!!Peer Project!! Foundational Activities - Learning, Teaching, and Toast !

[Idiot Apathy]

Anyways - big news:
Peer Project Volume Two has launched:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=76955

Links to Some Other Threads You Should Also Participate In / Will Come in Handy

Digital Painting in PS (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47859)
Bumskee's thread about some great basics and not so basics on painting digitally.
Don't worry it's pertinent to photoshop and painter, and the rest really.

New Artists Seeking Help Come Here! (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=64711)
Looks to have some great potential, just popped up.
This is Infinitum's baby, emphasis seems to be on drawing, lighting/shading etc.
Not entirely sure of it's complete scope, however you will probably see me in there brushing up some skills :)

*[Disclaimer]* I feel like such a pompous ass to post something this "ambitious" and where it makes me seem like I "know" what I'm talking about, it's taken some balls to actually post it so I hope it does well. Don't think me altruistic however, a major motivation is to learn from you guys (selfish greed by any other name!). So, if it sinks don't rub it in :P.

Feedback is vital here ! Speak your mind !

The Idea:
I'm a big fan of the The New Media Coloring Book (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=17968) (Thanks Sammy!); I've used it for almost two years now as quick dirty practice, not just of color but of technique, speed, value, everything overall really. I really can't tell you how vital it has been. I came up with this idea with the help of some other members not to be a replacement for the Coloring Book but as an addendum. (Perhaps like a foundation class to help you on the fun stuff? )

So. this thread is here to educate ourselves, it will go something like this: Edited: Updated Guidelines
A: The projects will be set-up with a goal in mind, specific or loose depending on the general idea and lesson in mind.
B: Do the project and create a dialogue of what you did and why. (Try and think about this while you do the project, this is important; we will be better able to learn from each other as well as catch each other's mistakes.)
C: The Dialogue will be analysed by your peers; (Right or wrong, the idea is to have a reason why and explain it. I think this will be key )
D: And of course at the same time peer critiques will be offered. (Pretty simple no?)
E: You shouldn't have to spend a large amount of time on this however spend as much time as you need, give it your best.
F. All Projects/Exercises are of course optional, have no order, and are always open to participation. Start wherever and whenever you want!
G. People who are too embarassed to post their results will be shot on sight, you're here to learn not to show off.
Feel free to make suggestions!
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Now this in mind, even though I'm the so called "Creator" of this thread:
I am not a teacher, and I am not qualified to be the teacher. We will all be the "teachers" and the students. I would however like to be the "Supervisor" until the thread gets its roots. I'm going to start it off with some really simple exercises and would like to see others contribute exercises after it gets off the ground.
For now if you would like to contribute an exercise, could you run the exercise by me with a PM before you post it?

I think we'd all love if it some of you Professionals could stop by as well, tell us what we've been doing right and wrong.
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I strongly recommend you read the discussions and analyses within others posts that are between exercises. I see a lot of the same advice being repeated. Read through this for your sake; I mean don't you want to learn faster?

This being said, sometimes advice or critiques will be given that may be incorrect, or misconceptions; I most likely am not innocent of this either. If you spot mistakes be sure and correct them! Don't confuse these with opinions however, which are never wrong only different.
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Some Basics and Definitions:
These are just so we are all on the same page here, I think a unified vocabulary will help with clearer critiques and dialogue. Besides that, these are things I didn't know at one time so perhaps they will be helpful to some?

Value: The amount of light (brightness) or lack of light (darkness).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Value-Bar.jpg
Synomyms: Brightness
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Intensity: How strong or pure a hue is.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/50per-Intensity.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/20per-Intesity_01.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/20per-Intesity_02.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/20per-Intesity_03.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/20per-Intesity_04.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/20per-Intesity_05.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/20per-Intesity_06.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/20per-Intesity_07.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/20per-Intesity_08.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/20per-Intesity_09.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/20per-Intesity_10.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/20per-Intesity_11.jpg
[The first bar is "Red" at 50% value from 0% to 100% Intensity][The second bar is "Blue" at 80% (White) Value from 0% to 100% Intensity]
Synomyms: Saturation
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[B]Hue: Umm, its a visual thing just look. Edit: There are (millions?) of colors in between.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Hue-Bar_01.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Hue-Bar_02.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Hue-Bar_03.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Hue-Bar_04.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Hue-Bar_05.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Hue-Bar_06.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Hue-Bar_07.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Hue-Bar_08.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Hue-Bar_09.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Hue-Bar_10.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Hue-Bar_11.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Hue-Bar_12.jpg
[Left to Right: Yellow, Yellow Orange, Orange, Red Orange, Red, Red Violet, Violet, Blue Violet, Blue, Blue Green, Green, Yellow Green]
(All colors are approximate and not perfect!)
Synomyms: Color (Misnomer!)
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Color: The combination of all three; value intensity and hue, creates a color.
I.e.: This SkyBlue (BBCode) is approximately: a 43% Intense 92% Value (100% is White) 197 degree blue cyan. (Numbers and Degree from PS).

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Make sure and correct me if I got something wrong, and please suggest changes or clarifications!
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Some things to read to educate yourself:
An overview of: Value, Hue and Intensity; Color Wheels and History; Some other basic Design information. (Just a quick link I found)
http://char.txa.cornell.edu/language/element/color/color.htm
Prometheus|ANJ's excellent "Art Tutorial" (This is awesome!)
http://itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm
More than you ever wanted to know about light (Amazing)
http://science.howstuffworks.com/light.htm
FredFlickstone: Interesting post on Warm and Cool Lighting (Actually, I haven't got it all figured out...)
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=220598&postcount=373
Color Relativity/Perception (Seriously this will amaze you!)
http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/colourPerception/colourPerception.html
A Primer on Design (Good Stuff!)
http://www.mundidesign.com/presentation/index2.html
In Depth on Colors, Design Based
http://poynterextra.org/cp/colorproject/color.html
On Contrasts, Design Based
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_print.asp?id=38564&custom=
Another Color Overview
http://www.webwhirlers.com/colors/coloursphysics.asp
Feel free to suggest other great links relating to what we are doing!
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Project #1 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=610722&postcount=2)- -Project #2 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=615343&postcount=9) - -Project #3 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=623700&postcount=25)- - Project #4 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=639489&postcount=42)- -Experiment #1 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=660082&postcount=67)-
Project #5 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=675840&postcount=99)- -Project #6 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=680136&postcount=124)- -Project #7 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=685770&postcount=141)

Color Wheels and Color Theory + Vital Links (URL=http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=630020&postcount=32)
More Color Theory (URL=http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=632288&postcount=36)
A Post by briggsy@ashtons on proper spheres, and Jaffas (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=699669&postcount=175)


These are just direct links to the post, be sure and read in between if you have time; lots of great little tidbits hidden in there!

[Idiot Apathy]

Sorry for not being active here guys - I've been busy and uhh out of steam. I'm really impressed with the results you guys have posted, I wish there were more hours in the day so I could reply to everyone and that I didn't have bills to pay and ramen to eat, and that I had a moogle who could create money and yummy food.

Anyways - big news:
Peer Project Volume Two has launched:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=76955

*Think of a better name for this thread if you can... ugh this one is crap!*
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
I strongly recommend you read the discussions and analyses within others posts that are between exercises. I see a lot of the same advice being repeated. Read through this for your sake; I mean don't you want to learn faster?

This being said, sometimes advice or critiques will be given that may be incorrect, or misconceptions; I most likely am not innocent of this either. If you spot mistakes be sure and correct them! Don't confuse these with opinions however, which are never wrong only different.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Project #1:
Value and Value with Color.
Something that somewhat recently didn't even have a grasp on is how important value is to color (I didn't understand what value was somewhat recently too...)
I've had some teachers that say value is the most important element in a sucessful picture. I can't say it will always ring true but it's certainly very important.
- - - - - - - - - -
So, a basic exercise to get things going in this thread:

First off lets look at the color wheels in the big name programs:
Painter:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Painter-Color-Wheel.jpg
Top to Bottom = High Value to Low Value, Left to Right = Low Intensity to High Intensity. The Hues are around in the circle.
Photoshop:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Photoshop-Color-Wheel.jpg
EDIT: Right right, I'm a little dumb here. The diagonal line isn't intensity again... it's still just left to right. A bit confusing still but... yeah.
Top to Bottom = High Value to Low Value, Left to Right = Low Intensity to High Intensity, Diagonally is Intensity again?! I really don't like this color "wheel", I think it is square for the other modes that Photoshop offers.
- - - - - - - - - -
To reiterate the guidlines: Edited: Updated Guidlines
A: Do the project and create a dialogue of what you did and why. (Try and think about this while you do the project, this is important; we will be better able to learn from each other as well as catch each other's mistakes.)
B: The Dialogue will be analysed by your peers; (Right or wrong, the idea is to have a reason why and explain it. I think this will be key )
C: And of course at the same time peer critiques will be offered. (Pretty simple no?)
D: You shouldn't have to spend a large amount of time on this however spend as much time as you need, give it your best.
E. All Projects/Exercises are of course optional, have no order, and are always open to participation. Start wherever and whenever you want!
F. People who are too embarassed to post their results will be shot on sight, you're here to learn not to show off.

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Edit: Read this to educate yourself a little bit on spheres:
A Post by briggsy@ashtons on proper spheres, and Jaffas (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=699669&postcount=175)

Ok, here is the template for this exercise:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Project-Two-Template.jpg
In the first blank circle I want you to paint a sphere in grayscale, try and get a fairly full value range, don't worry about getting it perfect that's not the point. I used the selection tool and painted within that on a seperate layer, to get rid of the jaggies I increased just the spheres when I was done.

In the second blank circle I want you to pick a hue and paint a sphere as well, the key here is to try and get your colored sphere to be the same value as the grayscale sphere. If you need to you can take the color picker and see where what values you put where on the 1st sphere. Now with just value changes your sphere will look pretty flat so if you want to; Consider how the hue might shift as well as the intensity (I'd read Prometheus|ANJ's tutorial listed on the first post if you have any questions).

Edit: Oblio came up with an interesting idea; If you choose you might also try doing the colored sphere first and then the grayscale. Definetly give this a shot, before or after; it's pretty interesting.

Once done with both spheres I want you to save a copy as a Web ready JPEG then convert your original to grayscale so we can see how close you were with your values on the colored sphere and save a copy of that as a Web ready JPEG as well. Then post them here !

If you have any questions be sure to post them here so others with the same question can see the answer too!
I will post my results in a day or so to give you all a headstart without my evil influence. I think I will also post the next exercise.

[Steinmetz]

teach us more sir

(sarcasm not intended)

[FrontlinePs.10]

My images are below. I made the reflective version but decided that it might be to obtrusive for this exercise, so decided to post a matte version as well.

I realized tat my off hand knowledge of value is not very good, so when I did the colored version I had to use the color picker in Photoshop as and aid to find a simmilar value for the hued version. This project definately helped me understand hue and value better, and how much I really need to work on studying value. All in all I think I was close - the core shadow on the hued version ended up being darker and the highlight not as specular.

Here they are:

Reflective version - grayscale and color:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/Ph0t0Bug/hue-study.jpg

Reflective version - grayscale conversion:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/Ph0t0Bug/hue-study-gray.jpg

Non-reflective version - graysacle and color:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/Ph0t0Bug/hue-study-non-refl.jpg

Non-reflective version - grayscale conversion:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/Ph0t0Bug/hue-study-gray-non-refl.jpg

Feedback is most welcome. Thanks!

[Idiot Apathy]

teach us more sir
(sarcasm not intended)

Ditto, now do the exercise :P

@FrontlinePs.10: Not quite the style I expected but cool none the less. Thanks for participating I'm really glad you learned from it. Obviously you did a good job matching the values and I think you also did well varying the hue and intensity. I think you did better than me...


My Results:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Project-TwoColoredFinal.jpg
The grayscale one is pretty straight forward on the color one I tried to go cooler using both hue and intensity (a dull yellow will look cool against an intense yellow) I did these too quickly I think because I don't illustrate this enough and even forgot to go a little warmer with my highlights. In general I find that it is best to have your middle tone the most intense and have both the highlights and shadows less intense. But this changes on many surfaces so mess around.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Project-Two-Color-into-Gray.jpg
As you can see I went just a little too dark on the colored one but hey not too bad for eyeballing it right? This is how we improve...

I'll try and post the next project tommorow if I have time, hopefully this thread will start to catch on and we will have some cool stuff going on.

[FrontlinePs.10]

Idiot Apathy:

It actually seems like we made a simmilar error. Both of our colored spheres are slightly darker on the shadow side. I guess that's something to watch for, but all in all you were pretty close on.

I am looking forward to what you have next, hopefully some other people will start to participate...

[romance]

Hello all,

I think this thread is a fantastic idea and should be made sticky right away ;)

Here is my contribution:

http://www.artofromance.ca/ca/projects/peerproject/project-two-romance-color.jpg
http://www.artofromance.ca/ca/projects/peerproject/project-two-romance-gray.jpg

I've never tackled a value comparison between grayscale and color before. It was quite a challenge. I definitely assumed that I knew more about value than I actually did. The results you see in this post are a freak oddity that occured during the many trials of this project.

I ended up trying to find a base color for both gray and color that both looked about the same value then worked in the shadows and light from there. I never thought squinting my eyes could be so helpful. It really does help when judging value.

Value is something that i will constantly need to work on. This is a great activilty to practice it. Thank you for posting this idea.

Below are the two 'values' that I chose as base colors in PS. Like Idiot Apathy said in a previous post, PS's color picker is just not laid out well to represent value and color. Or perhaps it is and I just don't get it.

Thanks again for posting this thread Idiot Apathy. I hope more people will join in.

-Rob

http://www.artofromance.ca/ca/projects/peerproject/gray-value.jpg http://www.artofromance.ca/ca/projects/peerproject/color-value.jpg

[Idiot Apathy]

@romance :
Isn't it amazing how much we didn't used to know? Sometimes its like walking around reborn when I've learned some new things.
Squinting to see value is a pretty cool trick, I've heard of some artists painting how they see things while squinting first and then opening back up for the details they choose to include.
So far everyone has done better than me on choosing the correct values... I need to practice more hehe, make sure you don't use the palette to check too much though I mean it's like we'd never learn math if we always had calculators ya know?

[Idiot Apathy]

*Still need a better thread name I say, any ideas?
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
I strongly recommend you read the discussions and analyses within others posts that are between exercises. I see a lot of the same advice being repeated. Read through this for your sake; I mean don't you want to learn faster?

This being said, sometimes advice or critiques will be given that may be incorrect, or misconceptions; I most likely am not innocent of this either. If you spot mistakes be sure and correct them! Don't confuse these with opinions however, which are never wrong only different.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Project #2:
Quick Light and Color Exercise.
I spat out some quick 2PP blocks to color for the next exercise. I think all too often we get caught up complicating things that are really pretty simple (but is the process of thinking of it simply a simple thing?) So, something really simple to collect our thoughts and compare with others:
- - - - - - - - - -
To reiterate the guidelines: Edited: Updated Guidlines
A: Do the project and create a dialogue of what you did and why. (Try and think about this while you do the project, this is important; we will be better able to learn from each other as well as catch each other's mistakes.)
B: The Dialogue will be analysed by your peers; (Right or wrong, the idea is to have a reason why and explain it. I think this will be key )
C: And of course at the same time peer critiques will be offered. (Pretty simple no?)
D: You shouldn't have to spend a large amount of time on this however spend as much time as you need, give it your best.
E. All Projects/Exercises are of course optional, have no order, and are always open to participation. Start wherever and whenever you want!
F. People who are too embarassed to post their results will be shot on sight, you're here to learn not to show off.
- - - - - - - - - -
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Project-2-template.jpg
So the idea is to create a simple lighting situation and focus on the colors on the blocks and their shadows. Try not to start with white everywhere!
I'd like to see at least 2 of the 3 blocks as different colors and at least one of the block's cast shadows to fall onto another block.
I'd recommend just doing this fairly simply with a gel layer (or multiply in PS) for your colors above the lines. (I know I know, the thick black lines look horrible coming through like that.) Feel free to go beyond that and have fun of course. I added a simple background on mine for instance. (it just felt better...)
Some things to think about: How colored light reflected off one block will effect another block, are they the same colors or are they completely different? Is the enviroment or ambient color going to effect the blocks and their shadows?

I think in this exercise the bulk of what people will learn will come through the self dialogue; both creating it and reading others, so be sure and give it your all.

Alright go get 'em ! And to anyone just lurking out there, do the exercise and post it even if your not proud of it! It's how you learn dummy. I'll give you guys a headstart and won't post mine for a day or two.

[Idiot Apathy]

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what we should do next, is there anything you guys want to know? Any ideas?

[romance]

how about lighting on complex surfaces, such as a figure. Composition might be another one. I'm kinda at a loss, it would be nice if a pro could suggest any helpful exercises.

Edit: Maybe reflective surfaces as well

-Rob

[Idiot Apathy]

Hmm, I'll start thinking about how to fit those ideas into an exercise although it's probably beyond my scope. Can composition really be learned from an exercise? It seems more like a lecture thing.

Keep the idea's comin.

[romance]

Here be mine.

http://www.artofromance.ca/ca/projects/peerproject/project-2-romance.jpg

Again, what was once thought known, wasn't. Starting this project, I quickly realized how long it had been since I had to cast a shadow. Most things I draw are organic, so getting away with an inaccurate cast shadow is usually possible.

I ended up locating a light source that would cast decent shadows. Using lines as guides, I then tried to measure and calculate where the shadows would fall. Math in art? who'd a thunk' it, hyuk, hyuk! That was probably the most difficult part of the project.

After that, it was just a matter of filling in color, applying light, and putting the shadows in the previously measured spots. Then it was time for bounced light or 'radiosity', whatever you want to call it. I ended up just sampling the base color of the blocks and applying it to the surfaces facing opposite a highlighted surface.

I'm still not too sure about the intensity on the shadows on the blocks though, or whether or not an objects color is bounced off on it's shadow side.

This was a good refresher. Thanks.

-Rob

[talmir]

I´d definetly like to join in on this.. but I dont have a wacom so I´d be practicing with mouse. I dont think I can get the insane quality and control you guys seem to be able to produce... Is there a specific skill level you want people to be at?

[Idiot Apathy]

@romance: damn, put me to shame why don't ya. Very nice... now I feel bad for only spending a few minutes on mine. Do you still have the file with the light source and guidelines? I'd like to see it, something about it is bugging me and I can't quite place it. Could be perfect for all I know though.

@romance and everyone else:
*Disclaimer* This is all just theory, not a scientific theory but the thoughts that are in my head and man is it a pain to pin them down into words. Only some of it based on what I've read and what I've been taught. So basically, take it with a grain of salt!.

As for the intensity on the block's shadows and the mixing of the blocks' colors:
It might be a little high but It makes for a nice picture.
I think intensity can be thought of as the amount of a pure spectrum color (realistically they mix like crazy) that is reflected in relation to the other pure spectrum colors (s.color). So greater equal amounts of s.colors increase value all the way to white and lesser equal amounts all the way to no-light (black). So say if the s. color of blue is at 100% and all others are non-existant you would have the most intense blue possible (I doubt such a thing has ever been seen though).

God, this is a really roundabout way of saying:
Because your enviroment is mostly white or light gray all s.colors are reflected equally on top of that your lightsource is pretty strong and because the "blue" block absorbs all other s.colors but blue; it should stay pretty intense even in the shadow. (We couldn't see anything but black in shadows if there weren't light reflected into them.)

Ugh, yet another roundabout way of saying something...

Now the colors from one block reflected onto another:
Sampling the color of one block onto another is fine for most purposes I think, however you have to take into consideration a few things:
Value Change - It is light being reflected so it should be brighter, probably just a little though (depending on the situation).
Hue Change - Our eyes work on additive color synthesis (look it up! Good stuff.) thus colors mix a bit differently than with say paint or markers (subtractive color synthesis). But I think the basic principles are mostly the same, things just get lighter and more intense (acs) rather than darker and less intense (scs). So, 50% blue s.light plus 50% yellow s.light equals green, more light equals more intense and higher value. Adding a "sampled" color works because photoshop/painter does the math for you (ideally).

Oo lordy, that was draining. I can't remember if I answered my own questions.. gunna go lie down now. Shoot any questions and clarifications out if you got em!

@Everyone: I really think I should have set this up better I think, I didn't really intend to have a cast shadows in 2 point perspective exercise, just a color theory exercise. Should we do some perspective exercises? Anything specifically besides shadows? Oh and read above if you haven't already.

@talmir: This is for everyone dood, we're all peers (unless it says professional under your name ;) ) It's not about quality its about the lesson to be learned in the exercise, and now I'll be really pissed if you don't participate.
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So, to clarify: Everyone can and should participate !

[romance]

Idiot Apathy: Here's the light and shadow guides.

http://www.artofromance.ca/ca/projects/peerproject/project-2-romance_light.jpg

It was far messier than this before. So I decided to clean it up. In doing so, I noticed a massive problem with my shadows from the orange and yellow blocks. Like you, I knew there was something wrong and couldn't quite place it. I will fix this sometime tomorrow. That'll teach me for not keeping my stuff clean :).

Your also right about the lighting, the shadows are definitely too dark. The white should bounce up against the blocks. Damn radiosity, I'll master you yet.

Interesting theory as well. I'll have to look into this further.

As far as perspective exercises go, it might be a good idea. Also, I'd stick with the peer projects title. sounds good to me, and it's pretty straight forward.

Thnaks for your input, looking forward to seeing yours.

[Idiot Apathy]

Wow so you understood some of that jibberjabber I labeled theory? Sweet!

Ah, now I see why it was a little uncomfortable; your shadow guidelines are all paralell they too should recede to a vp. (I think...I dunno...)(But once again this setup is really horrible for this sort of thing... sowee!)

Now the pressures on, gunna have to redo mine after all this theory ... hehe. Gotta put some thought into it.

I think I can handle some perspective exercises, keep the thoughts coming!

Edit: Oh, and I don't really think your shadows are too dark... they look good where they are... too much lighter would be ugly I think. I dunno, maybe that's correct for the enviroment? Ick... time for bed, I'm discombobulated! (hence the archaic languange... including archaic...)

[romance]

Idiot Apathy: When you talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk ;) :P

Guess i should have clarified my light source. its directional light, kinda like the sun, (i studied 3D for a time, so my terminology is based off that). Saying that, the shadows probably should occur the way they are.

You've also given me an idea; trying one of these exercises with a 'lightbulb' as a light source,... thanks!

-Rob

P.S. ANYBODY ELSE FEEL LIKE JOINING THESE EXERCISES? THEY BE FUN! I SWEAR!

[Idiot Apathy]

Ahhhh I see, that's what I thought of when I considered what might cause shadows like that... but I don't think even the sun could do that. It would have to be reaaally far away and reallllly bright to look parallel wouldn't it? I mean, the shadow on my house recedes to a "vp".

Edit: Just in case anyone is reading this (and I hope you are!) Romance was right. Sunlight is practically parallel, I've read somewhere that it's actually 1/2 a degree or so different but I don't think that's really detectable. Not sure what I was thinking back when I wrote this ahah! Cheers!

Idiot Apathy: When you talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk ;) :P
Crap! I didn't mean to talk the talk... fug.

P.S. ANYBODY ELSE FEEL LIKE JOINING THESE EXERCISES? THEY BE FUN! I SWEAR!

Yeah damnit! Join us !

[romance]

ok, here's my old one with fixed lighting. Took a bit more time with my shadow guides to make sure they were accurate. Also kept the sun as my light source.

http://www.artofromance.ca/ca/projects/peerproject/project-2-romance-2.jpg

Enjoy

-Rob

[Idiot Apathy]

Yeah looks good dude, I wasn't so sure if light reflected off a shadow side of an object would effect a cast shadow (i.e. the blue added into your shadows from the blue block.) so I checked it real quick in a real life situation, sure enough, not very intense but it's there! Good stuff.

I should have time to do this over the weekend, maybe a new exercise too. You think of anything you can teach/setup Romance?

Where is everyone else? You guys suck :P

[Idiot Apathy]

Added new link to top:
More than you ever wanted to know about light (Amazing)
http://science.howstuffworks.com/light.htm

Found this while seeking proof to all the thinking I've been doing about light, some real serious stuff here. If you can get past the scientific garble there is a lot of stuff that is very useful to artists I think.

[romance]

Heres a quick one with a different light source. Hope this looks ok.

http://www.artofromance.ca/ca/projects/peerproject/project-2-romance-3.jpg

Idiot Apathy: I checked out the first couple pages of that link on lighting, looks extremely informative. I'll check out the rest of it when I find more time. Too busy building my portfolio at the moment. Hope to see your entry soon :)

-Rob

[Idiot Apathy]

@Romance: Looking good dude, I don't know about the amost pure black background, there should be at least some color/value I think. Is it me or is the way you have your cast shadows mean the lightsource is on the page? Like it would almost block our view of some of the blocks?

Ok, finally sat down and did this one:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/c70714af.jpg
( A little "overexposed" and "fuzzy" I think... not to mention the boring light direction )

Here's the notes I took while doing this, sorry I didn't have time to condense and re-order them.

My core shadows turned towards my ambient color of blue, so orange to red and cyan to blue.

Now all of my blocks have equal values on all sides (i.e. top of big block = top of small blocks in value.) I just did this by eye and what I wanted however I think it is very different to remember that most things will have different values. (Unless they are exactly the same in the same lighting situation.)

The amount of light reflected off an object depends on what the object is made from. You could say that these are all wooden blocks however if they are different colors then you could assume they are painted different, the paint is what is reflecting light now.

You may notice that on the small block on the right that is furthest from us the darkest part is a different color than the closer small block. If light is reflected off the same color object then the intensity should go up (there is more of this specific "blue" blue light), and of course because it is light it should also raise in value. (I've probably overdone it here though, a bit exagerated perhaps?)

Btw, Orange is the complement to blue, that's why is stands out so much in this blue enviroment.
- - - - - - -
@Everyone: If there is a reason your not participating shoot me off a PM and let me know why, it would be most appreciated.

I should have time later tonight to do another exercise, I think it will be lighting in 2 point perspective.

Cheers!

[Idiot Apathy]

Project #3:
Various Lighting on the Same Object.

This is one I'd do a lot in the New Media Coloring Book, take the same lines and think of new ways to light them. It was especially helpful in thinking of what lighting would be best for the composition as well as overall good practice for shadows etc.
- - - - - - - - - -
The Guidelines: Edited: Updated
A: Do the project and create a dialogue of what you did and why. (Try and think about this while you do the project, this is important; we will be better able to learn from each other as well as catch each other's mistakes.)
B: The Dialogue will be analysed by your peers; (Right or wrong, the idea is to have a reason why and explain it. I think this will be key )
C: And of course at the same time peer critiques will be offered. (Pretty simple no?)
D: You shouldn't have to spend a large amount of time on this however spend as much time as you need, give it your best.
E. All Projects/Exercises are of course optional, have no order, and are always open to participation. Start wherever and whenever you want!
F. People who are too embarassed to post their results will be shot on sight, you're here to learn not to show off.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
I strongly recommend you read the discussions and analyses within others posts that are between exercises. I see a lot of the same advice being repeated. Read through this for your sake; I mean don't you want to learn faster?

This being said, sometimes advice or critiques will be given that may be incorrect, or misconceptions; I most likely am not innocent of this either. If you spot mistakes be sure and correct them! Don't confuse these with opinions however, which are never wrong only different.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
On this one keep everything simple, the shapes the light everything!
Step One: Take a public domain photo and break it into very simple shapes. At the bottom I've provided some great public domain photo sites as well as some photo's I found that you might want to do. (The whole idea is to do these projects fairly quickly to get the main idea, finding a proper photo might take a while.)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/color-photo.jpg- - -http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/sketch-with-photo.jpg
Step Two: Here I took the photo and converted it to grayscale just to make it easier. I then set up some really simple guidelines to keep it in proportion. (If you must you can trace over your reference but remember tracing is a crutch and you'll soon get weak if you don't practice without it!). It's not perfect nor should it be, that's not the point of the exercise. Hammer this puppy out!
Step Two: Create two or three different lighting situations and roll with it! Just do this exercise in grayscale to keep it fast and don't forget your shadows!

Public Domain Photo Links:
http://www.imageafter.com/
http://www.morguefile.com/
http://www.sxc.hu/

Some images: (Click for Link to High Res!)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/hydrant.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b1oldfirepump.jpg)http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Milk-jug.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b2household004.jpg&size=full&download=no)http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/gas-can.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=84505&)http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/valve.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=66603&)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/valve2.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=69451&)http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/umbrella.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=12634&)http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/hydrant2.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=297556)http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/maglight.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=315351)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/soap.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=350922)
Feel free to use your own links or make something up entirely! Just keep it simple!

[Idiot Apathy]

Going to post my results just so there won't be any confusion.
Again, grayscale photo and some guidlines then some quick lines. Sloppy and quick, spend as much or as little time here as you want, just keep it simple.
#1
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/viewone---straight-on.jpg
Front lighting, very simple and very boring. Not much in the way of visible shadows, fun though.
#2
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/viewtwo---left-side-light.jpg
Lit from the left, cool shadow on this one.
#3
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/viewthree-top-left-rear.jpg
Lit from the Top Left Rear... I think I got bored and became lazy on this one, it's Oogly.


5-10 minutes each, hammer these out. The point is to get the general idea out really quick, like a thumbnail. Later you could use this to decide how to light your subject best.

[Dose206]

Idiot Apathy, I think this is a wonderful idea for a thread and soon I will be joining in... as of right now I am very busy with work and a newly pregnant fiance.... but when I free up some time (maybe the weekend?) I definitely want in on this bag o tricks

[Idiot Apathy]

Cool dude, I appreciate the enthusiasm, beginning to wonder if this thread was going to die. Start wherever you want; Don't feel like your behind or anything the exercises are meant to be open forever. Oh and Congrats!

[Sirithduriel]

Well, I decided to draw along, after having quite some fun in finding a photo of an object I'd like to use. Eventually I wound up with two different situations, one front-lighting from the bottom, the other from a sort of 3/4 high point lighting ('how to be creative with the english language, part I' ;)).

The first has a crappy BG, but I like the way the light shows on the standard, though it's a bit too shiny, compared to the actual photo. It's supposed to be dark wood, here it looks more like light... wood I think?

I like the second a lot better. The shadow on the surface still isn't completely right, but it's the best I could do in a short period of time. I think the overall feel of this one is better than the other...

Both took me about twenty minutes to do.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v29/sirithduriel/draw/peerprojectex3b2.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v29/sirithduriel/draw/peerprojectex3b1.jpg

[romance]

Looks like an interesting project. I'll have to do it up sometime this week when I find some time.

