In this live demonstration from Comic-Con, I walk through how I approach sketching, perspective, and constructing figures from simple shapes. These are the methods I use to start a sketchbook page, build a scene, and draw things from imagination.
Before I draw anything, I want to know what the perspective is doing. I might not know exactly what I’m going to draw yet, but establishing that space gives me something to build on.
We start with horizon lines and vanishing points, including what to do when those points fall way outside your sketchbook. I show how I use a few guide lines and fill in the spaces between them, then build a room with tables, chairs, and people using that same framework.
Perspective used to feel much more complicated to me. Watching other storyboard artists work helped me understand how practical and intuitive it could be, and that’s the approach I’m sharing here.
One of the biggest things I talk about is why drawing from life doesn’t mean copying exactly what you see. I can observe a room and use the things in front of me, but put them into a perspective I’ve invented. That gives me the freedom to change the viewpoint and push the drawing further.
From there, I demonstrate how moving vanishing points changes the amount of distortion, how I sketch the house I grew up in from memory, and how I approach fisheye perspective.
We also get into bending those grids, creating lenses that don’t exist, and connecting multiple fisheye perspectives into a continuous scene. I like experimenting with these ideas because they let me find compositions I wouldn’t get by simply copying a camera.
In the last part of the demonstration, I break down how I construct a figure. I show how I connect the pelvis and rib cage, use opposing angles in the hips and shoulders, and fit forms together so the figure feels solid and can move.
Coming from animation, I like thinking of the figure as something I can pose and reposition. Simple shapes help me understand how the parts connect before I get caught up in anatomy or detail.
Thank you to Comic-Con for having me, and to everyone who came to the panel and asked questions.
If you’re interested in sketching, illustration, storyboarding, or drawing from imagination, I hope this gives you a few things to experiment with in your own sketchbook.
