3D Cube Models For Perspective Drawing Practice: Stacked Boxes

I added some new cool free artist’s resources to the Practice Drawing This website: parametric 3D models designed for drawing practice!

I got the idea for this one while doing Wouter Tulp’s amazing new Schoolism course, Fundamentals of Expressive Character Design. It reminds me of Marshall Vandruff’s Bridgman course which he posted for free on YouTube, which also focuses on 2D shape, 3D form, and gesture to let the character pose tell a story. Wouter Tulp’s approach leads to very dynamic, more cartoon-style results.

But I digress.

You can see my practice drawings at the beginning of this article.

The page allows you to rotate, pan, and zoom the model or generate a new random configuration of blocks.

Next week, I will share the parametric model that uses two blocks to represent the chest and the hips, orienting them in various ways.

But you can see a sneak preview here:

3D Models For Drawing Practice

You can use these models for free in your browser, even on your mobile devices.

Here are some tips if you start practicing using these:

1. Aiming the lines even approximately to the right vanishing point is more important than getting these precisely right.
2. It is a good idea to try exaggerating the perspective because it is more fun, as accuracy is less critical. And it forces you to choose the right vanishing point. In real situations, vanishing points are often far away, and a slight tilt the wrong way in the lines you draw can make them point in the wrong direction. Exaggerating the perspective makes this easier.
3. An advanced exercise is to imagine what it looks like from another angle, draw it, and rotate the 3D model to see if you got it right.
4. Give this exercise some time; it takes a bit to get the hang of it if you haven’t done it in a while. But do stop as soon as you start getting bored with it. Drawing should be fun, and hard practice should be done in moderation.

That’s it for this week. I hope you'll enjoy drawing these! And as mentioned, there are other 3D models to draw from too.

Drawing Workouts
My drawing workouts are sequences of short exercises that go well together. They help you warm up, practice a fundamental, and end with some fun drawing and a beautiful sketchbook page to look back on.
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Drawing Exercise Guides
If you don't feel like drawing, you can peruse my guides that explain various drawing exercises that helped me a lot over the years.
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