1- 'The Essence of Freedom' by Mariusz Lewandowski D- 5 C- 3 F- 2 O- 5 A- 5 I feel like the key player here is atmospheric perspective, which helps thematically tie both halves of the image. In the left half, diminution has helped establish how far away the crowd is from the viewer, but the fog over them helps sell it. But it does more: it tells us where they’re going and connects them thematically to the gargantuan reaper sticking out of the cavernous mirror. The only subject not in fog is the reaper in the lower left corner, who is overlapped over the crowd to place him spatially and thematically closer to the viewer. In the right half, the reaper sculptures become lighter and foggier as they get spatially further away from the viewer and closer to the moon, telling us that they’re still as massive as the one closest to the viewer, emphasised beautifully with diminution. The same atmospheric perspective is applied very effectively to the waves. 2- 'Apatosaurus' by Julius Csotonyi: D- 5 C- 5 (but actually off the charts!) F- 5 O- 5 A- 3 The spherical lensing on this is absolutely insane. I don’t know much of it was eyeballing, and how much actual science. The scale of the apatosaurs is even more palpable as a result of all the ridiculous warping in the name of convergence, but that could’ve easily backfired. The artist has used this hand-in-hand with diminution, reducing the amount of convergence and foreshortening with reducing sizes to show how far from the viewer each apatosaur is, with some aerial perspective being used to really sell the distance of the last one. The use of overlap is critical in a piece like this to establish a planar environment within a spherical distortion, hammering in how far the shoots, the trees and the pterosaur in the sky are from the viewer. This piece is just remarkable. 3- 'To the golden yonder where we slumber' by Rudolf Hima: D- 4 C- 5 F- 4 O- 3 A- 2 I love how the impression of walking skyscrapers gets emphasised by the convergence of lines in each plane for this herd of dreadnoughtus. The size of the flock of pterosaurs flying with them gets well established by the use of diminution. While there is a lovely overall fiery colour to this painting, the artist has scarcely faded the faraway mountains and the ominous asteroid impact cloud that they’re heading for. 4- 'Ex Nihilo' by Mariusz Lewandowski: D- 2 C- 3 F- 2 O- 1 A- 4 While the use of perspective drawing rules is more muted here, once again it is atmospheric perspective that’s the hero of a Mariusz Lewandowski painting. The gaping fiery void in the lower left diagonal almost symmetrically balances out the cosmic stuff happening in the top right. 5- Sandcrawler by Ralph McQuarrie: D- 5 C- 3 F- 4 O- 3 A- 4 The centrepiece of this masterpiece by Ralph McQuarrie is the sand crawler, and it needs to look massive. The tiny beings and droids inside the sand crawler really manage to drive that point home. It’s accentuated by the presence of the regular-sized Jawas in the foreground, as a scale reference. We also get a sense of how spread-out this market is with the subtle fading of vehicles, tents and equipment as they get further away from the viewer. The subtlety is substituted for overtly faded colours and blue-shifting on the far away rocks, to express their distance as well as the fact that they’re baking under the setting of not one, but 2 suns. 6. Medal Ceremony by Ralph McQuarrie: D- 5 C- 5 F- 1 O- 3 A- 1 In order to convey exactly how numerous the crowds in this medal ceremony are, artist Ralph McQuarrie has taken diminution to a new level by arranging the onlookers into perfect blocks, with only the outermost columns being given some colour patches that could suggest human form. This helps sell the regimented nature of the gathering, as well as serves as literal lines of convergence towards the entrance, shown as just a black square at the end of the massive hallway. The tiny size of the people makes the recesses in the wall feel even more massive. 7. AT-AT by Ralph McQuarrie: D- 1 C- 5 F- 5 O- 4 A- 1 One feels tiny indeed upon looking at this piece, more specifically upon looking up almost vertically at this AT-AT. The alien-yet-familiar tech that makes up all its moving parts are impeccably distorted and squashed dues to the extreme convergence of their planes. A lot of care has been taken in terms of which part overlaps which, so that there is zero confusion about the functionality of the AT-AT. 8. 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' by Alex Ross: D- 1 C- 5 F- 5 O- 5 A- 4 To make these key Marvel characters feel like gods, artist Alex Ross makes us look up at their glory, making all planes converge at a point pretty much 90° to the viewer. What follows from this is a lot of foreshortening of abs and chests and heads and other parts, a lot of chins overlapping mouths, cheeks overlapping eyes etc. The shining of these characters in the light is a great example of aerial perspective being used to set a mood. All of this makes these familiar characters feel like real heroes. 9. 'Marvel Knights' by Alex Ross: D- 5 C- 5 F- 5 O- 4 A- 2 The use of convergence is extreme in this piece of Alex Ross as well, but this time we’re looking the other way. Down, instead of up. With all the steeply converging skyscrapers, we feel like we’re high up in the air with Spiderman and Daredevil. This is accentuated by the ant-sized cars on the ribbon-sized roads. All the sharp-angled convergence makes a lot of foreshortening equally important. Tens of stories having to be progressively squashed the further away they get from us. 10. Kim Jung Gi blue inks: D- 5 C- 5 F- 4 O- 4 A- 1 Kim Jung Gi is famous for his warping of perspective, which is exemplified here by not just the strong angling of parallel lines but also their gentle curving to form spherical lensing. He makes his lines converge in both directions on each of the axes. The closer objects get foreshortened to much greater extremes than the ones closer to the centre of the image. 11. Battle Scene by Kim Jung Gi: D- 3 C- 3 F- 2 O- 5 A- 4 This battle scene has no warping of converging lines. In fact, it has significantly more gradual convergence overall. The artist helps us discern silhouettes of individual characters in what initially looks like a messy scene by gradually lightening ink as the scene moves further away from the viewer. The building facades in the background are the most gray, as a result.

