The Perspective Course
Understanding Perspective(81 Lessons )
Intro to Perspective
Materials to Spare You Pain
Depth Tricks and Old Masters
Intro to Forms
Orthos and One Point
Orthos and No Point
XYZ
Grids
Eye Level
The Picture Plane
Bonus Lessons
Mastering the Skills(0 Lesson )
Course In Progress
Course In Progress
The picture plane is like a window that helps solve perspective problems in drawing.
Newest
Sandra Süsser
1d
Lesson Notes. I understand this basic rotation, however I've got a question: What happens when the plan for the object is parallel docking onto the picture plane? (See little sloppy sketch on the lower left corner)
I know it should be central 1-point-perspective without the vanishing points at the side and I can usually draw that no problem. However, I just can't wrap my head around constructing that with THIS method and I would probably never use it for that. But I would really like to know how it's done properly. Like which lines connect to which? Is the viewer the central vanishing point at the same time?
Sita Rabeling
5d
Earlier attempts to project an irregular figure failed, but I hope I 'got' it now... Phew!
I traced the drawing digitally to see it all the lines better.
Sita Rabeling
4d
Btw got some tips for this from @maggieb, so that was very helpful!
Frank Engelhaupt
5d
I have a question. When I look at a model at my life drawing class and that model ist standing right in front of me. In order to look at her legs, I would have to roll my eyes or tilt my head downwards. I always assumed, that in this case, the legs would appear foreshortened hence I look down on them. So I did a little diagram and a little measuring and it seems, that there is NO foreshortening going on in the vertical axes. Am I correct or is there an error in my reasoning? I guess it has also to do with proximity - if I would stay closer to the model there would be a distortion even on the y-axis. Or does the distortion only start to happen when the canvas and the y-axes are not parallel anymore? Thank you for clarification.
Anke Mols
6d
Cool, works, what a joy.
Does the lowest point of the (here) rectangle need to touch the picture plane? I would say "no", but I am not sure.
@Michael Longhurst: you did the anvil, WOW !!!! Great work! Hopefully I will dare to do so within the next days.
Michael Longhurst
5d
My assumption was that, yes, one corner of your object has to touch the picture plane. Since we’re using the actual height of the ortho in the final drawing for that corner, that would only match if it was up against the picture plane. Otherwise it would be diminished based on how far away it was.
Michael Longhurst
6d
Fascinating process. I started with a 4 sided shape, but realized it didn’t work right because the sides weren’t parallel, ie wouldn’t go to the same vanishing points. Then I tried an airplane shape. That worked pretty well, but was really small. Also the back corner wasn’t quite lined up, I think due to line thickness and imperfect measurements. Next I moved on to anvils. I also started using multiple pages to attempt bigger drawings. My first one, I forgot to move the horizon line, so by default used the top of the page as the horizon line. I had a lot of distortion, I think due to being far enough below the horizon that the anvil was outside of the 60 degree cone of vision. On my 2nd anvil, I placed it on the horizon line. It came out pretty well. My biggest question is whether or not this is the right approach to scale up the final drawing. It seems to take a lot of paper space and gets a little difficult to work with, although maybe I’m just not used working bigger than sketchbook size.
Jay Nightshade
8d
Another great video in this course. This clears up a lot of my questions about X,Y and Z.
@ryanlloyddesign
9d
Very informative lesson!
It breaks down some of the stuff I've been reading in How to Draw by Scott Robertson.
Also the very beginning reminds me of some of the ideas behind 3D graphics coding I did years ago - namely using the idea of ratios of similar triangles from geometry to project 3d points onto a screen (in this case the picture plane). Same concept, just one is more visual, the other a mathematical representation.
It's pretty cool how all of this comes full circle.
Maria Bygrove
9d
Here's my attempt at following along and trying to wrap my head around the ideas.
And a couple of questions:
Is the point that I marked with "?" called the Station Point?
Does the horizon line for the projection drawing have to cross it?
@lucastoonz86
5d
Hello, yes it is the station point or viewers position seen from plan view and the picture plane is the viewers window.
the station point DOES NOT dictate the placement of the horizon line that is the viewers choice or it could possibly be implemented into a elevation view but for now it is up to the viewer, i do wonder if I confuse the issue I hope this helps.
You Ji An
10d
When I first tried it, it looked off even though it was within the 60 degrees FOV, but then I realised it's because of precision issues with my thick pencil and the way I used the ruler :D
Also, I guess the height method only works if the object is touching the picture plane.
Sita Rabeling
10d
Hope I’m still following 🤓 despite having less time, focus at the moment.
@maggieb
9d
Great job exploring shapes that are not simple rectangles! Angles other than 90 degrees and sides that are not parallel make these interesting examples.
