Mark Kistler
Page 13
ramp, draw the thickness of the
first ramps. Then leaving a gap,
draw the next ramp by matching
the same angle. Be sure to draw
this next ramp thinner and smaller
than the near ramp.
Here is a perfect visual exam-
ple of the drawing law of size: The
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near ramp is closer and thus drawn
larger. Each subsequent ramp is
drawn smaller to give the illusion
of depth. This is also a perfect
example of the drawing law of
placement: The near ramp is
drawn lower, creating the illusion
that it is closer. The next ramp is
placed higher to make it look far-
ther away.
Add the front entrance on the
right side of the castle. Line up
the bottom far corner of the door
with the vanishing point on the
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left side.
LESSON 25: A CASTLE IN TWO-POINT PERSPECTIVE
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15. Determine your light position, and shade the castle accordingly. Notice how I have shaded under the doorway arch. I’ve kept the window thicknesses shade-free to give the illusion that light is coming from within. Also notice how the nonshaded window ledges really pop out next to the black interior on one side and the gray-tone shading on the other side. This is called contrast. Contrast between values defines an object.
To complete the drawing, add details, such as bricks. Be sure to use your vanishing-point guide dots to appropriately line up the bricks’ angle, as I did in the drawing below. In most cases, when you’re adding textured detail, in this case the bricks, a little goes a long way, meaning that a scattered few groups of texture will give the illusion of full texture.
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Lesson 25: Bonus Challenge
1. Find a piece of cardboard about twelve inches by eighteen inches. You don’t need to be exact—any size will do. In fact, you will most likely be making several of these contraptions of varying sizes.
å
2. Secure a piece of paper to the center of the cardboard, leaving at least three inches of space to the left and right of your drawing paper.
ç
3. Draw a long horizon line through the center of your drawing paper, extending it all the way off both sides of the cardboard backboard.
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4. Draw vanishing points at each end of the
horizon line.
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5. Put a pushpin into each vanishing point.
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6. Secure a thin rubber band between each
pushpin.
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7. Whoala! You now have a totally flexible
vanishing-point guide line. You can stretch this vanishing-point guide line to determine the correct two-point-perspective vanishing angle of any object in your drawing. Go ahead, experiment!
Draw a vertical line anywhere on your paper.
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8. Now, use your rubber band to line up the top of the building.
ì
9. Now, use the rubber band to draw the bottom
of the building.
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10. To complete the drawing, add more vertical
lines, shading, and detail. You have mastered yet another brilliant drawing using 3-D techniques!
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Student examples
Take a look at how these students practiced this lesson in their sketchbooks.
By Michael Lane
By Ann Nelson
LESSON 25: A CASTLE IN TWO-POINT PERSPECTIVE
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L E S S O N 2 6
A CITY IN TWO-POINT
PERSPECTIVE
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T ake a look at the illustration on the previous page. Fantastic fun! This is a wonderful exercise for practicing a more advanced two-point-perspective challenge.
I established practice as one of the ABCs of Successful Drawing because it is nearly impossible to learn and master a new skill without engaging in intense repetitive practice. Music, language, reading, sports, and, most definitely, drawing demand practice for a person to really understand and enjoy them.
1. Lightly draw your long horizon
line, stretching across your entire
å
paper. Draw your two vanishing
points.
2. Draw four vertical lines to estab-
lish the near corners of four city
buildings. Notice how I’ve drawn
only two of the lines above and
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below the horizon line.
3. Begin with the building on the
left. Lightly draw the vanishing-
point guide line for the top of the
building. Notice how the bottom of
the building will be hidden beyond
the horizon line; it will be beyond
é
your eye level, hidden from your
point of view.
4. Move over to the next building
to the right. Lightly draw the
vanishing-point guide lines for the
top and bottom of this building.
è
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5. Move over to the next building,
and keep repeating this process,
using vertical lines to complete
these first buildings.
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6. Using overlapping, draw this far
right building tucking behind the
closer building.
