Art Fundamentals for Beginners - Line, Form and Shading

1. Trailer: Welcome to art fundamentals for beginners. This is an introductory clause design for people who are completely new to the world of art, illustration and paintings. If you're someone who's never picked up a pencil before, but I have always wanted to learn about drawing. Then this class is going to cover the very basic foundations required to get you going on your artistic journey. Whether it's just a hobby or something you're looking at as a possible profession. This lesson we'll introduce to you the key tools you'll need to get going, whether you're looking to do landscapes, portraiture, figure drawing, comic books. The list goes on. During this lesson, we'll discuss the main concepts we'll need to get started. Look at the different exercises will need to do and we'll end it with an assignment for you to complete if you've always wanted to start drawing, but I've never been quite sure where to begin then this is the class for use. So let's get going. 2. Why Do You Want To Draw?: So why do you want to draw? This is a question we probably never bothered to auto-scale sills. The answer, of course, is, you have an ID you want to convey. At its most basic is an idea or a concept. And for whatever reason, many of us have to express that idea or concept in some white. Since we stepped down from the trees and began to walk upright in the plains of Africa. We, as humans have developed a knack for creativity. Most of the time, those ideas with a practical purposes for survival. But somewhere along the line, some distant ancestor turned to practical ID into something that affected others around him in an emotional white. So the purpose of art is to Ghana and emotional response. Many of us want to have our ID is seen and hood. And the great thing is there are many people out there willing to see in here what you have to cite and believe it or not like all want your audience to be successful. But the real question is not so much why we draw, but rather why many of us stop drawing in the first place? Many of us, when we start to get into, I usually get super-excited at the beginning, we purchased the big sketchbook, the finest drawing tools. We go through it with the mindset of really wanting to enjoy this. But inevitably, what happens for many of us is that we realized very quickly how difficult a task it is we've set for ourselves. Yes, we have something in the site. Yes, we want people to react to outcrop, but we start to see very quickly how big of a mountain it is to get there. We start to get tenses, we draw, we breathe heavier as stress levels increase and it starts to make us miserable because in our minds, what we're drawing simply doesn't look good. What's worse is that even if we do draw something that looks good, we are quick to lose confidence when we flip through the book and see the old masters works. How can I ever expect to reach that level? You may inevitably say to yourself, on top of that, we have very quick to criticize our mistakes. This is often when we throw in the towel. So how do you prevent yourself from getting to the stage? Well, as simple as it sounds, you have to look at not only what you're doing wrong, but also what you're doing right? We often very good at praising others when they do something, right, but not very good at praising ourselves. If we're looking at another person's work will often see both the positives and the negatives in the work. So we need to shift our thinking to this type of mindset to help develop skills. The moment you start to feel the frustration that you're drawing isn't working is the moment you have to stop and analyze what you've done both wrong and right. Maybe you've tried drawing that still life of a bowl of fruit, but only the orange looks good. That's fine. Tell yourself that next time you can focus on that troublesome banana will pay. Take note of your strengths and weaknesses. We want to learn to analyze, not criticize. At this stage. It's just practice and telling yourself this, believe it or not, can help to offset any negative thoughts that begin to creep in. There are no deadlines see, so there's no need to put any undue pressure on yourself. This should be fun and enjoyable. The beauty part is that OT isn't actually all that complicated to begin with, as we often think about fundamentals can be broken down into three sets of tools for our IDs, line, form, and value. These are the building blocks for literally every illustration painting, an animated cartoon you live as seen. We went to consider ourselves as not only someone who wants to express an ID, but we want that expression to have a strong foundation at it's core to ensure the ID is clear to our audience. We want to consider ourselves as both an artist and a buildup. But before we dive into the tools for our ideas, we need to look over the drawing tools that we're going to need. So let's take a look at that now. 3. Drawing Tools: Okay, let's go over the basic tools you'll need to get going. Of course, the first place you will need to start with is simply the surface you'll be drawing on. Paper comes in many forms, but there's really only a couple of types of paper that you'll need to concern yourself with it first, later on when you've got more experience under your belt and you start dabbling in different types of drawing mediums is when you can worry about looking at higher quality or more specialized paper. But for now, there are really only two types of paper that you need to concern yourself with. The first is called newsprint. Newsprint is generally the most inexpensive paper there is for sketching. The sketch pads come in a variety of sizes and they're also pretty lightweight as well. The main issue with newsprint is that it lacks durability. It's really easy to rip and tear due to being very thin. And if you're looking for sketches to loss a long period of time, it's not the best surface to be drawing on. However, if you're not concerned with keeping the sketches long-term, then it's a perfectly fine surface to be working on. Next up is bond paper. This is just regular old office paper or printing paper. It's pretty inexpensive. It can come in a range of sizes. And unlike newsprint, is far more durable for our pencil work. Now, it's not really the best surface for Marcus or painting, but for general sketching purposes, it's perfectly fine. So if you're looking at something that's going to be a bit more permanent than newsprint than regular old office paper is the way to go. Let's move on to what we'll be drawing with, and that's graphite pencils. Now, graphite pencils are split into two grades, eighth-grade and B grade. The H and H grade stands for hide. The higher the grade, the heart of the pencil is, which will result in line work that gradually gets lighter. These pencils are great for more technical drawing such as architectural work. Really great if you need really accurate linework. But they're not necessarily the best for sketching. So we want to concern ourselves with the big red pencil. The b in this instance stands for black. These are much softer graphites and allow for a greater range of artistic expression. The higher the grade, the softer the pencil is, and the more Docker it becomes. Now, we don't need the entire reign Shi I recommend starting with a tube, a full be in a 6 B. That's going to give us a good range of pencil hardness is to work from. Some authors will also use a HB or be as willful lot foundations as it's somewhere in between both the height and be great. But generally speaking, we don't really make much more beyond this. Okay, so onto arises. What we'll be looking for is a hot arrays up in a soft eraser. Now when we say hot air rises, we don't mean one that says Hot is a rock that can rip through the paper, but something that is flexible enough, but also has a little bit of firmness into it as it rubs across the surface. For our software rise up, we're looking for something that's called a kneadable eraser. This eraser is great because it's malleable. It's not only super gentle on the paper surface, it can also be shaped in any which way we like. So if we need to add in those fine strands of hair in our portrait sketch, then this is going to be a great tool to have