The X and X-Ray Tricks
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The X and X-Ray Tricks
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Juice
Colored perspective drawing of Lego Wolverine😊
LESSON NOTES

In this lesson, I'll show you two important perspective techniques: the X and the X-ray. 

The X technique helps you find the midpoint of rectangles, which is key for keeping things in proportion especially when you have repeating sections. The X-ray technique is great for dealing with parts of your drawing you can't see. I'll walk you through drawing Steve from Minecraft so you can see how these techniques help you construct complex structures in 2-point perspective.

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RELATED LINKS:
Project - Portraits in Perspective
Two-Point Perspective
One-Point Perspective

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COMMENTS
Stan Prokopenko
Try out these two perspective drawing tricks to improve your accuracy. The 'X' and 'X-ray' techniques are great for getting the alignment, symmetry, and proportions right when constructing a drawing.
Newest
@mellowtea
How would you apply this to normal human anatomy? Like when the arm is behind the rest of the body? That is something I have always struggled with. With boxes it now makes sense but what about more organic figures
@justjen
13d
tough to erase those lines and dots :), but good trick to find midpoint.
Art Stark
1mo
Class Notes — things get silly —
Daniel Divinus
Good practice/warmup.
Too Sleepy
2mo
That’s was a amazing experience learning The ‘X’ and the ‘X-ray’
@wegneran
2mo
Oooooh, Minecraft!!!!! Great job!
Nancy Larson
It's essential to have those lines straight to make this work! Good practice.
Wesley
3mo
Bro the x trick is so fricking useful
Wesley
3mo
And it’s a No-Brainer
@shaaneeq
3mo
This was fun.
Rachel Dawn Owens
Very nice! You even got that head turn!
@mstefan
4mo
Hi! This is my attempt for this demonstration.
Wesley
3mo
My brother would die, nice job
VAGABOND
4mo
Pat Lou
4mo
This was fun to do!
J M
5mo
There is something off about the head... but I can't see what it is. My guess is that I messed up some of the angles at one point, and that slowly added up to the head having a weird, unnatural shape rather than a cube.
@whatsthemoonmadeof
My attempt!
@harrow
6mo
Dtawing a centerline along the side of the torso made it a lot easier to judge the depth of the head.
@linetime
6mo
Don’t know who Steve is but apparently it’s this guy!
@eren666
6mo
It's jack black
@osrour
6mo
pinkfin
7mo
I forgot to save line art after fixing the head:(. But second photo head is fixed! Had a lot of fun drawing:)
Patrick Alexander Büchi
Minecraft Steve right around the time when the minecraft movie came out, what a funny coincidence!
Arthur Nesbitt
That was a good exercise 👍
hobodios
7mo
I choose a really hard image I think the arms don't make sense I could NOT find a way to make them look similar to the picture while also keeping it 2 point perspective. The sword looks weird but everything overall doesn't make sense because the perspective in the reference threw me off. Also I have a question how are you supposed to use the X trick if a box is in a different angle (legs/arms for example) they are in a different position and angle so I'm not sure how to apply the trick there, anyways thanks!
Laurent Van Acker
I think it still looks good, but I know what you mean. The sword looks foreshortened on the reference, it follows the plane in the center of the arms, not of the left arm which looks more like what you did (also explains why it's thicker in the reference.) Note that because each limb is in a different direction (even the head), each limb has its own vanishing points, which is also why you can't use the X trick, but would need to work with projections and mathematical measurements (afaik :D) if you want to be entirely correct. However, I think you eyeballed it really well :) I think you could still use the X trick to help your measurements/eyeballing of the limbs, eg doubling the torso down would give you a good reference on where the right leg would end up
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