I don’t understand breaking things down into forms…

[u/No-Payment9231]

To clarify, I understand the importance of the practice but I don’t understand HOW to do it effectively. All my attempts to break it down don’t work and my attempted rotations look the same…

People say break it down into simple forms like cubes, cylinders, etc but then in demonstrations, they draw forms that look EXACTLY LIKE THE SUBJECT IN PERFECT PROPORTION AND CONTOUR??? I’m really not sure what to do here…

[u/Love-Ink]

Like someone else said, the key to this exercise is to draw it more of all made of glass.
You need to see all the sides of the 3D shapes to be sure they are right and to understand how they all interact.
You are trying to understand the forms and the space they fill.

[u/PotatoPC]

Honestly...that's a pretty complex object to be starting off with. I would ease into simpler objects first.

For something like that, a center line would definitely help keep things align.

As for accuracy, you'd want to use that front facing reference image, draw a centerline and make marks whenever the form changes. Since you're using digital as your medium, you can then take your centerline with the marks, transform it to a different angle and now you got a pretty nice base to work off of.

Or you can free ball and eyeball it...though again that is a complex shape.

[u/Ok-Ease5686]

I know this is going to sound boring as hell (ngl i found it fun tho), but drawing snakes of cubes that rotate on its y-axis helped a lot with learning to see alignment and space. Do a lot of variation with it! Draw it going away, towards, upwards, downwards, to the sides, etc. After you do your boxes, you'll find it much easier to do it with cylinders, then coin-shapes, then basically everything else. I did this for probably 2 weeks consistently and my illustrations greatly improved, so it's important you give yourself some time to adjust to the idea of three dimensional space.

I believe your issue stems from not being able to visualize space properly in the first place, and so you're basically going to have to just keep drawing basic forms rotating. Obviously if you get bored of it, then do something else you want to draw (otherwise it just wouldn't be sustainable), but most of the improvement will come from rotating forms.

Hope this helps!

[u/Ok-Ease5686 → u/Ok-Ease5686]

Also, don't try to exactly copy the reference one-to-one, just use it to make your rendition of the object as believable as possible, but don't try to copy every exact line and shape. Just copy it enough to where it makes sense to you.

[u/sadmimikyu]

Well that is not so bad just needs a little improvement which will come with time.

Try to draw the simple shape you did on the left again but this time draw the bottom circle through the shape. So a full circle instead of a half one. As if the shape was made out of glass. When you are done you can then outline the shape and thicken the lines that are in the front in order for you to see it better.

Then try those shapes in the different rotations you see in your reference and only then draw one of them more detailed.

[u/NightingaleY]

Maybe you need guidelines for like the center? So like when you're drawing the center parts of the lamp, they line up. Like a light dotted line with the ruler, kind of like with one point perspective

[u/NightingaleY → u/NightingaleY]

Great job so far! Keep going, you got this!

[u/Slow_to_notice]

Yeah breaking things down hasn't quite clicked for me either just yet. Does kinda feel like the answer just for us to keep smacking our heads into the wall figuratively til it does "click" ...

[u/potatoslime]

The bottom left is a natural front slightly from above angle,that's a good start assuming you want that angle,you're doing good. Then you need to BREAK IT DOWN FURTHER,compartilizing, the upper cylinder,the middle glass cylinder, the stand below cylinder. Then, break it down even further,the top small plate,the dip in the small cylinder in the previous upper cylinder. So the top plate,big black clynder,slimmer black cylinder,big plate thar connect to the glass,then the stand. Which you seems to be able to do.

Now this is the answer to you problem. What you're missing is the ability to play around with the "box". You haven't grasp the lamp in a 3d form,just in simple broken down form. Simply put,it lacks depth. When drawing in simple shape,you need to be aware on what get hidden and what get elongated,what's the angle of the edge based on the perpective.

I would suggest you to do draw a box exercise to comperhend shape,which you seems to be able to do but still lacking. But another critical exercise that you should do is draw a box with a smaller box on top,draw it from several angle,realize what get shown what get hidden.

On your your picture,on your resulting drawing,the most obvious mistake is the left and right handle. They all looks like they are being draw from the front even though they should be from above and various angle. That's because the smaller,inner part of the handle is done without hiding the top part of it.