Cartoon is an art of illusion—flat lines on a apartment sheet of paper look like something real, something full of depth. To achieve this effect, artists utilize special tricks. In this tutorial I'll show you lot these tricks, giving you the key to drawing 3 dimensional objects. And we'll do this with the help of this beautiful tiger salamander, as pictured by Jared Davidson on stockvault.

Why Certain Drawings Look 3D

The salamander in this photo looks pretty three-dimensional, right? Let'south plough it into lines at present.

Hm, something's wrong here. The lines are definitely right (I traced them, afterwards all!), but the cartoon itself looks pretty flat. Sure, it lacks shading, but what if I told you that you can draw three-dimensionally without shading?

I've added a couple more lines and… magic happened! Now information technology looks very much 3D, maybe fifty-fifty more than the photo!

Although you lot don't run across these lines in a final drawing, they affect the shape of the pattern, peel folds, and even shading. They are the key to recognizing the 3D shape of something. So the question is: where do they come from and how to imagine them properly?

When yous follow these lines with anything you describe on the torso, it will look as if it was wrapped around it.

3D = iii Sides

As y'all call up from schoolhouse, 3D solids take cross-sections. Because our salamander is 3D, it has cross-sections too. So these lines are nothing less, cipher more, than outlines of the trunk's cross-sections. Here's the proof:

Disclaimer: no salamander has been hurt in the process of creating this tutorial!

A 3D object can be "cut" in three dissimilar ways, creating iii cross-sections perpendicular to each other.

Each cantankerous-department is 2D—which means information technology has two dimensions. Each one of these dimensions is shared with ane of the other cross-sections. In other words, 2nd + second + second = 3D!

So, a 3D object has iii 2D cross-sections. These iii cantankerous-sections are basically three views of the object—here the greenish ane is a side view, the blue one is the front/back view, and the red ane is the top/lesser view.

Therefore, a drawing looks 2D if you can only run across one or ii dimensions. To make it wait 3D, you need to show all three dimensions at the aforementioned time.

To make it fifty-fifty simpler: an object looks 3D if you lot tin see at least two of its sides at the aforementioned time. Here yous can see the top, the side, and the forepart of the salamander, and thus it looks 3D.

But expect, what's going on hither?

When you await at a 2D cross-section, its dimensions are perpendicular to each other—in that location'southward correct angle between them. But when the same cross-section is seen in a 3D view, the angle changes—the dimension lines stretch the outline of the cross-section.

Allow's exercise a quick recap. A single cross-section is easy to imagine, only it looks flat, considering it's 2nd. To make an object expect 3D, you need to show at to the lowest degree two of its cantankerous-sections. But when you draw ii or more than cross-sections at once, their shape changes.

This change is not random. In fact, information technology is exactly what your brain analyzes to sympathize the view. So there are rules of this change that your subconscious mind already knows—and at present I'chiliad going to teach your conscious self what they are.

The Rules of Perspective

Here are a couple of different views of the same salamander. I have marked the outlines of all three cross-sections wherever they were visible. I've likewise marked the top, side, and front. Accept a good await at them. How does each view bear on the shape of the cross-sections?

In a 2D view, you take two dimensions at 100% of their length, and ane invisible dimension at 0% of its length. If you apply ane of the dimensions as an axis of rotation and rotate the object, the other visible dimension will give some of its length to the invisible 1. If you go along rotating, one volition go on losing, and the other will go on gaining, until finally the first ane becomes invisible (0% length) and the other reaches its total length.

But… don't these 3D views look a niggling… flat? That's correct—at that place's ane more than thing that nosotros demand to take into account here. There's something called "cone of vision"—the farther yous await, the wider your field of vision is.

Because of this, you can cover the whole world with your hand if you place it right in front of your eyes, just information technology stops working like that when you motion it "deeper" inside the cone (farther from your optics). This likewise leads to a visual change of size—the further the object is, the smaller information technology looks (the less of your field of vision information technology covers).

Now lets turn these ii planes into 2 sides of a box by connecting them with the third dimension. Surprise—that third dimension is no longer perpendicular to the others!

So this is how our diagram should actually look. The dimension that is the centrality of rotation changes, in the end—the edge that is closer to the viewer should be longer than the others.

It's of import to retrieve though that this effects is based on the distance betwixt both sides of the object. If both sides are pretty close to each other (relative to the viewer), this issue may be negligible. On the other paw, some camera lenses tin can exaggerate it.

So, to draw a 3D view with two sides visible, yous place these sides together…

… resize them accordingly (the more of one y'all want to evidence, the less of the other should exist visible)…

… and make the edges that are further from the viewer than the others shorter.

Here'due south how it looks in do:

But what nigh the third side? Information technology's impossible to stick information technology to both edges of the other sides at the same time! Or is information technology?

The solution is pretty straightforward: cease trying to go on all the angles right at all costs. Slant one side, and so the other, and then make the third one parallel to them. Easy!

