StardustLarva's Visual Explorations

[Fedodika]

i never learned the in depth perspective stuff and well i don't think it's hurt me too much. I'm just gonna tell you what i did, even tho not i'm not the best and i know you want to do characters and not complex city scapes and machinery, so it isn't too crucial to learn the really technical stuff.

The most important thing about perspective is understanding it; i've never learned from a book or studied why perspective works in certain ways, but I can draw out grids and place things on them in space because i understand form. Say you draw a beedle, right? try to draw him as cyllinders and cubes first then add the details. This goes for pretty much everything; anatomy, costumes, heads (hard as fuck), and environments, city scapes; it's all sitting in space and uses the very same philosohpy and science as to how we see it.

I made a little example here involving beedles... hmm... You see i created the beedle with spheres and cyllinders and i could have used a cube but cubes ain't for cuties... ehh off topic uhh. See the best exercise you could do to understand perspective is to try a draw a beedle spinning around in all angles, using simple shapes. This will teach to you connect vanishing points in your head and all that good stuff that super technical and makes no sense and is super boring and impossible to learn without good application.

Think of it like an RPG, like you have 3 sets of skills, you have form, perspective and design. Right now your design skill is high because you know how things look, such as insects, but your form and perspective are low. If you follow niccolaides and do gestures, you will level up your form and perspective skills because you are placing things in space, regardless of what they are. That why people say to draw cans and cups and stuff, because it forces you to put things in space which you can apply to anything else you understand the design of, like beedles.

Take a famous artist for example like sargent, he never draws beetles, but he can draw people and clothing very well because he understands the form and perspective well, and the design of humans. If he looked at a reference of a beedle, he could draw a beedle from any angle because he knows the other two skills. But without the reference, his drawing might look silly like mine because i don't remember what a beedle looks like hehe.

In short, i think it's a complete waste of time what you're trying to do with these grids and stuff since it's not gonna be applied to what you're doing. Start making those drawings and follow niccolaides and all that perspective stuff will make sense as you try to draw things accurately. I hope this makes sense...