Figures from above
Three figures and a crate from 3.2 m up, tilted 30° down: the balcony or staircase view.
What to look at
Heads are well below the horizon; you see the tops of shoulders and the crate's lid.
Verticals converge downward, narrowing toward the feet.
Foreshortening shortens every figure: the near one most of all.
What this scene is for
Three figures and a crate from 3.2 m up, tilted 30° down: the balcony, the top of the stairs, the camera in the corner of a room. Use it when a scene needs a detached observer, or when a character should look small without being far away.
The mistake it settles
Drawing a normal figure and shrinking the legs. From above, the whole body foreshortens — shoulders read wide, heads read large, feet sit close under the body — and the amount of it depends on how near the person is. The near figure in this scene is much more compressed than the far one.
The camera
| Lens | 35 mm on full frame |
| Camera height | 3.2 m above the floor (elevated) |
| Rotation | 20° to the scene's axes |
| Tilt | 30° down (three vanishing points) |
| Objects | 3 × 1.75 m figure · 1 m cube |
| Floor | 1 m squares |
Measured off this render
Taken from the same camera model the tool draws with, on the 1340 × 754 PNG above.
| Angle of view | 54.4° across (35 mm on full frame) |
| Horizon | 375 px above the top edge — outside the picture |
| Depth-axis vanishing point | 122 px from the left edge |
| Width-axis vanishing point | 3,463 px beyond the right edge |
| Vertical point | Nadir 1,879 px below the picture |
| Object | Distance | Height on the render | Below the horizon |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.75 m figure | 3.5 m | 459 px | all of it |
| 1 m cube | 4.3 m | 236 px | all of it |
| 1.75 m figure | 5.7 m | 359 px | all of it |
| 1.75 m figure | 7.3 m | 307 px | all of it |
Draw it from these numbers
- The horizon is off the top of the picture, 375 px above the edge. Mark it on a larger sheet, or work from the grid: it is why every roof and every head is below you.
- Two vanishing points on that line: 122 px from the left edge, and 3,463 px beyond the right edge — far enough out that you should match the grid angles instead of chasing it.
- Nothing here is truly vertical: the uprights lean to a nadir 1,879 px below the picture.
- Set the scale from the 1.75 m figure at 3.5 m, 459 px tall on the render; the horizon passes above it, so it is shorter than the 3.2 m camera.
Open the reference in the tool to move the camera, change the lens, or add your own objects at real sizes; the share link keeps your version. Draw over the PNG at 30–50% opacity in any app with layers.
Question
How much does a figure shorten when seen from above?
It depends on the angle between the camera and the person, not on the tilt alone. In this scene the nearest figure at 3.5 m loses far more of its height than the one at 7 m, because the line to it is steeper. That difference is what tells the eye how high the camera is.