Framed Perspective Vol. 1: Technical Perspective and Visual Storytelling

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Marcos Mateu-Mestre’s book, Framed Perspective Vol.1: Technical Perspective and Visual Storytelling, not only covers the very fundamentals of perspective before proceeding to its more advance properties, it also delves quickly into the basic effects that different lenses have on the perspective of an image.
For those who want to learn how to draw well this book is essential.

This is the most amazing book on perspective I’ve ever seen.

It starts with the basics, draw a cube in two point perspective, blah blah, the same as every drawing book that talks about perspective, but then it goes into some interesting variations and twists. Some are somewhat standard, such a bird’s eye view, or how a would room look if you were looking at it from an overhead camera. Some less so. Imagine you want to draw a room where the wall on one side is in perspective and there is a picture hanging on the wall. Easy, right? Not imagine that picture is crooked. How do you keep perspective without the lines being perpendicular to the floor? What about if you’re looking at a room reflected in a distorted mirror. That kind of thing is covered here.

It ends with some very complex variations, but it starts with the absolute basics and progresses gradually in a well-structured manner where each chapter builds upon the last.

That said, this is not a book I think I can read once and be done with it. I feel like I want to take what I’ve learned, practice, then go back and review, and I think I’ll end up doing that a few times before I’ve gotten all I can out of it. There is a lot of material here.

Beautiful book, I’d gotten it a few months ago and have learned so much. It’s also a lot thicker than I thought it was gonna be! Tons of information inside!!

One of the best books specifically for comics that I’ve read on the subject. One of the best things about this book compared to others is that MArcos makes it look easy even when he’s teaching more advanced technical aspects of perspective. That’s something I haven’t seen from other books in quite the same way. Perspective books tend to be headache-inducingly technical and boring, mind-numbingly patronizing in their attempt at simplicity, or they hold your hand through the basics, then de-pants you and kicks you into the deep end. This book is none of that! It starts out by quickly guiding you through the basics and on through 1, 2, and 3 point perspective, sharing glimpses of what’s to come along the way, then jumps right into tangible applications. It teaches what you need to know to make comics, and doesn’t waste time on other aspects of perspective you can learn elsewhere if you really want to know.

I also recommend Vol 2. It feels like they were supposed to be one book, but it would have been too thick of a book to lay open and study from (That’s just my personal thought, i don’t know why they split it up). Back to the content, it’s clear, concise, plenty of illustrated examples to go along with well-written text. There’s a few step-by-step examples for more complex illustration problems as well. Again, I highly recommend getting both Vol 1 and 2. Start with 1 to develop a solid foundation for these concepts. Once you’ve mastered everything in Vol 1, then Vol 2 will be easier to grasp, and you’ll be more effective at implementing what you learn.

Perspective is a dense subject though. While this book is in the top of it’s class, it doesn’t cover everything, it can’t. But it’s a fantastic introduction to the basics, through to intermediate and advanced techniques as well. It will definitely give you the tools to fill in the rest on your own if you desire to get even deeper into mastering the art of perspective.

Feel disappointed to receive the book spine with slight dent at its top, but tear at its bottom. The inside paper quality are well printed. The author explained the technicalities of visual story.