I often use perspective rulers in Clip Studio Paint to help me draw illustrations. And if you've never tried to learn perspective or use perspective rulers, you might be wondering, why do I even need to learn perspective rulers or complex perspective? Why can’t I just stick to drawing pretty characters and white backgrounds?

Well, I want to bring up perhaps a new argument, and that's nostalgia.

(Please watch the video or check the above link for the full comic)

So this might seem weird, but to elaborate on what I mean, recently, I had a dream where I revisited my childhood home. In my dream I was walking around my childhood home and I tried to take pictures.

I saw the fruit trees, the rooms, the hallways I hadn't seen in years. In reality, it's impossible for me to revisit and to take pictures of the house, because later the home was sold and then torn down.

I drew a short comic, and even though the drawings here are very rough, and I obviously didn't use perspective rulers for these, I think that by understanding some perspective and through using perspective rulers in the past, that helped me better convey my story. And in a way, it also help me resolve some of that feeling of nostalgia.

A few months back, I did this piece in a similar vein and also incorporated some things that I won't see again. And obviously, since this one is much more rendered, I was able to achieve this by utilizing perspective rulers. Everyone has their own history and experiences. And part of the reason why I take photos and videos or draw backgrounds so much, is that I think there's something really special about drawing a specific place in a specific moment in time.

And I really think that by learning perspective and especially utilizing Clip Studio Paint’s perspective rulers, it can help if you're not sure where to start.

So now that I've hopefully convinced you, let's start off with some basic perspective!

Basic Perspective

1, 2, and 3 point perspective

You can generally break down perspective into three parts: the horizon line or eye level, the vanishing point, and any vanishing lines that are emerging from the vanishing point.

One point perspective has a single vanishing point along the horizon line, and lines that are perpendicular to the horizon will have lines that converge at that one vanishing point. Now with two point perspective, we have two points somewhere along the horizon line, and lines that are perpendicular or otherwise straight to the horizon will have lines that converge at either of the vanishing points, depending on the direction that it's facing.

One point perspective has a single vanishing point along the horizon line, and lines that are perpendicular to the horizon will have lines that converge at that one vanishing point.

With two point perspective, we have two points somewhere along the horizon line, and lines that are perpendicular or otherwise straight to the horizon will have lines that converge at either of the vanishing points, depending on the direction that it's facing.

With three point perspective, we still have those two vanishing points along the horizon line. And then we have also one additional point above or below the horizon line. Here, vertical lines will converge at the third vanishing point instead of being straight up and down.

So when I mention things converge at one of these vanishing points, I don't necessarily mean everything converges. Using this commission that I drew as an example here, you'll see that this is a typical two point perspective if we align the chair and the bookshelves. However, the coffee table, and some of the objects on the table don't align to the same vanishing point. However, it's not like the table is floating either.

This is because despite not following the same vanishing point, it's still vanishing on the same horizon line, which gives it the feeling of being grounded.

Fisheye Perspective

Fisheye perspective or curvilinear perspective is a type of wide angle perspective which distorts or curved edges. It’s most noticeable for very wide angle camera lenses or parts of the image, like the pillars below starting to curve.

But when you overlay a grid over it and then start to zoom out, it’s helpful to think of it sort of like being projected onto a globe.

For a typical fisheye perspective, we can get that look by making these distortions more extreme along the edges here. So now that we've established some basic perspective, let's get into how to actually use Clip Studio Paint’s perspective rulers in order to speed up your drawing process.

Clip Studio Paint Rulers Tutorial

So now that we've established some basic perspective, let's get into how to actually use Clip Studio Paint’s perspective rulers in order to speed up your drawing process.

There are two primary ways that you can create perspective rulers in Clip Studio Paint. The first and most easiest way to create one is go under Layer > Ruler/Frame and then click Create Perspective Ruler.

Here you can select the type: Either 1 point, 2 point, or 3 point perspective. Enable create on a new layer or not, and then also enable or disable fisheye perspective.

Let’s create a basic 1 point perspective first.

Also, if you find you are unable to draw on the ruler, please make sure ‘Snap to special rulers’ is enabled. You can always disable this on and off as you are drawing things on and off grid, for example, I disable this when I draw characters or natural foliage, but enable it for architecture.

The other way to create a perspective grid is to do it manually by going under Create Ruler and then click Perspective Ruler and then under Tool Property > Process, make sure that Add vanishing point is selected.

You can click and drag anywhere on the canvas to determine where your vanishing point will be. Here where these two lines intersect will be where the vanishing point is and it will create a one point perspective grid like this. And then now when you draw, as long as you make sure that snap to special rulers is enabled, whenever you draw with your pen, it should snap to the special ruler.

If you wanted to add more vanishing points to this one point perspective, you can do that by making sure that the process is still set to Add vanishing point, and then make sure that Change perspective type is enabled. Then you can just click and drag your mouse to form where you want the other vanishing point to be.

Sometimes when you're adding another vanishing point and you accidentally make the vanishing point slightly above or below the first one, and it makes your whole horizon line slanted.

If you want to correct this, just go under Object, click the horizon line, and then under this tool property panel, click Horizontalize eye level.

Under Object, you can also click on various points along the guide markers to adjust the perspective center, grid lines, and angle of the horizon line (please watch the video for a visual demonstration)

If you need to disable a vanishing point or grid, you can click the diamond shaped button over near the line, and when it turns from purple into green, green indicates that the ruler is not active. You can click on it again to enable it.

You can also enable ‘Fisheye perspective’ on any perspective grid by checking the box under the Tool property menu for the perspective ruler.

If you want to add a guide for a new angle or perspective without changing the primary perspective type from one/two/three point perspective, disable the checkbox.

Now you can make floating cubes. This is helpful if you need to draw an angled object ‘off grid’.

Finally, if you want to enable visual grids, you can check the respective planes under the ‘Grid’ menu.

Drawing Demo

After adjusting the default ‘3 point fisheye perspective’ grid, I sketch out a drawing.

There are lots of places like my childhood home where I don't have any good, proper photos of anymore. There are also places that I did take photos of, but I can't revisit to take better ones, even with newer technology. More than just drawing to improve my art or to draw a pretty picture, I also want draw to preserve, to draw to show what I like, including places and things that I like.

And I think that every single person has something important to share or to draw, as everyone has obviously lived their own interesting lives and their own lived experiences. I think that this can be applied to every area and not just perspective. I often advocate for people to learn art, even if they don't feel like they're particularly good artist, because just like with the earlier comic that I did, the art itself isn't really great by any measure, but it tells a story using visuals and helps to capture what words can't entirely capture on its own.

And for today's drawing, I drew the plum trees I love so much in my old backyard in my childhood home. Just like how I remembered, I never did get a photo of the place that I ate so many plums under every summer, but through drawing it based on my memory, now I have this physical visual that I can look back on, and also share with you guys!

I hope that even if you don't use perspective rulers or draw something very rendered, I hope that this will at least inspire you to draw a place that you love, whether from now or in the past, or even a place that you want to go to in the future.