Two Point Perspective

LESSON ONE

Boxes in Two Point Perspective

In Two Point Perspective you’ll have two vanishing points, and depending on the perspective, you might see the top of the box, as well as the left and right forward facing planes, or you’ll see the bottom plane. It is pretty easy to distort a box in two point, because the vanishing points are either too close together, or too far apart.

In order to remedy this issue, let’s zoom out.

Here we have the station point. This is where the viewer is stationed. You can place the station point where ever you like, as long as the triangulation creates a 90 degree angle between the station point and your two vanishing points. Drawing programs have a ruler tool for this, or you could use a physical right triangle to place it, or just use a scrap piece of paper as shown below.

Once you choose your point, draw a line from the station point to the horizon line so that we can measure out 30 degrees to each side, totaling 60 degrees. This is called the con of vision, as it is cone shaped. Draw a circle which represents the viewers clear line of sight, anything within this shape will not become distorted. Anything that breaches this shape, such as the top left corner is shown here will look stretched out which we call distortion.

Mosts artists will draw a picture frame within the cone of vision to use as their canvas. Extend that picture frame to the corners of your canvas - this way, no matter what you draw with these two vanishing points will not look distorted.  