Perspective Practice (due Dec. 8)

[Seedling]

Have you studied any perspective yet? If not, here’s your chance. Perspective is one of those academic basics that every illustrator should have at their disposal. I want you to read through Perspective 101 ( http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108180), and work through the assignments.

Be sure to use a ruler or other straight-edge.

If you’ve already done some perspective, then identify where your knowledge is lacking, and start there.

Be careful though: a major mistake that many people make with perspective is to assume “I already understand this, so I don’t need to practice it.” Drawing with perspective has a lot in common with playing a musical instrument: if you don’t practice it, then the skills to use it won’t be there when you need to perform.

You’ll notice that I drew the examples in Perspective 101 as if they were all transparent. You will want to do this as well, because whether or not those hidden lines meet up properly will tell you if you have made a mistake.

There’s a whole lot to perspective that I haven’t gotten to in Perspective 101 yet. If you skill level is above what I have written, consider doing a study that combines various elements of perspective that you would like to know better. For example, you could draw architecture with repeated circular elements in three-point perspective with shadows, or a two-point-perspective landscape of simplified human figures climbing on boxes. State what challenge you are setting for yourself, and then meet that challenge!

This time around, I’ll try to be available to do paintovers as well as written critiques.

I know this isn’t the most freeform or creative assignment, but once you’ve got these basics down, perspective becomes a tool that lets you do very creative things. In later assignments I’ll be including perspective in more creative ways.

Ready. . . set. . . go!

[JonZ_]

“I already understand this, so I don’t need to practice it.”

That's my moto, therefor I must participate lol.

But I don't know what to submit. Any idea?

[enrigo]

This might be a dumb question, but are we allowed to use reference pictures ?
Maybe not for the whole image but just for some objects that might be in the
picture ?

[Seedling]

Hi guys!


But I don't know what to submit. Any idea?

Sure! If you haven’t got all the basics yet, try the assignments in the Perspective 101 thread.

This might be a dumb question, but are we allowed to use reference pictures ?
Maybe not for the whole image but just for some objects that might be in the
picture ?

I would prefer that you didn’t, for this exercise. If you want to draw actual things instead of just boxes, you could try this (http://conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1485596&postcount=8).

[Rabbi Satan]

Awesome, thanks for this Seedling, I absolutely love doing perspective drawings! (It's like an addiction, I always feel a lot better after doing it, for some weird reason. I'm not normal, am I?)

I've been doing perspective drawings since I was little, self teaching myself. But it was more empirical perspective, rather than technical 1 2 3 4 point perspective. I'm also at this very same stage with Michael Mentler's Bottega at the moment, so I'll post my drawings for that as well, here.

But I've got a question that's been bothering me a bit, with one point perspective. I can easily draw a block in space on paper in one point perspective, but how do I draw freehand another block floating just a little bit to the left or right of it or attached to it, but NOT clipped/interspliced into each other?

Thanks Seedling, I'll post my several pages soon.



Edit:

I hope you can see what I mean Seedling. This is the only problem that I have so far with drawing forms in technical perspective. Its the last 2 images, one of them the two boxes are occupying the same space, and the other (The white/erased image) the boxes are next to each other but not occupying the same space. From what I can understand, this is all done with lines, but I just don't understand WHY this is. Could you help explain it to me Seedling? Thanks :)





Edit 2:

Ok, nevermind Seedling :) I took my sketchbook along with me when I went out with my mom to have some dinner at a shopping mall close to where we live (Damn, I LOVE Hong Kong, too bad I don't speak the language, even though technically I'm half Chinese, much to my eternal shame :( ), and I think I have everything figured out.



Edit 3:

Here's another perspective study. There's two red areas that I circled that I think are/is a point of interest.

Seedling, is it possible to make it look like two blocks are hovering in mid air close to each other, but not touching, without the construction lines? Thanks :) I guess this is going to get even more complicated with 3 point, 4 point, and spherical perspective.



Edit 4:

Here are 4 perspective studies I did for the Mentler Bottega:

http://www.crowcroft.net/gif/Bottega/perspective2.jpg

http://www.crowcroft.net/gif/Bottega/perspective3.jpg

http://www.crowcroft.net/gif/Bottega/perspective4.jpg

http://www.crowcroft.net/gif/Bottega/perspective5.jpg

[Seedling]

Hi Rabbi! I can see how enthusiastic you are about this. Fantastic! But I’m going to have to reign you in a bit, because you are getting ahead of yourself. :)

You’ve been struggling with this combination of two boxes, so I’ll use this as an example. In my first paintover, I’ve done three things: I have traced and extended the vertical lines in red, traced and extended the horizontal lines in blue, and I have used some other colors to draw in perfect rectangles over the near faces of the boxes.

