Direct observation has been having a real positive effect on your work, the recent faces are starting to become more structurally sound.
You post your pictures huge, which, I know its a but of a failing of the forum that we dont resize them, but you might consider that the only way to see the whole thing is to open it on a new tab. Makes it a lot harder to take in multiple images at once.
If you want to start getting into painting digitally, I might suggest that you start getting into studying light. Doing small still life type things, you can start taking bite size chunks out of figuring out how to render, not unlike how you are slowly breaking down anatomy now.
Really excited to see your progress, hope that life drawing has been fun and interesting!
DVGNo. 1 Honor StudentNether Institute, Evil AcademyRegistered Userregular
Oh that’s good to know. I post and look at the internet pretty exclusively on mobile so I didn’t know it was causing a problem on bigger screens. I’ll try and figure out a solution for that
Diablo 3 - DVG#1857
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DVGNo. 1 Honor StudentNether Institute, Evil AcademyRegistered Userregular
Haven’t posted here in a minute, here’s some recent work!
I like the progress in rendering technique, and it looks like you're starting to think more about light and lighting direction. It might be good idea to take a step back and try to focus on only one light source at a time until you're sure you have that tackled, where this one has three(?) and it seems like you're having trouble figuring out which parts of the figure should be lit and which should be in shadow. I hate to suggest the classic sphere lighting practice, but intentional practice like that CAN help to stick a process in your mind. It's much easier to decide which parts of a form are 'facing' the light (and thus the brightest) if you do a ton of practice on simpler shapes like spheres and boxes and cones and all that.
And that's not even taking into account how the material affects light, (which again it looks like you're at least thinking about -- the leather jacket is shown as more reflective than her black jeans, which is good to show, but is easier to sell as 'correct' if you know how light really interacts with those materials, and knowing which parts are 'in the light' becomes even more important).
Looks like you're taking some great steps! Keep going!
Agreeing with Acadia. Those shape studies are so essential to understanding how to render that it can be really difficult to articulate how to absorb it.
Going through your thread, it seems like you have an understanding that form and structure is important, which is why you have life and anatomy studies. Your drawings from models are getting stronger, but proportions are occasionally out of whack.
Simple shape studies eliminate the incredibly complex and varied factors of anatomy. It's very useful. These illustrations are asking you to solve a bunch of problems with equal weight all at once: the light, basic forms, anatomy, poses, composition, rendering different textures. You want to break out some of those things and choose a problem to focus on.
Drawing a cube and a cone and lighting it is not exciting, but you get to the root of some problems incredibly fast. You need edge control to light a cube. You need to understand how planes are effected by light direction to light a cube. You need to understand how curved forms react to light directions to light a cone.
Some of the images in this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/172670/enrichment-simple-shapes-light-and-form/p1 are broken now, but most of it is there. You might be surprised at the value of posting your basic exercises as well! If you really put some effort in, you can build up a lot of confidence when you start trying to solve these larger problems. The trick is not to skimp out on the exercises even a little because they are boring, and focus knowing that it might make your paintings that much better.
DVGNo. 1 Honor StudentNether Institute, Evil AcademyRegistered Userregular
(good lord these pictures are huge, it's so weird, they're tiny on my phone)
Thanks for the feedback! I don't want to come off like I think simple shapes are beneath me. I recognize basic perspective is a weak point, and I'm gonna go hard on draw a box after I finish up some commissions I sold for charity. I'm also thinking about grabbing a set of basic form models off amazon.
Diablo 3 - DVG#1857
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DVGNo. 1 Honor StudentNether Institute, Evil AcademyRegistered Userregular
Also I won't claim I really tried to design the light source all that much, I was just working from a ref and doing my best:
buying models is great, but if you dont want to spend any money, house hold objects will often do the trick!
Didn't mean to lecture too much, you dont seem like you're avoiding it! You are just on a good trajectory, so its a really great time to jump back into those very basics. I think working on a cycle is a good thing, you're pushing your knowledge right now with something more challenging, if you flip that back and forth between basic shapes, material studies, anatomy and perspective, you'll be well on your way to see tons of improvement over time.
Posts
Hey, thanks!
Don't be afraid to try something creative/not-a-study every once in a while too!
You post your pictures huge, which, I know its a but of a failing of the forum that we dont resize them, but you might consider that the only way to see the whole thing is to open it on a new tab. Makes it a lot harder to take in multiple images at once.
If you want to start getting into painting digitally, I might suggest that you start getting into studying light. Doing small still life type things, you can start taking bite size chunks out of figuring out how to render, not unlike how you are slowly breaking down anatomy now.
Really excited to see your progress, hope that life drawing has been fun and interesting!
About to light someone up with some Anger Magic
And that's not even taking into account how the material affects light, (which again it looks like you're at least thinking about -- the leather jacket is shown as more reflective than her black jeans, which is good to show, but is easier to sell as 'correct' if you know how light really interacts with those materials, and knowing which parts are 'in the light' becomes even more important).
Looks like you're taking some great steps! Keep going!
Going through your thread, it seems like you have an understanding that form and structure is important, which is why you have life and anatomy studies. Your drawings from models are getting stronger, but proportions are occasionally out of whack.
Simple shape studies eliminate the incredibly complex and varied factors of anatomy. It's very useful. These illustrations are asking you to solve a bunch of problems with equal weight all at once: the light, basic forms, anatomy, poses, composition, rendering different textures. You want to break out some of those things and choose a problem to focus on.
Drawing a cube and a cone and lighting it is not exciting, but you get to the root of some problems incredibly fast. You need edge control to light a cube. You need to understand how planes are effected by light direction to light a cube. You need to understand how curved forms react to light directions to light a cone.
Some of the images in this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/172670/enrichment-simple-shapes-light-and-form/p1 are broken now, but most of it is there. You might be surprised at the value of posting your basic exercises as well! If you really put some effort in, you can build up a lot of confidence when you start trying to solve these larger problems. The trick is not to skimp out on the exercises even a little because they are boring, and focus knowing that it might make your paintings that much better.
Thanks for the feedback! I don't want to come off like I think simple shapes are beneath me. I recognize basic perspective is a weak point, and I'm gonna go hard on draw a box after I finish up some commissions I sold for charity. I'm also thinking about grabbing a set of basic form models off amazon.
Didn't mean to lecture too much, you dont seem like you're avoiding it! You are just on a good trajectory, so its a really great time to jump back into those very basics. I think working on a cycle is a good thing, you're pushing your knowledge right now with something more challenging, if you flip that back and forth between basic shapes, material studies, anatomy and perspective, you'll be well on your way to see tons of improvement over time.