And, of course, permit's non forget virtually making the more distant edges shorter. This isn't always necessary, but it'due south adept to know how to do it:

Ok, so you need to slant the sides, but how much? This is where I could pull out a whole set of diagrams explaining this mathematically, but the truth is, I don't do math when drawing. My formula is: the more y'all slant ane side, the less y'all slant the other. But look at our salamanders once again and check information technology for yourself!

You can also think of it this manner: if i side has angles shut to ninety degrees, the other must have angles far from 90 degrees

Just if you desire to draw creatures like our salamander, their cross-sections don't really resemble a square. They're closer to a circle. Simply like a square turns into a rectangle when a second side is visible, a circle turns into an ellipse. Just that'due south not the end of it. When the third side is visible and the rectangle gets slanted, the ellipse must go slanted likewise!

How to slant an ellipse? Simply rotate information technology!

This diagram can help you memorize it:

Multiple Objects

So far nosotros've only talked about drawing a single object. If y'all desire to draw two or more objects in the same scene, there's usually some kind of relation between them. To bear witness this relation properly, decide which dimension is the axis of rotation—this dimension will stay parallel in both objects. Once y'all do it, you can do whatever y'all want with the other 2 dimensions, as long as you follow the rules explained earlier.

In other words, if something is parallel in one view, and so it must stay parallel in the other. This is the easiest way to cheque if you lot got your perspective correct!

At that place's another blazon of relation, called symmetry. In second the axis of symmetry is a line, in 3D—it's a airplane. Just it works just the aforementioned!

You don't need to draw the plane of symmetry, but you should exist able to imagine it right betwixt 2 symmetrical objects.

Symmetry will assistance you with difficult drawing, similar a head with open up jaws. Here figure one shows the angle of jaws, figure 2 shows the centrality of symmetry, and figure 3 combines both.

3D Cartoon in Practice

Practise one

To understand it all better, you lot tin can try to observe the cross-sections on your own now, drawing them on photos of real objects. Get-go, "cutting" the object horizontally and vertically into halves.

Now, detect a pair of symmetrical elements in the object, and connect them with a line. This will be the third dimension.

One time you have this direction, y'all can draw it all over the object.

Proceed drawing these lines, going all around the object—connecting the horizontal and vertical cross-sections. The shape of these lines should be based on the shape of the third cantankerous-section.

One time you're washed with the large shapes, you lot tin can practice on the smaller ones.

Yous'll presently notice that these lines are all yous demand to draw a 3D shape!

Exercise two

You tin can practice a like exercise with more than complex shapes, to improve understand how to draw them yourself. Starting time, connect corresponding points from both sides of the body—everything that would be symmetrical in height view.

Marking the line of symmetry crossing the whole body.

Finally, try to notice all the simple shapes that build the terminal course of the trunk.

At present you have a perfect recipe for drawing a like animal on your own, in 3D!

My Process

I gave you all the information you need to depict 3D objects from imagination. Now I'm going to show you my own thinking process behind drawing a 3D brute from scratch, using the knowledge I presented to you today.

I usually start drawing an animal head with a circumvolve. This circle should contain the attic and the cheeks.

Next, I draw the eye line. It's entirely my decision where I desire to place it and at what bending. But once I make this decision, everything else must exist adapted to this outset line.

I draw the middle line between the eyes, to visually dissever the sphere into two sides. Tin you notice the shape of a rotated ellipse?

I add another sphere in the forepart. This volition exist the muzzle. I find the proper location for it past drawing the nose at the same time. The imaginary airplane of symmetry should cut the olfactory organ in half. Also, observe how the nose line stays parallel to the centre line.

I depict the the area of the eye that includes all the bones creating the eye socket. Such large expanse is easy to draw properly, and it will help me add the eyes later on. Keep in listen that these aren't circles stuck to the front end of the face—they follow the curve of the chief sphere, and they're 3D themselves.

The rima oris is so easy to depict at this indicate! I only have to follow the direction dictated by the eye line and the olfactory organ line.

I depict the cheek and connect it with the chin creating the jawline. If I wanted to draw open up jaws, I would describe both cheeks—the line betwixt them would be the axis of rotation of the jaw.

When cartoon the ears, I make sure to draw their base of operations on the aforementioned level, a line parallel to the eye line, but the tips of the ears don't have to follow this rule so strictly—information technology's considering usually they're very mobile and tin can rotate in various axes.

At this betoken, calculation the details is as easy as in a 2nd drawing.

That'southward All!

Information technology's the end of this tutorial, just the showtime of your learning! You should now be ready to follow my How to Draw a Big True cat Head tutorial, as well as my other animal tutorials. To practise perspective, I recommend animals with simple shaped bodies, like:

  • Birds
  • Lizards
  • Bears

Y'all should besides observe it much easier to sympathize my tutorial about digital shading! And if yous want fifty-fifty more exercises focused directly on the topic of perspective, you'll like my older tutorial, full of both theory and practise.