Archive for category Tutorials

Perspective Basics

Posted by admin in Perspective, Tutorials on Haziran 30th, 2009

Learning perspective is generally taken as a big deal. Here we are going to change that prejudice. How? First you have to get the basics, and fully understand how perspective works geometrically.

To be comfortable with perspective drawing you always have to keep in mind that there is a person watching a scene which consists of geometrical, or near to geometrical objects, with a specific angle. Now to get familiar with the language of perspective, let’s put it in a more technical way. Suppose you are taking a snapshot of a scene. What do we need? A camera (the eye – point of view), the object(s) (scene), and light (guide lines). And as a result we get a photograph (picture plane) in the end.

Perspective Basics

The most important parts in understanding perspective are the “point of view” (POV), rays of light that carry the vision to our eyes (guide lines), vanishing points, the ground level together with the axis of origin, and the picture plane.

Point of View: This is where we stand and look at the scene. This point is also where all the light rays gather, since these rays are received by the observer’s eye.

Axis of Origin: Remember maths class when we drew x,y graphs. We had an axis of origin, where x and y both had values of zero. It’s primarily the same thing. We construct our perspective on these axi just like the graphics in math. Actually it’s 3 dimensional and we place the center on the picture plane, so that the picture plane and ground are sliced in two. A third axis can be imagined parallel to the bottom line of the picture plane.

Perspective view

Picture Plane: This is a totally imaginary plane representing our drawing canvas. We use it to project our guide lines that come from the scene, as if we are taking a photograph. The picture plane actually catches a vision of the scene

Guide Lines: These lines represent light rays carrying information of colour and geometry to our eyes. We use these lines by intersecting with the picture plane. This way we get the projection of objects from the scene onto our canvas. They are also called ghost lines. We don’t see these lines in the final picture.

Eye Level: Imagine you’re xray man. Rays come out of your eyes, focused on your scene. The level of the rays would give you your eye level. If you look up or down, the rays coming out of your eyes would have an angle. In 1 and 2 point perspective the vanishing points are on this line.

Perspective from top view

Horizon Line: It’s the contour of the landscape at the depth of your scene. Although it is different than eye level it can be taken the same if we are looking straight ahead, parallel to the ground level. The horizon line is generally a little below the eye level.

Ground Level: This is the level our picture plane touches the ground. For this we have to assume the ground is horizontal, and even. If we have uneven ground, we either imagine a straight level, lets say that intersects the corner of an object on the picture plane, or, if there are steps we accept one of these levels as ground level.

Scene: The composition of objects that we intend to represent in our perspective drawing, which could be of organic or man made objects, it doesn’t matter. Keep in mind that we are going to abstractify the scene into geometrical shapes in order to easily depict on our canvas.

Perspective from side view

Vanishing Points: I was just about to forget these. Oops! Shame on me! These are the points that our geometry in the scene tend to be drawn towards. The truth is every set of parallel lines vanish towards a differnt vanising point. Because we generally have orthographic (box shaped geometry) scenes we get up to 2 vanishing points horizontally. If we had a geometry of well, let’s say a more complex scene of 4 sets of parallel lines, we would have had 4 vanishing points. Generally we abstractify the lines that don’t fit in our normal orthographic set of lines to our existing vanishing points, instead of complicating the scene with more vanishing points.

Now we know the main terms, before we start, a thing to always remember when dealing with perspective is to visualize the scene before depicting on paper.
Imagine in your mind’s eye what the scene would look like before you pick up your pencil. It will make things a lot easier. When imagining, don’t forget to think as if you were taking a snapshop of the scene, as I mentioned before.
When imagining the scene we have to visualize it from more than one viewpoint to be more accurate. I mentioned before that we project guidelines onto the picture plane.
We can see our scene from top and side views to visualize the projection of the guideline coming from each object. I will not go into detail here. What I have already explained is enough for this post. For now I can say that the point where the guideline intersects the picture plane gives us the location on our canvas, of the specific corner the guideline comes from.

