Doing Fast Perspective Setups in the Field

Part 3: The Grid


Now, finally, we are going to talk about how to freehand a perspective grid in the field. I actually don't like to start a drawing with the grid on a blank page, because it is difficult to envision how things are going to come out. Instead, I freehand the most important object in the scene, then reverse engineer the grid to fit it, so I know that the grid will make the most important object come out the way I want. 

But before you do anything, start by placing the horizon line where you want the eye level to be. Don't place the horizon line too high. If the point of view is higher than the height of an average person, the picture will end up looking strange because we do not normally see the world fro this point of view. Unless you want it to look like a picture that was taken by a flying drone, place the horizon at eye level, or even lower. Placing it at waist level has a dramatic effect.

Next, freehand the most important object roughly the way you want it to come out. Let's say it is a tall object, such as a building: the top is going to converge at a more severe angle than the bottom, because the horizon is much closer to the bottom. You have to imagine the vanishing point far off the edge of the paper, and try to make your lines converge to that imaginary point. If you orient a cube so that one edge is facing you directly, you would need a 90 degree angle of vision to see both vanishing points, and the human field of vision is about half that. That's why the vanishing points are off the paper.

Next, use your ruler to put in the lines that converge to the vanishing point from the top and the bottom of the building. Then you can start bisecting those angles. Put a new line in the middle of the one you just drew, then put more lines in the middle of those, and carry on until you have one axis of the perspective grid completely filled out.

Now, repeat for the other two axes. Note: if you are new to this, it helps to practice with a multicolor ballpoint pen, so you can use a different color for each set of grid lines. This helps avoid confusion, and also allows you to erase other parts of the drawing without erasing your perspective grid. If you don't want these lines in the final drawing, you can use a light pad to trace the pencils onto a fresh piece of paper before you start inking and watercoloring, or even just use the light pad while inking. I do this all the time.

At any rate, now you have a plausible perspective grid, even if it's not mathematically perfect. You can fill out the rest of the scene, and as long as you follow your grid, it will look correct. 

To be continued in part four

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