All of the red lines should be parallel to each other, and all of the blue lines should be parallel to each other. I know it’s tricky to make lines perfectly parallel without a T-square; but it is vital to do so. Before you move along to two- or three-point perspective, you first have to get in the habit of drawing perfectly parallel lines.

In one-point perspective, if you begin drawing a box by first drawing a perfect rectangle, then that should cause everything else to fall into place. (If you start with a crooked rectangle, the whole drawing will just keep getting more and more crooked as you go, until it stops making sense.)

Give the one-point perspective exercise another shot, and strive for meticulously parallel lines.



About drawing objects in space, and showing which one is farther without the objects overlapping – there is no way to show which one is nearer or farther, actually. :) Well, that’s not quite true; there are other ways outside of mechanical perspective, such as atmospheric perspective, or by including scale reference, such as by having human figures standing on each object to give us an idea of scale.

If you are just using perspective to draw boxes, then you can fill the page with boxes and then decide which ones are in front and which ones are in back, or even which boxes are intersecting which other boxes. This is why it is important to use lighter and darker lines: use darker lines to show what is in front, and lighter lines to show what is farther away or hidden. (This is atmospheric perspective, in fact.)

If this doesn’t make sense, then hopefully that second paintover will. :)

[Rabbi Satan]

Thanks for your detailed paint overs Seedling, I really appreciate the help :)

My apologies for the wobbly and skewed lines, I knew that was going to cause I problem. I used the line command brush in photoshop and used a mouse to paint over the pencil sketches quickly, giving a skewed result. But I just wanted to imagine that the lines were all straight and parallel to each other. But anyway, moving on :).

The 2nd paint over (4th to 6th technically), was what I was getting at. I just couldn't understand before and couldn't fathom how hiding some lines and showing some lines could give those 3 differing results. I guess it falls under a light optical illusions category to have ALL the lines showing to see how differing persons would view the lines as any of the 3 paint overs you've painted :)

But anyway, I supposed you are right about that. And what you wrote prompted me to do a quick though experiment/sketch. If I had a big 2d block on a piece of paper, and drew another smaller 2d block in front of it - you are entirely correct, there would be no way to differentiate between them connecting, intersecting, or disconnecting from each other. So I guess I'll just have to be content with drawing construction lines to show the disconnect. I'll draw you another clearer example if you'd like of the conundrum that I'm boggling over.

Also, I posted about 4 more studies in my post up there, I didn't really like making new posts when I can edit old ones. I pre-emptly did what you suggested of drawing the closer forms in darker bolder strokes.

[Seedling]

My apologies for the wobbly and skewed lines, I knew that was going to cause I problem. I used the line command brush in Photoshop and used a mouse to paint over the pencil sketches quickly, giving a skewed result. But I just wanted to imagine that the lines were all straight and parallel to each other. But anyway, moving on :).

If you want to use Photoshop, you have every possible straight-edge tool that you could need at your disposal. Use guides for vertical and horizontal lines, use snap to stick your lines to those guides, and use the mouse and shift-click to draw straight lines.

Please add any new work in a fresh new post, so that I don’t overlook anything.

Yes, you can use one-point perspective in the manner that you are trying, but you still have to start out with accurate rectangles that have 90-degree corners and straight sides. I’m glad you are so excited about exploring, but I recommend that you follow the exercises I’ve written before getting into this stuff, because you are trying to go straight to step 2 when you haven’t got step 1 down yet.

Please use a straight-edge in your drawings. If you don’t have a ruler on hand, then take a scrap of paper and fold it over a few times. I’m not saying this to be anal, but because if you don’t develop careful habits from the start with this stuff, then you’ll never be able to reliably do more complex drawings with perspective. Just so that you know I’m serious, I won’t be doing any more paintovers on work that wasn’t done with a straight-edge.

[Fraz]

This may seem like a dumb question, but are is it a good idea to use straight edges/rulers to get lines straight?
I have seen many people do it by eye, and apparently it is useful to learn.

[PaTXiNaKi]

Amazing Seed, i have never try to do perspective studies, i directly jumped into drawing more complex forms (humans, demons, skeletons :P :P ) and i really lack of the bases.

How can circular forms be affected by perspective?I think is my weakest point when i draw human forms. Will you keep this kind of assingments later on?

I have a lot to learn from ur link ^^

These classes are giving me a lot, thanks so much.

