TRANSCRIPT: DOXY’S NOTES! Foreshortening Tips Reference As always find reference. This will secure your ability to interpret the exaggerated shapes properly. Search for wide angle lense or fish eye lense photographs for very exaggerated foreshortening. Cross Sections Creating a cross section for your shapes can help you better interpret the overlapping volumes. Unfortunately this can be hard to use accurately since you have to have a good knack for which way the limbs are going and how to section off parts. With a bit of practice though you should be good. Perspective Guide I use this method quite a bit. I create an approximation of the boundaries of the character. I then draw a straight line from opposite corners. This gives a good approximation of the center. Since I know the center of my character is somewhere around the belt line I can use this cross section to isolate the upper portion of the character. Occlusion / Obscuring When you use extreme foreshortening you have to not be afraid to hide body parts. The more extreme the distortion the more other parts of the character will be hidden behind itself. Here in blue you can see overlapping parts obscured by shapes in front of it. most of the torso is hidden. Transform Tool Tip If you’re in trouble and have no idea how to interpret a shape a neat trick is to draw it straight on. Scale it with a transform tool. MAKE SURE YOUR TRANSFORM TOOL HAS A PERSPECTIVE MODE OR THIS WONT WORK WELL. Scale to match approximately your drawing. Of course this is only a guide. You still need to make sure the shape overlaps correctly and that it has good form and shape so keep working at it knowing that at least the exaggeration and perspective are very close!
