Sketching process

This is a traditional approach:

 

• place your line of horizon

• mark the boundaries of your object on your canvas

• sketch out the form, following the scale and the proportion of the object

• make alterations to fit with the perspective

• add details

• add colors

• make alterations to shadows and tones, so that the object fits within your background

---Depending on the situation, you may not need to actually draw the horizon line. Sometimes, it will be outside your canvas. Same goes for the vanishing points.

As long as you keep them in mind.

Practice with simple objects first, to try getting the hang of perspective. If you have issues with perspective, then draw everything out. As you get more experienced, the need to draw everything will gradually disappear.

Advice

---I decided to give you a list of tips and observations. Some of them will apply to many situations, whilst others are discussing very specific cases. Some of them are obvious, whilst others are not. Either way, it will benefit you to read them all.

1.

---It's easier to draw if you approach your scene like a construction set.

 

2.

Sometimes even when you follow the rules of perspective, the drawing will look deformed.

The objects will seem too steep.

 

That happens when you put too much on the canvas. "Too much" meaning that in reality you're not able to see all this room from where you're standing. This is a common mistake when trying to depict the inside of a room. The room in such cases will seem unrealistically deep. The 90° angles will not seem like they're indeed 90°.

 

 

The angle of view of a person is too small to see all the room at once. You can see with your peripheral vision. But you also don't really know what the objects look like in the peripheral vision - you only have a vague idea. So, when you depict everything on a painting, it will look unrealistic since you can't see all these objects without actually turning your head.

---You need to take into account the visual field of a person in real life. It's best to represent what you can see with your central and near peripheral vision. That is around 60° angle (30° angle to each side).

 

This means that wide-angle scenes (>180°) will not be seem natural if you represent them following normal rules of perspective.

---To deal with these issues, an artist may use two horizons or several vanishing points.

An example would be when using a one-point perspective and trying to depict a room from inside. If the wall (the front wall that you're facing) does not seem big enough, you can use two horizons.

---Keep this in mind when you're trying to show the interior of the room or a building. This should be employed in separate cases.

---

Some time ago, there was a rage about how the artists of Ghibli Studio and some mangakas "make mistakes" regarding perspective. People started analyzing their drawings, and, upon seeing two vanishing points in a one-point perspective, or, two horizon lines, would make blog posts, or tweet about it.

 

Of course as you now understand, that was not a mistake, but rather a deliberate decision to emphasize the frontal plane (the background, basically), whilst not making the side walls look too steep.

A lot of experienced artists make adjustments like these, in order to match the way we see objects in our visual field.

 

I will add that these alterations should be a well-thought-out decision. Learn the rules in order to break them when you need, but learn them well. However, do not let the rules confine you.

3.

When drawing the interior of a room or a building:

 

• If the room is low, place your horizon line low ( at your eye level when you're sitting );

• If the room is tall, place your horizon line high ( at your eye level when you're standing ).

 

This advice will help you with creating a good composition.

4.

Use your pencil in order to easily distinguish the inclination and the scale of your object, when drawing from real life.

5.

You are standing on the ground, and the rest of the people are standing on the ground with you. You are all more or less the same height.

In such a case, everyone's eye-level will be the similar. Therefore, in a drawing, the line of eyes will align. That's true no matter how far away or how close to you they are.

6.

When doing a two-point perspective, try placing one vanishing point more off center than the other to make the composition more balanced, without splitting your canvas into two even parts.

7.

To find the center of a square, draw its diagonals. Where they cross is the center. This will help when you want to find the center of a wall, for placing a roof for example.

8.

You can use this principle in other situations as well. For example, to make sure the spacing of your objects is even, and the distance is uniform:

and here's another example:

9.

Practice drawing the cube. From different angles, different distance etc. Then draw several cubes. Move on to drawing prisms and pyramids. Then master the cylinders.

All complex shapes derive from simple ones.

Start with simple.

10.

--- 

On the same note, don't get too hang up on rules. If you are rigid, it's hard adapting new techniques or following "spontaneous" tutorials, where artists go by feeling rather than by rules. Rules in art are meant to serve as a general guideline, and not as a boundary.

Be water, my friend.

Next episode

In our digital age, we have the advantage of using software. ClipStudio, for example, offers you special perspective rulers. You've seen me use them before. In the next episode, I will show how to use them.

When using a perspective ruler you can easily edit the sketch. The digital canvas is infinite, so it won't matter if the vanishing points are very far apart from each other and do not fit on the canvas. You can also use guidelines and snap your pencil to the ruler.

More in detail on that in the next episode.

 

 

P. S.

I will likely add more advice later on, if I remember or find other valuable information. So, this guide will be updated.

You can leave a comment with questions.

On the same note, if there is a mistake or you don't agree with something, please feel free to point that out as well.

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