because we can shape it in any form that we want. The last thing we need to look at is simply how we position ourselves as we draw. The big thing you don't want to be doing is crunching over with your head right up against the paper as you draw. Not only is this not great for posture, it gives us a very warped perspective of what we're drawing. So you want to have a good distance between yourself and the paper and have the paper tilted at roughly about a 45 degree angle. My preference is to work from a standing position because it not only means you have to keep your posture upright, it also means you're not sitting down for long hours on end. So what do you want to sit down at the desk or stand as you draw? Make sure you've got the paper roughly about a 45 degree angle and that you're not hunching over and crunching your back. So choose whichever method works for you. 4. Holding and Moving the Pencil: Okay, The first thing we need to talk about is how we go about moving our arm was we draw. Most of us when we start drawing, use the pencil in the same way we would as if we were writing a lead up. The problem with sketching this way is that it doesn't allow us much in terms of movement. If I do a demonstration, hey, just using my wrist, it becomes pretty obvious quite quickly what the shortcomings are to doing it this way. My code line, he not only looks very sketchy, it looks quite small as well. So how do we go about getting a bigger range of movement across our page, making this could more fluid and logic. Well, we want to be drawing from our shoulder, naught our wrist. You might very well be saying to yourself, what does that mean exactly to draw from the shoulder. Well, if you've ever seen a conductor conducting an orchestra, you will no doubt have noticed him making big sweeping movements with his whole arm. He's making those big sweeping movements from his shoulder up, down, left, right, big circles, big ox loops. Moving from the shoulder allows the conductor the biggest range of motion possible in order to God the orchestra and how it plays. He can do big sweeping gestures, very small and subtle ones depending on what song is being performed. We want to take the same idea, how conductor has and apply it to our drawing. We want to have the same wide ranging all movements as we move out pencil across the papers what he does. If we look at the comparison here now, I'm using my whole arm as I make this AAC across the page, take note of how much bigger, curved, and more fluid these AAC is compared to how I drew it with the wrist originally. We're not getting any of these sketchy broken lines anymore. I've managed to get a bigger and better result from one big sweeping motion using my whole arm than I could ever get with my wrist. So we want the same range of motion as our conductor. Another way to think of it is to look at how tennis players swing they rackets and God the ball across the knit, big sweeping forum shots and SFA vole shots. Now, there's a couple of different ways we can go about holding the pencil itself. This will really come down to preference. We can hold the pencil in an upright position in the same way we would hold a cutting knife. We can hold it in a mode diagonal position. We can group it very close to the head or all the way down at its base. We can even use the same group we use to write with. If that's more comfortable, whichever group feels more countable is less important than ensuring that we are moving from our shoulder. Now, you may very well be asking yourself, is there any case wave we should be using are risks to draw? And the answer is yes. If we need to draw very fine details, O with a little more accuracy than drawing from the wrist is a perfectly valid option. It's not so much that it's wrong to draw from the wrist, but more about when we should be drawing from it. 5. Shape, Form and Perspective: Okay, let's now take a look at the three basic forms in odd, the other box, the sphere and the cylinder. So why are these called forms and not shapes? Shapes are the two-dimensional counterparts to these objects. In simple terms, shapes have no depth and volume to them, whilst forms do pretty much everything we can draw in art will use these basic forms in some way, shape, or form. Now, the biggest problem we are going to face as beginner artists is how we go about giving off the illusion that this flat two-dimensional surface we're working on is capable of producing something that looks as if it has depth and dimension out goals to not only draw three-dimensionally, but to also learn to think three-dimensionally, we have to think about not only the sides of these forms that we see, but also the sides that we don't see. We want to consider these three forms in any variation of them as being as real as any object in front of us. In essence, we need to approach these forms as if we are builders, not artists. We want to not only know how to create these forms, but to also positioned them in any which way we want. Once we understand how to construct these basic forms, we can then start to explore manipulating them into more complex shapes. More organic things tend to twist and turn and be full of lumps and bumps. So we need to work our way up to that by starting with these basics first. So what do we need to know first about turning our 2D shapes into 3D forms? Well, let's first strip out the three-dimensionality of our box, sphere and cylinder and just present they're two-dimensional counterparts. With that three-dimensionality gone, our eyes really now only have one direction to follow with nothing happening across the middle L, I can't do anything else other than follow these paths along the outside edge. So how do we follow our eye into thinking there's depth and dimension to these images? Well, we simply have to create a new path for our eye to follow across the middle. One simple oc, across our circle here has suddenly turn that flat two-dimensional shape into something with form and volume. So the key to creating form is to create a path that moves not only around the outside edge of our flat 2D shape, but also a path across its middle. Now, this is all well and good, but how do we ensure that these forms actually feel as if they are occupying 3D space? Well, the first thing we need to do is learn a little bit about perspective. Now, if you think you choose so isn't perspective a complicated topic? The answer to that is yes, but the truth is we only need a few principles from perspective to get us going in order for our forms to feel like they are sitting in 3D space, we need to make them converge to something called L eyeline, which in artistic terms is simply going to be a horizontal guideline across our page. This airline is going to be our reference point for ensuring our forms look like they're sitting in a 3D environment. So where is this eyeline? Well, as the name suggests, it's literally where our iser. If we place a horizontal line across our eyes, everywhere we turn our head is where the Online is. Place your pencil across your eyes now and see for yourself. So this horizontal line on our page is representative of where our eyes are looking in a particular direction. We can also think of this as being a hypothetical camera position. So why do we need this? Well, in a 3D environment, forms will converge to this online. The further back into 3D space L forms go, the more their sides begin to compress and diminish until eventually they meet up at a single point in disappeared. This is literally called the vanishing point. We can use vanishing points as a means to not only place our forms into 3D space, but to also position them in any direction we want. One vanishing point will allow us to move our objects left, right, up and down. Two vanishing points will allow us to rotate the object to face whichever direction we want. And three vanishing points will allow us to tilt our object either towards or away from the viewer. So this is the basic breakdown for our forms and perspective. 