• 60 ideas

3D Art Ideas

Press the button for three illusions and the trick behind each, then start the clock and see if the page stops looking flat.

3D Art Ideas

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  1. Wire cube that flips as you stare at itAmbiguous figure. Plain paper. Twelve lines, no shading, no hidden edges, so either square can be the front face.
  2. Staircase that climbs for ever around a square roofImpossible figure. Plain paper. Four flights, each going up, joined in a loop. Shade every riser the same way.
  3. Smiley that only appears in a cylinder mirrorMirror anamorphosis. Plain paper. Smear the face around a circle; a shiny tin stood in the centre pulls it together.

Next step Step up: hard things to drawMore patterns that fool the eye: trippy art

All 60 ideas

Curved contour lines 12

  • Dent pressed into a striped page Contour lines. Lined paper helps. Bow the stripes downward inside the circle and the bump becomes a bowl.
  • Face pushing through a sheet of lines Contour lines. Lined paper helps. Lines lift over brow, nose and chin; the steeper the form, the tighter they bunch.
  • Hand rising out of lined paper Contour lines. Lined paper helps. Trace your hand faintly, arch every line that crosses it, keep the rest flat.
  • Heart puffed up like a cushion Contour lines. Lined paper helps. Lines hump over each lobe and dip sharply in the notch between them.
  • Mountain range made only of level lines Contour lines. Lined paper helps. No outline at all: each line humps where a peak stands, and peaks overlap.
  • Ripples spreading across a lined page Contour lines. Lined paper helps. Each line rises and falls as it crosses the rings, tallest near the centre.
  • Snake winding over and under the lines Contour lines. Lined paper helps. Arch the lines over each coil; where the body dives under, leave them straight.
  • Sphere bulging from a sheet of stripes Contour lines. Lined paper helps. Inside a circle the stripes bow upward, spread widest across its middle.
  • Striped cloth draped over a box Contour lines. Lined paper helps. Stripes lie flat on top, drop straight at the edge and ripple where cloth pools.
  • Tube tied in one loose knot, ringed all along Contour lines. Plain paper. Ring the tube every few millimetres; rings crowd where it turns away from you.
  • Tunnel of rings sinking into the page Contour lines. Plain paper. Nest circles off-centre with gaps shrinking inward, then shade every second ring.
  • Your name embossed under a striped sheet Contour lines. Lined paper helps. Pencil fat letters faintly, hump each line crossing one, erase the outlines.

Cast shadow and shading 12

  • Corner of the page peeling up in a curl Cast shadow. Plain paper. Shade the curl's underside and lay a soft shadow on the page below, darkest at the fold.
  • Crack splitting a lined sheet in two Cast shadow. Lined paper helps. Shift the lines a few millimetres across the crack and darken one lip for depth.
  • Cube floating above the page Cast shadow. Plain paper. Leave a gap between the cube and its shadow: the wider the gap, the higher it floats.
  • Egg in an egg cup with one lost edge Shading. Plain paper. No outline on the lit side: white paper is the edge, and the shadow side carries the form.
  • Glass marble and its bright-centred shadow Shading. Plain paper. Glass passes light, so leave a pale spot inside the cast shadow and a glint on the marble.
  • Hole cut in the paper Cast shadow. Plain paper. An ellipse whose inner wall is darkest on the side nearest the light, grey at the far rim.
  • Letters cut out of the page, lit from the left Cast shadow. Plain paper. Draw only the inner shadow along each letter's top and left edges. The eye adds the rest.
  • Pencil propped on an eraser Cast shadow. Plain paper. The shadow meets the pencil where it touches the page and drifts away at the raised end.
  • Sphere resting on a table, lit from one side Shading. Plain paper. Highlight, mid-tone, core shadow, a thin band of reflected light, then the cast shadow.
  • Torn strip of paper with bricks showing beneath Cast shadow. Plain paper. A ragged white edge with a thin shadow under it lifts the tear off the wall behind.
  • Water droplets sitting on the sheet Shading. Plain paper. Each drop is dark toward the light with a white glint, pale on the far side, shadow beyond.
  • Zip opening the page onto darkness Cast shadow. Plain paper. Solid black between the teeth, a tiny shadow under each tooth, a pull tab with a glint.

