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You’ll learn the most important foundational concepts for drawing anything and soon you’ll be drawing pictures out of your imagination or from reference.
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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
LESSON NOTES
This is a great exercise to improve your perspective skills, especially with organic forms like human heads. You're going to figure out the orientation of the head in space by considering a simple box, then using that box as a map for a portrait. Watch this video for tips on how to do this properly.
Practice this from the photos I've provided in the downloads tab and don't forget to submit your drawing to the community!
RELATED LINKS:
One-Point Perspective
Two-Point Perspective
How to Learn Perspective - Draftsmen S1E26
DOWNLOADS
project-portraits-in-perspective.mp4
213 MB
project-portraits-in-perspective-transcript-english.txt
5 kB
project-portraits-in-perspective-transcript-spanish.txt
6 kB
project-portraits-in-perspective-captions-english.srt
8 kB
project-portraits-in-perspective-captions-spanish.srt
9 kB
ASSIGNMENTS![]()
![Jonah Jenkins]()
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![Hechmi K]()
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![Jonah Jenkins]()
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![@wonkbunny]()
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![Chuck Ludwig Reina]()
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![Rain Kipper]()
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![Samer Fakiani]()
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![Patrick Bosworth]()
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![Nat]()
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![@chinanoahli]()
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![Patrick Bosworth]()
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![Mimir]()
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![Smartlin]()
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![Kim Solon]()
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![Zach McCoy]()
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![K. Williams]()
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![Vincent GIL]()
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![Sabyasachi Goswami]()
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![@underthecarpet]()
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![@underthecarpet]()
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![@kotka]()
In this project we'll practice applying perspective to organic forms. Heads, while organic, adhere to the rules of perspective similar to boxy objects, so we'll start by constructing 3D heads. Look for clues of the angle of each axis such as angles from brow to ear, the vertical center line of the face, and the horizontal side to side angles of the features.
I've prepared a range of portrait photos for you to work with, that you could find in the downloads tab under the video. You'll notice each photo is numbered. Please label your drawings with the corresponding photo you're drawing to help me and the community give you a critique. Otherwise it would be very difficult to know which box matches each photo.
Level 1: Basic Box Construction
Draw a box representing a simplified version of each head.
- Try to match the orientation and dimensions of the head in the photo
- Rely on your intuition to imagine each head's rotation and dimensions
- Iterative process: Redo and refine as needed
Level 2: Head Construction
Start with a small box representation of the head, same as Level 1. Then add linear head construction with accurate perspective.
- Use primarily straight lines to draw, emphasizing plane changes
- Find angles in the organic shape that correlate with the simple box (ex: top and back of the head)
- Observe, analyze, then draw
- Avoid drawing tiny heads; aim for at least 4 inches in height
Deadline: Submit by 1/15/2024 for a chance to be in the critique video!
I had so much fun with this assignment. I already enjoyed just drawing boxes in space, but solving the puzzle of eye direction and uniformity was exciting! I recognize that my line quality wasn't the best. Just jumped into digital and still working on my pressure/strokes on a canvas I can't turn.
Around head 13, I recognized that the lines will always either taper up or down together depending on whether you're showing the top or bottom plain. Before then, I was struggling to get it, just drawing the lines over and over until it looked intuitively correct. By the end, I felt I was able to do some shape design of each plain, choosing how steep or shallow the depth was with intention. Very great exercise.
I welcome all critiques. Let me know how I can improve further!
I am losing hair over this. Which lines must remain parallel for a 2 point perspective? The vertical ones? Or does it depend on the orientation?
Great job pushing through! I also have trouble figuring out tilting up and down and showing the extreme plains. Keep on practicing and reviewing the material, and you'll get it in no time!
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4d
Nice work! Getting head angle can be super tricky. I think you did a nice job especially on the second one from the top on the left. I'm noticing you're still a smidge off with upwardly titled heads (which are often the hardest!) Watch those angles and make sure you keep the lines of your boxes parallel.
I did a quick draw over with some examples. Again, really good work. This is a tough one! Keep at it.
Understood that i struggle with tilted horizons and need to practice them more. First 10 were before watching demo, the rest after looking first demo.
