Good day,

It has been a very long while since my last posting.  I intend on posting again weekly on Sundays as before.

Let us get underway.

On page 57 of Successful Drawing, there is a very useful tip which Andrew Loomis gives his readers.  Any illustrator will encounter this problem, and unfortunately, very few know how to properly solve it.  This is the problem of how to draw the sloping pitch of a roof, in perspective.

First establish the horizon.

Since a single point perspective is a very unnatural point of view, you must now establish 2 Vanishing Points on the horizon line.  Below, I have added a red VP on the left and a green on on the right.

Third, use the Vanishing Points to establish the main walls and roof of your 2 point perspective structure.  In this case we will draw a simple barn.  

Our fourth step is to locate the point on the facing side of the barn,  mid-way between the left and right walls, at the top.  From this point, draw a 90 degree vertical line up to the apex point of the roof line (drawn in the previous step).  This will help us establish the pitch of the roof correctly.

Fifth, draw two vertical lines through the left and right VPs, and make the lines rather long.  These lines are displayed in a a cyan colour in the image below.

The sixth step is to now draw lines for the pitch of the roof.  These lines are drawn from the near corner of the wall and where the roof will be, up diagonally through the apex point established in step 4.  Make a Vertical Vanishing Point (VVP) on the vertical line (cyan) where the new diagonal line crosses.  

Seventh, draw a line back down from your newly established VVP, diagonally through the far corner of barn’s near wall.  Erase anything beyond where this line bisects the original roof line.  These new lines will be the correct pitch of the roof, in proper perspective.  Many artists do not know how to do this. 

Step eight is to repeat the process for the opposite side of the roof.  Cast the horizontal lines downward this time to a VVP that is below the horizon line.    You can see below the orange lines show the pitch through the transparent house where the opposite roof would lay. It looks proper to our eyes.

Here is the barn with a simple amount of finish applied to the image, and a simplistic setting.  The construction lines remain to show the workings of the perspective.

Lastly, remove the construction lines for the finished image.  Although this is a very simple example, the theory holds true even when representing buildings of various type within a single image.

The tip Loomis gives us again uses the Vertical Vanishing Point method.  The VVP is an essential tool for establishing correct perspective.  We shall see it again.

Thank you for reading, and please check out the other internet media I am producing.

http://www.whiteknightsillustration.com  – my illustration website

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk_COhQ0J2GmJpfDKkG3aFg   – my youtube channel.