[Asatira]

This should be challenging and fun. I've fiddled with doing similar exercises, especially the one- and two-point perspectives, but I don't think I really applied myself to them. I've never done three-point, and I like how you have it set up (other versions seemed to emphasize it going off the page).

I should be able to get some of these done this week. I look forward to the three-point and the shadow one.

[Breadinator]

Hey, First Post. Kinda nervous about subjecting you guys to my ugly sketch book, but i need to learn. Names Kyle, or Breadinator. I was just wondering what we should submit, if it was just one of the Perspective 101 assignments or all of them, or does it matter? obviously there isnt any penalty for not turning them in, except ribbing.

[Rabbi Satan]

Hey, First Post. Kinda nervous about subjecting you guys to my ugly sketch book, but i need to learn. Names Kyle, or Breadinator. I was just wondering what we should submit, if it was just one of the Perspective 101 assignments or all of them, or does it matter? obviously there isnt any penalty for not turning them in, except ribbing.

Hello Kyle, welcome to Conceptart.org :)

I can empathise with the reluctance to post your work, I think ALL of us go through that stage early on in our art careers, I'm just slowly coming out of it now myself. I would start a sketchbook, but I am just too lazy to scan everything I'm drawing, hee hee >:) But I have to start that some time as well. But don't worry, just practice every day, and find some art pal of yours or make a few friends on the board here (By reading threads, participating, contacting via PMs)

As for the exercise, just do what you feel are your weakest points when it comes to perspective drawing. If you're completely new to it, just try 1 point perspective for now, then move up to 2 point then 3 point.

Have a look at my new study if you want some examples.

[Anid Maro]

Hey, been browsing this Classroom thing, pretty nifty. Thought I'd throw in some work since I'm busy putting off a paper that's due in half a week.

252192

And with the perspective lines:

252193

I already know that part of it looks out of whack due to distortion from being too close to the vanishing points... I might get to a less whacked version and give shading a shot if I decide I need to put off that paper even longer.

And this might be beyond the scope of this exercise... but I've been reading up on Curvilinear Perspective (aka 5-point Perspective) lately. Here's one of my tentative attempts:

252194

And with the grid:

252195

Again, some distortion. I know I'm supposed to get a fish-eye effect if I carry out this perspective to it's full range, but I'm not entirely sure if I'm doing it right. I've read the theory, but haven't found any methods, so I've been imitating the grid I found here (http://www.treeshark.com/Persptut.html).

[Seedling]

Hi everyone! Glad to have you aboard!

Fraz – it’s absolutely a good idea to use straight edges when learning perspective. Later, if you get into really complex scene-planning, it’ll be vital that you can draw quickly and creatively with a ruler. When you do get to that stage of drawing really complex stuff, you’ll also want to start sketching perspective without a ruler for thumbnails and the early stages of planning. But if you try jumping straight into that stage, you’ll likely never get a good look at what happens when you make errors, because you’ll get in the habit of fudging things with wobbly lines to fix those errors.

PaTX – there is one exercise in Perspective 101 on circles, and eventually I plan to get into that more. But basically, any shape based off of a circle, such as a cylinder or a round arch or a slice of a pie, can be constructed using that basic circle-in-perspective method. You could use this assignment to practice drawing circles in perspective. :)

Asatira – I look forward to seeing what you do with the assignments. :)

Breadinator – Greetings! Don’t be nervous! :) We all had to start somewhere. Why not start with the assignment, and go on from there?

Rabbi – Excellent! Already I see big improvement in your work. :) Be sure to draw in the rear, hidden edges of your boxes, too. Because, for example, on these 2-point perspective boxes in the bottom center of your drawing. Each of these boxes has one corner that is hidden from view. When you draw in that corner, whether or not all the lines meet up there properly will tell you if you constructed the box with enough precision.

Here ya go, this should explain it. Notice how the red line isn’t parallel to the other three vertical lines. That means something went wrong. See if you can figure it out.


I need to go – sorry Anid. I’ll be back later!

[Sawa]

hey thanks a lot seedling for putting this together :)
i took some time and a pencil and went through that perspective 101, here's what i came up with:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b260/sawart/bild136-1.jpghttp://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b260/sawart/bild135-1.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b260/sawart/bild134-1.jpghttp://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b260/sawart/bild139-1.jpg

[enrigo]

I am the type that read through a perspective book once and assume I understand it. So I'll start from the first few exercises on the perspective 101.

Sorry for the reflective light, I must be standing in the wrong place while taking photo of the drawings.

I'm really spooked out by the 5 points perspective ! Boo !