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7. Draw some additional vertical
lines from the tops of the other
buildings to create the illusion of
depth and to create the look and
feel of a crowded city skyline.
í
8. Clean up your extra lines.
ì
LESSON 26: A CITY IN TWO-POINT PERSPECTIVE
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9. Lightly draw the vanishing-point guide lines to create the top of the building. Decide where you want your “below-eye-level”
buildings to be by drawing a vertical line. This will establish the near corner of the building.
10. Define the thickness of the tower with two vertical lines.
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11. Use your straightedge to draw a
light vanishing-point guide line from
the back right corner of the roof.
Do the same thing on the other
corner, and voilà, you have a slightly
opened foreshortened square. Now,
you CAN actually see why we prac-
ticed so many of these foreshortened
squares in the previous lessons.
Foreshortened squares are an ideal
example of how two-point perspec-
tive works. You CAN draw in 3-D
without understanding two-point
perspective, just as you can
drive a
car without knowing how the engine
11
works, or use a computer without
knowing how it works. However,
understanding two-point perspective
opens up a whole new view of creative
possibilities for your future drawings.
12. Begin another skyscraper with a
vertical center line.
Using your straightedge, lightly
draw the vanishing-point guide lines
to create the roof. For this exercise,
let’s just draw our buildings so tall
that they extend below our field of
vision. Just draw all your vertical
lines for these below-eye-level
buildings running right off the bot-
tom of your paper.
12
LESSON 26: A CITY IN TWO-POINT PERSPECTIVE
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13. Draw the vertical lines to define the width of the building, and lightly draw the vanishing-point guide lines to create the roof.
14. Draw all of the buildings, repeating this vanishing-point guide line technique over and over again.
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15. Determine where your light source is positioned, and shade all surfaces opposite that light position. Notice how I’ve punched out the edges of the overlapping buildings by really digging in with my pencil to get that very dark nook and cranny shadow. This dark edging, or defining of objects that are in front of other objects, is a very important tool that nearly every illustrator uses. Now that you know what to look for, I challenge you to find a comic, a magazine illustration, or a museum paint-ing that does not use this technique to define and separate objects.
Lesson 26: Bonus Challenge
Here’s a fun and interesting bonus-level challenge for you: Go online and search for images of Neuschwanstein Castle, a famous castle in Germany. This castle is believed to be the inspiration behind Cinderella’s castle at the Walt Disney World theme parks and on the Disney movie logo you may have seen in the theater or on a DVD. Browse through several images of Neuschwanstein online until you find one you really like. Be sure to choose one that has your eye level positioned toward the bottom of the castle, with all the spires reaching for the sky above your eye level.
Enlarge this image to fill your computer screen, and print it. Tape this photo image to a piece of cardboard, once again making sure the cardboard is larger than the image by three inches on each side. Now tape a clear piece of plastic Write-On Film over the photo.
LESSON 26: A CITY IN TWO-POINT PERSPECTIVE
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Use a ruler and a black fine-point Sharpie pen to find and trace the eye-level horizon line in the photo. Now, draw the guide lines from the highest point and the lowest point of the castle to position the vanishing points. Continue drawing as many of these guide lines from angles that you can find in the photo, dashing these lines off the castle to the vanishing points.
Notice how all of the windows on both sides of the main building all line up with the angles of the dark roof, the jutting roof spires, and the jutting roof windows.
Look at how even the smaller-side castle and the tall-side guard tower all line up with the vanishing points as well.
Student examples
Take a look at how some students practiced this lesson in their sketchbooks. This is a great lesson for you to draw three or four times in your sketchbook, adding lots of extra detail, such as people, windows, and doors.
By Ann Nelson
By Michele Proos
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L E S S O N 2 7
LETTERING IN TWO-POINT
PERSPECTIVE
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Do you remember how cool the opening sequence of the first Superman movie looked? (I know I’m dating myself here; the film was made in 1978.) Go ahead and Google an image of the poster for Superman, the Movie.