We need to visualize the scene, I repeat, to make the scene conceivable. This is why we abstract what we see into geometrical objects, points and lines. Don’t forget that all these lines and points are imaginary, we do not really see the guide lines, horizon line, ground line, etc… . We need them to construct the perspective. These lines and points help us imagine and convey onto paper. If you are successful in visualising and drawing what you see, you might not even need to use these points and lines when depicting your scene on paper. However, it is always beneficial to know the basics of perspective, if you intend to draw.

On my next post on perspective I will be explaining “1 point perspective technique“. We will get more familiar with how to use the basics I have explained in this post.

The most important discovery of the last millenium: Perspective 2/2

Posted by admin in Art and Design, Perspective, Tutorials on Haziran 17th, 2009

The Ottoman Fleet Blockin... , by Nasuh Al-silahi

If you have read my previous post you know about how artists interpreted what they saw onto their canvas and how they created techniques to depict their scenes in the past. From figurative cave art to Hellenistic monumental structures with exaggerated 3 point perspective emphasis we have taken a short tour of art history, and we have come to the last millenium. Now we will continue our trip by firstly understanding the medeival era and the period prior Renaissance.

Up until the Renaissance artists had become aware of perspective due to their predecessors in history. However, although many methods were developed to translate vision onto painting, these methods were not fully successful: they were either too theoretical or unpractical to apply to painting.

Meanwhile many artists were painting in miniature style, as you can see in the symbolic map to the left. This style was commonly used by the Eastern civilizations as well as in medeival Europe prior to the Renaissance. These artworks resemble the axonometric drawing technique used to draw technical items. Paintings were drawn as if seen by the eyes of a giant. Of course perspective was not present in this style, therefore lines did not converge in the horizon but went parallel to each other. Even after the perspective technique was found artists continued to use this style, especially in the eastern civilizations.

Pietro Perugino's usage of perspective in this fresco at the Sistine Chapel (1481–82) helped bring the Renaissance to Rome.

Now if we return to what artists were upto in the Renaissance, we see that they have come very close to finding out the mystery they have been searching for centuries.

Filippo Brunelleschi was also in pursuit of correctly interpreting his work on the canvas. The famous Renaissance architect used a mirror to draw the baptistry from the incomplete Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Duomo), which he had designed and engineered. His technique with the mirror was theoretically right, but still impractical. The depth of the picture was calculated right, however, the heights of objects were graphically depicted.

Scene from Durer's "Cours..., by Albrecht Dürer

With Brunelleschi’s findings perspective became a fashionable way of painting, lines converged in the horizon, and the heights were graphically estimated. This method was better than none. A while after, in 1435 Leon Battista Alberti published his mathematical explanation of the perspective. He had solved the problem by using rays of light and similar triangles to calculate the heights of distant obects. This established the basis of the perspective drawing technique we use today.

Well, now you can ask; “So What? How does this make perspective the most important discovery of the last millenium?” Until now you must have thought that the title was a bogus to catch more traffic. I must admit it is a catchy title, but with the content of this post I am sincere with my thoughts that perspective really is that important in the history of art and science. How is that? Let’s see:

Vitruvian Man, c.1492, by Leonardo da Vinci

The discovery of the perspective drawing technique has also triggered things other than painting, drawing and art in general. Together with the later discovery of the continent of America, Galilei’s discovery of the world being a sphere and not flat; in the following century perspective has shown us that man is not an object of inspection by the heavens any more. This finding of the visual cone has shown the Renaissance man that he is not only at the center of his own vision, but he is also at the center of the universe. Thus, emerges the “universal man“.

The Universal Man concept of the time has created an urge for people to see, to reinvestigate their environments with a new, enlightened, open mind. Vision and intellect had become rational. Knowledge became a blessing.

Of course all of this was a movement of the time. We cannot connect it all to perspective. However, I can admit perspective was one of the most important things that altered the way people thought. The notion was that all the knowledge in the world was available to man, and that for a man to be perfect he should know about many things or let’s say everything. Da Vinci, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Alberti … were masters of science and art, all universal men of their time.

