The idea to think of cylinders and being inside a large cylinder, was super useful. Imagining the cylinder top and bottom distorted by perspective and the horizon line in front of me really helped. I gave it a shot a couple times with varying materials in my sketchbook.

Tried to do a quick study of the location ignoring the characters

This was a fun study, but trying to understand the spiral staircase was a real challenge though. I just freehanded it on the bigger thumbnail, but I couldn't figure out how to make it accurate perspective-wise. I tried to imagine it as a cylinder, a cylinder cut in a certain way to make the slope of the stairs. But yeah I don't know. VERY excited for this course :)

Just attempting a version of the stairs melted my brain a bit. It's strange that we spend our whole lives navigating 3D space with ease, but recreating it is not intuitive at all. At least for me. Trying to wear my "big simple things" glasses when walking and going about the day. What a great key lesson. I was not familiar with Jack Frost's Palace before the course but I really enjoy it.

Man, this one was a real challenge... But I think I finally understand the entrance stairs in this image. After seven attempts, I feel like I now have an intuitive grasp of the space. I should have drawn a top view of the scene earlier to better understand how the top part of the stairs looks. I struggled a lot to connect the two round stairs in a way that makes sense.Another revelation was rotating the planes around the cylinder. Did I miss anything?

Man, these breakdown videos really get me to appreciate the masters of the past. Love the little details too such as how the stairs are used in this scene to subtly show how Jack Frost has the higher ground, and how Flip is always in the lowest part of each panel to show how opposed he is to all of this...Little elements like that are so important in storytelling. I'm very interested too in learning the balance between accuracy and aesthetic. Whenever I try to go for aesthetic rather than accuracy, it always tends to fall flat. I'm curious to go through the process of learning how to bend the rules once you know them!

I’m totally enthralled, this is gonna be fun!

Ah ok, so the key is to look for big simple things; I will do my best to do that in the upcoming lessons. I also have a feeling that drawing ovals in perspective is going to be important very soon haha :)

So it's ok to bend the rules in pursuit of more interesting aesthetics? Good to remember.

Thanks for the introduction to Big Simple Forms. I looked at Jack Frost's Palace before watching the video lesson. At a very basic level too ! I missed alot of the inside / outside perspective construction of the Palace and the levels you explain: Mid-level, micro and macro. I suppose the artist doesn't want you to think perspective when looking at the drawing, as you say it's the environment and the story he wants to convey. I did wonder about the column spacing and thought it would look more crushed if they were closer together. The spacing as is, showing through the cold blue, adds to the chill of the environment. The sharp jagged edged environmental frost is the same colour and jagged shape of Jack Frost too. The characters in the drawing reflect perspective also, in size. The overall drawing also depicts movement from left to right. How do you draw the small characters. They seem basic but at the same time detailed? :)

I'm looking forward to your more in-depth exploration of interiors and exteriors. I like coming up with interiors, but I have a hard time figuring how to lay things out within a shot.

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!

Thank you, As always, it's both fascinating and easy to understand.

Marshall, I appreciate how you addressed the choice between accuracy and aesthetics in the final product in the *beginning* of the course! I've had teachers in the past wait until the very end of their long course just to say "non of what you just learned matters", without elaborating further. Seeing it both brought up AND explained so early here is very nice!

Another great breakdown, Marshall! The composition of that round room is so graceful with the action of the staircase. I'm working to apply similar thinking to the images I've been collecting... doing so definitely has been showing me how underdeveloped my visual eye for Perspective is. I can identify, roughly, the vanishing point on clear one-point perspective images. But I get pretty lost in more complex scenes. I think continuing to break down images like this and doing sketches beside - rather than on top of! - the images, is helping in that!

Mind blown again! I'm going to study and redraw everything in this video. I love the differences already between interior and exterior, wide and close lenses, and most importantly touching on the subject of technicality vs aesthetic, which is immensely underrated in most perspective courses or videos, where they jump straight into vanishing points and what-have-you. These elements talked about here feel like the core of perspective and how to really use it; something I've been looking for, for years. And it was just a two-minute video. Honestly can't wait for the actual lessons.

I really like that he mentioned the freedom of an artist: you can choose aesthetic over technical truth.

Wow how the heck do you draw that staircase?! Where are the vanishing points? So many new things to learn. Thanks for this breakdown, Marshall!

A beautiful image - definitely takes you to another world…looking forward to learning how to deal with circles and ellipses intuitively!