That very cool, superslick title lettering that you see is an example of two-point perspective. When I saw this movie in high school, I became obsessed with lettering in two-point perspective. Just as a side note here, notice how the Superman image is created in one-point perspective? Side note to the side note: Do you remember the opening sequence for Star Wars, where the battleship flies into view overhead and seems to go on forever? That is a great one-point-perspective scene, as is the opening story text rolling onto the screen. Side note three: You can learn a lot about 3-D graphic illustration by studying movie posters!
I’ve had many of my adult students request that I include 3-D lettering lessons in this book. Because I have limited space in these thirty days to cover more than one lettering lesson, I also recommend you take a look at another one of my books, Drawing in 3-D with Mark Kistler, which includes instructions on multiple 3-D lettering styles for every letter in the alphabet, A–Z. For this lesson, I’ve chosen two-point-perspective lettering because it’s the most challenging, the most interesting, and the most visually rewarding. Let’s start with the short two-letter word “Hi”
in two-point perspective lettering. Then you can experiment with longer words later.
1. Lightly draw your horizon line
across your entire sheet of paper.
Place your vanishing points at
the edges.
å
2. Establish the center line of the
lettering block.
ç
3. Lightly sketch in the
vanishing-point guide lines
for the top and bottom of the
é
lettering block.
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4. Define the block faces of the let-
ters. Be sure the near letter block is
larger. This is a great example of
size. The letter you want to appear
closer will automatically be drawn
larger as you follow your vanishing-
point guide lines. This will become
even more important when you
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draw words with three or more let-
ters in the future.
5. Shape the face of the letter H by
following your guide lines closely.
Remember how important the ver-
tical lines are. Dart your eyes to the
vertical edge of your paper, and the
vertical center line to ensure that
your H is being shaped correctly.
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6. Continue by shaping the letter I.
You can clearly see now what a
predominate role the drawing law
of size plays in creating this 3-D
visual illusion.
ë
7. Lightly sketch in the thickness
vanishing-point guide lines on the
right side.
í
LESSON 27: LETTERING IN TWO-POINT PERSPECTIVE
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8. Establish the corner thickness
of the letter I with two guide dots.
From those guide dots, draw
your vertical thickness and your
vanishing-point thickness.
ì
9. Complete the thickness of
the letter I with the vertical line for the stem. Now, carefully line up all
the letter H corners with the right-
î
side vanishing point.
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10. Position your light source, and shade all the surfaces opposite. Take a few moments to erase any extra guide lines.
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Lesson 27: Bonus Challenge
Instead of providing step-by-step directions, I’m going to provide you with this simple fact: You have practiced (several times) every principle that you need to know to draw the image below on your own. Don’t let the final advanced image drain your confidence. Remember it’s just one line at a time. Keep it simple. Create your vanishing points. Draw your block, define your letters, and add thickness. Have fun and enjoy. It may take you an hour or more to complete the drawing, so settle in for the ultimate visual game. Look at how Ann Nelson has drawn the letters “Time to Draw”
in two-point perspective below. Then look at how Ann Nelson wrote her son’s name and how she wrote “United States of America.” Think of your own clever word group, and draw it with two-point-perspective lettering.
By Ann Nelson
LESSON 27: LETTERING IN TWO-POINT PERSPECTIVE
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Student examples
By Ann Nelson
By Ann Nelson
By Ann Nelson
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L E S S O N 2 8
THE HUMAN FACE
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In my opinion, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt are the most skilled 3-D illustrators in history. Their sublime talent still inspires awe after five centuries. However, before they were master artists, they were student appren-tices. They learned how to draw from their teachers. They learned how to draw by studying, copying, and tracing their teachers’ work for years and years.
As I have explained in earlier lessons, the importance of learning how to draw by copying and tracing cannot be overemphasized. After more than thirty years of preaching this philosophy, I still get considerable flack from many art educators who believe that students need to learn how to draw by observation and trial and error. I respect their more conventional approach because it does work with students who have enormous patience and fortitude in their desire to learn how to draw. However, most of the students I’ve worked with would have quit my classes in frustration had I not given them permission to put aside the false assumption that tracing and copying are cheating.