Cell structure 3D image by Ivan Dinev

Perspective has been used to elaborate realistic paintings up until the invention of the camera and photograph. The date of this invention has yet again changed the way we perceive. Artists have changed their outlook on vision again. But this is the subject of another post I will be writing later on.

For over a decade now 3d design and rendering has taken the reign over from perspective hand drawings. No more do we need to understand the mystery of perception. Instead we need to learn digital interfaces of certain computing programs. Interpreting what we see is upto digital instruments, which create stations for us to distribute and receive knowledge. Vision has changed again. Man is still the center of his own universe, but the centralization has become dispersed and so has knowledge.

Where do we stand in our age? Where have we come to after the universal man? How do we perceive our worlds? The motto “What you see is what you get” no longer stands. The new version is “How you see is how you get.”

Well I guess we have come to a point where we understand that how we see alters us and the world around us. How do you see? Are you at the center of your universe?

Further Reading:
Perspective (graphical) @ wikipedia
Perspective in Mathematics and Art
Perspective history @ museum of graphical art
Drawing Techniques @ about.com

The most important discovery of the last millenium: Perspective 1/2

Posted by admin in Art and Design, Perspective, Tutorials on Haziran 9th, 2009

I’ve wanted to write about “the perspective” for some time now, and I think the time has come for me to mingle with this subject again. I say again because it has been quite a while since I have been teaching drawing with the perspective technique. I will be writing a series of posts, or should I say tutorials, about using this technique for your work. I’ll be explaining it thoroughly but with clear and easy instructions so you can easily adapt perspective drawing to your work. I know it seems difficult, but do not fear you don’t have to get that technical to use this technique right.

We will see to the perspective drawing technique later on. For now lets see where perspective comes from.

The artist’s intention has always been to convey his thoughts, ideas or creativity through his work. Sometimes the intention is to depict an important historical scene, so that it is documented for later generations. And sometimes the intention in the artwork is to be educational as well as figurative. Nonetheless the artist always wants to be understood. To be understood the artist uses the most suitable techniques at hand.

Cave paintings in Lascaux, France, circa 14,000 BC

If you observe paintings according to their drawing style you can easily see that the paintings before the discovery of the perspective technique are much different than the paintings produced after. The artist developed his technique through the ages to display his art more successfully and to be understood better.

The paintings or drawings pre-perspective are generally more 2-dimensional lacking the depiction of depth. For example if you observe cave drawings, although they are rich with colour, they are more figurative than realistic as depictions. Sometimes we see some use of shadow as in the cave paintings circa. 14,000 B.C., found in Lascaux, France. The horse’s belly as we see in the picture above has been painted in a darker tone to give us a sense of depth. However, since the drawing technique is flat, (in flat I mean near orthographic as in plan view or side view) the images only give us a symbolic depiction, not a visual depiction that we are used to in our time, such as in photography.

A wall painting from the tomb of an ancient Egyptian nobleman named Nebamun. The tomb was built circa. 1400 B.C. and is near Thebes.

When we observe Ancient Egyptian art we see a kind of different distorted technique used by the artist. This form of depiction is commonly found in the artworks of this era, and it is very interesting. What makes Ancient Egyptian art interestingly different is that we see different poses in one figure, as in the painting found on the walls on the tomb of the artist Nebamon, to the left. The portrayed figure is hunting for fowl, and as he takes action we see his torso and left hand from the front, while he is facing left, his feet are also displayed from side view. Even more interesting is the position of his right hand, we see this hand in a weird angle from the back. Why did the artists of Ancient Egypt display the human body in such fashion? What was the artists’ intent? We don’t know for sure. Did they see or want to see their figures like this? I doubt it. But I do know that their drawings and paintings were not implemented with the perspective technique. They most probably either were not aware of perspective, or they had not developed a technique. Instead, the artists of this period tried to tell us a story about an event, by showing us the figures through different angles at the same time, creating an enrichened painting with a kind of depth we see comic graphics nowadays.