Hello everyone 😊
I have been drawing boxes for the past 20 days. It stopped being torture and started being enjoyable somewhen along the way 😂
When it came to level 02 assignment, I did not do many of the photos from the assignment. I found it way more exciting to draw people I know.
Here are few of my attempts. All feedback is highly appreciated ❤️
Many thanks in advance 🙏
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17d
So glad you're starting to find enjoyment in drawing boxes! The mileage shows, these are looking really solid, the dual portrait is a really nice composition, and a definite challenge given the two different head angles together, great work! I agree, it's absolutely always more exciting to draw people you know, I hope they love it! In the page of 3 heads, you're experiencing a bit of distortion in the bottom corner of the boxes where it's so sharply tapered it almost becomes a triangle. The bottom left head on that page has really great vanishing point placement, and looks the least distorted. Here's a quick tip to keep in mind. The closer your vanishing points are to each other, the more pinched and distorted your boxes will become. Push your vanishing points further apart to reduce that distortion. It's not a hard rule, but generally you don't want both vanishing points to land on the page if you traced the converging lines back to the vanishing points. Hope this helps, keep it up!
Well, so this was a nightmare. I will do many more of those before I watch the demo but I do want to share my miserable first attempt.
First box was so bad that i left it be and decided to walk the cringe and failure out of me.. it took two days three times a day of walking with my dog to be ready to try again and I think it’s an okay..ish attempt?
Don't forget that the width of the chin is much smaller than that of the forehead.
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17d
Nightmare notwithstanding, that portrait came out great! That reads beautifully as a foreshortened down-angle of a bearded bald-headed dude, really nice job! Now let's take a look at your boxes. No matter what kind of perspective you're working with 1-point, 2-point, 3-point, and beyond, all lines should converge to a single vanishing point depending on what direction they're aimed. When lines move away from each other as they recede back to a vanishing point it breaks the illusion of depth we're trying to create, it's called receding divergence. We want receding convergence, lines moving together towards a common vanishing point. At this point we're just working with 2 point perspective, so the lines going to the left will converge to a single Left Vanishing Point (VPL) on the Horizon Line (H.L), the lines going to the right will converge to a single Right Vanishing Point (VPR) on the H.L. The vertical lines will remain parallel to one another, and perpendicular to the H.L. You might have been trying to fit the box to the silhouette of the jaw here, but first try to envision how a box composed of right angles would fit around the head. Once you get the hang of that, you'll be able to carve away that box to fit the contours of the head more accurately in perspective. Hope this helps, keep up the good work!
Hello guys, there are my pre-demo drawings :). I would like to say that with after drawing few of this I've started seeing improvement with understanding how head rotates in 3D space. Certainly I will stick to this exercise as a daily routine.
Back to continue the journey! So happy to see the course is finally complete!
Did the level 2 assignment after watched the demo. Critiques are appreciated!
This is my project for this lesson (reference 1 to 10), I think I have to practice drawing squares. I tried doing the level 2 but I should have stick with level 1 haha
I've been mostly sticking to Level 1, but perspective is something I understand slightly better, and turning the head box into a head has been something I've been wanting to learn. Will do more of these post-demo/critique.
I did a couple of these but thinking about a head as a box is a new thing for me. The concept is simple, but my hand wants to turn it into a circle so bad!
Knowing how to fit the features into the box was also a challenge for me, so I think I'm going to watch some demos before I try again.
Hi ! Here my level 1 assignment. Not easy to stay in 2 points perspective and don’t go in 3 points. Proportions also struggle me a little.
Feel free to critic and advise :).
have fun !
Attaching the Pre-Demo sketches. I thought this would be easy but have to admit easier said than done. Has lot of Fun though. Will do some more after watching the Demo.
Got a bit carried away. Faces are hard. I'm still struggling with identifying the faces of the face. I find the mouth especially hard. The perspective I also slightly off. Good exercise for me!
But I had fun with that one and tried to sketch with more confidence than I had.
This box is really helpful! Still trouble with proportion though. Find it hard to get the proportions with the box right. I tend to make the face too wide by trying to fill the width of the bounding box.
First two pages were before the demo and critique videos. I learned a lot, spotted some weaknesses in my own construction I didn't know before. The hardest faces are still the ones from below, I constantly overthink them and while drawing it feels so incredibly wrong and unnatural.
