Advice on perspective?

I ask because I've been working on a drawing, and I've spent the last hour trying to make the perspective work, and I'm rather frustrated, haha.
But my point is, perspective has always been a big weakness of mine. Even if I have a dynamic shot using perspective in my head, when I try to draw it it always comes out looking flat.
So, does anyone have any advice on how to improve on doing perspective shots? Or, at least a good source for photos to use as reference for doing them?
Apologies if this isn't the right place to ask this.

hey bijelle,

i know your struggle. i too always tended to concentrate more on the human figure and left the background white because i had trouble to bring the perspective in my head to paper.

Unfortunately there is no shortcut for perspective. as every other aspect of drawing and painting the only way to master it is practice, practice, practice. and when you have understood the basics it is quite easy.

I personaly learned alot by a book by henk rotgans, but he has only books in german, french and spanish on amazon. in german it's called 'räumliches zeichnen' and it is especially good for beginners.
Another book for you maybe 'perspective! for comic book artists' by david chelsea. but i liked the one by henk rotgans better.

the very best book in my opinion is 'how to draw' by scott robertson and thomas bertling. But i wouldn't recommend it for a beginner as it is quite challenging.

so just keep on drawing!

if you like, you can upload the drawing you had problems with, so i can have a try to help you:)

Hi Bijelle,

Have you tried the box method for drawing the head?
Basically, you use a rectangular cube to place the head in perspective and then place the features on measured out points on the cube.
It is a bit easier than trying to use the sphere method.

I have posted my instagram link below with a sample of what I am talking about.

Sample

Oh, i just saw your question was about the head in perspective, i thought you were talking about general perspective^^

In this case you should check out the instagram by mianewarcher. it's a great example how to approach the perspective of the human head.

For more information i would recommend two books: 'Drawing the human head' by Burne Hogarth and 'Drawing the head & hands' by Andrew Loomis.

There are also some great youtube tutorials. Check out the videos by Proko '[url=&list=PL39135B8D190B7C97]How to draw the head from any angle[/url]'

cheers

I won't say that proko is bad, but his videos sometimes lack some depth.

If you want to get acquainted with perspective, there's only one way:

Draw a lot of boxes on a page, with one vanishing point, and from that point make some floating boxes going up, going down, tipped to one side...etc...This will help you.

when you are familiar and comfortable with this, you can switch to 2 points perspective, and repeat the process.

Draw streets, boxes, bottles, in any angle, making sure you detect where the horizon, so your piece's eye level, is, and you'll get an even better vision of things.

I hope you'll get through this pickle. :)