Fantasy Art School

Fantasy Drawing Lesson Three - Understanding and Using Perspective

Perspective is a fundamental concept of drawing and of art. You need to think about and understand this concept in order for your drawing ability to advance beyond the beginner stage. The good news is that it really isn't hard to understand the basic principles of it.

As an artist you have total control over the perspective of your drawing but there are things you should do to make sure your drawings look right. When people look at your artwork they will understand it easily if you manage the perspective properly.

A definition of Perspective: Perspective is the way things are viewed relative to each other and relative to your eye.

Let's take a closer look at perspective.

Drawings are simply lines, shapes, colors and shades on paper. It is a two-dimensional representation of three dimensional objects. But you can fool a persons eye into seeing more than just a flat image on the paper you can give them the sense of three dimensions. This is what happens in drawings and in photographs. And one of the tools that you as an artist has to do this trick of the eye is "Perspective"

Here is a drawing of a fireplace. take a look at it.

You look at it and your mind understands that it is a three-dimensional object. You can sense that it fills space and you don't just see it as a bunch of lines in two dimensions. Your brain assembles it into an object that you recognize. You even can place the mirror as being on the wall behind the fireplace even though I show no hints of a wall.

Now here is an interesting thing about perspective. It is all about understanding how to trick the eye, and you as an artist can do this. It takes practice but you will get good at this. Let me give you an example of this trickery. Look at lines "A" and "B". Which one is longer? Your natural reaction would be to say that line A is longer than B. But in reality if you measure these on paper they are exactly the same length! Try it! Get a ruler or just use a pencil as a guide and measure both sides A and B.

This is quite a fascinating little thing that is going on here. Your brain insists that line A is longer than line B yet they are the same length. After all you can see that it extends farther back into the picture and your mind recognizes the fact that a fireplace is much wider than it is deep so the illusion is maintained and the picture looks accurate. It is a good drawing of a fireplace.

As you practice drawing you will get real good at understanding and using perspective in your drawings so they look "right:". Now we will continue on with some practical examples of how to get the perspective right in your drawings. And you will now do some drawings.

Continue on with the lesson on perspective

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Fantasy Art School HOME PAGE

Fantasy Art Lessons

1. lesson 1 - Holding the pencil and getting a feel for it and warming up with lines
2. lesson1c how to draw a straight line
3. lesson 2 - Drawing some simple geometric shapes
4. lesson 3 - Understanding and using Perspective
5. lesson 4- foreshortening in perspective
6. lesson 5- Drawing depth and distance
7. lesson 6-Using lines of varying thickness
8. lesson 7- drawing form and shape with a medieval mace
9. lesson 8- Drawing metal - We draw a medieval helmet
10. lesson 9- drawing our first human form
11. lesson 10- Distorting the human form to create fantasy creatures
12. lesson 11 - doodling and creativity break
13. lesson 12 - a Morning star mace - drawing textures
14. lesson 13 - how to draw chainmail
15. lesson 14 - How to convey action in your fantasy drawings
16. lesson 15 - How to draw sword shapes
17. lesson16 -draw an armored knight
18. lesson 17 - Draw a fantasy dagger using the Five-S method
19. lesson 18 - Creating space in your drawings - A Dragons Lair
20. lesson 19 - Practice by drawing dragons
21. Lesson 20 - Drawing from Memory
22. Lesson 21 -Draw a Catapult
23. Lesson 22: A Guest artist discusses pencils, his technique and building a library of images

Fantasy Art Lessons from Guest Artists

1. How to draw a magical genie using Corel and Photoshop

Art Books & Supplies

1. Art Kits
2. Art Books
3. Fantasy Art Books

Stormthecastle.com
Castlefiction.com
The Telescope Nerd
Epic Fantasy.com
The Medieval Armory
THe Fantasy Guide
The Heroic Dreams Blog Knight-Medieval.com willkalif.com
make-video-games.com

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