One- and two-point perspective 12

  • 3D block letters with every corner pulled to one point One-point. Lined paper helps. Letters sit between two lines; rule each corner to the VP and cut the sides off level.
  • Arrow bursting out of the page toward you One-point. Plain paper. A big arrowhead in front, the shaft shrinking to a VP behind it. Overlap sells the depth.
  • Cube frame built from square beams Two-point. Plain paper. Draw a box, then a smaller window in each face; beams need inner edges to look solid.
  • Drawer sliding out of the paper Two-point. Plain paper. A box drawn corner-on with a dark slot behind it, as if the page were a cabinet front.
  • Open window in the middle of the page One-point. Plain paper. Give the frame thickness on two inner sides, swing the shutters toward you, add sky.
  • Stairs going down into the page One-point. Lined paper helps. A rectangle with a VP inside it; steps shrink toward the VP and each riser is darker.
  • Swimming pool sunk into the sheet One-point. Lined paper helps. Four walls run to a VP under the water line and the tile rows shrink as they go down.
  • Tiled floor with a pit where tiles are missing One-point. Plain paper. Tiles converge on a VP; leave a block of them out and drop four walls into the gap.
  • Towers rising toward you, seen from straight above One-point. Plain paper. VP at the centre; every wall runs outward from it, so the roofs come up at the viewer.
  • Trapdoor open in the floor of the page One-point. Plain paper. Shaft walls converge on a VP inside the opening; the lid is a leaning slab with a shadow.
  • Tunnel of squares shrinking to the centre One-point. Plain paper. Nest squares around one VP, join their corners, then fill alternate bands black.
  • Word standing up like a row of slabs Two-point. Lined paper helps. Letters as thick slabs on a ground line, each with a shadow slanting the same way.

Anamorphic stretch 12

  • Ball hovering over the paper Anamorphic stretch. Plain paper. Draw an egg with its fat end away from you; the shadow is a separate flat oval.
  • Doorway standing open on the page Anamorphic stretch. Lined paper helps. A tall trapezium, wider at the far end, dark inside, its shadow toward you.
  • Glass of water you could pick up Anamorphic stretch. Plain paper. Stretch the glass, widen the rim end, then trim the paper away around the top.
  • Hidden word that reads only from the page edge Anamorphic stretch. Lined paper helps. Letters ten times taller than wide. Tilt the sheet almost flat to read it.
  • Ladder climbing out of the sheet Anamorphic stretch. Plain paper. Rails widen toward the far end. View from low at the near edge and it stands up.
  • Mug copied through a stretched grid Anamorphic stretch. Plain paper. Square grid on a photo, a long fanned grid on the page, copied square by square.
  • Pencil balanced on its point Anamorphic stretch. Plain paper. A long wedge, widest at the far end, with a short shadow starting at the tip.
  • Smiley that only appears in a cylinder mirror Mirror anamorphosis. Plain paper. Smear the face around a circle; a shiny tin stood in the centre pulls it together.
  • Staircase rising off the sheet Anamorphic stretch. Plain paper. Treads stay level and risers stretch, each step wider than the last as it recedes.
  • Standing cube drawn twice as tall as it should be Anamorphic stretch. Lined paper helps. Stretch the cube up the page, wider at the far end. View from the near edge.
  • Tower of toy bricks standing on the sheet Anamorphic stretch. Plain paper. Each brick is a little taller and wider than the one nearer to you.
  • Your name standing upright on the page Anamorphic stretch. Lined paper helps. Tall, top-heavy letters with a shadow toward you. Look from low down.

