htdctmw 067

You hardly ever look at another figurę in a fiat perspective. There’s usually some part of the body that’s tilted towards you, or bent back away from you, or angled in some manner or other.

Every competent comicbook artist must know how to deal with this matter of “foreshortening” the body—and you’re no exception Here, once again, our practice with spheres, cubes, and cylinders will stand us in good stead. Using these geometrie shapes for the body will make it easier to solve the vital problem of figurę foreshortening.

As the pix on the facing page demonstrate, when these shapes are tilted away from your eye they seem to flatten out—or to become shorter. (That’s where the word “foreshorten” comes from. The object seems to get shorter as it’s tilted towards the “fore.”)

Here's a simple experiment you can try. Hołd a drinking glass straight up in front of you. Now, tiit it slowly back. See how its body seems to shorten as you do so. That’s foreshortening, right?

The same rules apply whether you’re above the figurę and looking down at it (A), or below it and looking up (B).