For week 2’s homework we were encouraged to look into the importance of composition and perspective to scenes. As previously mentioned perspective is something I was always bad at and heard of the principles of perspective but never put them into action. Performing these tasks I hope to gain a better understanding on how I can put perspective principles into use to enhance my compositions.

First I had to fully grasp composition layout. I wasn’t happy with my first attempt at composition shots (seen further below) as I emphasized too much on mise-en-scene rather than planning my composition shots in accordance to perspective. I wanted to fully grasp the content before moving forward and this time around focus on concept and layout over detail (which should be the last stages of planning.)

By definition: “A viewers eyeline gets projected infinitely far to the horizon, this makes a horizon line which a vanishing point can be placed. From that point comes a linear perspective grid which you then reference to ensure your scene has cohesive depth.” Perspective is a good way to tell the depth of an object to the viewers POV. This comes in handy to animation if you need to visibly show the characters movement in relation to the camera viewpoint and how to resize your objects. Eyeline/horizon line depends sorely on the placement of the camera and changes perspective depending on the relation of the eyeline. Using perspective lines as a reference to composition makes everything within the scene appear cohesive to the camera view, without there will be missing visual information that will make the scene appear off. Much like using reference for other objects to correct proportion, it’s important to use reference for the world we’re trying to create.

Also to note on custom vanishing points: perspective allows for the viewer to establish missing visual information based off the horizon line. If there are objects blocking the view the horizon line allows for the viewer to get an idea on the remaining shape of whatever is blocked out (depth ques). When overlapping shapes consider the silhouette you’re losing and the silhouette you’re retaining. These concepts can assist with sketching a world that has a sense of believability to it. “With the basics in place it becomes fun to explore the space you’re creating.” This is the issue I had with my first attempt at worldbuilding, I need to ensure the foundation I have makes sense to the view of the camera point before populating my world.

Note: When considering colour for my scenes look into “Atmospheric Perspective” – you can make objects recede further into the distance by strategically placing colour.

I wanted to show differing animation styles that consider perspective, however there were scenes that I knew that I could pinpoint factors easier, mostly in relation to Arcane and Into the Spider verse as they have a good grasp on the concept:

1 Point Perspective study (Point is converging to a point in the horizon. Horizon lines could be placed anywhere). They’re central, conditioning the viewers eye to the central part of the frame where point of interest is.

2 Point Perspective study (Same as one point but the point is dragged on 2 sides, converge over each other and can create 3D spaces. Good for buildings/enviroment):

Golden Ratio considered:

3 Point Perspective demonstration (I thought this would be harder to pinpoint, but once you understand the concept it becomes easier to establish):

The 2nd task we needed to complete was to produce 3 thumbnails based on a already established environment from a form of media. I chose 3 different game genres to see the difference in layout and theme! Before going into the task I wanted to see if it was possible to set up a horizon line in procreate and with the help of this tutorial it made the task all the easier.

I added Horizon lines to each scene and replicated it using simple greyscale forms. I intended to have the horizon be lighter and the foreground to be darker to establish depth. I need more practise when it comes to tone and values, I could never really decide where to put my placement based off of the light/dark areas while also establishing depth. I hope to get better at this as time goes on.

Before developing anything regarding Disney I threw together a collection of references to use for world building visuals. I wanted to shape together and get a clear idea when it came to Disney iconology vs real life elements. I also gathered official Disney concept art thumbnails in hopes to replicated the style and get a grasp on tonal values.

These are the thumbnails I came up with, which are more related to story telling thumbnails. I wanted to redo these to ensure I had a grasp on perspective and the overall environment. The perspective isn’t great in these thumbnails either, strictly the treehouse going against guidelines. This is a good example on how without perspective it could look odd. When creating the above thumbnails I slowly hit a slump, I didn’t know what other visuals I could include so I left my overall world building thumbnails at 4. I was frustrated I couldn’t come up with anything else, but seeing other peoples designs I slowly began to run out of original ideas.