Drawing Spaceships and Other Spacecraft

Drawing Spaceships and Other Spacecraft — page 5

Drawing Spaceships and Other Spacecraft — page 6 — Introduction 3 2 1 Ignition Lift-off The voice from mission control is audible even over the roar of the rocket engines This is it the moment you’ve waited for eagerly Your eyes scan the control panel If anything goes wrong you have to know it instantly So far everything looks good Up you go through the thin layer of clouds higher and higher until the blue of earth’s sky becomes the blackness of space Suddenly there is silence All the engines have stopped You are in space You’ve trained and planned for this mission for years You’ve seen thousands of films but you never expected this sight One day some of us may actually experience space flight But until then we will have to rely on our imaginations We will be able to travel to the stars only through the creativity of writers the special effects of moviemakers and the magic of artists like you

Drawing Spaceships and Other Spacecraft — page 7 — simple perspective with one vanishing point Note these lines have been left visible so that you can see the complete structure of the drawings v.p. eye level horizon line vanishing point

Drawing Spaceships and Other Spacecraft — page 8 — CHAPTER 1 Preparing for Space The biggest difference between drawings set on earth and drawings set in outer space is in the way the artist creates a sense of distance In space there are no trees or buildings or other familiar shapes to help us know if something is near or far Space is vast and seems empty But an artist must still show whether an object is coming toward us or going away One very useful tool is perspective Most of us are familiar with perspective Perspective is a way of drawing an object so that it appears to go back into the distance Artists have made use of it for centuries It is not complicated if you remember a few simple points As illustrated on the left there are two steps to begin First draw the eye level or horizon line Next establish your vanishing points the points where the parallel lines of an object meet

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