Doric Order, Temple of Zeus, by J. Buhlmann

As significant as Ancient Egyptian art may be, the Egyptian artists were not the only ones who questioned the way we perceive. Later other civilizations continue to study and develop other techniques in the search of more realistic depictions. Moreover, In the Hellenistic period, the Ancient Greek were anxcious to display their architecture with more monumentality than the actual size permitted. So they went even further than depicting realistic scenes and used illusional tricks to give the impression that the building was larger than it actually was.

The Greeks designed their architecture with specific styles such as the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian. The mostly used style of this period was the Doric style, which was thick in proportion; Whereas the Corinthian style developed later on, was the most lean of the three styles. With this thickness of proprtion of the Doric style, the columns especially, were slimmed towards the capital. This gave the illusion of a 3 point perspective, (which I will elaborate later on in my posts), which is the kind of view we see when we look up towards a high building. We notice that buildings get narrower towards the top. Since the columns were slimmer at the top the architecture seemed taller than it actually was. It was an artificial enhancement of the perspective effect.

The Parthenon, Acropolis,..., photo by Grayce Roessler

Entasis

This enhancement trick wasn’t enough for the sake of monumentality. The architects of the hellenistic period also gave a slight bulging curve to the colums profile. Thus we see an additional visual effect that we normally ignore, an optical illusion to correct the fact that we see straight columns as pinched and flat surfaces as curved. We see objects this way similar to the fish eye view, but the curvature in our vision is much more subtle.

The Ancient Greek were certainly aware of the perspective in the Hellenistic period. They were aware of many other things as well, as we learned from the use of entasis in the architecture of the period. They utilized a portion of perspective in monumentalizing architecture, however, they didn’t know how to implement the technique into painting and drawing. Although an important step towards discovering the mystery of perspective was taken, the general problem was not yet solved.
Ofcourse, you must be eager to know why perspective is the most important discovery of the millenium. To learn about the rest of how perspective was integrated into art, wait for my next post. I’ll be explaining it all, soon…

Further Reading:

Perspective (graphical) @ wikipedia

Perspective in Mathematics and Art

Perspective history @ museum of graphical art

Drawing Techniques @ about.com

The PROS and CONS of Working Freelance

Posted by admin in Freelancing, Tutorials on Nisan 7th, 2009

Regular hours… Regular income… Regular work… Regular benefits… A promotion now and then…

A Regular Life…

These are the things most of us expect from our professional life after school. We want a life with no unpleasant surprises. We want some sort of security.

Most of us have a dream job and we work hard to get there. Even if we don’t make it to that job we never stop dreaming about it.

We want a great carreer. We want to be the best in our field.

Well everybody knows about having regular jobs, most of us have worked at a regular job for some time in our lives, and we have an impression of what a life a regular job generates.

What about freelancing or being an independent contracter? Why do so many people prefer to work outside of the regular terms mentioned above? With the help of the internet the freelancing population is growing vastly by number every day. It isn’t easy to understand, is it? What makes freelancing so attractive? Let’s have a look at the PROS and CONS of this popular trend.

PROS

Choose who you work with!

When you have a regular job you work for your boss with your colleages, whom you have no power in choosing, unless you are not extremely lucky to be in a position to hire your own coworkers. You have to get along with your coworkers and be efficient at your job at the same time. However, when you go freelance you have the power to choose your employer. If you don’t like to work with a certain firm or person(s) you just don’t work with them or for them.

Choose what you work on!

Having no choice but to work on a given project may turn our lives into a nightmare. What we do for a living is one of the main reasons we get up in the morning. A job we love to do is one of the best sources of personal motivation. What if we hate our jobs, or the work we are supposed to accomplish? It can make us quit our jobs and run as far away as possible. Freelancing gives us the opportunity to do the short or long term projects we wish to do. We can easily say “no” to the jobs that we know would turn our lives into hell. You never “have to” do a given job when you are a freelancer, unlike when you are a regular employee.

Work from home, or better work from anywhere you please!

