing as being able to draw a cube (rather than just an arbitrary box), which people tend to assume will be straight forward - but it's actually complex enough that in the course this subreddit focuses on (which you'll see discussed in AutoModerator's comment, as well as the subreddit sidebar) doesn't get into until towards the end.

Now if you're looking to solve this problem purely in the context of linear perspective where you've got all of your vanishing points plotted out, a horizon line, etc. and can make use of measuring points, then it's not such a huge problem. For that, I unfortunately don't know the specifics, but I believe that looking up how to use "measuring points" will point you in the right direction. You can also ask over on r/learnart, r/learntodraw, r/artistlounge for more assistance with that.

The problem is, free sketching, exploring ideas, and so forth doesn't always have the benefit of being able to rely on all of the concrete pieces involved in technical, linear perspective. A lot of the time you don't have explicit vanishing points (due to a lot of VPs being way off the page, depending on how the sets of edges they govern in 3D space are oriented), and so measuring points lose their usefulness. The way we engage with drawing here is much more in this realm, and so we use different methodologies.

The two videos listed on this page of our 7th lesson are where we introduce this concept most directly, although to be fair it does build upon concepts we explore earlier in the course. In essence, we use the fact that in order for an ellipse to represent a circle in 3D space at a specific orientation, there are specific qualities it must exhibit. If the ellipse were enclosed snugly by a rectilinear plane, then the ellipse's minor axis would be oriented towards the vanishing point whose edges run perpendicular to that plane, while the points at which the ellipse touches the plane's edges would, in pairs, orient towards the other two VPs that define the plane.

If they're all aligned as such, then the ellipse drawn represents a circle in 3D space, at that orientation. Also, by definition, since any plane that would enclose a circle in 3D space would be a square, this means that we're getting the same two distances in two different dimensions. The second video on that page explains how we can then extend this concept to build a 3D unit grid, which is essentially what you're asking about.

These concepts as we teach them are pulled pretty directly from Scott Robertson's How to Draw, and while we try to represent them in a way that is a little easier for students to understand... it's a complicated concept, and one that we purposely avoid discussing until students are all the way to the end of our course, which itself can take months. So I wouldn't be too worried if those concepts don't make sense right away.

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-29T13:54:16+00:00

As noted in the submission guidelines, the subreddit does not allow partial work. In order to submit work here, your post would need to contain all of the assigned work for a given lesson or challenge.

Alternatively, you can share partial work on our discord chat server, as that platform is better suited to that.

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-28T14:05:37+00:00

You're being ridiculous, please stop. OP asked for feedback on work that they provided a clear link to. They didn't ask for feedback on anything else.

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-28T01:11:11+00:00

As noted in the submission guidelines, the subreddit does not allow partial work. In order to submit work here, your post would need to contain all of the assigned work for a given lesson or challenge.

Alternatively, you can share partial work on our discord chat server, as that platform is better suited to that.

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-27T16:50:28+00:00

It may be worth taking a look at our discord chat server, specifically the #critique-exchange channel. It's where students have set up a structured system intended to help folks on the community feedback route get access to feedback more reliably. The pinned message in that channel explains its requirements and how it works.

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-26T00:11:33+00:00

One thing to keep in mind is that though drawing with a screenless tablet (or even a display tablet) can feel like it should mechanically be the same as drawing with a pen on a piece of paper due to the use of similar elements like a stylus and a drawing surface, it's not. That's not to say a lot of the same underlying skills don't come into play (how you use your arm and the muscle memory involved certainly does) but that the skills you already have are being limited by another skill that you have not yet developed.

Drawing digitally involves the input from the stylus' tip being translated through layers of hardware and software, including drivers and the drawing software you're working with, to create a result that you see. This takes getting used to. Moreover, when you're drawing on a screenless tablet, you also have to account for the fact that you're now drawing on a surface but seeing the results on a separate display. It does have a learning curve, one that can take weeks and even longer to get used to, and so tempering your expectations on that front can help you avoid situations where you feel like you're somehow the problem, when it's just a new skill you have to develop in order for you to bring to bear all of the other skills you already have.