6. Cross Contouring: Let's see how we can go about using our pencil to be more of a tool for us than just being able to help us draw. Eventually we want to start practicing being able to do sketches without always having to rely on those perspective lines and vanishing points. There are always going to be times where we will need those guides. Of course, we still need to practice this stuff. And if we ever need to do something that needs super accurate line work, then of course we will need to use them. But we also want to be able to get to a point where we can start to intuitively feel where those vanishing points are. So how do we go about moving beyond those guidelines all the time? This is where our pencil can come in and help us. A pencil is of course, a great tool to help us get the angle right of something. If we've got a box leaning onto a wall here, we can align our pencil to the edge of this box and measure approximately at what degree it's Lena's on. We can then mark that measurement down on our paper to get a more accurate representation of the position this box is in. We can also use that pencil as a guide to figure out what in our environment is sitting above and below our eyeline. But one of the more useful ways we can use our pencil is to actually give us more information about where in 3D space our objects are positioned. So how does our humble pencil help us? Let's go back to our eyeline and to help us demonstrate, let's put a stack of coins in front of it. What we're going to notice with this stack of coins is the gap in-between each coin is helping to create that directional path across the middle we talked about earlier. We call these cross contour lines. Now, what we're going to see with our stack coins is the cross contour lines they form are going to change depending on where we position ourselves. If we position that first cross contour right at our eye level, what's going to happen is it's going to become completely straight. And things sitting at the same level as our eye line will look completely horizontal. But if we move our eyes down gradually, will start to see the depth and perspective start to show from the rest of these coins. As we start to look down this stack, those cross contours will start to bend upwards more and more. The further down we look, the more circular those cross contours become. And we position the bottom of the stack at eye level and scan our eyes upwards, we'll start to see the same thing happen only in reverse. Our cross contours will start to gradually OK the way downwards more and more, the more we look up. And if we tilt this stack onto its side, we're going to see a similar thing emerging at eye level are cross contours will be perfectly vertical. And this will start to work more and more depending on whether we scan our eyes to the left or to the right. So how does this relate to our pencil? Well, we're going to find that in most cases, pencils and pens have some type of natural cross contour marking on them. You'll find that cross contour is either in the form of some type of graphical stripe wrapping around the pencils surface or in the case of a pen or some type of cap that creates that cross contour line. What we can do is use this mock-up to help us establish how things are positioned in our environment. Let's say we're trying to work out where this cylinder is positioned in 3D space. Well, now we have a super convenient tool already in our hand with a helpful guide around its surface that we can position in a similar way to where this cylinder is sitting. We can look at the contour of this cylinder and then try to match it now with the contour that we've gotten our hands to get a more accurate idea of how it's positioned, instead of just doing some guesswork, we can tilt, lean, and rotate our pencil in every which way we want to try to get that more accurate idea down on paper. So not only can we now use our pencil to help us establish how an object is positioned on the outside. We can use it to figure out how our object is positioned overall. Simply put, we can now use our pencil to establish more information and get a more accurate representation of whatever it is we are drawing. Now, as was mentioned, they're still going to be times of course, where we'll need those perspective lines. We still need to practice this stuff up. But if we're just sketching, this is a little shortcut that we can use to help us. 7. Shading: Let's talk a little bit about shading L forms. Shedding is really just a more sophisticated version of cross contouring. The closer we start to place our cross contour lines together, the more they start to look less like cross contour lines. And you Thank you. So obviously the more cross contour lines we put next to each other, the mosaic going to start to merge together. So when we start to look at shading, we are essentially doing the same thing with our cross contour lines. And that's reinforcing the idea that we are drawing something with three dimensions. Now, we need to expand upon this a little more and delve into a little bit about how light works in relationship to our objects. When light hits our object, two things are going to appeal to an area of light and an area of shadow. With that split between the light and shadow areas resides, is going to depend on where the light is coming from and what shape the object is. A smooth object like S Phi will have a gradual transition from light to shadow. And object with hada board is like our books. He will have a transition from light to shadow that is fascia and more defined. So that sounds pretty straight forward. But what does this mean exactly? What we need to discuss something called value heat to help. Value is simply the scale of light to shadow. Starting with our darkest darks in position one, and our lightest lights in position 10. Let's see how this affects L box first. Now, the planes on the books here are easy to define. Three sides are visible to us, each with a nice sharp corner and each capturing a different amount of light as a result. In other words, S-box has three different values prison the plane on this side of the box, capturing most of the light is going to have a high value. The shadow side is getting less light. So this is going to have the lowest value. And this plan at the top, he is sitting somewhere in between the two and is going to capture a middle value. What you're going to notice here is that each of these planes is facing in a different direction. So what we can say then is that every time we have a plane that is facing a different direction, we are going to get a change in value. Now that's great for boxes, but what about something like S Phi? Well, the same logic applies. The difference being is that the directional plane changes on this sphere are going to be fast, smaller and a lot subtler. If we were to theoretically flattened out the surface of ASP, we can start to see those planes more easily. The more subdivisions we make. The smoother value transition is the smoother transition is called degradation. So we're going to have to practice this transition from light to shadow. It not only in values with Hod borders, but also gradations of value for software objects as well. 8. Line and Shape Exercises: Because there's some exercises, we'll start with some nice vertical lines. First moving with the whole arm from the shoulder here. And really trying to get a nice even spread with these lines. So we want to do some vertical lines and we also want to do horizontal lines of course. So think of it almost as if you're trying to create a grid pattern. We want those nice even spices between these lines. So we've got our horizontal and vertical lines in. So let's start to do some diagonal lines. Now, which way you draw a lines is going to depend on which you draw with. But we want to get used to drawing in not only the direction that way comfortable with, but also going against our natural instincts as well, going against the grain. So now drawing vertical lines upwards and this is a little bit more difficult to try to get nice. And even because most of us aren't used to drawing against natural flow. So that's an additional challenge you really should set for yourself because we don't necessarily want to be doing everything that we're comfortable with. We're going to find out where exactly are strengths and weaknesses are as we draw. And it's important that if we find ourselves having difficulty with a certain type of pose or a certain type of line that we really work on that to get