[1] Basic concepts

Before proceeding further, I will cover the basic concepts of perspective drawing and other important points to keep in mind.

 

The basic kinds of perspective are, one-point perspective, two-point perspective, and three-point perspective.

I will briefly go over their fundamental points.

For the examples, I set the vanishing point outside the canvas because it is easier to understand this way.

 

■ One-point perspective I haven’t seen this perspective much lately.

 

■ Two-point perspective This method is commonly used for the illustrations where the horizon is set at eye-level and in speed paintings where perspective does not widen.

 

■ Three-point perspective This requires advanced painting skills as it takes about six times longer to effectively draw in three-point perspective than when drawing in two-point perspective.

It is used for compositions wider than the two-point perspective or compositions that are looking up or down.

It is also used for a bird’s-eye view.

 

Above is a simplified version of viewing angles. It is close to what the human actually sees but still unnatural.

 

The Fisheye perspective helps achieve a natural viewing angle.

 

Note:

Refer to the following article to learn more about the perspective view. In this article, you can find more details about the Perspective ruler in Clip Studio Paint.

 

[2] Fisheye perspective

A fisheye perspective refers to a hemispheric field of view of 180 degrees, but for this illustration, I will use a narrower angle.

 

Below is a wide fisheye perspective.

 

Using the fisheye perspective helps us achieve a more realistic look close to what the human eye actually perceives.

Field of view can greatly change a drawing’s composition, even though there is no clear line to follow.

 

I cannot use the [Straight line] tool for this so please excuse my squiggly lines.

The horizon of a fisheye perspective is a complete sphere outside the canvas. The vanishing point exists at the center of this sphere.

 

[3] Field of View

The term field of view originally came from the viewing angle of the camera. A human eye's field of view is about 45 degrees.

As the distance between you and an object decreases, the object becomes larger and no longer fits into your eye's field of view.

 

Please see the drawing below to better understand this concept.

 

If you draw an object with a field of view wider than that of a human’s, you can make the drawing even wider and bigger than usual fitting more things inside the field of view.

This is a rough drawing, but you can see that a 110 degrees field of view can make the drawing wider. It goes both ways, you can also tighten the viewing angle and make your drawing narrower to emphasize an object.

If you can understand the above points, you do not need to be afraid of using perspectives when drawing.

 

[4] Important points to keep in mind concerning perspective

If your vanishing points are too obvious, it may seem like your drawing was drawn by a beginner who has just learned perspective.

 

If you don't mind that, then I wouldn't worry about it too much but if you like drawing backgrounds and want to improve your skills, keep in mind that each structure is not always based off of perspective and each structure can have different angles.

(Above is the linework I drew based on the rough draft from last time.)

 

I roughly divided the buildings into a few groups and changed each of their angles.

Furthermore, in real life, buildings are not built to the same angle each time, so I set the angles accordingly.

 

It may not be a good idea to draw perspective lines for each and every structure. However, keep in mind where the perspective lines of each structure exist so that the drawing does not become overly simple with only three vanishing points.

 

It is faster to learn by drawing than by trying to understand the concepts. It is also hard to fully understand perspective in just a day or two.

However, the “10,000 hour rule” holds that if you practice something for 10,000 hours, you will be very good applying it in any field. Most professionals you may know have mastered their skills this way so if you keep practicing, you should be able to master this in within 10 years.

If your skill does not improve, count how many hours you have practiced to know how much more you still need to practice.

 

In the beginning, you may only be able to conceptualize three vanishing points. With practice, you will be able to conceptualize even more vanishing points and be able to handle different shapes of structures facing different sides.

 

Let’s visualize it first.