Three-Point Perspective
Posted by Greg MacDonald on
Three-Point Perspective
1. Place a dot on the page. This will become the top, foreground vertex of your figure.
2. Above and to the left and right of this point place two additional dots, which represent left and right vanishing points. Add another dot perpendicularly below the first dot. This represents the third vanishing point. Use straight construction lines to join these three vanishing points to the original dot.
3. Place a dot along each of the upper, diagonal lines. These represent two more vertices of the upper plane of the figure.
Add construction lines from these points to the vanishing points to which they are not already joined. (The back two construction lines will cross over one another, forming the fourth vertex of the figure’s upper plane.)
4. Place a dot on the vertical construction line. This will become the lower, foreground vertex of the figure.
Add a line from this point, parallel to the top right and left edges of the figure, to each of the construction lines to the left and right. These form the lower left and right edges of the figure.
5. Erase construction lines, and darken figure lines as necessary. You have constructed a prism with three vanishing points!
(It’s like a bird’s-eye view of a skyscraper, from above.)