Rockstar Icon Designer - Kate McInnes [24]
The Shine set by IconEden is an example of two-point design.
How to Draw Two-Point Perspective
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 pens will have an unexpected effect on the final image.
Step 1 – Plan the Image
Once again, plan the sides of the image that you want to draw. Remember that with this style of perspective, the focal point in the design is often the top of the image.
Plan the image that you want to create and mark out the approximate location for the details on each side.
Step 2 – Draw the Guidelines
Take your paper and pencil and draw a horizon line about a third of the way down the page. Once you have drawn a horizon line, chose two points along the line, one either side of the page. This will be your two vanishing points.
Draw a horizon line and mark out two vanishing points.
Step 3 – Draw the Front Edge
Using your ruler to make a straight line, draw the front corner edge of the cube away from the horizon line. Then draw diagonal lines from the top and bottom of the corner line, two on each side, towards the two vanishing points. These are the sides of your cube.
Draw a vertical line and join it to each vanishing point.
Step 4 – Draw the Side Edges
Draw two straight lines, one on either side of the front edge, beginning and ending at the top and bottom lines of the guides. These will make the outer edges of the cube.
Draw the sides of the box using the top and bottom vanishing lines.
Step 5 – Draw the Top Vanishing Lines
Draw a guide from the top of each outer edge towards the co-responding vanishing point. If you want to make a wire-frame version of this shape, repeat the same step with the bottom of the outer edges. Once you have your guides, draw the two back lines joining tthem at the intersection of the guide lines.
Draw guides from the top of the vertical side lines to the vanishing points.
Step 6 – Marking out the Middle Points
Mark out the middle points of each side by taking a diagonal line from each outer corner to make a cross. The intersection of the lines marks where the center point of the side is. Draw a vertical line through the middle of the cross. This line will divide the box side into two parts, draw vertical guides through the middle of these parts and continue dividing the sections in half until you've made enough guides for the artwork. Where the diagonal line intersects a vertical grid line, draw a horizontal grid line towards the vanishing point. do this on the left and right side of the box. To mark a grid on the top of the box, draw lines from the top of the side grids towards the vanishing points.
Find the middle of each side and draw guides towards the vanishing points.
Step 7 – Adding the Elements
Use the grid to judge the areas you would like to add detail to. Go back to your planning sketches to look at the details you want to add. Mark out an area on the grid with the approximate shape you would like to add a detail to and add it in. Once you've finished, erase all of the lines you don't need and you will be left with a box with two-point perspective.
Use the guides to mark out the details for the box. Once you have finished erase the guides and you're finished.
Planometric Projection
Planometric Projection (sometimes referred to as Axonometric Projection) is a style of perspective that's commonly used by graphic designers to draw the space within a room, but due to the clean 45 degree angle it has, the planometric style is particularly useful for icon design. First adopted for icons that appeared on older style monitors, the 45 degree line is