Intro to Forms
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Intro to Forms
courseThe Perspective CourseSelected 2 parts (113 lessons)
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Lin
Hey @Carlos Javier Roo Soto I hope it’s okay to answer your comment in this section, because the previous one is so full of projects and feedback it’s difficult to have a conversation. You wrote: “On a unrelated note, today Marc Brunet made a video in which he talked about Caped Levels. Meaning that there are some skills that no matter how much you practice you can't improve upon after a certain point, and everybody's different. I'm quite scared of asking myself what those skill might be for me, because it might destroyed my goals or tell me I'm been wasting my time all this years, and is not just laziness and procrastination what has stutter my progress.” So, I kinda wanted to drag this here for discussion because it’s a common fear, and definitely mine. I think there’s truth to it but it’s not something like “I suck at perspective/values/rendering I’ll never get better at this thing”, but more about the avenue you take to a specific goal. If you have a goal, I think more often than not it’s your strength because it’s what speaks to your soul, right? At least that’s how I set mine. I will come right out and say once again that I cannot draw boxes and cubes for shit IF I have to draw just those things without a HL. I’m never going to be a Michael Hampton most likely. But within a figure forms begin to flow if I don’t have to think about perspective. I’ve always been an ellipse and tube person and now I’ve begun constructing forms using mostly these, and you know what, it turns out Steve Huston does it that way too and it’s fine. I can only feel form if I’m gliding, and, well, Glenn Vilppu does it that way and he’s great at what he does. When I post fanart it’s mood and lyricism that gets compliments and they’ve always been my goal, so lately I’ve been focusing on making form the servant of gesture/emotion rather than making bodies out of boxes and cylinders. But I will also draw the shit I hate because it helps me learn things I didn’t know before. And I feel like my figures have improved since embracing ellipses more than when I was than trying to grind boxes, - which is basically what Marc Brunet is saying about grinding your strength instead of your weakness. Find what doesn’t work for you and then think how you can achieve that goal differently based on what comes easier. For example, compare the first image with the second one from a few days ago and I do feel the second is stronger. even in imagination stuff or stuff I have no experience with (like the deer and cervtaur girl doing stuff with tubes/ellipses gets me somewhere without being familiar with anatomy.) So yeah, I think there are caps but so much in terms of a specific fundamental necessarily but more its offshoots of that fundamental if that makes sense? as a friend put it, about the order of operations and finding the best order of operations for yourself, rather than the goal. And if there’s anything I learned in art, is that fixed mindsets are always going to be your enemy here. We can’t grow if we don’t open ourselves to new experiences and that’s where grinding the same thing can be detrimental.
LESSON NOTES

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Forms are the secret to freehand drawing. They let you foreshorten without projections. You can draw like a pro by using simple forms, the figures of solid geometry.

Control of Forms

Work from general to specific. Start with a blob or cylinder. Add a rubber band to show which end is closer and set general position.

Make it specific. Add corners to block it up. This sets spatial axes. Carve out portions and add others.

Skill with forms lets you draw anything made of forms. It builds counterintuitive habits. You gain freedom to freehand from any viewpoint. You can make up objects in any position.

This is practical perspective. It is the classic language of drawing. Artists have used it for hundreds of years. Simplified form is the building block for making things up you can't see.

Lessons from a Master

Winsor McCay drew cartoons with lots of perspective. He stressed understanding solid geometry from every angle.

Why? If you draw a sphere, you can draw automobile wheels. If you draw a cube, you can adapt it to an automobile shape.

For training, set up a cone, sphere, cylinder, and cube. Draw only these for two months. Once you master them, you can draw anything, including cartoons.

Master primitive basics to handle complex perspective. 

Check out the premium course for additional lessons, demos, assignments and critiques!