I think you need to make a small adjustment in how you apply the technique in order for this to work. All lines that go to a common vanishing point are parallel. In Marshall's example, he used a rectangle which has two sets of parallel sides and thus he required two vanishing points.
In your first example, the top view shows that you don't have any parallel edges, all four edges extend at different angles to the picture plane. This means that the lines through the edges in your perspective projection must each go to a _different_ vanishing point. You can either use four different vanishing points (one for each edge angle, determined just as you did for the red and blue edges) or you can put your shape in a rectangle (or a parallelogram), use the edges of the rectangle to place two vanishing points and then determine the position of your shape inside the rectangle (e.g. by using a grid approach within the rectangle). The same is true for your pentagon shape. None of the edges are parallel so you either need five vanishing points or you need to place the pentagon in a rectangle.
Aside: The lines that go through a single vanishing point only intersect at that vanishing point. The vanishing point is on the horizon which is very, very far away and can be thought of as at infinity. Thus the lines never really intersect which means, by definition, they are parallel. Exceptions to this would be the horizon line and a vertical line through the VP, both of which would be in the zone of distortion so I think we can ignore them.
Smithies
11d
I think I follow, but mostly maybe I don't!
The plan stage lost me - the video mentioned placing things at an angle and being a certain distance from the picture plane. How does this translate to drawing? Is the picture plane the easel? Is this only when you are drawing from life? Is the viewer the artist? I see the logic of distortion but also I'm so confused.
Lin
8d
The picture plane is both the window through which you’re viewing the image, and the flat surface of the drawing where you’re producing what’s in that window. You decide how much you’re drawing. In rizz parlance, it’s like taking a screenshot in a video game. Screenshot is picture plane. It can be what your eyes see, or you can crop it so you only have a specific part of it you want to show. You decide how much goes on the canvas.
Every screenshot is taken from a specific position, and can only include so much in it, that’s your cone of vision. You can’t include 360* degrees, only how much your video game eyes can see. Technically we are both viewer and artist because we decide where the image is taken or seen from - top down, front, etc.
When it comes to distance, it’s the distance between you and the objects you’re drawing that changes how things look. The picture plane is just there to be aware of. Imagine you’re looking at a cat. We have a 60 degree cone of vision as humans so if we are too close to the cat all we will see is its snout and a bit of fur. it won’t be all in our sight. if we are really far away we will see the cat and all the surroundings in the picture plane. Same if we take a photo of it with our phone from up close vs from far away. For example, Boston is very close to the camera here so all we see in the picture plane is her head. That’s why Marshall says put the station point aka viewer a bit further away from the object to make sure the entire cat is in the cone of vision.
Smithies
11d
Also I'm so sorry if I'm being dumb
Dedee Anderson Ganda
11d
this is the hardest lesson to wrap around the brain so far, might need to rewatch this a couple of times more.
Also my results dont feel accurate. due to wobbly freehand lines.
Dedee Anderson Ganda
11d
wait, is the bottom one incorrect because the object is placed behind the observer therefore that should not be happening?
Dermot
12d
Marshall thanks for the picture plane and planned projection video explanation.
You used parallel lines to find the VP's.
Is there a similar method to working out the FOV without a protractor or does that come down to angle familiarity through practice using a protractor?
Minqi He
12d
really useful, seems that it is necessary to determine the position of observation
Lin
12d
Great work! Yeah, I can’t wait to learn about the cone of vision from Marshall rather than than the books because anything outside of it seems to be very distorted
Lin
13d
This answers so many questions about right angles, like why one VP is often out of the image, or why the line moves so fast when it’s close to the centre then really slowly when it’s far away. Rn I think I’m putting the viewer too close in the 2-3 min quicksketches due to speed but I want to be able to do some of this mentally to help with cuboid intuition
Randy Pontillo
13d
I appreciate the people who spent the bulk of their lives figuring this stuff out for us so we could learn it in a fraction of the time later, I feel a little spoiled.
Randy Pontillo
12d
I cant remember where but i remember a shot of the construction lines of a sphere in the last few lesson videos, i took a stab at it after i got more comfortable with the technique in this lesson.
Katherine Cleary
13d
The line about books on perspective is spot on.
Juice
13d
20 % off is good. Its just a pitty swedish VAT is 25% so now it does allmost cost what it says from the start.🙃 I don’t like that VAT.
M C
13d
IT'S A COOKBOOK!! (and it works! I now know how to cook perspective! thanks a ton Marshall, looking forward to more! ("it's a cookbook" kudos if you recognise this quote or perhaps my sympathy if you are old enough to say: "everybody knows that quote!"
Lin
13d
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