I've been using this technique to draw other things like horses and flowers; it's so so useful! :DD Very technical, very conscious observation. Love it!

This video answered my questions! Nice! It's still not perfect, but I think I'm getting it! If you plot the outside edges of your shape and extrude that into space, it makes it easier to replicate the curves and angles themselves. I love doing all this on paper, too.

Ehehe, this was fun! Therapeutic. I found it was hard to figure out where the words end, if that makes sense? Maybe it was because I chose letters that were too complicated initially, haha.

Done! What a playground this creates! :D My vocabulary of "rocky shapes" is very limited, but I did have fun doing what I was able to.

My attempts! :D I did it in pen, so, kinda unforgiving, but I had a lot of fun, haha. It's really hard to keep the principle of "squashing as it get closer to the horizon" in mind. But what a fabulous mental work out! >:D

Drew some more complicated items so I could practice the iteration part

The more I did this exercise, the more it began to make sense to me on a purely, non-verbal, right brained level, haha. It's hard to explain what exactly this is doing, but I'll try. The blob provides a strong sense of direction to build a shape on top of. There's almost a magical clarity that emerges the more you try to put any sort of cube/box shape around it. I found I couldn't help but see exactly where I wanted my lines in perspective to go once I got those contour lines of the blob in place. The right side of your brain inherently understands direction before you can even consciously understand how to represent it on paper-- If you assign *direction* to a formless blob, you've already done the hardest part of the drawing. After that it's just adding details to a solid foundation. Direction is so key here. Direction = foundation. It's the first step to carving into the paper, and assigning dimension to flat forms. At least, that's what I think is going on, haha. Excellent lesson.

The thing I always forget to do when observing masters is observing with a specific criteria in mind. I just look and say, "Wow, that's way better than I could do," and I forget to ask, "Why does this art make me feel this way? What's so much 'better' about it? What can I learn from it?" to phrase the most basic, general questions. To come at it with questions with a particular topic in mind is even better, and gives you deeper answers. Exploring "Rendering," for example, with this artist I'm currently studying for my art job, Jeff Smith. This panel in particular fascinates me. - How does he solve the problem of making a shadowed character emerge from darkness when he only has two colours: black and white? - How does he imply his environment (a forest at night) without making it too busy, or making it too dark? - How does he render a puddle in black and white? Man, and the way he indicates the form of the trees with some short hatching lines, and all the mud and texture on the path, and all the grass and branches... Such elegant mark-making decisions. Haha, thanks for showing me how to hone my observational skills! Criteria is key.

I have to study Jeff Smith for my art job, so, might as well combine that assignment with this one! Image 1: Diminution: 4, Characters clearly different depths and sizes from each other. Convergence: 1 Foreshortening: 1 Overlap: 2, ground plane helps exaggerate the distance between foreground and middle-distance characters Atmosphere: 2, the trees on the right fade into blackness, as does the ground plane Image 2: Diminution: 3, cart is proportionally smaller than it would be if it was not affected by diminution. Convergence: 5, cart displays strong 1 point perspective, as well as the floor plane Foreshortening: 5, cart is in a very foreshortened state Overlap: 5, characters in front of the door, overlapping the cart, and the sloping ground plane Atmosphere: 1 Image 3: Diminution: 2, a little bit with the character sizes Convergence: 1 Foreshortening: 1 Overlap: 2 tiny bit with the branch at the bottom of the panel Atmosphere: 4, the way the trees and foliage fades into white in the background Image 4: Diminution: 2, the puddles on the path Convergence: 2, Path ground planes slightly converging back in space. Foreshortening: 1 Overlap: 2, rocks and branches Atmosphere: 5, the "grumping" figure in the distance emerging from the solid black. And he manages to accomplish all this with only black and white at his disposal! So amazing.

Man, working on graph paper is a GAME-CHANGER for me! Copying someone else's illusion was a relatively simple task, but I was struggling to rough out concepts for my own illusions because the difficulty of free-handing isometric perspective was getting in the way. But with graph paper I could wholly focus on the design aspect-- And I ended up having a lot of fun, haha! My brain is thoroughly teased.