Trouble visualizing 3D has made this near-impossible. Now what?
https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/comments/14egm4d/trouble_visualizing_3d_has_made_this/
2023-06-20 17:01
mandel1on
Spent some time practicing a variety of things, and had an old post about literally struggling to draw a box.
Since then, I've realized that I have trouble processing and understanding depth and 3D, even with quite a bit of technical knowledge under my belt. The lines and planes exercises went well, but I still can't seem to get actual 3D shapes right. As far as I can tell, it may be a broader vision issue, but I really want to get better at my fundamentals and am looking for my own solutions in the meantime.
Does anyone else have this problem? Are there additional resources and exercises that I can try (either for art itself, or for vision)?
Uncomfortable
2023-06-20 17:26
It would help us better understand your situation if you describe, in detail, what you've attempted and used thus far to address this issue, and how you've approached them. For instance, Drawabox is a course that focuses entirely on developing 3D spatial reasoning skill - not by explaining tons of technical information and relying on memorization, but rather using lecture as a starting point to get students into doing exercises. It's through the exercises, with repetition and over a fair bit of time, that we gradually work through the process of rewiring our brains to better understand 3D space on an instinctual level - something the human brain is not naturally predisposed to, at least when it comes to understanding the imaginary.
So, if one has only scratched at the first lesson or two of the course and is struggling with spatial reasoning, that's entirely normal. If however you've gone through most of the course, followed the instructions to the letter, and are still seeing no real growth or improvement, then that would be quite different.
If you explain in detail what you've attempted and used to try to address the issue, that'll help us better understand where you sit currently.
Additionally, when you talk about "visualization" as your area of trouble, I should clarify that the ability to visualize and strong spatial reasoning skills are different things. For example, I have aphantasia (which I talk about in greater detail here), so I cannot visualize anything in my mind. This does not however have any impact on my ability to understand the things I wish to draw as they exist in 3D space. As such, focusing on literal visualization may be a less useful gauge of progress.
annabiancamaria
2023-06-21 00:18
There is a vision issue that affects depth perception. The Stereoblindness, Stereopsis recovery and Stereopsis pages on wikipedia describe the problem and the treatment.
koa_lala
2023-06-21 11:30
People often underestimate how hard this actually is, and how much practice it actually takes. Just keep trucking on.
Darkranger23
2023-06-22 20:51
I think Uncomfortable summed it up well. Im not going to try to repeat what he said.
Instead Ill give you a take from someone whos still on their journey through the course.
This stuff doesnt always make sense right away. After completing the 250 box challenge I realized that I really had only just begun to draw boxes.
Im doing another course at the same time, and when we went on to figure drawing I realized that everything is made of boxes!
Torsos, heads, limbs Yes, spheres for heads and cylinders for limbs may be more appropriate most of the time, but if you use boxes for the limbs you end up with a stiffer sturdier structure, say for more muscular characters, or robots.
The arrows exercise is another one that was fun but I was initially unable to see the bigger picture.
Then when I was drawing eyes I realized that the eyelid surface closest to the eye is actually an arrow. Its also a great way to create elongated deformed cubes. If you think of the arrow as one of the planes of an elongated cube, all you do is extend the side planes and close it off. Boom, deformed cube. Took me months to figure that out.
Anyway, 6 months ago I was where youre at now. After drawing and using intentional observation for 6 months, I see things I couldnt see before.
mandel1on
2023-06-24 16:58
Great insight! Problem is, I know things are made of boxes / etc - I just cant draw the boxes right to start with. These hard / straight forms are much easier for me to break down and make sense of, but actually drawing them is another issue.
Darkranger23
2023-06-24 18:25
Yes, I think I got caught up in my own realizations and forgot to address the specific issue at hand with more emphasis.
You may not be able to draw good boxes for a long time. You need to do hundreds and hundreds of boxes. Especially in perspective.
The fact that you can see that your boxes are incorrect is fantastic. I actually recommend switching ink colors and drawing corrections over some of the boxes you do wrong. Take note of the angle and length of your lines. Really observe them. Visualize how the box would change if you extended one line, or shortened another, what would that do to all the lines connected to that one?
