How To Draw Anything...

Can you draw a dot and another dot and connect them to draw a line? Now draw

lots of lines. Connect lines to draw the basic shapes. Square, triangle, circle.

basic shapes. Square, triangle, circle.

Now draw lots and lots of basic shapes.

This is a duck. The duck can be broken down into basic shapes. For correct

proportions, pay attention to the sizes of the basic shapes and how they compare to the other shapes around them. But

also pay attention to the negative space. There are shapes around the duck

space. There are shapes around the duck too. You can trace to start off with,

too. You can trace to start off with, but practice this from observation to get even better. Basic shapes are the starting point you build upon. But how

many shapes do you really need to represent a duck?

What about 3D? Well, draw a square. Draw

another square. Connect the corners. You

have a 3D shape. Draw a triangle. Draw

another triangle. Connect the corners.

3D shape. Draw lots of these 3D shapes.

Remember the circle. Squash the circle to create an ellipse or a squashed circle. Draw lots of squashed circles.

circle. Draw lots of squashed circles.

Draw one squashed circle and another squashed circle and connect the corners.

Hey, look, a tube or a cylinder. Draw

lots of tubes. If you draw curved lines on the tube, notice the direction of the curve dictates the direction of the tube. Practice that.

tube. Practice that.

You can use spirals to practice that too.

Let me put this into perspective for you. Draw a horizon line. Mark a

you. Draw a horizon line. Mark a

vanishing point in the middle and draw lines coming out of the vanishing point.

Nice onepoint perspective grid. On your

grid, draw a square. Draw lines from the corners following the guide and connecting them with a straight vertical line. Nice 3D shape in onepoint

line. Nice 3D shape in onepoint perspective. Notice how shapes drawn

perspective. Notice how shapes drawn above the horizon line show their bottom face and shapes drawn below the horizon line show their top face.

Shapes drawn both above and below the horizon line show neither face. Cool

perspective. Notice how shapes drawn on the right of the center line show their left face and shapes drawn on the left of the center line show their right face.

You can construct other shapes out of squares by drawing on their faces or draw them directly after practice. The

better you get, the less you will need to rely on the guide. This onepoint

perspective is good for indoor scenes.

Let's get crazy with twopoint perspective. Draw a horizon line. Mark

perspective. Draw a horizon line. Mark

two vanishing points at either end and draw lines coming out of each vanishing point. Two point perspective grid. Draw

point. Two point perspective grid. Draw

two vertical lines and connect them following the guide. Draw more lines following the guide towards the other vanishing point and connect them with a vertical line. Now you have a 3D shape

vertical line. Now you have a 3D shape in twopoint perspective.

Again, noticing how the shapes appear above and below the horizon line.

Don't be afraid to sketch it out and clean it up. It doesn't have to be precise.

You can construct other shapes out of squares just like before. What happens

when the vanishing points are super close together? You get this weird

close together? You get this weird warped perspective, right? Usually the

vanishing points are far off screen. Now

practice combining shapes together, constructing whole scenes. 2D

perspective is very good for outdoor scenes. Welcome back to our duck. Now

scenes. Welcome back to our duck. Now

that we know basic shapes, 3D shapes, onepoint and twopoint perspective, we can draw our duck in 3D perspective.

Let's break it down into basic shapes.

Again, notice how this all fits within a square. We'll use this. Pay attention to

square. We'll use this. Pay attention to the relationship between the shapes and the negative space. Using this as a guide, we can also draw the front view

of the duck. Now, using a twopoint perspective grid, draw the side square view following the perspective and build up the duck's shapes. Remember when I said to pay attention to the

relationship between the shapes and negative space? Yeah, keep doing that.

negative space? Yeah, keep doing that.

Now, you can draw in the front view as thick as you like. How thick is your duck?

Now, we have a 3D constructed duck in perspective. You can use this as a base

perspective. You can use this as a base to build upon, smooth out, and fix areas if you want.

Keep practicing this and you won't even need the guide anymore. Cool, right? But

what about organic shapes? Well, organic

shapes are just block shapes smoothed out. You can imagine the faces of a

out. You can imagine the faces of a basic 3D shape, being able to dissect them to create even more faces, extruding, pushing, pulling to create

more complex shapes. There are endless amounts of faces. You can imagine it as a wireframe.

See if you can draw 3D shapes with wireframes. Create some organic shapes.

wireframes. Create some organic shapes.

They may look complicated, but remember they can be simplified into more basic shapes because everything is just

shapes. Hands, they're just shapes.

shapes. Hands, they're just shapes.

Anatomy. Again, it's just shapes.

A muscular duck flexing and popping a kickflip while wearing a backwards hat.

Shapes. Keep drawing shapes. And with

practice, you too can draw whatever you