Traditional Perspective Part I

     All right, here's my first tutorial. It's on the simple but often frustrating concept of perspective. Let's start with one vanishing point, or single-point perspective, and the classic example of a rail-road.

     To start, draw a horizontal line across the span of the paper. Second, choose a spot on the line, preferably in the middle, to be your vanishing point.

     In addition to horizontal and vertical lines, you may only draw diagonal lines radiating out from the vantage point (curved lines do not follow single, 2, or 3 point perspective). Draw two of these diagonal lines as shown here to represent your rail-road.

     Next, add horizontal rail-road ties. Reducing the distance between the ties helps add to the illusion of distance. Easy, right?





     Here comes the harder part. Let's try adding some telephone poles. Start just as you did with the rail-road, but this time draw three lines.

     Next draw a simple telephone pole and repeat it down the line, reducing the distance between poles.

     Look at what happens if you don't scale the size of objects in relation to the vanishing point.

      There you go. Get creative and practice this technique on your own. Soon, you won't even need the guide lines. I hope this helps at least a few people out there. Next up is 2-point perspective.