Question about point perspective in life drawing

jogoeire

Hi Community,
I was hoping an artist out there could give me some advice on a questions I have about perspective in life drawing. Im trying to use 3 and 4 point perspective in my life drawing. Its improved things a hell of a lot. However I have a gap in my knowledge that I think is throwing my drawings off.

Let me take 3-point perspective as for example! If im am drawing a character that is standing straight its easy enough as all the geometric shapes that make up the body go to the same vanishing point on the horizon (left and right). However as soon as my character takes on a more complex shape by bending over or looking up or down... the shapes that make up the body tilt all sorts of directions. What effect does this have on my use of 3 point perspective? Does it go completely out the window and do I just have to rely on my judgment to get the shapes correct at their new varied positions as they would all have different horizons (if you get me)?

Id really love if someone could set me straight on this. Its seem a powerful tool for gaining great accuracy.

Thanks Community. Rob

artieanna

Personally, I don't think 3 point perspective is helpful in drawing the figure. maybe if you try representing the position of the figure by using cubes and then drawing the figure shape within these.

I find it gets very confusing as you said with all the different horizon lines, vanishing points, the guide lines become confusing.

I would use perspective as a tool but would also use estimation too, as the drawing can become very mechanical looking.

thebaldsoprano

Three point perspective wouldn't be suitable for life drawing with any kind of a complex pose. Standard three point perspective only works well where the main lines of an object are (at least roughly) aligned with the Cartesian x,y,z axes. Remember that each vanishing point is there to help you determine how a group of parallel lines converge. These lines are orthogonal to an image plane. This diagram shows how an image plane works, and if we add a vanishing point the parallel lines will converge to it.



The number of image planes will be small for something like a building, but enormous for something like a tree or a plant. And as the life drawing pose increases in complexity, the number of image planes will increase and three point perspective won't cut it. You could start adding in vanishing points for different groups of parallel lines but it would get very complicated, and as artieanna pointed out, it would also look mechanical.

It may still be useful to give a rough sense of scale, or where a pose is set up such that perspective plays an important part in the drawing, but other than that good old-fashioned observation is probably a better way to go.

Mellor

The two previous posts missed the point I think, you don't create VPs for all parallel lines, you set on mas outlines to maintain perspective over a large ares.

for example, you mentioned a tree, obvious you can't create all those 100s of VP, instead the truck becomes a retangle, and the crown a square and then creat VPs for a basic shape.

Even in the above sketch, the sloped part would have its own VP, even though we don't need it as the regular 3 vps work.

OP, I don't think it is a goos technique for getting proportion as things are not so uniform in the real world. Sticking with 1 or 2 point shoudl give you a rough idea of scale and estimate the rest

thebaldsoprano

Mellor wrote: »

for example, you mentioned a tree, obvious you can't create all those 100s of VP

That depends how obsessive you get

I've tinkered with using lots of VPs and leaving in the projection lines for some technical/modernist type stuff. It can produce interesting drawings, but yeah - totally unsuitable for life drawing.

Onthehill

As the guys have said above it will definitely lead to confusion. If you rely on the technical too much you lose the expressive, immediate response to the model. I think lines indicating the direction of the shoulders, hips, feet position etc. on the paper are great for keeping check of twists in the body. Strong drawings come from 95% looking and constant referencing from the model to the drawing. You are not wrong, it is a powerful tool as you said, but maybe use it for effect rather than part of your process.:)

ztoical

It can be helpfuly to learn some technical stuff when you start drawing but the key to good life drawing is looking, looking , looking. Understanding where the weight is and what is the gesture of the pose.



Theres a fantastic video of Jim McMullan on the new york post website showing how to really look and understand a pose as you draw it.