Every overlay for the figurative practice, free in the browser.
Loomis head construction, Bargue-tradition observational drawing, golden-ratio composition, dynamic symmetry, perspective grids for architectural backgrounds, sacred geometry for ornament work — 82 overlays serving every figurative discipline in one free in-browser tool.
Artists — portrait, landscape, comic, concept, tattoo, students — use Grid Maker Pro for head construction (Loomis, Reilly, Asaro, Bargue-style), proportional grid transfer (square / rectangular / custom / diagonal-cell / cross-diagonal), composition systems (golden ratio, rule of thirds, Bouleau armature, dynamic symmetry root rectangles), perspective grids for backgrounds (1pt/2pt/3pt/isometric), and the 70+ specialty overlays for ornament, tattoo, comic, and concept work. The full atelier-tradition toolkit, plus everything beyond it.
Pick the discipline you work in.
Six audience pages — portrait, landscape, comic, concept, tattoo, students — each with the overlay set tuned to its working tradition.
Portrait painters
Loomis, Reilly, Asaro, Bargue, golden ratio for facial proportion work.
Landscape painters
Rule of thirds, golden ratio, rabatment, root rectangles for plein-air composition.
Comic & manga artists
Comic panel templates, perspective grids, Loomis heads for character sheets.
Concept artists
3-point perspective, isometric, Loomis + Asaro for character + environment work.
Tattoo artists
Mandala / radial / sacred-geometry, lettering grids, Loomis for portrait tattoo work.
Art students & teachers
Grid method foundations, Bargue plates, atelier sighting, the basic-drawing toolkit.
Eight overlays every figurative artist should know.
The shortlist. Four construction grid overlays for the figure itself, four for composition and transfer with the grid method for drawing.
- Loomis Head — spherical head construction for any angle, the daily-driver portrait method.
- The Reilly method — guide to the rhythmic curves that integrate the portrait head with the body.
- The Asaro head — guide to the planar head and how it predicts light across facial planes.
- Figure Proportion — the 8-head canon for full standing figures, the figure-proportion grid for figure drawing.
- Golden Ratio — phi-grid composition for serious figurative work.
- Rule of Thirds — the everyday composition decision.
- Armature 14-line — Bouleau's reverse-engineered Old Master composition system.
- Square Grid — the classical grid-method workhorse for reference transfer.
Plus 74 more overlays — dynamic-symmetry root rectangles, perspective systems, sacred-geometry figures, specialty crafts grids — covering everything beyond the figurative-art core.
The artist workflow the tool is built around.
A 10–30 minute opening pass, then 1–3 hours of unobstructed paint, pencil, or pixel work.
The typical working artist's session with the tool spans 10-30 minutes and follows a recognisable pattern. Open the tool, drop in a reference photograph (a model, a landscape, a still life setup), and lay a drawing grid over the reference image to square up a drawing for proportional transfer, or activate the most appropriate construction overlay (a head method for portraits, a composition system for landscape, a proportional grid for any subject). Adjust the overlay's position and rotation to align with key features of the subject. Use the overlaid image as the working reference for the next 1-3 hours of pencil, paint, or digital work on the destination canvas. Return to the tool briefly mid-session if the reference needs re-positioning or if a different overlay would help with a specific element.
The privacy model matters here in ways that are not obvious until the artist starts taking commissioned work. Reference photographs for commission portraits are usually private — the client did not consent to their photograph being uploaded to a third-party server, and the artist may be under contract not to share the reference outside their immediate workspace. Grid Maker Pro's client-side processing means the reference photograph never leaves the artist's device, which makes the tool usable for commission work where comparable upload-based tools are not.
Cross-discipline overlays artists adopt from neighbouring fields
Artists working in primarily figurative traditions sometimes adopt overlays from adjacent fields and find them useful in unexpected ways. The 12-column web grid, originally for product UI, is a useful proportional structure for editorial illustration where the artwork needs to coexist with text columns at known proportions. The sacred-geometry overlays (Flower of Life, Vesica Piscis) are useful for mandala-style decorative work and for symbolic compositions that benefit from rotational symmetry. The dynamic-symmetry root rectangles, originally for analysing classical Greek vase decoration, are useful for any composition where the proportional rhythm of the canvas itself wants to be visible in the finished work. The Modulor proportions, originally for architecture, scale down to figure compositions where human-scale proportional relationships matter.
Long-form guides
How working artists use the overlay set.
A portrait painter, a comic artist, a concept artist — on the one or two overlays that earn their place in the daily session.
Loomis sphere first, every commission. I block in the head construction in the first ten minutes — front, three-quarter, profile, whatever the client picked — and only then start the observational drawing. Saves a day of repainting later when the jaw is wrong.
For comic pages I lay the panel grid first, then drop a two-point perspective grid into each panel that needs depth. The trick is that the perspective overlay stays separate from the panel borders — I can rotate or move it without re-jigging the page layout.
For environments I'm in 3-point perspective and the Asaro head all day. The thing that matters is that the privacy is real — game concept reference is under NDA in most of the studios I freelance for, so the no-upload model is the only reason I can use the tool for client work.
Frequently asked questions
Which overlays does an artist actually use?
For most figurative artists: a head-construction method (Loomis, Reilly, or Asaro depending on training tradition), a basic grid (square or rectangular) for reference transfer, one composition system (golden ratio or rule of thirds), and a perspective grid (1pt, 2pt, or 3pt) for architectural backgrounds. Specialist work adds dynamic-symmetry root rectangles, the Bouleau armature, or the Bargue plates depending on the discipline.
Is Grid Maker Pro suitable for atelier training?
Yes — the catalogue ships the full atelier-tradition overlay set (Loomis, Reilly, Asaro, plus the square / rectangular / custom / diagonal-cell / cross-diagonal grids used in Bargue-style plate copying) plus the proportional measurement and fixed-measurement guides. Several classical-realist programmes use it as the digital companion to traditional pencil-and-paper instruction.
Can I work from photo reference or only from life?
Both. The grid-method overlays (square, rectangular, custom, diagonal-cell, cross-diagonal) work identically for photo reference and from-life sighting. The Loomis head construction works for either too — the construction is independent of whether you're observing or inventing the head.
How do I use a grid to draw a face?
Open the reference photo in the tool and lay a square grid over it, then draw the same grid lightly on your paper or canvas at the size you want. Copy what falls inside each cell, one cell at a time, so proportions stay accurate. For a head specifically you can switch to the Loomis head construction overlay instead, which gives you the cranial sphere, brow line, and centre line to build the face from, rather than copying square by square.
Is the grid method cheating?
No. The grid method is a centuries-old transfer technique — Albrecht Dürer's woodcuts document gridded drawing frames in use during the Renaissance. It scales and places a reference accurately, but it does not draw the values, edges, or marks for you; the observation and execution are still yours. If you would rather build form from understanding than copy cell by cell, the Loomis head and figure-proportion construction overlays are the alternative.
References
- Loomis, Andrew. Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth. Viking Press (1943). The foundational text on constructive figure drawing.
- Bouleau, Charles. The Painter’s Secret Geometry: A Study of Composition in Art. Harcourt, Brace & World (1963). The canonical study of compositional armatures.
- Edwards, Betty. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Tarcher/Perigee (4th ed., 2012). ISBN 978-1-58542-920-2. On observational drawing and the grid method.
Eighty-two overlays, free in any browser.
No signup, no upload, image stays on your device. The full atelier-tradition overlay set plus everything beyond it — Loomis, Reilly, Asaro, Bargue, golden ratio, dynamic symmetry, perspective grids, sacred geometry, comic panels, lettering grids.
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