252486
252487
252490

[Seedling]

Hello! Some lovely work here! *squee!*

Anid – You already know why your three-point try is goofy-looking, which is great. :) For three-point to look right, not only do one or two of the points need to stay pretty far from the subject, but if you draw lines connecting those three points in a triangle, things can get wonky when the drawing goes outside of the triangle.

I really like that you tried putting that little crooked box on top of the big central box. I’m actually not sire where its vanishing points should go.

About curvilinear perspective, I’m afraid I haven’t dipped my toes in that yet, so I can’t help you except to offer a bit of intuition. My intuition says that a curvy grid like that will only work if the final composition is cropped down to some tiny fragment that only has slight curves where straight lines should be. Otherwise the final product ends up looking like it was arbitrarily made squishy, as if for a cartoon.

One of the best uses I’ve seen for fish-eye perspective is in cell-animation with hand-drawn backgrounds. The best example I can think of was a tech test that someone did for the Simpsons, where he drew a power-plant hallway full of pipes, where you could see both ends of the hallway at once. For use in animation, the full length of the hallway would never be seen at once; but rather, the camera would pan along the image following characters.

sawa – fantastic! You kept all of your lines tidy and succeeded at most of what you set out to do. I’m realizing now that it is more difficult to give feedback on successful perspective studies than unsuccessful ones. :) The biggest problem I can see in these studies is the skewed look of the three-point perspective studies. It takes some experimentation to find the right distance between object and perspective points. Pretty much either the perspective points for those need to be way far off the page, or the boxes need to be tiny things in the middle of the page. If you’re up for some more, I would say try the three-point perspective a couple more times to get those positions sorted out.

enrigo – Nice! These are right on target, and you’ve hit the level of accuracy and tidiness that you’ll need to get you through the more complex stuff. Ready to try the three-point perspective? Three points of perspective are usually all that’s necessary for any individual box-shaped object, so don’t let gangs of perspective-points invade your nightmares. ;) The only time a rectangular object would need more than that would be if you were looking at it through a fish-eye lens, which is a rather rare situation.

Cheers everyone!

[Frumious Me]

I figured I'd jump in. I've worked with perspective and have multiple books that go over it, but I haven't practiced or 'studied' it the way I should. So, two point and one point I get. The three points get a little weird since they're partially outside the best FoV. Threw in some center line determinations, which got weird in a few places due to not quite precisely dead-on perspective lines, which has taught me to be more exacting if my boring boxes are going to get adornments.

Then, I tried to do the shadows from your Perspective 101 post. Something is very wrong with these. :[

I'm not sure if it's the FoV issue, my 'light source' being too low off the horizon, or that you have to do them differently in 3-point, but I couldn't figure out how they were supposed to go. I tried throwing some beams into the largest 3-point box, hoping their shadows would show up on the page, but I couldn't even figure out how to get their location. :nohope:

[Ventana]

Ok, here's my first two. I did this in Photoshop and I guess my lines could have been a little neater. I got the idea though and will try to be more accurate on the next one.

http://clanexile.com/arguelles/Training/ConceptArt.org/Perspective/1point%20.jpg

http://clanexile.com/arguelles/Training/ConceptArt.org/Perspective/2point%20.jpg

[Anid Maro]

Hey Seedling, thanks for the feedback. Turns out I am gonna procrastinate a little bit more on that paper, so I've got some more sketches to show, this time with pencil and ink.

I'd forgotten about that "triangle rule", I just vaguely recalled that beyond a certain point linear perspectives really start to look weird. So this time I gave it another shot keeping everything within the triangle. No "crooked box" this time though, just keeping it simple.

252973

Here's another attempt at the curvilinear perspective. I did like you'd suggested and cropped the image to a much smaller part of the grid, which looks much better (though I've still got a bit of the fish-eye distortion).

I also attempted to project shadows with this one, which was challenging to say the least. Not sure if I did that right, I tried the usual linear projection from a light source with a straight edge, but of course that didn't work out because I'm not using linear perspective, so I had to sorta eyeball/guesstimate it.

252974

I'm just posting the curvilinear because that's what I've been messing with and to hear your opinion of how it looks cropped. Just thought I mentioned that so you weren't thinking "I already told him what little I know, wtf more does he expect?" :)

Frumious Me

For the shadows, it looks like you're doing it right. Because the light source is so close to the horizon, your shadows are gonna get stretched out far beyond the edge of the page. And of course to prevent that you'd have to place your light source far beyond the edge of the page. :)

Such is the way of perspective, quite frequently at least one of the vanishing points (or the light source) ends up waaaaaay off of the page, requiring you to either tape several pieces of paper together or to have an intimate enough knowledge of perspective to be able to eyeball it (only if imperfection isn't an issue).