What is better than getting up in the morning and not having to go to work experiencing heavy morning traffic? Are you fed up of going to the office, day in day out, and wish for the weekend to come so you can spend some home time even on Monday morning? Working as a freelancer may be the cure to these problems. You get to work from home or you can temporarily participate in an office job as an independent contracter. You don’t have to spend anymore hours in the traffic, wasting your time and your nerves. Instead use this time on something more beneficial such as reading, relaxing, pursuing a healthy life, socializing, or shortly just having fun. Even better if you can produce and submit your work over the internet, you can work wherever you like, even work on the beach with your notebook in front of you and a fruit cocktail by your side. It sounds wonderful doesn’t it?

Schedule your work time yourself!

Isn’t it frustrating not being able to take time off when you have accomplished your task at hand? being able to organize your own timetable is a great advantage to being a freelancer. You can work early and end your work day at noon, or work at night as you wish. You can take a week off when you need it, or visit your aunt in the countryside in the middle of the week. This sounds lovely, however there is a catch. In the middle of a vacation, you may receive a call for an urgent job that you really don’t want to miss. This can be upsetting, but it is still up to you to make a choice between accepting the job and continuing on the vacation.

The impossibility of losing your job…

You can never lose your job! How wonderful a thought is that? Have you ever heard of a self – employed person firing him/herself? Well you can quit freelancing and go do something else but that isn’t quite like getting fired is it? You can freelance and be self – employed as long as you want, just let the employers reach you and hire you for new jobs. This notion is very relieving since globally there is a recession and many firms are down-sizing. No one can take your job away from you, since you are your own boss.

CONS

What about social benefits?

Unfortunately freelancing automatically deprives you of the social benefits such as public healthcare and pension funds. If you are a freelancer it means you are self – employed, so you have to meet your interests yourself. However, according to which country you live in, you may be able to make up to this important void by paying for these benefits voluntarily. Or you may go to private insurance policies of somekind, that cover your health insurance and/or pension.

When you are out of new jobs…

This can be one of the main stressing aspects of freelancing. Deciding to go freelancing and not being able to get any jobs can make you detour and quit your self – employed job. Nowadays, especially with the global recession, getting any kind of job has become very difficult. However, you can find other ways of generating income in your free time. Using your works that stand on the shelf or in a storage unit, is possible for some passive income to relieve your financial problems in the long run. You can find further reading on this subject here:

Methods of Making Money for Freelancers 1 About promoting your public profile.

Methods of Making Money for Freelancers 2 About selling microstock.

Methods of Making Money for Freelancers 3 A Review of Microstock sites.

Irregular Work Schedule

Having an irregular work schedule can drive you insane and deprive you of your health. You may have to work over time in some periods to meet your deadlines, and on the other hand you may be free for much longer than you had anticipated. In my opinion, it’s better to have free time than to do too much over time. I know it sounds better said than done, but you can try balancing your schedule by keeping your prices high enough to compensate for your free time. It’s O.K. to say no to a job that doesn’t pay enough. Avoid working yourself out, it’s your life and you have no other.

Can Freelancing be a Career?

Why not? It totally depends on what you want to do with YOUR LIFE. What do you want to become, and how do you wish to get there? If you want to become a project manager or cardiologist then freelancing is surely not the way. But if your wish is to be self – employed then I’d say follow your dreams. I wish you a happy ride on your journey.�

Methods of Making Money for Freelancers 3

Posted by admin in Freelancing, Tutorials on Mart 25th, 2009

In sections 1 and 2 of Methods of Making Money for Freelancers I mentioned about the problems of income flow for freelancers and of methods to ease the problem. In section 1 I wrote about promoting your public profile. And in section 2 I wrote about getting new income sources and of microstock firms. Now I would like to give some detail about these firms based on my personal experience.

The first site I applied to as a producer was Istockphoto. I had heard of this site from a friend, and in a period when I had nothing to do (there were no new jobs to be seen to in the near future) I decided to give it a go. I had some 3d works which wouldn’t create any copyright issues when published. I had stored away these files somewhere on my computer. So I opened those files and produced some animations, rendered 20 second clips from these animations and I was ready to begin.

