by
Mike Manley and
Bret Blevins
F
Captain 3-D © The Joe Simon Estate and the Jack Kirby Estate.
60
DRAW! WINTER 2014
oreshortening is an element or condition of perspective that creates a distortion of an object as it comes forward towards your eye. As the object or part of the figure (arm, leg, etc.) comes forward, it appears to be “shortened.” The depth of the object that is coming toward your eye appears shorter than the distance across the object, or its width. It’s something that happens in almost every view of the figure, especially dynamic views of the figure that move away from or forward toward our POV in perspective. In superhero comics, it’s a condition of the dramatic and dynamic figure poses that push or play with the perspective and camera angle to create dynamic figure poses. In life drawing and figure drawing there is almost always some arm, or leg, or even torso, that is in an angle that creates foreshortening for the artist. This often creates an drawing problem for the artist that trips them up unless careful observation is applied. One of the key problems lies in the artist drawing not what they “see,” but what they “know.” This creates a battle in the mind of the artist and can cause drawing issues and mistakes. By this I mean the artist makes an error by drawing the foreshortened part of the body at the length it would be in the non-foreshortened view (the length or proportion they know the body part to be in a non-foreshortened view). This is more common in life drawing than in figures drawn from imagination or invention, like in comics or animation, but the ability to draw the arm, leg, etc., of a drawn figure in a convincingly foreshortened view will help make the figure both convincing and dynamic. There is usually some part of the figure that is foreshortened in every view of the figure. This can be an arm, or leg, but we deal with this in dynamic views of the head as well. In the figure that jumps away or toward the camera, there is always some foreshortening, and many, many artists use this as a tool and play it up to make the figures and angles dramatic and dynamic. With some artists, like Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, and Gene Colan, this dynamic play of perspective and foreshortening is a hallmark of their work.