complicated perspective drawing

[Vay]

i couldn't find the answer in fine art section so i decided to ask the question here..

I am drawing a dude with a guitar and here are the details (self created image):

1. The guitar is tilted at 30 degrees to horizon (guitar is more vertical) above the horizon.
2. The picture i draw covers only the frets of the guitar because the picture is huge.
3. The vanishing point is off the page and there is not much room to estimate the vanishing point.

basically all i need help in is drawing the fret lines on the guitar fretboard, which is tilted at a 30 degree above the horizon. (frets are lines on the guitar by the way and not the string)
I found a long way solution but i want a shortcut, i draw the fret lines to the real horizon and then tilt the fret lines by 30 degrees, each of them, which is a long process. I need a shorter one...

[Anid Maro]

What trouble are you having with drawing the frets in perspective? Since you're not asking for help with the neck I presume you know how to draw in basic perspective. Are you asking how to draw something regularly spaced in perspective? That's the only issue I can think of that you might be having.

If so, here's a lil' trick. First draw the neck of your guitar in the perspective, then mark the location of the first fret, now mark the location of your second fret. From there draw a line through the middle of those frets out to somewhere around where your elusive vanishing point might be. Now draw a line from the top of your first fret, through the middle of your second fret, and all the way across to the other side of the guitar's neck. Finally, where that line you just drew meets the other end of the neck you will draw a line straight up and have your third fret location. Rinse and repeat to draw the rest of your frets evenly spaced and in perspective.

Should you wish to also have the thickness of each fret drawn in perspective you can repeat the same procedure but just slightly offset from the fret locations you just drew.

Here's a picture to illustrate what I mean, since words don't do the technique justice.

785369

This technique can also be used to draw railroad tracks, fences, checkerboards, and any other evenly spaced subject in perspective.

[Vay]

Actually what i had in mind is drawing the frets with the guitar sitting on a persons lab vertically perpendicular to the horizon, then tilt the guitar 30 degrees to the the left of the guitarist. Then i am viewing the guitar and the person from the side with guitar closest to me, the viewer. Now then i need to set up a fake horizon, one that is tilted 30 degrees. Then i want to draw lines or frets from the guitar to the vanishing point, but i don't know how to locate it on a fake horizon.

Also guitar frets get smaller as it goes higher (away from the head of the guitar towards the body).

[Anid Maro]

Er, I'm sorry but I'm confused by the whole fake horizon thing. Why wouldn't you use the same vanishing points that you would use for drawing the guitar itself? If I were drawing frets in perspective I'd use the guitar's VPs and construction lines as reference, and if I had not constructed the guitar with full VPs and all then I'd set about finding them.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to do (which I might be), using the guitar's construction lines and VPs would be your best bet.

[Sepulverture]

Anid Maro - That example you posted here would help with creating a starting point for the op to use in estimating what the frets in perspective would look like, but it breaks down a little bit as the distance between frets on the guitars neck get increasingly short the closer it gets to the base of the guitar neck.

This of course is an easily solved problem, just need to draw the frets slightly closer together with each new fret that is drawn, and to make it accurate the op would just need to look at the guitar, figure out the actual distances between fret 0 and fret 1, and fret 11 and fret 12, and if it's a 24 fret neck the distance between fret 23 and 24, and when use those as anchoring points, then just assign relative distances to all of the frets in between those anchor points.

The frets at the far extreme of the fretboard (approaching 22/24) should be so small in perspective that they should almost be negligible up to a certain point, making your job a little easier. The difficult part is figuring out where the apparent space between those frets disappears when drawn in perspective.

Hope this helps.

Good luck

Sep