Uncomfortable
2014-09-21 07:09
If you haven't completed the previous lessons in this set, please do so before moving onto this one.
Notes
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Strongly recommended that this lesson be done traditionally with a 0.5mm felt tip marker. Your results will likely not be as helpful if it's done digitally. Of course, it's up to you.
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If you've done the previous lessons, you should be building up your ability to ignore the overwhelming detail in your subject and break it down into its simplest shapes and forms. This is going to be a hell of a lot more of that.
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I'm assuming most of you will do this from reference photos, but if you can find a place that has tanks or locomotives or other such things in person, do it! Just be sure to step back a fair distance, because objects of such massive scale can be overwhelming.
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If you happen to be in Los Angeles, be sure to check out Tankland which is AMAZING (the guy who runs it is awesome, and people regularly go there to draw, they even provide portable chairs and such so you don't have to stand around awkwardly). There's also Travel Town, which has lots of locomotives.
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As always, even if your drawing feels like crap, keep pushing through it. It may look like crap at the end as well, but everyone makes mistakes, and everyone needs to learn how to recover from them and save the drawing. Or how not to do it.
Bonus Content
- Here's the album of my own homework sketches. Most of them were done on site at Traveltown and Tankland in LA, which are AWESOME places to draw, if you're ever in Los Angeles. Note how a lot of them were uncertain and full of mistakes. A lot of them lacked any sense of solid construction.
Homework
- Minimum of 8 pages of hardsurface objects, preferably these kinds of vehicles, but I'd love to see some experimentation with other objects. The principles are much the same. Do proportional analyses first, then try and reconstruct them in 3D yourself. It may help to do at least one that matches your reference image, but then try and break away from it to test your understanding of the object.
As always, all questions and homework submissions go in the comments.
tmku
2014-11-22 10:45
Hey, I'm currently knee deep in the lesson, but there is one thing that keeps bugging me - how do you properly establish proportional cube in 2 point perspective?
It'd really help with reconstructing objects from different angles since it's easiest to base all proportions off the cube - but I can't find reliable information on the web to save my life!
Uncomfortable
2014-11-22 18:57
Sycra seems to have a decent explanation, although it's really quite long and involved. It doesn't really work into our particular approach to drawing, however, since we forgo the super-exact in favour of eyeballing, which while being less accurate, allows us to draw more intuitively.
In my lesson examples, you'll notice that I don't have any vanishing points. What defines the focal length and the vanishing point's locations is how I choose to draw the initial boxes - not vice versa (which is usually the precise method).
When you draw a box, you can claim (within reason) that this box represents for your drawing, a perfect cube. You can then use that cube to determine all of your other measurements, largely using the diagonal line method I described in the lesson to multiply/divide boxes from the original.
Ultimately, I almost never even think about the perfect unit cube when drawing. Instead, I look at the proportions of my subject. A good example is the tank - it looked to be maybe a little less than half as wide as it is long. So, I drew a box that looked roughly that size. I didn't measure, I sure as hell wasn't spot on, but it doesn't really matter. What's important is how accurate it looks. As you practice, your observational estimations will improve.
NuggleBuggins
2014-12-03 03:11
Hello again!
So, I am reading through this lesson, and I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask. Could you explain the "little more then one" rule? Does it always have to be the third tire?
Uncomfortable
2014-12-03 04:08
Oh no, that's not following any rule or anything. I basically just scribbled down a random wheel layout in profile view and then showed how to reproduce it (roughly, there are more accurate methods, but we all know how much I value accuracy) in perspective. Since things very rarely fall into nice little measurements, I drew something that was a little off.
In any other case, you'd look at your subject and try and estimate how its wheels are laid out. If you're looking at it in person, you have the benefit of looking it straight on from the side. If you're looking at photo reference, you might be able to find a side photo, or you'd have to resort to eyeballing it. It is important though to spend the time breaking the construction down and understanding it so you can reproduce it at different angles.
NuggleBuggins
2014-12-10 21:31
My god... Mech stuff is definitely not a strong suit for me :/ Do your worst haha. I feel like I am having a lot of difficulty getting proportions right inside of the box, even after I subdivide it up. homework!
Uncomfortable
2014-12-11 03:07
Not... terrible. You're moving along the right track, that much is for sure. A lot of the issues I see will go away with practice. I did however scribble all over some of your drawings.
There's a few things that do come to mind, in terms of advice I can give you.
