Books on perspective

**anti-** · September 25th, 2005, 11:55 AM

I started drawing a year ago, and have been drawing on and off since then. But during that whole year, I never attempted to draw a background. Probably because I knew I didn't have the technical knowledge to do so, but right now I'm in the mood to fix that.

I was wondering if any of you have experience with books on perspective in drawing. I would go and search for some tutorials online or something, but honestly, I would much rather be able to just read through a couple of hundred pages and have a good, solid understanding of perspective after that. I'm looking for something that can take me from knowing absolutely nothing about perspective to knowing all I need to know, and something I can keep on my bookshelf and grab as a reference later on.

I looked through Amazon.com, looking for books on perspective, reading through the customer reviews, but I didn't find one that I was sure about. I had someone recommend Perspective! for Comic Book Artists: How to Achieve a Professional Look in Your Artwork to me. But to be honest, I found the comic book approach more than a little discouraging. This is the only recommendation I've had so far, and I'd love some more. I figured this was the best place to ask, so please tell me if you know any good books on perspective drawing.

Thanks.

**Fayt** · September 25th, 2005, 12:09 PM

same with me, but you only want to draw backgrounds, not peoples in perspective?

**anti-** · September 25th, 2005, 12:44 PM

Actually, I just want to learn to draw in perspective. Be it backgrounds, people, elephants or what ever. ^^

**Fayt** · September 25th, 2005, 12:50 PM

you will learn it automatically while drawing, but it you studie it directly you will, of course, become much better. Try it with people.

**chukw** · September 25th, 2005, 12:51 PM

Perspective Drawing by Ernst Norling is a really nice guide to drawing anything in perspective. Check out the works of Andrew Loomis as well, including Figure Drawing For All It's Worth - it has an excellent section on perspective. For drawing backgrounds and stuff, be sure to pay special attention to the use of diagonals in your constructions- you'll find that Diagonals Rule The Universe!

**anti-** · September 25th, 2005, 03:13 PM

Thank you. Amazon didn't have Perspective Drawing in stock, but searching for books by the author, I found Perspective Made Easy, a really cheap book that people had nothing but good to say about. Reading the description and reviews, it looks like it's exactly what I was looking for.

**ArlandoBattle** · September 25th, 2005, 03:26 PM

erspective! for Comic Book Artists: How to Achieve a Professional Look in Your Artwor
dont undermine this book just because the comic book part. this book is amazing and will teach you almost everything youll ever want to know about perspective. but if you get it tryt not to rush through it try to understand each perspective and at theback of the book theres alot of perspective / geometrical goodies. The one im talking about is by david chelsea btw. and you can find it on google print o_O
http://print.google.com/print?id=zJifwBq8V50C&pg=PP11&lpg=PP11&dq=Perspect ive!+for+Comic+Book+Artists&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3DPerspective!%2Bfor%2BComic%2BBook%2BAr tists%26oi%3Dprint&sig=CT4gfO2j0LFTF7AjQfejD-0502w

**Francis** · September 25th, 2005, 11:43 PM

How hard core do you want? The comic book one that was mentioned is pretty decent for illustration purposes. Also, this is a book I have that is pretty good too, well rounded:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846

I ask "how hard core" because I have a textbook at work for constructing perspective drawings of existing buildings/environments. That's geared towards creating "correctly" scaled perspective drawings for architectural renderings. ("Correctly" being a sort of misnomer since perspective drawings are always going to be approximations to some extent.) I forget the author's name at the moment but if I remember I will post it tomorrow.

**obid619** · September 26th, 2005, 12:46 AM

I bought perspective made easy a while ago. Its definetely a great book, and I'd recommend it. It may be a little, i dunno, basic, but it definetely improves your work. Or you can go with something like Francis is recommending, if you want more complex stuffs.

**briggsy@ashtons** · September 26th, 2005, 06:48 AM

As well as "Figure Drawing for All Its Worth", don't miss Loomis' "Successful Drawing", which has some extensive sections on perspective, including perspective of shadows.

Download both of them from the venerable acidkick:
http://acidkick.noobgrinder.com/Loomis/