a nice, well-rounded approach to drawing. So I've got my line work in here, so I want to just create a couple of grids now just to sort of flow on from this, trying to get those nice even boxes across here. And then we'll do some diagonal ones as well. In this case, we're looking for more sort of diamond shapes as opposed to boxes. So this is a pretty simple exercise to begin with. So let's now move on to doing some no IS curve movements. Okay, So now the next exercise is a follow on from this, we're going to be doing some nice ox will start going upwards first and then start doing a nice downward up to and again, like straight lines, we want to try to keep things as consistent as we can. This is where things can start to get a little bit trickier because we inevitably going to have to start shifting around our hand for these different types of curves. So if you find yourself having difficulty trying to draw these type of curves in one particular position. Then try moving a handle your whole arm around a little bit to try to get these curves to the desired results. You might even find. You'll have to adjust how you hold the pencil too. So do whatever you have to do to get these nice even results. So just doing these grid patents again, but more curved ones this time, this is really just a starting point for us before we move on to our more spherical and cylindrical objects that we're going to be working on. This is try and get them on used to drawing rounded services. It's a simple little exercise, but it really starts to train our brain to stop thinking three-dimensionally. Wrote, move on to some S-curves now. So this is really just an extension of those C curves we would just practicing with. And this is where we really want to use a hole on. We want to get those nice snaking movements across our page. And that's going to come in handy very much later on when we're doing more organic things. But another thing we want to try sort of an extension of this as well. We want to take these two C curves and find a patent that links them together. This is what's called a wave. Essentially what it is is that Kind of animating L Y2, an S curve. This is really going to be handy in guiding the eye around illustrations. So it's a very useful exercise for us. All right, So when we went to some shapes, now we're going to start off with simply a square. And a goal really is to try to get these nice, even squish types as fuel lines as possible. We can, of course build up to it. If we're having a few difficulties, we can just sort of solely go over L page here and roughly mapping roughly what the shape of S square should be before coming in with some more defined lines. But the real challenge one was set for ourselves is to try to get this square is perfect as we came within four lines. So if we wanted to try to perfect square with exact 90 degree angles, Let's give this a shot now. And that's, that's not too bad, it's enforced drug. So that's the challenge you want to set for yourself as well. So you can either slowly build up your squares or try and get it in four strokes. Exactly. But we're not just limited to squares. Of course we want to try rectangles and other four-sided objects as well. And again, using the whole arm across as we do this, we can use rules of course. But again, as we said during electro-weak really want to get used to the idea of not having to rely on being that accurate all the time. We want to develop an intuitive feel for how the shapes and objects created overall. So it practices many four-sided shapes as you can think of it fill up an entire page full of this stuff as well. So let's move on to doing some circles now and some variations as well. And this is way, he probably want to slow yourself down a little bit because circles, if we're not used to really drawing from out, in particular, circles tend to be a little bit of a problem. So it'd be a little bit patient with yourself. Now, let's just demonstrate what happens with the wrist if I draw a circle from the risk today. Now you can see it's pretty much all over the place and it's not very large as well. That's probably about as large as I can make it with my wrist, but using my whole shoulder, hey, I can make this circle as big or as small as I want it. So you really want to do all sorts of sizes for your circle. He big, small in-between. And another good exercise actually is to try to remain consistent with your circle. So a good exercise you can do is just on a straight line, draw a bunch of circles of similar size and tried to remain consistent and tried to have them equidistant from each other as well. Try to really challenge yourself there. But the exercise that we want to follow on from this is simply the oval-shaped or what? It's nine as in odd as the ellipse. Now this is going to be a very important shape to draw. And we saw a demonstration during the lecture when we were talking about the perspective. And well, online is where this is really going to come into use for us. So we want to practice doing flat a circles that gradually build up to being more and more circular until eventually they do become a circle and we want to go in the opposite direction as well. Now, you might find that doing the vertical ellipses are going to be a little bit more challenging. So you might have to work on your arm movements a little bit here to try to remain consistent as you go across. But overall, these are going to be super important shapes that we're going to have to learn. So again, fill up an entire page full of this stuff of squares, of circles, of straight lines. And you're going to really have to do a lot of these for practice, especially if you're looking to do some type of professional lighter on. So font time during the day to just work on this stuff. If you've got five minutes up your sleeve and you've got a scrap of paper lying around, then grab a scrap of paper and pencil and just fill up the entire page filled with these shapes in lawn works and really practice this stuff up. Okay, let's move on to doing some value exercises. 9. Shading Exercises: Okay, We're going to do some value exercises. He, now, the first one we're going to do is upgradation of value, a nice smooth transition from dark to light. Now, the trick to this is to keep your arm moving. Waltz gradually loosening up on the amount of pressure as you go on your hand across the page. So as you can see here, we're getting gradually lie to him. We want to try to get as consistent as we can and not really get caught up drawing over the same area too much. Otherwise we won't get that nice smooth transition. And of course we want to go in the opposite direction as well. Now, of course you're going to find a direction that's more favorable. So just like the line exercises, we need to go against the natural direction out on wants to go. And of course we want to go not just from dark to light, but also light to dark. But the key is always going to be continuously moving your arm across the page whilst either gradually increasing or decreasing pressure as you go along. So the other thing we want to do as well is actually just divide l value into boxes. Now, we want to get a nice and even transition of values as we move down this book. So we're starting with the darkest value here all the way on the right and we just want to get the scene first. And yes, some people will prefer to start somewhere in the middle, get the middle value first. I have a preference for starting with the DACA books first because it gives a decent reference point for where we have to go. But there's no real point in doing anything with this lot of books he, because that's going to be a wife, his value. So we're going to move on to the second box. He, and I'm going to try to find a value here which is slightly DACA, then alpha spokes here, and it's a decent starting point. So now we've got some reference for us to sort of fill in these middle areas. So I'm going to put in this middle value here and probably looking a bit too on the light. So I'd say there's going to be a little bit of back and forth with this and you don't have to get it right perfectly the first time. It's a little too close to this value here. So we're going to have to make some adjustments as we go. And I'll just make