Drawing figure in bird's/worm's eye view

#1

I want to learn how to draw the figure in a bird’s eye and worm’s eye view. I’ve searched my library and Amazon and I can’t find a book that explains it very well. I’ve looked at Loomis’ book, but he doesn’t explain his perspective techniques in detail. Furthermore, he doesn’t cover worm’s and bird’s eye view.

I want to learn this from a pro rather than an amateur. Does anyone know of books which cover this subject in detail?

If not, I was considering buying the Gnomon workshop DVD Dynamic Figure Drawing by David Finch. Does he explain drawing the figure in bird’s/worm’s eye views in this video?

#2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lp6gc4gjjY

Not a book, but possible what you are looking for, I hope

#3

Thanks for the link, but that’s not what I’m looking for. That’s a one point perspective tutorial. Bird’s eye/worm’s eye is 3 point perspective for figures. This requires drawing body parts that overlap each other.

#4

The key to being able to draw figures in various angles/perspectives requires that you can do these two things already:

-Have a decent level of mastery over basic perspective

-Have the ability to break the figure down and simplify them into simple geometric shapes like cylinders, cubes, spheres, etc.

-Have enough proficiency in anatomy/figure in general and can simplify the forms into planes, and know all the standard proportions well.

Did you get “Successful Drawing” by Loomis? He’s got very detailed sections on perspective and how to depict figures in perspective in that book. It’s a great companion book to “Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth.”

Also, can you currently draw a decent looking figure in normal perspective? If you can’t do that yet, then trying to do it in worm’s eye view would be like trying to do flips when you can’t even walk yet. Even professional artists would find exotic angles/perspective a challenge, let alone someone who’s not a professional.

You might want to check out Burn Hogarth too. I’m not a fan of his stylized approach, but he’s good with structure and depicting from various angles and extreme poses.

#5

Thanks for the tip on the book. I wasn’t aware of that one.

I’ve haven’t practiced perspective that much. Up to this point I had been focusing on anatomy and constructing the figure using the rib cage and pelvis shapes.

Now that I’ve made some progress in that area, I’m moving on to draw the figure from different vantage points.

#6

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