Stay gold,

-Rob

[Idiot Apathy]

@Sirithduriel: Looking good ! I like how the shadow works on the first one, could be used as a scary sort of effect on another project. I see what you mean by "light wood", wood becomes shiny from the stain etc put on it, dark stains don't seem to be as reflective so less shine perhaps? With shadows like on the second one it might be helpful to just block in some really basic shapes (in this case like a T) to help you get the shadow in the right perspective. Maybe we should do shadows in 2 point perspective later? I'm still trying to completely understand it myself so until then I guess.
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I did another one, the milk jug was too tempting. Started off with a quick sketch next to the photograph after setting up some guidelines. Again pretty sloppy huh? Some pretty lazy ellipses too.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/milk-jug-1.jpg - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/milk-jug-2.jpg - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/milk-jug-3.jpg
#1 Lit from behind
Pretty fun lighting.
#2 From the right
This lighting seems pretty good at describing an objects form.
#3 From the top Right
This lighting created really interesting shadows I think, at least in comparison to the bland left, right, front and back...
I forgot to keep the edges where shadows were created crisp in the others so I think the first two suffer a little bit.
- - - - - - -

Going to work on a new exercise today, might be up tonight. Hope to see some more people in here soon :$

[Idiot Apathy]

[*Disclaimer*] This is from my head, I'm still learning so it's far from perfect. However I think it may be easier to start learning from an amateur viewpoint and build from there. Read through this and then go from there, I recommend following the links at the bottom of this post. Aside from that any and all input and corrections are vital and appreciated!

A little more about Color Wheels before the next Exercise:

color wheel n.
A circular diagram in which primary and usually intermediate colors are arranged sequentially so that related colors are next to each other and complementary colors are opposite.
col·or n.
The appearance of objects or light sources described in terms of the individual's perception of them, involving hue, lightness, and saturation for objects and hue, brightness, and saturation for light sources.
From http://dictionary.reference.com/


I'm going to use a Simulated Traditional Subtractive Color Wheel used with paints and the like for the purpose of getting the general idea out there. Notice how the values change with the colors, Yellow is the brightest and violet is the darkest. I've got to do some more research on this but I believe it's just because paint is a chemical compound and the resulting mixtures for different hues just come out in different values. This doesn't have as much bearing on our digital medium since we can just pick the color we want However it's a good introduction. Later I will introduce and explain some other color wheels and their uses.

The Subtractive Color Wheel:
When light hits an object some light is absorbed and some is reflected. What we see is the reflected light. A banana is yellow (sorta) thus all other hues are absorbed and only yellow is reflected. The Subtractive Color Theory is all about the light that is reflected off an object (in this case paint!) instead of light itself. We could fill pages about this but that is for another time.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Subtractive-Color-Wheel.jpg

First off the Hues:
These are placed in the center ring. Starting from 12 o'clock going clockwise we have Yellow, Yellow Orange, Orange, Red Orange, Red, Red Violet, Violet, Blue Violet, Blue, Blue Green, Green and then Yellow Green.

The Primary Hues (clockwise) are Yellow, Red and Blue; With these colors you can make all others on this center ring and (billions?) in-between. However no hues on the wheel can be mixed to create these hues.

The Secondary Hues (clockwise) are Orange, Violet and Green. These hues are made with a mix of two Primary Hues. (Note: There are other ways to mix these btw)

The Tertiary Hues (clockwise) are Yellow Orange, Red Orange, Red Violet, Blue Violet, Blue Green and Yellow Green. Notice how the Primary Hues take precedent in the name? These hues are a mix of a Primary and a Secondary Hue. (Note: There are other ways to mix these btw)

These hues are all marked in the picture with P, S or T.

Complementary Hues:
Most people think this name means hues that compliment each other, i.e. go well with each other. The real meaning is colors that complete each other. For a hue to be complete it must contain all of the Primary Hues in Equal Quantity. (When mixing paint it won't be equal amounts!)

So Let's start with Yellow; Yellow is a primary color (Check one Primary Hue off) so now we need the other two, Red and Blue. When we add Red and Blue together we get Violet. Violet is Yellows complement.

Now let's try a Secondary Hue, Orange: Orange is made up of Yellow and Red (Now we can check two Primary Hues off!) Which Primary are we missing? Blue! Orange's complement is Blue!

Now for a hard one, a Tertiary Hue, Red Orange: Red is in the name (Check One) and Orange is made of Yellow and Red, however we have unequal quanities of these Primary Hues, 2/3 Red and 1/3 Yellow. To make up the difference we obviously have to add some Yellow. We can go from the missing Primary, Blue, and add 1/3 Yellow to get Blue Green. We now have equal quantities of each Primary Hue. Blue Green is the Complement of Red Orange!

This is how you would do it without a Color Wheel. The Color Wheel is set up so that each hue's complement is positioned directly opposite. Draw a straight line directly through the center and you will reach the complement. I've also added circles of the a hue's complement in the center ring.

Now theoretically complementary hue's should combine to a perfect gray, meaning no detectable hue, only value.

Tints:
Tints are where a color becomes lighter in value. On the color wheel it's created by adding white. This is the outer ring. I imagine adding any color that is lighter than to the other color could be called a tint. However by only adding white you will keep the maximum amount of intensity.

Shades:
Shades are when a color becomes darker in value. This can be done with any color that is darker in value. Usually with the Color's complement or with black. Often with the complement however the hue may change slightly. Black's downside is a greater loss of intensity. The black spot in the center of the wheel is to symbolize that combined theoretically these colors should make black, I.e. all light is absorbed. Realistically you'll get a gray.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/yellow-tints-shades.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/purple-tints-shades.jpg
Above I have a 5 step example of Yellow and Purple in tints and shades.
To the left of Hues are Tints. I'm showing Taking the simulated "real" paint Yellow and Violet and adding incremental mixtures of white. (I.e. 80% Yellow 20% White, 60 % Yellow 40% White)

To the Right of the Hues are Shades. This was done by adding incremental mixtures of black. (I.e. 80% Violet 20% Black etc etc).

The inside ring of this Color Wheel is 50% of Hue 50% of Hue's Compliment, (I.e. 50% Yellow and 50% Violet).
- - - - - - -

Now that we have a general understanding of color and vocabulary to continue it's time to talk about how our eyes see color.

I should be able to add this in the next few days.
- - - - - - -
Please offer any suggestions and corrections!
- - - - - - -
Color Links you should definetly read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_wheel
So much better than what I have here, but maybe not as easy to understand?
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=9504
Color Theory 1: By Fredflickstone (A great thread by a great teacher!)
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=9505
Color Theory 2: By Fredflickstone (Second Part)
http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/wcolor.html
More than you would seriously want to know, very scientific and hard to understand. Complete with confusing charts! Almost painful!

[romance]

This color stuff is great, thanks Idiot Apathy.
I haven't been able to do any of the latest activities, hopefully I'll be able to catch up soon. Getting ready to move across the country, not too mention trying to find employment when I get there, so things are extremely busy for me.

Not sure if the shadow of your third milk jug would be that dark, considering the brightness of the bounced light on the object. I still haven't fully read your link on lighting, so feel free to prove me wrong.

Take care,

-Rob

[Idiot Apathy]

**Attention! These Activities have NO due date, they are meant to be done whenever you can, do them and you will still get feedback!**

@Romance: Thanks dude, good luck with your move and job-hunt. Good catch on that shadow, I definetly concur.

[Sirithduriel]

Idiot Apathy > Thanks for the comments! I think less shine would indeed be the key. When I now look at my source image, the shine on the wood there very thin aswell. And your comment about blocking that T shape is pretty much what I should have done. Thanks ^__^

I like every second try you have shown (at the milk jug and the fire extinguisher... thingie), they indeed describe the form. Though the third for the milk jug is cool too, because of the darker shadows I guess (personal taste maybe).
That color theory bit you posted is quite interesting, I'll probably read them soon (had my exams for this period, freedom!)

edit: and I guess more exercises about this are very useful... It's such a vital part of coloring and drawing, one much really understand what's going on.

[Idiot Apathy]

Some More on The Subtractive Color Theory:
With Primary Hues you are supposed to be able to mix any color and when combined they should make a perfect shade of gray/black. When mixed Complementary Hues should also create a perfect shade of gray/black. In the traditional Color Wheel (Remember the color wheel is just about what you can mix with what) Red Blue and Yellow are the Primaries. These three do a pretty good job of mixing what you need however when the complementary hues based from this color wheel are mixed they most often create a dull muddy brown or something like it instead of a true gray. So...

From this comes a new set of Primaries, something I'm sure will sound familiar: Cyan Magenta and Yellow (CMYK [k is for black). With these primaries as the basis of a new (The Modern) color wheel the complements create a truer gray.

I made a strictly non-scientific example of this. I say non-scientific because the colors are not precise especially the RYB and I'm not a scientist...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/CMY-RGB-Gray-Mix.jpg
So left to right:
CMY (Cyan Magenta Yellow)- Yellow + Blue = 96%, Yellow Green + Blue Magenta = 97.5%, Green + Magenta = 99%, Cyan Green + Red Magenta = 98.5%, Cyan + Red 97.5%, Cyan Blue + Orange = 97%.
RYB (Red Yellow Blue) - Yellow + Violet = 31.5%, Yellow Green + Red Violet = 26.5%, Green + Blue = 0%, Blue Green + Red Orange = 57%, Blue + Orange 93%, Blue Violet + Yellow Orange = 59%.

CMY = 97.58% Average RYB = 44.5% Average. Even as completly unscientific as this was CMY is the clear winner! Woo!

Now, take a look at Photoshop and Painters Color Picker/Wheel. Which do they use? CMY of course!

Now all this being said:
When you mix any hue with a different hue you will lose intensity, the further away on the color wheel the quicker you lose intensity. So how are we supposed to create all hues with just 3 Primary Colors? Impossible; you can't! Here's where a bit of personal theory comes in; There are 7 Hues in the Visual Spectrum of Light right? These are Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue and Violet. I'm sure you've all seen a rainbow no? So sunlight carries the maximum of each of these hues with it, if there was an object that aborbed 100% of 6 of the hues and then reflected 100% of the remaining hue you would have the most intense color imaginable. I seriously doubt this has ever been seen or replicated however, on top of that I believe our human eyes can only see in Red Green and Blue so we can only theoretically tap out those hues. Theoretically these Spectrum Hues should be the 7 Primary Hues and from them every color is possible. However if you look in say Painter's/Photoshop's Color Picker/Wheel you will see that colors such as Red-Orange can be every bit as intense even though it is not a Spectrum Hue. Perhaps this is because we have never seen a pure Spectrum hue? I'm not sure.

Shooo, that was all a pain to put into words. It helps to get it down though, really solidifies it for me.

For more of this stuff follow the links on the last one, especially the Handprint website if you can handle the jargon. (I suggest small doses!)

Next time I'm free it will be Additive Color Theory as well as a color activity, I promise!

[Idiot Apathy]

@Sirithduriel: Thanks, it's great to know that a few people are getting something out of all this, really makes it worthwhile. Good luck on the exams!

@Everyone, that means you too ya lurker!: I'm hoping the lack of activity is due to Midterms and Exams, if not tell me what the problem is or what you'd like to see in here, either in a PM or Post, and we'll see what we can do about it! I'd really appreciate it!

[Rebecca]

Yes, the lack of activity is from exams :( but heres the stuff I forgot to post earlier:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v736/snakesglasseye/valuecolour.gif

I used a mixture or different kinds of purples, to see if it different colours would affect the value. It did, but not very well, because after lookinng at your colour wheel, I need to mix the oposite colours (you might think 'Duh' but my highschool's art department is the cheapest money can buy, LOL, so no colour theorey for us :( )

I need more practise with the reflecting light, that is hard. But With the help of that subtractive colour wheel, I think I could have done it better :) thankyou.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v736/snakesglasseye/valuecolourgreyworld.gif

the next one with the coloured blocks, this was fun to do actually, but it must have took me about 30 minutes.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v736/snakesglasseye/colouredblocks.gif

I rember from my Sketchbook, Idiot Apathy, you said that the 'dark' side must be made lighter because of the reflecting light from the wall, but it still must be 'dark', I tried to tackle this by making it lighter towards the wall/floor. I don't know if this was done correctly. the reflected coloured light from different shapes, and the floor was difficult, most of the time was spent on this. I got confused as to where to put the shadows :( and I also missed out some shadows too. Well, I gave it my best shot, and here we are...sorry about the picture quality, that me being foolish and saving it as a gif. ah..well.

so you like my new avatar, huh? :bashful:

[Zoeli]

http://img499.imageshack.us/img499/3985/heady8am.jpg

I've been meaning to post this, but work has me super busy.

I chose the headphones because of the varying materials and I wanted to see if I could tackle a more complex shape. The shadows gave me hell, as you can probably see. Anyway, top-left, your standard light coming from up and right, which is what I seem to default to. Top right, I went for more ambient light, and a lightsource from the front. Bottom right, a very intense light, coming from behind. I wanted to capture a nice glare effect here.

I'm aiming to try the other exercises soon.

[Idiot Apathy]

@Rebecca : I hope your photobucket account resets soon... I want to see these again, maybe I can make myself clearer.

For everyone else, this is what I wrote in her sketchbook when she posted them there:

The exercises from the Peer Project Thread turned out really nice. There isn't any due dates or lateness, it's supposed to be open the whole time, all the activities going on at once. ... (edited)

Good job on the Color Spheres, your values are really pretty close. The reflected light was a bit rough huh? I think you got the idea of the exercise though, too often value is forgotten in colors. I like your colored blocks as well, good job on the values but watch your intensity; most of the blocks are the most intense on the back darkside. They are different colors so the light reflected onto the back would appear differently on all of them. I.e. Red light on blue might dull it a bit or even turn it closer to blue violet, but of course it would raise the value a bit (it's still your dark side though!). Blue light on a blue block would raise the intensity and still of course the value (adding light!). Hope I'm making some sense...

Your shadows are just a bit odd, such confusing things aren't they? Generally with one light source the lines of your shadows from different objects should run in the same directions. Right now it's almost like several lights. ... (edited)


@Zoeli : Damn dude, I'm impressed. The headphones are really great, especially your shadows and the soft ear part. How did you get the shadows so seemingly accurate? Did make them up or set up a reference? Anyways, look forward to see more!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

All right, bout damn time for a new Project, it's taken me so long for a few reasons. One, obviously, is I've been busy and this takes some work. It is midterm season after all. Two, I don't want to lead anyone astray, a lot of this stuff I've figured out on my own and haven't been able to varify it yet. Other things I've just barely learned and haven't mastered. I've convinced myself it's worth the risk of a small amount of potential misinformation if it gets people thinking right? After all this project wasn't set this up to teach, it set was set up to learn.

Yatta yatta, 'nuff jabber.
Next up is a Project.

[Idiot Apathy]

A Horrible Quickie Primer on Additive Color Theory Before the Next Project:

So, subtractive is how light is absorbed, paint absorbs some colors of light and reflects others. Different colors of paint combined absorb different amounts of different hues. (Wow, thats some confusing wording!)
"Additive Color Theory can only be done with actual light, for example a movie projector or your monitor. If you've ever gotten a drop of water on your monitor you've probably seen large spots of Red Green and Blue.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/additive-color.jpg
Combining one of these additive primary colors with another in equal amounts produces the additive secondary colors cyan, magenta, and yellow. Combining all three primary lights (colors) in equal intensities produces white. Varying the luminosity of each light (color) eventually reveals the full gamut of those three lights (colors)."
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Additive_color

So instead of eventually leading to black when you mix colors you are headed towards white or full spectrum light. I believe all the hue mixes still apply, i.e. equal amounts of red plus equal amounts of yellow would be orange, but I'm not positive.

Ok, now the project!

[Idiot Apathy]

Project #4:
Basic Reflected Lighting.

Even if your in a completely dark cave with just one lightsource, that light is going to reflect all around you, it may not be as pronouced as most situations but it is there. (Well, theoretically if the walls, floor, ceiling, you and your clothes where all the blackest black all the light from the lightsource would be absorbed and none reflected, but you wouldn't be able to see anyways...)

Light is reflected everywhere but it is most noticable in core shadows and cast shadows* because there is less interfering light. (Think about a monitor in sunlight and then a monitor at night with the lights out.)
*(The core shadow is on the object the cast shadow is "cast" behind the object).

So, a simple exercise:
- - - - - - - - - -
The Guidelines: Edited: Updated
A: Do the project and create a dialogue of what you did and why. (Try and think about this while you do the project, this is important; we will be better able to learn from each other as well as catch each other's mistakes.)
B: The Dialogue will be analysed by your peers; (Right or wrong, the idea is to have a reason why and explain it. I think this will be key )
C: And of course at the same time peer critiques will be offered. (Pretty simple no?)
D: You shouldn't have to spend a large amount of time on this however spend as much time as you need, give it your best.
E. All Projects/Exercises are of course optional, have no order, and are always open to participation. Start wherever and whenever you want!
F. People who are too embarassed to post their results will be shot on sight, you're here to learn not to show off.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
I strongly recommend you read the discussions and analyses within others posts that are between exercises. I see a lot of the same advice being repeated. Read through this for your sake; I mean don't you want to learn faster?

This being said, sometimes advice or critiques will be given that may be incorrect, or misconceptions; I most likely am not innocent of this either. If you spot mistakes be sure and correct them! Don't confuse these with opinions however, which are never wrong only different.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Template:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/project4template.jpg
Part A:
The background is a neutral gray, there are no hues in it so all light is reflected equally. So the background will only influence value and will not create a hue shift, ignore it outright if you want; it won't make a big difference for this. The Sphere is also a neutral gray, it too reflects all light equally. Now remember natural light contains the full spectrum of color but reflected light is what has not been absorbed into the object that reflected it. So the main idea of this is the light reflected off the paper.

Step One: Take the template and prepare it for however you like to work, maybe a multiply/gel layer or using a selection tool. Seperate the sphere and the paper to make it easier if you want. Your going to do a total of six of these so make it easy to start over after you've finished one.
Step Two: Using a very basic lightsource (above, above left etc.) shade the Sphere with just black and white, save three copies or work with layers for the next part.
Step Three: For this part you are going to do three different setups'. The sphere will stay a neutral gray but the paper is going to change color. Here is a quick layout:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/part-a-layout.jpg
Sheet One: A Medium High Intensity Red as Possible Sheet Two: A Medium High Intensity Yellow Sheet Three: A Medium High Intensity Blue.
Try and figure our what happens to the sphere, remember your not only adding light but your adding intensity now!. Do all three then move on to Part B. Oh and don't forget a cast shadow! It shouldn't change hue only value!

Part B:
Step One: Three more this time with a twist, got your template ready? Here is the layout:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/part-b-layout.jpg
Sheet One: Medium High Intensity Red Paper with Medium High Intensity Red Sphere
Sheet Two: Medium High Intensity Yellow Paper with Medium High Intensity Red Sphere
Sheet Three: Medium High Intensity Blue Paper with Medium High Intensity Red Sphere
Step Two: Shade the Red Sphere with just the natural and neutral light, ignore the paper for now.
Step Three: Add the reflected light from the paper, think about what light would reflect from the sphere into the cast shadow.
Try and figure out what will happen with both the sphere and the paper, remember your adding light (value) as well as mixing hues.

Right, looking forward to the results; have fun!

Please post any suggestions, corrections and comments!

[Idiot Apathy]

@Everyone and Anyone: Seems this thread is dead or dieing. Is it because it sucks? Tell me what's wrong and/or how to improve it. Is it just hidden back here? Should I try and get it moved somewhere else? Where?
- - - - - - - -

Part A:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/gray-spheres.jpg

I shrunk it down a bit so it wouldn't resize your window, 800px width if anyone else cares. (hopefully!) Pretty straight forward, I reckon the reflected light would be less intense and lower in value than the light reflected off of the paper into our eyes.

The cast shadow (which aren't so great...) wouldn't have that much if any color reflected into it so its mainly a drop in value and intensity.

Part B:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/red-spheres.jpg
Red on Red: Because both the paper and the sphere's local color was the same red I figured the reflected light on the sphere would be more intense than either of them. and of course higher in value than the core shadow because I was adding light. Again with the cast shadow I thought very little light other than the neutral enviroment light(gray background) would be reflected into it so I dropped the intensity just a little less than usual and the value about the same.
Red on Yellow:
I think when mixing different hues of equal intensity the result will be less intense. I figured a pure red with an equal amount of pure yellow should yield an orange; so I ended up with a fairly intense (red and yellow are pretty close on the color wheel so they shouldn't dull each other too much) orange as the reflected light. Core shadow again, small hue shift less intense and lower value.
Red on Blue:
Red is pretty far away from Blue on the color wheel so they will dull each other out pretty quickly. Reflected light was a pretty dull violet. Core shadow little bit of a hue shift, lower value less intense.

Please post any questions comments or corrections. (oof all my shadows are different huh?)

[Aether]

Please stickify this one! great stuff, will start grinding these right away

[Idiot Apathy]

Thanks for the support Aether, hope to see some stuff soon!

I quickie-freehanded another one in a blue enviroment with a warm light.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/d8731dae.jpg
The lightsource I made up was pretty warm almost like an indoor light I guess. Where this light source hit the orange sphere it became not only higher in value but closer to the hue of the lightsource. Intensity also when up but not as much as it would if the lightsource was Orange. Core shadow probably should have been a little less intense because the light reflecting off the blue enviroment would dull it (pretty much completmentary hues no?). Cast shadow is actually a really dull red-violet. So dulled out by the blue enviroment and hue-shifted a little bit towards blue as well.

Just another thing to practice with, I do this sort of thing from time to time to stretch my brain. I learn from almost every one I do including this one.

[Darkside]

hey idiotapathy,

you´re doing a gread job here, your engagement is much appreciated.
keep it up :thumbsup:

[Number_6]

I'll give it a try later. This looks like a useful thread.

[JTumburus]

Hey, men, very useful! :yayca:
Great job! Keep on moving!!! :teeth:

[Idiot Apathy]

Hmm, thanks for the support guys, Really appreciated. So now I gather it doesn't suck, but why aren't people participating?

@Everyone, especially the lurkers: What's up? You don't want to participate? Tell me why at least eh? Got to figure this out or all is naught.
- - - - -
Did another quickie to stretch out again:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/8bce84b8.jpg
Check out the (simulataneous contrast?) going on between the orange sphere and blue background, almost hurts...
- - - - -

Not sure what to move onto next, any ideas? Anything that's been bugging you? Not sure what I can teach but let me hear your thoughts!

Also, anyone else out there feel they can teach something in a short exercise?

[MattGamer]

I may join this tomorrow (today - 0216) or in the future; when I awake from a good 5 hours of sleep. *fingers crossed*
This place looks much more promising than the DSG. Hehe.

[Zoeli]

I'm still catching up here.

Idiot Apathy: The shadows on my last post were done without reference, just trying the best I can to figure it out from the lightsource

Anyways, here's my take on the first project.
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/4175/balls6tb.jpg

So, not too bad, I think. Lighter than the original, which is different from a lot of other attempts that end up darker. That's kinda interesting to me...Anyways, my specular is also not as bright as the original, or in quite the same position.

I think the differences are more easily seen here:
http://img435.imageshack.us/img435/769/ballsmall3zw.jpg

Anyways, I'm gonna keep working through these

*sighs*

It's lonely in here :[

[Idiot Apathy]

It's lonely in here :[

Boy is it ever! Sorry I forgot to reply until now, this thread must be in quicksand or something.

Anyways, good results on the spheres. It sounds like you tried this exercise out before? If that's the case I think I know why your purple sphere turned out lighter rather thay darker.

Try this out, do a few more spheres trying to match the values to the grayscale. Do one yellow and one purple. Maybe a Red and a Green if you have time! I'm going to do this when I have time, maybe tomorrow.

*Skip this next part until you do it/unless you don't want to do it*

If your eyes and practices are trained or if you do this pretty instictivly, I think the yellow one will turn out darker than you'd expect. The Concept of yellow is a very bright color, when it loses intensity or value it almost always feels green to me. Your Purple sphere will probably turn out a little lighter too. The Concept of Purple is a very dark color generally so if you think "This sphere is purple" you will tend to stay in the general concept of purple. Now Red and Green I would say are pretty close in value, or rather the concept of red and green are close in value. I think these spheres would turn out about the same, they might not match your grayscale sphere however. I'm not entirely sure how to explain this yet but Colors have Values, not just the concepts of colors but I think it's deeper than that. (I'll let you know what I find out.)

For a real kick, try a multi-colored sphere: try to use say purple for your darkest and yellow for your lightest. See what works in between... you know what; maybe this will be the next exercise? But it seems kind of pointless when it's this lonely in here ya know?

Edit: Threw this together to show a little more what I mean; These are the colors of the Modern Color wheel. They are all at the same Brightness level on the Color Picker (80) and the same Saturation (100%). Do they look like the same value to you? Try squinting if you can't tell.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/3f5163f2.jpg
Here is a grayscale to give you an approximation: It's a link so it won't ruin the above.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/Untitled-2.jpg
Maybe this is a flawed example (Of course I did it...) but I'm pretty sure the theory still stands. Like I said, need to do some further research. You know I really expected purple to be the darkest.

On a side note; if you are trying to get a black and white image out of a colored one DO NOT desaturate, don't just take all the saturation out. You need to convert it to grayscale. If you had just desaturated the colored bars above they would become one big bar of gray.

[Darkside]

oh my god, I´m such a newbie in colors:tihi:

tried the value/color thingie, no change in hue or such fancy stuff ;)
some of the spheres are really off, will do some more. have to figure out how to make them appear less chalky. it´s all in the halftone right? hmm...
any crits?

http://people.freenet.de/paradoxa/sketches/colorgrey1.jpg

[Idiot Apathy]

Thanks for joining in Darkside; your spheres look great. Intensity right in the middle is perfect. What's interesting with yours is if you take out all the saturation they look very very much alike. So I'd say sucess in picking the same general area for each different value on each sphere however the grayscale shows a bit of difference huh? I don't think this exercise was that clear, or was really set up to show this properly though. I'm not entirely sure of the ramifications of this but I think it is important to understand the higher value of say yellow and the lower value of say blue.

As for the chalky look, it's got to be your brush. Your using painter right? You could try turning the grain down, a different brush of course, maybe switching the brush type to something other than grain, another brush of course or try using a simple blender.

[Zoeli]

Nope, first time I've tried this exercise before. My education in colour theory has been, looking back, pretty inadequate. The only thing we ever did regarding values of colours in high school was to make a strip of the primary and secondary colours, blending from light to dark, then use this to draw a crumpled black and white newspaper in colour. At that time, our teacher told us that the order would be yellow, orange, green/red, blue, purple, depending on the coloured pencils we were using. I guess to some extent we all know a little of this theory though; when you're very young, and drawing with crayons, you draw your little yellow circle of a sun and it barely shows up against your white sky.

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/1918/ballsspec7ku.jpg

I should probably note that I did these one after another, and I tried to measure each new sphere's value against any previous sphere that I'd coloured. I coloured them in the order that you see, so the yellow sphere's value was measured just against the grey sphere, and the purple's against all the others. I think that if I'd done them all individually my results may have been different. Also, I did not covert to greyscale until I had finished every sphere. I didn't want to keep adjusting as I was working, but to wait and see at the end where I was going wrong so I can better myself next time.

The yellow is closest to the original in value. I went toward orange for the darker values, but it still has that murky green look to it. It definately doesn't scream yellow at all, but I guess that's just the problem with yellow being so light. I think was overcompensating here though. compare the yellow sphere against the grey, and at least to me, it appears darker. I guess just a case of using my little knowlage to override the information my eyes are giving me?

Below, on the top row are the base colours I put down for each sphere (more or less, anyway, I only thought to do this afterwards) Brightness and saturation of each base colour was 100%, with only a change in hue. The was I see it, is that is what the computer is telling me is yellow, green etc.

The bottom row is what I would consider the basic colours. Obviously this is just my personal perception. Is this what you mean by concept of colours?

http://img453.imageshack.us/img453/7294/blobs3oz.jpg

Just a greyscale version to show the values:

http://img453.imageshack.us/img453/4311/blobsgrey1yw.jpg

I might give the multicoloured sphere a go next.

Anyway, I'd just like to say that this is a huge help to me, especially to be thinking about colours in this way, and actually having to put those thoughts into words. Like I mentioned before, I've done very little work on colour theory, other than the basics, and a lot of it is instinct and guesswork.

I think tposting here be benificial to a lot of people, it just requires a little time and effort, some of these take just minutes and they will help you. >_> Hint hint.

Darkside! Welcome! It's good to see someone in here. Your top row of spheres are all very close in value, and your yellow really sticks out as the lightest and your blue the darkest, and you can see how that fits in with Idiot Apathy's post above. As for your sphere's looking chalky, what program are you using? Maybe we could give you a tip or two. I hope you do stay investigate further into the relationship between colour and value, or thy some of the other projects. The more people that post here, the more we can learn from one another.

[Idiot Apathy]

New spheres look great Zoeli, you know where you missed the value a bit that's all that matters. I'm very pleased to see doing these have helped you out, even a little. Makes it all worth while but I still wish we could get some more people in here and start up what this thread was meant to be.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I can't say that "Concept of a Color" is very good at describing what I'm trying to say. Ironically what I was trying to say was very simple. What do you see when you picture yellow? What do you see when you picture blue? I imagine it's nearly the same for most people, same hue same, same value and same intensity. Why is this so when there are billions of different colors? How many crayola blues can you name?

But I think that the concept of different colors in our head are all different in terms of value and intensity. Not only that but the colors themselves seems to have something like this physically built in, I'm not sure.

Try this:
Name which hue this color has came from, they are directly from the modern color wheel with no hue variance; only value and intensity. (Of course I wouldn't call them perfect, the hue is only my perception.) Your choices are Yellow, Yellow Orange, Orange, Red Orange, Red, Red Magenta, Magenta, Blue Magenta, Blue, Blue Cyan, Cyan, Green Cyan, Green, Yellow Green.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/6181f5e4.jpg
Don't use a color picker! That would be too easy, just use your eyes!
I did my best to try and confuse you, hehe. Yellow is a toughy...

Answers on this link:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/28887d97.jpg

Edit: Oh, umm... what should we do next? More on colors I suppose but I can't think of a topic. Anyone got any ideas or anything that has been bugging them?

[Darkside]

my choice would have been:
a: magenta b: green cyan c: blue magenta d: yellow orange e: blue f: yellow g: red magenta h: yellow i: red j: green cyan k: yellow green l: magenta m: cyan
n: green
wow, have to practice identifying colors :x very interesting

@idiotapathy:
no I´m using ps. big softbrush and a more textured brush for the highlight. doesn´t the chalky look come from wrong saturation? your spheres look totally different, richer. guees I have to use the hue/temperature change more.

[MindCandyMan]

Hey guys this is a fantastic thread! I started with the first exercise...I am gonna catch up...this is really great! I definitely went too dark with the color version on mine...or the masses of light and shadow are different which could be contributing. It was interesting as I was painting it because when you saturate the area right before the shadow (like you guys were suggesting) it really does make the sphere pop. I saturated the pinks a lot more right before the core shadow but I tried to keep the values the same. I also added orange if you can believe it...to the highlight area. I remember Jason Manley talking about same value color difference at one of the workshops. He was saying that when you are painting you can put some colors on the object to make it vibrate and look actually brighter...darker...etc.. For instance I cooled down the shadows on the color version with a much bluer color thatn the purple color of the sphere. And adding orange to the highlights (hopefully the same value as the surrounding purple strokes) reinforces the idea of warm highlight...cool shadow on this particular sphere. In north light it would be the other way around but you get the idea at any rate.

http://www.mindcandyman.com/jons_uploads/color value practice3.jpg


http://www.mindcandyman.com/jons_uploads/color value practice4.jpg

I hope all of that made sense...if it didn't I can explain again what i meant hehe

[invinciblewombat]

remind me again why I am paying out the ass to go to design school when you just taught my first quarter classes for free? Serously though, great program here.

