In “How To Draw” you’ll learn all the basics like 1-point, 2-point, and 3-point perspective. These strategies can be applied to environments but also objects in an environment.

But it will give you a large head start with real exercises you can practice on a daily basis to improve your imaginative construction techniques. Once you get started with pen it’ll just feel natural and it may become your preferred tool for sketching. The goal isn’t to tell you how to draw. Instead it’s to get you thinking about how you want to draw and how you want to exaggerate.Or let's say the student thinks they need to go through the entire book, grinding on every exercise they find. Time has now been wasted that could have instead been spent developing skills in a targeted fashion, also known as deliberate practice. Remember: especially with self teaching, it's all about maximizing what we can extract from our time, not just brute forcing in hours. This is why many people feel “How To Draw” isn’t really made for total beginners. Novice artists can work their way through basic lessons but will eventually hit a wall. Hello, I am a complete beginner to drawing I have never taken any courses or anything on drawing and my school didn't teach it either. When I tried to read Scott Robertson's book I noticed he mentioned some terms which I don't know and assumed that you would have known them already, also I'm only near the beginning of the book and I'm already finding it quite difficult (the perspective chapter). Currently I am just trying to gain sufficient knowledge to be able to draw Warhammer 40K spacemarines or Gundam, so more along the lines of comic artstyle (I don't know the actual term for this) and was hoping someone could suggest a good comprehensive and complete book or course for this. For instance, three-point perspective is only afforded three short paragraphs, with the recommendation to use 3D software to achieve it. The reason? Real designers rarely have the time for three-point perspective. The result is a feeling of having signed up for a four-year degree program majoring in drawing with a minor in design, but ending up with the inverse. You might get lost and end up frustrated in the later chapters. You might feel left behind without much genuine instruction.

However I really do recommend this book for anyone that’s up for a challenge. It’s not quite a beginner’s book and it’s not quite an expert’s book either. The materials are meant for anyone who just needs to solidify their knowledge of perspective through real practice. Norling’s Perspective Made Easy is right at the top of this list for good reason. The is widely regarded as the best intro text for artists who want to master perspective. I’m always recommending Scott Robertson’s books because they’re so unique compared to everything else available. Robertson currently teaches at the renowned ArtCenter in Pasadena which is one of the best colleges for studying concept art. Earlier in this post I recommended one of Phil Metzger’s newer books on perspective. But he actually has a couple out there and Perspective Without Pain is one of his best works.

I do not recommend this for a complete beginner with no prior knowledge. The information is accurate, but it’s also hard to comprehend if you’ve never attempted to draw before.

Each lesson is created and explained with a step-by-step approach. Beginners may feel overwhelmed when it seems like step 1 and step 2 jump drastically in capabilities. But the more you practice the easier it’ll be to digest this information. Ironically the reason it took me so long to finish it was that the more I read and was impressed with his iron discipline it presented the more I felt it was worthwhile to return to the 3D gfx I had abandoned years ago. Funny when you think about it, that a great drawing book would push me away from drawing, but I guess it fits with my hypothesis that sometimes a great civilization will probably produce it's most impressive works even as it's slowly being replaced by another. I'm betting if this book could be sent in time even just a few decades it would be considered THE manual for perspective drawing. Next time you're trying to think of how to continue to improve and asking the internet for advice, don't blindly follow the advice of the many and immediately try to digest all of H2D like it's a Dr. Seuss book. Instead, treat H2D like a translation dictionary: Are you even going to this country? (do you need this exact resource?) Would you sit on the airplane and try to read lists of words cover to cover? No, to be more effective, you would focus first on the basic grammatical structure, then branch out to the important words and phrases and refer to the book to fill in your gaps (targeted practice).

I've gone on about how people are using this and other reference books incorrectly. Here is my personal strategy to using reference resources to effectively learn without wasting time and getting lost in the weeds: Early chapters explain how to draw accurate perspective grids and ellipses that in later chapters provide the foundation for more complex forms. The research and design processes used to generate visual concepts are demonstrated, making it much easier for you to draw things never-before-seen! In the very first chapter you’re given an outline of resources to use for your drawing lessons. Scott recommends working solely in ink to restrict erasing mistakes. Let's take our flabby box student, now slightly hardened by few hundred boxes, who wants to draw an epic fantasy car. Well that's chapter 9! If box student reads through the book linearly, he or she has now wasted time on things like environments. Unlike Drawabox, these chapters do not build on one another, gradually taking you towards their goal - they cover entirely different topics. I really love this book and how it teaches perspective to artists. But I want to clarify that you absolutely need a fundamental knowledge of true perspective before reading this book.