22 August 2002 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Your 22 August, 2002 YouCanDraw.com every other week communique |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| In today's e-zine: Short "Flash Interactive" rotating 360 degree head for understanding and constructing the "three-quarter" view ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Howdy all, Approaching the three quarter view In today's e-zine you'll be seeing a fun little exercise. It might not make sense just by itself - it'll make much more sense when you see it in the next issue (in two weeks). The topic: approaching the three-quarter view. What's a "three-quarter" view? I won't give you any malarkey about it being worth more than a "two bit" picture, and I won't nickel and dime your time over it right now, but suffice it to say it's a view somewhere between a profile and a front view. Half way between the two is a "true" 3/4 view, but in reality, it's anywhere between. (I said that.) Why's it a "tough draw?" 3/4 views are tough - especially in the beginning because you have to have a pretty good feel for the effects of proportion, scale, and perspective. Well, you don't, but it sure helps. Actually it really helps. :-). Things change in the 3/4 view: the relation of the eyes to the nose, the relation of one eye to the other (you go from two eyes to one when traveling from front view to profile); the nose certainly changes, perspective becomes important through out all the features. Most of the changes are subtle but your mind notices these unconsciously so it helps to be able to identify those changes and not have to always ask "what's wrong with this picture?". So what helps? I discovered two things that helped me. First was just plain observing people as they turned their heads: having someone slowly rotate their head (while sitting in a swivel chair), and actually using a human skull (borrowed during medical school) were a good help. But people get sick of being looked at and skulls don't have all the detail of the face. And we don't draw bones, but rather we draw everything that's covering the bones when we draw a face. (Besides, walking around with a skull is just plain WEIRD and it's not something people always have access to. Hopefully.) The second tool I came up with somewhere in-between the two above: using grids and the "mitre box". Neither is covered in the small Flash Interactive this email is linked to - but both will be in the next communique (after the next "Every Other Week Caricature" of  course). It's actually an extension of Lesson 14 and you'll see it fits there nicely. Get yourself a copy So here's the deal. Download the Flash Interactive (to a file location on your computer you can find - eg the "desktop" or the "downloads" file), and study it as preparation for some real hands on work in a couple weeks. Watch it several times, play around with it, DO the suggested exercises (especially where you visualize the vanishing points of all the different geometric shapes within the face/neck shoulder form). Now go for if and we'll see you soon! Just click and put in a safe file (if the link is broken, copy and paste this into your browser...it's about 1.2 megabytes in size): http://www.youcandraw.com/ycd-lesson14-xtra.exe Warmly, Jeffrey O. Kasbohm Executive Director (952) 544-0657 1351 Hampshire Ave. So., #127 St. Louis Park, MN 55426 http://www.YouCanDraw.com "Once and for all getting you drawing faces and caricatures" mailto:comments@youcandraw.com