Comic Genesis Forums

Yeah....... I'm typing the paper for my senior project.....and i need everybodys help

The paper is about the modern day effects of the Italian Renaissnace...

I'm on the effects of art from that time period....

The only art technique i know of, that a lot of people use today, is perspective....

So if you use perspective when you create, draw, make your comic, does it help or what? Would you be lost with out it........

if you do leave a comment.....then put your full name, so when i quote you, the teacher will know who said what....

Enh... perspective is pretty crucial, like proportion & anatomy. A picture that lacks perspective will inevitably look strange and innately 'wrong'. I'm not sure what else to say since I'm not entirely sure what you're asking.

I also suspect this should be in T,T&T.

A knowledge of perspective cannot be stressed enough. The audience knows when something doesn't look right, even if they aren't properly trained. Even comics that are minimal in terms of backgrounds like daily strips should know it. If anything, simplicity will expose any weakness.

Some people may say that they do it wrong or don't have to learn it because their work is "stylized," but that's not a good excuse for not learning basics. One has to know the rules well if one wants to break the rules well. So once perspective is learned, true stylization can occur. There is a certain charm when perspective is fudged sometimes, but those are laregly exceptions and not the rule.

Perspective that is correct will enhance the world that the artist is trying to create in a given comic, and give the illusion that the characters are inhabiting real space. Any questioning of whether the perspective is correct is a distraction from the story.

Chris Nititham

Perspective was all part of that geometric clarity thing and like Doll said, it goes hand in hand with proportion and anatomy.

This reminds me... I still need to work on some perspective studies...

When I draw, I try to keep perspective in mind. Sometimes it causes me to not draw at all though, because I keep erasing and redrawing.

I try to use perspective, but it can have the same effect with me as drawing hands and correct anatomy does. If it sucks, I erase and try again. And again. Then finally I get pissed at it and ink it as is.

Perspective is very important. Whether your strip, or whatever you're doing, is on the side of realism or stylized, one must still keep in mind perspective if the piece is to have any professionalism about it. Unless your comic doesn't have backgrounds.

Even if it takes me all day, I keep adjusting the perspective until it's right. Nothing will make me hate a strip I'm working on like incorrect perspective. It just bugs the hell out of me. And if you think no one will notice that your perspective is off, you're wrong. Some might not notice, and some will notice but won't know exactly what it is that is "off" about it, but people will notice.

On the other side of things, correct perspective really helps the look of a piece of work. It makes things go from looking alright to looking great.

Perspective is crucial. The inability to capture the 3rd dimension in any visual work leads only to the person viewing to think "what's wrong with this work?" rather than thinking about what he or she enjoys. With subject work (characters, still-life, comics, etc) it's even more important, so that the artist can adequately "place" the subject in relative proportion and distance to another. There's nothing worse than reading a comic where characters seem on different planes. When an artist has a grip on dimension and proportion, THEN the work becomes realistic rather than just a pale imitation.

Karen Howard

It's not just perspective that's crucial, it's basic art skills that people refuse to learn for some incomprehensible reason. "Oh, art has no rules, so I don't have to learn how to do anything."

Perspective is the reason I don't draw backgrounds.

The Neko wrote:It's not just perspective that's crucial, it's basic art skills that people refuse to learn for some incomprehensible reason. "Oh, art has no rules, so I don't have to learn how to do anything."

That's like poetry!

The nice thing about skills like perspective is that, as you practice it more and more, it gets much easier and faster. After a while, you can eye it and be able to do perspective accurately on instinct.

But it is important. Always. There are no safe shortcuts. Imagine what this page of leveL would look like without agonizing perspective, or this relatively simplistic scene in Inverloch. The settings would lose all sense, and that's a stupid reason to lose readers.

The Neko wrote:It's not just perspective that's crucial, it's basic art skills that people refuse to learn for some incomprehensible reason. "Oh, art has no rules, so I don't have to learn how to do anything."

It's called STYLE, duh! If i dun want to draw my people and buildings and stuff like in real life, it's because i want to devlop my own style so people are all like "yeah, that's her work!". And i mean who really looks at the backgrounds? So there.

Keffria wrote:

The Neko wrote:It's not just perspective that's crucial, it's basic art skills that people refuse to learn for some incomprehensible reason. "Oh, art has no rules, so I don't have to learn how to do anything."

It's called STYLE, duh! If i dun want to draw my people and buildings and stuff like in real life, it's because i want to devlop my own style so people are all like "yeah, that's her work!". And i mean who really looks at the backgrounds? So there.

That... sounds strangely similar to something I saw on a thread recently. Can't remember which one. :|

It is, I think, the standard response in every thread in which a well-meaning artist dares to question a fellow artist's deliberate decision to suck. -_-

It's always there if needed for characters for me, but I'll pick and choose it for backgrounds depending on whether I think the particular camera angle will look better realistic or stylized.

