Perspective Practice (due Dec. 8)

[Maledict]

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

[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

[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.





And here are different number of vanishing points.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.



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.