[romance]

Idiot, i'm back and good to go, hopefully beable to post some stuff in the next day or two. It's great to see this thread has picked up, hope someone stickies it soon.

-Rob

[Idiot Apathy]

@Romance: Sweet, was beginning to worry about you :).

@invinciblewombat: HA! I was wondering myself why I haven't seen more things like this out here; decided to be brave and step up. Maybe I'm going to be sued or knocked off by some wierd art school conspiracy group for starting up this open source education... Anyways, where are you going to school? Oh and do some of the exercises! :P

@MindCandyMan: very cool to see you in here and excited! Hope you stick around, I'm sure we could learn much from your insight stemming from your "journey" and otherwise; and *cough* maybe you could spread some of that Atelier lovin around... :bashful:

I see the orange in your sphere but according to the Color Picker this blended more into a red magenta. The warm orange feel is still there but without even a hint of yellow, very interesting. Somewhere I read that using a little bit of your objects complementary color in the highlights can also create the vibrating effect your talking about. I think... it may have been written by Mr. Manley actually. It's something I've been trying to figure out recently.

You mention how your sphere would have the opposite hue shifts in North Light. I've heard it recommended many times to paint in North Light, why? How is it different than the other directions? Obviously I think you would get more of the sun in a west or east light, but why not south?
- - - - - - -
The warm and cool relationships of colors has really caught my attention recently as well, still working it through in my head really. The warmth would usually come from the sun I'd say and the cooling mostly from the blue sky but also from what I'd call color relativity. For instance a color in sunlight would be fairly intense from the amount of light it is receiving however in the shadow the object would be recieving less pure light and therefore less intense (and of course lower in value). An low intensity red will look cold when next to a high intensity red. Add to this that the sky is most likely the greatest source of reflected lighting filling our shadows with cool light.

Maybe because light itself is energy that is usually converted to heat that the color of sunlight is considered warm and the color of shadows are considered cool? Would this be the same on Mars? Maybe a little bit due to color relativity I suppose.

What about say a blue object with a cool light source in a cool enviroment? Will the shadow still be cool enough to distinquish it? Or will it actually feel warm with color relativity?

Ah so many questions, but it's exciting to me.
I'm sure at least MindCandyMan is familar with this post of FredFlickstone's I'm still trying to figure it all out:http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=220598&postcount=373
Wonder where Mr. Lemen has gone off to?

Oh, here is the one of the best examples of color relativity (they call it color perception, might be a better name?) I've ever seen:
http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/colourPerception/colourPerception.html
I usually have a hard time being "tricked" by this illusion (Suppose I should feel blessed) but this one gets me every time.

Edit: Oh I thought you all might find this interesting. While working on an assignment involving a design featuring colors of the same value but different intensities I found that intensity is also closely related to value. I had to use different "values" of colors with different intensities for them to come out nearly the same in grayscale. Is this a natural part of physics or is this a fallacy of converting to grayscale?

[BlackGuy]

its actually a fallacy of converting to grayscale, if you desaturate the image instead of coverting it to grayscale, pretty often you'll end up with different values. I was actually just reading about that last night, I'll try to find the post but I don't even know if it was in this forum.

[MindCandyMan]

idiot apathy - Yeah exactly! The vibrating thing...that's what manley was talkin about at the workshop. Very cool stuff. Don't worry I will be sticking around. The atelier is closed so I am continuing with self study. I will definitely help you guys with whatever knowledge I have...but as far as color I don't have much so we will learn together hehe.

As far as the north light thing...think about it this way...when you are outside in direct sunlight the shadows are often blue on the sidewalk...that's because the suns direct light is warm and the shadows are cool. But in north light it is the opposite (perhaps because the sky is reflecting???)...you get cool lights and warm shadows. Check out this painting by William Whitaker here:

http://www.williamwhitaker.com/B_HTML_files/04_figures/rebecca.htm

Whenever you add white to something it cools it down...remember that when you are painting. If you add white...you are cooling the color! Check out the highlights of her face...cool...very cool. And the shadows of her face are warm. Bill has a north light studio and you can tell. Btw he is having a workshop in february in salt lake city if anyone is interested...I'm going.

[purb36]

wow, i never really paid much attention, didnt know this was here...so much of the stuff i need to work on. ill definitely be coming here more often, hopefully even doing some of the exercises. gotta go back to square one and read from the beginning, seems like soooo much useful info in here. thx dude; kudos. :cheerleader:

[invinciblewombat]

@apathy: I'm at DAAP at University of Cincinnati, we've done almost all of these exercizes in one form or another though they want us to do it with traditional mediums instead of digital. I will post them once I can get ahold of a scanner for personal use since the school provided ones are often ill tempered and streaky. I can send you a copy of my color theory class's sylabus for some more project ideas if you like too.

[Idiot Apathy]

Ooo, thread seems lively today!
What should we focus on for the next exercise? Ideas?

@Gauge: I'm not so sure that just desaturating an image will work either, but I did some digging and it seems Photoshops Grayscale Conversion is off too. I'd like to see your link, this is important stuff!

@MindCandyMan: That's really too bad your Atelier is closing down! Always seemed like a great way to learn.
About adding white; I think your talking about when you add white to your paint that it becomes cooler right? Because you have to add white sometimes to increase value? Or perhaps this is done with just the next warmest color or yellow? I guess white will deintensify quicker making it cooler. Anyways, good stuff; streching my brain out. Thanks.
About William Whitaker, I've seen some of his stuff around but I'm not sure where I know him from, I just looked and saw he's a living master at ARC probably know him from there. Funny thing is I LIVE IN UTAH, probably less than 20 minutes away from wherever his workshop will be. I'm reading his bio right now and I've had teachers who had his teacher Alvin Gittins. Where did you find out about this workshop? I think I might go; I'm just starting out with traditional media so I'm not sure how much good it would do but I'd like to see if I can afford it.
They way you put it it seems that the cool north light is actually causing the warm shadows, I can't understand that except as an Illusion but I may be wrong! I have a teacher who says that warm light will always cast cool shadows and cool light will cast warm shadows; I really hate "rules" in art like this, because they do nothing to explain why. Obviously the north light is cool, probably from the sky, so this is the cause of the cool highlights. In contrast to the cool north light the shadows would seem warm but I think he has capitalized on a warm cool relationship here with the rich brown background creating the warm reflected light and has maybe even accentuated it further.
Lordy... that was a long reply. Thanks for reading it...

@purb36: What up dood? Cool to see you in here. Hope this makes sense: いつ来てもかんげいします。

@invinciblewombat: Cool, can't wait to see them and yeah I'd like to see your syllabus.

[Idiot Apathy]

Experiment #1:
Warm and Cool Light In Warm and Cool Enviroments.
- - - - - - - - - -
The Guidelines: Edited Updated
A: Do the project and create a dialogue of what you did and why. (Try and think about this while you do the project, this is important; we will be better able to learn from each other as well as catch each other's mistakes.)
B: The Dialogue will be analysed by your peers; (Right or wrong, the idea is to have a reason why and explain it. I think this will be key )
C: And of course at the same time peer critiques will be offered. (Pretty simple no?)
D: You shouldn't have to spend a large amount of time on this however spend as much time as you need, give it your best.
E. All Projects/Exercises are of course optional, have no order, and are always open to participation. Start wherever and whenever you want!
F. People who are too embarassed to post their results will be shot on sight, you're here to learn not to show off.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
I strongly recommend you read the discussions and analyses within others posts that are between exercises. I see a lot of the same advice being repeated. Read through this for your sake; I mean don't you want to learn faster?

This being said, sometimes advice or critiques will be given that may be incorrect, or misconceptions; I most likely am not innocent of this either. If you spot mistakes be sure and correct them! Don't confuse these with opinions however, which are never wrong only different.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Quite perplexed with the effects of Warm and Cool light and exactly what they do to an object and the objects shadow I thought this would be good as the next excerise, nay it's now a full blown experiment. No really defined end result just our combined efforts to really try and figure this out.

So back to our quick and easy friend the sphere in his lonely enviroments.
- - - - - - - - - -

Set up: Prepare yourself for however you like to work, a quick sketch of a sphere or whatever. Keep in mind this experiment will consist of several seperate spheres in several seperate enviroments. I think that a medium high gray will work best as the local color of the sphere but feel free to experiment and see if you find something that works better. I'm keeping the descriptions fairly general to see what we come up with. Try and keep these pretty quick so you don't get tired out! Let's say for the purpose of increasing the amount of reflected lighting that the object is surrounded by the enviroment, maybe it's on a corner table surrounded by a wall of the exact same color as the table? Try and keep yourself as blind to everyone else's experiment until you have finished your own!


Part One: Sphere lit with warm light (maybe the ugly yellow lights we use indoors? Or the sun?) in a dull gray enviroment. What light is being reflected into the shadows? What will happen to the color of the object when this light hits it? Don't forget your cast shadows either!

Part Two: Sphere lit with cool light (overcast winter day maybe? Or a novelty lightbulb?) in a dull gray enviroment. Again, what light will be reflected into the shadows. Remember shadows are the part that isn't touched by the direct lightsource, only light from the enviroment. (Generally but this would change with multiple lightsources, ever seen the shadows in a room with many lights?)

Part Three: Sphere lit with warm light in a cool enviroment. Hmm, so now not only does the lightsource have a hue but the reflected light will have some hue in it? What will this do to your sphere? What will be more intense, the eviroment's cool hue or the enviroment's reflected light onto the sphere's core shadow?

Part Four: Sphere lit with cool light in a warm enviroment. Again the light coming from the cool light source will bounce off the warm enviroment most likely everywhere but it is usually most noticable in the sphere's core shadow.

Presentation: Try and keep these of medium size so they will present themselves well in a normal browser window. I'd recommend working larger and then resizing when you've finished. Group them however you want, just try to maximize the space given. Maybe 2x2?

Extra: If your bored why not try a different colored sphere? or enviroment? Perhaps a secondary lightsource? You could try a warm lightsource and a cool lightsource on the same sphere.

Please post any questions, clarifications, comments or corrections! I'll get back to ya!
- - - - - -
I'm going to post in a day or two to give you all a headstart; see ya then.

[Zoeli]

Good to see loads of posts here recently.

Guess I'm there first to jump in here. I'm feeling totally out of my depth with this warm/cold thing. Gah. Linkified to keep other people's experiments fresh. No peeking till you're done with your own! :P

http://img498.imageshack.us/img498/2155/sphere3sn.jpg

Also, did this a while ago, forgot to post it. The second project in the thread I think. I think I'm gonna try a few more variations on this one, if I get time. (I've been at work everyday for 10 days in a row. Day off on Friday, thankfully.)

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/3965/littleboxesonthehillside5os.jpg

[xxEnder]

Hey, thanks for the reference; a quick skim through and it seems pretty nice, ill be looking foward to going through it completely.

[Idiot Apathy]

@xxEnder: Cool, hope to see you soon!
@Zoeli: Very very nice on the blocks. You put a lot of thought into this one, it payed off! Did you start with the midtone on these? Where did you learn color? Are you self taught like me? Only thing that bugs me, and just a little bit; is the green cubes shadow seems to going up a wall, not sure if that's your intention. Any ways, thanks for sticking around in here; your stuff has inspired some learning for me :) Now get some days off :P

Gunna wait to comment on the warm/cool until we get some more people, but here is mine if you'd like to take a peak. Kind of messy again :).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/d3ec1e54.jpg

[Zoeli]

Yeah I started with the midtone. I'm am self taught, and it's only since coming here that I've started to realise that I need to work on some colour theory. Before it was just experimenting on my own, and picking up things here and there. Yeah, the shadows could all be way off, I'm not 100% on casting shadows. If you, or anyone else has any information on that, I'd be greatful. Anyways, nothing else from me today. I came home from work yesterday, fell asleep by 4:30pm and woke up at 6:30 this morning. Guess I was more tired than I thought. So today I'm taking it easy.

[MindCandyMan]

Hey guys...I need help haha. I wanted to paint these cubes instead of doing it in photoshop so it was a bit harder. But it just doesn't look right...I need some help:

http://www.mindcandyman.com/jons_uploads/Project-2-mind.jpg

Another thing I was thinking we could do...is that same square painting that I just did except learn to render different materials...metal...wood...ceramic...etc.. Would be really challenging but could be very cool I think.

[Diego]

hey man, lots of very helpful information here, i didn't knew this thread. Now i'm happy, lot of resources.
Thanks for taking the time.

[William b. Hand]

just found this thread. I certainly could use some training in colour. Now that I'm subscribed, I'll try to participate. I suppose I'd best start from the first exercises, huh? God, I dread this sort of study :^^;: ...

[D.O.Jones]

Very cool thread. I've never done much serious colour work before. So this was good fun.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/RashOverdrive/Project-Two-01.jpg

I'm not happy with these. I think I might take another shot at them soon.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/RashOverdrive/Project-2-01.jpg

MCM: I might be way of on these. But here are some hasty thoughts on your blocks.

The blocks in the front are reading as lighter in value than the ground. I think this means that there should be more light reflecting on to the gound rather than the other way around.

On the shadow side of the green block. The reflected light is hitting the wrong corner.

Maybe less saturation in the green block and more on the red block.

Darker value in the shadow on the ground.

here (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/RashOverdrive/Project-2-mind_over.jpg) is a paintover that is not very good.

[MattGamer]

Great idea for a thread and I hope to get all the projects finished soon. I'm learning tons these days, and it's exciting to know others are as well (even after they've been painting for years).

I did this one a week ago, but didn't post because of the quality of it. This is my second attempt at the project and it took me less time because I knew what I needed to achieve the requirements. Still, the balls dont seem right somehow and I hope you guys can point me in the right direction.

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/8590/smlexp1wandcc5gf.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
1. I tried going for the yellow light bulb light here. Wasn't sure if I should make the whole ball yellow or not, but did anyways.
2. Here I tried the snowy winter's day lighting. I know this well because it frickin' snows here 3/4ths of the year (and it sucks). The shadow is kinda faded and I attempted to make it look as sick as possible (well to me because I hate snow so much and overcast days in winter).
3. Here's the warm ball with cool surroundings. I put the shadow with dark blue, but not sure if the effect came to the requirements.
4. The final and blue ball in warm colored conditions. I took the longest time on #1 ball because I didn't know how to work with the colors easily. Then I created a process and used the color chart along with the opacity on 11% to blend the colors.

Thanks.

[Idiot Apathy]

Wow, I am really really pleased with the response and activity in here lately. Really building up speed now aren't we? I think our target audience must be want to know about color huh? Sorry for not being in here lately, busy time of year and semester ya know?

@Zoeli: Wish I could help you on shadows, we've got to find someone else to do that exercise... maybe we'll just try some experiments and find some answers though. Try not to work too hard now ;). On your reflected light spheres: O lordy, looking at your warm light in cool enviro/cool light in warm enviro, the shading on your spheres goes the entire range, half of the color wheel, from warm to cool and vice versa. Can you explain a little why you thought to do this? I'm starting to wonder myself if you have a lightsource that is the complement of your reflected lighting would this happen or would it just dull itself out until hit gray? Hard to say, but I like how your's turned out. The cool light on the last one turned out a bit green though didn't it? Anyways, cheers. Thanks for sticking with me :).

@MindCandyMan: Dude, I still can't find anything on Mr. Whittakers workshop you said will be in SLC, just some Scottsdales AZ workshops in like April. So you used real paint on these cubes?! Your comment is a tad confusing... is it photoshop? anyways that's cool, I should try that. Colors might be a little dull. I think this is caused more by being the same or really close in hue rather than an intensity problem. Might try adding a little red-orange as you get lighter on the red or some red-violet on when you get darker. Kind of a warm cool illusion, not sure how it would look with just sunlight still figuring that out. I'm not sure I agree with Rash Overdrive as far as the seperate block's colors; after all it's about the lightsource AND the material the block is made out of (how it reflects the light etc). So you could have a very intense green block and a very dull red block with the same lightsource, hell if the lightsource was green that's exactly what you'd have under (any)? situation. No I take that back I think what he is saying because the reflected brown background light the red shadow would be a little more intense than the green because of their proximity in relation to a color wheel. Also would the blue block's shadow side be more red or brown like the background? Not sure. As far as the shadow structure itself, is it correct in thinking the shadow's edges on the different blocks should all meet up at a common vanishing point? The green block doesn't seem to agree with that no? I like your idea for rendering different surfaces, I could really use the practice on that. You think you'd be able to set something like that up? I can try but I'm not sure how to go about it. Let me know. Man, sorry you have to read so much again... sheesh.

@Diego: Thanks for the support! Now join in :upset: !

@William b. Hand: Duuuuude! William B. Hand is in our thread! Sweeeeet! Start where ever you'd like man, this is all voluntary and the exercises are always open. I don't suppose you have any exercises you could set up for us do you ;) ;)?

@Rash Overdrive: Nice! I looked at them both in grayscale and your values are pretty close but your core shadow is larger in the color one hehe. I think your cubes look good too, accurate. I think it might be your gray background that is giving you grieve, dulling everything out. You lightsource would seem to have a slight cyan tint to it judging from the hue shifts you've done, I might capitalize on that a little more and emphasize it slightly. Technially I'm not sure if the blue block's shadow should go closer to a red-violet or not, the reflected lighting from the enviroment is gray so it would truly only dull the blue, is the red block reflecting light into the shadow? I'm not sure but it seems a little improbable. You seem to know your fair share about reflected lighting, is there anything you could share/set up to teach us? It wouldn't have to be an exercise, it could be say a diagram or anything really. What you said about the blocks being lighter than the brown ground was really interesting, made sense. Anyways, glad to have you here! Stick around :^^:

@MattGamer: Welcome to the thread, make yourself at home :teeth:. You shouldn't be embarassed to post, it's much easier to learn from it if you do! The lightsource on your spheres doesn't appear to be as bright as mine or Zoeli's, almost like it was covered by a gel filter or something (oh... or like you said, a yellow lightbulb. So it's not as bright but it's more intense. It's not wrong of course, but your gray enviroment should reflect that too (ugh, no pun intended...). Remember gray is a a color that reflects all hues in equal values, no distinquishable hue. However if your lightsource is predominately yellow the gray will have more yellow than any other hue to reflect and will appear yellow. Huff huff... That is a long sentence. Now as a yellow lightbulb the specular highlight on your sphere probably shouldn't be that white, it should be about the same as if you looked at the bulb itself. I'm interested in seeing the color chart you made, it is a very hard thing to understand what you should do with colors until you've actually done it several times. Maybe we can help you out a little bit so do post it. Anyways dude, just keep at it, it's a practice makes perfect thing.
- - - - - - -
Edit: I've got some wrong assumptions I put in here, I left them as kind of a thought process so you can see where I was going, make sure you read the experiment part at the bottom you don't get mislead.

Here is my Warm Cool experiment:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/d3ec1e54.jpg
I really should have wrote what I did and why when I posted this... damn.
Looking at it in Painter... it seems that my colors also blend along half of the color wheel... bizarre. I don't think I did this on purpose, maybe it's a glitch in the program? I think it may be (looking at the top left) because I chose a gray in the blue range even though it has no intensity painter still blended it down towards blue? It's really only noticable with the color picker.

I was thinking that a lightsource and an enviroment's reflected lighting would cancel each other out with a perfect gray (if 50% lightsource and 50% reflected met) but of course these would have to be the same exact intensity, I don't think value would play into it much except what value the gray would be. But thinking along those lines... your "cool" enviroment would only show up as gray if your direct complement lightsource was the only lightsource. Aiyaaaaa, quite the mindstreching here. Anyways, this experiment was fantasy so the cool enviroment "could" exist but for reasons unseen.

What do you guys think, would there be a hue shift in the blend or straight to gray?
- - - - - - - - -
Did a few eye opening experiments in Photoshop: *Note: with the JPEG compression the posted pictures won't work perfectly.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/100-Cyan-100-Red.jpg
I started out with 100% Intensity and Value #180 Cyan (Number refers to degrees on a Color Wheel Starting with Red at 0. This is also Photoshops Hue Slider!) with an opposing 100% Intensity and Value #0 Red. These should be exact complements, I got them using the invert feature but their hue numbers say it too. I then blended them with a 200px Gaussian Blur, the canvas was 100px by 500px. Unfortuneately I am not a mathematician so after the blur the original colors weren't on the page, o'well the experiment still stands. Anyways, in the center is a Perfect 50% Value 0% Intensity Gray. There were no hue shifts in between! Now, this would be subtractive mixing but I think there wouldn't be a hue shift in additive mixing as well, just different values. *Note: The slight violet you see near the middle of the Red is an optical illusion. This low intensity red appears cooler and thus closer to violet when compared to the high intensity red. Didn't I post something like this?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/100-Cyan-80-Red.jpg
This is a 100% Value and Intensity #180 Cyan versus a 80% Value 100% Intensity #0 Red. Same thing, no hue change. The only difference was the value of the Perfect Gray, approximately 45%.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/100-Cyan-40-Red.jpg
This is 100% Value and Intensity #180 Cyan versus a 40% Value 100% Intensity #0 Red. Again, no hue change. Perfect gray at approximately 28%.

I then tried mixing this Cyan with some other colors:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/100-180Cyan-100-240Blue.jpg
This is 100% Value and Intensity #180 Cyan versus 100% Value and Intensity #240 Blue. A perfect sequential hue change, however no intensity change; Interesting! *Note: This Blue is exactly 60 degrees from the Cyan.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/100-180Cyan-100-60Yellow.jpg
This is 100% Value and Intensity #180 Cyan versus 100% Value and Intensity #60 Yellow. Again, a perfect sequential hue change. But much to my surprise the intensity dropped to exactly 50% in the middle, so wild! *Note: This Yellow is exactly 120 degrees away from this Cyan.

The math behind this is so incredibly amazing, and I actually really don't like math. If you were good enough and armed with the proper color wheel you could calculate exactly what should happen to each mixture of colors, amazing.

Can anyone think of how we could do this with addititive color theory? Just so we could confirm it?

[tayete]

Well, as I had a big lack of value comprehension I jumped into this thread. Here are the first results:

http://www.tayete.com/sketches/tayete1.jpg
http://www.tayete.com/sketches/tayetegrey.jpg
http://www.tayete.com/sketches/Project-2-template.jpg

About the balls: Really hard but I enjoyed the exercise a lot. Though closing my eyes they looked nearly identical, the desaturate filter showed the truth: the colour one is much darker than the other one. On my behalf I must say I didn't use the eyedropper to watch what values where at the grey ball.

The 2nd exercise made me feel completely lost. Maybe because I chose a quite complex light point (it strikes directly on most of the corners, so I didn't know which wall was lightened and which darker, or if both were lightened), but the fact is it is a complete mess. Any hints of what should I fix?

Keep the good work guys!

[MattGamer]

Idiot Apathy: Oh yes!! I now see what your talking about and love your crits! I think I was way tired when I made them. I might do them again, darker this time. Thanks a ton... I love this thread. ;)

[tayete]

Allright, the 2nd exercise: the milk jar.
Forget about the drawing, didn't lose even a minute on them.
http://www.tayete.com/sketches/lechera.jpg
http://www.tayete.com/sketches/lechera2.jpg

[CreationEdge]

Part B:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/red-spheres.jpg
Red on Red: Because both the paper and the sphere's local color was the same red I figured the reflected light on the sphere would be more intense than either of them. and of course higher in value than the core shadow because I was adding light. Again with the cast shadow I thought very little light other than the neutral enviroment light(gray background) would be reflected into it so I dropped the intensity just a little less than usual and the value about the same.
Red on Yellow:
I think when mixing different hues of equal intensity the result will be less intense. I figured a pure red with an equal amount of pure yellow should yield an orange; so I ended up with a fairly intense (red and yellow are pretty close on the color wheel so they shouldn't dull each other too much) orange as the reflected light. Core shadow again, small hue shift less intense and lower value.
Red on Blue:
Red is pretty far away from Blue on the color wheel so they will dull each other out pretty quickly. Reflected light was a pretty dull violet. Core shadow little bit of a hue shift, lower value less intense.


Red ball on yellow paper:

Paper absorbs Blue, reflects Red + Green (Yellow)
Ball absorbs Blue and Green, reflects Red

The reflected light from the paper is Red + Green. The ball would absorb the green and reflect Red only. Not orange, which is 2 parts Red 1 part Green. The ball can't reflect green at all(assuming it's Pure, as you said)

The yellow paper, on the other hand... Well, it can't absorb the red from the ball, so it would reflect it. It's not reflecting red twice, and green once(from the original White Light). The paper would thus have some orange where it reflects the extra light from the ball.

With the Red Ball Blue Paper.
The Blue Paper reflects blue, absorbing Red and Green.
The Red Ball reflects red, absorbing Blue and Green.

So, the Red would absorb from the Blue, and the Blue from the red, but they wouldn't actually mix. The Pure Red ball can never be anything BUT red.

Bringing me to Red Ball Red Paper.

You could never have anything more than pure red on the ball. I think more red light from the paper would simply saturate the ball.

I -think- the only reason you see white highlights one colored spheres is because you don't see pure red. At least not in nature. Colored plastic, rubbed, metal. They don't absorb ALL red and green, so where the highest concentration of light is(the highlight), it's reflecting enough of all the colors to appear white.


This is all from a purely Physics POV, with no painting experience. And once you get away from pure colors, it gets more complicated.

[Idiot Apathy]

@tayete: Welcome to the thread, hope you stick around ! Good results for a first try, the objective of the exercise was just to think about value and how it relates to color. Why you would use a color in a certain area, what color would be appropriate for a shadow area etc etc. Keep it in mind and you'll keep improving. You said you used the desaturate filter, not sure where that is but I think even though it's not perfect you will get more accurate results if you convert to grayscale. Same with the colored blocks, it's there to get you thinking about it, not to show off how perfect you can get it. I'd like to see you try it with a lightsource you think will be a little easier, try something that might hit just one side, or try just one block (and do post it so we can all help you!). In most areas your lightsource seems to be a white light (contains all colors) but on the blue block it seems to be a cool light, making the lightest part a little more blue, the shadows say the object is almost Cyan. The different lightsources object exercise: Your working hard man! Good on ya. On the first one; I'm don't think there would be a dark area on the second part from the top, it should look mostly like your other parts. Unless you planned your lightsource coming from ground level, then there might be a shadow in that area but also on the top cylinder. Ugh, that's rather confusing. Let me know if it needs clarifying. Second one looks pretty good too, I might watch your blending, keep it as a smooth transition (not necessarily a smooth blend) to keep it looking round. Anyways mate, glad to have you in here, keep up the hard work!

@MattGamer: Sweet dude, glad I could help out. Hope to see some stuff soon.

@CreationEdge:
What better way to explain light than through physics? Well... for precision really, not exactly the easiest for everyone to understand. Thanks for taking the time to write all that down, please keep contributing if you feel there is anything else worth saying, your's is a good viewpoint to have in here.

In reading this I hope I don't come off as defensive, I just want to reason this out; hoping for a little bit of a debate for the purpose of, well ... getting to the bottom of it.

Your right of course, my chosen verbage of "Pure" was the wrong way to put it. I think it would be almost impossible to have an object that only reflected one wave-length of light right? However I don't think it's correct to think of light as RGB is it? You obviously know more about Physics (I don't know bubkis), but the visual spectrum of light has several discernable hues to it no? I think it's actually a rather large amount right? Our eyes see in RGB though don't they? Does this override that or something?

Now let's say in a "realistic" situation a Red object absorbs 80 percent of all light other than red light. But next to it is a Yellow object that reflects only yellow light directly onto the red object. The area of the Red Object where this light is reflected would have much more yellow light to deal with, a much higher percentage than before. What if this was in the shadow area, the shadow opposite of the white light containing all the red light? This shadow area would appear yellow wouldn't it? It would be absorbing 20 percent of the yellow light. If we mixed this with some reflected white light into the shadow the extra amount of yellow mixed with the red would mix into like a redish orange no? Is this right? Do my spheres look right to you if they aren't "Pure"?

Now, hypothetically an absolutely pure red object that reflects only red and absorbs all others wouldn't change at all with a pure yellow light reflected onto it? Sounds right, I guess it wouldn't even have a value change. Reflected light would be ignored entirely, or it would just come back onto the source object making it... no it would then be completely reflected again... after all it's already as pure of a hue as it could get, no notable difference. Wow, the world would be very boring if things were like this.

Kudos on putting the "white" highlights into words, good stuff.

Oof, anyways my mind is really stretching here; thanks for the good input, hope you stick around.

[MattGamer]

Here is my stab at Project 1:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/MattGamer/Proj1color.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/MattGamer/Proj1grey.jpg
It was exciting to do this once again and to actually know what I was doing (kinda) because of the previous excersize I did (the warm/cold exersize).
This was all pretty much done by eye. But when I started with the grey tones it was harder to get the color to have the same tones with it. I think it's much easier in the grey, but what would life be with only grey. It would be like that movie... Pinesville... gosh I forgot the name. But you get my jiff.
EDIT: I just realized, after changing my desktop color from the 16-bit it was to 32-bit; and found that the color ball is very faded. Gosh, what did I do! Must fix this!

I didn't know there were more projects to do (ie. sketch the object and shadow it, etc). I only thought there were 4 so far. I can't wait to get started on them all.
And thank you, Idiot Apathy, for your kindness and warm welcome to the thread. I would love to be in a class taught by you anyday. ;)

UPDATE: I got a lighter green and re-did a few things here and there to make them look like balls. Haha.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/MattGamer/Proj1color2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/MattGamer/Proj1grey2.jpg

[CreationEdge]

I hope I didn't come off as trying to be anything but helpful. I only used "pure" because you did and it's the easiest to explain and clarify.
Now let's say in a "realistic" situation a Red object absorbs 80 percent of all light other than red light. But next to it is a Yellow object that reflects only yellow light directly onto the red object. The area of the Red Object where this light is reflected would have much more yellow light to deal with, a much higher percentage than before. What if this was in the shadow area, the shadow opposite of the white light containing all the red light? This shadow area would appear yellow wouldn't it? It would be absorbing 20 percent of the yellow light. If we mixed this with some reflected white light into the shadow the extra amount of yellow mixed with the red would mix into like a redish orange no? Is this right? Do my spheres look right to you if they aren't "Pure"?

Your real life situation, which is likely what you'll deal with(This is a correction, just me trying to reason things out. Feel free to skim.):

The "Red", or reddish, object would likely reflect as much green as blue. (Let's just assume that, for this situation). Because they're reflected in the same amount, you'd simply get a lighter reddish ball. You can see this if you open up a color editor, such as in Paint or Photoshop. Set RED to 250, GREEN and BLUE to 0. Note the color. Now, set GREEN and BLUE to 100.

If you used Paint, did you notice what happened when you changed green first? You made orange. AKA, the HUE changed. But what happened when you changed the blue as well? The HUE returned to 0, the SATURATION decreased, and the LUMINOSITY increased. AKA, it stayed red, but just got brighter and less saturated.

Back to the ball. Let's assume the objects are the Red Ball Yellow Paper.

So, we have a white light source, and a red ball on yellow paper. The Red Ball absorbs 80% of light other than red. For simplicity, we'll deal with only Green and Blue. Therefore, it reflects 20% Green, 20% Blue, and 100% Red. The ball appears as a lighter red color.

However, the ball is receiving reflected light from the paper. The paper reflects 100% Green and 100% Red light(Not-bright Yellow). The ball itself will 80% of that Green and 100% of that red back in places. Those said places would indeed reflect a light orange color(don't forget the 80% Blue from white light). On your colored example I think the color is spot on with what I got.

