Assignment - Orthos to Invented Form
Assignment - Orthos to Invented Form
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Assignment - Orthos to Invented Form
courseThe Perspective CourseSelected 2 parts (122 lessons)
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assignments 218 submissions
Leil Yaghmaei
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

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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.

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ASSIGNMENTS

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!

Neill Burton
Interesting and challenging. I had to use a small note book and a tiny ruler because I am still traveling so some of the lines got a little messier then i would like. Also found myself always going for a square at the same angle, did not do a good job of varying the 3/4 view or giving any feeling of heading towards a VP.
Nilsa Rodolfo
This was fun , but coming out with new views is hard. At first i panic but then i just tried to construct without being perfect.
@vaporsymphony
So for this project I learned how to build a perspective grid and constructed one based on the oblique views provided in the lesson video. It was really interesting to finally figure out how perspective grids work, despite that not being the purpose of this assignment. I can imagine using grids and orthographic views together to construct complex forms in convincing perspective is an excellent strategy. My proportions are off but I was pleased with how objects look like they're in pretty good perspective.
Ric Molina
13d
Fascinating puzzle project. Now I see how. drawing 80,000 boxes will help.
@purpleart
22d
Just worked through Yves Yumol’s lesson on drawing a piano so I thought I would revisit this and do a (casual) drawing of a beach chair as the sea was a bit too chilly for swimming.
Clément Douziech
Quite loved to do them, but I realized it was difficult to be accurate with them being too little so made a last one bigger. I don't know how to have accurate dimension between the two sides length and the height !
Melanie Scearce
The accuracy issue is covered later on in the planned projection project! These look great 👍
Stefy Art
2mo
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.
Jack Frumkes
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.
Jules Peppler
Great exercise for the daily sketchbook.
Joseph Coplans
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!
Lane Campbell
Wenhan Lee
3mo
Constructive criticism is welcome. All drawings are done by freehand
Michael Giff
That's amazing. I can't get lines that straight with a ruler XD.
Vitor Gardini
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
@writedrawface
Daniele Olevano
Gloria Wickman
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.
@kotka
6mo
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.
@linhchi2111
I love the exercise. Thank you, Marshall! ^^
M0GAKU
7mo
@balkanninja
My orthos inveted forms, this was certainly a fun exercise :)
Melanie Scearce
Ooh I like how you experimented with the cylinders, looks cool!
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