Customer Reviews

Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics from the Ground Up

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is my first Amazon book review, but this product demands it!

Background: I am a comic illustrator and graphic artist with an educational background in architecture. I know my comics and I know my perspective. Yet, in execution, I find that without frequent practice, it's more difficult to capture proper hand-drawn perspectives than I'd like to admit. One of the key disconnects in my education has always been how to translate the technical perspective techniques as applied to large architectural renderings, and apply those methods to panel-based comic illustration, where your needs may more frequently be interior shots, unusual angles, and scenes where a technical perspective is not always the best fit. This book concisely and clearly helps you understand where those techniques work and where they don't, where to modify your image, your camera placement and your composition in order to maximize the visual impact, and best of all, reads equally well to the experienced artist and beginner alike.

This book is everything I expected, which is great, but there's more here than that. Sure, it covers the basics in an articulated, easy to follow manner, but Jason Cheeseman-Meyer delves into more advanced areas of perspective drawing that really impressed me. There's plenty of gorgeous, full-color art here,and there are many details that really work for a book like this appealing to artists exploring different genres. Cheeseman-Meyer drew sample perspectives in all sorts of cool fantasy genre styles, which not only allows it to cross over to, say, an artist drawing westerns who gets turned off by superhero art books, for example, but with more subtlety, it reinforces the real but not always obvious fact that good perspective makes, and poor perspective breaks, imagery of any style, subject matter and composition.

One of the aspects of accomplished comic illustration that has always impressed me personally has been three point curvilinear perspective, which always blows me away. I've never done this, and never really grasped HOW. Cheeseman-Meyer covers this extensively here. He also spends time discussing another aspect of perspective drawing that i studied in architecture school: how to address compositions where the layout causes an accurate perspective to look wrong, such as views beyond the cone of vision, or interior shots where the room doesn't look proportionately accurate on paper. Cheeseman-Meyer covers several illustration tricks that allow you to understand not only how to modify the illustration to look 'right' to the eye, but WHY. He also covers how to integrate figures into the perspective in ways that look like they are part of the image and not standing in front of it. All fairly simple sounding exercises that can be very challenging to the illustrator.

I'm not biased when i say this is probably the best perspective book aimed squarely at the comic artist I've got on the shelf. I'm very impressed. Production quality, layout, narrative and diagrams are all top notch, and of course, as a bonus, you get several full-sized pieces of color art from the main man, an accomplished and skillful comic illustrator in his own right.

I highly recommend this book to experienced and amateur comic artists alike!

Length:: 0:18 Mins

For comic artists who want to start on perspective, this is the book for you. This is a step-by-step tutorial book that teaches perspective drawing, specifically for comics. And that means creating perspective from concept rather than observation.

It explains all the foundational perspective rules (those point perspectives, drawing eclipses etc.), as well as tips on drawing characters in perspective. The explanations are simple and illustrated examples clear.

This book even teaches curvilinear perspective, where "straight" lines are drawn as curves, such as the cover illustration. This is more commonly used in comic books and are not taught in other basic perspective books. In photographic terms, this is the fish-eye effect.

Right at the end are pages of tricks and techniques aimed at solving perspective problems, such as fixing distortions, good places to place vanishing points etc.

This is a recommended book for artists at all skill levels.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

I met the author, Jason Cheeseman-Meyer, at a comic book convention and had the pleasure to speak with him at great length about all the effort and info he put into his book. As a professional comic book artist, colorist, and illustrator I rely on good reference to help me take on the many challenges that come with each new project. I have a tattered old book on perspective that I have been carrying around with me for over ten years. That book has now officially been replaced with Vanishing Point. This is the de facto book on perspective drawing.

Vanishing Point is aimed at comic book artist and is easy to understand and execute but it also goes far beyond the basics. Students, illustrators, and even people working in the design & drafting fields will be surprised at how much information in this book could help them every day.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who aspires to take their artwork to the next level.

Brian Miller - Author
Hi-Fi Color For Comics: Digital Techniques for Professional Results

I'm an artist by hobby and have read 8 books on perspective but this one is exceptional. It's not just a book for comic artists but a great book for learning perspective. I was surprised when I received it. It covers topics that I have not seen covered in any other perspective book I've read. Such as, curvilinear perspective. It covers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 point perspective. I never saw any other coverage of 4 and 5 pt perspective before. Great book for any artist, comic or not and great illustrations. A+

Good book on perspectives! Bad art. Absolutely horrible. Especially when he draws people here. Just look into a pdf file of Andrew Loomis's "Figure Drawing for All It's Worth", and he's a LOT better in drawing people in perspectives, and that book was published in the 1930's!!!

The way he draws people according perspectives are just absurd. They do look amateur-ish in style. Believe me, it does not look that good. Although, his teachings on PERSPECTIVES are very good in this book. Very detailed in letting you know how he draws things from the furthest to the closest. I appreciate that part. That's three stars for that. I feel bad, because he really worked hard on background perspectives.

Two stars taken away is his finished artwork. His lineart is ridiculous in a bad way. His black lines are way too thick for a finished picture. They're really messy and they don't look as good as the cover you're seeing here, so beware on that. His coloring inside the pages truly look awful, and they look "unfinished". He should've hired a decent colorist and inker to finish the job, so you could see that what he was teaching was proven correct. His coloring is just the worst, I can't stand it. Remember, this book is about PERSPECTIVES, but according to perspectives, coloring and inked linearts need to be involved. Without it, the perspectives will just look bad, no matter how accurate it is.

Still, if you want to learn about perspectives just by drawing them in pencil, this is a VERY good book for you.



Brandon

When I was able to understand a couple techniques just by LOOKING at the illustrations in this book I knew this perspective book was a keeper! Most of the written examples is concise and clear. Another book I would recommend is How To Draw MANGA: Putting Things in Perspective.

I write this review as math teacher and technical drawing and comics enthusiast. In particular, I would like to compare this to the typical textbook in math.

The book is perfect. It shows the tools needed and the most important concepts in perspective drawing. It builds them up from simplest--one point perspective--to more complicated. Within each type of perspective it also builds up, showing the most basic skeletal structures and then what you can do with them as more ideas are layered on.

Most importantly, you get incredible bang for the reading buck. There is no fat, no unnecessary material, no inserted boxes telling distracting human interest stories.

As a teacher accustomed to having to use book that have 10 times too much material done superficially, it is wonderful to work through a book that limits itself to the parts of the field of perspective that are critical and foundational.

If you're thinking of becoming a comic book artist, then this is the book on perspective that you're looking for. It covers one-point, two-point, three-point, four-point, and five-point perspective. Everything you need all in one book. It also provides some tips for common problems, for example what to do when there is no horizon in the frame or how to make adjustments if a ruled out perspective seems too mechanical. I found this advice on how to add character to drawings useful.

This book is good and clear for beginners and the more advanced. It touches some topics I haven't learned at art school. Definitely a book I will be using frequently. All other books talk about the same vanishing points.
The practical examples in this book will help the student grasp the subject quickly. Love it!

I will have to disagree with the majority of the reviewers on this book and say it falls short. This book focuses almost completely on rendering inanimate objects in perspective but spends a total of 3 pages on foreshortening the human body. Drawing buildings and landscapes in perspective is not easy but it is nowhere near as difficult as drawing the human body and other living things in perspective. Additionally this seems to be a trend in these "How to draw" books to discuss the perspective of buildings but to just wash over the perspective of bodies. I erroneously believed that a book dedicated completely to perspective would cover all the topics fully. I was wrong.