this one a little bit, daga he and all sudden we can start to see this is a little bit more defined now. So we want each of these segments, these boxes to feel very much like they aren't blending with the one next to it. So it's just sort of a little bit different to aggregation where we do want that nice smooth transition. What we want here is that change of value to be present, but also to be very much defined by itself. So this is similar to when we had a look at the box during the lecture. Those nice sharp corners, we're really giving us an obvious indication of where the changes are happening. So this is really just a flattened version of this. Now I'm looking at this end books nano thinking that's clearly too close in value to the one next to it. So I need to make this one a little bit darker. So again, you're going to have to make some adjustments as you go along here. And you have to start thinking about this third value. And again, I'm noticing that it feels like these boxes either side, but a blending too closely together. So a little trick that we can do to figure out whether or not l values are a little too close together in this instance is to actually just blew our eyes. If we blew or squint our eyes, those HOD board, is it going to start to disappear? And in fact, it's going to make it look as if it's more of a gradation and value as opposed to being individual planes. So a good little rule of thumb that we can use for ourselves is that if we Blair eyes and I couple of l value boxes, he look as if they are blending together. It means that we have to do a little bit more work to separate them. Or let's move on to doing some foams. 10. Box Construction 1: Okay, We're going to start with the box first because generally that's the easiest shaped to begin with. Now, obviously it is the three-dimensional counterpart of the square. So we just wanna put it in a square foundation for us first. Now, if we think three-dimensionally, a box is always going to have nice sharp 90 degree angles no matter what position we put it in. So again, to present us with the most information in terms of where it's positioned in 3D space, the sphere in the cylinder end up being a little bit more problematic for us to get the positions right, because they've got a curvature to them. We've got these nice sharp corners here, which are going to help define exactly where the 3D environment this box is sitting. So if we look at it like that, what we can say is that the box is really the most useful shape for us. So a little tip for the future is if we're drawing an object that's very complicated, we can simplify it down to a more boxy a structure to get a better understanding of where it's positioned in 3D space. Now we're always going to have some element of our box here, which is going to be converging to our vanishing point off in the distance. This is what we're going to call L depth lines. This is what's going to help fool the audience's eye into thinking this flat two-dimensional surface has an object on it here that we get actually touch and feel. We've got this box converging to one vanishing point. So from this perspective, we're going to have between 23 of these deadlines present, depending on how close our boxes to that eyeline or how close the side plane of our box here to that vanishing point. What we're going to notice is our other lines here are either going to go straight down vertically or they're going to go across horizontally. These lines will run parallel with each other. This is how we get the depth of the image. What we're going to notice from this perspective, this first vanishing point here is that we now have defined our boxes having a top plane, a side plane, and a front plane. Now think about this front plane is that from this perspective it's always going to be facing us. So this is what's called one-point perspective. In this instance, we're always going to have this front plane of the box facing towards us. So that's going to be the key difference compared to the other perspectives that we'll be looking at. But if we put another box in here at one that's a little more overlapping with the actual vanishing point. What we're going to notice is that we actually lose one of these planes instead of having a side plane. Now we're only going to get that front and that top plane, that top plane of course, is going to be diminishing to that vanishing point in the distance. Essentially what we've done there is we've moved that box over to the right. So what we can say then is that if we're working with only one vanishing point, we're able to move our box to the left and to the right. But that's not the only way we can move our box from this perspective, as we can see, we're looking down at the top of the box at the moment. We can actually move the box up and down as well. So we're going to have two directions that we can move our box here, the vertical axis and the horizontal axis. So if we put in another little guy down here and start to build in another box this time that's sitting above that eyeline. We can start to see very quickly how we get it looking like our boxes floating in mid air. Now the other thing we want to do as we practice these basic forms up is pretend that they're transparent or made of glass. We don't only want to think about the sides that we see, but we also have to think about the size that we don't see. And the best way to practice thinking about that is to actually draw through the objects. So we need to think of them as being made of glass. Really think about that. What exactly is happening on that opposite side. So for the case of a box, it's pretty straightforward. We need the same horizontal line at the back there to follow along with the rest of the horizontal lines that we can see. So we want to make sure that all those planes that we can't see, all those lines that we can't say acting and behaving in the same way as the lines and planes that we can. This is what's going to help to train our brain to think three-dimensionally. The biggest problem we're going to have is that how do we convey the idea that something has depth to it? So let's just try an example here, actually, putting some really extreme depth, we're going to create a rectangular books now, which is going further off into that distance. Take note of how the horizontal line at the back there is significantly smaller than the one at the front. So everything that converges to a vanishing point is going to gradually get smaller and gradually diminish as it approaches that vanishing point. And it's called a vanishing point for a reason because if this box was to go all the way back into that distance, it would eventually just meet up with that dot. It would eventually get to the point where we can no longer distinguish where it's end is. So at some point, our boxes literally going to vanish. This is all about creating dimension, but we have to ensure we are following those rules. We have to look at our boxes and ensure that they are running parallel. What's happening with her eyeline? If they start to go off course here, then it's going to start to throw things off. There's a little more we can do with our box here other than just moving it left, right, up and down, we can actually turn its face if we were to shift it round to 45 degrees, all we have to do is ensure that the front face of our box here is still following along with the same logic. As long as we are following along with that 90 degree idea, there's no sharp edges and we've got those sides which are running parallel with each other. It means that we can make our box look as if it's sitting on its edge here. So it was still got things diminishing 2 1 point. All we've done is made sure that these lines that were running horizontally are still running parallel with each other and the same with the vertical lines as well. So what that means is that we can start to turn this box around. All we have to do is ensure those horizontal and vertical lines are still running parallel with each other. So if we were to summarize what one vanishing point is for an object, that means we can move it left and right, up and down. And we can also start to turn it over. So let's finish up here with one vanishing point. And now let's start to move on to what happens when we add in two vanishing points for our boxes. 