Internal Workings of a Duck.

A collection of Ways to Tie a Necktie

Our other collections:

How to fold a shirt

Choosing a suit that fits

GAION SIGMA is an independent tokusatsu movie featuring Masaaki Nitta and co-directed by Garage Hero Pro’s own Bueno! 

I’d keep an eye on this—it looks pretty slick!

*STANDARD DISCLAIMER* I’m not handing down life lessons or trying to assert that there’s a ‘correct way’ to draw. I’m just trying to make perspective more approachable for thems that want to tackle it.

Okay. Let’s do this.

1. Understand what perspective is and what it’s for. Stay away from rulers while you get comfortable.

Everyone struggles with perspective because 1. it’s not well or widely taught and 2. artists tend to see linear perspective as a set of rules rather than a set of tools.

Linear perspective is a TOOL we use to create and depict SPACE. That’s it. That’s all it is. Your goal is not to draw in ‘accurate linear perspective.’ Stay away from the ruler and precision for as long as you can. Your goal is to create the illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. Perspective is just a tool to help you construct and correct that space.

2. Know in your bones that you can ONLY learn to draw in perspective through physical practice. There is no other way.

Grab some paper and draw with me. If you match me drawing for drawing you will be more fluent in linear perspective and spatial drawing by the end of this post. Unfortunately if you don’t, you won’t be.

3. Sketch around in rough perspective. NO RULERS.

So let’s make some simple space. let’s start with a two dimensional surface…

K. We have a flat, 2D surface. Let’s create some depth by putting a vanishing point in the middle, and having parallel lines converge towards it. Make a gridded plane inside that space.

Good. Let’s make that space meaningful by adding a dude and a road or something. (Again, parallel ‘depth lines’ will converge into the vanishing point along the horizon)

And now we have the rough illusion of some space. I didn’t use any rulers, and it’s not perfectly accurate, but we got our depth from that vanishing point right in the middle of the page. And since we have a little dude in there, we’ve got human scale, which allows us to gauge the size of the space we’ve created. Gives it meaning.

You need people or cars or some recognizable, human-scale THING in there as a frame of reference or your space won’t mean much to your viewer. Watch. We can make that same basic space a whole lot bigger like this:

Same vanishing point in the same place, completely different scale, and a totally different feeling of space. Cool, right?

3. Sketch around in rough perspective MORE. STAY LOOSE.

See what sort of spaces and feelings you can create with vanishing points and gridded planes on a post-it or something. Super small, super rough. Feel it out. Pick a vanishing point or lay out a grid in perspective, and MAKE SOME SPACE. Do it. Draw, I don’t know, a lady and her dog in a desert. I’ll do it, too.

Good job. LOOK AT YOU creating the illusion of space! This is how you’ll thumbnail and plan anything you want to draw in space. All of my drawings start this way. I think about how I want the viewer to feel and then play around with space and composition until I find something that works.

Once you have a sketch you like, and space that you feel, THEN you can take out the ruler and make it more accurate and convincing.

4. Draw environments from life.

I cannot stress this enough. Draw the world around you, try to draw the shapes and angles as you see them, and you will ‘get’ how and why perspective is used. Use something permanent so that you’ll move fast and commit. I usually use black prismacolor pencil.

You’ll learn or reinforce something with every drawing. I learned a lot about multiple vanishing points from this drawing:

Learned from the receding, winding space I tired to draw here:

Layered, interior spaces:

You get the idea.

Life drawing will also help you develop your own shorthand and language for depicting textures, materials, details, natural and architectural features, etc. Do it. Do it all the time. Go to pretty or interesting places just to draw them.

Take a second and just draw a quick sketch of whatever room you’re in.

5. Perspective in formal Illustration: apply what you’ve learned.

1. I always start with research. For this particular location I looked at Angkor Wat.

2. Once I had enough reference, I did a bunch of little thumbnail sketches with a very loose sense of space and picked the one I liked best.

