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I Teach Creatives
assignments 211 submissions
Hi Marshall!
This was a really interesting exercise/brain teaser. I chose two of the provided ortho templates and invented a number of 3d forms, working over a sheet of isometric graph paper. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the results.
This is also a great way to practice my technical skill with pencil and pen (I have shaky hands...)
LESSON NOTES
What's in Premium?
In this lesson, you'll learn how to transform a 2D plan into 3D forms by assigning heights to its features. Starting with a provided plan showing width and depth, you'll explore creative ways to define the heights:
- Invert positive and negative spaces.
- Squash or stretch the height of portions.
- Create floating elements connected by lines.
Using templates, you'll draw height lines to track elevations and enhance the illusion of depth. By practicing with side and front elevations (orthographic projections), you'll ensure accuracy and understand true proportions.
The lesson guides you to think three-dimensionally, encouraging you to create your own forms and experiment with different views. You'll start simply and gradually move toward more complex shapes.
Get this lesson and more in the premium course!
DOWNLOADS
ASSIGNMENTS![]()
![Stefy Art]()
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![Jack Frumkes]()
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![Joseph Coplans]()
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![Wenhan Lee]()
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![Vitor Gardini]()
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![Gloria Wickman]()
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![@kotka]()
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![@balkanninja]()
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![Melanie Scearce]()
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![lautaro asis]()
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![Worldblox]()
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![Maestro]()
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![Rachel Dawn Owens]()
Your assignment is to take a top-down plan (which only shows width and depth) and turn it into a 3D form by inventing the height. You can be creative—stretch, shrink, or flip parts, and even make pieces float. This is about training your brain to think in 3D.
- Use graph paper or the plan templates in the downloads tab to make it easier on you
- Feeling ambitious? Make up your own plans
- You can also draw side and front views to better understand the form
- Keep the shapes right-angled for now (no curves or bevels yet)
The main goal is to explore how different elevations can turn the same plan into many unique 3D shapes.
Deadline - submit by April 07, 2025 for a chance to be in the critique video!
Sorry, but I'm missing something: how can I, from an orthos projection, create a 3D form maintaining its right dimensions without using graph paper? I don't understand the steps I have to do. In the orthos projection I had to follow a precise flow to mantain the proportion from one view to the others, but now it seems to me that I have to go free hand and "imagine" its dimentions, which makes, in a certain way, the orthos projection I’ve already done pointless.
I wanted to make a floating block between a sort of C shaped block. Kind of like those little desk trinkets with two magnets that make a little object float. I think the thicknesses of the blocks are not exactly consistent in the non-orthos views but this was all freehand and I think the concept is there at least? I did find it hard to make the floating block look like it was truly floating in the center of the C shaped block though.
This was an an assignment that brought a huge level of insight. A bit of advice: work on your boxes in perspective at 45° and learning how to draw them by hand. Easier said than done. Once the box is accurate compared to Marshalls it was easy for me to divide the boxes into equal parts. The benefit of this assignment is that I now can look at an old San Francisco cottage house, and determined the proportions, not scientifically, but artistically, very accurately. Thank you, Marshall!
Hi everyone, I have a question about orthographic planes. I’d like to use this work by @Andreas Kra as a reference—I hope you don’t mind.
If I wanted to make a front view of this oblique view, what would it look like? LIke that image 1 ?
I also have another question that may not be very important, but it’s something that bothers me. When we look at an object—for example, in these three views (side, front, and top)—why does some view show a different shape while the other views do not?
From a more “scientific” point of view, how does that work? This work like I thought ? Image 2
This was quite a bit of fun to see how much variation I could get just working off of one ortho. I thought i was doing well but I never thought of the floating shapes and cylinders other people added for their assignments. What cool ideas those were.
My original game plan was to do as many as possible, which led me to believeing doing smaller models would be easier and take less time. I was wrong. They were very messy and hard to see which produced a lot of mistakes. I watched the critique video and then went back to the exercise. The top views are drawn with a ruler as per to the original design, but everything else is freehanded as this is something I am actively practicing on. Great exercise, it's stimulating all the right brain parts and it's fun too!
I still struggle with keeping the paper tidy and the photos clean.
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6mo
Ooh I like how you experimented with the cylinders, looks cool!
People around me must have thought I was drawing the next Da Vinci kinda thing with all the measurements I was making, but it was just a little baby turtle
i had some fun doing this! I like turning 2d objects to 3d, its just quite satisfying and fun!
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7mo
Perfect!
You could build a ton from these drawings. This is a perfect foundation.
If you used a thinner pen or pencil for the inside lines, you could give it more depth.
Want to add an extra level of polish? Shade one side with any light value marker, pen or pencil to define more form.
Thanks for sharing!
