In bas-relief and painting, even though they are two separate arts, the same canons were in force. Just like in painting, depicting the figure of a man, the Egyptians showed his head in profile, and the shoulders and eyes straight ahead, which made an impression, that the character simultaneously turns to the viewer and passes by.
It is true that the Egyptians were able to present the figure of a man in any view, but exceptions to the rule in force were made only exceptionally, in relation to foreigners or people of lower status.
In the case of the bas-relief, the construction grid was also based on 18 rows of squares, from the ground to the hairline (the number of units used above depended on the headgear). The lines and grids used to prepare the sketches followed the Egyptian length measurement system, which made it possible to enlarge the reliefs in the future. Same as in painting, rulers were portrayed as beautiful and young, bigger than their subjects, and ordinary people in a more natural way.
In addition, animals and plants were frequent in the reliefs, battle and genre scenes. In one of the tombs from the Middle Kingdom, the burial chamber was made of granite blocks, and decorated with beautiful reliefs. The preserved fragments of bas-reliefs show scenes of hunting desert animals and birds, fishing, wars and cult ceremonies. In the time of the New Kingdom, when the construction of monumental temples and tombs was widely started, the reliefs covered large pyloms on the sides of the entrances to the temples. They told about the deeds of the pharaohs defeating the enemy and worshiping the gods.
The play of light and shadow played a very important role in the process of creating a new release, which gave the bas-relief the intended effect. Of course, the appropriate shape of the surface was also of great importance, which could be convex or concave. In the case of a convex relief, the surface surrounding the figures was removed to a depth of approx. 5 Mm, while contours were cut in the concave, that is, the surface was left and the figures were molded in its depths. Convex reliefs were usually placed inside the building and concave reliefs outside, because they looked much better in the sunlight.