I might suggest taping pages together for the next sketch so you can really get a feel for how everything works in a three-point perspective. That way you can get some practice plotting shadows and all that.

Ventana:

Seems you have a solid grasp of one and two point perspective. As far as exactness of lines goes, I see you already found how to use shift for straight lines so if you mix that with "Show Grid" and "Snap to Grid" you can have perfectly exact lines.

[Frumious Me]

The 5 point perspective stuff is pretty cool. I hadn't heard of it before this thread, or at least not seen links to info on it. So thanks for that, Anid.

I've also come up against another question: How do you make things evenly spaced in perspective? Like skyscraper windows or something. Do you need some sort of logarithmic measuring device, or is practice with eyeballing it the only method?

[enrigo]

Some of the 3 points perspective exercise for me. I did had some silly mistakes on the first few pages before these ones, which is before I logout of MSN. :geekg:

WARNING! Perspective and chatting should be kept separate. :lounge:

253180
253181
253182

[Seedling]

Hi guys!

Frumious – excellent! Your shadows are just fine, actually. It’s just more confusing because you’ve got a lot of stuff crowded onto one page. To keep the entire on the page, you’ve got to keep the box small and towards the center, and the light-source has got to be as far away from it as possible on that sheet of paper. It might be worth your time to take another shot at it so that when you do get into shadows that hang off the paper, you’ll be confident about them.

Actually, I’m not entirely sure how to deal with shadows cast from objects drawn in three-point perspective myself, but I think you are going about it the right way.

About “five-point” perspective – basically, if the drawing uses curves instead of straight lines, it’s “curvilinear” or “fish-eye”; and technically uses either five or six points of perspective for every rectangular box shape, depending on the orientation of the box.

Ventana – beautiful! Drawing so cleanly will help you immensely down the road. Both of your drawings are right on track, so there’s not much I can say about them. :) Are you ready for three points?

Anid – Nice job with the three-point! There’s not much I can say about it, because it’s tight on the money.

I’m glad to see you experimenting with the fish-eye stuff some more. I don’t think you’ve cropped it enough, though, because instead of looking like a view through a fish-eye lens, the bridge looks like it has been squashed in the style of cell animation. Here’s something to try: draw a T-shaped hallway – the intersection of three hallways. Use fish-eye perspective to show something which is impossible through human eyes: in one image, show us a view down all three hallways from the intersection.

Showing us a broader field-of-view is pretty much what fish-eye perspective is useful for. In a scene like your bridge, there isn’t much point using fish-eye, because the same scene could be drawn convincingly using two- or three-points of perspective.


I've also come up against another question: How do you make things evenly spaced in perspective? Like skyscraper windows or something. Do you need some sort of logarithmic measuring device, or is practice with eyeballing it the only method?

Ah, that’s actually the next assignment of Perspective 101. I’ll try to get those photographed tomorrow to show you. All you need to do it is a straight-edge, and there is no eyeballing involved. It’s actually the next step from those checkerboards that you constructed. In fact, you could do a whole lot of such repeated architectural stuff with just that checkerboard trick at your disposal. Slap a checkerboard on your building, and use it as a guide.

Terrific work, everyone!

[Seedling]

Enrigo – you sneaky stealth-poster, you! :) I forgot to answer your previous question about photographing drawings. You could try photographing them outdoors in direct sunlight if possible. It’s not a perfect method, but I get decent results that way.

Don’t let crazy Anid scare you. :) What he’s doing is fish-eye perspective, which is only needed when trying to imitate views that you can’t get through the human eye un-aided.

Excellent three-point studies! The only thing “off” about them is, as I’m sure you can tell, that the boxes get more distorted the farther from the center they get. If you’d like to take another stab at it to make sure you’ve really nailed it, try some small boxes grouped right in the middle. It’ll make for a boring composition, but should give you the results you’re after.

The trick is, if you were going to use the results as the starting point for a finished piece, to then crop down the image to eliminate all that empty space around the edges.

Cheers!

[Anid Maro]

Frumious Me:

To answer your question, there certainly is a method for that.

*cough*... I just read the part about this being the next assignment. Eh... I deleted the part where I explained how to do it. Let's just say that Andrew Loomis (http://fineart.sk/index.php?cat=1) offers some great resources.

Honestly, even though I understand perspective, I don't practice it often enough and haven't personally tried out the technique for spacing things in perspective. So I look forward to the next set of perspective exercises. :)

Seedling:

Yeah, I thought I'd be able to apply the 5-point perspective to a fairly broad spectrum of uses, but it's looking like it's only practical for very specific and unique situations. I could crop it even further, but the curves would be so slight that 3-point perspective would suffice, as you said.