As for the yellow paper... Let's talk about the shadow. It wouldn't be black, because there's some ambient light. Even then, it'd be a dark yellow. Now we take the ball into account. It'll reflect in some places what Red light it can, not to mention the Yellow from the paper itself that the Ball reflected(Bouncy light, heh). This would make the shadow a) A little lighter b)Be reflecting more Red than Green. In this situation you wouldn't just get a daker yellow shadow, but more of a goldenrod(almost orange, but more yellow).

What all my rambling leads up to:

Your Red Ball on the Yellow Paper would be colored correctly, but your Shadow isn't.

Red Ball Blue Paper:
Same red ball as before. Let's say the blue paper reflects 100% blue, but also 20% Red and Green. (Just a lighter blue)

That light hits the red ball, which absorbs a lot of that blue and some of the green, and none of the red. (Mathematically, the green reflected from the ball would only be a measly 4%)

So now, in some parts, the ball is reflecting 120% red(100% from source, 20% from paper), 40% Blue(20% from source, 20% from paper), and 24% Green(20% from source, 4% from paper).

I figure this to be more of a light burgundy, wine color.

The paper is reflecting in the shadow red from the ball and the light, blue from the light, and green from the light. This time it's more blue than red, so you'd get some sort of indigo, I think.

So, again, your ball is pretty accurate, but the shadow should be changed.

I hope no one is daunted by all my wordiness. The process is actually much simpler if you don't explain it, lol.


Summary:
When dealing with shadows on objects like this, take into consideration the ambient light, and light that'll be reflected off of nearby objects. (The light from the paper to the ball back to the paper). The source color of light as well as the color of the objects is very important in determining the colors you get when their reflections combine.


I do suppose that if you keep this in mind, you can figure out the more exact color of an object. Let's say that you're given the Red Ball Yellow Paper, and told nothing else. You see the red ball, orangish reflection, goldenrod shadow, and yellow paper. By working backwards you can figure say "Hey, this ball reflects some blue and green and tons of red, and this paper a lot of yellow." Now, when you introduce a third object of a different color you can more accurately color its shadow and reflections!

Hope I'm helpful
-Edge

[Idiot Apathy]

I'm going to try and get another exercise/experiment up around Saturday, I should have a healthy chuck of time to do it then; Probably something on color.

Anyone else think they have an exercise, experiment, or just plan notes/lecture/interesting topic; that they would like to contribute? Let me know! Let's flood this thread with some good stuff!

Oh and everyone please feel free to comment on everyone else's work! I'm feeling a little alone in doing so, remember I'm just one of your peers too dammit!


- - - - - - - - - - - -
@MattGamer: Looking good dude, your starting to see how it pays off to think about these things. You'll just keep getting better and better and adding to your repertoire. Your values seemed to turn out pretty good, now I think you should try messing around with intensity. Think about what happens when something recieves more light/less light, what will happen to the intensity? Just as a little guidline, (but please experiment, you'll understand it much better!), usually as an object recieves more light it will become more intense, (This is very general and it's more complicated than that) less light less intense. Try mixing this in with your next spheres and see how you do with value matching. I'll put a link to all the projects on the front page so no-one else misses them, thanks. Oh and, if I taught a class even I would ask for my money back. I'm just passing on what little I know, hopefully we can get some more people in on this and they can spread some of what they know around. Peace.

@CreationEdge: No no, you came off as helpful. Thanks. When I did this I didn't think very much light if any would be reflected off the shadow side of the sphere into the paper, I wasn't really thinking of the reflected light properly. I also didn't think any light coming off of the shadow side would affect it very much, I was very wrong! Good stuff man, It's great to talk about these kind of things, it's too hard to completely flesh it out in your own head. Gunna use this knowledge now.

It's a bit hard/odd for me to think of light in just Red Green and Blue. I think in a more Artist fashion I think of light in a complete color wheel. Even though the visual spectrum is quite as broad as a color wheel (I think...); a color wheel can still serve the purpose of representing all the colors we usually see. If you go in a straight line straight across the color wheel say from yellow to red, the middle of the line will land in orange, the line will also give you an indication of the intensity as well. For example take a complimentary colors, say Orange and Blue. Draw a line straight across to each other and you will get nothing but gray, no hue change. The closer to the middle the closer it will be to gray, the value of gray is determined by the values of the two original colors. This won't work with the traditional color wheel though, it's off. I think however the "modern" color wheel works perfectly. I know photoshops or painters does. I think I'll type this up with pictures and post it as a example. Anyways, for me it's a lot easier to compute the color visually rather than mathematically with RGB values, but we all work differently huh?

[CreationEdge]

Well, I'm sure your way is much easier! I confuse myself sometimes the other way, but I've not had any color theory at all, so all I have to go on is what I do know, and that's Light from my Advanced Physics class last year.

There was another topic where someone and I got into a discussion about it. He brought up a good point about light. Not all light sources are white light, and not all of those colored ones. You have to remember, though, that colored light sources are either A) Combinations of RGB or B) A color from the visible spectrum. That is, if you have a magenta or cyan light, your light is a combination of RB and GB respectively, because magenta and cyan don't exist in the visible light spectrum.


I got Painter IX a couple days ago. Its color mixer looks like it'll be fun to play around with. I only wish I had a Wacom :(

[Idiot Apathy]

Let me ask you something then, what colors exactly are in the visual spectrum; actually exist in a pure state and aren't mixes of other colors? Surely it isn't just RGB right? Is it truely the colors of the rainbow?

Hmm, I wish they had something like a physics for artists; sometimes art could use more science and less "guidelines" I think.

If your serious about art; well digital art at least, or just as a fun hobby, you should get a tablet. A Graphire4 should run you around $90 or so as a student.

Edit: Here is a good link that explains much of my confusion...
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00871.htm

[CreationEdge]

That type of tablet is only 90$? Do you know where online I could get that, or what store would surely carry it(Best Buy?)? If it's only 90$ I might be able to get it for X-mas(As opposed to the 350$ Intuos3 which I'll have to buy myself when I get a job)

I'm definitely serious about art. I really want a friggen tablet so I can use Painter to its full advantage.

Back to your question:

Yes, the colors of the rainbow are the colors of the visible light spectrum.

Here's an image I nabbed from NASA that shows the complete VLS.

http://wfc3.gsfc.nasa.gov/MARCONI/images-basic/spectrum.jpg

If that doesn't work for some reason, the link is http://wfc3.gsfc.nasa.gov/MARCONI/images-basic/spectrum.jpg (I did a google image search of "visible light spectrum")

BTW, that link is VERY good. Whoever that is explains it all much more concisely than I could. It explains a little test I did one day in Art:

In Light, Red + Green = Yellow. Those are the actual primary colors. But not in art.

So I got out some Red paint and some Green paint. I mixed the two together and got... DARK BROWN.

The Red Paint absorbs Blue and Green. The Green Paint absorbs Red and Blue. Mix the two together, and you now have a color which absorbs ALL 3 colors, and thus appears blackish.


It's a good point to make. The way you figure out what colors to use is very different from how you actual mix the colors with paint.

[Idiot Apathy]

Not sure where you live but yeah most big electronic's stores should have them, probably for around $100. I might try http://www.pricewatch.com/ though, I think you'll find some good deals as well as some student discount stores. I have a graphire2 from a few years ago and have gotten great use out of it (time to upgrade though I think). Graphire is made by Wacom, same as the Intuos, so it's a good piece of hardware.

Thanks for the link, I couldn't find any visual spectrum charts with the names. However... in the chart I clearly see oranges and yellow greens etc. Is it possible to have a color not named in the chart every bit as intense as one that is named? It would be a mix so that would leave me to believe it would turn out to be a tint of a color, like you had added a little bit of white.

That's a good story about mixing Red with Green, the traditional color wheel would say that these colors are complements so they should end up as a perfect gray (given that the paint pigments were pure). However the modern color wheel or what PS or Painter would rely on, Red's compliment is actually Cyan. Using a color wheel drawing a line from Red to Green on the M. Color wheel you'd be surprised to see that the color you made (if it was 50% red and 50% green of the same value/intensity) was actually a yellow! Very cool stuff, amazing how math creeps into everything.

[MattGamer]

tayete: Nice work on the jar project. Though it does look like you went very quick on the first one. The proportion of the jars do seem a bit wacked... maybe they could be done again, but smaller? I find that if I don't have to make HUGE paint strokes and when I can see the whole image at one time; it's easier to get the right look.

Idiot Apathy: I have a Wacom Graphire 2 too! I need to upgrade so badly, but I can never keep the $350+ that I need to get it. Even on Pricewatch and Newegg.com they're expensive. Though I cannot wait to get an Intuos 3 and to use the pen as a shader and all the other phat features it has. Gosh, way back when I got my Graphire for $99 off of Pricewatch. Now that much can buy a Graphire 4! Wow.

[CreationEdge]

If it's not named on the visible spectrum, that just means there's not a wavelength of that light, and we see it in a combination. Magenta, I think I've said... The only way it exists is in the human eye, triggered by Receiving Red and Blue wavelengths of light.

Also, don't rely on Photoshop for correct color combinations. It will only give you the correct combinations for LIGHT, but not for the paints themselves. Painter, on the other hand, is made to simulate paint, and from what I've experimented with it will accurately reproduce paint.


Oh, the red and green paint I used was some really cheap finger-paint quality stuff, and I have no idea if I mixed equal amounts. The bottles were labeled Red and Green, though, lol.


Back to the Wacom since we're talking about it. I heard that if you're serious about it you should get a 6x8, but those are still nearly $200 to over $200. Over twice as much as what you said, but of course 6x8 is over 2 times the size of 4x5.

I've drawn out both sizes on a piece of paper, and I don't think a 4x5 will do it for me.

Is there another brand that's not WACOM but still reliable?

[Kitsu]

I must have gone right past this thread five or six times the last few days. I think this would be more visable/appealing if it had its own sub-forum under comunity activities.

Anyway I've found it now and I think it is a great idea! I think I have a decent understanding of light/color, but the knowledge of a thing and putting that knowledge into practice are two very different questions.

http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Project-one.jpg

I did these in Photoshop in about a half an hour. The first thing I did was decide on my light location and the local color of my spheres*. Then I started by filling the circle with the local color. For the entire exersise I used a chalk brush with pressure set to opacity, and tried to keep the brush size uncomfortably large.

I kind of defeated the exercise by the way I chose my values. Instead of using a complete value range as instructed I used mainly four values with some overlap for smoothing. I also tried to keep a wide band around the spheres close to my local color. I did this to perserve the color identity of my spheres (see the Prom tut). These are useful techniques for painting without referance, but it also simplified the problem of matching values (the point of the exercise).

The color version was the same as the grey except I pulled the hue slider closer to blue for the shadows, and closer to yellow for the highlight. Also I did something I came up with while researching some painting by my favorite digital artists: I made the shadows more saturated and the highlights less. I'm not sure of the reasoning, but I noticed the pattern while color sampling across paintings I liked. Shadows regardless of hue were more saturated and highlights were less. With the highlights it makes some sense, you're adding white so you will lose some color, but why would the shadows get more saturated?

For the conversion I used Photoshop's mode->greyscale, and the results are moderately close. The contrast is better on the color version while the greyscale's values are kind of muddy. Looks like if I did a quick wash of my base color at ~10% opacity I could knock the color version down to the same level as the grey.

*Local color:
I know this concept from working in 3d, but Prometheus's tutorial gives a very good explanation of what it means for painting. Basically local color is the color an object would be in a perfectly neutral lighting condition, with no specular or shadow. In the real world objects are colored by light and shadow and by the color of the light sources nearby (bounce light). When painting from life this isn't really important, our brains automaticaly attach a color label to things we look at. So white paper looks white regardless of the lighting conditions and a red apple seems just as red on the shadow side as on the lit. When working without referance though it is important to keep in mind what color a thing should be. Check out the part about color identity in Prometheus's tut :bow:

So thats what I've come up with so far. I'm going to move on to the next exercise tonight but I will probably come back and do this one again when I have time.

[Kitsu]

Exercise 2:

The first problem I had was figuring out the cast shadows. I tried for a while to remember how to correctly project shadows but I wasn't even getting close. After a while I got frustrated with that so I just built a quick model of the scene to see how the shadows should fall:
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Project-two-model.jpg

I'm not worried about cheating since cast shadows wern't the point of the exercise, but I guess I'll need to review cast shadows again. I know one of the Loomis books has a good treatment of perspective and shadows but if anyone knows a good tutorial?

Next I added light and shadows. My key light was pale yellow and my fill was a dim blueish ambient light (this setup is a rough approximation of outdoor lighting). In this situation I think the key should add some white to the color of the objects and make the yellow component of colors more saturated right? So my green block would get shifted toward a yellow-green where lit and my orange would get brighter. I'm not sure what would happen to the blue block though, should it get greener, or should it get greyer? In paint blue and yellow are primaries, but in light they are complimentary so I guess it should lose saturation? This stuff is hard to explain so I kept some merged copies of my progress:
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Project-two-group.jpg

I only did one odd thing with these that might need more explaination. Once I had the basic lighting done I went back and darkened the inside corners and brightend the outside edge. I tried to make a little diagram to show the reasoning behind this. Basically more light bounces away when approaching an inside corner so it will get darker (radiosity shadow), while light can hit an outside edge from more directions so it will look brighter. The effect is a little to exagerated but it still works okay.

http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Project-two.jpg

This one was fun and a little bit complicated. I really did try to think about how the colors would change across the lit and unlit surfaces as I did this. In the end though I just used a low opacity wash over the surfaces, color picked, and did minor hue/saturation shifts. The finish painting is a little too rough for this size but I guess the lighting looks okay. The next exercise looks like a lot of fun, I'll see if I can get it done this weekend.

[MattGamer]

Kitsu: I really like the box idea of rendering a model to check the shadows. Why didn't I think of that?! Hah!
It looks like you got the boxed idea down, though it does look "a little to rough for this size". As for the balls, they look good though the left side seems too dark. When I looked at your green color ball, I squinted my eyes to see if it would stand out from the monitor screen. What it did instead was rise where it was light and where it was dark green/black it just went into the screen. Almost like it was a piece of clay where I used my finger to push in where the blackness is (if you can understand that; brilliant!). My advice (though not professional by all means) would be to lighten the darkest areas a few notches up. Then the ball(s) will look more blended and won't have a deformity to them. Keep up the sweet work! Can't wait to see your next project submittion. ;)

CreationEdge: There actually is no other tablet brand that you could go with that will give you everything that Wacom tablets have to offer. Other brands occationally have pens that you have to replace the battery every week or so, whereas Wacom tablet pens have no need for batteries for eternity. And this is only one of many bonus' you get by getting Wacom over the other brand. Not to mention that Wacom is totally reliable and built to last for your entire art career, life, etc.

If you're going to spend a measly $200, I would rather spend it on a Wacom than anything else. Also, 4x5 is good enough for any artist getting into the digital painting scene. I've been using my 4x5 for 3 years and find it quite comfortable on my lap while drawing, instead of this huge 12x12 tablet that wouldn't even fit on my desk let alone my lap. Haha. I also love to take my 4x5 Graphire in my backpack with me to my college campus and hook it up to their computers (they have Photoshop 7; and I have the Wacom driver in my email so I can install it anywhere with Internet connection) and paint things there when I have the time.

If I were in your shoes, I'd save my money until it reached $350 and buy a Wacom Intuos 3. This is actually what I am saving for and hope to be able to buy it by Summer 2006.
You don't have the money, you may say. But think about all those times you spend your money without thinking (fast food, candy, soda, etc). Drink water instead of soda for a week and see how much you save. Or if you dont drink soda, and your a mineral water lover, skip on the mineral water and buy a cheap filter for your tap water and drink that water instead. There are so many ways you could save money each month to reach your goal of a Wacom.

I hope this helps a little, or a lot. ;)

[CreationEdge]

Actually... I have about 40 dollars, + 13 my bro owes me. I don't have a job yet, so I really don't have any other source of income. I actually really need to get a job(save up for college), but I've got tons of excuses not to, >_>

If there's no Budget Wacoms available, looks like I am going to have to save. I don't mind, I guess. Once I get a job practically all the money that I don't immediately put away is going to art supplies and the like, :D

Thanks anyway!

[Idiot Apathy]

I lied, ran out of time today; should have an exercise up tomorrow though. Thinking it will be a some simple shapes in different brightly colored enviroment focusing on the shadows and reflected light again. Lot's of reflected light. Let me know if you have any ideas and or suggestions, maybe there is something else you want to work on?
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@CreationEdge: I dunno, both painter and PS seem to come up with the same mixes, Painters just seem more realistic because of the simulations it does perhaps? I'm not sure PS would be a mixture for light either, it should get brighter instead of darker when colors are mixed right? It still seems like subtractive color theory. I dunno, I'm a painter guy anyways. Definietly save up and get a tablet, don't go budget, but I don't know if you should go Intuos either. I think in all likelyhood you'll be satisfied with a graphire for awhile, or at least long enough until you have the money for an intuos.
@Kitsu: Haha! It's own section under the community activities... I wish it was big enough to deserve that kind of exposure. Perhaps I should try and get it sticked? or maybe moved into say Sketches and WIPs'? Anyways: Good idea to keep the brush large, it will help with some bad habits and eventually really speed you up. I'd caution always having your highlights yellowish and shadows blueish, this would mean your lightsource is yellow and the ambient or enviromental light blue. Outside the light is usually white, meaning it has all colors of equal amounts, and lots of it! The blue in shadows is caused predominatly by the reflected light from our blue sky. So, figure out the color of your lightsource and the ambient lighting and go from there. Good job on the spheres, you may have "bent" the rules but you got the purpose down. I might try keeping a really high opacity for the roughing in stages and then going lower to blend however, you might like how this looks better, or not :). Exercise 2: hahaha! Awesome, I wish I could have made a model too, I really need to work on my shadows. Do be careful though, I don't think 3d software has all the answers. Oh and it's not cheating, it's research! On your lightsource, I have to disagree with outdoor lighting as being a pale yellow. True the sun appears yellow at times, not sure why; I've heard it's because our eyes are more sensitive to yellow or something, it's also definetly orange or red at sunsets/dawn. However the sun's light is actually all colors, white, like I said before. It will make every color more intense when it hits it, as well as higher in value. Now you could have a pale yellow lightsource but usually I think it would still be a white light with extra yellow. So things should still be fairly vibrant/intense? I'm not sure what you mean about adding white to make the yellow component of colors more saturated though. White has no saturation/intensity. I think your right with the green block, good reasoning there. The blue block your thoughts were right too, yellow and blue are complements so they should cancel each other out to gray eventually. I'm not quite sure on your brown block though, because it's local color is pretty close to yellow it shouldn't loose much if any (perhaps it would gain?) in intensity at all where it hits the light. Oof, hope this doesn't sound like I'm picking on you; you've actually done a great job. I really like the shadows and the textures. Thanks for the part on the edges and corners; I'll be using that. I think you might enjoy working with a little more intense colors next time, try starting with more intense local colors or a white lightsource that will make everything else more intense. These are good things to think about, you can really have great control over your composition if you practice these things.

[CreationEdge]

Idiot: You're right. I don't remember what I was thinking of at the moment in PS. It might've just been the color wheel. I'm not sure. My bad >_<

[bumskee]

Idiot Apathy, cheers for running this, perfect thing I was looking for!! something I really wanted to study. I will participate soonish. This is an awsome thread. Gotta do some careful readings.

[Idiot Apathy]

Project #5:
Warm and Cool Colors with Aerial Perspective Etc.

All too often colors selected for the foreground or background just do not fit in, they can throw the entire picture off. This exercise is meant to get you thinking about what colors are suitable for what situation. It will be limited to keep it simple and to keep you on the right track.

- - - - - - - - - -
The Guidelines:
A: Do the project and create a dialogue of what you did and why. (Try and think about this while you do the project, this is important; we will be better able to learn from each other as well as catch each other's mistakes.)
B: The Dialogue will be analysed by your peers; (Right or wrong, the idea is to have a reason why and explain it. I think this will be key )
C: And of course at the same time peer critiques will be offered. (Pretty simple no?)
D: You shouldn't have to spend a large amount of time on this however spend as much time as you need, give it your best.
E. All Projects/Exercises are of course optional, have no order, and are always open to participation. Start wherever and whenever you want!
F. People who are too embarassed to post their results will be shot on sight, you're here to learn not to show off.
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I strongly recommend you read the discussions and analyses within others posts that are between exercises. I see a lot of the same advice being repeated. Read through this for your sake; I mean don't you want to learn faster?

This being said, sometimes advice or critiques will be given that may be incorrect, or misconceptions; I most likely am not innocent of this either. If you spot mistakes be sure and correct them! Don't confuse these with opinions however, which are never wrong only different.
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Edit: If you haven't started this yet I might do Project#7 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=685770&postcount=141) First, might help you out on this one.

For this project you will select a photograph from a public domain photography site (see links below!). You are specifically looking for something that has a lot of depth but will also be fairly simple to re-create. You will have the choice of two colors to recreate this photograph. One should be a warm color the other should be a cool color, do try and keep these as complementary as possible to avoid hue shifts in the blended areas (or just don't blend!). I recommend maybe Orange and Blue, perhaps closer to Blue-Cyan.

Step One:
Pick a picture; there are several links below to explore, each website is public domain as well. At the bottom of this page I have quickly picked a few that might be simple as well as pretty good for this project. Make sure you click for the High Res in these sites!

Public Domain Photo Links:
http://www.imageafter.com/
http://www.morguefile.com/
http://www.sxc.hu/

Step Two: Set up your workspace however is best for you, your going to be copying from a photograph here. You might try having just a small thumbnail on your canvas or if your lucky enough to have a dual monitor setup that's great.

Step Three: You are going to be use only two colors for this entire project, your warm color and your cool color. You can not vary your hue at all from these however you can and should vary your values and intensities. If you have complementary colors you might find that they mix quite nicely into neutral greys. As you paint think about what parts of the photograph should have higher or lower values; what parts should have higher or lower intensity? Ask yourself does this look right here? Is the picture cohesive as a whole? Keep your brushstrokes uncomfortably large as long as you can!

Presentation: Try and keep your image size below 800x600 so everyone can see it, feel free to work as big as your computer will comfortably allow but do resize it when finished, odds are it will look better when it is shrunk down anyways. Link or have a thumbnail to your reference as well please, do not hotlink either, that's just plain mean.

I'm going to wait a few days to post my results until you have all had a chance. Want you to have a clean slate to work with :)

Some images: (Click for Link to High Res!)
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/cow.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b1landscape006.jpg)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/cliffbridge.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b2landscapes098.jpg)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/dirtroad.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b5nature_landscapes019.jpg)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/road.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b8nature_landscapes009.jpg)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/bushmountains.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b9nature_landscapes001.jpg)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/sheepfield.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b19nature_landscapes308.jpg)
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Any comments, suggestions, corrections etc. greatly appreciated!

If there is anyone that thinks they could set up a project/experiment or a little lecture or some notes let me know, I'd, We'd really appreciate it!

Edit:
Ok, looks like I didn't make myself very clear; sorry 'bout that. I'm trying to set these exercises up very simplistically to A. keep the time needed to participate/redo/learn short and B. To clear away things that might bog you down or confuse you. I think it's better to learn things in small steps, building a foundation and then building upon that foundation with the things you learned along the way. Also it's easier to learn a specific thing if you can focus solely on that.

This exercise was set up in mind to clear out all the hard thinking and correcting involved in color picking. You should focus on making things the proper value and intensity for not only how they look but to re-inforce their distance, closer or further away from the viewer. (Go ahead and exaggerate these effects, in fact, you should exaggerate it!). Think about what will happen to your warm color as it disappears into the distance and what will happen to it when it's in your face, what will happen to your cool color? Remember you should vary both value and intensity but NOT hue. Your colors should be complementary so that you can mix them without changing hues, this way it will look cleaner, proceed faster, and allow you to use the eyedropper. You might try using your cool color for shadows and warm for sunlight, I believe our mind naturally responds this way. (do keep in mind this isn't always the case!)

To pick perfect complements you can either arbitrarily pick your first color and invert it to get your complement or go an exact 180 degrees opposite of the hue slider.

[Idiot Apathy]

~Ooo cool, Bumskee's in here too!~ You have a great :right:sketchbook (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=46487):left: and I've been real fond of the Digital Painting in PS (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47859) thread too. Great to have you in here !

I've updated the guidelines a little bit and added the projects to the front page to make it easier.

Anyone have any idea's for the next project?

Anyone think they have anything they could contribute?

Edit: Just remembered I forgot to address this.
Also I did something I came up with while researching some painting by my favorite digital artists: I made the shadows more saturated and the highlights less. I'm not sure of the reasoning, but I noticed the pattern while color sampling across paintings I liked. Shadows regardless of hue were more saturated and highlights were less. With the highlights it makes some sense, you're adding white so you will lose some color, but why would the shadows get more saturated?

Shadows could be more intense if you were say in a blue enviroment with a warm lightsource on a blue object. The light spots on the object would be receiving competeing colors in light, from the ambient blue enviroment light and the warm lightsource. On top of that the object's local color is blue so it would already be pretty pale. Now the shadow part is mostly receiving only the blue reflected light so it would be fairly intense.

I suppose there are other different situations that shadows could be more intense than the rest of the object but it seems like stylized color to me. Nothing wrong with that, in fact I love stylized color. I think outdoors usually the midpoint will be the most saturated. Indoors is another story, lots of different lightsources.

[bumskee]

:) Idiot Apathy, you are too nice dude. I linked this thread to the digital painting thread, this is the missing info there! coz I am too much a newbie to help anyone with these stuff. As you will see shortly, hehe. But good on you for doing this, cheers mate.

So i tackled the first exercise.. Hope you guys don't mind, I will catch up quick. please excuse my jaggy edges.. :S and I know I am very weak with colours and values.. But I had NO idea I was off by this much.. I went with my animal instinct but painted the coloured version very dark.. as below.. yeah.. BUT I vaguely remember reading about difference in intensity, like with blue and yellow of same value, yellow will have to be significantly darker in value to match intensity of the blue. Maybe I am not using the right term, I think I read a bit about it in the colour theory book I have.. *covered in dust by the way..* better do some reading on it. But yeah I am off by miles

http://home.exetel.com.au/bumskee/con/project_1_1.jpg

http://home.exetel.com.au/bumskee/con/project_1_2.jpg

So I went again..and I think the zaggy edges are little less this time.. a little closer but this time a little lighter! :) sweet my eyes must be crooked..

http://home.exetel.com.au/bumskee/con/project_1_3.jpg

http://home.exetel.com.au/bumskee/con/project_1_4.jpg

As for suggestions, using complimentary colours only to paint something? is that too big? I remember seeing such exercise being held over at wetcanvas.com. Would be good to do some studies involving different surfaces. eeek

[jubilee]

I've been reading this thread for awhile now. I confess wrapping my brain around some of it will take time.

I thought I'd finally take a stab at the first exercise. Pushing the lightest light part was a problem for me for some reason. I guess I am scared of highlights :D

http://www.jsantart.com/artwork/practice/Project-Two-Template_f.jpg

[Kitsu]

First I want to thank Idiot Apathy and MattGamer for their comments!
Matt: I think I see what you were saying about the deformation; it is caused by the quick transition back to light on the shadow side. The fill light is too strong, nearly as bright as the key light. It could probably be fixed by darkening the bounce light, and lightening the shadow too. Idiot Apathy: I like how you put it "...a white light with extra yellow." That is just what I meant by 'pale yellow' except your way sounds brighter. You are right also, white light adds to all colors equally, except when they reach the maximum we can see. Then the color values will start getting closer together = less saturated/intense at higher values. I try to paint in a medium key of chroma (from Ron Lemon's color theory) so I get a decent range of intensity, but then really saturated colors look out of place. Maybe I'll try something high-key in a future exercise. Hope I don't sound defensive having an answer for every comment, I will definitely try to put your advise into action!

Bumskee:
Good job on these, especially on going back and redoing it to get it right! Though... I think your first attempt looks very good. How did you convert these to greyscale? It might be a trick of preception, but if anything the green sphere looks brighter than the grey. Your reflected light looks better in the second one though, and you had much smoother transitions between value areas. In the first one you were getting some of my deformation in your shadows.


Edges, value, and deformation:
From Ben Mathis (http://poopinmymouth.com/process/tips/edges.jpg)

Painting with compliments sounds fun, how exactly would that work?

[bumskee]

jubilee, nice going dude. looks pretty spot on though I think you can push the core shadow smidge towards the centre, kinda looks like a bevel button.. :P

Kitsu, I am trying not to read too much of these advanced discussion you guys are having, hehe I don't want to mix too much in my head but start from the beginning. so I haven't read much after the last exercise I did. But I will join in soon! Yes, I really should post some findings on the book I mentioned. It has the intensity and blah blah on it.. that should explain some things. You can easily paint a diluted dull green sphere that would match the intensity of the gray one. Like what jubilee did.. or am I talking nuts here? I used two different brush for them, the green I had a wet edge rectangle brush so blending wasn't too smooth, not that it matter much I guess. Oh and I just used hue/saturation adjustment layer to compare the two.

complimentary colours? well I saw some, happening at wetcanvas.com u just use two complimentary and b&W to paint.. meh can't seem to find it. but yeah limited palette was the idea.. :)

[Kitsu]

Okay, project 3!
This is the ref I used:
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Project-03-Valve.jpg

This object looked cool and interesting so I spent a little more time on these then proscribed. My sketch looks very jaggy, and a first I thought it was because of the low-res digitizer in my tabletPC. After I finished the sketch though I poked around in PS's brush settings and found that smoothing was turned off for my custom pencil brush:rolleyes:
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Project-three-Sketch.jpg

And here are the paints:
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Project-three-Group.jpg

Half way through the first of these I got really frustrated by my large chalk brush, so I switched to a large hard round instead. The top two are from light 2, then on the bottom are lights 3 and 1. The light sources are: 1-high front, 2-low side, and 3-mid back. For light one I kinda winged it. My values got really muddy toward the end though, and I had to use a darken layer to tweak it into shape. On light 2 I started by mapping my lighting using four values. On the left is the light map, and on the right the finished version. To me the light mapped version works better than the finished version, maybe some lesson about simplification there? Light 3 was done the same way as 2. One of the hardest things with these was deciding how much light to put on the flat faces. Assuming there is some environment in these pictures even the back facing faces would get some light. Also lights two and three are close to the subject so there should be some bloom. Another related problem is that the back faces need to be lit for the form to read correctly.

Two tools I find usefull when painting:
First is the problem of line work. In painting line work is a crutch, to me these looked a lot better with the lines over the top of the paint, but I am working on painting not drawing. I think that it is very important to make your paintings stand on their own. If when you remove your lines your painting falls apart then you arn't really painting at all, you're coloring. I only leave the lines on until I have the basic shapes roughed in, then I either set their layer to < 50% transparent, or turn them off completely. Painting over your lines would work too.

Second is canvas flipping. I forgot to do this on all of these exercises so far, and they probably could have been better if I'd done it. Basically you should try to flip your image every ten-fifteen minutes while you work. You would not believe the number of minor errors and problems you will catch if you just do this simple thing. Also working from referance on a flipped painting helps challenge the observational part of your brain, just like drawing upside down does.

[hariz_otaku87]

Shadows and details perhaps?