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COMMENTS
Marshall Vandruff
Mastering simple 3D forms is the secret to freehand drawing. I will show you how to use these basic shapes to draw anything from your imagination.
MADawg
8d
dude who is the genius behind editing Proko courses
Charlie Nicholson
Thank you! For the most part, the Perspective course has been me and the great Hannah Lim doing the editing. I do a lot of the refining and final passes, and she does a lot of the first passes and most of the fun animations
M C
12d
@Marshall Vandruff I havent drawn since Christmas for health reasons, I feel like it’s going to be a news start for me, getting back into drawing. any advice as to how to how to get the maximum “new me = new understanding of space” effect??? many thanks🥰🥰🥰💖
Myles Goethe
Late to the party and didn't check my notifications to see Part II was starting lol
Charlie Nicholson
Part 2 officially starts next Thursday, these are some last transitional bonus part 1 lessons
Carlos Javier Roo Soto
I came back to this sketch after 2 weeks of not drawing, and besides the motorcycle I don't feel is coming together. It's suppose to be in 2 point perspective. Do you guys think it can still be salvage or should I just move on and try again after doing a few studies? I was thinking of finishing the rough sketch and inking it and coloring in Photoshop. What do you guys think?
Sita Rabeling
Maybe change the position of the arms. The rest looks good to me :)
Sita Rabeling
Working on simple forms. Horses on a lazy day, a heron looks for its mate, hiding in the bushes. And I’m still working on scapulae and those back muscles. To find the locations of it all in a moving body is hard, but it must be possible to make choreographies from imagination one day.
Anthony Hernandez
This is great! Keeping this in mind helped a lot with my figure drawing study today. WIll have to make sure to do this especially when there are complex poses I am struggling with or when my drawings are looking to flat and 2D.
M C
12d
brilliant!!!!
Elena Pesaresi
Wow great job 👏🏻
Charlie Nicholson
what a fun expression!
Spyridon Panagiotopoulos
Back back back!!!
Kai Ju
25d
Wooooo we're back!!! High key missed this.
Sandra Süsser
HELL YEAH, WE ARE BACK BABY! :D I can't wait to dive back into that! Actually, I haven't stopped lol. I kinda already did lots of practical perspective exercises during the course break. For example: I sketched my favorite Pokemon for each type starting with primitives and even did some crazy perspectives (fisheye, extreme angles). But now I am even more thrilled to get even better. I honestly love drawing in perspective so much by now. It's almost like meditation <3. And omg Marshall. I felt so honored seeing my sketches included in your video QQ. Thank you so much! Looking forward to watching and practicing with the new content! :D Already enjoyed the bits about Winsor McCay! Please more of that.
M C
12d
great idea! many thanks for sharing! - I’m going to try this with my own imaginary creatures ‘i onky know pikachu - no other pokemons! 🥺 it will be fun!!!🤩
Stevie Roder
Wow these are highly impressive, fantastic job on this and brilliant idea Sandra.
ra u
21d
the gyms are in shambles because of your Pokémon
Ron Kempke
26d
Marshall, I hope your promise (" I will show you how to use these basic shapes to draw anything") includes breaking down people and animals into simple forms. This is a skill with which I have difficulty.
Shayan Shahbazi
I will be back in this lesson’s post on June 23rd.
Spookii Moon
Yay! Excited about this next part
@fatty2toes
So excited you are back.
Roberto C
26d
I bought the entire course just for this second half. So excited!!
Lin
26d
Hey @Carlos Javier Roo Soto I hope it’s okay to answer your comment in this section, because the previous one is so full of projects and feedback it’s difficult to have a conversation. You wrote: “On a unrelated note, today Marc Brunet made a video in which he talked about Caped Levels. Meaning that there are some skills that no matter how much you practice you can't improve upon after a certain point, and everybody's different. I'm quite scared of asking myself what those skill might be for me, because it might destroyed my goals or tell me I'm been wasting my time all this years, and is not just laziness and procrastination what has stutter my progress.” So, I kinda wanted to drag this here for discussion because it’s a common fear, and definitely mine. I think there’s truth to it but it’s not something like “I suck at perspective/values/rendering I’ll never get better at this thing”, but more about the avenue you take to a specific goal. If you have a goal, I think more often than not it’s your strength because it’s what speaks to your soul, right? At least that’s how I set mine. I will come right out and say once again that I cannot draw boxes and cubes for shit IF I have to draw just those things without a HL. I’m never going to be a Michael Hampton most likely. But within a figure forms begin to flow if I don’t have to think about perspective. I’ve always been an ellipse and tube person and