I'll give the hallway exercise a shot though, if I'm gonna play with 5-point I might as well carry this out to something unique only to it.

[enrigo]

I've seen a comic artist drawing process in a video,and he use some type of perspective grid on the ground of the picture. I think it tells where the characters stand as they are away towards the horizon.

It looks kind of like this but with the square tile being the same size. My question though is how would the artist decides how smaller the square gets as it goes further, because it is done with the horizontal lines.

253303

[Frumious Me]

Yeah, my question is pretty much how to space the horizontal lines. Seedling, I guess you're saying that you can use the finding the center with Xes repeatedly, but what if you want unevenly spaced but identical (if they were next to eachother) items? It seems like the center Xes wouldn't work very well for that. Anyway, I'm eagerly awaiting the next tutorial on that. :D

Also, a three point practice chessboard space ship thing. Pencil lines, then 'inked' in PS. A few of the lines are a little off, especially on the chess boards, since the planes weren't perfect squares to start with. I just fudged the shadows since I was unclear on how to calculate a light source without ground or a horizon line. But I figured I'd share it anyway. Love for utterly un-aerodynamic spaceships!

[Breadinator]

Well, since I joined these forums i have discovered, that my printer has no scan ability, so i will go back to lurking and I hope you will take it on good faith that I am doing my assignments.
Im definitely going to be asking some questions though, such as, when dealing with a perspective point that is off the paper, do i just guess that my lines are going to meet somewhere, how do i get the angles right? Maybe i just use another piece of paper?

[Asatira]

Well, a bit slow but life does that. I got the first two exercises done, and I'll see about getting the rest done as I can.

http://www.org-chaos.net/blog/120407a.jpg

http://www.org-chaos.net/blog/120407b.jpg

[Rabbi Satan]

Nice work Frumious, I really like your new invention :)

Here's another 3 point perspective study.


Edit:

Hm, it seems like a stray hair found itself onto the scan :P

[Seedling]

You guys are really helping me to see all the gaps in my Perspective 101 thingy. Thanks for that! :)

I’m going to just answer a few questions before I get to work. . . I’ll have full responses for you all later. . .

. . . some type of perspective grid on the ground of the picture. I think it tells where the characters stand as they are away towards the horizon.

It looks kind of like this but with the square tile being the same size. My question though is how would the artist decides how smaller the square gets as it goes further, because it is done with the horizontal lines.

This is part of the next lesson, I swear! Which, aww crap, I forgot to photograph this morning.

Here’s a very quick run-down of the process:

Draw a “square” in one- or two-point perspective*. Use an X to find the center. Extend the sides of the square to both perspective points (or parallel to the horizon in one-point). Extend the center to both perspective points. Draw a line segment from a corner of the square through the center of the side of the square (red line). Where that line intersects the extended-to-the-vanishing-point-line, that marks the corner of the next square. Repeat this process (green lines) towards both perspective points, and then extend the lines to build out the rest of the grid.

*Making perfect squares is more complicated. For most purposes, it’s fine to draw a rectangle that just looks square-ish.

Seedling, I guess you're saying that you can use the finding the center with Xes repeatedly, but what if you want unevenly spaced but identical (if they were next to eachother) items?

First use the above method or the X method to subdivide your surface evenly. Then use that as a guide. If you’ve got some really crazy architectural detail in mind, you may have to subdivide each unit of the grid further. For this, it helps to first draw one unit of the repeating pattern on graph paper.

[Fraz]

Hey Seedling, thanks for the feedback on my question earlier. I took your advice, and used a ruler :D

[Ventana]

Ok, here's my 3 point perspective try's. Gotta say It got a little confusing so I used different colors for the guides. Hope that's not cheating. Anyway, hope I got it right.

http://clanexile.com/arguelles/Training/ConceptArt.org/Perspective/3point%20.jpg

http://clanexile.com/arguelles/Training/ConceptArt.org/Perspective/more3point%20.jpg

And here are different number of vanishing points.

http://clanexile.com/arguelles/Training/ConceptArt.org/Perspective/diff%20.jpg

[Smoke]

These are blurry as hell I know, but it's all I have. Thanks for this Seedling. 3 point seems to be a problem for me. Anyway, my submission for this class.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f346/Smokey186/Painting/DSCF0708.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f346/Smokey186/Painting/DSCF0700.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f346/Smokey186/Painting/DSCF0699.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f346/Smokey186/Painting/DSCF0698.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f346/Smokey186/Painting/DSCF0697.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f346/Smokey186/Painting/DSCF0696.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f346/Smokey186/Painting/DSCF0693.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f346/Smokey186/Painting/DSCF0692.jpg

[Seedling]

I need to type quickly this evening, so my apologies for the brief comments. . .