Perspective isn't the only addition of Rennaisance to modern art. Researches on anatomy (for instance Leonardo and Michelangelo who used to dissect corpses for purpose of researching realistic proportions), golden cut and other things, one whole scientifical approach to drawing and painting techniques, etc. I might be mestaking, but I think that ciarosquro is also an invention of Rennaisance. It is enough to look at paintings that were made before rennaisance and see how many things it has added to art. Medieval painting, though it is beautiful in it's way, was very clunky in achieving realistic look, due to lack of techniques.
Other influence of Rennaisance was returning to antic ideals of art, with much more liberty in it. That was the time when art started liberating from very strict conventions imposed by Catholic church.

There is, however, one thing that we have to have in mind: both anatomy, perspective and other useful things, aim to present reality as close as the human eye sees it. However, that is not the only approach to art there is. The familiar example in comic is, that proportions of humans are always a bit skewed, head is always drawn a little bigger than in reality, even in realistic comics. This probably comes from the assumption that head is the most important and the most expressive part of human, so this way, it's given more space and allowed to go to more detail.
One approach to art that is often named as oposite to Rennaisance is one of acient Egiptian art. In it, you'll see intention to show things as they are in reality, not as human eye sees them. Therefore, figures will be of same size even though they're on different distance from observer because in reality they are of the same size; You'll see two figures in whole even if one of them is standing behind the other, from "camera's" eye.
Another alternative approach to art is, for instance, one of 19th and 20th art, where it was not essential to show object how it is in nature, but how artist feels it.

Having in mind that what we usually consider "realistic art" is mostly based on Rennaisance approach to art, we can say that Rennaisance is probably the most influential art movement in history.

EDIT: Of course, it shouldn't be taken as advocating not learning skills in question. Perspecpective, anathomy, basics of light source handling, etc are basics of what is considered default type of western art. I actually accept the "style" arguement up to some point - after all, most of us can't draw realistically, not as much as serious portrain painters or Brian Bolland, so we accept our styles as they are because they are something acceptable in comic art. But when someone uses it as an excuse not to learn and improve, that is noticable in his art.

Keffria wrote:

The Neko wrote:It's not just perspective that's crucial, it's basic art skills that people refuse to learn for some incomprehensible reason. "Oh, art has no rules, so I don't have to learn how to do anything."

It's called STYLE, duh!

But what if their style SUCKS ASS?

The Neko wrote:

Keffria wrote:

The Neko wrote:It's not just perspective that's crucial, it's basic art skills that people refuse to learn for some incomprehensible reason. "Oh, art has no rules, so I don't have to learn how to do anything."

It's called STYLE, duh!

But what if their style SUCKS ASS?

It's "Stylized."

One of the most important artistic aspects from the Renaissance is the interdependance between the church and the artists who worked for them.

In the time of the Renaissance artists were basicly no better than any other tradesmen and depended wholly on their patrons (Usually a rich family such as, for instance, the Medici who've you've no doubt heard of)

Although their services were acquisitioned by noblemen, most artists worked for the clergy. As such churches, all churches, are inheirently by-products of the artists and architects who designed them. The largest effect of Renaissance artistry, other than the use of double-layered vaulted ribbing to create domes, is the effect of perspective on curved or raised surfaces.

For instance, many important frescoes were done in the apse of a church. One such figure to display here was the crucified image of Christ. In modern times we use a statue of Christ in the apse, but back then to create such a likeness of the single-most important figure in Christianity one needed to paint it in order to properly capture the essence of Christ. Because apses are basicly half-domes it is impossible to create a flat image on it, but with the proper use of perspective it was possible to create the illusion that Christ was literally there and crucified in the church.

Other such frescoes with a use of perspective is like one in an Italian monastary (The name escapes me). The fresco begins about five feet off the ground and continues up high along the wall. Depicted in the fresco is Christ, Mary Magdaline, the Virgin Mary, and very importantly the patron who commissioned the fresco and his wife. What is remarkably achieved in this fresco is the use of perspective to create the illusion that what you are looking at is not a painting, but rather a dug out altar set inside the wall.


How this translates into webcomics is quite simple - perspective is one of the most powerful tools other than human expression to depict and capture drama and a sense of what is epic. For instance, were you to depict a tower staring at it directly you would not capture the same sense of grandeur if you were to depict it from the bottom looking up.

This translates back to characters as well - depending on the angle you capture a character you can make them look large, small, weak, or powerful. Peter Jackson used this effect in Lord of the Rings to simulate the height of the hobbits compared to other characters.

Edit: By the way, if it seems like I know a little something about the Renaissance it's because I studied it in college.