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Perspective (Houses)

Introduction
Many of us, from beginner to professional artist, are confused and baffled by perspective. There are all these "points" and lines and what do they all mean? I'm attempting to put up some of what I've been able to learn. I still feel I'm a beginner as far as perspective goes, but here is what I've got so far.

In this tutorial I use "Houses" for my examples of different kinds of perspective. You may notice I don't really use a lot of straight lines. So long as you use the basic perspective guidelines you can (and may find it easier) curve your lines a bit like I do for a more "cartoon" look. Now, without further ado, let us begin!

Points, Horizon, and Lines
You may have heard the term "One Point Perspective" (or two point or whatever). A "Point" is just that - a point on your paper where you are starting. Normally I mark my points with a small, light, dot. In perspective you draw lines from one or more points to help you place where things, like my houses, should go. Often the point (or points) are called the "Vanishing Point" because this is where things get too far away to see anymore so they "vanish". Your lines don't have to be perfectly straight, so long as you get them approximately right the drawing will look good to people.

You may also have heard the term "Horizon Line". The horizon line is the line between the earth (or water!) and the sky.

One Point Houses
Now that we have all those basic terms out of the way lets get on to something interesting! In one point perspective you have just that - ONE point. From this point you can draw the diagonal lines which you will use to place other objects. So long as they are approximately straight lines that begin at your "point" it doesn't matter how many you draw or how far apart they are. The examples below show houses/towns drawn with one point perspective.

With the town I began by drawing a "Horizon Line" and placing my "Point" (shown in pink). I then sketched out some diagonal lines which I used to place the basic houses on either side of the road. You can use straight vertical (up and down) lines to place where the houses will go as shown in the example. Once I had the basic sketch I used more lines to place the windows, doors etc. You'll noticed I didn't care if they are exactly right or not because I was making my lines bent/messy on purpose. If your point is close to the middle, like mine, and you are worried about it looking empty you can "cap" or "wall" the picture before it reaches the vanishing point - in my example I used a house in the distance to wall in the picture and keep the viewer's interest within my town.

In the second example you can see that the point you use doesn't have to be centered on the horizon line, or even in the picture at all! (if your paper isn't big enough just attach a second sheet to the side to help you place the point.

On both these examples the sides of the buildings are drawn using lines that are the same angle as the horizon line (in other words parallel to the horizon line). For a more 3D look you can use two or three point perspective.

Two Point Houses
Two point perspective uses two vanishing points, either inside out outside your drawing. As you can see in the top example the left side of the house was drawn along the lines from the left vanishing point and the right side along lines from the right vanishing point. Note how the house on the far left of that picture is drawn along a line from the RIGHT vanishing point. Using lines from these vanishing points you can build all sorts of 3D looking objects. The bottom house in the example is made of a number of squares/cubes.

Placing Windows, Doors, and Roofs
Having trouble drawing the roof on your house? Placing the windows and doors? A trick for placing windows and doors is to look at the side of your house as a rectangle or square. If you draw a line from each corner to the opposite corner you end up with an "X" where the center is the center of that wall, this makes it easy to place a window in the exact middle. Want it centered in the upper half or to the right or left side? Draw a line through the middle of your X so you have two rectangles and then divide the smaller rectangles with an X again. Adding the roof isn't so hard, you can find the middle by drawing a line up the middle of your X and just making it longer, then draw from that point to each corner of your wall and you know basically where the roof should be.

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