"A Box!" --Sketch Topic for 3/6-3/12

I'm behind! Killing two birds with one stone -- dragon in a box!

Dude, what the shit. That's insanely good!


u r so gud @ dis lol


Editz0rz:

I like the styrofoam peanuts and the way the shadows are made of more or less parallel lines. I don't know what that kind of technique is called, but it's really cool and looks great here!

Thanks, Gongaa =)

*srl kills u w/luv*

That technique is called Hatching. The following definition is from about.com:


I like it rather than cross-hatching (crossed lines) because I can hold my hand just one way. Also, hatching tends to unify an image really well.

Fun with boxes!

I get frustrated with hatching because one shaky hand and the whole effect is ruined. OMG the lines are not perfectly parallel O_O. Yet another reason I like illustrator.

I wonder if that would be fun for a WST - everyone trying the same technique using whatever method. Maybe too restrictive?

I <3 your dragon and want to pull his beard, Wystro :).

Verileah, those boxes are gorgeous...positively jewel-like! I'm not sure why you're not charging for the privilege of gazing upon your exquisite designs.

lol, I love the little packing peanuts, an awesome touch to it !

Having stared at Verileah's boxes until my eyes started crossing, I have come to the conclusion that I have no idea how it was done, or how one would go about reproducing it by hand without drawing individual boxes. I'm pretty sure that's not how it was done, so what is it I'm not seeing?

Some boxes appear to be on their sides and others aren't. Is there a pattern? A secret message? OMG TELL ME

I wanted to create a sort of optical illusion that leaves you wondering which end is up with the boxes. What I did was...

1. Make a box out of skewed squares - mostly duplicating/reflecting the same shape to create each surface.
2. Fill each surface with a gradient and drop the opacity a little so that you can see all sides.
3. Duplicate the complete box, one right next to the other, until you have a wide row. Duplicate the row at a 45 degree angle so you have 2 rows, then duplicate the 2 rows until you have a page full of squares.
4. Run around deleting random surfaces of the various cubes until you see something you like. I had fun with this, and at one point I did put in a hidden message, but in the end I just did a Q*bert inspired thing where I moved from box to box, changing which way was 'up' every so often.
5. Crop the edges, save the file, and amaze your friends and family O_O.

Haha, I was gonna say something about Q*Bert when I first saw it, but then I noticed it was M.C. Escher Q*Bert on LSD so I, to quote Matt Foley, shut my big yapper.

I think this is the third sketch of mine where some kind of LSD reference has been made :X. Starting to think I -should- be tripping all the damn time O_x...

Plus one of those "magic" images where you have to focus on a point beyond the plane of the image (or cross your eyes if you're a cheater) to see it. Even though it's not flat-looking and not like colored television "snow", I still feel like I'm looking at one of those hidden images when I look at this.

wants to jump on Veri's boxes

It was funnier in my head than it is on paper.

Still pretty funny :D