Reddit reviews Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics from the Ground Up

Oh man, art hobbyist turned art student here! I study classical realism and the figure, so your mileage may vary with this advice depending on your goals, but here it goes.

First, reading list.

Animating the Loony Toons Way is a great primer to conveying motion and energy, and simplifying form.

Figure Drawing for All It's Worth [PDF] is a classic by the great Andrew Loomis that's in the public domain.

Vanishing Point is a good beginner book on perspective.

Don't worry about memorizing everything in those books. Drawing is a process of constantly correcting yourself, and the more you read the more you'll understand, which will make you better which will make it easier to see more advanced flaws and so on.

The most important thing is to practice as much as you can. That answer isn't particularly sexy, but practice without reading will get you farther than reading without practice. Remember to constantly push your comfort zone. The atelier that I study at has a poster on the wall with three concentric circles. The inner circle marks the comfort zone, and this is where what you're drawing is so easy that it's not really a challenge. The outermost circle marks the panic zone. Things in the panic zone are so complex that you have no idea how to even approach them. The middle circle is the learning zone. Things in the learning zone are difficult, and you don't know how to do them, but you know where to start and the basic process of how to go about it. Stay in the learning zone.

Draw things that you see, and do so as much as possible. If you can't draw what you can see with your physical eyes, how can you learn to draw what you see in your fuzzy and inconsistent imagination?

When I was first starting out, I drew small boxes and spheres in perspective, and tried to draw them from every angle. It's pretty hard and tedious, but everything you draw is made up of simple shapes. Draw simple shapes before moving to more complex forms.

Start simple, and then make things more complex. For a head, I usually start with a cube before moving on to the more subtle aspects of form. Here's an example of how I approach drawing a head (excuse the shitty quality and stylized-ness, this took me like 2 minutes):

First I block in the basic shape and mass. Don't sweat this, you can always change it later.

Second, I start to chisel out some of the bigger form variations, and try to begin defining the complex side plane of the head and face. I know where to begin and end the angle changes because of lots of experience and practice. You develop a gut feeling for it after a while.

Thirdly, I finish defining the various planes and begin to work on the details. The larger shapes help me locate the smaller ones. John Singer Sargent would start his paintings over if an eye was in the wrong place, because to him it was indicative of a larger structural problem that caused him to place it there. A lot can be fixed if you start with a strong beginning.

I'm not taking this image far by any means, but here it is with some value thrown in to get a sense of depth.

Gone back over with a darker pen to emphasize the final lines of the image.

One thing to watch out for is rhythm in your work. Rhythm is a repetition of a single line or curve throughout the piece (in other words, things line up), and it's what makes a piece hold together and feel cohesive. Look through some cartoons or comics and see how many rhythms you can find. I wish somebody had told me about rhythm when I was just starting out.

That's all I have in the way of general advice, but definitely let me know if you have any more specific questions of any kind. I love talking about art. I hope this was helpful!

If you are working on humans then with porportion. The average is seven and a half heads tall... but a lot of people do 8 heads just because it's easier. or 9 heads or six heads. But yeah if you know how far the arm reaches (wrist ends at groin, hand ends at upper half of thigh) then it will imrpove a lot.

try to draw something everyday even if it sucks. Just one little bitty thing. Don't show it to anyone if you think it sucks.

Don't get discouraged at people telling you "study anatomy more". They are stupid for not giving you anatomy specific advice. Be nice to them though or everyone will judge you.


If you aren't drawing people start with perspective.

Landscaping and all that hinges on perspective. The two best books on perspective are the Perspective Handbook which is amazing and the Vanishing Point book which is really simple and good for beginning.

Think about composition if you do landscapes. There isn't much information on that so good luck google hunting.

Places to find information on porportions (and later other anatomy) include the tutorials section of deviantart. go to resources and stock images, then tutorials, and type in anatomy. Which I have done for you here . Another great place for references (btw using references is not cheating. Eyeballing someone elses work and using it exactly or eyeballing a reference exactly can be considered cheating on some sites so always change on thing. Also it is just better to use stock images that are copyright free or have a commons license, which you can find on deviantart under resources and stock images- stock images-models)... another great place for references is my pinterest account which also has tutorials. That is here good luck!

The one I've got and like is Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics From the Ground Up. It's quite comprehensive. I have it on good authority, from artist friends of mine, that David Chelsea's book Perspective! for Comic Book Artists is excellent.

This book explains it in detail.

There are any number of very good traditional perspective books, plus I like this one for more dynamic stuff. You do need a drafting compass with an extension arm to do the fisheye perspective.

I have to say though, not wanting to do something because it's difficult and you can come up with a cheap substitute kind of negates the point of studying art and wanting to work professionally. Yes, some jobs will require shortcuts due to budget and production timeline restraints, but do you really want to aim for "good enough" and "convenient?"

Vanishing Point is a perspective book that covers every type of perspective you would really ever need to know, great book!

Aw thank you. You may find this book really helpful in ways to exaggerate your gesture drawings. Meant to add a direct source.

I see above some people mentioned backgrounds. As an animator, they aren't super important. You just need to know how to place them in the space correctly. If you do feel you need work with that I'd suggest this book. The big lesson with that one is to not draw "backgrounds" but draw environments where your characters can live and interact. It's also a really good primer for perspective drawing.

Still not coming up with anything on amazon or google...

I mean look at this: https://www.amazon.com/Vanishing-Point-Perspective-Comics-Ground/dp/1581809549

This is that other book I told you about the one that got a weird review. And the other review just says it arrived quickly... as if that tells me anything about the book... two reviews isn't enough to go by: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0520059794/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495434172&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=curvilinear+perspective

See that book description. It says it's the only book that teaches curvilinear perspective (which isn't true, it's just one of the only ones I can find. And it says nothing about if it uses cartographic projections to modify the grid)... Problem is, I'm not all too keen on learning from a book who's cover is comparable or worse than my skill level, if that makes sense. I'm not impressed. I need to be impressed with the artwork on the cover for an art book, and that's all they supply.

Yeah... there's books on it... just not any GOOD ones. Like how do you make a perfect 45° angle? How do you make a perfect cube? Things like that. I have no confidence in these types of books. I have limited funds, so the idea of wasting money on yet another book... waiting for it... and being disappointed...

Might have been a long while since you read them... but, oh well, might as well ask, do you know any specific book titles?

Oh yeah, I understand it's a panoramic so it's more of a swivel action more than a pan.

I've made some impressive panoramics with photoshop. I even started to conceptualize the picture plane as a bowl. It's definitely a swivel.