11. Box Construction 2: Okay, so let's move on to doing two vanishing points. There are books. Now the big difference we're going to see with two vanishing points is that we're going to be able to rotate the face of the box to any direction that we want. In the last video with one vanishing point, we always had one side of the box always facing towards us. But now we've got the option to be able to rotate it to which ever direction that we want. So essentially we want to think of two vanishing points as ebooks sitting on a pole that we can now spin around to any which way we want. Now, the other difference we're going to find here is that we're going to have two sets of dip lawns compared to the last video. One of the mistakes many of us will end up making when we start to rotate the box around is that we'll forget about that second set of deadlines. So in order to remain consistent and ensure that our books looks as if it's positioned in the 3D environment correctly. We have to ensure that these sets of DIP loads here are all converging to that island off in the distance. Now, another way we can look at this is not so much that we're rotating the box, but rather that we're looking now at the corner of the box. But how we defined it isn't so much as important as remembering now that we've got these two sets of depth lines, two different directions, now essentially that our box is converging to arrows a pretty good at picking up when three-dimensional objects that we draw out looking quite right. So if you're drawing from imagination without the use of guides or any type of measuring tools. And something looks a little off, just stop and analyzed where the direction of both sets of these def lines going and make adjustments as needed. So for getting a little bit of trouble using our imagination, we can draw any offsets of gods he, and of course, we could have two vanishing points off in the distance. Now, they can be either really close together or really far apart. Now the further away they are from each other, the most subtle of the convergence is going to be if they are, two vanishing points are really close together. We're gonna get some really extreme convergence and that's actually going to really walk how book starts to look. So depending on where we place your two vanishing point, that's really going to affect the shape overall. Have our books is looking. What you might be noticing now compared to the last video is that we don't have a set of lawns here on our books which is running parallel with that eyeline. So another key difference between the two. So go to vanishing 0.12 here we're going to have books sort of set up. What we're also going to notice though, is that a vertical lines is still prison. So this is really the only left over that we have from loss video. We've got two sets of declines. We no longer have those horizontal lines running parallel. We still have true verticals in place. So overall, what this means now is that we can not only move L books is left, right, up and down, and Tilton to this. So I'd, but we can also rotate it. So we've got a bunch of different directions now that we're able to construct and draw out boxes in. And once we've got those basic ideas down, we can start to construct that any type of books that we want. So trying to draw one here that's a little bit flatter in its design. Now the great thing about moving the box railed into two directions is that we can start to create more dynamic positions. And all these ideas are not just going to be for the books of course, but for any form. And as we said in the last video, when things start to move around in multiple directions like this, tricky forms that we were having trouble enough with. One vanishing point end up being a lot more tricky when we start to add multiple vanishing points in. So again, if we coming across really difficult objects that are constructed in a really weird white, then always resort to the box first and then start to build the rest of the object around that. But also try not to worry about being too perfect either. As just said, we want to try to develop an intuitive feel for where these distant vanishing points are and where that online is. If we're relying on rulers and measuring equipment all the time, not only are we not going to be able to develop that intuitive feel, but it's also kinda going to suck a little bit of the fun Edit Drawing 2. So making mistakes, analyze what you're doing and if you finding something isn't quite working, just take it back is dip. If for whatever reason your books isn't feeling as if it's converging correctly. Then again, treat it like it's gloss. Get those episodes that you can't see converging to the right point as well, developed that feeling for three-dimensionality. Drawing hand over this area he, as if it's an actual flat surface. Move your hand across the top of this plane of the boxy, really feel that Colonna, right? So we figured out how to move up and down, left and right and rotate it. Now let's talk about tilting the books. 12. Box Construction 3: Okay, onto three vanishing points. Now, now you might be one step ahead of me already here we had one set of depth lines with one vanishing 0.2 sets with two vanishing points. Which means now we're going to have three sets of depth lines here, which means that every single part of our box is now going to be converging to these points are vertical lines in our last two videos were always going straight down, running parallel with each other, but now also converging to a point. Now the big difference with our third vanishing point here is it's not going to be on L eyeline. So again, we're going to have three sets of depth lines from this perspective too, which are going to be converging to our online and one which is going to be converging to a vanishing point of our island. Now, we can literally position that third vanishing point anywhere at the moment. We've got this third vanishing point sitting below L eyeline. And we can tell that because we can see the top of the box. Now what's happening here is it's making it look as if our box is tilting towards us. If we position that third vanishing point above our eyeline, then it means the box is going to look as if it's tilting away from us. So we are now not only able to move our box up, down, left and right and rotate it, but we're now also able to either tilt the box towards us or tilt the box away from us. So it's that tilting action which is going to cool is that third vanishing point to a p.sit. And what that means is that not only can we now put our phones and really dynamic positions, it means we have complete control over what our forms are doing. Now, another way we can go about thinking about the box from this 3 perspective is imagining ourselves standing on the top of a building and looking down at another. You may also hear this perspective referred to as bird's eye view. And for obvious reasons because it looks as if we are flying over the top of that big skyscraper building. But we'd need to look at the opposite perspective as well. So let's take a look at now drawing a box again. But this time is if we're looking up towards it, what was once our nice straight horizontal lines running parallel again, now converging to that vanishing point up above. Now you might be asking yourself, does that third vanishing point have to sit directly between the other two? And the answer to that is not what we are going to find is that that third vanishing point is often going to be white off our page. And in the same way as we saw with our two vanishing points that we can't get a very subtle convergence. We're going to see the same thing here. In fact, the further up that vanishing point is the subtler that diminishment for our sides here is going to be. So we can look at this box as if it's tilting away from us, tilting away from the viewer, or as if we are on the ground level looking up to it. This is what's referred to as worm's eye view for obvious reasons. Now let's just do a little bit of a demo here with our perspective guidelines in place just to get a better understanding of where this third vanishing point sits in relation to the other two. Now, we can see just how far below the eyeline we've put it here. But even then that's probably still going to be a little bit too close to their eyeline. In most instances, what's going to happen if we move that third vanishing point closer and closer to that eyeline, what's eventually going to happen is that it's going to tilt so far forward towards us that we're going to lose all sense of perspective or be left with eventually is that top plane facing towards us directly. So that's the basics down for L box. So let's now move on to the slightly more complicated structure for the cylinder. 