The next step is to begin trying to see the lines of the box on the page before you put any lines down. Plan ahead, to an extent. Ask yourself, if I put this line down at this angle, what perspective will my box end up in? How long will it be compared to its width or height?
If youre struggling with the mark making itself, put a dot where you think the line should go, then visualize what the completed box will look like if you put that line down. Is the angle off? Should it be longer? Shorter? Place a new dot if necessary.
This is all just practice. Its not something youre going to sell or show off, so dont be afraid to play with it a bit.
mandel1on
2023-06-24 18:40
It was still a good read! I definitely don't want to dismiss that fact.
I'm actually pretty confident in my ability to tell what's wrong! I'm a pretty experienced artist, and trying to do some troubleshooting and muscle memory by doing DAB (which is how I figured out that these things were a problem to start with. People don't seem to believe my experience based on my results and the questions I ask, but my knowledge is good - it's just that my eyes or hand or something won't cooperate, and I can't figure out how to fix it. It's been some time since this initial post so I may be repeating myself, but my actual knowledge just doesn't come out on the page).
I made a separate post on the DAB website, but I'm on the rough perspective homework, and I think that outlines the problem better than I have here; linking it because I think it tackles some of the suggestions you've made here already.
Darkranger23
2023-06-24 18:47
Does your existing art suffer because of your struggle with boxes? Or are you only struggling because youre drawing random boxes in a blank page?
mandel1on
2023-06-24 19:06
First thing for sure.
I think this was also in the original post here, but it extends to things like body proportions - I know how long the limbs should be, but they always look incorrect to me. Any correction I make also looks incorrect. This extends to spheres, and things like placing the facial features (the other eye and the shape of the head, for example - actually what I started going extremely hard on studying before DAB, and why I picked it up).
mandel1on
2023-06-20 18:22
Hmm, let me see if I can explain in better detail.
I was told to do Draw A Box to assist with a larger issue with fundamentals, though these are things I have some experience in already. The earlier exercises such as ghosted lines and planes came out - if not perfect, then pretty okay, without many glaring issues. Ellipses, funnels, and boxes themselves have come out very poorly, however.
Using an example outside of DAB, when I try to draw a person or animal, I know in theory what the proportions should be, but once they're on paper, they always appear incorrect to me, even if I've made corrections for what I think is the flaw.
For DAB exercises, I'm seeing things like my boxes not looking like boxes so much as rectangular prisms, and have struggled with following the perspective, even though I'm making a very deliberate and conscious effort to do so. Similarly, I can't fit my ellipses into the "waves" very well at all. It's true that I'm not very far into the course, but have practiced similar things in the past and am noticing not much change from then at all.
Would approaching it from a spatial reasoning perspective instead be better, and are there further resources for that?
Uncomfortable
2023-06-20 18:36
Theory is one thing, and it's important, but it is a far cry from the practical. We can understand that something is proportionally incorrect, but still be miles away from being able to execute it correctly. Again - that's why this course is so heavy on the actual work. Students spend months at minimum working through the course as a whole.
To that point, keep in mind that the early lessons/challenges do not ask students to draw boxes that are proportionally cuboid - it asks for boxes in general, for which rectangular prisms are acceptable and largely expected. It isn't until much later in the course - when we hit the cylinder challenge (which comes in between lesson 5 and 6) that we start tackling the matter of our boxes' proportions more directly. There, with the cylinders-in-boxes exercise, we develop our ability to judge the relative proportions between the different planes in order to have a single opposite pair of them fit the proportions of a square in 3D space. And then, it isn't until Lesson 7 that we look at how we might apply those principles to the rest of the box to actually achieve a unit cube, from which to extend a useful grid.
As you are early on in the course, try not to let your expectations of what you should be able to do get in the way. Focus only on completing the work as it's described, following those instructions as closely as you can.
Don't leave it to yourself to judge whether you're on track or not, but rather rely on third party feedback from the community to help you assess whether there really is something you're missing, or whether the path you're following simply isn't meant to unfold as you expect it to.
As long as you follow the course as instructed, and don't add onto it with further expectations of your own, you will see growth and progress. Don't worry about approaching it from one angle or another - follow it as it's written and delivered.
mandel1on
2023-06-20 18:39
Thank you!