Perspective MADE EASY a step-by-step guide Coming soon! June 2015 ROBBIE LEE
One-Point Perspective Let s start with one of the simplest, yet most useful approaches to perspective drawing: one-point perspective. It can help you add convincing depth to virtually anything with edges, which is a lot of stuff. It can even help you create entire scenes like the room I m in right now All thanks to a single vanishing point in the middle of the picture. by the time you finish this chapter, you should be able to: identify a one-point perspective system. recognize when and when not to use onepoint perspective. draw a variety of objects with one-point perspective depth. Find the center of rectangles in perspective. Draw vertical and horizontal lines consistently. Check out IMPACT-books.com for free demonstrations and extra content. 7
one-point an alternative perspective approach overview LET S begin WITH A BRIEF EXPLANATION OF HOW ONE-POINT PERSPECTIVE WORKS. say you re in the middle of the road, looking straight ahead at some boxes, and you want to draw what you see. As long as you keep looking straight out, your drawing would look something like this. notice that the vertical edges of the boxes are drawn with vertical lines. (sometimes it s not so obvious.) HONK! any edges that go straight across your field of vision (shown in blue) should be drawn with perfectly horizontal lines. parallel to shoulders = horizontal lines you could also think of these lines as being parallel to your shoulders (as long as you don t turn your head or shift your eyes). other edges are parallel to your line of sight and perpendicular to your shoulders. But in your drawing they would, as if they re all lined up to a single vanishing point (V.P.) in the middle of the picture. these lines would never intersect in reality, no matter how long they are this last behavior, where parallel lines appear to go to a vanishing point, is called convergence. and convergence to a single vanishing point in the middle of the picture, along with horizontal and vertical lines, is the essence of one-point perspective. 8 Visit IMPACT-books.com/perspective-made-easy for cool bonus materials!
1 one-point perspective boxes the most common strategy for drawing objects in one-point perspective is to start with a simple box. let s draw a few and then turn them into everyday objects. place a vanishing point in the middle of your picture and draw some rectangles with horizontal and vertical lines. These simple rectangles will be 2 connect the vertices (corners) of the rectangles to the vanishing point. shelf book toaster bed 3 draw the back edges by redrawing the original vertical and horizontal lines. 4 add lines to the front of the objects using additional horizontal and vertical lines. Later you ll learn how to recognize how far back to go, but for now use your best guess. 5 Wrap the lines around the sides and tops, and angle them towards the vanishing point. continue to use only horizontal, vertical or vanishing point lines, even inside the objects! 6 round off the edges and add details. be aware of line thickness as you work. i use thick lines for the outside, thin lines for the inside and broken lines for soft edges. 10
distance between an vanishing alternative points approach and cone of vision So we know the vanishing points go on the horizon line, but where exactly? When we draw, we re not really drawing an entire field of vision We re simply drawing a tiny piece of it in the middle. This next part is kind of tricky, so if you have an extra brain, go ahead and put it in. that s why drawings normally don t include all the curvature and distortion of our peripheral vision. this smaller excerpt of the field of vision is called the picture plane. Like the viewfinder on a camera, it s a tiny slice of the 3-d world around you, We can simulate the projected onto a 2-d surface. concept of limiting our field of vision to a picture plane by using our hands AND CLOSING ONE EYE. I can easily adjust how much is captured in my picture plane by moving my hands closer in or farther out. for example, if i put my hands here, the 180 I normally see is limited to a tiny 20. 20 this restricted field of vision is known as a cone of vision*. Scooting my hands in a bit opens the cone of vision up to 60. with my hands pressed up against my face until it hurts, I m at 90. 60 90 *A CONE implies a CIRCLE, BUT THE PICTURE PLANE IS ALMOST ALWAYS A RECTANGLE. THAT CAN BE CONFUSING! the important thing to remember is that the picture plane is the part of your field of vision you re actually drawing, and the cone of vision is what determines how wide (and tall) your picture plane is. 40 Visit IMPACT-books.com/perspective-made-easy for cool bonus materials!
There s a strange, inverse relationship between the cone of vision and the distance between the vanishing points. putting the vanishing points this close inside the picture plane means i m cramming my entire 180 field of vision into the picture. it s so distorted that i actually have to use curved lines to draw it! if i scoot the vanishing points out to the very edge of the picture plane, i m restricting my field of vision to a more reasonable 90 cone of vision. this is still pretty wide, so there s still quite a bit of distortion from cramming that much of the scene into the picture plane. vanishing points at the edge of the picture equals a 90 cone of vision. putting the vanishing points outside the picture plane creates a narrower cone of vision and therefore less distortion. that s usually what we want. vanishing points here = about a 50 cone of vision Going back to the camera analogy, close-in vanishing points are the equivalent of standing close to your subject and zooming out, and spread-out vanishing points are like standing far away from your subject and zooming in. Check out IMPACT-books.com for free demonstrations and extra content. 41
how to place an alternative vanishing points approach off the page how far out you put your vanishing points is really up to you. it just depends on how much you want to cram into your picture and how comfortable you are with freaky distortion. For most drawings, estimating about 2 /3 of the page s width and scooting each vanishing point that far off the edge of the page works pretty well. Of course, you ll need to adapt that rule for irregular shapes. FOR REALLY TALL pictures, scoot EACH POINT out further (one page width perhaps) tape down strips of paper. this is great for classrooms. the strips can create an uneven surface, though, so remove them before you do any final line work. draw on the table. if you really need accuracy, tape your picture down first or draw a few guidelines on the table for when your paper moves. scoot them out a little less for really wide pictures. so long as they re far out enough that things don t look oddly distorted, you re okay. but don t scoot them too far out or everything will just look flat. but no matter what you decide, there s a practical problem: what do you draw them on exactly? draw small! your picture plane doesn t have to be the size of your paper. you can draw small and enlarge and trace it, use it as a study for a bigger drawing, or just crop it and let it be. Wing it. Just imagine where the vanishing points are. You know they re on the horizon line, so you just have to remember how far off the edge of the paper they are. 42 Visit IMPACT-books.com/perspective-made-easy for cool bonus materials!