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One thing that's very clear is that you're being a bit overwhelmed by the information in your reference image. When dealing with these, go back to the mental state you had when you did the form intersections. More than anything, those prepared you for this. Hard surface objects are just a collection of rudimentary forms. Maybe try doing lay-ins where you're just dealing with those rudimentary forms. Boxes are especially great - even the objects that have nice organic curves, like your truck, are boxy at heart. Boxes are a lot easier to work with since they're not as approximate as curves, especially when it comes to perspective. At the very end, you can start rounding off the boxy forms into nicer curves, but not until you've got all your form fleshed out.
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You may want to try your hand at some simpler objects. Household objects can flex a similar range of mental-muscles as these larger vehicles, without as much visual information. In the past I've done studies of computer mice, I've seen people work with mugs, game controllers, all sorts of things like that. The scale also helps - big objects tends to throw our brains into panic mode.
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Be mindful of your ellipses. This set of notes comes to mind. The degree (width) of an ellipse speaks to the angle of the circle it represents, in 3D space. The narrower the ellipse, the more extreme the angle at which we see the circle. This means your ellipses need to match the orientation of any other objects they're attached to.
I'm not gonna mark this one as complete for you, because I'm quite sure you can do much better. Do another set of eight pages - you're free to tackle any subject matter that seems related to this (like the household objects thing I mentioned, other vehicles, etc). We'll go from there.
NuggleBuggins
2014-12-12 03:54
Quick question, If I were doing this step by step, am I supposed to be drawing the box and sub dividing it first? Or am I supposed to be drawing wheels first, then the box around that?
Uncomfortable
2014-12-12 04:15
Always go big to small. For the majority of objects, this means starting off with a box, or similar form, that encompasses the whole thing. Subdividing it will let you find your landmarks, and allow you to start placing other significant, but smaller elements (like the wheels).
The wheels are a good measurement tool, though, so you'll likely have to work backwards a little to find what the appropriate wheel size will be, based on the box you've drawn. Once you find the wheel size that fits, you can use it along with the subdivision to help place other elements on the construction.
NuggleBuggins
2014-12-12 05:49
I am not sure what I am doing wrong, But whatever it is, ALL of it is wrong haha..
I feel like I am still having trouble with getting these proportions right. This all seemed like it would be so simple in my head haha. homework For now, I am getting super frustrated so I am going to go ahead and take your advice and move on to more simple, household objects. But any more advice would be super helpful. I will be coming back to vehicles.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-12 23:35
I might be able to give you a little more advice if you show me the reference you've been working off of.
NuggleBuggins
2014-12-13 01:57
This is the tank I was using for those last 2 drawings
Uncomfortable
2014-12-13 02:42
You need to be a lot more careful with your proportions. There's no shame in really, really closely looking at your reference, even drawing over it like this.
See the little silhouette drawing I did in the corner? It's very simple, but it's already got a lot of the major form blocked out in 2D. Once you have those relationships between the different components - the turrent, the body, the cannon, etc. the rest becomes easier. When things start feeling bigger in relation to one another than they should be, everything falls out of whack.
dth0807
2014-12-28 05:40
Thank you for the exercises. Damn you didn't pull no punches with this one, so much to pay attention to when drawing this kind of stuff. I tried to keep them as simple as possible but even still, lots of proportion issues and perspective issues.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-28 19:36
Okay, so you're not really approaching this correctly. This is likely somewhat my fault, because this lesson doesn't really make the construction portion as obvious as it could be. Look at the locomotive example in the lesson, and also the bottom sketch from this page, which is from the homework I did when doing this lesson myself.
This is all just form intersections, and nothing more. You construct the object by using a variety of different forms, and you place them together to match your subject. Everything we cover on this subreddit is about looking at things analytically. Understanding their constructions, rather than simply understanding their surfaces.
Much of what you did is only surface drawing. The better ones - mostly the jeeps - start to work in a little more form construction, but it's limited to the overall box and maybe the wheels.
So, we're going to step back a bit. First, I want you to do 4 pages of form intersections, without any reference. Try to arrange them somewhat more like a vehicle (but don't go too far with this - i just mean, put two cylinders on the ground and then build on top of that. I don't want this looking like an actual vehicle, just having the basic essence of one). We'll go forward from there once you've done that.
dth0807
2014-12-29 01:04
I'm not sure if I completely understood what you were asking for but I hope this is at least close to it.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-29 02:06
Your form intersections are definitely weak, and we're going to work on them until they're not. Here's the major problems I'm seeing. Your lines are not straight, your ellipses are timid, at times broken (as though you're attempting to sketch the forms before drawing them more cleanly).
