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Freehand Perspective Drawing Tutorial
Published: 2012-05-05 22:23:36 +0000 UTC; Views: 129765; Favourites: 5884; Downloads: 2764
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Description
Another tutorial, my first that actually deals with drawing skills. I tried to keep this very concise, more pictures than words, so there might not be as much information as should be. Hopefully its still helpful, and I'm always happy to clarify stuff, just let me know.BTW, this tutorial is almost, but not quite, for beginners. It assumes some basic exposure to linear perspective, and is designed to help people get more comfortable with perspective, and find new and better ways to use it.
Edit: Wow, much thanks for the great positive response to this. If I had known this was going to see this much traffic, I would have checked my spelling more carefully.
I was debating making a part two dealing with curved perspective; which I'll definitely try to get done in the next few weeks. Thanks for all your comments, apologies if I don't respond; you folks have flooded me. Edit 2: Wow, a DD... now I REALLY wish I had checked my spelling and grammar.
Thanks for the comments and faves, everyone; really glad to hear that this has been helpful. I've learned so much from all the great tutorials here on dA, so hopefully this pays some of that forward a little bit. And thank you to and for the nod; very appreciated.
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Comments: 241
You're welcome, glad it's helpful.
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Hey! This is really amazing!! I was wondering if I can ask a quick question...
I'm struggling with creating scenes...when I draw the background first it's hard for me to place characters for some reason...but when I draw characters first I have to do a lot of corrections to them later.....
so my question is do you draw characters or backgrounds first? Or do you sketch both?
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Hmmm... Well, there are probably several ways to do it. One thing I sometimes do is draw a horizon, and then put my figures in, and then flesh out the environment. If your horizon intersects one figure at the waist, for example, it will intersect all figures at the waist. So you can draw big, near-ground figures, and tiny far away figures, and if you line up one part of the body with the horizon (the same part for all the figures), then the perspective for them all will be correct. Then, if you place your vanishing points on that same horizon, the scene's perspective will match that of the figures.
Another thing I do, especially with interiors, is try to reference something in the background to figure out the correct relative height. That sounds jumbled; let me try to explain: it all depends, again, on the horizon/eye level. You need to locate that for your scene, and ideally build your scene with it. Then, with a fully drawn scene, I look at exactly what height the horizon is. Maybe there is a desk, and the horizon is right at the surface of the desk. On a person (adult), that desk comes up about to the hip, so I draw the figure with it's hip lined up on the horizon. If the horizon is lower, running through maybe an electrical socket new the floor, then I draw the figures so that their ankle lines up with the horizon. The rest of them will probably not line up with background reference points, but so long as they do at the horizon, it should work.
Anyway, that's two ideas off the top of my head; let me know if that helps (or not).
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I think I understand! Thank you so much for taking the time to reply back to me ~ I really appreciate it!
^_^ I'm going to try these techniques right now!
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This helped me a lot, I see perspective as an easier thing now and am not anymore afraid to try it! thank you v much
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Β You know I really hate the perspectiveΒ is a pain in my ass, but you help me a lot thanksΒ Β
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Great tutorial, easy to follow, very clear, perfect for beginners! Helped me a lot. Thanks for your good work!
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Fabulous! I knew about perspective, but never thought about doing it so simply with though rough grids. Very helpful, thank you.
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Wow! So useful! I just wanted to ask you a question... Do the points have to always be in the horizon?(Talking about 1 and 2 perspective points 'causethe third is nowhere near the horizon obviously.)
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Well.... yes and no. Β Was that helpful? Β
Whenever you draw two points, the line between them automatically becomes *a* horizon line, the far edge of an infinite plane. Β Usually, that plane is the ground plane of our picture, and the horizon line corresponds to the actual horizon. Β However, any object in our picture can be turned out of that perspective, in which case its points would no longer correspond to the three points of the original picture.
Here's an example:Β fav.me/d4qd40f Β The picture is actually in simple one-point perspective, (with a little convergence on the verticals), but the hammers are spinning through the air, and not at all parallel to the ground plane of the picture. Β If you were to take one of the hammers and trace its edges back, they would converge to vanishing points, but NOT the same points that define the basic space of the picture. Β Thus, they aren't "on the horizon" of the picture (which, here, runs straight across right at the level of Mario's shoulders).
Hopefully that's helpful; perspective is awful hard to describe with words alone (and I'm away from my studio at the moment.)
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This is incredibly helpful, thank you!
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thanks for this
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Wow, awesome tutorial! Thanks! *goes off to sketch random buildings*
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Thanks for your tutorial, it's very helpful!
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That is an amazing tutorial
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Wow, that explains it much better than many other explanations I've seen. Must try it out! Thanks!!
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I still can't "see".I could be stereoblind does that have anything to do with it?
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The "3 dimensional".I still can't get a grasp of it.
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Hmmm. Β It might help to look at some good, crisp, precise perspective drawings; mine here are pretty sloppy, which makes the 3-d quality less convincing. Β Check out these drawings:
red-j.deviantart.com/art/Poindβ¦
www.deviantart.com/art/Perspecβ¦
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AMAZING!!!!!!AMAZING!!!!!! I LOVE IT......IT REALLY HELPS!
thank u sooooo much for making it....
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I am going to use your anatomy tutorial to help with my "Tutorials I think will help the beginner artist" very long title. Sorry about that. I might change it. But I am leaving this comment here so you know.
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Now I could understand better about perspectives! Thx
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i quick read this, and i must say I found this VERY impressive! Thank you!
I should print this out.......
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So simple and easy to understand! A great starting point for beginners on perspective like me!
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this really helps!!thanks a lot GREAT TUTORIAL!!
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This is real useful. Thanks a bunch for making this!
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Holy cheese. This helped me in so many ways. (My tutor doesn't go straight to the point when she was teaching our class on this topic D
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This was excellent! As an absolute beginner to perspective, I found this intuitive and extremely easy to use - thank you!! Do you have any tips for drawing people in perspective?
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Thanks, glad it helped. People are the hardest, for sure. The simple answer is to use some simple perspective lines to keep knees, wrists, etc. lined up in perspective. Hard to sum up, so I made a quick video for you: [link] Its sloppy, but hopefully it gives an idea of what I meant.
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Thank you so much! Gah, this is all very useful, though I suppose as with anything it just takes practice.
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The part I don't understand is, how many perspective lines do you need to draw?
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my high school teacher tried to teach me this.
tried being the operative word. I can do this to a point, but I have trouble drawing one person at one size and that SAME person... further back and still be correct.
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Actually, Loomis had a great trick for that: just make sure that the horizon line cuts through each figure in the exact same part of their body (neck, waist, ankles, etc.). If they are all correctly proportioned, they will automatically be in correct perspective. It gets trickier with a high horizon line (you have to construct additional heads on top of the figures actual heads up to the horizon), but its generally a pretty easy and useful technique.
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Well shit, thanks a lot, this'll come in really handy
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