Everyone! If your results look sharp and precise but. . . squashed, or leaning, or weirdly distorted, like you are looking at a paper that is tilted away from you. . . it’s because the perspective points are too close together, or because the box is too large or too far to one side relative to the perspective points. Mess around with different positions and sizes to see if you can’t find the sweet-spot where the box looks properly box-like. Train your eye to see what’s a good box, and what’s a distorted box.

Frumious – did my quick example make any sense? It may be a while before I have the time to get the lesson in its whole put together for Perspective 101. In the mean time, you might want to invest in a book on perspective. The utterly un-aerodynamic spaceship is spiffy. :) Nice job taking circular bites out of it! I can see that you guessed on the shadows. I’m not entirely sure how to figure out shadows in three-point perspective, but if you start by placing one shadow and using it as reference to compare the rest to, you’ll have more luck making them at least look convincing.

Asatira – yours look perfect, but I can’t completely tell because the rear lines are missing on many of those boxes. When you draw in those “hidden” lines, whether or not they all meet up properly will tell you how accurate your drawing is. Give that a try and then onward! :)

Rabbi – eggselent! Don’t forget those rear, hidden lines! That’s what will tell you if you did everything right. No worries about the hair ;-)

Fraz – looking lovely! Some of your boxes have got those distortion problems I mentioned above.

Ventana – Very nice! I have no objection to colors. :) You’ve got some distortion going on in the second drawing and in the three-point box in the third drawing, but I bet you know that already. :)

Smokey – trippy! If you have sunny weather, try photographing outdoors in sunlight. Blur aside, these look awesome! Some of the three-point drawings have a touch of distortion. Hmm, are those shadows in three-point in the last two that you’re working on? I think you may be on to something there.

[Smoke]

They are indeed basic shadows, tough as hell. :<

Edit: By the way Seedling, do you intened to have tasks involving perspective eventually? I mean, enviromental thumbnails using differing vanishing points, that sorta thing?

I think it would really help to have a push in the way of putting all this learning into practice.

[Frumious Me]

Seedling: Your examples made sense, and I actually have a book entirely on perspective, I just never practiced it. It's not a course, so much as a series of escalating examples that become hard to make sense of.

"Our object balances at an angle to it's ground plane (GP). GP is mirrored. The accidental vanishing point, AVP1, and VP3 are reflected. VP2 on HH remains unchanged. The rest is pure geometry."

It's important to note that none of the vanishing points on this example are visible, nor is the 'pure geometry' explained anywhere in the book, although there are enough reflection examples that I get the gist of what you're supposed to do (Do you actually sit there with a protractor, or what?).

Anyway, I wasn't going to post this, because I'm not very proud of it, but this was me trying to do just what Smokey suggested- putting it into practice.

I don't practice environments (or perspective), because I don't like environments (or perspective), because I'm not good at (competent with) environments, because I don't practice environments, etc. It's a vicious cycle. So I forced this to get my ball rolling on that. I may have spent as much as 4 hours on this, all told. :nohope:

[D-Holme]

Some practice (and a diversion).

[Seedling]

Smokey – Heehe! You’ll have less trouble with shadows if you start with boxes in one or two points of perspective, and sitting on a plane.

Yes, I do plan on getting to assignments in Perspective that show how to use the various steps to build up environments from imagination. And seeing how you guys have approached these assignments has been good research for me. Anyway, I’m afraid it’ll be a while, but it is ultimately the whole point of learning perspective, so I don’t intend to leave it out.

Here’s the condensed version of what the assignments will cover:

To use perspective from imagination, you need to have internalized these box assignments to the point that you can sketch a box without first plotting any vanishing points. Setting up a scene involves first sketching boxes in place of buildings; then correcting these sketches (finding the vanishing points) with a ruler; and then using these corrected boxes as a guide for sketching architecture or other things; then correcting that architecture with a ruler. The entire process could then be carried straight into a painting, or it could be interrupted at any point and left as a thumbnail.

Frumious – lol! There are some incomprehensible perspective books out there. The two books I mention in Perspective 101 are good ones, though, if you decide to try another book.

I’m sure there are some sorts of architectural drawings that could require a protractor, but unless you want to do work for an old-fashioned architecture firm, you may never need to be that precise.

That’s terrific practice! Don’t be shy. :) Finding out how to make the transition from random cubes to a finished piece is bound to be bumpy at first. You did a good job with it.

