Proko - Project - Blob to Box

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Project - Blob to Box

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

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Drawing BasicsFull course (185 lessons)

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You’ll learn the most important foundational concepts for drawing anything and soon you’ll be drawing pictures out of your imagination or from reference.

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About instructor

Stan Prokopenko

Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.

assignments 468 submissions

Stan, when you said that this is the half way point of the course, that made me very happy, that there is going to be that much more of it. It’s been so great, and so helpful, so far. This course has been such a great investment! There were so many helpful concepts, so far, that I never fully picked up or understood from other courses, and or art lessons. Things that make everything else, that teaches concepts for line drawing, easier to manage. In that way, this course also adds value to all those other courses, for me. I just wish I would have had this course earlier because it would have saved me so much grief, and struggle. I really appreciate the thought and detail that you put into your lessons, Stan. Art teachers often explain things in ambiguous ways that leave me uncertain. But it’s clear to me that you really take the time to figure out how to explain things in the clearest way possible, and I just wanted to say how much I appreciate it. I am feeling really excited about drawing, and my art goals are feeling more attainable. I can not speak highly enough about this course! It’s already a 10 out of 10 and it’s only half way through! I absolutely love this course! Thanks for helping fill in the gaps of my drawing knowledge. Sorry it won't seem to let me post without hitting Request Critique. LOL

LESSON NOTES

If you struggle imagining boxes and drawing the angles correctly, it might help you to start with a blob! Here's a simple project that will help you improve your visualization skills, making it easier to draw forms in perspective.

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ASSIGNMENTS

If you struggle imagining boxes and drawing the angles correctly, it might help you to start with a blob!

Level 1 - Blobs to Boxes

Start with a Rough Shape: First loosely draw in a 2D shape that represents the size, placement and tilt of the box.
Indicate a Plane: For example, if you're looking down at a character, draw a simple oval to represent the top plane of the torso. This doesn't require perfect angles or a detailed box yet. Just an oval in the area where the top plane should be, and roughly the correct size.
Determine the Twist: To understand the form's orientation fully, you need to indicate the twist. This can be done by drawing a line that divides the front plane from the side plane.
Refine the Form: With the basic orientation of all 3 visible planes established, you can start refining the form into a more defined shape. The rough blob with the 3 sides will help you imagine a box. Now use what you learned in the previous lessons to draw the angles with proper convergence.
Finalizing and Cleaning Up: Optionally, you can draw over the rough box with a black pencil and clean lines, fixing any errors. This step allows you to do an additional step of refining the drawing.

Level 1, you don't need to draw the torso like I did in the video. Just draw individual blobs to boxes scattered on the page with varying sizes, angles, and twists. This exercise will help you slowly improve your visualization skills, making it easier to draw forms in perspective.

Level 2 - Blobs to Boxy Torsos

Practice a few blobs to boxes, and then move on to doing exactly what I did in the video. Draw a head, rib cage, and pelvis in various poses. The additional constraint of human-like proportions and the boxes interacting with each other makes this much harder.

Deadline: Submit by 04/19/2024 for a chance to be in the critique video!

Carlos Javier Roo Soto

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Surprisingly, this torso boxes where harder to do when I was looking at my reference as oppose to the ones I did before from imagination. I think what happened is that I was too fixated at capturing the anatomy instead of finding the perspective. What do you guys think?

Chuck Ludwig Reina

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Nice work Carlos! One thing to also keep in mind when you're looking at a photo like this is there is a lot of photo distortion. The perspective gets really extreme when you use a camera this close to the model, which can make it hard when judging the boxes. But I think you did a great job. Keep it up!

Carlos Javier Roo Soto

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First attempts to this courses Blob assignment. Before and after watching the demo. I already did this exercise with Marshall's course, and is turning out much easier than I expected. So after I watch the critique video I'll do a few more and move on to the next assignment. But other than line and photo quality, what do you think needs work?

Ronald Moss Jr

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My 2nd attempt. This time I used my favorite marvel superhero; Daredevil, as a reference.

Ronald Moss Jr

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10d

My soul purpose of taking this course was learning the basics of drawing human beings: MARVEL COMIC BOOK STYLE! So, when drawing this "Blob" character I was either thinking of Spider-Man or Daredevil or...one of them. Just kept it simple. Please feel free to criticize, but please keep it positive.

Carlos Javier Roo Soto

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Ok, I'll say the biggest issue here is the fact the boxes are not converging and they have conners that bend to weird places. What I think is happening is that you are panicking because you are not sure where the lines should converge. For example on the foot to our left, I think in that position is would show so little of the side plane that is almost uncomfortable to your brain so it wants to extend it, or if would only show 2 planes. Try pausing for a moment before you start drawing and really think of where you want the box to be placed. Another thing I recommend is to draw through your boxes so you know where to position them on top of each other. Go back to the one point, two point and three point lessons and keep practicing boxes warm ups. Another thing you can do is to grab a box or boxy shape object (A book or container) that is close enough to the box you want to draw, and move it around until it matches the position of the box you are drawing and see how the lines converge. Don't put it too close to you. since that can distort the perspective, instead you move around the box to see how it changes. As for the pose, I suggest you go back to the rhythms lesson and practice poses from reference before worrying about drawing them from imagination. Slightly draw the rhythms or gesture of the pose first and use it as a guide to draw the boxes. And pay attention to the example I use here, use a cross contour line to figure out the position of the box. And remember this assignment id to turn blobs into boxes, so follow a long the example Stan is giving in the video. And keep practicing the straight lines warm ups from the line section, draw with your whole arm and avoid chicken scratches as much as you can. You'll get better eventually. Good luck.

gunk

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26d

As someone with partial aphantasia this method helps a lot. I can’t really visualize things before I put them down on paper, so I usually start with an extremely rough and messy sketch then ‘dig’ through that mess on higher layers to carve out a clearer idea. When it comes to boxes I struggle with their size and rotation and resort to redrawing them multiple times and still not getting the right results, but using the blob to box process made that process a lot easier. The results came out much more gestural than before as well, I assume because this method helps me see the drawing in bulk rather than individual portions.

Clément Douziech

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1mo

Really nice ! It makes the box drawing a bit easier

@toufubox

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2mo

A pretty meditative exercise.

Bag of Snakes

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2mo

Great exercise. I can see how this would directly translate to construction a figure/composition. Makes approaching an unknow pose much easier, starting with such loose lines. Room for improvement with my proportions, but they're ok for now.

@jfd

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2mo

This was fun. Did not expect that.

Rich Acosta

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2mo

These actually did get easier the more I did them. I even tried a couple of overlapping ones. I started getting the hang out of it and kind of just wanted to do like 100 more of these. I might make them part of my warm up. Also, to make it easier to see I did the blobs with a dark pencil and the boxes with a red. I probably could've made the lines of the blobs darker so they'd be easier to see. Oh well, c'est la vie!

Jose Anton

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2mo

My project

Ty Rogers

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2mo

level 1 and level 2 done!

Caden Y

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2mo

Trying my hand at the level one boxes with some loose shading thrown in

Travis Rossi

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2mo

Blob Box project. Level 2.

@dbd1000

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2mo

Here's my assignment.

Applesmapple

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2mo

My blobbies! This was hard. As I'm doing it i feel like yeah I got it! Then I watch the critique and the demo and I have all the problems!! Lol drawing to a convergence point subtly is difficult but I can see it getting better and better. I dont really understand anatomy fully so I look forward to working on that more because even though it's a struggle, this fun ^_^ Be well everyone!