Tutorials, Tips, and Tricks - Perspectives I


The drawing explains it rather concisely. The red lines represent horizontal lines that stretch between bodyparts that are at the same height. In this case since the guidelines are standing straight and symmetrical, that means the eyes, elbows, knees, and everything else are all at the same height to their counterpart on the other half of the body.

On the top left the viewer's looking from shoulder height, so the shoulders' red line really is horizontal. All red lines above it arc up, all red lines below it arc down. That means the wrists- which are below the viewing line- are angled so that the closer wrist is lower down the page than the one further away. Meanwhile the eyes, which are above the viewing line, experience the reverse, with the closer eye being further up the page.

The further from the viewing line the red lines are, the more extreme the differences. So the closer elbow will only be a little further down the page than the further elbow, but the closer ankle should be farther down the page,
That said, the further apart the body parts are from each other, the more extreme the effect, so since the ankles are far closer together than the wrists, this effect is more subdued. Finding the balance between these two rules is difficult, but you will improve with practice.

When you're looking up from the ground, however, your viewing line is around ankle or foot height, which means all lines above it will angle up (such as wrists and elbows, which had previously angled down). Use this to control where your viewer is looking from - This is perspective.

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You can also control how extreme the horizontal lines angles are. You have to be careful not to go overboard or the drawing will look distorted but that is difficult so you may not have that problem.
You can see how in the two bottom guidelines, the tops and bottoms of the figures (denoted by the green lines) as well as the viewing lines, are all at the same height along the page. Yet the figure on the left shows more extreme perspective. This is done by increasing the angle of the horizontal lines without bringing the two halves of the body closer together (here this would turn the body to the further right side of the page, not make the angle more extreme).

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TL;DR

This isn't everything that can be learned about perspective, just a couple of tips. The drawing gives a quick explanation and you can probably learn what I mean to say from it, but the above sections go into detail and you might learn some more from it, even if it repeats everything that was in the drawing, too.
Anyhow, I plan on making more of these! Any suggestions?