Get Proportions Right with the Sliding Dummy
Posted: Friday, January 09, 2009
by Alex Marisol
Sketching House
Characters who are closer to the point of view are larger than characters far away from the point of view. Of course, anyone who knows what point of view is will probably already know this.
What's the point of view?
Point of view: the point where the camera would be if your picture was a snapshot from a camera.
So you might know that some characters closer to the camera should be larger than other characters. But how do you know exactly how much bigger? That's where the magical sliding dummy comes into play.
The horizon line is the line where the sky would hypothetically meet the land if there was no objects in the way. The character closest to the horizon line is a convenient guideline for how big each character's head should be.
After your horizontal horizon line is drawn and you find the vanishing point, determine the general location where you want to draw the next character.
Then place the sliding dummy you created between the vanishing point and the general location where you want your character to be. Then, starting with the vanishing point, draw a line all the way across the left side of the sliding dummy and all the way off the page. Then draw a second line and have that line touch the right side of the dummy's head. If you put the vanishing point on the left or right side of the page, have one line touch the top of the dummy's head and have a second line touch the bottom of the dummy's head.
Next, draw your character's head. Draw this head in between the two lines.
Try to have these lines touch the sides of the character's head. Then draw the rest of the body in proportion to the head.
If you cannot figure out where the vanishing point should be, you can use the sliding dummy. Position the dummy on the horizon line and put that dummy in between the character you already draw and the horizon line. Then draw two lines that extend from the sides of character's head past the sides of the sliding dummy's head. These should touch the sides but continue past them.
Eventually these lines should intersect. This is where your vanishing point would be.
How do I slide this dummy around. Using photoshop, I can create a new layer.
Then I can use the marquee tool to select the dummy. Then I can click the move tool and move the dummy left. But if you are not using photoshop or any other graphics program and if you are using traditional methods, you can tear a piece of paper that's a little bigger than your character and then trace the character. Then move the torn piece of paper across the main sheet of paper as needed.
Once this is all set up, you can use the sliding dummy to draw all your characters to the right proportion.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)I'm sure that those interested in the topic presented will find your article informative and interesting.
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