I'd like to see four pages of intersections consisting only of boxes. Just a bunch of intersecting boxes, oriented at different angles. Try your hardest to keep your lines perfectly straight. If you feel it's necessary (and it probably is), you'll probably want to warm up beforehand with the lines exercise from lesson 1.
dth0807
2014-12-29 06:55
For the first one I ignored line weight. I don't know why I have such trouble drawing straight lines, I did the warm ups like you said. I feel like it's hard because my hand covers where the line is supposed to be going so even when I ghost it I still mess up. Also when I turn the page to draw the straight line I get confused and sometimes forget which direction the line is supposed to go.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-29 19:33
Though you're clearly still having difficulty with it, your lines are becoming straighter. Since there's definite improvement, we can't claim that you're just broken and won't ever get it! You will get it, you just need to keep working at it.
So like I said, there's definite improvement here - your lines are straighter, though still a little wobbly and shaky at times, but far less so than before. Your perspective at times is off, though. Keep in mind that all parallel lines go off to the same vanishing point. I try to explain what I mean in the top right of my notes. Basically, those three lines that I emphasize define two separate planes of the box. They all must be parallel in 3D space (so going off to the same VP). Often times your third line will be going off in a different direction.
Next I want you to do four pages of form intersections, this time with boxes and cylinders. Your warm-up should consist of both the lines exercise and the ellipse exercise. If you find yourself getting confused and disoriented when you turn your page to get a straighter line, try focusing more and spend more time thinking before making the mark. It's perfectly okay for these mini-assignments to take you twice or thrice as long as they have been thus far.
dth0807
2014-12-30 02:23
Damn ellipses are tough, even when you warm up doing a bunch of them it's still easy to mess up. Combining the cylinders with the boxes is also tricky when you start putting them at angles.
Also thank you for taking the time to help me with these problems.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-30 02:42
It'll take more practice, but you're getting there, slowly. Four more pages of the same thing - if you feel you haven't improved enough after the four, do another four. You can choose to show me after the four, or eight, but don't do more than that without showing me the work again.
Here's some notes for the first page of this set
I see that your straight lines are starting to get better, too. Especially near the end of this set.
dth0807
2014-12-30 10:48
I feel like I'm getting worse. I guess I just need to do it more.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-30 18:23
If you ever feel that it's becoming harder to focus, or things that you could do a little while ago are now more difficult, take a break. Pick it up again the next day. Grinding isn't particularly productive, and if you get sloppy again and continue to practice that way, it can be detrimental.
Here's my notes for this batch. Overall, I'm happy with your progress. I'm thinking one more set of 8 pages, with considerable breaks in between. Like, don't post them until later in the day tomorrow. Cylinders and boxes only. Lots of practicing of line and ellipse exercises beforehand.
I'm thinking that after this next set, we'll be able to move back to the vehicle stuff, though we'll take gradual steps. If you ever feel discouraged, look at this and remember that you drew this less than 48 hours ago. In that time, you've improved a hell of a lot.
One thing to keep in mind though is that drawing random forms like we've been doing, and drawing them in a way that constitutes a vehicle is conceptually the exact same thing. That said, our brains don't like to think so. When faced with the idea of drawing something concrete, drawing something from reference that contains loads of detail, our brains shut down. We become overwhelmed. We lose grip on what we know.
While you're doing these last 8 pages, keep that in mind. Try to think about the frame of mind you're in, how you feel as you're approaching these random, meaningless forms. Do this as practice so when you're faced with a situation that may threaten to overwhelm you, you can remain calm and remember that it is all just simple forms - often simpler than the things you're doing now, because the orientations of those forms tends to be easier to draw.
[deleted]
2015-01-07 20:32
[Homework] (http://imgur.com/a/4GVnn)
So I learned that one of my biggest weaknesses is judging relative proportions in perspective so some of my objects look r-e-a-l-l-y long or fat. Sigh!
Uncomfortable
2015-01-08 00:38
Aside from your ridiculous proportions, these look fantastic! I especially love the tank. The only other thing that I see is your perspective - it's SUPER dramatic, and that won't do, especially if you need to draw something intended to communicate a design. In that case, you'll want to use some fairly shallow perspective, with your vanishing points pretty far out on either side, well off the page.
