The way light bends and behaves in a transparent cube always mess with my head and makes using photo references less helpful to me. So i bought one of those notes-holders that have a clear acrylic cube as a stand and took a bunch of photos!
Disclaimer (please oh my god read this disclaimer because i know you’re gonna skip this paragraph otherwise) - i dont remember anything about this from science class in high school. And googling “glass cube refraction/light” only gives me diagrams or stock photos that doesnt seem to explain the scenario i often see myself in with this. So be aware that what im writing in this post is mainly my own observations and me just trying to make sense of how the “insides” of a transparent cube behaves from an artists point of view, if you’re a physicist i apologise in advance for making up my own terms or use the wrong words etc. I will update this post if needed.
The “cube inside the cube” thing:
As shown in these three images, as i turn the cube sideways and then tilt it downwards, so we can see three sides of it, there is this smaller ‘cube’ inside that appears. Its not an actual cube, just an illusion of one due to how light bends inside it. I am pretty sure this mini cube is actually just the backside of each side.
Here is a similar set of photos of the cube in the same set of angles. But this time with a teal pen behind it. The pen is most visible through the ‘inner cube’ here. We can also see that the darker blue inner sides of the cube are more saturated in color.
Bright highlights
Notice how the opposite side inside of the cube is also lit up, as well as really saturated? It’s as if the highlight first hits the surface of the cube, and is then also lighting up the inside of it! But it doesnt seem to light up the whole “bottom” inner side.
Cube on a surface vs Suspended in the air
Now this here. This fucking thing here. Is why i struggle so much with using photo references of transparent cubes. If you look closely at the “mini cube” here, it changes when the cube is on a surface. The reason is because the underside is against the surface so it cannot be lit from below by the white paper. But isnt it interesting how this only seem to occur on the top of the cube and not on the sides? I don’t know why this is the case, i probably could find an answer if i had an actual prism cube of glass or better acrylic but those can be expensive.
In any case, i hope these photos will be of any use. The best thing you can do is to het an acrylic cube yourself and place it in the angle you plan to draw it in!
Wait, did people think I was just saying it as a meme and not literally pointing out “this is just that specific thing from Buddhism everyone thinks is equivalent to Christian sainthood”??????
Reflection from Mulan was so crazy she literally sang “If I were truly to be myself I would break my family’s heart” and 8 year old proto-gay me was like “I don’t know what you mean but I know what you mean”
I want the writer’s strike to last until they get everything they demand and more. I want the SAG strike to last until AI is entirely forbidden across the board in the entire industry. I want CGI artists to unionize and strike. I want animators to strike. I want composers and directors and designers and VAs and techies and producers and stage hands and game devs and programmers and recording artists to strike.
I want every aspect of the entertainment industry brought to a grinding halt for months or even years to take it from the corps and put it back in the hands of the artists.
