It is an intriguing breakdown of an image whose perspective isn't immediately present to the viewer. My only knowledge of water and perspective Is work like Thomas Eakins' and the rowboats he would paint on water. However, it's more traditional in that approach, as the water is treated as the ground plane. In this piece, however, I find it fascinating that the forms were drawn as if the water were a solid structure, almost like rock. If rendered differently the upper rapid could easily become a rockface rather than flowing water. I think this contributes to the composition interestingly, making the upper rapid seem much more subdued than the frothing pool below. This makes me hope for even longer and deeper breakdowns of artist's work in the future. Great stuff Marshall!

I found this subject to be an opportune moment to revisit form intersections. Personally, my goal when focusing on construction is to make it as clear the occupied space the subject is within. I find the visual more useful and appealing unless all the volumes merge into one larger, more complex volume. This of course quite hard and still these days involves me having to stop and study how a particular form of intersection would present itself. I struggled the most with solving heads as they seem to turn out quite complex if you try to be specific at all about their form. I was trying to avoid just turning them into a box or cylinder, while still keeping the construction overall simple and readable. I was correcting a lot of errors while working on this, so I apologize if certain sections seem smudged, as a pastel pencil doesn't erase as easily as graphite. Overall, I'm happy with my breakdowns, and looking forward to applying this approach more often in the future. I will include my references just so it is a bit easier if any happens to feel the inclination to offer a critique.

Foreshortening went better than I expected, I'm still not quite as happy about my line, though I can chalk it up to working with a pastel pencil this much for the first time, it handles quite strangely, especially when trying to get thin marks or lines that taper to a point, though I think I am starting to get the hang of it. I did some bonus 3-minute gestures their not my best work but, I think I can say that they are applying the bean appropriately. Foreshortening especially emphasizes understanding of proportion and overlap, I find it interesting that Stan makes a point to place a double contour if a form is notably moving towards the camera(ref. #8 and #9). For example, on #10 Stan still makes the pelvis volume slightly wider than the ribcage. I think this is because, in the context of the bean analogy, the ribcage is a bit thinner and taller, more of a classic oval, while the pelvis is a bit more short and stout. So in the future emphasizing the quality may be of benefit. I am also noticing I need to thin my beans out more when the model is more in profile. This has been a common issue of mine that I have had for several years, but I think I have a chance of improving the issue If I focus on it more.

Okay, I think my new approach toward form twist is working. The main issues I seem to encounter, have to do with adding the secondary crease and properly moving the center line across the form. Deciding if there should be a secondary crease still seems to be hard to determine. I think it only seems to be prominent on beans with S-shaped centerlines, but not all of them. If there is a significant pinch on one side, even if there is a significant twist, there is no secondary crease. Overall I consider this a success for my understanding of the bean. I just need to refine my instincts with how I juggle all these problems quickly.

Okay interesting results, some success with still some things to work out. I checkmarked the ones I thought were pretty close to what the answer ended up being. Overall, the main things I am messing up here are wrong overlaps and misidentification of twists. It seems I need to think about what form is necessarily on top, especially if the top/bottom of either form is visible. I need to make of point of dotting my volumes, before I run the center line, just like stan does. I also need to give my center lines a destination and avoid them running parallel to the contour. I think this is fine sometimes but usually, the center will change in distance from the outside contour. Lastly, I need to control the value of my lines better. I'm using the same pencil as stan and he isn't going nearly as dark as me and only presses a little harder when he is working on the pinch, I'll try following suit. I think doing so leads to clearer line quality.

