The Zenith and the Nadir

Hi Everybody,

The artist of this cover did a decent job with this worm's eye view of the two lead characters. Their belts curve upward, for instance. The legs have their full length, while the upper bodies are foreshortened a little. Etc. That's all good.

But he made a pretty natural, common mistake: He didn't fully commit to the perspective he chose. The other figures and the background don't follow it. When you have a strong upshot like this, all the verticals should point at the same vanishing point (VP). Not just the ones in front.

The Zenith

This VP is usually established well outside the drawing to keep the scene from looking severely pinched at the top. Though it works just like any other, this VP is called the zenith, and represents a point directly above the viewer's head (And over the heads of all the people in the scene, for that matter). Like all VPs, it is infinitely far. Out where distances appear to shrink to zero, and direction is all.

The yellow lines below show how the people and the White House's columns would have been skewed, if the artist had fully followed the perspective established by the two leads.

You can imagine that the resulting "leaning-in" would be intense, distorted, hard to draw, severely pinched. The zenith works best farther outside the drawing, as I said. In this case, it is on the top edge of the cover. Tsk, tsk.

The Fundamental Goof

So the artist's most basic error was creating a perspective that would be very challenging to commit to. And might not look good if he had. Which leads us to...

Why It Doesn't Matter!

We can presume he arranged the characters in relation to each other and to the background in a way that suited his intent as a storyteller. This is always more important than the niceties of perspective.

How It Could Matter!

Perspective can help make your created world look more believable and realistic. If that matters to you. Not saying it should--you do what suits your storytelling aims and style.

Artists Whose Styles Involve Sophisticated Perspectives

Consider for a second the dazzling animation and comic book work of Academy Award nominee Robert Valley. Part of his style is "pushing" perspectives, on objects AND figures. He knows that if you draw a panel knowing where the horizon and VPs are, you can distort that art to a great degree, adding angularity and energy, via the transform tool in Clip Studio, Photoshop, etc.--without violating the perspective! The horizon and vanishing points maintain their sway regardless; their interrelation is unchanged by stretching and shrinking.

Frame from the animated short Pear Cider & Cigarettes by Robert Valley

Consider also the work of Sana Takeda, who draws the eye-popping Image title Monstress. Her work exploits a deep, and apparently natural, understanding of perspective. Notice the down-shot in the second panel. This perspective shows the verticals converging toward the bottom. The vp in this situation is called the nadir. It's the opposite of the zenith: it's as low as you can go, straight down below the viewer and all else.

Monstress Art by Sana Takeda

Clip Studio

Clip Studio makes creating perspectives like these easier with its specialized Rulers. You can set up perspectives that have VPs way outside the art. The program places them, and keeps track of them. You never have to "touch" a VP, much less one that's way outside your art. Here's how they work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNtH5nmwrh8

Have Fun and Keep Drawing,

John