So what I'd like you to do is two more pages of these, but don't put your vanishing points on the page. Don't rely on them at all. Instead, define your space with that first general box, and use it to determine all of your other lines (which you'd otherwise send off to your VPs).
And fix your proportions, too.
[deleted]
2015-01-08 16:40
LOL! What do you mean my proportions are ridiculous? I'm a visionary, man.
Kidding, Two more pages
I feel like I have things more under control now.
Uncomfortable
2015-01-09 00:51
Much better. You might be limiting yourself by drawing on such tiny pages, though. What stands out most to me is the fact that the wheels are usually rather flat, except for the bottom left drawing. Don't forget to draw them as cylinders, not just ellipses.
Good work though, I'll mark this lesson - and therefore, this whole set - as complete! Congrats.
[deleted]
2015-01-11 19:33
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2015-01-11 19:52
Oh I knew you'd come back! The latest announcement I made, where I mentioned the people's names who were up to lesson 5 was a very obvious guilt-trip, and it worked! Maybe. You've done a lot of work, so it seems to me you were at it before I attempted my guilt trip.
These are very well done. I like your less detailed constructions best (pages 3 and pages 5) but they're all very well done. The detail in the proportional study on page 1 is really stunning. I remember when I got into this stuff in class, I wasn't too great at doing things from reference, but understanding how to construct things from my imagination kind of made my mind run totally rampant with ideas and doodles. I love seeing that in others.
The only things I have to say in critique are to always remember that solid forms have the highest priority in your drawing, and should always be apparent through the details. Sometimes details can undermine forms (top right of page 6, those wheels don't feel as solid as they could).
Also, where possible, try to limit the sketchiness of your drawings. At this point you may want to start pulling yourself a little back and think about presentation. This means consciously planning more before making your marks, and looking ahead to where you might run into issues. I usually advise against this, because I want people to focus on their constructions, but I believe you've reached that stage.
GREAT work!
tmku
2015-01-11 20:28
Thanks for the feedback!
I actually did see your announcement (congrats on 3k subscribers!) though the story goes a little further - most drawings are over one month old - I just wasn't happy with them and felt burnt out at the same time, so my progress staggered.
But since there's new material just a lesson away I decided to submit what I've got (after adding p. 4 and 5 today for a good measure) and include this exercise in my daily routine. Hopefully with time I'll get more confident to skip the auxiliary perspective lines and get cleaner shapes.
Off to drawing humans!
And oh, for anyone who's interested, this site was a great help in finding references:
thesadnman
2015-02-21 22:35
This lesson was very very challenging. I guess that means I'm learning? Here is my homework. Thanks.
Oh and I had a question. So when you draw a cylinder in 1 point perspective are the ends circles or elipses? Logic makes me think elipses but when you draw boxes in 1 point perspective you just put squares / rectangles. Hopefully my question makes sense.
Uncomfortable
2015-02-22 04:36
About the cylinder - what you're thinking is technically right, if your cylinder is going down to a single vanishing point and the other two axes are parallel to your viewing plane, it'll be a circle. The way you're thinking to lead to the question is a bit off though. It's the other way around. When the cylinder is aligned such that the ends are parallel to the viewer's plane of vision (resulting in an ellipse with a full degree of 180 aka a circle), it'll go down to a single vanishing point. So you've got your cause/effect backwards.
It's very rare that you'd have your cylinder aligned like that, which is why in most situations you'd be drawing it in 2 point perspective.
You might want to check out the "Boxes" section of the new Lesson 1 to get a refresher on how you determine what kind of perspective system would apply to a given object.
As for your homework, it's a little hit-and-miss. In general, I think you should practice more form intersections, since that's basically what this is. Constructing things based on form intersections. What stands out to be the biggest problem is that you're drawing a lot of things as being very flat. For example, the train at the bottom of page 1 is generally one of your stronger pieces, but the wheels are paper thin. Aside from that, the construction's not bad.
This is partially because you're drawing things very small. Since you're unfamiliar with this sort of thing, drawing small will only constrict you further.
Another useful element is to include your horizon line. While we're approximating our vanishing points, we always know that those vanishing points rest on the horizon. Because of that, we know that any line that is right at the horizon line will be aligned to it (with an angle of 0 degrees) and slowly as you get further below or above the horizon line, the angle of the line will become steeper. You can use this to compare the different lines on your drawing to do a better job of approximating the perspective.
