Perspective for Beginners

the best way to start learning perspective is with boxes we're going to break down onepoint perspective into simple manageable steps this lesson is the first step in my ultimate goal to get you to draw in perspective intuitively that means there's a lot of perspective stuff coming up so make sure you're subscribed as always a bunch of these lessons are going to be free but if you want the complete experience with all the extended lessons projects demos and critique videos you can join at any time at pro.com /d drawing now let's make sure we understand some

key Concepts XYZ axis in 3D space we use axes to talk about directions or positions or how something is rotating each axis is a different dimension the x axis is for width the Y AIS is for height and the z-axis is for depth they help us describe where something is or how it's moving in space so if you're moving a box along the Y AIS you're lifting it up or down along this invisible line if you rotate something around the x axis it's like spinning it around that horizontal line imagine a drill spinning in that

direction that's how the object would turn horizon line the horizon line is the line where the ground plane meets the sky this is typically the first thing you want to figure out out to establish the environment it could be anywhere on the page up here down here it could even be tilted and this would suggest that you the viewer are tilted making the composition more Dynamic vanishing point this is the imaginary point where all the edges of one of the axes on a box converge a drawing can have one vanishing point two three five Vanishing

points even 27 Vanishing points you can have as many as you want we're going to stick to one today and for a while we're going to keep our Vanishing points on the horizon line just keep in mind that as soon as we rotate something up or down that thing is no longer parallel to the ground and so the vanishing point will no longer be on the horizon because the axis is no longer pointing at the Horizon so a vanishing point represents where in the distance the axis is pointing all right so let's sketch a simple

onepoint perspective scene I'm going to start with the horizon line just a simple horizontal line and I'm going to put a vanishing point single vanishing point somewhere along that Horizon just do it right there the first step for drawing that box is to figure out that front facing plane so I'm going to start with a simple rectangle below the vanishing point so at this point it's just a rectangle it's not a three-dimensional form in order to make it three-dimensional we have to extrude it we have to give it some depth and because this is a

onepoint perspective scene we have to extrude everything towards that one point so this box is below the horizon line which means we're looking down at it and we're going to see the top plane if it was above the Horizon we'd be looking up at it and we would see the bottom of it so with this one we're seeing the top so let's extrude that Top Lane towards the vanishing point like that and so now we have this box that just keeps going forever into the distance it never really ends if we want to end it

at some point we could cap it off just add a horizontal line say there's that back Edge once we establish the back Edge now we know it ends there but those lines still converge they keep going even if I didn't draw them all the way to the point they're still converging towards the point they just end before they go all the way to the distance so what if we wanted to have this box off to the side not directly below the vanishing point well let's try it so all we do is we just draw another

rectangle off to the side and extrude these lines oh that's ugly and extrude this line to the corner yeah this is why we had that one warmup right drawing lines from point to point if you haven't been practicing that one maybe you should start including that in your warm-ups as you prepare for more perspective assignments now notice I have a third line here the bottom one since we're now shifting this over to the side we're going to start seeing the side plane a little bit not just the top plane and so we added one more

Corner converging and when we cap these off we draw that back top Edge over here and from that same Corner over here we can drop a vertical line and that is the back edge of this side plane now okay there you go so now you have these two boxes side by side this one is not rotating it's just shifted over to the side and the reason we know they're not rotated is because these front planes are both facing the same direction right we're seeing the flat part of both if we we were to actually rotate

this one it would not be perfectly vertical and horizontal anymore and so that's one really important rule for onepoint perspective is that these front planes they kind of have to face us otherwise we'd need to add more Vanishing points to accommodate for for these other lines now let's do another one let's do a box right on the horizon line like passing through the horizon so let's say it's right there that rectangle now we're not below or above this box and so we're not going to see the bottom or the top plane instead we have to

project these corners and we get a side plane so it's the same as this box here it's just that now instead of being directly below it's directly to the right so anytime a box is directly below to the right above or to the left we're only going to see two of the planes if it's kind of offset from that then you're going to see three planes okay now let's do one more and let's put it above the Horizon so as if this box is floating up in the sky or maybe attached to the Sea ceing

some kind of air conditioning unit or something so we'll start with a rectangle just vertical and horizontal lines we're looking up and to the left and so the bottom and the right planes are going to be visible and just cap this off wherever I feel like it so there you go now you have four boxes in the same environment they're all parallel to each other so the front faces are all pointing directly at us or not L at us directly at the plane that is parallel to us and none of them are rotated they're all

just kind of shifted to the left to the right up or down so it's not too hard you just as long as you have one point somewhere and you can create rectangles you can then extend those correct Corners out to that vanishing point cap them off and you can get boxes anywhere you want in that scene I could say what if I want to make this box just move back into space well I could just say okay well it's the exact same box I'm moving it that way so let's just put it somewhere farther away

I'm going to put it here so there's that same rectangle just smaller because it's farther away there's your diminution same convergence towards the vanishing point and then you know there are mathematical rules of you know figuring out where to cap it off to make it exactly equal to this that's a little too complicated for now so let's just do it by ey let's say it's somewhere like this that looks like it's the same relationship between side plane and front plane it's close enough for us to be to Comm Comm unicate what we're trying to communicate

so there you go as long as we're following those lines we are pushing that box directly away from our plane and if I wanted to move it up or down or left or right I just drop a vertical so I'm I'm just moving this same box downward and I'm just G to now based off of this width I'm going to eyeball the ratio of the width to height again this is just I'm eyeballing that you can of course measure that with perfect math but I'm going to eyeball it make it a little bit too skinny

but you get the point and then from there now we can just project it the same as we did with all the others this one drops down as well and there you go now we have this box going into the distance and down so not too hard to just you got a box and you just you want to move it left right up down one point perspective is a great tool for this limitations of one point one point perspective is very simp simp it's easy to use but it's very limited because the front plane of

that box always has to face the viewer it's commonly used for room interiors when the camera is directly facing a wall all the furniture assuming it's parallel to the walls will go to that one vanishing point but when we draw complex scenes with characters and props it's unnatural for everything to face the viewer perfectly as soon as we turn in a box and space we now have not one but two sets of lines converging to two different Vanishing points could it be twop point perspective stay tuned here's a warm-up draw boxes in onepoint perspective I'm

going to give you guys a project in the next premium video but for now let's do this as a warm-up copy this page that I drew then put it away and try to draw your own boxes in one point perspective draw these boxes going up and down and left and right and into the distance play with various proportions and dimensions and remember this is a warm-up this is something you can repeat for 5 minutes before any of the upcoming prospective projects this is also a good time for me to remind you of all the warm-ups

I already showed you in the full course that incorporated straight lines there's a straight taper trace the ruler and connect the dock we're going to be drawing a lot of straight lines in this perspective section so keep practicing them daily so that you're comfortable and you can focus on learning the concepts instead of struggling with your shaky hand if you're finally ready to get the premium version of the drawing Basics course that's over at pra.com drawing we've already learned how to control line weight with three different methods how to develop confident line quality habits we've

covered shape including accurate proportions d Dynamic and interesting shapes and how rhythms can help you draw better poses many of the students told me that they've never improved as fast as they are in this course and this is just the beginning we're going to learn all about perspective and then we're jumping into shading so come on in join the community and support the production of more free videos like this one again that's at pr.com drawing thank you guys for watching I'll see you in the next one