D-Holme – looking good! :)

[Asatira]

These are all coming along great. On my end, who knew that three point was going to be so hard. I had a hard time getting the rear walls/lines to line up. I am definitely learning a lot from these.

http://www.org-chaos.net/blog/120707a.jpg

http://www.org-chaos.net/blog/120707b.jpg

http://www.org-chaos.net/blog/120707c.jpg

[Smoke]

I was hoping you would say that Seedling. I thought of something terrifying today, though.

Reflections in perspective. /cue dramatic music

[enrigo]

reflections in 5-point perspective./cue horror music

:batgirl:

[Seedling]

Asatira – those are looking great! What’s giving you distortion trouble is that the three vanishing points need to be in a roughly equilateral triangle* – and the blocks need to (mostly) stay within the boundary of that triangle. The best example you’ve got is on the bottom image, the leftmost box. That one suffers from the least amount of distortion because it is centered between the points.

I’ve done a paintover on one of your images which should make it a little more clear. I moved the top perspective up to complete the equilateral triangle.


*for now, at least. This certainly won’t hold true in all cases of three-point perspective, but it’s a good place to start.


Smokey and Enrigo – Ooo, reflections! :) That’s a good idea for another future episode of Perspective 101!

Here’s an east way to start playing with reflections. If the reflective surface is parallel to one of the sides of a box – say, a lake reflecting a building, or a mirror on a wall reflecting a table that is parallel to the wall. In these cases, the box and its reflection will be parallel to one-another, which means they will share all of their perspective points.

Want to try it?

[Asatira]

seedling: Ah, yeah. I see. Being more equilateral would help keep things in better proportion/line-up. I'll have to keep that in mind for future exercises in this. Thanks for the paintover, it clears things up.

[TimV]

Hi Guys,

This is my first post on CA (ever). As a beginning artist, I think this thread is great! Hope it's cool for me to jump in.

Here goes nothing.

[TimV]

Forgot to ask... anyone have scanning tips? My scans look like complete crap.

[enrigo]

I need a bit of help on understanding the shadow in perspective, I'm not sure how to get the hexagon-shape shadow on the shadow assignment #2

Here's my drawing of the one I'm talking about, I guess where the shadow should be on the lines that were plotted :

[Confuzed]

There D:

[Seedling]

Wow, you guys are doing great work!


TimV – Welcome to CA! You’ve done a wonderful job with these exercises.

I can’t quite read the word written in the second drawing, but I get the idea that you’ve spotted things getting skewed with that upper-right cube. That’s because in two-point perspective, the boxes have to stay between the two points to remain correct-looking. :) Here’s a paintover that shows more or less the target area in which the two-point perspective will look right.

I’m impressed that the shadow going off the page didn’t throw you for a loop! Looks like you’re getting the hang of this.

I can’t give you any scanner pointers, but if you look around the forums, I think there are threads around that might answer your questions.

enrigo – Your shadow is perfect! The shape of the shadow depends on where the light is. If the light is perpendicular to one side of the box, the shadow may only have four sides. In most cases the shadow will have six sides, but those sides aren’t necessarily going to make a perfect hexagon.

Confuzed – Hello again! This looks pretty good. Don’t forget to draw in those rear lines on every box. :) I can see on one of them the rear lines didn’t match up properly, which indicates that something is out of whack. (I’ve done a quick paintover of that one to show you what you’re looking for. Use these sorts of non-meeting lines to warn you that you need to go back and find the problem before proceeding.)

It looks like the problem is in your vanishing points and intersections. The lines at all such points need to meet precisely at one point. If they don’t, then small mistakes get magnified into large mistakes in other parts of the drawing.

Were you using a string instead of a ruler? A string can work, but it’s easier to end up with wiggly lines. It would probably be worth your while to use a ruler until this stuff is second nature to you.

[TimV]

Seedling

Thanks for the feedback. And thanks for doing this thread. You rock!

I suspected the perspective being off had something to do with the box being outside the vanishing points. Glad to hear my suspicions were correct.

I was a little unsure of that shadow, especially since it went off the page. I may try again with the light source higher on the page to make a shorter shadow so it will all be visible.

[Asatira]

Here we go. Multiple examples on one page.

http://www.org-chaos.net/blog/120807.jpg

I didn't get to all of the exercises, which annoyed me. But it has been a learning experience.

Seedling, can you tell me a little more about the shadow casting? I got a little confused.

[Seedling]

Hi Asatira,
Sorry, I overlooked your last post. Before you get into shadows, work on the two- and three-point perspective. You’ll have a much easier time with shadows once you’ve got the distortion under control.