'Indiana Jones 3' and 'The Last Jedi' also come to mind for their use of optical illusions.

Here are some isometric drawings I made! I wanted to focus on getting my lines to travel the same way and to look neat on paper. At first I was just putting down simple lines but then I realised I wanted to add a little bit of shading to make it clearer which way the faces of my objects were facing. So far I've just copied isometric illusions I have found online and in doing so I feel I have gotten much better at using my straight and triangular rulers. Now I want to start experimenting with my own illusions and hopefully submit them too!

Hi Marshall, Sorry about the delay but here are my humble attempts at isometric optical illusions. I hadn't used protractors and set squares (triangles) since leaving school so getting used to not drawing freehand was half the challenge, haha. I hope these are not too rudimentary. In the 1st 3 images, I used an isometric hexagonal 'cookie cutter' type of form and then played with the overlap at the midpoint to fake the view between looking up at it and looking down. In the next 3 images, I was reminded of an illusion I had seen in my childhood in an encyclopedia of pipes that looked connected as well as disconnected at the same time. In mine, the view could be either looking from outwards to in from the top set, or the bottom. I decided to omit the overlapping surfaces towards one end of the entire unit and vellum-ed over the missing lines, as well as one version of just one side being shaded. In the final 3 images, I drew a 3x3 grid of squares with one set of diagonals drawn in for them all. I then vellum-ed over a thickening of angles and shading of sides to give the impression of 3 boxes forming from a combination of diagonals and sides. I also did a version where one half of each square was shaded in to look like a grid of pyramids.

Right off the bat, those illustrations from your advertising days are absolutely stunning. They're precise, realistic-looking and so beautifully rendered! They look so tactile! And it's blowing my mind that you achieved that level of rendering on the photo filter disc image overnight. One of my profs from my uni days was instrumental in instilling the habit of keeping a sketchbook and drawing regularly within it. I have a sketchbook but I'm nowhere close to as regular as I should be. Additionally, I run into the problem of doing the opposite as you describe in this video with sketchbook drawings which is to do less thinking and be 'uncareful'. I tend to want to get it right as soon as I put pen to paper but I realise now how futile a mindset like that is. I'm so grateful for videos like these as they not only teach process and technique, but also discipline.

I have a question about this piece. In the video Marshall points out a vanishing point as the boxes forming the lozenge shape move away from us. I understood from this that our eyeline runs horizontally through that point. Why is it that the top plane of the chimney isn’t visible when it’s below the eyeline? I think I’m not understanding something Thanks!

What immediately blew my mind was the same dustbin when photographed with different lenses. The one in the wide angle lens photo has such a strong taper that it looks like a different structural design altogether! On a more serious note, I'm enjoying how lessons like this one and the Hiroshi Yoshida one are helping ease us into the otherwise intimidating task of tackling perspective. The intimidation, in huge part, comes from 'where the hell does one start?' and that one phrase 'the big simple lesson is to look for big simple things' really helps in giving me, at least, a starting point mentally. I'm really looking forward to the next few lessons!

Here's my go at using De Vries' work as a stage. I recently watched some videos of the metal band Slayer's comeback gig and that was on my mind. I couldn't put myself through the pain of making an entire crown so I kept a bouncer dragging a drunken guy out of the 'stage' area instead,

Hi all, My name is Ishaan and I'm really excited to start this course with the man who is as artistic with his words and wit as he is a draftsman, Marshall Vandruff. I am an aspiring paleoartist and a few of my influences come from within that field, but aren't limited to it. Image 1 is by Julius Csotonyi and I consider it to be one of the most jaw-droppingly ambitious successes in art I've ever come across. Image 2 is by Rudolf Hima and I love how he is able to masterfully use perspective to represent the gigantic scale of the creatures being depicted here. Images 3 and 4 are by the late surrealist Mariusz Lewandowksi. I really love how he plays with atmospheric, as well as spatial perspective to show the vastness of his macabre worlds. Images 5,6 and 7 are by the legendary concept artist Ralph McQuarrie. I'm sure they require zero introduction. Images 8 and 9 are by another legend of pop culture, comic book artist Alex Ross. I love the realism in his art and his mastery over perspective really sells that. The final 2 are by probably the most unbelievable champion of perspective drawing, the late great Kim Jung Gi. He was the stuff of legend for his ability to whip up entire murals with perspective being warped in nearly fantastical, yet believable ways.