250 Box Challenge

The Challenge
Drawing boxes

Welcome to the crucible. If you haven't completed lesson 1 yet, I'd recommend you go and do
that first.

This exercise is probably what Drawabox is best known for (and perhaps most reviled). Which is
kind of unfortunate, given that it's a pretty basic exercise. As one might imagine, you draw a box
- then do it again another 249 times.

I cover it (partially) in my notes about the organic perspective exercise, but before we get to
drawing, I don't want you leaving thinking that this is all there is to the exercise. Some people
rush off without getting all the instructions, and fail to make the most of the arduous task. There's
a little more to it, which is explained in the video as well as below.

Drawing through your forms

This exercise is all about developing your understanding of 3D space and how forms can be
manipulated within it. In order to do this most effectively, we can't be thinking about what we
draw as being lines on a flat page, or simple flat shapes. We need to work towards understanding
how each form sits in 3D space.

The first step towards this is to draw through our forms. That is, drawing all the edges, including
those that we cannot see. Think of it like you have x-ray vision. We already did some of this in
lesson 1.

Doing this forces us to understand to a much greater degree how the forms we draw exist in
space. You may find it difficult to do so, and may find that often times the "back corner" fails to
fit with the rest. This is completely normal. As we draw a box, we regularly make small mistakes
in our angles and trajectories of our edges. We compensate for them as we continue to build out
our box. This accumulation of mistakes always falls on the lines that have yet to be drawn, and if
we're not drawing through them, it becomes quite easy to get by without having to deal with the
issues present. Once we draw that back corner however, we're forced to come to terms with our
blunders.
 Checking our convergences

Noticing and identifying our mistakes is a major part of the learning process, and sometimes it's
not necessarily something we can pick up on easily with the naked eye. For this reason, I
recommend that you apply the following technique to each and every box you draw for this
challenge.

Once you've completed drawing a page of boxes, grab a pen of a different colour and a ruler and
start extending your lines back in space - meaning, towards their implied vanishing points. You
don't have to extend it all the way (usually this will be impossible due to vanishing points falling
way off the page), but extend them as much as you reasonably can.

By looking at how a given set of parallel lines (that is, a set that is meant to converge towards a
single vanishing point) actually behaves, we can identify patterns in our mistakes.
 Line weight

One technique that is extremely useful both in reinforcing the illusion of solidity in our forms
and in helping to organize our linework and clarify how different forms overlap is the use of line
weight. Basically, it means making certain lines thicker than others (by going back over them
with a confident, planned stroke).

When adding line weight to a box, there are a few things to remember. Firstly, weight is relative.
You're not going in to make one line extremely bold on its own. You're going in to make it
subtly thicker than another. This doesn't require the addition of much extra thickness, just
enough to set it apart. Our subconscious will pick up on this difference even if our eyes don't
immediately, and will understand the kind of hierarchy this is creating.

Secondly, use line weight to create a solid silhouette. This means focusing that weight along the
outer edges of your form. If you focus the weight on the internal edges, you'll give the
impression that your box is really just a loose collection of lines. Adding them to the silhouette
on the other hand will enclose them into a single cohesive group.
 Foreshortening

As explained in the extra box notes of lesson 1, a box with a lot of dramatic, rapid
foreshortening, with its vanishing points positioned close to the form itself, is going to suggest a
very large scale or an object that is right up to the viewer's eye. Alternatively, shallower
foreshortening with far-off vanishing points and minimal convergence towards them is going to
imply an object that is either at a more human scale, or simply very far away.

I want you to make sure you practice both of these, perhaps with a bit more of a lean towards the
shallower foreshortening. These will be especially relevant in later lessons as we use boxes to
construct more complex objects, due to most things we're drawing not being so immensely large.
Still, it is valuable to get used to both situations, as they both pose different kinds of challenges.
Assignment

In order to complete this challenge, you must draw the following, in either fineliner/felt tip pen
(ideally) or ballpoint pen:

 250 boxes, drawing through each one, and applying the line extension method to check
for errors after completing each page (not after each box).
Lesson 0: 250 Box Challenge
Additional Box Exercises
Listed here are a couple variations on the basic box exercise that should be left until after you're
fully comfortable with constructing individual arbitrarily rotated boxes in 3D space. These
modifications can help develop one's understanding of 3D space further, but if the basics are not
grasped solidly enough, they will merely serve as a distraction.

Boxes on a string

I'd recommend tackling lesson 2, or at least reading the section in that lesson about thinking in
3D.

This one's a combination of the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes from lesson 1. Start
by drawing a line that swoops through 3D space, then place boxes along it, as though they're all
connected by a string and being pulled along.
Subdividing boxes

This one's complicated enough to merit a video. It discusses how we can take a box and start
cutting it up into many smaller boxes. We also discuss the accumulation of errors that occurs
when we approximate, and how to stay on top of them as you push through a construction, rather
than trying to avoid them outright.