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flying over a maze

1 point perspective
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by JuliannaKunstler.com

maze

You are going to build a maze in 1 point perspective.

Imagine that you are flying above a maze in a hot-air balloon. You are right above it. So… What do you see?

You see the top part of the walls, some of the walls’ sides and some of the ground. Remember how we started drawing a box in 1 point perspective?

We start with the side that does not get distorted. If we look at out maze from above which side do we see without any distortion? Correct… The top of the maze. That’s what we start with...

examples

maze in 1 point perspective
maze in perspective
maze in 1 point perspective
maze in 1 point perspective
maze in 1 point perspective
maze in 1 point perspective

STEPS

maze plan

Draw the layout of your maze. Make the walls about 1” thick. Use horizontal or vertical lines only. Make sure there is an entry and an exit to your maze.
Remember ; you are drawing the walls, not the passages!!!!!!

Choose a color and shade the tops of your walls (in my drawing the top of the maze is grey).

top view maze

The next step is to place a vanishing point somewhere in the center of your maze.

It does not have to be perfectly centered, but somewhere in the area.

maze in 1 point perspective

Next step is to determine how dip the maze is. This is the only time you do the “guessing”.
Pick a corner on the outer wall (point A).
On the receding line that goes from this point place a dot that will be the bottom part of this corner (point B). This is how tall the wall is. The rest of the walls will be the same height, but we cannot do any measurements in perspective. Right? So we’ll have to build the rest of the maze “making it look” like all the walls are the same.

The idea is quite simple. Just keep in mind:
All lines in your drawing are either vertical, horizontal, or go to the vanishing point. That’s it! No other directions!
Also: We assume that the walls are not crooked. That means that the top of the wall is parallel to the bottom of the wall.

Keeping this in mind, let’s proceed.

maze in 1 point perspective
draw maze corner

The top corners are marked with blue dots. The bottoms of the corners – are red.
Start with the corner AB.
From this corner the top of the wall goes in two directions: up and left (follow the blue arrows). That means that the bottom of this wall goes in the same directions (follow the red arrows). AA1 is parallel to BB1; AA2 is parallel to BB2
So, from point B you draw a line that would be parallel to AA1. Stop at the receding line that comes from point A1.
From point B draw a line that is parallel to AA2. Stop at the receding line that comes from A2.

Congratulations! You are done with your first corner!

draw maze walls

Continue building the “bottom” of the outer wall.

Every wall that is attached to the outer wall is built the same way: If the two wall share the same corner on the top of the wall, they will share the same corner at the bottom.

maze outter wall in perspective

At some point you can erase the extra receding lines. Continue until you are done with every wall that is attached to the outer wall.
Now. What about the walls that are not attached to anything?
That’s easy too.

detached wall in perspective

Pick a corner of detached wall (point START).
Find a closest wall that already has the bottom line.
Connect the START corner point with this wall. Use horizontal or vertical lines only. In my case it’s a horizontal line. As you reach the wall – stop (blue point).
From this point on the wall draw a receding line to the vanishing point.
Stop as you reach the bottom line of the wall (red dot).
Draw a line back to your original corner and stop as you reach the receding line going from your START point. That will be your FINISH.
FINISH point is the bottom corner of your detached wall.

From here – just draw a line that is parallel to the top of the detached wall.

maze in 1 point perspective

Continue building the walls. When done – it should look something like this.

maze in perspective

You can color the wall now. Use different colors for the top, sides, and ground.
You can be really creative and add niches, windows, gates, old roots, etc…
Use Prizmacolor pencils to color.

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