Original subtitles

In this lesson we're going to look at drawing in 3D and drawing through forms. We are realist artists.

So we are drawing things in such a way that they can be believed to exist in a 3D world.

And as such we need to move our minds away from drawing simple shapes, and instead toward drawing

forms, where the viewer can perceive multiple sides of an object.

Right, so in this example here, we've taken this square shape, square shape and added some sides to it.

So now we have a front, a side and a bottom view of the object and it is much more believable looking

3 dimensional in a sense, right, even if it's very simplistic 3D.

So, drawing in 3D helps us convince the viewer and persuade the viewer, of the believability of what we're

drawing.

Now this method I've kind of done here, is kind of a shorthand for getting something to look 3D very

quickly.

You can take any simple shape and add an additional line to it and it gives the perception that it has

multiple planes, right, multiple sides.

So, on the circle this might be a button, we've turned the circle into a button by giving it a front view and

a side view.

You can also use this method for other objects, multiple objects really, such as a rock.

No one would viably believe that this is a rock.

However, if we take this particular shape and we simply give a another line to it, for example through

here, now we're kind of indicating additional planes, right, that the viewer can see more sides of the

object. Let's for argument say that say that's the front and the side.

And when you then detail these types of shapes a little bit more, they become quite convincing in their

portrayal of what they're supposed to be.

So, I erase the line little bit, put a little shape there and dots and dots and maybe give it another

little plane, and it becomes, you know, a fairly convincing, if slightly cartoonish looking, rock.

So this is a simplistic method, where you're simply saying to yourself, "I don't want shapes in my piece.

I want forms."

And so you're taking simple shapes that you may be drawing and just adding additional planes to them

and bringing them into a 3-D world.

OK.

So that's kind of the first basic way that you can understand how to move from someone who perhaps sticks

to very 2D flat looking work, to how you can kind of start bringing that work into the 3-D realm.

But I wanted you guys to know this, but this is not the primary way I want us to think about drawing

in 3D.

The primary way I want us to think about drawing in 3D is what is called drawing through, or drawing through

forms.

Right.

So in the real world there really aren't such things as 2D flat shapes, so to speak, everything is 3D to some

extent.

Right.

You know even stickers, you know stickers are completely flat.

But, you know, if you look at them with a microscope, you'll see that they do have width, height, length and

so on, and they are 3 dimensional.

Nevertheless, drawing through, drawing through or drawing through forms, is really imagining the other

sides of the object as you attempt to draw it.

So over here I'm imagining the other sides of this box, and drawing these elements in helps me feel out

all the different sides of the box.

Here we can see all six sides of the box.

One, two, three, four, five, and the front ones; six, right, so we can imagine all six sides of the box.

And similarly with spheres as well.

You know this is just a circle.

But by drawing a contour line, and this would be done in your construction phase, right.

It helps us as the artist to feel out the 3 dimensionality of the object that we're drawing.

So you can add contour lines on the surface of the objects, as well as drawing through the forms, to help

you figure out the volumetric kind of mass of the object, or how the object feels in 3D.

Right, not the exact mass obviously. And a very popular shape for drawing through and helping you, especially

in character art,V is the simple cylinder.

So, to draw a cylinder effectively, draw two ellipses, kind of connect them, and this would be the background

drawn through line.

And when I do the final clean drawing I'll only keep the sides that I want to see.

Right.

So it would be that bottom section and that top section. But,

so let's just say this is the bottom and let's just say that this is the top.

But drawing through has helped me establish a convincing outer edge here,

because I've used an ellipse to guide me,

And so I have a really appealing 3D cylinder shape.

All right.

And when we start adding dynamism to this, which we'll look at in the next lesson.

So we take a cylinder and then we add some dynamism to it.

We can start getting much more complex forms.

So here are some contour lines help us understand,

and I've drawn through the shape.

So here we can basically see both entrances to the horn, and it looks like some kind of horn, right.

And so that's possibly going down.

But ultimately these contour lines help us imagine the form.

So this is effectively what drawing through is, you're drawing through forms,

you're imagining objects in 3 dimensions.