Sorry no contribution here. Im kinda busy this week.

[seth1]

Hey man! THanks for doing this for every one!!! ima join in. I know next to nothing about lighting and vaule... Gotta go though all this wounderfull information first then ill be on my way with the rest of you...

[Idiot Apathy]

@Bumskee: Nah, your being modest; there is plenty we can learn from you too. Would be cool if you ever feel like setting something up in here, this thread isn't just about color, even though it seems like it is... just happens to be what I've been studying lately and am somewhat comfortable with. On the Sphere Exercise: This exercise was really specifically set up for people to be off, to have them start seeing color with values, in fact I think value is actually more important than hue in many respects. It doesn't serve too much of a purpose to match a grayscale sphere, that's not something that you'd have to do very much. However it seems like a decent way to learn. Anyways, you did great on these, especially the second time around; see how quickly you adapted? If you want to have some fun with these again I suggest that next time you take the sphere's local color and then pretend the sphere is in a cool enviroment with a warm lightsource. What color theory book is this your talking about? I should really read more :^^;:. Anyways, still glad to see you in here :^^:.
@Jubilee: Cool to see you in here too :teeth: . While reading what's in here take it with a grain of salt, not all of it may be true! Some of it is just a thought process. Your spheres came out really close, kudos! On your highlight you might want to try to keep the different sections in the middle of each other, erm think like a bullseye? Right now it looks a bit like your sphere has a bulge at the highlight. Keep posting! I'll take it as a personal insult if you don't :x .
@Kitsu: It's hard to get your intention across on the internet isn't it? Just keep trying it out if you need to. You wouldn't be here if you didn't want to learn, that's why I'm here. Ron Lemen, fredflickstone, is a stud; wish he was around more. I kind of feel you've been painting in low chroma; This is kind of what I get when I see him refering to chroma range:
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/low-chroma.jpghttp://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/middle-chroma.jpghttp://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/high-chroma.jpg
The rectangular selection would represent most of the colors you'd probably use, the triangles leading to white and black would represent the most extreme highlights and shadows, the further out the less they would probably be used if at all. You can kind of think of this as a boomerang shape, at the top is highlights, in the middle is midtones or perhaps local color, the bottom shadows. The greater the overall curve the higher chroma it would be. Then again I don't pretend to actually know exactly what Mr. Lemen is talking about; takes many many readings and time to understand it properly, advanced stuff really. Everyone should read his tut's and the life drawing thread where he has spilled the beans as well. Anyways you might try staying away from the extreme left of the color wheel(picker?) for awhile and see how you like it. Looking forward to your next post, peace! Edit: Oh... you already posted... ok see below.
@Bumskee again: I like that man, keeping away from some of the answers; sometimes I find it much easier to learn in smaller steps, foundational steps and work my way up. Also it's nice to not have all the answers and figure them out for yourself. Both ways lead to a better understanding of the subject I think. Your also right about it easier to paint a dull sphere to match a grayscale sphere; dull colors are very close to gray.
@Kitsu again: Sketch looks great! Jaggy but great :P. I agree with you about the light map/plan looking better, well in some respects better. I think this may be because of the fine distinctions between the forms. For example on the top left part of the diamond shaped handle, in the fully rendered version you've lost your sharper edges and distinct value differences. As for values getting muddy, you might try a higher opacity until the very end if you need some blending. Figuring out the lighting got easier as you did the different versions didn't it? At least a little right? It will get easier and easier with the more practice you get. I'd would however ramp up your reflected lighting a bit to describe the form of the backs a little more, or check your monitor calibration? The problem with painting with lines (which isn't exactly a problem...) is that lines represent edges, painting deals with shapes. I'm not sure how exactly to describe this right now though. Use your lines for accuracy and then paint the shape while thinking about what strength the edge should b, are you going to keep it very sharp like the edge of a cube or smooth like the transition of shadows on a sphere? Canvas flipping is good too, something I should do more... anyways, cheers; until next time :).
@hariz_otaku87: Ok then, see you next week :P or else >:{
@seth1: Hey what up dude, looking forward to see your posts!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Ok, looks like I didn't make myself very clear; sorry 'bout that. I'm trying to set these exercises up very simplistically to A. keep the time needed to participate/redo/learn short and B. To clear away things that might bog you down or confuse you. I think it's better to learn things in small steps, building a foundation and then building upon that foundation with the things you learned along the way. Also it's easier to learn a specific thing if you can focus solely on that.

This exercise was set up in mind to clear out all the hard thinking and correcting involved in color picking. You should focus on making things the proper value and intensity for not only how they look but to re-inforce their distance, closer or further away from the viewer. (Go ahead and exaggerate these effects, in fact, you should exaggerate it!). Think about what will happen to your warm color as it disappears into the distance and what will happen to it when it's in your face, what will happen to your cool color? Remember you should vary both value and intensity but NOT hue. Your colors should be complementary so that you can mix them without changing hues, this way it will look cleaner, proceed faster, and allow you to use the eyedropper. You might try using your cool color for shadows and warm for sunlight, I believe our mind naturally responds this way. (do keep in mind this isn't always the case!)

To pick perfect complements you can either arbitrarily pick your first color and invert it to get your complement or go an exact 180 degrees opposite of the hue slider.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Going to post mine I did this evening to get you going:

I had a spare monitor lying around and a videocard that supports dual monitors so I have a cool setup for this sort of thing.
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/warmcool-setup.jpg
On my left is my canvas, on my right monitor is the reference (simulated). I set up a grid to help keep things accurate, later I deleted the grid (it was on a layer above) and just eyeballed it for speed.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/warmcool.jpg
Again not that accurate or detailed (or pretty...) , you might notice a little purple... one of the brushes I used is set up for some hue variance... oops! :^^;: This took me about 30 minutes, take as much or as little time as you need. Remember you are not creating a work of art here, you are doing this first and foremost to learn.

You might find it helpful to start out with a huge brush, paint only large forms; generalize areas, the field the grove of trees, the road etc. Only go smaller when you truly can't fight the urge; this means your probably done with the big stuff. Then go medium sized, generalize the smaller forms within these big forms, rinse and repeat until your down to your details.

You could also try and establish your brightest color, take your time on this and get it to where it feels right. Do the same with your darkest color. After this do your best to stay within the range of these two.

[Oblio]

you can tell i've been in hell - that's the only reason i haven't seen this already.
now - STICKED!!!!
And i wend doing the first thing too. Did it at job so i rushed it. Also i'mnot in the best time of my life so... i jumped some posts in this thread - i hope i'll get back and read it all - it's awsome stuff.
Thanks Idiot Apathy.

Can;t uppload them from here so.. excuse me for the attachement.
I also attached a bit of my search - i never got the time to make a sphere in my life - i started drawing doing Self Portraits :)
So... i started with the 50% gray from the background and after a bit of value work.. i used the brightness/contrast tool. I didn;t know if we were supposed to use the whole range of values but i kew that i wanted to try the color on yellow - since it seemed to me a color i haven't used.
During the process - i inverted the image to check the values.
Also.. on the color side.. things got carried away.
I started way to saturated and the temperature was a mess.
I played with the Hue/saturation tool and then with the History brush to get it somewhere where i felt.. ok.
I haven't used the picker - i presumed it is an exercise for the eye. Otherwise i would have copied the values and just color them - and i'm sure i would have got it still wrong :)
As you see - it's darker :)

[Oblio]

in fact i wonder if the excercise with the balls would no twork better if we would have a color picture of one ball and we to try to make the values by painting it B&W.
I was this becouse... doing the color version of my ball out of imagination, the color part become more important.
My goal while i was doing the B&W ball was to make a light yellow ball on th ecolor - but while working the shadows and all... things got carried away and i kept the values set just as a reference.. the whole yellow idea was gone.
Also.. i wonder if we are to see a color sphere in real life and have to make the values of it.. it we would make them lighter. I guess that while we compensate with the colors from our mind... we compensate enough to make the image look like a color version of the B&W. If the values are actually darker or not... from a technical POV... should matter?
Yeah.. i'm pissed off i failed :) :)

[Kitsu]

Thanks for the feedback Apathy! I understand exactly what you mean by painting with shape vs. line. Killing.peoples tut has an animated gif which shows it, and some of Sparth's old bw paintings show it. I'll try to think about that more the next time I'm painting. About the reflected light... There is none, it is a single point light with absolute pitch black all around.

Color range: I think you broke the ranges up about right. In the picker shown though the keys are bent around. In the Photoshop picker the keys are nice rectangular areas. Here is a screen grab with my usual color range shown:
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/color-range.jpg
I don't usually go to the upper right though :rolleyes:

Brush: I've been using an opacity brush on all these, I think for the next few I will use a size only brush. With pressure set to opacity you can get a smoother gradation, and it allows you to mix right in the painting. With a size brush you get crisper forms (the planes!) and more control over the end result, but you need to use a fixed opacity and multipule passes for gradation. I'm still trying to figure out what suites me best at different stages in a painting. I think most of the pro's use pressure=size.

I also agree with what you said about learning being the point of these exercises. I have a problem letting things go, I want everything I do to be of a certain quality, and I think that is getting in the way of my success with these exercises (and the rest of my 'art').

Idiot Apathy: Your paint looks great! I can't wait to catch up so I can give this a shot.

Oblio: I think your spheres look pretty good. You make a good point though; matching value to color was the exercise, not coloring a sphere. Maybe there should be 'exercise one - part two' where we go from color to greyscale?

[Oblio]

Well.. i did it the other way too and now i feel even more stupid.
I was frustrated since my spheres didn;t look like real ones (they still don't) the value range was prety limited and also - i couldn't tell what color the colored one was.
So.. i started with the color one and then tried to do the values - the result is the same.
Color one = darker.
I think that i might try with a very bright color and a dark color too. But i also want to catch up with everyone... so i might just go to the next one.

Kitsu: on your plumming object - your values seem really dark compared to the photo.

[Idiot Apathy]

Woot! Hats off to Oblio, thanks for the sticky man!

@Oblio: Thanks for joining us! I like the idea of inverting to check the values, gives you a fresh view on it. I for one think your sphere came out looking really good and the values really close. I think your right about painting a grayscale sphere from a colored sphere too, it should be harder I think though; I'm going to add that to the exercise. You also gave me an idea for the next exercise (It's a secret!). If you read above the point of the exercise was not really to create a perfect match, just to think of colors in a value range, where they should appropriately go and a little bit of a map to get you there. Yellow is a troublesome color perhaps because when we think of yellow we see a bright vibrant color, but that is only a small percentage of yellow. If you lower the value and intensity you have a pretty ugly puke yellow for example :S . Not sure if I understand you right about painting from a real sphere, but the values would probably be the most important part but you wouldn't necessarily have to get them spot on for it too work as long as everything else was altered accordingly I think. You might even choose to emphasize an important part or color. On your second sphere: Again man, your too hard on yourself! It looks great. It may not look like a real sphere but it's not in a real situation. If your going for real you have to create an enviroment and a lightsource and understand the light coming from both. On this green on it appears to have a warm lightsource with the green becoming yellowish towards the highlights. What colors are coming from your enviroment? They will affect your entire sphere but will be most noticable in the shadow, perhaps your near a window and have a lot of blue light reflecting in from the sky, your green would shift towards blue and increase in value where this light hits it. There are many little things that add to the realism of an object. Don't worry about catching up or anything, do these at your own pace; they are always open and even optional if you don't care to do them. I will always be here to comment as well. Oh, and how are you getting your colored sphere gray? You might try converting to grayscale if you aren't already. Hope your life starts to look up man, looking forward to seeing your next post!

@Kitsu: Hahaha, loving the title under your user name. Your pic's of the plumbing majogger have a white background meaning there would be a whole lot of reflected light, your right that with just one lightsource and pitch pitch black you wouldn't have any reflected light but this is pretty rare on earth; in fact if your in the room your reflecting light. That said, it's pretty boring to not have any reflected light; even just a little can really improve how an object reads. I'm not so sure that the keys would be rectangular in PS, I sampled from the ones I made in Painter and mades these from that:
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/ps-low.jpghttp://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/ps-middle.jpghttp://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/ps-high.jpg
These aren't very precise just like before and I still don't presume to know what Mr. Lemen knows but you've got to remember that Photoshops color picker is set up kind of bizarre, it measures intensity twice thus duplicating some colors, see here: Post #2 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=610722&postcount=2)
I'm not a PS guy but you might try a soft edged round brush for awhile with a little bit less flow to blend as you paint. This is a little bit like one of my favorite brushes in Painter. Oh, and it's ok to push your exercises a little more and make them into art but only do so after you think you've learned the important parts. Anyways, until next time :^^: . Edit: Basically I wouldn't limit yourself that much (at least not always), stay in these areas a little bit but think what color would look good instead of working with a strict rule set.

[Oblio]

Wow - thanks for the comments. Damn.. it feels like back when we all started it, and the SP group.
I am frustrated about the spheres on the value side.

Jubilee for example has BEAUTYFULL spheres. i tried my hand at 2'nd task.
Here is a WIP - i gotta sleep now. HOpefully i'l continue tomorrow at the office ;) Shhhh...

[Idiot Apathy]

@Oblio: I hear ya man, just keep it up you'll figure it out. Jubilee's sphere for example, doesn't change hue at all keeping it much more simple to match to gray, it's a bit of an odd lighting situation but I think that's how I set the exercise up. On the blocks: Man, that white one is neat looking! Lighting seems pretty good as well as your logic for what happens on the shadow sides. Top of the red one doesn't seem to lose any value even though it is recieving less light, but your white one does. Black one doesn't seem to change at all in value, This is possible but it would have to be a really strong black. You might try tweaking the top of it just a bit higher. Not so sure the reflected light off the red would be so crisp on the other blocks, I guess if they were really shiny or the reflected light was very powerful it could look like that. To me it might look better with some softer edges. If you feel like doing this one again down the road you might have fun with a colored background and figuring out how that would affect everything. Glad you feel at home here now get some sleep, see ya later. Oh and what's with the un-updated sketchbook? :dur:
- - - - - - - -
I tried doing this exercise like Oblio suggested, color first then try and do grayscale. Ha, it was kind of crazy. What was most interesting however is how shallow a value range I made, if I had started with the grayscale I would have made it much deeper. There is a painting technique called Grisaille in which you would start out with a painting only in values, it's a bit of an old technique I think many of the "masters" did it this way. I think it's very important to nail your values. Ok, 'nuff chit-chat:
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/spheres.jpg
Again, colored on the left came first, then grayscale.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/spheres-grayscale.jpg
Here it is converted to grayscale, values are pretty close. But why did the background gray change in value?

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/spheres-desaturate.jpg
Here it is desaturated, I really don't think this is the proper way to do it; saturation adds value, this ignores that I think. However, grayscale seems to be a little off as well? I've really got to get some answers for this, maybe talk to adobe I guess.

Edit: Did a little research and I'm not sure it's possible to get a true B&W as our eyes would see it (after all our eyes see things differently, and adjust as well!), however for our purposes I think converting to grayscale works well enough because we are doing both spheres digitally.

[Idiot Apathy]

Ok, did the blocks again, just to have some fun:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/blocks-again.jpg
Tried out some of the edges thing Kitsu was talking about. Kept my light white and tried to reflect a lot of the red background into my blocks. Had some fun with the reflected light, probably not that realistic but fun and pretty <3 . Man it's good to have free time again!

I picked the background fairly randomly, I wanted a dark but saturated color. Then I slapped some midtones on the blocks, pretty close to what you see on the top parts and went from there. With white light I think you should only increase value and intensity so thats about where the fronts are, but you should also factor in the extra reflected light (red in this case). On the kind of half shadow side I reduced the value and intensity appropriately factoring in the red reflected (and in some cases the other blocks) light. Not perfect but I learned a bunch! Good stuff.

Hey are there any experts on drawing in perspective out there? I think a perspective exercise would be great, especially on shadows.

[bumskee]

Idiot Apathy, :) definitely agree with values being more important! I guess it's about understanding colours in values plus other billions little things that kick in. It's like what pointillists(sp) did I think, Paul signac did painting in blotches of paints in different hues but harmonious, I think it had a lot to do with matching intensity and values. Of course I am probably talking out of my a$$ hehe. Yeah the spheres exercise was much harder than I imagined but I am going to take your advice and paint in different chroma as well as in warm/cool environment. That reminds me bengal is King at working with cool shadows. :)

The colour theory book I was referring to was by Johanes Itten, not sure if I got his name even right! but It covers some good grounds but very complex. :S well for me at least, I am just dipping into colours now so I will have another read soon, post my finding. Reckon it's ok to take a picture of a image on the book with some quotes? there's this table of intensity he talks about I would really like to share though most people seems to have the right idea about it here.

I am a little scared to paint that block, I get lost in the wilderness with shadows. heheh but it's something we all have to tackle, again mighty thanks from me for running this. :)

As for the painting, I think that's the kinda of exercise I was talking about using two complimentaries, almost spot on. nicely done by the way, I better follow suit and do some myself. Oh and colour before greyscale.

Oblio, :) that's a lot of spheres, I think it's getting quite good actually. Good suggestion about painting a coloured object into values. I was flicking through some CA academy stuff that no longer linked here, but someone posted the link and I saw an exercise similar to that. That would be great I think, like painting an apple from life to black and white. That's hectic as I have tried it before..failed miserably. hehe.. Also would be good if we can post some photos of round balls or something in different lighting. I will go and see if I can find some, or may take the picture.

Just had a thought, I will definitely get into that book, because as Idiot apathy said, desaturating isn't quite seem to be the right thing to do, as I also feel we are simply ignoring the intensity. Or it maybe be correct in greyscales but totally quite different in colour, as we know colours interact with what's around them. But anyways, there was an exericise similar I guess the sphere but matching intensity. Not the value as in yellow and blue of same value has different intensity. (Hope I am not mixing up any terms here). But will post soon of my readings shortly.

[Idiot Apathy]

@Bumskee: Bengal is just plain king of colors, he's one of the reasons I became so infatuated with color. Funny that the book your reading is by Johannes Itten, he's the king of color theory :). I run into him and that book every now and then, I should really read it. Anyways, shadows damned shadows... been struggling with them myself. Some links that might be helpful:

The Whole Site:
http://fineart.sk/index.php?cat=0
Cubes and Shadows in Perspective
http://fineart.sk/show.php?w=217
More Perspective Shadows
http://fineart.sk/show.php?w=218
Here's one with an artifical lightsource
http://fineart.sk/show.php?w=221
Here's another site:
http://www.teamgt.com/ft-tutes.htm

I dunno, need to browse that whole site I think. I want to own those loomis books bad! Let me know if you find anything cool.

[Oblio]

i need to re-do this with more colored cubes.
In fact i failed all - the white one, the black one AND the colored.
Not to mention the casted shadows and other stuff.
Help me out guys - i'm going to rredo this - so all the feedback is too appreciated.

First version - i almost nailed the white one when [Dan] told me that the lit corner has more light from above.. and i had to chance it all.

Idiot Apathy - your cubes rock. I think i'm shifting the hue brutally and my colored one is more... splashed.
My net was down so i din't had your pic at hand while doing my excercise... i might try to copy yours next :) maybe i'll learn something.
Or just choose some other colors and aim to do the same.
Keep rockin'

[redehlert]

subscribing to this thread thanks to sir rob (aka romance).
cheers and thanks for being ambitious idiot apathy!
d

[vigostar]

ok.. im subcribing to this thread!

[brokk]

Hey guys, this thread is really great!
Thanks Idiot Apathy for putting this up!

I haven't read through all the thread yet, or done all the excersizes. Only the first one, hope to do the others soon.

Here's my project 1 attempt
http://usera.imagecave.com/bk7600/project1_color.jpg

http://usera.imagecave.com/bk7600/project1_greyscale.jpg

Turned out really desaturated... basically I just used a mid tone red for a base, and then a yellow for lights and magenta for shadows, and painted the light and shadows with a hardbrush on 10% opacity and then at 3 o 4% a little, trying to blend everything together. The result is much less saturated than the base color... actually I'm not really discomforted by the desaturation but the color identity doesn't read as "red" either. Please tell me if you think I'm doing this the wrong way.

Here is just a little experiment I did. Negrotuerto was explaining to me that you can have a greyscale layer set to normal and another layer on top of that set to "color".
Now, I think this is usefull for checking your tones, because when adding the colors, you don't alter the tones so you can see if something needs to go brighter or darker (please take this with a grain of salt, its just my own conclusions). Also its necessary to vary the hues while painting in color mode just as you would vary them in normal mode.

By painting on both values and colors separately, you can be more aware of the mistakes you make in values because they will show in the colors since the tones don't vary.

I notice I need brighter tones in the light areas because the yellows are looking really dull. Working on the value layer now, and then the colors one.
http://usera.imagecave.com/bk7600/project1bwip.jpg

And here is the corrected version algon with the grayscale version. I really don't like the results too much but at least I could get a little brighter tones in there. I think the midtones and the shadows are wrong, they could be darker.
http://usera.imagecave.com/bk7600/project1bcolor.jpg

http://usera.imagecave.com/bk7600/project1bgreyscale.jpg

Here is using only a red hue, the values change, but the hue doesn't. Looks boring.
http://usera.imagecave.com/bk7600/project1bwip2.jpg


I don't think this last experiment is an excersize, just an experiment you can do to check the values. Of course my examples are not the most appropiate ones, I need hell of a lot of studying and practice, but I hope at least I could show what I was meaning :)

Cheers guys, I'll be doing the other projects as soon as I can.
C ya.

[Idiot Apathy]

Wow, I am constantly humbled by some of the great artists I've seen and admired here at ConceptArt.org as well as the determined aspiring artists that are joining the thread everyday. Blows my mind, I just wondering how long it will take you guys to realize how much of a noob hack I am and take over the thread :x. I give it a week or two...

It's been really great to learn from this thread; I've had to learn, re-learn and research a lot to set some of these exercises up. You guys have been so inspirational and have kept me from getting lazy. I'm learning a lot from you guys and from trying to help you guys. It's been a great pleasure and well worth all the long hours I've put into this. Damn, really sounds like I'm leaving; HA! Not a chance, your stuck with me.

But seriously, can anyone think of anything they might like to contribute? The thread isn't just meant to be about color, it can be anything you feel you can explain properly. You don't even have to set up an exercise, you can just do a demo or set up some notes or something. You can talk to me, via PM or email (in user profile) and I can help set up an exercise or just help otherwise, let me know!


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Btw if anyone is curious I write these responses as I read your posts; hence they are a little disjointed at times, bear with me.

@Oblio: Dude, your nuts! Your way too hard on yourself. I think your blocks look great as well as realistic! Good on you for trying a hard lightsource direction like that too, made for some interesting cast shadows. I think the question you might want to ask yourself is why you are hue-shifting. (*Not sure if this is scientific fact here, just kind of how I do it*) A hue shift happens when you are mixing two different colors, further away they are the more drastic the hue shift. However with complementary colors you won't get a hue shift, they will combine to gray. Now, whenever you mix any different colors you will always loose intensity because intensity is the pureness of just one hue. If the original hue is closer to the hue you are mixing with you will loose less intensity (or perhaps even gain some?) as well as a proportionate hue shift, and a value change as well (with light when you add light to light you will always get a brighter color). So for example, a bright yellow object in white light with a surrounding blue ambient light: The shadow would most likely only fade in intensity and not hue change (the exact color is determined by how much of the yellow is mixed with blue.) A bright red object in the same enviroment would have a magenta-ish hue but would likely be less intense. (Sometimes I try and figure out what value an objects shadow side would be without changeing hues and then figure out the intensity and hue shift from there.) If your sick of the shadows you might try a lightsource that only hits one side directly (like my lazyness...). Care to go into a little more detail about what [Dan] told you about the corners? Sounds interesting. Hope this makes some sense here, let me know (anyone!) if I can clarify anything. Anyways dude, quit being so damn hard on yourself (unless of course that's how you spur yourself on to learn, I do that too...), looking forward to your next post!

@redehlert: Hey! Cool of Romance to point you in our direction, I was wonder what that bum was up to. Cool to see you in here, I've really enjoyed your sketchbook and ~OTW entries. Looking forward to seeing what you produce in here and maybe seeing what you could teach us :teeth: .

@Romance: Maybe your lurking or whatever, man your ~OTW entries are awesome, why didn't you tell me you were that good :dur:? Understandable that you haven't had time inbetween those to get back in here, always a seat saved for you of course.

@Vigostar: Uwaa! My sketchbook envy is getting too overloaded here, going to focus more on drawing next semester, we'll see how that goes. Can't wait to see what you do here either! peace.

@bRØk3n_sPiRiT: Another name I recognize; damn the sketchbook envy is through the roof now... Damn! You did a lot of these! I noticed the swatches on the side of your spheres; how do you use these and when do you choose them? I don't use swatches, don't really understand them actually. Usually I pick a base color that I feel is right (usually the midtone and local color) and then pick highlights and shadows straight from the color wheel based on the lighting etc. I'll then use the eyedropper when I need a mix, usually with a softer edged brush. You might find it easier to keep things saturated if you work a little more spontaneously, I dunno. As for color identity I believe it's most important to establish this with a strong midtone; not necessarily intense but defined. Check out the link for Prometheus|ANJ's tut on the front page. I've never been able to get a color layer to work exactly how I wanted, but there is a lot of things I can't do :^^;:. If this method interests you, you might want to look up grisaille on the web. I think your right though, it's an interesting way of check if your colors work right. I think the purple you added on those spheres is a little off though, it looks nice but breaks up the form too much, you might try changing the saturation and value on it a bit more to fit the sphere. I think your crazy for using such a low opacity! How's the carpal tunnel coming along :x ? You might enjoy working with a softer edged brush at a high opacity to start with and then finish up with the same brush at a lower opacity. Hard edged brushes blend somewhat optically with empty spots in the brush (as well as opacity) think almost like crosshatching. Anyways dude, kudos to you; the point of the project was to get people thinking about colors in values and how light/absence of light effects them. You certainly did your fair share of thinking here! Anyways, glad to have you in here, lets see what you come up with next :).
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Going to post a new project next, don't panic! Your not getting behind or anything, remember these projects are always open and always optional. I'm trying to get some more projects in here while I can, a squirrel stocking up on nuts for the winter if you will. Actually I'm going to go eat, new project after that.

[Idiot Apathy]

Project #6: Color Matching

People having grief with exercise #1 gave me the idea for this one; that exercise was about getting people in the mindset to think about color more in depth, with values and intensity rather than simply picking what looks good. This exercise will be more about matching colors, to test and refine how you see color. This has a much more practical application to it I think.

- - - - - - - - - -
The Guidelines:
A: Do the project and create a dialogue of what you did and why. (Try and think about this while you do the project, this is important; we will be better able to learn from each other as well as catch each other's mistakes.)
B: The Dialogue will be analyzed by your peers; (Right or wrong, the idea is to have a reason why and explain it. I think this will be key )
C: And of course at the same time peer critiques will be offered. (Pretty simple no?)
D: You shouldn't have to spend a large amount of time on this however spend as much time as you need, give it your best.
E. All Projects/Exercises are of course optional, have no order, and are always open to participation. Start wherever and whenever you want!
F. People who are too embarassed to post their results will be shot on sight, you're here to learn not to show off.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
I strongly recommend you read the discussions and analyses within others posts that are between exercises. I see a lot of the same advice being repeated. Read through this for your sake; I mean don't you want to learn faster?

This being said, sometimes advice or critiques will be given that may be incorrect, or misconceptions; I most likely am not innocent of this either. If you spot mistakes be sure and correct them! Don't confuse these with opinions however, which are never wrong only different.
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Edit: If you haven't started this yet I might do Project#7 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=685770&postcount=141) First, might help you out on this one.

Step One: Choose a photo. Below are some good links to public domain photo sites as well as some pictures I thought might work well for this. Feel free to use your own photo's or if your a super stud set up your own still life next to your monitor. The object/objects you choose to do should be sphere-like or at least rounded. This way there will be many different lightsource influences on the object. Feel free to use something other than a sphere if you feel it works better. When selecting your object remember you don't have to do everything in the picture, just the sphere/etc. Ignore everything else including intricate details on the sphere if you'd like. Edit: The point of this exercise is not a perfect dupilicate of a photograph; the point is begin to see color properly so you can better learn about color from your surroundings.

Step Two: Set yourself up however you feel is best to copy from another image, trace if you don't feel confident enough or want to speed up the process however remember you won't get any better or quicker if you rely on crutches your whole life :P. I recommend some quick proportional gridwork on both your source and canvas.

Step Three: Simplify the shapes you see and focus mainly on the color; you might be surprised to see how well something reads with proper color and value even though you've left out the details. Pick the color you see DO NOT use the color picker, again you'll never learn if you use a crutch. No matter how experienced you are do not use the color picker on this; I do however recommend you use it on some other artists work to see what they are thinking, and to teach yourself about some other things. Do however check and see how close you are once you have finished. EDIT: If you are having a hard time finding the proper color you can try picking your color first then painting it next to the reference, maybe on a seperate layer to see how close you are; however you must still pick the color with your eye as well as adjust it by eye. NO CHEATING! :P Just try not to abuse this too much, it's still a crutch, no more like training wheels... (But don't feel bad! I'm using this method...)

Presentation: Try and keep your image size below 800x600 so everyone can see it, feel free to work as big as your computer will comfortably allow but do resize it when finished, odds are it will look better when it is shrunk down anyways. Link or have a thumbnail to your reference as well please, do not hotlink either, that's just plain mean.

*NOTE* Photo's are not a very accurate representation of how our eyes see color or even value. Do not take what you see from photo's and think that this is exactly how it would work or look. Once again this is just an exercise to get you going and thinking.

Public Domain Photo Links:
http://www.imageafter.com/
http://www.morguefile.com/
http://www.sxc.hu/

Some Images: (Click for Link to High Res!)
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/copper.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b12objects056.jpg)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/flag.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=94818&)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/tinsel.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=93402&)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/ballpen.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=85254&)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/red-bouncy.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=81586&)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/blue-bouncy.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=81182&)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/yellow-juggle.jpg
(http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=67822&)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/black-bouncy.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=67823&)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/smile.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=57435&)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/bead.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=37968&)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/baseball.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=3887&)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/copper-orna.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=5133&)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/green-orna.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=5131&)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/purple-orna.jpg (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=5150&)
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/cue-ball.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=405603)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/stone.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=363381)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/tennis.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=355330)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/red-11.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=339583)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/blue-with-hand.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=319195)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/blue-glass.jpg
(http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=264670)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/black-glass.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=264668)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/red-glass.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=260210)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/cue-ball-2.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=244005)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/lawn-balls.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=229139)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/orange-ball.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=184355)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/red-measure.jpg (http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=163176)
*Note*One or more of these requires a login to view the high-res; I recommend going to bugmenot.com if you don't want to sign up.

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Any comments, suggestions, corrections etc. greatly appreciated!

[bumskee]

bloody fantastic.. :) cheers mate.. now which one to pick.. hmmm :)

[Kitsu]

I wanted to post yesterday, but work was crazy. With all these people joining its going to get hard to keep track of all the neat stuff going on!

Oblio:
Your blocks look good! I think there are a few little problems though. First the light reflected from the red block is too crisp. The surface of the block would act like a regular light source, so the light would reflect in all directions, and fall off in a in a radius around the reflecting face. So the edge of the red lit areas would be fuzzy. Also on the red block you've made the shadows more grey. I think they should just be a darker value of the same hue. The block is reflecting red light, grey is all colors equally, so the block would absorb all the other colors and just bounce red toward us.