13. Cylinder Construction 1: Okay, on to cylinders now, things get a little bit trickier with the cylinders, even though they do have a lot in common with the box. In fact, if you were to say there's a two-dimensional counterpart to the cylinder, it would simply be a rectangle. But the biggest point of difference we're going to face is that rounded surface now. So this is where there's elliptical exercises that we had a look at earlier on are really going to start to come into play. Now the boxes going to give us the most information in terms of where things are positioned in 3D space. But what will usually end up finding is that the cylinder is the form that we end up using the most. And that's because the cylinder is going to be found in a lot of organic thing. So if we're drawing the human figure, it will be things like the limbs and the torso. If where landscape paintings there will be stuff like trees and even things like clothing as well. We'll find these forms. But the big difference, of course, between this and the book's going to be these elliptical shapes. So we're going to have to work on these and these excess lines are going to be a vital component to help construct our cylinders because they are going to pose a little bit more of a challenge in our books. So let's just start with a cylinder standing up first and we'll put it in now. Oil line here is a little bit of a guide. So as we saw during the lecture, we're going to come across those cross contour lines gradually occupy upwards, the further up we view our cylinder. So we wanted to think of this as being essentially a stack of coins. That's the easiest way that we can really visualize this stack of coins is going to create a series of cross contour lines for us. And what we're going to find is that the closer that those cross contour lines get to this line, the less curve they become, the more they start to flatten out. So we want to do exercises that really get out mine used to the idea that the further away as cylinders sits from that horizon line, the most circular, that ellipse becomes it from there. It's pretty straightforward to put it in the outside edges here. And all of a sudden we've got our cylinder. One of the big mistakes we end up doing, however, is we tend to make these sort of almond shapes with our cross contour lines. This is a big no-no for cylinders because that's going to make excellent start to look a lot flatter. We really need to feel as if there is a back area there and we don't want these sort of corn is popping up with air cylinder. We need to really imagine that there's another side to this cylinder here and that these elliptical shapes are really wrapping around to that backside. So avoid those almond shapes. So let's do another cylinder nail, one that's sitting a little bit higher above the surface here. And what we're going to notice, of course, is that elliptical plane on the top is going to be a lot rounder. Now putting in cross axis lines here again, it's not super important from this perspective when the cylinder is standing up, but when we start to tilt the cylinder onto its side, and especially when we start to view it from a 2 perspective, then those cross axis lines are really going to be a vital tool that we're going to need. In fact, let's take a look at putting this cylinder on its side now. So if we considering this one vanishing point, then we're going to approach this in a similar way to what we would the box. So again, we're going to have a couple of depth lines here which are converging back to that vanishing point. Now the big difference we're gonna do here is that we're going to put another debt flaunt all the way through the middle. And this is going to actually provide for us the center point for our cylinder. And what that's going to do, it's going to allow us that horizontal reference line, which is running parallel without online. So exactly the same as without box. The only difference, of course, is that we're going to have to round this off. And again, we still have our vertical here as well, that true vertical. So this cross axis is now going to allow us to actually draw L elliptical shape in. So all of a sudden we've got that front plane of our cylinder coming towards us. So in essence, it's a very similar approach to how we go about creating the books. The only real differences is that we're going through the middle as opposed to the outside edge, then only have to do to get the backside is to follow that scent a depth line, putting that cross excess line again and then coming over the top of their elliptical shape. And all of a sudden we've got our full cylinder which is being formed. We start to see why those cross axis lines are going to be a vital component to constructing the cylinder. They are going to really help offset the difficulties that we're going to face by having less positional information compared to our books. The beauty part about the cylinder is that we can actually start it as a box first and then slowly start to round it off. We really don't have that option available for us for us fee because that's completely rounded in that it doesn't have any real cone is available to it, but there's a lot of overlap with the box and the cylinder. So if you ever get stuck with your cylinders, start with a box first and then slowly start to round things off. And these cross excess lines are really going to help. So let's move on to doing some cylinders with two vanishing points. Now. 14. Cylinder Construction 2: Okay, this is where things can get a little bit tricky and start to throw people off. So let's start to build our cylinder shape as if we were starting to build a box first. So we've got our two debt, Florence he going towards one vanishing point. And we're going to put two lines in here to go to our other vanishing points. So again, two sets of depth lines going in different directions here. So we want to approach things to how we saw in the last video where we want to put a depth line through the middle as well. And like the last video, this is going to give us the center point foundations with our cylinder. And with that in place, it means that we can put in our vertical lines here again, because we're working with two vanishing points here, we're going to have true vertical lines running parallel with each other. So with that in place, it now means that we've got a reference point to stop talking over L elliptical shapes. Now, this is where things get a little bit tricky and is going to require a lot of practice and a little bit of patients as well, because we're going to have to get used to the idea of diminishing these ellipses in a way that adheres to the same pathway box. What we wanna do is that we want to talk over from corner to corner here. We can take it as slow as we want to really just build up this elliptical shape. And what we're going to find is that the side of the ellipse closest to us is going to be a little bit larger and less compressed. Now if we run into trouble with the ellipse further back of having issues there, we can go back to our cross access lines here and add a couple of guidelines on each end. And that's going to give us a direct path from one end of the cylinder to the other. It's also going to help replace that second set of depth lines that were now missing compared to our box. So putting in that cross axis is going to go a long way to helping us offset the limitations we're going to find when we start creating our cylinders. Now there's no doubt about it. There's going to be a pretty strong learning curve for cylinders compared to both spheres and boxes. It's simply because we're having to deal with those elliptical shape. So as we said