A Story Artist’s Rant: Perspective
Man. It’s been a while since I’ve used Tumblr to write anything meaningful.
Alright. Artist rant, go.
Recently, I talked to a friend of mine who happened to be taking animation classes at a different school. There was a night where he was bored and needed something to do. I told him to go practice drawing something that either is from life or involved perspective. He seemed to be irritated by what I said when I told him this, but then again it was a late night after a long day, and if the animation program he attends is any good all of his animation professors are probably screaming at him to do the same thing.
At first, I viewed this with disdain. But then I realized that this is all very common. This is a dilema that seems to cross so many young aspire-to-be artists. Most of us know that perspective is one of the most essential art foundations if one wants to succeed in the entertainment arts, yet hardly anyone aside from the really hardcore want to do it. I went through this to a certain degree since it was, by far, the weakest aspect of my visual knowledge when it came to the arts. I avoided drawing environments since I was absolutely horrible at perspective. I could draw characters and locations on their own to a level only slightly above mediocrity, but I could never put 2 and 2 together since dealing with 3D space on a 2D viewing plane is HARD.
Only till I decided to enroll in a class taught by an Art Center alum with the initials of J.C. did I really become one of those hardcore perspective nuts. This semester, I found myself toiling night after night over mere cubes and ellipses. It was tiring, and I was miserable. But as I continue on in this class, I found myself loving this subject more and more. Every thing that John Clapp was teaching was…empowering. He showed us how mathematically find a vanishing point that was located in San Bruno (inside joke). He showed us how to draw a mathematically perfect dome in perspective, cross-contour it, and then drop a cast-shadow on it, all in perfect perspective. He taught us how to draw ellipses the RIGHT way, the crazy way that all the industrial designers do it rather than the technically correct but visually wrong way all the art books and art professors tell us to do. And he’s going to teach us loads more useful visual library.
It is a pity that so many simply do not wish to deal with perspective. The truth about perspective is that it’s really not that hard. Sure, it’s hard WORK, but art in itself is supposed to be hard work (at least, the implications of being an illustrator, animator, concept artist, industrial designer, etc. would say so). The rules in perspective are extremely concrete. When you know them, it really isn’t that hard to not break them. Hell, this is a godsend for people who are really god damn tired of the whole “art is so subjective” shit, because this is the one thing that is rule of thumb. Perspective is law. It’s how we see things. And if we can correctly draw something that looks like it’s correctly in 3D space on paper, then we’ve essentially created a looking glass into another plausible world that lies within our imagination.
See what that means? Perspective gives us power.
We get the power of Gods to create on a sheet of paper our own little worlds.
I know that some of you may think that I’m some crazy psycho nut who should be shut away in a psycho ward after saying something like that. But I think it’s that sort of mentality that so many young artists need to break out of the conundrum that is the process of learning perspective. Stop thinking of perspective as this horrible monster made up of a bunch of grid lines meant to soil your creativity. Instead, think of perspective as a guideline to help construct the world of your dreams. When you do so, you will realize that you can not create a world of your own that looks FUCKING AWESOME, but one that others would believe to could possibly exist.
Believability is the key to the story arts. Believability comes through legitimacy. Legitimacy comes through the study of people and life. Perspective, figure drawing, animal studies, life studies, reading, watching GOOD movies, playing GOOD video games (not excessively…that’s bad), traveling…this is all essential. Even the best unrealistic story arts are grounded in a sense of realism. It’s what makes your art legitimate.
Of course, it is possible to break the rules in the end with success. But breaking the rules properly requires one to know the rules first.
So, what say you? Go out and DRAW! DRAW EVERYTHING! (Except for porn, of course. That could get you into trouble.)
