I'm tired of being awful.

So, here I am, a senior in industrial in my final two semesters.

I have an internship under my belt, have a product and it’s packaging I’ve designed being mass manufactured already, and have gotten plenty of feedback from designers from all over the world on my portfolio (well… just China, Japan, the US, and Italy).

What was the common feedback they all give me? Get better at sketching (save for the Italians… I swear to god some of their final renderings are sketched on restaurant napkins with crayon).

What have I been doing? Pushing it off!

For my portfolio and current sketches of the past few years, go here: Behance.

I’m done with this. So here I am, ready to spend 2-3 hours A DAY on sketching practice, save for the times when I’m really really busy. Here is where I am at right now with some of my sketches.

I would appreciate ANY and ALL feedback folks! I’m excited to see where I end up by the end of the year!



And some more to show where I am at right now.



Not a bad place to start. Your lines are a bit timid. Try upping your volume of sketching. Are you really sketching as much as you can right now? Also try doing overlays… and photograph those sketches better. Take pride in how you represent your work, because your work is synonymous with you.

Long weekend ahead. Pick a product and work on it over the weekend. Earbuds, portable speaker, coffee maker, drill, backpack. Focus on one to see how far you can take in just a few days. Try not to use the computer unless it’s for research. Next Tuesday show us tons of lose ideation sketches and maybe 3 refined sketches. Remember to also sketch details/small areas as well.

Sketching doesn’t mean you can’t use tools. Use a straight edge for straight lines – get a set of ellipse templates, French curves, and, maybe a set of railroad curves.

My process is basically making little thumbnail sketches quick, sketch out a perspective cube and overall product with gray topic, and sketch the piece with a pen.

I’m really struggling with ideating and then coming up with forms to sketch, and also the inability to sketch more complex forms (such as chamfers or curved surfaces) really makes it difficult for ,e.

I visited FH13’s firm this summer (shout out to him for motivating me to focus on sketching), and I think he said it best. I don’t have a library of interesting forms in my head, much less be able to sketch these forms.

This is among the best of what I’ve created since this thread was made. It seems like I’m failing a lot more than succeeding, as I’ll get to the point of no return on a sketch where I just make too many mistakes then throw it away.

Am I going about practicing sketching the right way? Are underlays really the way to go? Those youtube videos where the guy cranks out a great sketch freehand isn’t the norm?

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