# Draw or block it out, and see it rendered live

Draw in Draw & Preview or block out shapes in Blockout Builder, let AI render it as you work, and turn the best render into a 3D model, step by step.

> Canonical: https://ai3d.studio/docs/draw-and-blockout

A rough idea is quicker to draw than to describe. [Draw & Preview](https://ai3d.studio/draw-and-preview) turns a drawing into a finished picture, and [Blockout Builder](https://ai3d.studio/blockout-builder) does the same for a blockout of simple 3D shapes. Each render takes a few seconds, so you can try an idea, change it and see the difference straight away. The picture you like best goes on to Image to 3D, which turns it into a model.

A frame costs 1 credit and an HD frame 4. A frame that fails costs nothing, and nothing renders until you ask for it or switch Live on.

## Step 1: Draw it in Draw & Preview

1. Open [Draw & Preview](https://ai3d.studio/draw-and-preview). Start from one of the seven drawings (a cottage, a coffee mug, a toy rocket, a little car, a house plant, a line-art chair or a kitty) or from a blank sheet. Draw over a picture of your own to trace it: the picture sits under your drawing, so the eraser and Clear take away only your lines, and Remove picture takes it away and keeps them.
2. Draw with the pen, rub out with the eraser, and fill a shape with the bucket. A stylus draws thinner or thicker as you press. There are eight colours: lines set the shape, and colour blocks set where each colour goes.
3. Line, Box and Ellipse draw a clean shape in the pen's colour and width: drag from one corner to the other. Hold Shift for a straight line, a square or a circle.
4. The lasso picks up part of a drawing: draw a loop around it, then drag inside the loop to move it, or press Delete selection (or the Delete key) to take it away. Tap outside the loop to put it down; one Undo takes back the move.
5. Layers keep parts of a drawing apart, up to four of them. Add a layer to draw on a new one above the one you are on, click a layer's name to draw on it, hide it with its eye, move it up or down, or delete it. The render and the picture you take on show only the layers in sight.
6. Undo, Redo and Clear work as you would expect; Clear empties every layer and keeps them. Your drawing, its layers and its picture are kept in this browser, so a reload or a closed tab brings them back.

![Draw & Preview with the toy rocket drawing: the seven starter drawings above the sheet, pen, eraser, fill and the colours, and the render panel beside it](https://cdn.ai3d.studio/ai3d/image/docs/draw-and-blockout/step-1-v2.webp)

## Step 2: Say what it is and choose a look

1. Write what the drawing is in What is it?, up to 600 characters. "A cute toy rocket ship with a white body" renders far closer than no words at all. A starter drawing fills this in for you.
2. Choose a look: 3D render, Stylized game asset, Clay figure, Low poly, Realistic photo, Concept art, or No style to leave the look to your words.
3. Follow the drawing sets how closely the picture keeps your shapes: Exactly, Closely or Loosely.
4. Choose a Plain white background, which works best for Image to 3D, or a Scene.

## Step 3: Render, or switch Live on

Press Render to make one frame. Switch Live on and a frame renders a moment after each change, one at a time, so ten quick strokes cost one more frame rather than ten. HD renders at 1024 pixels instead of 512, for 4 credits a frame.

New variation keeps everything and tries a different seed. The last 16 renders of your visit are kept under the picture; click one to bring it back.

On a phone the render panel sits below the drawing, so the latest render also shows small in a corner of the sheet while you draw. Tap it to go to the panel, or put it away with its X.

![The toy rocket drawing on the left and its render on the right, in the Clay figure look on a plain white background](https://cdn.ai3d.studio/ai3d/image/docs/draw-and-blockout/step-3.webp)

## Step 4: Block it out in Blockout Builder

1. Open [Blockout Builder](https://ai3d.studio/blockout-builder) and start from one of six templates (a cottage, a snowman, a mushroom house, a retro robot, a toy rocket or a little car) or from nothing.
2. Add a box, sphere, cylinder, cone, torus, capsule, prism or curve, a bent tube for a handle, a tail or an arch. Click a shape to select it, then Move, Turn or Stretch it with the handles, and give it a colour. The shapes list names each shape (a template's and the Shape assistant's come named, such as head or left wheel); click one to select it, and rename the selected shape in Name.
3. Duplicate copies a shape, and Mirror copies it to the other side of the centre line, for an arm, an ear or a wheel. Delete removes it, and Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z undoes. Blender's keys work too: G to move, R to turn, S to stretch, Shift+D to duplicate, M to mirror, H to make a hole, X to delete and F to frame.
4. Repeat copies the selected shape in a row along X, Y or Z (touching, with a small gap or a large one), for fence posts, columns or a chair's legs, or in a ring around the centre line, for petals, spokes or a clock's marks. Each copy in a ring turns with its place, and one Undo takes the whole row or ring back.
5. The mode button (Solid, until you change it) makes the selected shape act on the shapes it overlaps instead of being one. Hole cuts its shape out, for a window, an arch or the hollow of a mug. Clip keeps only what lies inside it, for a dome from a sphere. Paint colours what lies inside it in its own colour, for a stripe or a patch, without changing the shape. Such a shape shows as a see-through ghost so you can move it, the result follows as you do, and the render and the downloaded model leave the ghost out. Choose Solid to make it a shape again; H switches Hole on and off.
6. Blend melts the selected shape into the shapes it touches, like clay pressed together: raise it for a body and a head or a snowman's snowballs, and turn it all the way down for a crisp join like a door or a lid. Shapes with a blend that touch become one smooth surface, in each shape's own colour, and holes, clips and paint still work on it. You can still click, move and turn each shape inside it.
7. Hide puts the selected shape out of sight, to reach what is behind it or to render without it; a hidden shape is left out of the render and the downloaded model and cuts nothing. Its name in the shapes list brings it back, and Show all brings every hidden shape back.
8. Drag to look around and Frame all to fit everything in. What you see is what the render reads, without the grid or the handles. Your blockout is kept in this browser, and Download model saves it as a GLB for a 3D app.

![Blockout Builder with the cottage template: the shapes and tools above the 3D view, and the Picture and Shape assistant tabs beside it](https://cdn.ai3d.studio/ai3d/image/docs/draw-and-blockout/step-4-v2.webp)

## Step 5: Let the Shape assistant start it

On the Shape assistant tab, describe what you want and the assistant writes an editable blockout of simple shapes for you to shape by hand.

- Start over makes a fresh blockout, Simple (about 4 to 10 shapes) or Detailed (about 10 to 30). Undo brings back the one you had.
- Add to it puts new shapes on the blockout you have, such as a hat on a character.
- Edit it rewrites the blockout as you ask, such as "make it blue".
- Add a reference picture (PNG, JPEG or WebP) and the assistant blocks out what it shows, with or without words. It is shrunk to 768 pixels in your browser first, which also drops the photo's location and camera details.

An answer costs 3 credits, charged only when it comes back as a usable blockout.

![The cottage blockout on the left and its render on the right, in the Stylized game asset look](https://cdn.ai3d.studio/ai3d/image/docs/draw-and-blockout/step-5.webp)

## Step 6: Make it 3D

Make it 3D opens [Image to 3D](https://ai3d.studio/image-to-3d) with the render already in place as its picture, and a note says it came from Draw & Preview or Blockout Builder. Choose a model there and generate; the 3D run is priced before it starts. Download saves the render as a picture instead.

The renders themselves are previews: they are kept for a day and are not added to My Library. The picture you take to Image to 3D is uploaded with that run, and the model it makes is saved in My Library.