during the lecture and during the exercise session as well, we're going to have to do a lot of those elliptical shapes and really practice up they're different sizes and different widths. So it's gonna take a little bit of time to develop an intuitive feel for these forms compared to the other two. So let's just do another quick demo here to see how everything looks in relation to lie line. So you've got your two vanishing points in two sets of depth lines dimensioning off into the distance. And we can call it then just rough airway in with these center axis lines and then just try to feel our way across and around the cylindrical surface here. Feel that roundness in the same way we feel the edge of that, that box, those corners as well. And not forgetting there is going to be a corner HE for our cylinder as well. So whilst the cylinder is going to have less information for us about where it's positioned in 3D space compared to the box, it's still going to have more than the sphere or any variation of the sphere as well. Now if we're really having problems with our elliptical shapes and they're not coming out quite right. We can use a square to help us out. So if you put in a square here and a couple of diagonal axis lines here to get the center. And then L cross axis lines, as we've seen before. When get a little bit more of an accurate representation of how exactly that elliptical shape should be looking. What we have to remember is that the half of the ellipse that's closest towards us is going to be less compressed and less diminished, then the sod that is closer towards the eye line. So if you're struggling with the ellipse, put in these foundations first. 15. Sphere, Egg and Bean Construction: Okay, so I want the spheres. Spheres in many ways are the easiest of the forms to create, but they also possess a little bit of a problem for us. That problem is, is that they don't have any natural corners available. And so what this means is that we don't have a great deal of information as to where in 3D space they're sitting. So we're going to have to do something to these fees to ensure that we're not looking at circles here, we have to somehow convert this two-dimensional shape into a 3D object. Now the obvious thing that we can do is shade it, but that's not always going to help as well. The next thing we can do is to put it in relation to something else. So if we put in a books he, then all of a sudden we've got a reference point HE for the audience to let them know that this sphere is sitting behind this box and is moving in this direction. But that's not always going to be super-useful as well. So we're going to have to add in some cross contour z to help bring about some form to this flat two-dimensional shape. Now, there's several ways we can go about adding cross contours across our PS50. We can simply cut it in half. He like we do with an orange. We'll slice it up lightweight cutting a tomato, whichever analogy you want to use. But we sort of want to approach this in the same way that we do at the cylinder. Here. We've got that stacked coin ID present. But the difference being is that that's stacked coins is going to diminish in size. But whatever analogy use, we want to feel LY around to the back of that service C. That's how we differentiate this from our circle. Now we don't necessarily have to use our cross contour lines in this way. We can not cross contouring vertically as well. So we can really go in several different directions here to really get the feeling that this real roundness all the way to the back here. So it's going to be the key for spheres to really put some type of visual indicator here that does this roundness present. So let's try another one now and we'll start to do the cross contour lines in a slightly different way this time around. Now, we can find examples in real life how we can go about making a circle feel like a sphere in something like a basketball or tennis ball. They generally have lines that cross over and around them. So if you want really good references to practice with the spheres, you can look at things like basketballs or tennis balls or cricket balls or any type of sporting equipment like that that has the same over it. And that's really going to be a useful guide for you to practice with some doing something over a basketball style of cross contouring here. So the sphere really gives us the options to create really interesting wireframes. But if we want a little bit of a shortcut, what we can do is we can take out coin ID and criss-cross two of them over. So Ojeda to crisscrossing ellipses to give the audience the information that what they're looking at is a sphere and not a circle. Now what you might also realize here is if we go back to our cylinder, all of a sudden we've got a set of axis lines here again. Now you might be asking yourself, well, what uses that really if we were to draw something like the eye and we need to put in an iris. Then all of a sudden that starts to become a very useful additional tool for us. So far. All of that is seeming pretty simple. We've got a little bit more information about where our sphere is sitting in three-dimensional space. But let's see what else we can do with it. So let's put in another little bit of a foundation here. And this time we're going to focus on not necessarily the sphere, but we're only going to draw in half the sphere this time. Essentially we're going to create a bowl or a cup. So all of a sudden we've taken that PS50 with one cut across the surface with an ellipse, we've turned it instantly into something that feels like it's got a lot of form and volume to it. So what we've done is that we've placed a corny he, in a similar way that the cylinder has got a clear cut corner between its two planes. We've now done something to SP now and in the process have converted it to a new shape. This is why we can stop manipulating things fair spheres. Not only is that going to give the audience more information as to where it's sitting in 3D space. But it's also going to make things look more interesting. But we have to practice the basics up for us. We really want to get into the habit of just doodling with circles whenever we've got time on our hands. But again, it has to be emphasized. We need to move from our shoulder, especially for something round like ascii. But we want to take this a little step further actually and turn it into an egg. And the reason we want to turn it into an egg again is like a copy. This is going to give us additional information. All of a sudden, if we stretch our sphere out to an egg, this gives us a long access law. And to work with. Now what we're going to find is that in nature, especially when not really going to find anything that's two spherical. More often than not, we're going to find that the forms that are very rounded are in fact closer to being in EKG form than in the spherical form. So this is actually probably going to be a little bit more of an important form for us to practice than the sphere itself. But let's think about taking this even one step further. So we're going to utilize our egg form now and expand upon that a little bit more. So I'll put it in this first AIG form right now. And I'm going to put another one. I'm going to have it overlapping this first one. And what we're going to end up creating here, bean form. Now the beam former is actually going to be something we're going to find a lot of, especially if we're drawing the human figure. Now the beauty of the beam form is that we've got a very clear indication of which part of our being is in front of the other. So if we can see here, if we look at this beam form, we get the sense that this lower part of the beam is overlapping the upper part. And that's because the way we've constructed these egg form down below, we've made that outside contour crossover into the interior of the egg that's sitting higher up. So with just a couple of modifications, all of a sudden we've turned our sphere into a cup, into an egg, and then finally into a beam. The thing we want to remember a bad Albania is that the part that is overlapping into the interior of the other is the part of the brain that is closest towards the view up. So that's a look at the sphere and a couple of its variations.