Impossible and isometric shapes 12

  • Fork with three prongs and only two bars Impossible figure. Lined paper helps. Three round prongs turn into two square bars half-way. Also called a blivet.
  • Impossible cube with a back bar crossing in front Impossible figure. Plain paper. Draw a cube frame from beams, then let one rear beam pass over a front one.
  • Impossible picture frame with four twisted corners Impossible figure. Plain paper. The tribar's cousin with four bars: every corner is sound, the whole is not.
  • Impossible triangle made of three square bars Impossible figure. Plain paper. Each corner is a sound right angle; together they cannot exist. Also called a tribar.
  • Isometric cube from three diamonds Isometric. Plain paper. Three rhombuses meet at the centre, edges 30 degrees off level. Top light, one side dark.
  • Isometric room with the two near walls removed Isometric. Plain paper. The floor is a diamond; furniture is boxes whose edges stay parallel to the walls.
  • Isometric staircase of stacked cubes Isometric. Plain paper. No vanishing points: every edge is vertical or 30 degrees off level, and none converge.
  • Staircase that climbs for ever around a square roof Impossible figure. Plain paper. Four flights, each going up, joined in a loop. Shade every riser the same way.
  • Twisted band with one single side Shading. Plain paper. A strip with a half-twist, a Möbius strip; shade it darkest where the band turns from the light.
  • Wall of cubes that reads as steps up, then steps down Isometric. Plain paper. Rows of rhombuses in three tones, light, mid and dark. Turn the page and the cubes flip.
  • Wire cube that flips as you stare at it Ambiguous figure. Plain paper. Twelve lines, no shading, no hidden edges, so either square can be the front face.
  • Your initial in cabinet projection Oblique projection. Lined paper helps. Flat front face, depth drawn back at 45 degrees and halved in length.

How it works

Sixty drawings that make a flat sheet look solid: these 3d art ideas come 12 to a trick, and the five tricks are curved contour lines, cast shadow, perspective, anamorphic stretch and impossible shapes. Every hint names its trick and says whether lined paper helps. Pick a group to practise one trick until it works.

Read the full guide

Five tricks and what each one fakes

Curved contour lines fake a bulge: in Hand rising out of lined paper, only the lines crossing the hand bend. A cast shadow fakes height, and the wider the gap under Cube floating above the page, the higher it sits. Perspective fakes depth, as in Stairs going down into the page. Impossible shapes fake sense: each corner of the tribar is sound and the whole is not. These are quick 3d things to draw.

Anamorphic drawings work from one spot

An anamorphic drawing is stretched on purpose and only looks right from one viewpoint, usually low, at the near edge of the page. Draw Ladder climbing out of the sheet with its rails widening away from you, then look along the paper. The mirror kind, Smiley that only appears in a cylinder mirror, pulls together in a shiny tin. Street painters use the same stretch on pavements.

  • Photograph anamorphic drawings with a phone held low at the near edge. One lens reads the illusion better than two eyes.
  • Keep one light direction per sheet. Pencil a small arrow in the corner and send every shadow away from it.
  • No lined paper? Rule your own lines 8 mm apart with a hard pencil before you trace your hand.

Questions and answers

Which 3d drawing ideas are easiest to start with?

Choose On lined paper: 21 ideas where the printed lines do half the work. Hand rising out of lined paper needs a traced outline and a steady arch. Hole cut in the paper is one ellipse and some shading. Leave the Anamorphic stretch group for later, because those need measuring.

Is this the same as perspective drawing?

Only partly. Twelve ideas use one-point or two-point perspective, but as tricks that break the surface of the page, like Trapdoor open in the floor of the page. For rooms, streets and buildings set up with a horizon line, go to perspective exercises.

What pencils and paper do I need?

An HB for outlines, a 4B for shadows and a rubber. The cast-shadow ideas depend on the soft pencil, because a pale shadow will not lift Cube floating above the page off the sheet. Lined paper does half the work for 21 ideas. For the anamorphic ones use A4 or larger, since the stretch needs room.

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