The second block attempt is better, the hue shift in the shadow is appropriate (though purple+red should = fuscia?). The black block looks better too. The only odd bit is that the red block seems to be glowing a little? Like it is lit from inside? I think it's because the corners are dark on the lit side and lit on the dark side but...

Idiot Apathy:
Great job on the second sphere iteration, makes me want to do it again too. Your second go at the blocks is just outstanding, I think that scene is almost perfectly lit! You're right about the scary talent creeping in here, but your part of it :D . I think I'm going to skip ahead to the latest project next, it seems to be more in my problem area currently.

bRØk3n_sPiRiT:
Seems you have some really bad jpeg artifacts in you images, are your compression settings too high? I agree that your first color sphere is very desaturated, maybe it's your yellow highlight and purple shadow fighting eachother? If you put some more of the base color seperating the light and shadow you can probably increase your apparent saturation, and make your color identity stronger...

Okay, I've decided you guys were right about the darkness/contrast on my pipes. I think my lcd screen contributes to the problem a little, but I just need to correct my curves on a different monitor to get things right. I tried slapping one of them on a black bg to see if that fit the lighting better...
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Project-three-Group-bg.jpg
:shrug: I promise new stuff on Monday.

[brokk]

Idiot Apathy, thank you very much for the warm welcome! You are too flattering : )
The swatches aren't much of a mistery, I just have them next to the image sometimes, sometimes not, so I can color pick from there instead of opening the color window. Lol maybe I'm using them wrong : P
I'm reading Prom's tutorial... its a lot to take in :^^;: its great. I'll be investigating more on grisaille too. You're right on the purple, I'll re-do this excersize latter this week and see if I put these things into practice :^^;: Thanks!
I'm a little reluctant to try the soft brushes... but I will. Its just that I don't know why my images end up looking blurry/soft, and I use hardbrushes. I don't know how to correct this :(
Again, cheers, this activity is great.

Kitsu, oh man, you're totally right on the jpg compresion things showing up, I really don't know why that is happening or how I can correct it! I save at quality 8 in photoshop with baseline "standard". Should this be different? Also, the new image I'm posting in this post I saved with "save for web", in hopes that it would change. Its weird because on older images I have, these compression problems don't show up, but they do in the new ones, and I've always used the same setting for saving. I don't know whats going on :(
Cool, I try adding more base color, and I'll post the results later in the week. Thanks.

Ack, so here's my attempt at project 2
http://usera.imagecave.com/bk7600/Project-2.jpg

Basically I had the template on its own layer set to multiply. On a layer underneath I painted the values in grayscale. On a layer on top of the values, I set the mode to "color" and painted the base colors. Then on a layer on top of that, I set the mode to "soft light" and painted with a white-yellow the lights, and the shadows a dark desaturated blue. I forgot to mention I did about everything at 30-50% opacity more or less. Then on top of the template (lines) layer I painted in normal mode at 100% opacity to cover up the black lines. Made a final layer on top of that one, set the mode to "soft light" and painted the base colors of the blocks onto the surfaces of the other blocks at about... 30-50% again, to try and incorporate the radiosity.
Dunno if all of this worked... I know its sort of an easy way out from directly painting the colors, but I feel I can think better about each step this way. Kind of like training wheels I guess. But if you guys think I should do something differently, please tell me.

Kitsu, it looks good, but it looks a little rough. Some parts could be blended a little more. Also some edges are a bit "jaggy". Values look nice to me, I kinda wish the figure wouldn't get so much lost in the shadows though.

Ok, back to work. Thanks again guys.

EDIT: Ok, here I tried correcting the things of the first project.

The desaturated one
I created a new layer set to "color", painted the base color at 50%. New layer on top of that set to "soft light", added the same yellow and desaturated dark blue colors I originally had for lights/shadows, used alt to color pick and at 10-50% tried to blend everything together on the soft light layer. The color picking and blending on that layer seemed to add saturation.
http://usera.imagecave.com/bk7600/2project1.jpg

The other one
Similar to the one before, created "color" and "soft light" layers, color picked with alt and blended on the soft light layer at low opacity.
http://usera.imagecave.com/bk7600/2project1b.jpg

Should I be doing something different?

[Idiot Apathy]

@Bumskee: Thought you might like this next one :). Thanks for pimping out the project so much btw.

@Kitsu: Thanks for taking the time to comment on other peoples stuff I really appreciate it! I think the edit you did on the pipe does look better but still odd, not necessary off but odd. Like seeing a bright blue tree in the middle of the forest or something, a situation you don't often see. Try some reflected light on it and maybe you'll see what I mean. See my post to Oblio down a little bit where I comment a little on your comments. Free free to skip to any project you'd like, See ya on monday champ!

@Oblio/Kitsu: *A I'm not entirely positive disclaimer but I'm pretty sure* On the red shadows; when an object recieves more white light it both increases in value and intensity. Value because there is more light and intensity because there is more of the specific hue that the object reflects. Now in a gray enviroment that would reflect an equal amount of all hues in the reflected light it is true that you would add some intensity however it should not be more or even equal to the intensity of the part in the direct lightsource (if your lightsource was a strong white light). Now in say a red enviroment with a red object it may actually be possible that your shadow is more intense than the part in direct light but I don't think it should be higher in value... complicated stuff. Just keep it mind it's all related, think of it in small steps if you need to, you could do it first only in value, then in hue and intensity. I think you might want to keep hue and intensity together because they are closely related but you might try doing different lightsources/reflected light seperately. Kitsu you did bring up an interesting point however, if you had a pure red object (meaning it absorbed everything but red) that had gray (or weak white light) reflected onto it, then it could only become more intense. However realistically I don't think such an object exists, a red object would most likely absorb some red as well and a weak white light wouldn't increase the amount of red to be reflected by that much; probably only fractions or something. Damn, 'nuff jibber jabber. Peace.

@bRØk3n_sPiRiT: It's not flattery if it's honest is it? Blocks look good, lighting, shadows, enviroment all cool. Bit of an interesting way to do it, not exactly sure how accurate it will be but if it helps you learn keep using it. However I would say you should try and paint it directly after you start to figure it out better, this will help you get even better and quicker. Colors are a little dull again, almost to the extreme left of the color wheel in Painter, I want to stress that this isn't by all means wrong or anything but I think you might want to experiment with a little more intensity. With your current layer method I'd like to see you start with a fairly intense local color and go from there. On the soft brush: I don't use photoshop so I'm not exactly the one to ask, you might try bumskee though; however I scribbled this up to show you how you might work with a soft brush.
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/soft-brus2h.jpg
A: Using a 0% hardness brush just to prove a point :^^;: I picked just three values and slapped them down on a cruddy sphere. I used a very large brush for the two big masses and reduced it slightly for the last small one. Notice the very soft edges? B. Using soft edges to my advantage I color picked the mixture in these soft areas and proceed to paint pretty much right in the middle of the soft edge with the very same 0% hardness brush at about 50% opacity, you could really do this with higher opacity or perhaps with flow. C. Again with the same 0% Hardness brush I further blended the areas this time at around 25% opacity (again, you could do it even higher or with flow). I cut into the soft edges with the same brush at a much reduced size, seems pretty sharp though doesn't it? With about the same size I added the highlight. Literally 2 minutes of work, I went and tried to do the same with a 100% hardness brush and couldn't even do it. On your reworked spheres: They look better saturated but I think you've lost some of their charm, I liked the color variations on the original's a bit better; they added interest. The next time you feel like doing this I want to to use this color as your starting color and go from there: cc783a <- just put that in the # box at the bottom of the color picker. Don't worry about doing a grayscale version either, unless you want to match a grayscale sphere to your colored one. Hope it doesn't sound like I'm beating up on ya, just want to help :). Glad to have you here. Oh almost forgot, I use PS's Save for Web function set to jpeg at 80 percent quality, the results are pretty much perfect and the size isn't big enough to complain about. Edit: Damnit, I get so forgetful when I write these sometimes, you will probably be happier with a somewhat medium hardness brush than you would at either extreme. But if you hit ctrl+[ or ctrl+] it will change the hardness on normal round brushes. (without ctrl it changes brush size). Crap, maybe it's shift+ ?
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Ok wooo, that took longer than I thought it would. Gunna post my results for Project #6 now, hopefully give you guys some inspiration and ideas. Well, actually I'm just going to post a link so it won't spoil it for the rest of you.

I spent longer than I should have on this, was having too much fun. I haven't done much copying from references but I think I'll start. If you'll notice I got bummed out and completely bored on the finer details and just slapped them on there (oh man are they crappy!) but I think it still reads well because of the overall basic shapes with correct(ish) colors and values.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/The%20Project/ornament_final.jpg

Ref: http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=5131&

Don't spend any more time than you want on these! Ignore the details unless you really want to give them a try, they take too long :dur: .

[bumskee]

Idiot apathy, :) that exercise looks heaps fun!! let me do the block, then one from ur photos and then I will get onto that one.. ahh long way to go for me. well, this thread is GREAT for beginners..heaps of info and great exercises, we should be doing more of these!

I had another crack at the spheres, took idiot apathy's advice and tried warm and cool shift. I went for stronger intensity, since dull looking things are slightly easier to match. And also did the coloured one first, noticed it's so damn hard to match it.. my eyes are so crooked.. Looks like I am going to have to move on, hehe find new things.. oh well here goes.

http://home.exetel.com.au/bumskee/con/project_1_5.jpg

greyscale came out a little darker.

http://home.exetel.com.au/bumskee/con/project_1_6.jpg

second attempt flipped it so cooler on top and little warmer on the bottom, really needs background.. I think..

http://home.exetel.com.au/bumskee/con/project_1_7.jpg

greyscale lighter this time, hehe I am going in circles!!

http://home.exetel.com.au/bumskee/con/project_1_8.jpg

Now to the boxes and shadows...yikes..

[venomai]

Newb here. :teeth:

http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/1340/practices12gt.jpg
http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/3338/practices22wj.jpg

[Oblio]

Thank you guys so much.
I've beenout of town.. and now i'm only home for few minutes before leaveing again and i don;t want to pass by without a small reply.
I will study more art-math ;) and see about light... and i'll never be easier on myself, since i don;t have the time to take it easy. I'm an old fart.
Great new exrcise - yet - i will redo the cubes first :)

Venomai - try to use a wider range of values and make sure your sphere is... round :)
I took the liberty of painting on top on yours in few secs just to try to make a small example. My spheres are still not as good as i want them.. but hopefully they make the point.
I know it is not the target of the excercise to have perfect spheres on the values but i got frustrated when i cound;nt made mine look round enough.

[Idiot Apathy]

@Bumskee: Thanks for your encouragement and enthusiasm man! New spheres look great, very vibrant. Do you think you could explain a little about the cool reflected light you have near the middle of the sphere? It looks right; I just want to know why. Don't worry about matching perfectly, this exercise is flawed in that it's not really possible to get a perfect grayscale and it's especially hard when you put strong intensities into the mix. Your right about needing a background, right now they are cut-outs put onto a gray background, I think that might be messing with some people. Can't wait to see the boxes, try a very simple light direction if the shadows are giving you a hard time, baby steps man baby steps.

@Venomai: You made it! Sweet, welcome to the thread. Neat texture on the spheres, an angled brush? Anyways, spheres look good and you matched pretty well, I might add some reflected light in the shadows to add some realism or a larger value range like Oblio suggested but again, not the point of the exercise but it helps ya know?

@Oblio: 29 is old?! :^^;: Oh man, there are things I wanted to do in life... didn't think that I'd be old at 29... Anyways your determination is really inspiring, for an old fart; can't wait to see your cubes again.
- - - - - - - - - - -

Did another one after I woke up this morning; spent a lot less time on it (and it shows...) but still practice makes perfect!

Link again so not to spoil it for those who don't wanna see yet:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/red-eleven_004.jpg

[bumskee]

hey Idiot apathy, the little thing in the middle? no idea, thought it would look right since it's a sphere, one thing I noticed most of the spheres here look more closely to a beveled round button, including mine. hehe, yeah damn these spheres are hard. And you know what I did have a go at the box yesterday for about 2 hrs. :| and I could not for the life of me figure out the damn shadows.. was driving me mental!! and how the hell do you and romance get such clean edges?? god I thought I had photoshop pretty under control but it was all over the place. I was just about to have another crack at.. made me realise how much of the basics I was missing.. damn..I might have to remove a block or two for the moment..

nice ball, damn those colours are really hitting it. Good to see you leading the way mate, hope I get there one day.!! back to the annoying boxes...:^^;:

[Idiot Apathy]

Aww damn, your embarassing me :^^;:, "Hope I get there one day", it won't take that long mate, now if I could just draw like you :dad: .

I got clean edges by going over the black lines lines at the end (I used a multiply layer for my lay-in) with a 100% opaque mostly hard edged brush set to straight lines only, second one I think I actually touched up in photoshop using the click shift click method.

Post or PM/Email me what you got so far and I'll see if I can help but shadows really frustrate me too!

Feel free to nuke a box if you want, even go so far to make your own boxes. It might be easier to construct a full on 2pp enviroment and then map out your shadows, here is a really hard to understand (I still can't even bear to read it) but awesome resource: http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/perspect6.html#type5 lol, let me know if you decode it. Oh and make sure and post your results!

[Kitsu]

bRØk3n_sPiRiT:
Project two look good, I'm not seeing much bounce light though. Also your planes are a little to flat; In most lighting situations one area of a plane is more lit and further away get dimmer. One neat thing you caught was the higher saturation on the inside corner of the pink block. The pink light bouncing off the lit face would make part of the shadow more colorful (but still dark). One problem though is that your block is not self shadowing. Here is a quick markup showing the missing shadow:
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/Project-2.jpg


The latest exercise was fun and challeging. I actually did it twice since I need the practice anyway. Here is the first ref I used:
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/orange-ball.jpg
I actually just used the thumbnail for ref. Color was the point, not details.

http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/P6-V1-Paint.jpg
This one turned out okay. The long shadow got really lumpy because I went over it about a dozen times. It is both a shadow and lit, and has a buch of hue shifts caused by things outside our field of view. I also had trouble getting that hot orange band in the middle to look right.

http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/P6-V1-Notes.jpg
After I got done I scribbled over the paint figuring out the lighting situation. This scene has two primary light sources, and two shadows. It also has a nice example of that wide band of identifying color. The shadows picked up a lot of the balls color, maybe the lights had a slight orange/yellow tint?

Here is the second one I did. I chose one of the more complex ref photos:
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/red-measure.jpg
I think this image was intentionally over exposed, so the colors are extra saturated and the whites are all blown out.

http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/P6-V2-Paint.jpg
I had trouble with everything on this one. The final image stands up well on its own, but isn't very close to the referance. I had a lot of problems getting the colors and saturation right, both on the glass and on the floor. In the end I didn't succeed, the photo's colors are a lot hotter than mine. BTW glass is hard...

http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/P6-V2-Notes.jpg
This image is interesting because the shadow does not line up with the apparent light source. The highlights are a little right of the nearest side, but the shadow is cast to the near left. It seems there was a much stronger, but distant, back light in the scene. There were a ton of interesting light/color effects caused by the glass. The object is translucent and back lit, so it looks like it is glowing from within. Also the back light casts caustics into the shadow. The surface is somewhat reflective, but warped.

I painted these at four times the width/height shown. Using a larger image size helped with these I think. I also tried to keep in mind all the advice I've gotten here recently. Using a brush with a softer edge helped round these out a little more, but also tended to fuzz out the details I was trying to add.

I guess I'm going to work backwards through these for a while. Warm/cool painting is next!

[Idiot Apathy]

@Kitsu: I thought a plane was flat by definition? Hehe, I see what you mean though but still don't quite understand why, do you know? I found some good examples of this here: http://www.korthalsaltes.com/index.html on the paper models (click the links in the link). But I'm still not sure why, perhaps it is only with artifical lighting? Due to the curved surface of the bulbs? Would the same effect be true with sunlight? Good call on the "self-shadowing", I missed that! On pink light onto pink light, don't forget that besides adding intensity your adding light so the value should go up too (probably less in relation to intensity though). On the Color Matching: Orange Ping pong ball - Awesome! It's great to finally see someone elses. It reads very well and I recognized it instantly, I was actually thinking about doing this one because (well besides how much I like orange) of the interesting lighting situation. Now I'm going to get nit-picky just to keep you thinking :^^;: , If you had wanted to you could have actually gone 100% intensity on the "intensity band"; The reflected light on the core shadow is a little exaggerated and sharp, you might try blending that a little more or perhaps on a seperate layer if your using PS; the long mostly warm cast shadow could use a little more intensity. Crazy that you used the thumbnail as the ref; your missing out on some important lighting details; the highlights on the ball jump to almost a yellow white in small spots like an orange almost; the stronger cast shadow actually turns to a violet on the edges where it increases in value. Sorry for being nit-picky, you've really done a great job! Why don't you do your lighting situation scribble on the photo ref before you start, it might be helpful. Try and identify what color the lighting is as well. On the second color matching: Red Measuring Cup - Again dude, awesome! It still reads well but like you said it's a bit different than the ref. Your folly was really just: not going saturated enough on a few parts, going just a little too dark on the "shadow" parts, and being a little afraid to go to white on some of the highlights and reflected parts. Some of which are a little harder to see on the thumbnail. I too painted from a smaller thumbnail but had a large image ready to examine to get a better feel from it. The shadow that you see isn't a shadow, think of the glass as a photo filter over a light, the red shadow is just filtered light. Anyways kudos to you, glass is hard but try and think of it as just different shapes and different edges in order to simplify it. Can't wait to see your warm/cool!

[Kitsu]

Thanks! Tons of useful information again. Here is a blurb about light intensity changing across a surface:
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/LIGHT.PNG
If you count the number of rays hitting at each edge you can see why the furthest is darker. If you want to get technical it is because of the inverse square law, which applies to all field effects (like gravity or waves in water): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law
Basically as you get further from the light the photons get further apart, so the surface is less lit. The suns rays are nearly parallel so it's intensity shouldn't change on regular sized objects. but radiosity has an impact too, especially in sun light, so less obstructed (higher) areas will get more light.

Yesterday I took some time trying to figure out shadows. The titanic page of info you found is actually really useful! You just need to follow along on paper and it makes a lot more sense. Maybe I'll try to post a simplified explanation of basic shadow casting after I finish the next exercise.

[Idiot Apathy]

So then it seems to me this would be more apparent with artifical lighting right? Especially since the light comes fairly spread out? Anyways, thanks for taking the time; this thread could use more stuff like this, and do let us know what you find out about shadows!

Where are the rest of you slackers?

[Kitsu]

Yeah, it got quiet in here again...

I finished project five, I think I need to try it again though. Here is my ref:
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/p5-ref.jpg

And here is the paint. I don't have access to my usual posting comp so I'm posting this from my dad's computer. I think this image might need some contrast correction, but this monitor is so out of wack that I can't tell. Hopefully this doesn't look as bad elsewhere as it does here.
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Project-Five.jpg

And steps:
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Project-Five-group.jpg
First problem is I kinda mangled the camera angle. I don't mind but it seems when I draw things I always shift the point of view a little. Also I didn't push the saturation anywhere noticable. It would be great if someone could do a paint over on this because I really don't know where I could go saturation wise. I think I learned something from doing this one, but I don't think I can explain exactly what it was...

Okay, I'm going to try to make a shadow demo. Then I'll probably do this exercise again with a different ref. I'm offline until Tuesday, but I'll try to respond to anyone who posts when I get back.

[Idiot Apathy]

Everyone: Slackers! Where the hell are ya? Tell me what's up, if theres a problem I need to know! Could it be that people just pass by stickies like I always imagined?

@Kitsu: Really cool ref and really great results. I'm glad you learned something and I know how it is not being able to describe it. I did a quick and sloppy paint-over to show you what you might have done a little differently:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/kitsu.jpg
I think you made it a little harder on yourself by having blue water and a blue sky so prominent in your picture; they sucked up all the blues! Yet you did a fantastic job of spreading your orange around. You might have liked to use some blues in your shadows, blue helps things feel a little darker and cooler but it will also help them feel further away when used properly (think our own atmosphere, anything really far away). One of the main things you could have tweaked was the value of the bridge as well as the sky. You might plan your values in the beginning to get a better feel for it; try accurately marking out your brightest and darkest colors and go from there. Intensity/saturation is tricky in that it can describe how near (high intensity) or how far (low intensity) something is but you should also pay attention to how intense things are in your reference. The sky for example is pretty intense, the sky is actually a lightsource! In the future I might try a higher opacity brush until your finished blocking most areas in, it might help with getting the proper color you want as well as other things. Glad you've stuck around unlike these other bums, see you on tuesday! :teeth: Edit: Oh and a shadow demo sounds awesome, thanks!

[Idiot Apathy]

Project #7: Value

More and more I'm believing that value is the most important element in what we do, notice that's its and element and doesn't stand on its own however. I don't think it is always the most important however I think in many styles it very well may be. This Project is set up to get us to start seeing value better and quicker. You will generalize areas with a very limited value range, I believe it better to block in your general forms first and then split them up into the details later. If you do this with the proper value it should flow very easily. Later I think we will do this with color.

- - - - - - - - - -
The Guidelines:
A: Do the project and create a dialogue of what you did and why. (Try and think about this while you do the project, this is important; we will be better able to learn from each other as well as catch each other's mistakes.)
B: The Dialogue will be analyzed by your peers; (Right or wrong, the idea is to have a reason why and explain it. I think this will be key )
C: And of course at the same time peer critiques will be offered. (Pretty simple no?)
D: You shouldn't have to spend a large amount of time on this however spend as much time as you need, give it your best.
E. All Projects/Exercises are of course optional, have no order, and are always open to participation. Start wherever and whenever you want!
F. People who are too embarassed to post their results will be shot on sight, you're here to learn not to show off.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
I strongly recommend you read the discussions and analyses within others posts that are between exercises. I see a lot of the same advice being repeated. Read through this for your sake; I mean don't you want to learn faster?

This being said, sometimes advice or critiques will be given that may be incorrect, or misconceptions; I most likely am not innocent of this either. If you spot mistakes be sure and correct them! Don't confuse these with opinions however, which are never wrong only different.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Step One: Choose a photo. Below are some good links to public domain photo sites as well as some pictures I thought might work well for this. Feel free to choose or use your own photo's but I think for this project it will be best to stick with simple architecture, indoors or outdoors. You don't want anything with lots of blends or deep perspective (will cause blending too!). The point of this exercise is not a perfect dupilicate of a photograph; the point is begin to divide values properly. No B&W photo's you cheater!

Step Two: I know it sounds horrible but your going to do this directly off the photo; it will take too long otherwise. Get the high res version of your photo set up in PS or another Image editor (Painter might not be the best choice for this one). You are going to use as few values as possible to describe this photo, do stick to under 10 if you can help it. What values you choose are up to you, remember no intensity! Using the polygonal lasso or whatever you feel is best select areas that you feel are the same value. Generalize everything! No extremely small areas and no details! If it's really close in value then make it the same value! Fill this area with your value; do it on a seperate layer so you don't mess up your photo. I recommend starting with your brightest and darkest values, not necessarily white and black mind you! Do not convert to grayscale and do not color pick, this is to come from your eyes only!

Step Three: Rinse and repeat until you are finished. Does the image still retain it's identity? If not go back and edit, add more values if necessary, create smaller shapes in different (but proper!) values to distinguish shapes.

Presentation: Try and keep your image size below 800x600 so everyone can see it, feel free to work as big as your computer will comfortably allow but do resize it when finished, odds are it will look better when it is shrunk down anyways. Link or have a thumbnail to your reference as well please, do not hotlink either, that's just plain mean.

Public Domain Photo Links:
http://www.imageafter.com/
http://www.morguefile.com/
http://www.sxc.hu/

Some Images: (Click for Link to High Res!)
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/well.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b2architecturals054.jpg)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/red-windowed.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b2architecturals061.jpg)http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/brick-church.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b8architecture_exteriors001.jpg)ht tp://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/brick-church-2.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b7architecture_exteriors033.jpg)ht tp://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/peerproject/old-foundation.jpg (http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b3_exteriors003.JPG)
(Sorry feeling lazy :^^;: ...)

- - - - - - - - - -
Any comments, suggestions, corrections etc. greatly appreciated!

[Idiot Apathy]

To give you an idea of just how simple it can be and just how much time you should spend I did this one real quick:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/wel3l.jpg

[jubilee]

@Jubilee: Cool to see you in here too :teeth: . While reading what's in here take it with a grain of salt, not all of it may be true! Some of it is just a thought process. Your spheres came out really close, kudos! On your highlight you might want to try to keep the different sections in the middle of each other, erm think like a bullseye? Right now it looks a bit like your sphere has a bulge at the highlight. Keep posting! I'll take it as a personal insult if you don't :x .

:x eek the pressure! bleah i'm falling even further behind :P I swear I'll be back on this directly after the holidays

[seth1]

Well this is my first go at this kind of stuff i went thought the first page of reading a little bit about light and i learned quite abit off it but i will go though the links and every thing else tonight and see how i did every thing wrong:P
http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/8350/activity11ne.jpg
http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/3798/activity1gray9oj.jpg

No clue what i was doing just messing around
http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/8500/activity27pn.jpg


Same goes for this one....
http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/9749/activity33nq.jpg
http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/4166/activity37nz.gif

Some more
http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/3482/activity100ql.jpg

[Idiot Apathy]

Nice dude! As for just messing around; that's what we do man, mess around and learn. You really hit the books on this man, way to show these slackers how it's done!

Spheres look great, I like how you've shown the roundness of it with the intense (borders?), this sort of thing took me awhile to realize. The point isn't a perfect match, even though your pretty spot on, the idea is to see color in terms of values as well.

Good try on the blocks as well! I'm not the man to go to for shadows right now but they look a little off, why don't you try a simple lightsource say from the front or front left that would hit one plane of the cubes square on, that is if you want to do it again :). I think you must be using photoshop to color yes? Your shadows are actually getting more intense when they should usually become less intense, in PS the color picker goes from left (no intensity) to right (full intensity). Try thinking of pure sunlight as adding intensity to any color and an area with less sunlight as well less intense, build from there. After that try thinking about what light is being reflected onto your object as well as into your shadows.

Haha, awesome animation on your pitcher! These came out really good! I'd watch where you put the highlights on the top rim though, I think they should travel in a straight line from your lightsource.

This last one, just for fun? First one looks pretty good, shadow needs work; maybe try thinking of your set-up in a 2d diagram? Draw your sphere and the lightsource and trace where the edges would meet and you'll see a little better how your shadow should look, let me know if that didn't make sense... I'll draw it up. Second one: Light acts a little funny on a sphere, or rather how it is reflected off a sphere, the highlight would probably be a little further down even if the lightsource was right above the sphere. Third ones pretty good; just keep thinking!

Nice having you in here man, hope to see you around :teeth: !

[Kitsu]

Apathy:
Thanks a lot for the paint over. I really like how the bridge turned out in your version!

seth1:
Welcome! Good job on all of these. I only saw two things I can comment on. First on the shadowed spheres the center one looks very flat. This is caused by the large area in the center which is all of similar value; it looks like a black disk with a beveled edge. I think if you added some more light aroung the upper edges, and made the bottom center darker, it would work better.

Second your colored blocks don't look finished. I think you were going in the right direction with these, they just need some more time. The values are off in a few places (like the shadow on the green block), and the painting is still a little rough.

Okay, I did some work on shadow casting inbetween festivities this last week. I think I've found some simple stuff that works, but I also found some questions that I don't have answers for. I think most lighting situations can be put into one of three catigories: sun light in front of viewer, sun light behind viewer, or lamp light. Lamp light may also chage depending on location infront or behind the viewer, but I haven't tested it yet.

Sun light - in front
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Solar-Shadow.png
The sun can be concidered infinitly distant, so its shadow vp (vanishing point) is simply the suns horizontal location on the horizon line. To find the shadow we first need to find the shadow of each vertical edge. To do this draw a line from the shodow vp through the bottom of the vertical edge, then draw a line from your sun through the top point on the vertical edge. The shadow for the edge is then from the bottom point to where the two lines intersect. To see this look at the furthest vertical edge on the nearest face. Once you have shadows for the verticals just connect the dots to find the top of the faces shadow. The line for the top of the shadow should point toward one of you're vanishing points, but it isn't always perfect.

Sun light - behind
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Anti-Solar-Shadow.png
This case is the same as front sun except for one problem, we cannot see the light source. So what we do is put a point below the horizon which is oposite of where the sun is behind us. From there we just draw a vertical line from the anti-solar vp to find the shadow vp on the horizon, then draw lines through the tops and bottoms of the vertical edges to find our shadows. Notice where the nearest shadow hits the other face, the shadow then travels vertically until it runs into the line connecting the anti-solar vp to the top of the casting edge.

Lamp light
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Lamp-Shadow.png
Lamp lights are special because they are near enough to use that their shadow vp is below the horizon. Really the shadow vp of a lamp is the point on the 'floor' where the lamp would land if it fell straight down. Moving it up makes it further away, and down brings it nearer to us. Once we decide where the light is the rest of the proceedure is the same as before. Shadows from lamps will tend to be more distorted than sun light, and should 'fuzz out' faster.

Okay, these are the basics for rectangular objects sitting on the world plane with single point light sources. Things get a little more complicated for things not sitting on the ground, for angled edges, and for light being emitted from an area (an area light source, like a florecent light). Remember though if you can get a vertical line touching the ground you can project a shadow for it.

[Kronos]

ok, so this is a start at least, i had a go at the first exercise and got okish results, that value of the overall piece seems pretty similar......

i knew that the darktones on the colour one were too dark, but for some reason didn't change it

also as you can prbably tell i spent way longer doing the colour one.....tricky stuff

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a173/stupidsoup/Project-Two-colour.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a173/stupidsoup/Project-Two-grey.jpg

i'm so inexperienced with colour that you wouldn't believe, but i'm determined to fix that, i'll have another go soon, but right now i'm going to attempt project two

advice and crits would be greatly appreciated

[Kronos]

BLAAAAHHH!!!!!

i don't know why i did this, but this is entierly done with selection..... the most boring possible way to go about it, and probably defeates the perpose....but anyway, i'll have another go some day soon

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a173/stupidsoup/Project-Two.jpg

btw, i don't even know how to properly cast shadows!!!!.....? i think this worked out ok, but i have no idea how i did it, are there any good tutorials out there?

[glikster]

Oh, here is the one of the best examples of color relativity (they call it color perception, might be a better name?) I've ever seen:
http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/colourPerception/colourPerception.html
I usually have a hard time being "tricked" by this illusion (Suppose I should feel blessed) but this one gets me every time.



I am definitely going to start doing these exercises....I know a late start, but I'm game.

Also, I totally did not believe that 3rd illusion. I thought it gradually changed the color of the tile as it made the mask opaque, so I used a shite-load of post-it notes to make my own mask. It's for real.

I did this really quickly, using a mouse. I will post more as I go.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/glickart/project2_1.jpg

IS

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/glickart/project2_2.jpg

[Kitsu]

Kronos:
Your spheres look good, you have a very complete range of values. The color sphere is definatly too dark in the shadows, but that is the kind of thing you are supposed to find out with this exercise. Otherwise your values are all fairly close. On the second exercise yeah, you kinda missed the point; you've made a very good template to start with though. Now if you take that image and try to think about how light would bounce around and interact in that scene you will have it made. BTW just above your first post I made a simple intro to the basics of shadow casting, and Apathy has posted a couple of links to other shadow resources in this thread.

glikster:
Very nice spheres, especially when using a mouse! The only problem I see is you didn't go dark enough on your colored version. You also got them to look very 'spherey', which is suprisingly hard to do.