With the tank on the top of page 3, I'm seeing better treatment of the wheels, but your proportions are a little crazy. Your profile proportion study of the same tank was pretty decent, but it looks like some of that got lost in translation to the 3/4 view.
Overall, you need work.
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Practice your form intersections
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Draw bigger, right now your drawings feel very stiff and thick - a small drawing will always make your line weights feel larger. Drawing larger will make your line weights more subtle, giving you more flexibility and more room to breathe.
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Don't forget your proportions
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Remember that nothing is paper thin
thesadnman
2015-03-02 01:50
I thought I better update with what I've been working on. I went back to the basics doing a lot of form intersections, boxes, circles, ellipses, started working on the cylinder challenge, and then tried a couple more hard surface objects. I don't really mean to work small it just happens so I guess I still need to work on that. Let me know what else you need to see. Here is the work.
Uncomfortable
2015-03-02 03:43
Your form intersections, cylinders, and all of that looks great!
As for the hard surface drawings, you're starting to move in the right direction. The tank in the middle of page 8 looks way better. That said, the rest of your stuff still doesn't look as though they're being constructed from form intersections. It's all too clean, I'm not seeing the rudimentary forms being drawn through or anything. Also, it looks like your work gets worse when you start working with vanishing points (like the truck on page 9). They're probably making you stress too much about the perspective, and not enough about the forms themselves.
thesadnman
2015-03-07 20:00
Here are a few more. This lesson is frustrating for me and I feel like I don't "get" this kind of stuff. It's been hard to sit down and do it. Sketchbook has been thrown across the room more than once that's for sure. If you think I should do more please give a very specific number of pages or I feel kind of aimless.
Uncomfortable
2015-03-08 22:09
Hm... I'm about two weeks off of rewriting the lesson for hard surface objects, just like I've been doing for the others. Rather than critiquing you now, I think it'd be best if you waited for me to post it. I'll be taking an in-depth look at what you've been drawing, as well as the struggles some of the others have had with this subject, and I'll try and tailor the newer version of the lesson to tackle those issues.
Golden_Crane
2015-03-10 20:35
Wow, this was really hard, especially after two and half months of no drawing. http://imgur.com/a/gh3Sl
Do you have tips on getting good proportions (lots of my vehicles look very skewed) and getting straight lines?
Another problem I have is how messy they look, I don't really know how to solve this, maybe i'm using the pen like a pencil?
Also I had problems with placing the wheels on the other "hidden" side of the vehicle, in perspective, any tips on this?
How does one draw the intersection of two cylinders? how does the perspective work on this?
Uncomfortable
2015-03-10 22:17
You actually did far better than I expected. This lesson was especially poorly written, and I've started telling people just to wait for me to rewrite it, as I've been doing to the other lessons. I should reach this one next weekend, as this weekend's going to be lesson 5.
That said, you're generally not bad. Your tank on page 2, the tractor on page 1, they're pretty solid. You start to go awry when you try to plot perspective with your damn vanishing points. Having your vanishing points close enough to do that will mess with your focal length and make your perspective super dramatic. This makes everything look crazy, so... just don't do it. Instead approach things as you did with the tractor, starting off with a box to block in the space, and then fitting all of your other form intersections within it.
About laying out the wheels, I find it helpful to block them in using a cylinder stretching the full length of the axle, then cutting them into chunks to separate out the wheels.
Finally, for your cylinder intersection question, here's my guess: http://i.imgur.com/3NIwnBN.jpg.
For now, put this lesson on hold, and wait for me to rewrite it. Then you can take another stab at the homework (hopefully with a far clearer explanation of the concepts), and.. things might go better.
Golden_Crane
2015-03-13 19:21
Thanks for the reply. Cylinder intersection makes more sense now.
Should I continue with lesson 7, and then get back to lesson 6 when you post the newer version, or wait for lesson 6, and then go on to lesson 7?
Uncomfortable
2015-03-13 19:41
Since lesson 7 is the first lesson of a different set, its prerequisites are only the basics - which you've completed (look at that shiny purple badge, oh boy!) So it's totally fine for you to move onto drawing people for now, 'til I've redone lesson 6.
mihachris
2014-09-21 09:03
Should we use a ruler or objects should be constructed free hand?
Uncomfortable
2014-09-21 11:33
Freehand. Rulers only slow the process down, and as such, tend to limit one's ability to think creatively while drawing.