Perspective is nice (nice and hard...)

Been thinking about a blog for sometime now, so decided to give it a try. It seems like a nice, simple way to let people see what I am working on and perhaps to "think aloud" as it were - maybe learn something in the process of discussing my drawings and comics.

As a comic artist, I like to be able to create worlds. It's a blast to make up the goofy characters and get them to say and do anything you like, but they have to "exist" somewhere - they need a place to go out and annoy each other, chairs to sit on (when they would rather stay in and annoy each other), brickwalls to lean against (to maybe have a bite to eat before doing something stupid) and maybe some buildings in the background (cause you can't really think of anything else to put there...). That's what is so nice about perspective - it gives your cartoons a place to "call their own", a way to make the three wonderful dimensions we are limited to come a little bit more alive.

I have struggled with perspective for years. It seems too damn hard for it's own good. You might be pleased to have finally finished a panel - the hands were tricky, the legs all wrong, all the faces needed fixed a million times - but you got it done, and you like it. Then it's time for the stupid background. Bah... How many pictures have I ruined (and how many more will I ruin...) because the perspective is weird. It's frustrating.

So I have been trying to come to grips with it, and  have learned a few things through the years that seem to work for me. Not that my perspective is perfect - and far from exciting or "eye-popping" - but it lets me draw a background in 2 point perspective fairly quickly that looks more or less natural. In my next blog message, I will show a few things that I find useful in making up your own backgrounds (and maybe learn more about it myself while I talk about it).