I have a dilemma going on now... Newbie to Perspective (May kick my comic to a later release date)

[KiabIce]

Hey all, I feel like I'm dying inside.

To make my comic and the backgrounds for it I need to learn perspective. I am a total newbie at perspective. I want to create my comic in 3 months but sadly if I don't know perspective I need a more accurate reality check and that means I'll need more time to practice perspective.... Which means I will not be able to start my comic till 6 months from now or longer. Someone help me... What are the best books or affordable online courses to buy? That explains perspective to a total newbie? Thanks

[IzzyBloom91]

personally, I never learned art from anyone else but from my own trials and determination. What I can tell you is to draw your character or object or whatever in every single angle. you get so confrontable doing so that it becomes 2nd nature to you. As for location, just draw places like your room in an angle and make sure you follow the principles like Straight lines should be Parallel lines and putting shadows in proper areas. I pretty sure there a huge number of tutorials on YouTube on the subject.
Either way, good luck and wish you the best. Just hang in there. With Time and Determination, you will achieve your goal as long as you have the passion to do so

[Mallory]

Get your hands on a book called "Framed Perspective". It's dense and technical but you will be able to draw every shape in perspective when you get to the back cover. (It's companion "Framed Ink" is also very good for new comic artists).

Also, my not-so-secret is I kinda suck at perspective too... but the neat thing about comics is they're an excellent opportunity to practice, since you have to draw so many backgrounds. So, my recommendation is just get started, and use the book to help you.

[IzzyBloom91]

That is so true, After all, Practice makes perfect

[TheLemmaLlama]

Personally, this video helped me a lot:

[Lensing]

Perspective is not something you learn to draw backgrounds.
It is crucial to learn it to be able to understand to draw anything that is supposed to look
3 dimensional. A nose, a head, a human etc

There are artists who can get through with drawing "symbols" or everything is flat
and 2d and I don´t mean to judge them, I enjoy comics like that too.

A good book is "Perspective for comic book artists" it reads like a comic and it´s a good
start to get into the topic.
I enjoyed watching Marshall Vandruffs tutorial class about perspective, it was filmed years
ago in a classroom. You can download it from his homepage, it´s not expensive, I think
I paid 20$. You will understand the fundamentals of perspective after watching it,
it´s a beginner class.

For advanced stuff I recommend doing the drawabox course. There you will learn
to construct and to draw in 3d

When I have to name one fundamental every artist should learn first then it is perspective
because everything else in drawing builds on it

[darthmongoose]

I recommend getting a book on the subject called "Perspective! For Comic Book Artists" by David Chelsea. It's in comic form a bit like Making Comics by Scott McCloud, and it's a really thorough overview with lots of practical tips.

[Azifri]

I went through several books and found this one to be the simplest and most practical one for my purposes: "Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics from the Ground Up". Still, what really helped me learn perspective to a level where I could apply it to my own images was to complement theory with exercises from real life. By this I mean, use photos, google earth, etc, to get a good reference image and figure out the basic perspective grid of this image; even better if the image has people and cars in it, so you can see how those elements fit in the grid. Then, once you learned the perspective from that image, use the same grid and come up with your own composition. If you want to be even more efficient, choose reference images of shots that will come up often in your comic (interiors, staircases, alleys, cityscapes... dunno). Practice them until you don't need the references anymore (you'll likely still need them later so save the references just in case). Good luck

[DanielRKM]

@KiabIce There are a lot of great suggestions here- I'm totally watching Marshall Vandruff's video (per @Lensing's suggestion) right now (and going to refresh myself on ALL the perspective tools).

Also, concerning your notion to delay your book- It's tough. I don't want to be the defender of mediocrity here, but I wouldn't stress yourself like crazy about all the various details in comic making if that stress stops you from jumping into your book with a sense of joy (well... don't MAJORLY stress yourself (since stress can be a good motivator too)). It's easy to get overwhelmed with every little detail of what goes into making a comic and that can be straight burn-out fuel.

I totally love (and respect) your drive to make things properly. I'm not saying you should lose that/not use the forums as a teaching tool (it's an AMAZING resource- you're totally doing it right).

What I'm saying is that I took an approach similar to @mallory- when you feel ready to start- get started and use your comic as a means to help you learn and grow as you go (by all means, practice in advance and get an understanding of the basics, but you don't need to get caught up on every detail now). Whether it's Malcolm Gladwell's principle of doing something for 10,000 hours in order to become a master- or my badly paraphrasing of Spike Trotman (who was paraphrasing another comic artist): every comic artist has 1000 bad panels in them. Your growth is unavoidable if you do the work. Do what works for you and do it for the love. Someone WILL love your early stuff, but as the years go by, you know where it'll stink. It's unavoidable.

No matter where you start, it's going to be a journey. Your earlier work will be eclipsed by your later work. Guaranteed. I can see that you're putting the time in- so I'm guaranteeing that sh*t.

On the downside of this method- yes, this is also a recipe for potentially shunning your past work (and hooooooooo boy, do I feel that at times). But I am far happier that I picked up some readers at my artistic worst (who continue to join me) than had I waited years to get it right (because when am I ever going to get it right?!). If you have a spark, people will forgive some artistic flaws (some won't, though, and that's cool too. 'Cause you're you and screw the rest (I say that, yet I also bemoaned loudly, just last night, that I wish more people "loooooooooooooved me!") but hey- what's a journey without a step back every now and then?).

Also, if your first story is a long one, you can always reinvent yourself/the work when you're ready to. Comics is one of those glorious mediums where I can pick up a Spider-Man comic decades after his creation and STILL know enough to keep me interested without the baggage of needing to know all the continuity. You can ALWAYS find a way to reinvent your work later if you need to if you figure out a way in the storytelling (and encourage new readers to read the old stuff if they want to learn more about your characters).

No matter what- you're doing awesome work. Keep it up and I love seeing your progress!

[system]

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.