two-point perspective boxes now that we know where, why and upon what to place our vanishing points, let s draw some boxes! one at eye level (a common sight), one below eye level (also common), and one above eye level (very rare). it can be helpful to picture the first few lines in a two-point box drawing as if you were drawing a stick figure in pain, WITH ITS ARMS AND LEGS BEING PULLED BY THE VANISHING POINTS. 1 draw a horizon line and add two vanishing points FAR OFF THE EDGE OF THE PICTURE. 3 draw two vertical lines to finish the box. 1 repeat steps 1 and 2 from above, but keep everything below the horizon line. it s okay, i m into it! 2 2 draw a vertical line that overlaps the horizon line. connect its top and bottom to the vanishing points. add two vertical lines to create a casual chevron shape. 3 yeah, do it! For the top of the box, connect the top left corner to the right vanishing point, and the top right corner to the left vanishing point. 1 for a box above the horizon line, simply reflect the previous steps over the horizon line! once again, draw that horizon line and the stick figure, but this time keep it above the horizon line. 2 draw two vertical lines to create a chevron shape. 3 connect the bottom left corner to the right vanishing point and the bottom right corner to the left vanishing point. ooooh! remember: The object s position relative to the horizon line is what determines whether you should draw its top or bottom (or neither). 43
MECHANIKA Revised & Updated Creating the Art of Space, Aliens, Robots and Sci-Fi Coming soon in September 2015! DOUG CHIANG Executive Creative Director on the Star Wars films
Free-form Designing C-1 military robot One of my favorite techniques is free-form designing. I start with only a vague idea of what I want to do in this case, a large military robot. I purposely don t plan ahead, because I want the drawing to evolve and take on a life of its own, leading me in unexpected directions. Tools Surface Premium white 28-lb. (105gsm) color copier paper, 11" 17" (28cm 43cm) Markers Cool Grey 30%, 50%, 60%, 70% Other 8-inch (20cm) 45 /90 plastic triangle with inking edge 12-inch (30cm) metal ruler Air marker system Daler-Rowney Pro White opaque watercolor paint Fine-tip black pen Pointed round kolinsky sable brush, 1/16" (2mm) diameter Small and large ellipse guides, sizes 10 80 Stage 1 Sketching Using the Cool Grey 30% marker, start sketching shapes, any shapes. Eventually I ended up with an armored turtle-like machine. This was a good start, but I thought the overall proportions weren t unique. Stage 2 Continued Exploration I made the body more dome-shaped, with a central eye in the front to give it direction. This was better but the overall shape was still rather bland. I kept the single eye but moved it up to the top of the body, then made the body taller and narrower. Immediately, the new silhouette was more interesting. At this stage, notice how all the marker lines from the trial-and-error explorations have created positive and negative shapes. 80
Stage 3 Construction Lines and Defining Details With a fine-tip pen, draw in construction lines to anchor the amorphous marker sketch and give it structure. Working from front to back, start the detailed pen work, outlining the vague marker shapes. I turned mine into hinges, joints and, finally, a leg. Stage 4 Final Detailed Lines Sometimes it s hard to see all the shapes immediately. Keep moving around the drawing; this will ensure you don t overwork any particular section. Complete the final details, but leave the two far legs unfinished. This allows the viewer s imagination to fill in what is not drawn, keeping the drawing fresh and interesting. Stage 5 Adding Tones With the Cool Grey 30%, 50%, 60% and 70% markers, start adding tones, working from front to back, large areas to small. Note that you re adding the tones from front to back instead of back to front in this case because the dark tones of the shadow areas will clean up marker bleeds and help define the leg shapes. Move fast so the markers don t dry out between applications. Stages 5 and 6 should be finished in less than twenty minutes. 81
Stage 6 Finished Tones Finish adding tones, but don t add tone to everything. Notice again that the two far legs are left unfinished. This, in combination with the original markers from Stages 1 and 2, keeps the drawing loose and alive. Stage 7 Adding a Background Gradation Sometimes, all the exploration can get messy, so it s necessary to unify the drawing. Do this by adding a simple background gradation using the Cool Grey 70% marker with an air marker system. 82
Stage 8 Adding Highlights As a final touch, add highlights with Pro White. The highlights lend extra detail and a sense of dimension to the form. You can also use Pro White to clean up edges if necessary, but use it sparingly. It is not meant to be an eraser. 83