Remember, there is no reason to do these exercises in order. If you think you would get more from one of the recent exercises go ahead and try it. These all seem to be pretty small chunks of information, and remember: the more you mess up the more crits you will get. Its about findin' out what you are doing wrong!

[Idiot Apathy]

Yo! I know some of you "feel" behind but it's been a little while since I posted an exercise; any ideas? Something you'd like to focus on? Suggest something!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
@Kitsu: Nice, thanks for putting that up; gunna link to it on the front page. I went over that handprint link over the holidays too, good but confusing stuff. If you figure out anything else do post it, much appreciated! :teeth: And thanks for taking the time to comment on others exercises as well!

@Kronos: Hey you made it, good to see you. On the spheres, good job! You got the point of the exercise and you did great matching them. Some little things that you might want to experiment with though. You have about as full as you can get a value range, not wrong, probably seldom seen but in my opinion a little oogly. Try stopping yourself before getting close to white and black and only use them sparingly, see how you like that. Your shadows are also as saturated as possible, again not wrong just a little out of the norm. Less white light (sunlight) means less value and less intensity/saturation so even though they aren't as intense as your midtones you might try to "exaggerate" it a little and lower their intensity a little bit and see if you like that as well. On the blocks: I don't think you missed the point at all, you saved time and effort by usuing the selections, skipping ahead to the important part of the exercise. However you did leave out a few fine touches, mainly reflected lighting coming off the enviroment and the other blocks. Little touches can add lots of believability. Colors look good, think about where you would go for just one step higher on the highlights if this was say a sphere or something; would you go to white? would you stop when you couldn't get any more intense? Would you go inbetween? Shadows look ok, still trying to unravel them myself so I can't really comment. Anyways dude, good to see you in here, keep up the hard work; maybe you can teach us something about cartooning ;).

@glikster: Hahaha, yeah the third illusion; thanks for joining us by the way. The spheres look good and you matched your values pretty well. I might try going a little more saturated/intense in your midtones and seeing how you like that though. Good textures and everything; and with a mouse... ugh that brings up bad memories. Tablets better than mine are running for around 90$ so you might want to save up.

[glikster]

thanks! I have a tablet, I just don't bring it to work with me.
I tried the spheres again, this time I think I upped the saturation, and I tried to bring some complementary colors into it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/glikster/project1_1_2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/glikster/project1_2_2.jpg

I also tried the 2nd exercise, but this one I'm going to need LOTS of help with.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/glikster/project2.jpg

I kind of had some ideas going into it, such as using complementary colors in the shadows, the wall of the box facing the other box (both are blue) I thought would be more saturated... I dunno... I'm totally clueless when it comes to color.

[Idiot Apathy]

Haha, you should totally see if you can get away with bringing a tablet to work, just tell them your concerned about repetitive stress injuries.

On the spheres: What I meant to say is try having your midtones the most saturated, a bit of a curve as far as saturation goes. It's kind of one of those rules that bug me because they ignore some situations but give it a shot; usually it looks better. Here, I scribbled this out; you might start with the midtone and go from there.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/sphere-colors.jpg
Top is sampled from yours; I didn't change any hues on mine, that all depends on the situation too. With the complementary hues in the shadows; can't say I've really got my head wrapped around that; some of it is illusion that is always there but usually I'd say it depends on the enviroment, usually the sky, what color your shadows will take on.

On the blocks: Your learning mate, that's all thats important. Good thinging that blue on blue would be more saturated, that's the sort of thing you need to be thinking about. What would say yellow on blue be like? Green on blue? What would happen to the saturation? Would the hue change? Hard to say on the shadows, they don't seem to match up with the lightsource. Do you know much about 2pp? If you do this again I think it would be in your benefit to make your own block (or two) in a strict 2pp enviroment, choose a lightsource and plot the shadows perfectly. Check some of the links I posted and Kitsu guide for help.

Anyways, cheers dude; keep it up.

[Number_6]

All right, since I just got a tablet I thought I'd give this a try. I'm starting from the beginning, so I hope it's okay if I just play catch-up for now.

http://tinypic.com/jf9mwm.jpg
http://tinypic.com/jf9n6e.jpg

I suppose you could say I cheated on this, I just tried to pick the colours from the same locations in the colour chooser for each one. They didn't come out too different at least.

[Number_6]

I started by converting the image to grayscale so I'd have a better idea of the values I was using, and filling everything with the same value. I then began adding shadows and highlights. When I finished with the shadows, I began selected the blocks and applying the colourize tool (I'm using the gimp). Done with that, I created a new layer and added reflected colour to some of the shadows before really turning down the opacity.

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/218/shapes6ku.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Number_6]

I also tried the 2nd exercise, but this one I'm going to need LOTS of help with.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/glikster/project2.jpg

I kind of had some ideas going into it, such as using complementary colors in the shadows, the wall of the box facing the other box (both are blue) I thought would be more saturated... I dunno... I'm totally clueless when it comes to color.

I think the shadows coming out from between the blocks should be angled slightly away from each other due to diffraction. And somewhat blurry.

[Pixeldragoon]

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/8609/spherescales8zf.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
First project, others on the way!

Ignore the white spot, that was an accident...

Anyways, I started both off with pure black. Then I had a very large soft brush (For grayscale) set to white, at 5 or 4% opacity. Then I just Went in smaller and smaller circles until I got it to there. I started on the color, with the most intense red (Fully saturated), but I was trying to figure everything out, and kept going Left (This is in Photoshop 7 by the way) Until the color looked about right. I did cheat though, I desaturated it a couple times to compare the colors. Not to look like I'm good, but to learn more about that color box. :D

NUMBER 2

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/7520/project2templatecopy5xs.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Here... I had little idea of what to do, but I did my best to figure it out Unfortunatley, I wasn't watching the layers pallette and accidentaly had some of my guidelines on this layer here... D: But you can see where my lightsource is at least. Someone paintover please, so I can see where I went wrong. Much appreciated!

[venomai]

Sorry for the late reply. I've been busy lately, and my true vacations start tomorrow (unfortunately my computer access for the next week will be very little to none) so I will be away for even longer.

This was an attempt I made after Oblio's post, I just haven't gotten around to posting it until now. I tried making this more spherical, but as you can see still very new to all of this (and to be honest, I haven't painted that many spheres before!). Anyways, even though this wasn't really the point of the exercise I see why it would be important to practice. This fix-up kinda ruins my values though :bashful: oops.. hehe
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/4613/practices4mz.jpg


Also here is a quick try at another one of these great experiments... I couldn't finish; I have to go pack for vacations and get some sleep now.
http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/8306/boxes0uk.png



See you guys next week :)

[Idiot Apathy]

@Number_6: Looking good; you've got a nice curve with the saturation right in the middle. All together its not that saturated; gives it a bit of a different look. Keep in mind you don't always need to go all the way to black and all the way to white; experiment, find out what looks best to you and what looks best in different situations. Picking colors from the same area isn't really cheating, its using your tools properly. They are set up so you know your values; maybe having a good memory is cheating though? On the blocks: A bit of a backasswards way of doing things but if it helps you learn then keep it up, however try not to rely on layers and opacity for too long; it would be best to learn it for yourself eventually. Some the shadows you have say around the tops of the blocks are pretty odd, not sure how you've done these. I think I'm going to write up another exercise dealing with shadows next so stay tuned.

@PixelDragoon: Hey dude, nice to see you in here. The Spheres: Huge value range and it works. Your control on intensity is really great too, it's consistant and bows right about where it should. Nice touches on the sides as well, really adds to the overall roundness. Not going to ignore the white spot, it looks good; a nice specular highlight. Don't worry about "cheating" its like training wheels mate; I do things like that too. Now, what the hell is with you people and your low low low opacity? You trying to kill your hands? It's not necessary, there are much quicker and more efficient ways to work! On the Blocks: I like the overall feel and the colors, looks nice. Not entirely sure what your doing with the shadows, just a little crazy. Gunna try and do a shadows in perspective exercise next so stay tuned as well. Again, cool to see you in here.

@Venomai: Have fun on your vacation ! Keep practicing mate, your getting it, Blocks look promising.

[Pixeldragoon]

Well see- I meant to put the white spots on BOTH of them, but it's only on the color accidentaly. That's why =P

[naav]

Idiot Apathy: I just found this thread and quickly skimmed through it. This is great! Thank you so much.

I did the first exercise already.

http://kotisivu.dnainternet.fi/jormavu/images/spheres.jpg

At first I had some problems with getting the saturation right, then I had a tiny theory on how to get it right. Here's an illustration of the theory:

http://kotisivu.dnainternet.fi/jormavu/images/colorgradient.jpg

The saturation curve forms sort of a parable. Of course, it doesn't work in all occasions, but I guess it's okay.

[Idiot Apathy]

@Pixeldragoon: Yeah I figured, just giving ya crap.

@Naav: My pleasure dude, it's been great for me too. On the spheres: While its not really the point your spheres don't match in value when converted to grayscale/desaturated. Just keep thinking of color in value is all; it's not very often you need to convert something gray into color. Anyways, I like the color you choose, very erhm... pretty. On the "Theory": Yes I think that's right; PS's color wheel always confuses me. However the amount that it curves and where it begins and ends depends on many different things; experiment and see what you like. Personally, I think pure white and pure black are ugly, but they have their uses I suppose; however ... if you have a bunch of ugly colors it can make your beautiful colors stand out even more, but white and black still suck.

[bumskee]

:)
lots of spheres and blocks, just checking in, I had a great help from idiot apathy with the blocks so as soon as I finish what I am doing I will hope on it again. I think I can get it right this time.

[Number_6]

At first I had some problems with getting the saturation right, then I had a tiny theory on how to get it right. Here's an illustration of the theory:

http://kotisivu.dnainternet.fi/jormavu/images/colorgradient.jpg

The saturation curve forms sort of a parabola. Of course, it doesn't work in all occasions, but I guess it's okay.

That's pretty much how I did mine, only my parabola was horizontal cause of the Gimp.

[Pixeldragoon]

Mine was more of a half parable, going from the far bottom right, curving to the white.

[naav]

Mine was more of a half parable, going from the far bottom right, curving to the white.

I thought about that in the beginning. That ends up with really saturated shadows, right? I'm not sure if the colour in the shadow should be saturated or not?

[MattGamer]

omg so much awesome updates! can't wait to get back into this stuff and read everyone's comments! keep it up!!

[Idiot Apathy]

Where's the new additions you lazy bums?

Whats uh... what's a parabola? I'm going to let you guys figure this one out for now, you'll understand it better this way I think. Maybe a small hint: When you add white to something your saying that an object is reflecting an equal amount of all colors that combines to white; think about that when you find yourself going towards white... and black is the opposite.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Added some new links, this is good stuff; it's about as manditory as anything gets in here so read them. They contain some of the same material but they are all good.

In Depth on Colors, Design Based
http://poynterextra.org/cp/colorproject/color.html

On Contrasts, Design Based
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_print.asp?id=38564&custom=

Another Color Overview
http://www.webwhirlers.com/colors/coloursphysics.asp

[Number_6]

Whats uh... what's a parabola?

The shape Naav outlined above. I usually think of them being horizontal, and arched upwards though.

[naav]

The shape Naav outlined above. I usually think of them being horizontal, and arched upwards though.

Yeppers. This is a parabola: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabola

Just tell me if I use too much math terms. :P

[Number_6]

Mine was more of a half parable, going from the far bottom right, curving to the white.

Pixeldragoon's parable asked his father for his inheritance early, then went out and spent it all on booze and chicks. It came home asking for forgiveness and Pixeldragoon threw him a party.

LOL, i r teh funnay

[Kitsu]

Still some good stuff going on here! I'd like to see some people get past spheres and blocks, but the're still things to learn there too. About the parabola: I don't think that is a safe rule. In different lighting situations, and on different materials I think it will fall apart. The white point will change in intensity and brightness with the main (key) light source, its color and brightness, and how shiny (specular) the surface is. The saturated band will become thicker and flatter in most real world situations, as it picks up environmental light and as saturation will vary with light intensity/color. Lastly the bottom of the scale will always be above absolute black, and usualy have some color (saturation). Try running the color-picker over some photos and paintings, how closely do referances follow these guides? I think this is good stuff to think about! :7up:

Okay, I'm not a complete slacker... This thing only took a little while to do, and was very informative. This might be a nice way to start a b/w image, or plan values for a paint.:traced:
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/SKETCHBOOK/Project-Seven.jpg

[Idiot Apathy]

Yeah, still don't get the parabola thing; can it change shape or is it mathematically confined? Anyways don't worry about finding some hidden math secret, hell there might one for every situation (light is physics after all) but it's a lot harder to do it that way if you ask me.

Ok, here is a question for all of you:
What would the path be for a red object in the most powerful sunlight? Just for the sake of simplicity start it at black and end it at white.

@Number_6: Yeah, I got the parable joke. Dork :P.

@Kitsu: Good, good reasoning against the parabola, and your right. I suppose a lot of other situations might create what looks like a parabola as well though. Careful though, sometimes black is used/necessary. I'd caution against color picking from photo's as well; values and colors are really not as the human eye sees them. Anyways, good job on this last exericise; nice to see that someone is still around. I think you did really well on everything but the red window shutters. Squint at your photo again and see else they closely match in value. Yours seems to be about the second brightest value. The street light might be a little bright as well. You don't need to get it the exact value for the exercise just relative to everything else, however getting it as close as possible will help in the future.

[naav]

Yeah, still don't get the parabola thing; can it change shape or is it mathematically confined?

Well, the parabola can be squished and rotated, but the general shape remains the same. Think of an ellipse: there are many different ellipses (almost round ellipses, flat ellipses etc.), but the general shape is still the same in every one.

Mathematically speaking, a parabola contains all the points in (two-dimensional) space that are the same distance from a certain point and a certain line.

Anyways don't worry about finding some hidden math secret, hell there might one for every situation (light is physics after all) but it's a lot harder to do it that way if you ask me.

Yeah, I didn't mean that it works everywhere, I just noticed it to be handy in that specific exercise.

[briggsy@ashtons]

http://www.mypicturespace.com/uploads/15de4a7a11.jpg


Finally I get around to posting on this great thread! I usually paint in oils, but here I'll go digital to try to accelerate the process of teaching myself Photoshop (still don't know what two-thirds of the functions do). Please excuse my debut not only for its lateness but also for its lameness - just the first part of the first exercise. But I think I've spotted a few misconceptions about lighting and colour at large on this thread, so I'm hoping it might be useful for me to spell out my process in some detail, and put it up for discussion.

My objective was to draw a shiny red ball under a white main light, with a weaker white ambient light. The first thing I did was to put on my mental polarizing sunglasses and deal with the diffuse reflection (which we see as the red colour), before turning to the specular reflection (which we see as the white highlight).

To represent the diffuse reflection, which gives the modelling of the sphere, I needed to find a series of colours for the main light zones of the sphere: the full-light, the half-light, and the shadow. I also like to have a separate mixture for the centre-light, the most strongly lit area in the middle of the full light (an idea I got from a book on the teachings of Frank Reilly). The trick is to find a series of colours for these zones that will look like a surface of a single colour turning out of a light source - what we can call a "shading series".

Since in this case the main light and the ambient light are the same colour (white), there will be no hue shift between the centre light and the shadow. We want the total amount of light to diminish, but the ratio of wavelengths (which we control by the ratio of R to G to B) to stay the same. For a pure red ball I just had to find (by trial and error) some appropriately spaced numbers for R, keeping G and B at zero:

Centre-light: R 215 G 000 B 000 ( = H 000 S 100 B 084)
Full-light: R 204 G 000 B 000 ( = H 000 S 100 B 080)
Half-light: R 180 G 000 B 000 ( = H 000 S 100 B 071)
Shadow: R 102 G 000 B 000 ( = H 000 S 100 B 040)

Looking at the HSB values for this series you'll notice something very interesting: H and S stay constant and only B changes. This suggests to me that in Photoshop, finding a shading series is much easier than in paint: provided that the main light and the ambient light are the same colour, all you need to do is decide on numbers for the Hue and Saturation of your surface, and then plug in appropriately spaced numbers for Brightness.

(Notice by the way that even though I am painting a pure red sphere, I refrained from using pure red (R 255) even in the centre light. I did this for the same reason that I would have to use a light grey for the centre light on a white sphere: something needs to be left in reserve to show the (brighter) specular highlight. If you use pure red on the sphere you will find that your white highlight persistently refuses to look like a highlight, and just looks like a white spot).

Next, it was just a matter of painting these colours into simple flat shapes whose arrangement was consistent with a definite location of the main light source. I used soft edged brushes and then applied a strong Gaussian blur to get it looking nice and spherical.

Now for the specular reflection (highlight). We see the highlight at the point on the sphere where the surface is at just the correct angle to bounce light from the light source to our eyes - that is, where the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. For spheres in general, this in NOT in the middle of the centre-light, but at a point on the line between the middle of the centre-light and the middle of the sphere as we see it. (Light hitting the middle of the centre-light hits the surface at right-angles, and so bounces straight back to the light source, not to our eyes).

For most materials, light does not change colour when it bounces in a specular manner (main exception: coloured metals like copper and gold), so here, where the main light is white, the specular reflection will be white. At the highlight there is actually an additive mixture of this white specular reflection and the red diffuse reflection, but on polished surfaces the specular reflection, which appears as a tiny image of the light source, commonly completely masks the diffuse reflection. Any roughness however makes the highlight more or less fuzzy, as tiny points over a diffuse area will lie at that exact angle that bounces light to our eyes. Over this fuzzy area there will be noticeable additive mixture of the two, which can be mimicked in Photoshop by brushing white over the red with brushes of less than 100% opacity.

Finally I airbrushed a little of the background colour onto the receding planes of the sphere, to suggest the neutralizing effect of specular reflection of light from the background in these areas.


Any comments on my thinking here would be most welcome. I've noticed that quite a few people here seem to have been (1) placing their highlight right in the middle of their full-light area, (2) making their full-light area less saturated (more whitish) than their half-light areas, and (3) giving their full-light area a rather indefinite shape. When all three tendencies occur together they combine to create the impression of a pearly sheen rather than a proper full-light, so that the spheres begin to look more like coloured pearls than solidly coloured spheres.

[Idiot Apathy]

@briggsy@ashtons: Your late and lame debut is much appreciated, really good stuff here. Much respect to you and your work. I wish I could visit you at your school, seems really great and exactly the sort of place I've been looking for. You seem to be a really humble and modest guy and I really hope you stick around!

Now, I'm still quite the amatuer so I have some questions if you have the time.

I understand the hue not changing, after all your lightsources were both white. Although I should think the blue background should have quite an effect on hue-shifting but that wasn't really part of the equation I think. Value makes sense as well of course; being directly linked to light after all. However no shift in saturation is where I am troubled. Perhaps I don't quite understand exactly what controls saturation but; is this only the case because the sphere is "pure" red? If it was a weaker red would the saturation not change quite predictably as well? If you have the time and if it would prove the point do you think you could do another one of these; this time with a weaker red sphere or perhaps with different colored ambient lighting?

Second, when can the full-light (not sure if that's the right way to put it) area become more whitish? Is the guidline just that it shouldn't be less intense than the half light? If I understand it correctly after a color becomes as intense/saturated as it can be it can then only increase in value towards white which will also decrease in intensity. Now, this again wouldn't happen on a "Pure" object that absorbed all but one color right? White light is after all, every color. So then assuming all this if your color becomes white the object is then reflecting an amount of all colors interfering with the color it reflects the most? Or is this caused by the specular? (It's a pity that this was the best I could write to explain myself, complicated words for a complicated situation I suppose).

Next question is unrelated to what you've posted but I'm hoping you have the answer, it's something I've been trying to work out.. Complementary colors will produce a gray right? Same with light or not? Now a gray light produced by complements wouldn't act the same as a weak white light either would it? Would it react with only the two hues contained? Or would it only add value since the hues are neutralizing each other?

Anyways, thanks in advance for the help and thanks again for your post; look forward to hearing from you. This stuff... well for lack of a better word excites me.

Edit: What's a jaffa?

[Kitsu]

Briggsy:
Welcome and thanks for the info! I like the way you're not just thinking about painting a sphere, but also about the color, hardness, reflectivity, etc. of the sphere. Two things I noticed about your sphere: First it is too perfect, it looks like a vector graphics illustration rather then a painting. Second the blue fuzz on the shadowed side is way too strong. It is uniform in value and nearly obliterates that shadow edge. To produce that effect either the atmosphere in this image would need to be very thick, or the background very brightly lit. Other than those your conception and execution look good. Your observations at the end are very good/true. Especially the centered specular reflection.

[briggsy@ashtons]

Idiot (mm, that doesn't sound right)

Thanks so much for your quick response. You've raised quite a few issues there. I only have time to respond to a few of them now - hopefully I'll have some more time in a couple of days.

Second, when can the full-light (not sure if that's the right way to put it) area become more whitish?

Well, it happens all too often in photographs - when they are overexposed. The full-light areas of one or more elements of the picture becomes too high in tone to stay in their correct relationship to the midtones, and are forced into pale, washed out colours. For example, in a digital photo of a red ball: up to a certain light intensity, the amount of red light in the screen image responds in proportion to the amount of red light coming from the ball - the more red light from the ball, the more the red phosphors on your screen glow, and the more chroma (intensity) of red you see at that point on the screen. When the light increases beyond this range, the red reaches the limit of its response, and only the green and blue phosphors can continue to increase - result: this bit of the image becomes lighter in tone and lower in chroma (more white).

The only reason I can think of at the moment why you would want to make the full-light more whitish in a painting is to suggest the equivalent effect in the eye - that is, to suggest a spot of light that is much brighter than the eye is ADAPTED to. When this happens the light isn't actually white, in the sense of the red, blue and green components being actually equal, but the R, G and B receptors (speaking very loosely here) in our eyes are all fully stimulated so that we can no longer distinguish any colour in the light. When that is the situation that you are trying to depict then yes, the most strongly lit areas should be whitish. But otherwise the full-light colour should be the highest in chroma. The great thing about painting, both digital and traditional, is that you can set the full light colour as the richest one and work down from that to the darker tones, thus ensuring a natural luminosity that is lost in an overexposed photograph.

Complementary colors will produce a gray right? Same with light or not??

Not. You can have weaker or stronger light, but not grey light. Greyness is a property of surfaces only. We see something as being grey when we sense that it is reflecting all wavelengths equally, but not reflecting as much light as a white surface would. (It is actually a somewhat subjective property dependent on the surroundings - a surface can look white until you place something that reflects more light beside it, then it will look grey).

What's a jaffa?

Sorry, must be just an Australian thing. Dark chocolate ball about 1.5 cm in diameter, thin hard shell of orange-flavoured candy. Mmm, .... jaffas.

[briggsy@ashtons]

Second the blue fuzz on the shadowed side is way too strong.[/INDENT]

Maybe, but are you sure? Try holding up a glossy sphere or cylinder (a shiny coffee cup will do) just in front of a moderately lit wall, and take a close look at the receding planes, especially on the shadow side. The specular reflections of the background here can be surprisingly strong.

My apologies for the excessive perfection.:rendered:

[Diabolic]

Please excuse me for my very... VERY late entrance into this thread. I just found it today and have decided to join. What a wonderful idea! Big thanks to Idiot Apathy for creating this.

Ok, I'm going to try and work on every single activity here, so to start off here is my contribution for the very first activity posted:

http://www.members.lycos.co.uk/faeriebreath/value_prac.jpg

I started this one off by doing the colored sphere first... just because I felt like it. >:D One major thing that I noticed when I converted the blue ball to grayscale was that on the original gray one, my shading is a bit darker. One thing that I want to work on is learning to add more ambient light to my images... needless to say that I didn't exactly do so in this excercise. I saw one experiment that dealt with that in here and I really think that that will help me once I get to it.

Any constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated. Thank you. :)

[Idiot Apathy]

briggsy@ashtons: Thanks for taking the time to reply, I'm sure you must keep pretty busy. Any insight is greatly appreciated, I'm full of questions and am so eager I could probably sap your strength with a barrage of them; *ahem* which I am about to do... please answer only at your leisure!

Now, are you saying that an object's full light should quit when it can no longer become more intense? Once it actually has to loose intensity to gain in value? (re-reading that it seems a little off; rather the full light is as intense as the object should become? ... no not even that works properly I think) And then the colors above this should be reserved for say highlights? This being said, an objects full-light could of course exist in that area it all just depends on what it reflects - an off-white color if you will, right?

Good way to describe gray; made a lot of sense to me, thank you. But what about a hypothetical enviroment where two lights of complementary hues combine, what would this light look like? The object that would reflect it could only take on the properties of these hues however would it appear gray in some situations?

Lastly, Jaffa's sound tasty. Apparently the name comes from Israel; so perhaps they aren't just Australian... hmm, sweet tooth.

@Diabolic: Yeah, you should have been here earlier! Quit slacking; but seriously exercises are always open; there isn't really an order and you can pick and choose which you would like to do. I think that there are some you should do before others though, did I make note of these... can't remember. Anyways, I think you got the point of the exercise and I can see the effort you put into these; good work mate. Look forward to seeing what you do next :).

[Diabolic]

Thank you very much, Idiot Apathy. I'm very glad to be here. I might skip around a bit then, if that's the case. ;)

I decided to do part A of Prject #4 because it looked interesting and because I thought it would go well with the project that I just worked on. I'll do part B of this project when I get the chance.

http://www.members.lycos.co.uk/faeriebreath/reflective_light.jpg

My main issue with this was getting the reflection to actually look real. I don't even think that my reflections look real with the image that I have posted just because thet colors I chose were a bit too saturated. The ball looks as if it could be made of metal because of the reflection colors that I used. I wanted to go for a more matte look, but eh... maybe I'll try this out again sometime and try to achieve that.

Critiques always appreciated. :)

[Idiot Apathy]

I think they look pretty good man, your right they do look fairly metallic. Now don't be lazy; if you wanted a matte look you should try and find the time and figure out how to do that. It shouldn't take too long, try and find some references perhaps.

I think you may have gone a little overboard on the yellow one, making the reflected light actually overpower the yellow paper.

Your shadow is where my only complaint comes up, specifically it's shape. Shadows are something I'm trying to figure out right now as well, they can be a bit of a pain. I think yours either go too far back, or blur out on the left side too quickly and too much. Not exactly sure where your lightsource is either, still figuring that out too... might be helpful to do some quick exercises with some simple lighting and get the shadows down pat. Ugh, wish I could help you more on them, maybe someone else can come up to the plate and teach a few things.

Anyways, keep up the good work! See ya next time :)

[Diabolic]

Hahaha... wow... you're right. My shadows look really discombobulated. :\ I'm definitely going to try this excercise again. It was a pain in the arse, but I suppose that's a good thing. It showed me my weak points. I must learn to shade in a non-metallic way.

You're right about the yellow one as well. I always had a problem with toning down my yellows.

Thank you very much for the input. I appreciate it a lot and I will work on fixing my errors. :)

[Kitsu]

Diabolic:
Looking really good! The values in your first exercise are very close! Maybe the best so far. You've also done (part of) the exercise I've been avoiding. These are very well executed, and I like the matallic look of them. This also illustrates an important point about radiosity - reflected light really is reflection! Your spheres look like they have a surface just a little too rough for true reflections, so you get the fuzzy refelction shown. Anyway it looks to me like you've nailed this exercise too, I do have a couple of structural comments though. To me the main problem with the shadow is that it is pointing in the wrong direction (I'm inferring the light position based on the reflection of the light source - the specular). Also I think your reflections of the plane are a little off, there should be a reflection of the nearest point on the sphere. I did a paintover to try and illustrate my points, I exagerated a little...
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/reflective_light-paintover.jpg



I've been doing some still lifes recently, but I suppose I should go back and redo some of these that I had trouble with.

[Cup of Joe]

Fantastic resource Idiot Apathy! I finally got around to trying one of these projects, and I have to say it helped immensely. I decided just to start with project one.

Beginning this I had basically no knowledge of any of this, hence my stupid mistakes in the first one. For the first one, just guessed most of the colors in the grayscale one. Using the color picker, I just increased the intensity to get my red color, keeping the same value as the gray color. After converting it to grayscale, I noticed something was obviously wrong. After mucking about in photoshop for a while, I realized that when intensity increased, value decreased. For the next one, I plotted out a midtone, shadow, and highlight color for both the grayscale and color version, making sure to try and make the value around the same amount for both. The second one turned out much better.

Try 1: color
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d109/cojcpm/Photoshop/Project-Two-Template2.jpg

: grayscale
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d109/cojcpm/Photoshop/Project-Two-Template2copy.jpg

Try 2: color
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d109/cojcpm/Photoshop/Project-Two-Template3.jpg

: grayscale
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d109/cojcpm/Photoshop/Project-Two-Template3g.jpg

I might try it again with more eyeballing for practice. Thanks again!

[purb36]

parabola - can be used to describe the frequency of occurance (or use) in a certain population. in this case, our population is described by the set of colors between two decided colors of our choosing; meaning that no, it doesnt have to encompass everything between pure black and pure white, but rather between the most extreme colors that we choose. the height (or length, if the parabola opens to the side) in this case, describes the saturation, as the closed end of the parabola goes further to the right, the color is more saturated. the closer the closed end is to the left, the less saturation we will use. ill draw something up to help better explain this sometime tomorrow...i shouldve been to sleep like, 4 or 5 hours ago. dang procrastination...

[mir]

I decided to take part in this thread.I hope I'll learn a lot of things about color.
So here is my first try - not very successful.I should do it again with more thinkging.I even didn't match the two spheres in the first version - it seems the are lit from different directions.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Mishkata/1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Mishkata/1_2.jpg

So now I will begin to read the posts here from the first page .And I will be back :)

M.

[Wargoul]

wow, i just got finished reading the first page. I LOVE THIS THREAD. :D

i gotta stop playing video games and get crackin on these projects. :p

[mir]

I tried again the first excercise.Sorry I didn't put it on the template but this time I tried it traditionally with gouache.I was a little disappointed because I couldn't find how to make the different hues and also what color to add to make the value darker.In the first try I thought the core shadow is darker than the tone but they seem the same in the graysacale version.
I tried to use more intense color for the area next to the core shadow in the way it was suggested here but somehow I didn't do it to look rright.So now I am searching to find how to make the values differ.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Mishkata/2_1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Mishkata/2_2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Mishkata/2_3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Mishkata/2_4.jpg

M.

[Idiot Apathy]

Wow, sorry for my recent absence guys. School has got me pretty busy right now; got today pretty much off thankfully.

