/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

Can you draw simple 3d forms in perspective? If so, you can draw literally anything given that you study it, because everything can be broken down into those simple forms. Amazingly enough, your brain CAN hold all that visual information, down to a pretty astonishing level of detail. You just don't do that normally because most of the time you aren't really studying anything, just getting a vague memory that's good enough to get you by.

Memorizing stuff is essentially breaking an object, any object, down into simplified component masses. For example, in the human body that would be the two major masses of the torso, the pelvis and ribcage; the limbs, and the head. Simplify them into an easy to remember form, like the mannequin figure in Loomis books. When you get that down, you further break those down into more components, like the muscles and bones, and then you memorize those masses. As you keep studying, your inner memory of that thing will become more and more complete and fleshed out. When youre drawing, you put a guideline for where the body goes (the gesture or rough sketch) and then fill it in with solid form using your knowledge you have acquired on the anatomy.

That's how it works for everything you study. Cars, buildings, trees, household objects and animals. Of course, human and animal bodies take a while to get down, and you would be better off reading books and watching videos (Loomis, Bridgman, Burne Hogarth, Proko on Youtube), but for things like vehicles or household objects, they generally have rigid, unchanging forms and you can start on those right away.

Try it now, anon. Take a few simple household objects to start with, something that's as close to a simple form in its natural state (cylinder, box, ball) and try to recreate what you see in front if you using those forms. Take an object (like this 3DS), break it down into simplified forms, and try drawing those forms from different angles.