A Review of Microstock sites

As I said I first applied to Istockphoto. Here you have to be accepted first as a producer to be able to upload any files for sale. The application is a wee bit difficult than most sites, since you primarily need to pass the initial application. In my case it took more than a month for my application as a photographer to be reviewed. Then you you have to get every file uploaded accepted. And this takes time, generally 1-2 weeks. This is because there are so many files in queue. So you can guess that this site is a popular one. Yes, that is true, and it is a growing community. However, the rates paid to the producers are low on this site, but you can compensate the difference with other sites because the sales are rather high comparatively. Another thing about Istockphoto is that it is very eager to make its members exclusive. It pays much more if you agree to the exclusivity terms (not to sell anywhere but on this site). Other sites also want exclusive members but this one puts more emphasis on exclusivity. Another thing to mention is the user interface; it is very simple and user friendly. The difficulty I experience with most sites is the uploading process for videos. Here you only have to upload the main version of your clip and the interface will do the rest. I’m talking about conversion of the video file to to other formats. I mainly upload a HD1080 video and it automatically converts it to HD720, PAL, NTSC and web formats. However, because I’m not an exclusive member I don’t have permission to use the ftp for uploads. Uploading 150MB files through html interface can be a drag. See what I mean about the emphasis on exclusivity?

Revostock is is the second site I uploaded my video clips. Its was a new site when I first started uploading and the community is growing very fast. This site pays higher rates per purchase than Istockphoto and the sales are not so bad. However the thing about this site that it isn’t for photographers. You can sell your video clips, After Effects projects and audio files here. The application process is similar to Istockphoto, but it doesn’t take so long. Revostock is a good fit for videographers, but, yes there is a but, the upload process is a bit slow. Although you have access to ftp, you firstly upload the main file, once it is accepted (in a few days) you upload the other formats which you convert yourself. If your internet connection is slow this process can stress you out. Still it’s a rewarding place to sell your stuff.

Another site focused on footage is Pond5. For now you can only upload footage files to this site. I don’t know if we will be able to sell other media on this site, we will have to wait and see. The interface is fairly simple and the rates per sale for producers are rather high compared to other sites. A nice thing about this site is the widget you can download from Pond5. With this widget, you can display the files that you have uploaded to Pond5, on your own site . The approval of uploaded media is quite fast (1-2 days), however there is again the problem of uploading all formats of your video clips yourself. You get them approved separately and they are also displayed as separate files.

Shutterstock, is another popular site for selling your image and footage files. The community is large and this firm is one of the biggest in this industry. The sales are good, however I must say I’m not very fond of this site. The web interface is terrible, I always get lost whenever I visit this site, and I never seem to get what I’m looking for. Initial application to be a photographer for this site is a bit tough also. The approval process of files is also a bit difficult. Their perfection level is a bit high. If you don’t believe your file is perfect do not upload to this site, it will be rejected, even if you think it has sales potential and is on sale on other sites. It is still rewarding so you should give it a try.

When I first joined I could only upload images at Fotolia, newly they have added footage. I’ve experienced no problems with selling my images here, and I’m new to selling footage on this site. So we will have to wait and see how it goes on.

At Dreamstime prices are low for Royalty-Free stock photography, so you can see that the sales are high. Therefore it is a good site for getting good results for image purchases.

123rf, Bigstockphoto, Canstockphoto, and Cutcaster are also good sites worth trying, if you want to expand your audience.

All in all you should try each site individually even if you don’t go exclusive to a specific site, and then you can see which files have a better audience at each site, and then you can decide to sell a particular exclusively to that site. It can take your time but if you are up to this job as a good means of income you should try.

I have one note to add: if you want to upload your files to more than one site (if you don’t want to go exclusive to a specific microstock firm) you should keep a table of your file descriptions and keywords. Everytime you upload a file filling out the keywords and file description can be very boring believe me. Copying from the table will shorten the process and you can keep your files consistent on different sites. If you have a load of files keeping track of them can also be a big problem. You can hold track of your files acceptance and popularity at different sites by creating a database for your media files.

I hope you have a good time selling microstock.