3. Scanned the thumbnail and drew a little more clearly over it. Worked out the rough space before using formal perspective.

4. Reinforced the space with formal perspective. I dropped in pre-made vanishing points over my drawing. If I were drawing in real media here’s where I’d get out the ruler to sketch in some accurate space.

5. Drew the damn thing. Because I do my research, draw from life, and am comfortable drawing in perspective, I can wing it. I just sort of ‘build’ the ruins freehand in the space I’ve established, keeping it more or less accurate, experimenting and playing with details along the way. I erase a lot, too, both in PS and when drawing in pencil. Keeps it fun for me.

And that’s what I know about composition and perspective. If you want more formal instruction on perspective and it’s uses, you can use John Buscema’s How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Or If you want to get really intense about it, Andrew Loomis can help you.

He is talking about becoming friends with an orbital weapons platform.

The rain was coming down harder now- Sonic’s fur was already soaked, but even when the weight of Johnny’s jacket settled on his shoulders he barely seemed to notice or acknowledge it. The rabbit bit his lip slightly- he could practically see the waves of frustration from his friend.

Another badnik factory raided, but not put out of action forever. The Freedom Fighters had got a few of the prisoners out, that was the important thing- but eventually they’d been forced to retreat. Soon the place would be in full operation again and Johnny could see Sonic was just itching to go back and finish the job. That had been the plan- after finding somewhere safe to regroup and lick their various wounds.

But Robotnik’s supporters had other ideas. Someone had reported a sighting and now their hiding place was no longer so safe after all- the headlines of the evening newspaper, a copy of which was rapidly becoming a sodden mess above Johnny’s head, shouted their presence in the city to anyone who cared to read it.

From the direction Sonic was staring, the drone of hovering Trooper transport ships could be heard as searchlights swept the city. It was time to move on…

—-

Extreeeeeemely belated STC 20th anniversary pic. The thing that always struck me with STC was how it felt like a vast world where more was happening between issues than was ever actually told in a single story. I wanted to try and show one of those moments. This is probably between STC #76 and #80 somewhere owing to lack of Porker.

Character design and drawing are tome-sized topics and even if I had all the answers (I don’t - I have a lot to learn), I’m not sure I could communicate them effectively. I’ve gathered some thoughts and ideas here, though, in case they’re helpful.

CHARACTER DESIGN LECTURE by CHEN YI CHANG from six years ago

One of my favorite character designers, who worked on Disney’s Mulan and Tarzan and other productions ( basically I’ve heard how people working on the production team of Mulan were trying to do a ‘cohesive’/united character style. But they were flailing around sadly trying to draw a stylistically consistent yet wide variety of East Asian characters until he came onto the scene like “WHAT UP, I’M GOING TO TEACH YOU SOME THINGS!!”) 

Photoset of commissions I did for people at AOD!

1.) The Satsuki was my sample commission

2.) Rozalin holding a plate of meat owo

3.) One Punch Man doing his thing, Marie is aghast. @A@

4.) Dahlia and Annie drinking after the voting. Dahlia pours the bartender (and his bar) a drink too. He *gladly* complies.

5.) Some toohooz: Patchouli Knowledge. Books!

6.) Cerebella and Noel. Incidentally, Cristina Vee was a guest at AOD.

7.) Parasoul (SG) and Vanessa (VF5)

8.) Shadow443’s characters. You can check out his stuff at: http://shadow443.deviantart.com/

9.) Rangiku

10.) Ryuko and Squigly, apparently @3@/

Also, I got a neat gift from maddoxfanx. Check it out here!  http://maddoxfanx.tumblr.com/post/74591362985/present-i-will-give-to-alex-ahad-at-aod-2014

I also drew his character: http://maddoxfanx.tumblr.com/post/74684131214/con-art-from-aod-2014-thanks-o-8-and-durrnurrart

Here’s his tumblr in general: http://maddoxfanx.tumblr.com/