now I’ve begun constructing forms using mostly these, and you know what, it turns out Steve Huston does it that way too and it’s fine. I can only feel form if I’m gliding, and, well, Glenn Vilppu does it that way and he’s great at what he does. When I post fanart it’s mood and lyricism that gets compliments and they’ve always been my goal, so lately I’ve been focusing on making form the servant of gesture/emotion rather than making bodies out of boxes and cylinders. But I will also draw the shit I hate because it helps me learn things I didn’t know before. And I feel like my figures have improved since embracing ellipses more than when I was than trying to grind boxes, - which is basically what Marc Brunet is saying about grinding your strength instead of your weakness. Find what doesn’t work for you and then think how you can achieve that goal differently based on what comes easier. For example, compare the first image with the second one from a few days ago and I do feel the second is stronger. even in imagination stuff or stuff I have no experience with (like the deer and cervtaur girl doing stuff with tubes/ellipses gets me somewhere without being familiar with anatomy.) So yeah, I think there are caps but so much in terms of a specific fundamental necessarily but more its offshoots of that fundamental if that makes sense? as a friend put it, about the order of operations and finding the best order of operations for yourself, rather than the goal. And if there’s anything I learned in art, is that fixed mindsets are always going to be your enemy here. We can’t grow if we don’t open ourselves to new experiences and that’s where grinding the same thing can be detrimental.
M C
12d
hello there! I love your figures btw - i think the answer to your fear is: trust the process, if you try to control everything you are holding yourself back, study so the skill you study becomes automatically part of you. Glenn Vilppu always says: “perspective is important if you dont know it, if you do know it - do think about it” same for anatomy etc etc. Just load the skill in you mind, use it to lake sure it’s integrated into your brain and move on. when you learn, you change, dont try to measure what you do by old standards (like what you told yourself six months ago) - you are work in progress, let it flow, have fun, and remember your drawing is a mirror to what you are in this moment, so if you study a musical instrument while you study drawing you’ll find your progress in music will make you see things differently in drawing, it’s a global thing: work in progress!!!! 😻 i hope this makes sense, it’s what i learned from studyign with Glenn since 2013 ❤️
Randy Pontillo
I've found myself scrutinizing art Youtubers pretty heavily nowadays, its important to keep in mind that if they're selling online courses, they're not going to give you the whole story for free outside of their course. With Marc Brunet, his thumbnails and titles promise huge gains, the videos give you a taste of knowledge, then by the end he hopefully convinces you to buy his online course. All this to say, don't take a Youtuber's word as gospel just because they're popular on the platform, you could be getting incomplete, maybe even damaging advice for your particular journey. I think It's difficult to find your strengths, and I think its even more difficult to know if you're doing the whole 'art thing' right... but so long as you're not running away from things that challenge you, you ask questions, and you harness a mastery mindset, then you're going in the right direction! Lin, I also did centaur stuff! Not as pretty as yours but still!
Sandra Salem
Yes! I love these types of drawing practices!
Lin
27d
Sita Rabeling
This says it all 🤣
Michael Giff
Can it be? After decades will Michael Giff finally be able to draw a box? Taking bets now! ... and no I won't tell you how I'm betting!
M C
12d
tell Michael Giff to have fun and trust the flow!!!!🥰🥰🥰
Max Long
27d
Welcome back Marshall! I noticed on your bookshelf behind you the book “How to Draw” by Scott Robertson, is like a star shining prominently. I just acquired this book recently, and I have noticed that it is the perfect complement to this course. I am very excited to start working again on basic forms as I tend to have artist block, never really knowing what to draw from my imagination. So, maybe after drawing nothing but basic forms for the next few months, I will never have the excuse of artistic block again? Again, welcome back! Cheers!
@rdpman
27d
I also have the book and it is really great to have. There are some great drawings in there that show off perspective and can even give ideas for this course on some pretty cool things to draw
Randy Pontillo
During the break i had the opportunity to shadow a small production, and now I'm half through reading the Artist's Master Series: Color & Light! A section about honing forms couldn't have come at a more perfect time!
Lin
27d
WAIT that’s the book I’m on! Had a serendipity moment with a friend yesterday that we’re both on this one and now you. Ha!
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