Comic Artist And Illustrator

She/Her | LGBTQ+ | INTP

[rav-inked]

Hello!

I’m Rav-inked, an aspiring comic artist and illustrator. I’ll be using this platform to share original work, practice pieces, my process, and more. You can find me on Instagram under at rav.inked. (Tumblr does’ t like periods, Insta doesn’t like hyphens. Who knew? 🤔)

All the best,

Rav-inked

[rav-inked]

Not me feeling guilty about how many imaginary people become casualties in a mass catastrophe 10 years prior to the main story 😰

[rav-inked]

I made this a while ago and completely forgot about it ^^’

How to draw a perfect square in 2 point perspective:

1. Set up a 2 point perspective grid and find the center point.

2. Draw a line parallel to the horizon line and make equidistant marks to make a ruler.

3. From the center point, draw lines to each of the marks.

4.

5.

Hopefully, this explanation helps! If there is anything that’s unclear, please let me know and I’ll do my best to help.

[rav-inked]

They say teaching is the best way to make sure you’ve fully understood the material so let’s learn about perspective in drawing! Specifically, the horizon line, cone of vision, and a brief description of the different types of perspective.

I may do more in depth posts about the different types of perspective later, as well as tips and tricks to elevate your use of it (cast shadows, elevations, creating a perfect square, etc.). If you’re curious about these thing before I get around to them, I would recommend the Perspective Drawing Handbook by Joseph D’Amelio, who I will reference periodically.

Without further ado~

Some definitions first:

Horizon line: the imaginary line where your vanishing point sits in one- and two-point perspective. Can also be referred to as eye level. Knowing where this line hits is important for both composition and scale.

Cone of vision: literally, the conical view the human eye has from the center of our vision to the periphery. Hold both arms out straight in front of you at shoulder level. Choose a central point to focus on as you slowly move your arms to your left/right, one arm at a time. Take notice of when your arm reaches the edge of your peripheral vision. D’Amelio estimates the range to fall between 45°-60° for most people, which matches the outer limits of my range. Why is this important? Because it helps us to determine where to place the frame of our drawing based on the central point.

One point perspective: perspective where there is only one vanishing point. My hot take? I don’t think this should be anyone’s go to choice for most compositions. This goes back to my comment about intent on my warm-up post. A lot of people use one-point perspective as a crutch of sorts, so that they don’t have to learn the more complex rules of two-point. Others use it because it matches their more cartoony art style, which I don’t take issue with. If you’re working in any style based in realism, I would save one-point perspective for compositions where you have a strong central point and your goal is to continually redirect the eye to it. It is also useful when it comes to casting shadows and turning objects in space.

Two point perspective: Perspective where there are two vanishing points on the horizon line. This type of perspective generally feels more grounded in reality as it more closely resembles what we see in life. The horizon line is typically parallel to the frame, though it doesn’t have to be. I prefer to set up my vanishing points with one point inside my field of vision and one outside, which has to do with the angle of the cone of vision. When setting my horizon line in two-point perspective, I try not to go lower than 3 feet off the ground or higher than 30 feet (approximately the peak of the roof of a 2 story house). While it’s not a hard and fast rule, instinct tells me that any higher or lower than that will necessitate slightly warped perspective. Which leads us to~

Three point perspective: Perspective where there are two vanishing points on the horizon line, and another above or below the horizon line between the two points. If the third vanishing point is placed below the horizon line, you have something called a birds eye view. If you place it above the horizon line, you have a worms eye view. Where you place the third point is somewhat subjective and will largely be impacted by whether you want the focus to be in the foreground or background.

Five point perspective: equidistant from a center point, place a point at the left, right, top and bottom. I feel the name is a slight misnomer and that it’s more helpful to think of it as a gridded sphere that you’re carving into to create shapes and depth. While it is very cool as a visual, it’s rarely used. Successful application can give a fish eye lens effect where the edges are heavily distorted. I don’t have enough experience with the technique to give advice beyond the basic set up. For examples, please reference MC Escher’s Hand with Reflection and Posuka Demizu’s illustrations.

[rav-inked]

After a long time away from the studio, I’m finally able to pick up my dip pens again. Boy am I out of practice! I thought I’d share some of my standard warm up exercises and the reason for each one.

These can be done in pen, pencil, or digitally. If you’re working digitally, I’d advise turning the stabilization way down on your tool. I used clip studio and my stabilization was set to 10. The goal is to see which motions don’t come naturally and stabilization with mess with that. Remember— it’s a warm up, not your life’s work. Let it be ugly. Actually, go into any warm up like this with that as a pseudo-goal— make it ugly, fill your page (or screen) with lots of exploratory marks. Don’t attempt to draw anything recognizable.

I like to start with guides as a reference. I struggle with long straight lines and ellipses, forms that required moving your tool towards your center, so they’re what I practice.

Straight lines: I try to work on not letting it flair at the bottom of the line, and at letting my shoulder be the rotation point as opposed to my wrist or elbow.

Ellipses (standard): I could do these freehand, but they devolve into random loops. Attempting to hit the line on each side helps with consistency. If I can, I try to match the edge of the new loop to either the ellipse that came before it or (more often) the one before that.

Ellipses (increasing): These are much the same as the standard set— a way to practice consistency. You can vary the size, angle, roundness of the shape.

The point is to make marks with intent. Decide what your goal is for the mark and go for it.

Once your page is full, go back and draw within what’s there. I like to use the straight lines as a base for shorter lines and practicing parallels. They’re also really good for practicing stopping a line. I find shorter hatched lines easiest for me in terms of motion, but when working with a dip pen they are often left with a fat start and hooked tail. Not a good look. I use this to practice soft starts and stops and a way to measure how accurate I was in deciding when to touch and lift the pen from the paper.

Short hatch lines can also be a good way to practice line weight, either within the line or in a series of lines.