One of the first steps of drawing realistic objects is mastering three-dimensional shapes. Everything that you will ever want to draw is formed by the shapes you learned in kindergarten: squares, ellipses, cones and rectangles. Now, long after the age of five, you must learn how to make these shapes pop off of the page.
To learn how to draw advanced shapes step-by-step see: How to Draw 3-Dimensional Shapes Step-by-Step
Step One: Look around you.
Can you pick out the shapes in the objects around you? Your mouse is a ellipse. Your computer and keyboard are made up of many combined squares and rectangles.
Every time you start to draw, make it a point to find the hidden shapes in the object.
Step Two: Learning how to manipulate shapes.
Manipulating shapes has a lot to do with drawing things in perspective. Perspective, basically, is drawing things further away as though they are smaller than things that are closer.
Take a look at example one, below. The first shape is a regular square. It's flat, right? The next square is drawn in perspective, so it looks more three-dimensional. The square is turned into a three-dimensional cube by drawing lines from an identical square above it. Notice how the lines farther away are smaller than the lines in the front.
Step Three: Shading
Shading really makes an object look three-dimensional.
Before you shade, determine where the light source is. Where is the light shining from? Where will the object be the lightest?
Next, you can start to shade. It can be done in several different ways.
Let's look at the examples below. Example two shows the ellipse before it is shaded.
Example three illustrates how to lay down pencil strokes in a curved motion across the ellipse. The lines need to become lighter as you get closer to the desired light source.
You could stop here, or you could smudge the pencil lines to make a smoother look. You can either use your finger to smudge or a paper stump. Example four shows the ellipse with smudged shading.
Step Four: Adding Shadow
The last step to making a shape three-dimensional is to give it a shadow. The shadow will be on the opposite side of the light source. It should always be an elongated version of the shape.
Example five shows how the ellipse would look with a shadow. Notice how the shadow is lighter closer to the light source, and darker farther away. An object usually has a small outline shadow underneath it, as well.
Now that you understand shapes a little better your art should be better, too!
Alina Bradford - Alina Bradford is an artist with around 20 years of experience and 12 years experience as a professional writer.
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