Colour Exercise

This exercise was about using a base colour, and base shadow as a starting point. By using two seperate layers, both set to Multiply, and then paint highlights and details on yet another seperate layer on the ver top, colour in this style can be made very quick.

Original Linework by Niklas Jansson:

 

This is my final coloured image:

 

 

This is the desaturated image to help me get my tonal values more correct:

 

 

This is a little test I did to work out which way I had to move the colour picker to get a darker tone without saturating the colour.

Life Drawing / Observation Drawing

So I have yet to post any of the work from our Wednesday afternoon lesson as I have had to wait to be able to photograph them in some-what decent lighting conditions.

All the drawings were done on A2 paper, with either charcoal, pencil, or ink.

I included this close up of the head as I spent a lot of time here. I really like the way I've really made it pop out of the page using the background. But making some of the edges quite strong It helps suggest which are sharp and which are soft, rounded edges.

 After a break a grid was put behind our subject. This really helped create a perspective as we could use the negative space between the grids.

This is a small ink piece where by putting suggestive background shadow helps create the scene's full lighting.

This first page of sketches were all quick 2-3 minute sketches. A very good warm up exercise, and great practice for proportions and breaking down shapes.

The time was then increased to a few 15 minute sketches.

The time was then increased again to 30 minutes.

This final image took a lot of re-working. I constantly kept drawing what I wanted too, however once I overcome that, I achieved a great sense of perspective! Really happy with the results, and also learn a lot. Again using the negative shapes it helps to draw what you actually see and not what the mind is telling you you're seeing.

Working with value and colour

So this post is of last weeks lesson, we learnt a bit more about getting value right and to help us we watched a video made by Feng Zhu.

We were then given the line drawing Feng was using in the video to colour ourselves.

Using a layer filled black on top of all the other layers, set to the layer mode 'Saturation', we can check the values of our paintings to make sure things aren't too bright or too dark.

I didn't go too far into the detail of this drawing, I could have brought out a lot more by concentrating on the main points, adding specular lighting, and sharper edges. Maybe even some horns or spikes would have looked cool. But to be honest I didn't particularly like the drawing.



This is where I left it:

And this is with the Value Check layer on. As you can see the armour looks darker than the skin, this is because the 'Local Value' of the armour is, and will be darker than the skin. As Feng Zhu describes, a black object compared to a white object(ie. a laptop) is always going to be darker.

As you can see, although in the colour image the armour on his left arm looks like it's brighter, but the light values are the same the top of his head as it reflects the same amount.

Light Values and adding Colour

So it's been a while since I've added something to my blog. I'm currently working on a few really cool things including a South Park animation, a FPS Game!, and a little bit of programming. So keep checking back and these will hopefully soon be here.

Any way. I've just finished this and I can't wait to share it with everyone as I'm pretty happy with the results.

Today we were given this line drawing produced originally by Jordu Schell:

We were then asked to shade it, and colour it. It was important that we got tonal value correct before shading, other wise it would have looked a mess when we coloured it. This was a very fun exercise and I can't wait to do another. Here is my final outcome:

Light Studies

The topic of the day (keeping perspective in mind), was Light. It was about how light bounces off different shapes etc. Provided with the reference image I've added to the bottom of this post, we had to draw the monster, concentrating on the shading we did, whilst picking out the light.

Silhouettes

Today's lesson was about learning the technique of drawing Silhouettes.

Not much to be said about this other than we were inspired by Feng Zhu, and that I found it very disappointing when I didn't produce work similar to his!

Some Drawing

So this is a quick post of a few drawings.

Firstly this one. I'm not particularly happy with this one. It was done in our life drawing class, and you probably can't make it out but it's a close up for skeleton ribs. It needed a lot more tone and depth, and took way too long. The only good thing was I counted the ribs correctly.

 This was a small homework task to draw a gun using perspective. I really struggled with this too. I really didn't understand the text for drawing circles in perspective, and I have no idea what to do for angled parts (like the handle). So I shall be asking Steve for some advice tomorrow.

Finally we have a small study on bugs. These were quick sketches on a selection of bugs. I wanted to explore a few shapes for insects; the bodies, legs, and wings. I found a few common trends in the legs and feet, the bodies also. I'm glad I done these and now I'm thinking about picking one bug, and drawing it in several views to then try and model!

I left it there for the night as I was starting to get annoyed with my drawing - it's definitely not my strong point.

Thankfully it's 3D tomorrow. ;)

30min(ish) Mixed Media Sketch

Just a quick mixed media sketch to get me back into drawing. Shall hopefully be doing 2 drawings/sketches/paintings a week.

Abraham Lincoln

Mediums used:

• Watercolour
• Pencil (2B & 3B)
• Fine Liner (0.4mm)
• Chalk