Now let me say this, there are very few things that are really going to push your brain as much as trying

hard to kind of, especially if you're a beginner, to move away from this 2 dimensional idea of drawing, and forcing

yourself to think sculpturally, in a sense, and to think about forms of objects or basic shapes that

you want to draw, basic 3-D shapes. Aand you really have to get your mind around this.

And it does take some practice.

Although it doesn't take too much time if you're doing the practice exercises,

you start getting used to it. And the great thing is, when you can imagine multiple sides of an object.

Right.

When you start thinking in 3-D, and also looking at the world around you, and imagining all the planes

and all the different sides of objects,

Right.

Getting a deeper view of observing the world, you're then able to easily rotate objects around in the

virtual space of the page.

So take a cylinder for example, let's just assume this is us directly looking at the sun, at it from the

bottom, front on view. And on that note, front views and direct front views and direct side views

are things we do not want in art.

Let me reiterate that we do not want direct front on views.

We do not want direct side on views, unless they're specifically being designed for the purposes of

blue printing, or you know, character spec sheets or something like that.

But generally speaking, for an appealing piece of artwork, you don't want a direct front or side view,

especially an illustrative work. But nevertheless, this is our cylinder. It doesn't look like much of a cylinder

right now.

Let's rotate the cylinder slightly to the right, just slightly.

So I'm doing is I'm drawing through here, and this has become an ellipse, it can't be a circle anymore

because it's rotating in perspective slightly, and through drawing through, I've rotated the cylinder slightly

to the right, I mean slightly to the left.

So it's rotated that way, we've moved it that way.

Let's do more of an extreme rotation, and I'm going to draw through again.

And here is me rotating the cylinder to even more of an extent left. Alright.

And eventually we'll probably end up with a side view, that looks something like this, right.

Like that would be a direct side view.

And we've continuously rotated it and we can then take that further and basically do the opposite of

number two here,

and rotate it even more left.

And that will have us have our cylinder kind of going backwards now

Alright, and that's not quite as round as it should be, but nevertheless, it has rotated even more in

that direction.

And then we can kind of bring it back to a slightly, just a very slight rotation.

It's a little bit strange, but nevertheless.

And as we doing this, we're drawing through the forms, except for the side view, I mean, we don't really need to draw

through that one.

It's the direct side view, the same as the front view, and we are getting a sense of the dimensions of the object,

right.

Just putting this dot on the side.

Help us kind of feel out that

the planes, that we're seeing, as this cylinder rotates.

Right.

So effectively that's what's drawing through is. The concept is pretty straightforward.

The concept is pretty straightforward, but to get it ingrained in your brain is going to take some practice,

and especially if you've never done this before.

Right, I am going to do a cube here one more time, or box let's just say it's a box.

And basically I'm just drawing through, I'm imagining all the sides, and I'm just connecting them together.

Another key thing before we end this list, and another key thing to realize, is that all of the complex

forms, you know, you imagine arms, and you imagine legs and hands and feet and these things just seem immensely

complex and there's anatomy and there's skin surface and muscles and skeletal systems to take into account

and so on.

But really, fundamentally, most of these things are really just made of boxes, they're made of cylinders,

and various kind of triangular forms, but a very basic triangular forms, they're not made of anything super

complex.

And what we do as artists, as realist artists, is we have a workflow that we follow, a structural work flow that

we follow to build things from shape, into form into details, and that is how we get our completed rough

which we can then refine up to a completed piece of work.

So we use these kind of basic types of shapes, whether it's any type of cuboid shape, any types of cylindrical

shapes.

For example, we may bend the cylinder as well to get certain limbs, right, but still drawing through

to feel that form, putting contour lines on top of it to feel the forms out if we need to.

If we're not perceiving it well enough right.

Using spheres to connect joints and other things and to draw heads. For example my Droid cranium has a

sphere then attach a cross-section to it.

Right.

So we're constantly thinking about forms and drawing through the forms and imagining the volume and

the mass of the forms.

Right, so that's drawing in 3D and drawing through forms.

Please definitely engage hard core into these particular exercises because once you get this, the basic

basic foundations of drawing in 3D will be instilled in you.

That's the end of this lesson.