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Can't understand Org Perspective Instructions

11:41 AM, Sunday February 15th 2026

Hello, I've been struggling a lot with understanding the organic perspectives instruction on placing a point based on two edges.

Does it have to do first with guesswork and then checking that the line converges?

What I tend to do instinctively, which was something I did for the rotated boxes too, was to see the box right on the page and just plot points according to what I see. But I'm not quite sure this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

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5:21 PM, Sunday February 15th 2026

It's not a matter of guessing, but understanding that there's no right or wrong here. You'll mark your point, considering two edges, according to the convergence you want to apply.

According to the rules of linear perspective taught in lesson 1, the more distant boxes will be smaller and have a shallower foreshortening (the parallels converge less intensely). The closer boxes will be larger and have a more dramatic foreshortening (the parallels converge more intensely).

You just have to be careful not to overdo the convergence of the closer boxes. Even though they have a more dramatic foreshortening, if you overdo the convergence they will become too distorted (they will have that strange diamond shape) because their vanishing points will be too close to each other. That's why DAB also advises making the edges of the "Y" at an angle of 90° or greater.. To avoid this distortion, as shown in this image here: https://imgur.com/4j3WKqO

6:42 AM, Monday February 16th 2026
edited at 6:42 AM, Feb 16th 2026

Hello, thank you very much for your response!

What does it mean by "according to the convergence I want to apply"?

Does this refer to how much convergence I want to apply? Since I'm not supposed to ghost all the way back to the VP to check if my third edge is following the convergence of the rest. So it's more of an estimation.

edited at 6:42 AM, Feb 16th 2026
11:00 PM, Monday February 16th 2026

I actually would recommend ghosting much further than your intended point. It's not always practical (or even possible) to ghost all the way back to your vanishing point since these can be way off the paper, perhaps even out of arms reach, but I find it a good practice to ghost your lines at least to the edge of the page. This helps your line to not only come out more confident and straight, but it helps in estimating the proper convergence since you can ghost your hand closer to where you imagine the vanishing point to be. Just lift your pencil at your intended point, but ghost the line all the way through.

Nicus is right - we're not guessing, we're approximating. If we wanted to follow the strict rules of perspective (which do exist and are strict), then we would break out the ruler and compass and grid everything out mathematically, but that process is laborious, time intensive, and better handled by a computer. What we're doing as human artists is following those rules to the extent that they are useful, but not letting the minutiae of "my convergence is off by half a degree" get in the way of us creating. It's more important that we create, make mistakes, and learn from them. 250 mildly inaccurate boxes will be more useful to your artistic endeavours than 1000 carefully plotted out boxes drawn with rulers and grids.

For this exercise specifically, once you have two edges, you have concretely decided the "convergence you want to apply". There can only be one intersection point between those two lines, and that imagined point is the vanishing point you're shooting for with your third line. Once you've picked a Y, that second line you draw for each plane is the only real "decision" you're making. Once that exists, there is only one possible vanishing point you should be using for your third line. (But obviously you repeat this process for each plane, so 3 times in total.)

TL;DR: Just draw :) follow the rules to the best of your ability, but don't get bogged down in the details. For the purpose of these exercises, "close enough" really is close enough. If there are any serious issues in your understanding, they will show up in your critique.

10:27 AM, Tuesday February 17th 2026

Hello, thank you so much for your response! I understand it much better now.

I understand it for one set of edges now, but I still don't understand what Comfy meant when he was ghosting lines for two edges to decide where his point should sit.

Technically the first point should always be correct for both sets of edges as long as it converges for both right?

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