Rockstar Icon Designer - Kate McInnes [22]
One drawback of this style is that the lines on smaller icons will not necessarily fall across pixel boundaries and cause some anti-aliasing. On larger icons this isn't an issue, but when a line is anti-aliased at a smaller scale, the semi-transparent pixels can cause the line to look blurry or thicker in some places. If you want to make smaller icons in perspective, you should consider using Isometric or Planometric Projection, which is explained later on in this chapter.
To create one-point perspective you will need to draw a horizon line and a vanishing point, from there all lines on the object will be drawn towards the vanishing point. Slowly building your object from a series of rectangles is ideal so that all middle points and vanishing points will be drawn accurately.
Eloquence! icons by Supratim Nayak are an example of one-point icons.
Let's move onto a quick tutorial where I will explain how to draw one-point perspective in more detail. I want you to draw your image without the help of any graphics software. I know it's hard to imagine for some, but there was a time when graphic design relied entirely on hand-rendered images. I was one of the last high school students to learn the old fashioned way, and over the years I have become somewhat lazy when drawing perspective for digital use.
Getting back to basics and drawing by hand will not only help you visualize the item you want to draw, but it will also strip away a lot of the messing about that can happen when drawing straight into the computer. A lot of designers will show you ways in which you can create an image with lots of shape building, but I'm not as convinced that this is a good way to go. There really is no substitute for drawing things by hand. Don't worry if drawing isn't a skill that you possess, even the best icon designers will sometimes admit to not being able to draw. Drawing perspective is more about planning a frame for your icon to be built on. Hand drawing perspective is very quick, and a great skill to have, so let's move onto the tutorial.
How to Draw One-Point Perspective
The following instructions will guide you through the basic process in drawing one-point perspective. We will draw a simple box in a few different view points to get started.
You Will Need:
Paper
A Grey Lead Pencil
An Eraser
A Ruler
-OR- A suitable drawing application. Vector programs such as Adobe Illustrator won't work for this exercise as the node points have a tendency to join up while drawing and will cause errors with your perspective. If you must to use Software to follow along with this tutorial, only use the Brush and Pencil tools, shapes and vector lines will have an unexpected effect on the final image.
Step 1 – Plan the Image
Think about the box you're about to draw. Will it be a square, a rectangle, will it be open or closed? Roughly sketch down some ideas. I'm going to be drawing a closed square box with some packing tape and symbols on the front.
Plan the style of box you want to draw.
Step 2 – Draw the Guidelines
Take your paper and pencil and draw a horizon line one third of the way down the page, this will be the line that the vanishing point is placed on. Once you have drawn a horizon line, chose a point near the middle of the line that will be the vanishing point.
Mark the vanishing point for your perspective.
Step 3 – Draw the front of the Object
Using your ruler to make straight lines, draw a square at the bottom center part of your paper. This will be the front of the first box.
Draw the font of the object in the center of the page a short distance from the horizon line.
Step 4 – Draw the top