After 2 years I have returned to this exercise. Working on these beans again, I am reminded how deceptively difficult it is to execute a good bean. Several nuanced issues are being solved with relatively few lines. This is great in terms of line economy, which is very important in gesture, but also requires more comprehension of underlying concepts to execute properly. As you can see in the attachments, I am by no means a master of this exercise. I have studied the figure a decent amount over the past couple of years, and it was always so demotivating to struggle so much with this simple concept. I regret to say I have avoided working on this problem. It made me feel like I had studied the wrong material all this time, and I can't help but think not understanding this concept holds my figures back a decent amount, especially my quick sketch. So what I'm going to do now is use this comment section here to think through my issue step by step, and marry things I do know with the concept I am trying to learn. This is bound to get very specific and detailed, but I just need the space to think. This will mostly be noted for myself, so if these ideas don't apply to how you approach things feel free to ignore them. With that being said let's get into it... I believe the main factor that complicates things, especially as I compare my beans to the ones Stan's did in this demo, is overlap, Understanding all the factors dynamically influencing the overlap between the two volumes seems to be key. Let's first look at this problem in its most simple form. Looking at the figure from above, the ribcage should necessarily overlap the pelvic form. Consequently, when looking from below, the pelvis is now on top. While this is true it only applies under high degrees of foreshortening becoming harder to apply with twists in the forms. So I'm going think through this issue in a Logical step-by-step manner. Lets first abstract and box out the bean into its 2-D graphic shape, ignoring twist for the moment (I'll include an example below). If this is done correctly, a single pinch, and consequently, an overlap becomes clear(excluding twists that operate by slightly different rules, which is explained later). This is why twists are so hard, at least for me. I get bogged down with visualizing the overall movement and turning of the two forms to each other, it slows me down and increases the chance I will miss the primary tension in the overall shape. My theory right now is for every bean, I need to solve the Primary pinch first before I even tackle the center line. This sounds obvious as I say it but I find this has a lot more practical use when considering the twisting forms of the bean, which I seem to struggle with the most. First, you solve the Primary pinch as described, and decide which side carries the most tension. In simple terms, decide whether the bean is crunching on its left or right. After this is done, tackle the center line. Decide whether it's an S, C, or if it crosses over both sides. Easier said than done of course, but I think I may have found a trick to avoid confusing myself when doing this. I just need to look at each form individually(pelvis and ribcage) and ascribe a sub-centerline for each in isolation. This may even be the best time to decide to exaggerate as it is still relatively early and it's simple to rotate one form at a time, rather than two at once. After I have done so I can combine the two into a larger more descriptive centerline. I think this method might help identify subtle twists, even double C pinches. If it is a twist go to the side that has been identified as the primary pinch, and on that side, identify the corner that is retreating away from the camera, its contour is on top of the same side edge. If the center line is an S repeat the same concept on the diagonally opposite corner, producing the secondary crease. It is important to note that if the S curve isn't very extreme the secondary overlap will either be very subtle, maybe to the point of being invisible and its only trace is a slight concave in the contour. Okay, I think this is a solid starting point. Next is to go through the tilt, twist, and foreshortening videos, and see how well this ethos applies. Hopefully, I can type out my updated thoughts in a day or two.

Abstract Goals: 1. Learn how to invent complex structures, specifically mechanical, that read as visually compelling and structurally real. 2. Learn How to create environments that have structure and are internally consistent 3. Learn a workflow that assists and promotes developing complex, perspective reliant, environments 4. Become overall more intuitive with perspective, even when just sketching. Specific goals/questions to have answered: 1. How best to break down references in perspective, to, integrate them into my visual library >  2. How do I use perspective to assist me when developing very organic and unstructured environments, such as forests, or open mountainous areas? I suspect it is done by laying out a floor grid and projecting out from it, but I'm sure there is a lot more to it. 3. What exactly is the proper way to go about trying to study and break down a structurally complex object, such as a futuristic spaceship, or various types of machinery that have many stacked and modified ellipses, chamfered edges, and discontiguous surface structure? 4. How do I make proper plans for a subject to be drawn, and reproduce the item from many different angles while maintaining proportions?

Big goals: Become a pro comic artist who can build up a story to resonate with people in 10 years. Now 2 years passed by Perspective Struggles or things that I wanna learn in this course. 1. Dun knows how to rotate forms and draw the same thing from different angles. Now I am doing it so intuitively that I don't even know if I am doing them right. 2. Want to explore more on different dramatic angles and camera effect 3. Being able to build a scene with depth and with story to improve some storytelling skills 4. Explore and learn more about master drawing from different eras coz I never learned any art history or whatnot. If possible, I really wanna learn the concept of adding personality in perspective and personality of different masters. I kind of get a sense or feeling for it sometimes ,thx to the basic course project, but not always and cannot liberally explain it. If possible please reply this, how do you guys know so many artists from different era? From school, or magazine or random scrolling through internet? Please let me know

I try to do a bunch of these before any of my daily figure drawing sessions. Still struggling with keeping them clean enough, I really worry sometimes about my line quality. I think i am starting to understand the twisting bean a little now but I guess time will tell with that. Hopefully these will look alot more consistent and exaggerated 1000 more beans down the line.

I try to do at least 20 2 min poses a day. My proportions are still all over but every now and then things will slot into place. Im struggling a lot with finding good 'S' curves from the shoulder to hand. Sometimes I just want to sit down and really think about which line to use(and I do sometimes), but I also don't want to lost the spontaneity of my lines. Also I think i'm lingering to much on random body parts, Like I could lose 45 sec just trying to get the angle of the head. I've been at this course about 3 weeks now and I'm pretty sure i'm seeing improvements. I don't really have anyone knowledgeable to show these, so this is my attempt at potentially obtaining another perspective.