Horizon Line - Tumblr Posts

assortment of multifandom rp drawings

Hi there, Vitalia!

Thank you so much for this wonderfully educational reply!! It was so kind of you to take the time to share art advice and even make some amazing, useful mock-ups! You really went above and beyond, and these tips are exactly what I’m looking for as an artist noob!

Also: I apologize for not replying sooner! I’ve gotten distracted by some life happenings, and I also wanted to have a good moment to sit down and digest all the good advice you gave me. (I also need to get better at dealing with choice-paralysis! It’s so silly since this is just a goofy little project I’m doing, but I still have to grapple with my perfectionism – I tend to put off stupidly simple choices… :,D Art projects like this though will hopefully help me overcome this!).

With your advice in mind, I have some ideas on what to do next with the scene!

I’m very tempted to follow your “zoom in” idea - I love the way the multiple trees look, and it creates a great sense of depth!. (In fact, I’m now entertaining am alternate idea where its reversed: we zoom out from a close shot of his face!) But as I am unsure exactly how to do this in After Effects yet, I might stick with my simple “two trees; static shot” composition first. Once I feel confident, I might use that as a base to create the “zoom in” effect!

(I think it could be as simple as changing the scale of Emmet AND the background, but I have a feeling messing around with AE’s camera tool might be useful if I want to make a cooler “3D-depth” effect with the tree background you proposed).

I also made some more mock-ups, moving Emmet to be placed around the lower horizon line to place more attention on the trees. Am I understanding and incorporating what I learned well? I’m always open to further critique!: Imgur Gallery of my Edits

Also, if you (or anyone else!) would find it useful, below the cut I included a big summary of what I’ve learned so far about horizon/eye lines and composition from your tips and in looking at other resources. I am unsure if I got everything right -- If you (or anyone else!) are willing, I’d love to know if there are any poor assumptions I’m making or if there might be some other tips I should know regarding composition.

Again, thank you so much for taking the time to help me! It was super kind of you to go out of your way to make an in-depth post, and it’s also fun to be able to interact like this with a fellow SubMas fan. (P.S. I’m super happy to hear my drawing of Emmet made you smile! ^w^).

I was first confused on the concepts of the horizon line and eye level/line. I wasn’t sure if there were two different things, and I wanted to understand better on what it meant to place a person’s face relatively around this point. So, I did a little more research.

THE BASIC CONCEPTS – WHAT IS THE HORIZON LINE AND EYE LEVEL?

From what I understand, the Horizon line and Eye Level are two different concepts, but closely related to each other on the topic of perspective in an art piece

Horizon line: where sky separates from land or water

Eye level: the actual height of the viewer’s eyes when looking at an object, interior scene, or an exterior scene

Usually the horizon line and eye line are on the same level as each other, and so the terms are often used synonymously.

The former term usually refers to drawings that are outdoors, while the latter is used for drawings that are indoors (since you can’t usually see the horizon when inside a room!). When drawing complex perspectives, you might have the horizon line at a different level than the eye level, but for the most part, they are the same.

As this redditor named FieldWizard noted: “The horizon line is always at the viewers eye level. Unless you are doing some weird drawing 100 miles above the surface of the planet. Then the horizon line is sort of abstract. The eye line is perpendicular to the picture plane. The eye line does not necessarily intersect the horizon”.

(I also noted that the eye level is also referred to as the eye line by most people I’ve run across online…I don’t think it’s a different thing entirely, but If I’m wrong, anyone can feel free to correct me!)

Other useful notes:

The Horizon Line moves up or down to adjust for your Eye Level (FieldWizard).

As a reminder: Vanishing points are basically than the center of the viewer’s vision (i.e. where your eyes are looking); they determine the orientation of the Picture Plane and the Ground Line.

Vanishing points don’t always converge on the horizon/eye line: The vanishing points of objects parallel to the ground converge to the horizon/eye line, but you might have cases where you want to depict a titled object. This object’s vanishing point could be above or below the horizon/eye line, depending on how it is titled. – LoveLifeDrawing shared this neat explanation (and has other useful notes on horizon/eye lines).

APPLYING THESE CONCEPTS TO ART COMPOSITION -- CREATING A SENSE OF PERSPECTIVE AND DETERMINING THE BEST PLACEMENT OF SUBJECTS IN AN ART PIECE

Now that I know what these concepts are, I can better understand how they can define the depiction of perspective and subjects in an art piece.

How perspective is created by the placement of the horizon line/eye level in an art piece:

“If the horizon is at the vertical center of your canvas, that means you're looking straight ahead, and vertical lines in the scene (perpendicular to the ground) aren't converging to viewpoints, assuming the image isn't cropped.

If your horizon is below the page center, you're looking up, and vertical lines are converging to a viewpoints above the page.

If your horizon is above the page center, you're looking down, and vertical lines are converging to a vp below the page.”

Source – Redditor “Averagetrailertrash”

The rule of thumb for placing people (& people’s heads/faces) in an art piece:

Generally, a good composition rule of thumb is to place people’s heads near the horizon line/eye line, specifically placing them in a way where their eyes line up with the horizon line. (It’s not a hard rule—you can subvert it—but it usually looks nice like this).

With all that said, the rule of thumb of where to place the horizon line, a piece’s subjects, and overall, decide the composition of a piece:

A rule-of-thirds grid can be very useful to setting a horizon line.

If you want to have more focus on the sky (the upper part of the rule-of-thirds grid), set the horizon line in (or near) the bottom row of the grid, with the subject of the sky being placed in the upper two rows.

If you want to have the focus on subjects near the ground (people, plants, etc.), place the horizon line in (or near) the top row of the grid so that the viewer’s eye is drawn to the subjects in the top two rows.

You can place subjects in the middle row too, but can place them in the upper or lower part of that row based on the ideas above

For further reading: This blog has a nice article explaining using Rule of Thirds Grids and The Golden Ratio in art pieces

Hey you!! Yes, you!

Now that I've got your attention!: This isn't Sept-Ingo related, but I was wondering if any kind soul(s) out there would be willing to give me some art advice!

Interested? More under the cut

I'm currently working on an animation project starring the lovely smiley choo-choo man himself, Emmet! I don't want to share more since I'd like it to be a surprise, but I'm looking forward to pushing myself to learn After Effects while doing this.

However, still being an art noob of sorts here, I am feeling some indecision about how to do things, lol. Mainly, I am trying to figure out what kind of placement/composition to go for...I'm horribly indecisive, so an outside opinion from more seasoned artists than me would be wonderful!

I have a few options here. You can see my mockups in the Imgur link here (as silly as it sounds, I don't want my cruddy sketches here to clog up my blog feed): https://imgur.com/a/mBRQIr7

I suppose I will have to spill some beans on what I'm planning here: I want to make flowers bloom onto the trees as Emmet's expression changes. I'm stuck on whether I want to put more attention on his face or the trees (i.e., should Emmet be the focus and ergo, bigger...or smaller as we want to focus on the trees?). I also don't know if his placement looks awkward or not (following the rule of thirds or something idk???).

I'm leaning toward making his face the focus, but I would like to hear what others have to say! Thank you!!

Wow, I really enjoy how the engine glow looks. Let's turn on the lights.

Oh...it's still plastic looking. Welp, gotta learn how to get that spaceship look so it doesn't look like something that came off my 3d printer.