sandr037

I’ve been lucky in that I started illustrating buildings when it was done entirely by hand. I say that I was lucky because knowing the ins and outs of perspective helps any artist manipulate a nitpickingly correct computer perspective. Artists who only know computer modeling make simple mistakes, and often end up with mediocre illustrations. I graduated from architecture school in 1974; a time when computers filled large rooms, and 3D computer simulation was crude, and limited to large, well funded institutions.   The following examples show my (and the profession's) progress from purely hand made perspectives to computer layouts. They also will illustrate some of the problems encountered and tricks learned.  I had drawn perspectives for friends in architecture school for years, and when I arrived in New York City in 1977, I got a job as a draftsman largely because of my ability to draw perspectives (as well as my being willing to work cheaply and start immediately).  At...

Twenty some years ago I had an idea for an Italian Romanesque tower for a site in Greenwich Village.  I lost much of the back up material, but I found some slides I took while rendering the perspective.  The following is a sequence of images showing the process.  I know, it is like showing how to make buggy whips now that everyone uses Photoshop, but you might find it interesting. Here is the wireframe... talk about archaic.  But it was a big step up from hand layouts. I sketched over the wireframe with pencil, then pasted context buildings in, and added trees, background context and a wet street with cars. Now, on a mylar overlay, I rendered the image in ink with Rapidograph (technical) pen. Once I had an ink drawing, it was party time!  I had it photo-reduced to an 8"x10" size, and I xeroxed the thing.  Using pastels I worked up a number of possible color schemes.  My default is a warm/cool balance that helps make the building pop out, but I'll do 8 ...