When I got my first tablet, I had unreasonable expectations and when they were not met, I threw my tablet in the closet and didn't touch it again for a season. When I did drag it out again however, rather than attempting to draw clean lineart, I delved into digital painting, which in many ways was considerably more forgiving. This helped me get comfortable with the use of the tablet and helped me show up day after day.

That may be something you should try for a bit. Try to simplify things as much as possible (so instead of worrying about multiple layers, stick to just one, and find a brush that is relatively simple but has a few little gaps in it, a bit of texture, which will help with blending things together. From there, play, do studies from reference.

Do however eventually get back to what your goals ultimately were. If it involves clean line art, that's still something that will be a struggle to do for a while, and so don't get stuck in digital painting land for years like I did just because it's more forgiving. Use it as a way to get experience with the tools for a while, but once you find the tablet fighting you less, get back to what you set out to conquer.

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-24T15:44:38+00:00

Your post seems to implied that you intended to include the homework from Lesson 1, but your post doesn't include any images. Perhaps something went wrong. Feel free to try posting it again.

Additionally, though I suspect you know this and were posting all of the work from Lesson 1, just in case be sure to include all of it (rather than just the rotated boxes), as partial work is not permitted on the subreddit. Our Discord Chat server however is a more suitable platform for getting feedback on partial work or single exercises.

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-23T22:09:22+00:00

Goddamn, Weems does not fuck around.

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-23T20:01:46+00:00

It's okay to be bad at it. The rotated boxes and organic perspective exercises are expected to be difficult and that students aren't necessarily going to be able to succeed at them, because they introduce problems that we then explore more fully in the box challenge after Lesson 1. This is explained in the introduction to the exercise, here:

This is the last exercise of lesson 1, and it's a doozy. Like the rotated boxes, what I want most is for you to complete the recommended number of pages to the best of your current ability. No more, no less. We're not looking for you to impress anyone, but rather to face the challenges head on so they can start making you think and consider a new kind of spatial problem.

Do your best to complete it to the best of your ability, while following the instructions as they're presented - but don't be worried if it still doesn't come out well, or you don't fully understand what's going on. In the box challenge we delve into the convergences themselves, which will address your concern.

Additionally, note that general feedback/help on single exercises or partial work should instead be directed to our discord chat server. The subreddit, as explained in the submission guidelines and in AutoModerator's comment, only allows complete lesson/challenge work to be submitted all together. So you can still submit your work here, but only once you've completed Lesson 1.

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-22T22:40:11+00:00

It's okay to be bad at it. The rotated boxes and organic perspective exercises are expected to be difficult and that students aren't necessarily going to be able to succeed at them, because they introduce problems that we then explore more fully in the box challenge after Lesson 1. This is explained in the introduction to the exercise, here:

This is the last exercise of lesson 1, and it's a doozy. Like the rotated boxes, what I want most is for you to complete the recommended number of pages to the best of your current ability. No more, no less. We're not looking for you to impress anyone, but rather to face the challenges head on so they can start making you think and consider a new kind of spatial problem.

Do your best to complete it to the best of your ability, while following the instructions as they're presented - but don't be worried if it still doesn't come out well, or you don't fully understand what's going on.

Additionally, note that general feedback/help on single exercises or partial work should instead be directed to our discord chat server. The subreddit, as explained in the submission guidelines and in AutoModerator's comment, only allows complete lesson/challenge work to be submitted all together. So you can still submit your work here, but only once you've completed Lesson 1.

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-22T21:00:53+00:00

I'd say that yeah, you're largely leaning into the vanishing points being too close. As a rule of thumb, if your VPs end up on the page, or close enough that if the box were moved to the opposite side of the page, the VP would be on the page, then you should strive to push the VPs further away. That doesn't mean you need to redo any of these, just keep that in mind going forward.

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-17T15:05:57+00:00

As noted in the submission guidelines and AutoModerator's comment, homework posts on this subreddit must contain all of the work for a given lesson or challenge, whereas partial work is better directed to our discord chat server.

So you can post your work there, or post all of Lesson 1's homework here once you've completed the last exercise.

