Top 20 Perspective Tips Learned Storyboarding over 20 years

A firm grasp of the concept of the picture plane and how it relates to both the viewer and the scene is essential for creating 2D drawings of 3D scenes.

How our head (or camera) level and tilt affects our cube and the Horizon Line (HL)

You'll have a general overview of how no perspective at all, minimal (size of objects only), and 1, 2, 3 and 4 point perspectives look, and how they are useful when drawing scenes.

Understanding how pairs of vanishing points move along the Horizon Line (HL) when our box which sits flat on the ground rotates to various degrees

You'll understand why 'The Horizon Line' might sometimes be better thought of as 'A Horizon Line' (of the ground plane) and how it might be beneficial to use other 'horizon lines' to more easily construct objects that don't sit level with the ground plane.

A practical example of creating a slope, giving it a new Horizon Line (of the slope surface) in order to construct a box stuck to the slope. Using this method you could construct an architectural model of a town glued to a table that is falling from a window in a real town if you were really feeling ambitious!

Putting a building on a slope combines the Horizon Line (HL) of the Ground Plane (GP) for walls, floors, windows, doors etc., and the new, temporary or 'fake' Horizon Line of the Slope Plane to position the building on the slope.

Steps gave me headaches galore until I discovered a quick and easy method to construct them with ease. You could call it a 'step by step' approach I suppose!

I kicked myself when I learned this handy way to accurately space things in a hurry (like fence posts, floor panels, whatever).

Tricks of the trade to sell that we're seeing slopes, hills and undulations in the environment or scene.

This uphill/downhill stuff is pure gold! Once I'd added that string to my bow I really started feeling like a pro on the job instead of a floundering newbie! And it's all so easy, with a bit of practice once you know how!

So simple and SO useful. This trick to setting ellipses convincingly will give your sketches an instant boost!

Beware the misplaced center line! Vigilance and a few pointers will go a long way to making much better drawings.

Reflections mess up more drawings than maybe anything else! So wouldn't you want to know the methodical approach to never letting that happen again?

This is good for long backgrounds for animatics and animation where you, as the viewer or camera, turn to look from one direction to another, like standing on the edge of a road and facing one way, then turning 180 degrees to face the other way, all in one drawing. Fun stuff!

A quick demo on why I like using curved lines to describe straight things a lot of the time. If you've struggled trying to draw straight things with straight lines and finding the results to look awkward, this might be just what you need.

When using wide, normal and long (telephoto) lenses, the way a camera sees things will be quite different. Using a box as an example, you'll understand why those lens views look so different and how to convey that in your drawings.

Following on from the previous lesson you'll see how to frame shots with a pencil as if you were seeing a scene through wide, normal and long (or telephoto) lenses. Also emphasized is the critical component of camera placement (or your imaginary point of view) to achieve the effect you want.

Similar to a 180º panorama except that it goes all the way around.

I can't say I've ever personally had to draw anything this complex other than just for fun. Since I lived in Hong Kong for a few years this was a fun way to remind myself what that was like as I put some perspective grid know how to the test!

I always wanted to be good at drawing scenes from my head without reference so doing this sort of things helps a whole lot with that. When you find yourself waiting somewhere leave your phone in your pocket and try memorizing where you are instead! It's both harder, and easier than you think, if that makes any sense!

Each lesson contains a nugget of problem-solving usefulness. Some lessons contain more than one.

The class project is to make a drawing or drawings using one or more of those nuggets. If you want to try something more ambitious, see how many of the nuggets you can demonstrate in a single drawing!

The drawings can be as fancy or rough as you like. The point is to understand a thing, and then apply it. That's how you will learn it. Getting it wrong is just a part of the journey to getting it right, so don't let that discourage you.

So have fun, and get ready to become a drawing machine!