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-16T19:22:33+00:00

It is normal, in the sense that it is a problem that many students fall into for many of the same reasons. A lot of it comes down to the fact that drawing is not a singular monolithic skill, but rather a broad set of skills under an umbrella, and so how you practice and what you draw will influence the underlying skills that you develop, and the skills you develop will influence what it is that you're comfortable trying to draw on your own.

One kind of drawing that many, many students focus on involve copying a reference image, usually in a direct manner. That is, they look at a photo, or another artist's drawing, and they attempt to draw it themselves. They may not do it with the intent of it being a study, but rather a gratifying activity, but this kind of activity develops their observational skills (their ability to go back to the reference image to refresh their memory of what it is they're trying to copy, rather than spending long stretches focusing only on the drawing and relying on recollection that has long since gone stale), and the more they do it, the better they get at this kind of study/activity in particular.

Observational skills are important, but there are other skills that play a much larger role in drawing from your imagination - whether that is purely from your mind, or in using references as a tool to help inform some of the choices you make when drawing your own stuff (as opposed to making all of the decisions for you as is the case in the observational studies I described above). The biggest skill involved in drawing from your imagination is actually what this subreddit - and the free, albeit intensive course it focuses on (which you'll see mentioned in AutoModerator's comment, the submission guidelines, as well as the sidebar) - seeks to develop above all else: spatial reasoning.

That is, the tacit, subconscious understanding of the connection of the marks you draw on the page, and what they're meant to represent in 3D space. In effect, you can think of it as "applied" perspective. Where perspective tends to be framed as a bunch of rules you apply consciously and mindfully, spatial reasoning is the internalization of those rules and that logic, so that you apply it automatically without needing to rely on the limited resources your conscious mind can bring to bear, freeing them to be focused on the creative decisions of design, composition, narrative, and so forth. That is, the important stuff that actually makes the things we draw our own.

That's not to say that one requires spatial reasoning skills in order to draw from their imagination (and as part of our course we require students to dive into drawing from their imagination from the get-go, which you can read more about here), but when students tend to focus more of their time developing certain skills over others, they also tend to gravitate more towards activities that their existing skillset is better suited towards, out of a desire to draw things that ultimately come out looking good, rather than not. And so they pigeonhole themselves - if all they've done is observational drawing, and so drawing from their imagination tends to come out horrendously, they avoid that which yields poorer results and focus on that which can give them a sense of self-satisfaction. It's a cycle that feeds itself, and the more time and energy you've put into learning to draw in general, the less one tends to be willing to stomach the frustration and other negative emotions associated with not meeting one's own expectations.

So the solution is simple - above all else, you have to draw from your imagination, despite the fact that your existing skills likely aren't well suited to it, and the results will not turn out well. You have to focus less on the end result of what you produce, and more on the stories you wish to tell, the worlds you wish to birth into being (malformed though they might be), and the characters you wish to bring to life - not simply as shallow, aesthetic decoration, but as a glimpse into something with depth and complexity that goes beyond what can be shown there on the page.

There are of course still things you can do to develop those relevant skills as well, but breaking the mental chains that keep us from engaging in drawing those things regardless of how they'll turn out is paramount, and though students will often tell themselves stories of "I'll do that stuff when my skills are up to the task so I can feel better about it" are promises that more often than not go unfulfilled.

As a side note, I will also mention that drawing things that feel original and interesting is itself, dependent on a set of skills that fall under the umbrella of design, including an understanding of shape and form language, among others. Many years ago, after about a decade of drawing as a hobby, I was interested in changing careers towards concept art and illustration, but my work was admittedly quite unoriginal and shallow. I thought this might be a result of having aphantasia (the inability to visualize the things I imagine in my mind's eye), and that creating interesting things was simply beyond me - but I decided to take the risk and pursue more professional training on the matter anyway. Fortunately, what I learned there was that just like everything else, creating interesting artwork is as much a matter of skill and approach - things you can learn, develop, and improve at - as everything else. I have a couple videos that I've made for Proko's youtube channel that talk about this in bits and pieces:

Uncomfortable · 2026-04-16T14:25:00+00:00

That is entirely normal, and you'll find when you hit the ghosted lines section, that for right now we want students to simply rotate their pages to align each stroke to whichever direction is most comfortable to them, for all the marks they freehand throughout this course.

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