- - - - - - - - - -
@Diabolic: My pleasure mate. I hear you on the yellows; yellow is a color that in our minds is always really bright I think. Usually when yellow gets dark and dull we think it's a green.
@Cup of Joe: Thanks mate, really happy to see that it's helped you. I'm glad to see you took your own approach to learning, honestly it's trying to discover and think about things that will help you learn the most I think. In any case your now thinking about values and intensities in color and what causes them, your on the right track. Now, for the shape of your lights please check out this post (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=699669&postcount=175) from briggsy@ashtons. His lighting situation I believe is more theoretical or at least fairly rare but his, hmm, light and shadow areas can teach you a lot; I know they got me thinking. I also recommend you read the posts scattered around as well, some good thoughts in them.
@Purb36: Hey ya bum, still haven't seen any work from you in here :P
@heartbeat: Nice, I like the scratchy style you've used here. I think your values look good even if you didn't match the shape :). On your second attempt: Awesome ! Gouache, you rock. I've never used gouche but I assume the pigments are fairly the same as other mediums yes? What hues were you trying to make but couldn't? Get back to me and I think I can help you out with that, unless of course it's a gouache only technique... :| As for getting darker, usually you can just add black right? haha... usually blue or violet are darker out of the tube than the other colors so that can make things darker however it will also change the hue most often. The orange on your first one looks ok but if you check it's value it's almost 50%V right next to 60%V reds and a 85%V or so highlight, looks a little off I think. But not as much as I would think either. On your second one having the most intense color in the middle (what looks almost like straight from the tube red) doesn't work so well because it doesn't check out in your values. In fact your values stay pretty close from there to the shadows. Yet you've again matched your sphere's really close in value. So, perhaps the red in the middle is just too saturated for this particular example. Again, major kudos to you for doing this with a traditional medium; I should do this haha. Hope to see you around :).
@Wargoul: All play and no work make you . . . well lazy; put down the videogames and get cracking mate. Nowadays I only play games to relax after I've been busting my ass ya know. Hope to see some stuff soon mate.

[Aequitas]

How do most of you guys attain that 'brushstroke' feel with your work? When I've done mine in photoshop it seems to flatten out.

[Idiot Apathy]

Well, a lot of us use Corel Painter; it's a little easier to get your brushstrokes out in the open with this program.

With photoshop you could probably get close to the same results with some custom brushes with the right settings.

Didn't really answer your question; You might search through here for a little more info in PS
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=717892#post717892

[Boogieman]

Here's my try at the two first. I just bought a wacom a few days ago and this is the first day of actually getting to use it. Saw this thread a while ago and thought it be good for getting used to working digital (and for painting in general). I did my best but it didn't come out very pretty... Any comments will be appreciated. Now I'm gonna move on to the other excercises.

P1
Color
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/9866/projectonecolor1aj.jpg
Grayscale
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/2691/projectonegrayscale2np.jpg

P2
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/1489/projecttwofinished8fv.jpg

[briggsy@ashtons]

Hi Idiot Apathy! Time for some more briggsy colour fun!

Is the guidline just that it shouldn't be less intense than the half light? If I understand it correctly after a color becomes as intense/saturated as it can be ...

Careful there, intensity and saturation are not synonyms. The guideline seems to be: going from the half light to the full light, the saturation stays exactly the SAME, which means of course that the intensity or chroma always becomes GREATER.

Got a headache yet?

Actually, while terminology can make things confusing, the concepts themselves are really simple, and MUCH easier to put into practice in Photoshop than in oil paint. I'll try to explain what I said a bit more fully.

Imagine you have a white light shining onto a bright red jaffa, whose centre light you decide to paint using a nearly maximum-intensity red, say R 240 G 000 B 000. What colours would lie on a shading series down from that red, i.e. would look like the same colour turning into less light?

Well, the colour of the light bouncing (diffusely) off the jaffa is the product of the local colour of the jaffa and the colour balance of the light source. As long as we are turning under the same (white) light source neither of these factors change, so all the colours in the series will have the same balance of wavelengths, and will differ only in brightness or amount of light. We control the balance of wavelengths by the ratio of R to G to B, so all the colours should have the same ratio, in this case 1 to 0 to 0.
So all of the following colours would lie on the series:
R 240 G 000 B 000
R 230 G 000 B 000
...
R 100 G 000 B 000
and so on

Can you see now that if we wanted a brighter colour on the same series then R 255 G 000 B 000 actually is the limit, because there just isn't any colour brighter than R 255 G 000 B 000 with R/G/B equal to 1/0/0?

In Photoshop, all of the colours in this series have the same hue (H = 0) and the SAME saturation (S = 100%). Think of saturation as PURITY of colour of light. All of the colours in this series have the same purity - they are all made by just the red phophors glowing - but they differ in brightness and therefore in chroma (intensity). Think of brightness as the AMOUNT of coloured light and of chroma as the STRENGTH of colour.

R255 G 000 B000 has the maximum chroma of any red in RGB space.
Maximum Saturation (PURITY) x Maximum Brightness (AMOUNT) = Maximum Chroma (STRENGTH).

By the way, if the ball is a desaturated red, say R250 G100 B100 in the full light, the story is still the same. We could make a shading series for this ball using all the colours in which R/G/B were equal to 5/2/2:
R 250 G 100 B 100
R 200 G 080 B 080
R 150 G 060 B 060
etc.
Again, in Photoshop all these colours have the same hue (0) and the same saturation (60%). As I said in my first post, shading series in Photoshop seem to fall along lines of uniform saturation. The brightest possible colour with this hue and saturation (i.e. with R/G/B = 5/2/2) is R255 G102 B102.

I know that many authors use the terms saturation and intensity interchangeably as you apparently did, but hopefully you can see that this masks an important logical distinction.

Idiot Apathy, you would do me a huge favour if you could let me know the sources where you got the idea that the full-light should be less saturated than the half-light. I am aware of the passages in Loomis' "Creative Illustration" to that effect, but if there are others please let me know the references, or even better, post some quotes or page scans. I've decided to try to write up some of this stuff as a tutorial and it would be great to be able to refer to them (in the section on "colour myths", that is :) ).

[Idiot Apathy]

Sweet, always up for some more briggsy color fun! :) Look forward to it actually

Since your last post I've been playing with these new ideas you have given me and am very pleased with the results.

The intensity and saturation thing has gotten a bit confusing I think; Intensity is just what has become sort of standardized around my area; certainly a need for standardization especially after things my "revelation further down". No mention of Chroma and only brief mention of saturation, usually in computer related courses.

After reading this post I've gone back and re-examined Painter's color picker, it's actually set up by chroma I believe, smart of them :). This is where my thinking and wording have gone muggy.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v232/ragnarok84/painter-wheel.jpg
The yellow bar shows maximum saturation, Blue is Value and Green is what I believe would be chroma. The Circle in the middle is 50% Value and 50% Saturation, the value will stay parallel however the saturation will not.

This, this! - was actually a breakthrough to me haha! I should have guessed that converting a triangle to a square and vice versa isn't a really good idea. Thanks very much, this has opened up some doors for me; I've got a lot of pondering ahead :).

As for my sources of where I got the idea that full lights should/could be less saturated than the half light, I couldn't tell you. Sorry I can't help with your tutorial; the sum of my color and light knowledge comes mostly through my own thoughts and tidbits I've picked up here and there. Perhaps the idea would be better stated as "Which is higher in chroma, the half or full light? Or are they equal?" I think, in hindsight I was visualizing a very diffused highlight; that would create the illusion of a less saturated full light perhaps? Adding to that is the confusion of vocabulary; I'll have to correct that on the main page.

I know you must be sparse on time, I know how long it has taken me to write and think this post out properly, over an hour now ... However I have a few questions and requests if you ever have the time and patience :bashful:

"Which is higher in chroma, the half or full light? Or are they equal?" This one is up above as well.

When could say a sphere become less saturated in the light? When could it become more saturated? Could this only happen with either multiple lightsources or colored lightsources?

What could produce a series that went up only in saturation and not in value? Or rather what determines the slope between value and saturation?

Painter has what I believe to be the highest Chroma at 100% Saturation and 50% Value (100%S and 100%V in Photoshop), I can't place exactly why but I think Painter's makes a little more sense, what are your thoughts?

Could you come and teach in Utah :teeth:, we could use you out here!

Thanks Mr. Briggs, you've shown me the light (Horrible pun intended!). There's no telling how long I'd be wandering in the dark (oh, ouch didn't actually intend that horrible pun) without your help.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

@Boogieman: Welcome to the thread! I like your enthusiasm. Keep using your tablet you'll get used to it. Now, are you using Painter or PS? Hopefully we can give you some tips on achieving the results you want. I think you've done a great job matching the values. As for the colors, saturation etc I'll have to give you a rain check. On my next day off I'm going to research this a bit further, try to get the right answers and examples and will post my results; so stay tuned. Your blocks are certainly believable, still working on the exact specifications the colors should take like I said above, I'll get back to you on that. The shadows however don't coincide with the position I read from your lightsource. I see the lightsource as high behind and a little to the left so the lines from the shadows could be seen as running directly away from the light. (Ha, kind of a neat thing to visualize!) Keep up the good work mate!

[Idiot Apathy]

New Shard of the Project:
Open Forum
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Until I've got more free time and some of the latest exercises start to see some use the thread should head into an open discussion; meaning -

If you have a question/topic/problem/looking for specific advice post your question in the format supplied below and our "brain trust" will get to the bottom of it. This isn't a critique section, there are better sections for that. It's more of a hypothesis/theory section, a help desk if you will. Feel free to post whatever you want whenever, even if you think you know the answer post and lets see what we can learn.

Multiple questions will and should be running at once, so to keep it simple and direct use a header for each question.
Format:
Topic: "Insert Question Here"
Briefing: "Describe the question in further detail, give us a little back story if relevant as well"
- - - - - - - - - - - -

Ok, a topic to get us rolling; it's a bit odd I know but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Topic: "Blue and Yellow Make Green, But in PS Yellow is the Complement of What Appears to be Blue, What Gives?!"
Briefing: Yellow is 60 Degrees under the PS color picker. Mix Red and Green to any amount on the RGB slider and this is where you will end up. So Yellow is an equal amount of Red and Green two of our digital primary colors; we need the last one in order to find it's complement - blue. Blue is the complement of Yellow. Yet... every kid with crayons knows blue and yellow makes green! This could only happen if this blue was actually less than the 240 Degrees it should be in PS and Yellow was more than the 60 it should be... are our definitions of Blue and Yellow incorrect? Is there a new color that should be after what we think of as "Blue"? Or is my logic/math faulty? What color is indigo by the way?

[Kronos]

So many questions!!! i guess i'll just ask one to begin with.......:P

Topic: "RGB vs CMYK"
Briefing: "i'm most definitely a colour n00b, but i would really like to get a definite answer about the difference between rgb and cmyk, i think i understand where they are derived from, but why do colours change when you convert between the two? is this just a process the computer has to go through to change the information? did the concept of RGB and CMYK exist before programs like PS, or is it just a way for the computer to understand colour through numbers? what do people use to paint in? are there any advantages to either?"

please give as much elaboration on this, as i feel it is a relatively un-specific question.... requiring quite a large answer....

and to add to your question Idiot Apathy, why is RGB not RYB? (yellow instead of green)...... the primary colours are still red, yellow and blue right? so why do all these other ways of describing colour have to be created..... does this mean the red, yellow, blue system isn't perfect?


btw, Idiot Apathy, this is a really great idea, your really making this and awesome place to learn :D!!!!!!!!




EDIT: hmmmm, i think i've discovered a piece of the top of the iceberg to both of these questions.....
rgb is actually the way colour works with light, with the idea, red, green and blue light can create all different coloured lights.... red and green produce yellow!!?! as weird as that sounds....and all three colours combined create white....

its explained here (http://www.webwhirlers.com/colors/coloursphysics.asp) (heh,one of your own links Apathy)(a minder that the guy on this link is talking about web design, not digital painting). this is used in programs like PS because we are working on a computer screen.... RGB is how the colours you seen on your screen are actually made.

but i find this to be pretty strange. when you are "painting" you are thinking as if you really were painting practically (at least i do), not adding coloured light to create an image....So.....why should we use RGB!?!?!?!....well, from what i gather, we shouldn't? RGB, is "additive", and the traditional RYB is "subtractive", meaning the the paint does not emit light, but absorbs light and reflects the colour that we see. its described much more eloquently in that link...

anyone else, got some insight, that would be awesome!

[briggsy@ashtons]

"Which is higher in chroma, the half or full light? Or are they equal?" This one is up above as well.

I think I've already answered that one:
"going from the half light to the full light, the saturation stays exactly the SAME, which means of course that the intensity or chroma always becomes GREATER."

When could say a sphere become less saturated in the light? When could it become more saturated? Could this only happen with either multiple lightsources or colored lightsources?.

You mean more saturated in the light compared to the shadow? Definitely: you get boosted saturation in the light when the hue of the of the light source is similar to the hue of the ball, diminished saturation in the light when the hue of the light source is complementary to the hue of the ball. But within the light the saturation should be constant in both cases: the change in saturation occurs at the terminator (shadow boundary).
Multiple reflection between similarly coloured surfaces will also boost the saturation, most noticeably in the shadow areas.

What could produce a series that went up only in saturation and not in value?

Well, if you really mean saturation, when we follow each of the light zones (full light, half light, shadow) from the receding planes around the edges of the sphere to the place where it more or less faces us, the saturation tends to increase accompanied by a small darkening of value, as we move away from the influence of specular reflection of the background.

Or rather what determines the slope between value and saturation?

Not sure I follow this one or its connection to the preceding. Saturation is the slope of the line relating tone to chroma; it is a characteristic of the local colour of the surface. The more perfectly the surface reflects one or two of the primaries of light and absorbs the other two/one, the higher its saturation.

Painter has what I believe to be the highest Chroma at 100% Saturation and 50% Value (100%S and 100%V in Photoshop), I can't place exactly why but I think Painter's makes a little more sense, what are your thoughts?

Well, I don't have the latest versions of either, or a huge amount of experience - everything I say is based on literally playing with Photoshop 7 and Painter 8. But I can say that "L" and "S" in Photoshop 7 seem to correspond well to important concepts in painting, while the equivalent parameters in Painter 8 do not.
In Photoshop, the paramater "L" as seen in the colour picker is intended to be a measure of perceived luminance, and corresponds closely to "tone" as the oil painter understands it. Not so "Lum." in the colour picker or "V" in the "Colors" window of Painter 8; both of these are by definition 50% for all pure colours. So a pure yellow and a pure violet-blue are both placed on the same level, despite being wildly different in tone.
Also in Photoshop 7, "S" as seen in the HSB section of the colour picker seems to correspond exactly to the vital concept of the lines of uniform saturation that define the path of shading series; this makes it dead simple to generate shading series for any colour you want. "S" or "Sat" in Painter 8 is a different and, to me, useless parameter, corresponding to saturation up to a Lum./V of 50%, then changing direction and heading off to white.

Could you come and teach in Utah :teeth:, we could use you out here!.

Utah, hmmm...Why not? Send plane ticket, I'm there!

You flatterer!

I'm tempted to work on answers to the topics but I'm supposed to checking links for the Wiki. (I promised sciboy I'd post a few hundred Art History links). I'll look in again soon and see how you're doing.

[Kitsu]

Very cool Idea Apathy! This should make it a lot easier to keep this thread going.

RGB vs RYB: Yeah it just has to do with whether your using light as your medium, or light absorbing pigments -> additive vs subtractive. Mixing a blue pigment with a yellow pigment means you have bits reflecting yellow light and bits reflecting blue light mixed together, our eyes then see that as green. That doesn't mean there is any green light involved. Actually I'm thinking maybe compliments don't work the same with light? I took two seconds to try this out:
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/compliments.jpg
They do all look like compliments on the screen... BTW arn't CMY the secondary colors on the RGB color wheel? I think CMYK is just something made for printing because those colors are easier to make?

Great, now I am more confused! Anyway, I think when your painting digitally it is a lot safer to worry about HSV rather than how light or pigments would mix. I would love to know what a pro or a teacher has to say about it though.

[naav]

Actually I'm thinking maybe compliments don't work the same with light?

True. Even the primary colours in the additive system are different. They're red, blue and green. Secondary colours are yellow, cyan and magenta.

Lots of info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory

[Idiot Apathy]

I haven't got much time right now, headed off to work in a minute. Just wanted to say a few things.

@Mr. Briggs: Thanks again for helping me out with these things, so much to think about; it's exciting really. Thanks for dropping in from time to time as well, it's great to have someone who knows what they are talking about and can back that up helping us out. I meant to say this in my last post; Do let us know when you've got this tutorial ready; as well as these links for the Wiki. I'm very interested in seeing what you produce. Also, let me know if you need help of any kind; it would be a pleasure. Oh and unfortunately I don't have the 1000$USD-2000$USD to get you a flight out here; perhaps I'll become a flight attendant temporarily... hmm.

@Everyone else: Great! I'm happy to see the enthusiasm for this new addition to the project. Unless someone bets me to it I'll try and get something written up for your question later this week Kronos. In the mean time, keep the questions (and answers!) coming guys!

[Azrael]

I decided to give this ago. I feel that I have much to learn, especially with color.
I definetly agree that the color picker in photoshop is a bit difficult to use when defining value. Painting a sphere was little tougher that I thought it might be and yet I suprised myself. Here is my color version;

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a128/jmbcreative/Project-Two.jpg

and here is my desaturated greyscale version.;

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a128/jmbcreative/Project-Two-grey.jpg

[Kitsu]

Azrael:
Your values are matching very well and your spheres look spherey. The only problem I see is that you didn't get a full range of value (no dark darks).

color: Did anybody else notice on the wiki page that CMY are the narrowest bands on their color wheel? Does that mean it is easier to color-match pigments in those ranges?

[ChrisMayernik]

Everyone do not forget that everything is reflective to some degree. Some things like dry wood are not that reflective, but they still are ( place log underneath sun and see ). Reflections are not the same as lighted planes because they are controlled by the location of the light source, the angle of the plane you are viewing, and the location of ones eyes. Lighted planes are controlled by the location of the lightsource and the angle of the plane. Reflections allow a lighted plane to drop in saturation because the reflection effects the base color ( hue,saturation, value ) in light. A good example is my desk where it is picking up the reflection of the wall which is "white" so the area with the reflection is less saturated, therefore higher in value then the area that does not recieve the reflection.

Black is 0% white is 100%

Do not think that 80% red at 50% saturation is the same value as 80% gray ( no saturation). converted to grayscale the first one is 60% (value) while the other is still 80%. Saturation and hue both effect the percieved color and this is why 10% purple at 100% saturation becomes 5% value when converted to gray scale. The same 10 percent but of yellow at 100% saturation is not 5% value but 9% or 10%.

Enough food for now.

[FlyingMilton]

I just started coloring with photoshop this week so go easy.

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/5809/projecttwotemplate2color6ms.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/1826/projecttwotemplate21gz.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Boogieman]

Hey. Did project 4 and 7. Also got a revised project 1 to show.

4:
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/2881/projectfour12as.jpg
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/88/projectfour27mn.jpg

7 - finished:
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/741/projectsevenfinished0os.jpg
7 - ref:
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/8370/blandat006detail5yi.jpg

1 color:
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/5396/projectonecolor20ul.jpg
1 gray:
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/6692/projectonegrayscale26jj.jpg

[Kitsu]

ChrisMayernik
Thanks! Those are all very good points. Great explanation of how color+saturation effects value. I love all the little light studies/notes/sketches in your sketchbook. I think it would be great if you could explain some of that stuff a little in here...

FlyingMilton:
Good start, looks like you need to go a bit darker on your color.

Boogieman:
Good job, looks like you're doing a lot of work. Proj. 4: leaving the lines on the spheres really cuts things up and flattens things out. From what I can see the light bouncing onto the spheres looks good, but the shadows don't look right. Also as stated earlier in the thread speculars arn't on straight line from the light to the object, they are refected off the objects surface to the vewer.

The Building looks good, The roof and the face of the small building on the left side are both too dark though. Also I would spend a little more time putting in the smaller elements (lots of value changes).

The spheres match well, the area around the core shadow on the color version is too dark though.

[uRiDiAN]

Well... here i am with a very VERY late start. heh...

i have a class this semester in which i'll be painting with Painter and i really have never touched the program other than opening it, trying to paint, getting frustrated, closing it. i could really use the practice with the program and one's understanding of light and color is never quite enough, is it?

anyway... here's exercise number 1. i understand it pretty well, i just spent a long time fighting with program to get what i wanted out of the stylus. if anyone has any websites with painter 9 technical tutorials i'd appreciate it.

http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/8444/projecttwocolor7gi.jpg

http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/1935/projecttwogreyscale8gd.jpg

i'll be trying to plow through the exercises to catch up. thanks for getting this started idiot apathy, this is going to help me a lot.

-uridian

[Idiot Apathy]

I made this for Pennington but I was hoping it would be somewhat useful for others so I'll post it here.

A quickie on blending/painting in Painter:

I hope this makes some sense and explains a few things, I wasn't sure exactly how to illustrate some of these things; most of the information will be in what I write down here anyways. It's a bit free-flowing thought so I hope there is some good stuff...

Ways to Blend in Painter:

Opacity - It's a lot different than in Photoshop, it's more like flow from an airbrush I believe. It will layer up until you hit 100% Opacity. I usually don't use 100% unless I'm working on extreme details, etc. I find that 80-90% percent combined with the right settings is perfect for blocking things in and blending smoothly. Opacity by itself doesn't make a very good blender, takes too long and is kind of ugly.

Resaturation:
I think you can basically think of this as how much pure paint you have on your brush. So if you take a stroke of black onto a white canvas a 100%Resaturation setting will be like thick black neverending ink and you won't see much of a mixture. With a lower setting you'll see more of a mixture, less resaturation more mixing of paint. On my Textured Brush I like to have two settings, one around 50-60% for some sharper strokes and one closer to 15-25% for smooth color blending. A low resaturation brush can make a very good blender. Note: Turning the resaturation to 0% means no paint is applyed, it's almost like a dry brush. Use this to make any brush into a blender brush.

Bleed:
Well, some of what can be said for resaturation can be said for bleed. The two are somewhat inseperable. Bleed is the amount of paint that is smeared, perhaps you can think of it as what consistancy the paint is; watery or thick. I like a fairly high bleed (70-80% maybe?), it helps mask a little bit of fake digital strokes.

Blender Brushes:
I'm not a real big fan of these. Most of the default brushes that come with the program are a bit chunky and look too digital. I do however use some of my favorite brushes at 0%Resaturation as blender brushes. The blender I use the most, which isn't very often, is a very soft edged brush at very low opacity (10-20%). Blenders at low opacity have their uses.

Optical Mixing:
This is kind of a bigger topic than just painter. But basically optical mixing is a combination of seperate colors that mix into one when they hit your eye. Think... like stippling? I use a lot of this with my textured brush, but as you can imagine it makes well textures if you over do it. I don't know, this isn't something I can really cover. Just keep it in mind.

Soft Edged Brushes:
With a brush that has a soft edge a little bit of blending happens around well the edges. Its usually a mix of opacity and optical mixing depending on the hardness and texture of the brush. The key here is to eye drop the mixture and then paint with that, rinse and repeat. Try a soft edged brush at different opacities and resaturation settings, lots of uses here.

Grainy Brushes:
Usually these use a bit of everything, optical mixing, soft edges, opacity and so on. Make sure and use the grain setting and the Papers Panel!
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Pressure Settings:
I personally like to have a little bit of everything set to pressure; a little bit of size to get into those hard to reach areas. Some opacity to emulate lifting or grinding the brush into the canvas. Some Resaturation for the same effect as well. Mess around with this! You can even check the box next to the settings to reverse it.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A little illustration:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/blending.jpg
Left to Right: Custom Texture Brush, Custom Soft Edged Brush, Custom Blender Brush.

I know, all custom how lame?! They aren't really anything special, the settings are the key. Anyways:

Part One: The Textured Brush
This was made to have a harder crisper center with a softer less opaque and grainy outer edge. That helps it blend a little better I think, as well as put some paint down. Usually I use to block things in at about 50%Resaturation 80% Bleed and 90% Opacity. I have a variant set up with the same settings except about 15% Resaturation that blends very very smoothly. Even still it can create some decent textures, especially if you vary the size a lot (sometimes really huge!). I like to drop either of these down and use them at 10% Opacity as well. When this is done it becomes very scratchy and rough, see the right most side of the first square. A key technique for a textured brush is what I'll dub umm... "stamping?"; using the brush as more of a stamp, you can see this in the middle of the first square. Don't ask me why I did this in 100% opacity.. just seemed to make sense for the demonstration at the time...

Part Two: The Soft Edged Brush
Currently at 50%Resat 50%Bleed, I vary the opacity wildly depending on what I want. I usually use this for either simple shading projects or details on others. Again the key to using a soft edged brush is to eye drop the mixture it creates on its fringes. Usually you'll want to use something else or a really "pure" setting on this to clean up/sharpen key edges.

Part Three: Ze Blender
Basically... my soft Edged brush at 0% Resaturation. I use this vary rarely and at very low opacity. Did I mention I don't like blenders?
- - - - - - - - - - -

I don't know, hopefully there is something useful in there... ugh I'm tired now; try to get to some questions and replys later.

[Simon Boxer]

Wow, what a great thread. I wish I'd found it sooner as colour theory is something I'm trying to work on. Now then, I've got a lot of reading to do...

[Wargoul]

well i finally got around to doing one of these. it was mad fun. :D
http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/5553/project10ft.jpg
i made the color one a tad too light. i started out using a 30px 100% hardness brush with opacity control for the base, then went to a 30px 50% for blending and for the final blending i switched between a 30px and 40px 0% hardness.

i took a look at the second project and i honestly didnt know where to start. :p i'll need to think about that one, im not very good at perspective/shadows and stuff.

[Cup of Joe]

Thanks for the tips Idiot Apathy! I'm trying to study up on some of the earlier stuff, but I'm also trying to take it slow so I don't get a headache. I finally got around to doing some more of these projects. I did project 5 and 7, but I don't have much to say about them because I was mostly messing around. I probably did alot wrong that I'm not seeing, so I'll read up and do some more later.

#2
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d109/cojcpm/project2.jpg

#7
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d109/cojcpm/Project7-1.pnghttp://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d109/cojcpm/project7-2.png

[splutty1]

EDIT: I didn't read directions correctly, so I took down my post. Once I do it right I will repost.

[splutty1]

Okay, I got it done now. Since I'm new to this this really helped. I would really like to thank Idiot Apathy and everyone contributing. This is a great source to learn painting.

I hope I did this the way it was intended. If I did something wrong please let me know, I would really appreciate it. I did this one twice with the same color, because my first one was off quite a bit, so I kind of cheated. :dur:

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/1628/project01finish0ds.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Kitsu]

Cup of Joe:
Nice to see you doing a few more of these. Like I posted for someone else in this thread, your boxes are a good start for the exercise, but you haven't addressed the problem - How does the reflected light from each box effect the others?

The value shape exercise looks good also, but I would add in the lighter window shapes too. Try to figure out how the values change across that large lit surface.

splutty1:
Good work, I noticed some things though - the saturated beand looks too hot, and the lit area looks too light. I think the problem is you didn't transition from the lit area to the dark area. If you look at the greyscaled version you can see the lit area on the colored sphere is lighter and more uniform than the greyscale sphere.

I'm going to try to come up with a mini-tut about diffuse vs. specular reflection. Someone pointed out earlier that people were treating them the same, and now it bugs me every time someone posts a set of spheres...

[splutty1]

Kitsu: Thanks for the feedback, I see what your talking about. You were right about the transitioning. The intense blue you see inbetween the light and dark was the original color for closer to the light; I realized that it is too dark to match the greyscale so I added a lighter blue and tried to blend the intense blue into the black.

If anyone else sees something wrong please let me know, it really helps to learn from your mistakes.

[briggsy@ashtons]

Splutty1

I might possibly be the "someone" kitsu mentioned, but in any case if you read carefully my posts starting with the "Big Red Jaffa" post of January 6 (near the bottom of page 3) you should see what is bugging him (and me) about most of the spheres posted here.

[uRiDiAN]

well... here is project #2. i spent a lot more time on this one than i expected. again, partly because of fighting with painter (although i think i'm getting around much better now) and partly because i kept changing things. i first started with a really light grey plane to put the blocks on and when i went to figure out reflected light, i kept painting the color of the block onto the color of the ground plane, even when the value of the block was darker and it took me a long time to realize why it looked so retarded (DUH! heh). anyway, i think this could use some more finessing, but i'm fairly satisfied with it. that said, please let me know if i've missed something (or screwed up... :) )

http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/9281/project2blocks1cp.jpg

[Kitsu]

uRiDiAN:
Great job on this one! Looks like you got what the exercise was about! Only two things I can crit: I don't see much effect of the purple block reflecting on itself, and I would expect the floor to darken the blocks a little above where they sit on it. Still it looks very good without the above, so you may as well leave them out for simplicity ;)

[uRiDiAN]

Kitsu thanks! and you are absolutely correct. i totally neglected to think about the purple block reflecting on itself, and i wasn't quite sure how the dark floor would affect the blocks. now that you say that, it makes sense... much like ambient occlusion in 3d. thanks for the critique!

***edit*** so i was thinking about the floor darknening the blocks just above where they meet, and that wording seemed odd to me. am i correct in thinking rather than darkening the blocks, the floor is dark and therefore not reflecting light up toward the blocks in addition to other ambient/reflected light? if so, would i lighten the blocks everywhere else to make the bottom appear darker? maybe i'm reading too far into it. heh.

[Idiot Apathy]

I think it's important to remember that anything and everything that you can see is reflecting light, even shadows and dark objects reflect light.

Now, a dark object next to a lighter object, in this case your blocks next to the blackish ground. What is happening to the light that hits the ground? It's reflected, not that much buts it's being reflected! Your actually adding light! It shouldn't get darker it should probably get a little brighter; however what happens to the hue and intensity of the color you see is more complicated. In this case, lets assume the floor is gray; if it's a true gray it should actually be a weak white light I believe; so it should actually add to the intensity of the blocks and hue shouldn't change either. (Maybe Mr. Briggs can back me up on this :))

Now, the only time a dark object would appear dark like you guys were talking about is an actual reflection, like a mirror or shiny (key word there, shiny) metal.

Sorry I can't stay very long, just wanted to pop that in here; I'll get to all the posts I missed soon I hope.

[uRiDiAN]

Idiot Apathy: ah... ok. that also makes sense. what i think Kitsu and I are referring to, though, is the darkened area where two objects meet. the closer the two objects, the less light making it in to reflect. that said, though... how do you balance the reflection(bounce light, not shiny) of the two objects and that 'ambient occlusion' effect of less value in corners, close objects, etc?

anyway... here's my project #3. i started to get really bored by the time i got to the 3rd (bottom) one, and it really shows... heh. maybe i'll redo that one later on.

anyway, i tried to concentrate a little less on making it look smooth and clean and more on figuring out the lighting/value. i think i got pretty close for the most part. the area where the cord comes out could use some more work on value as i think it's kinda flat looking.

http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/7456/project3b14al.jpg
http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/1792/project3b27ia.jpg
http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/7503/project3b32me.jpg

[Kitsu]

Wow! those lighting studies look really good, the only problems I see are some funky ellipses.
Yeah for the floor lighting I was thinking of a big fuzzy reflection of the floor being visable at a certain viewing angle on the blocks. Mainly a change of color rather than of value. Actually looking at the reflectivity of the floor it might add quite a lot of light to the top of the blocks depending on where lights are positioned.

Still haven't started the diffuse reflection/specular reflection/etc. tut :p

[uRiDiAN]

Kitsu you're right about the funky ellipses... i got really lazy. shame on me... i promise not to slack so much from now on.

I've got plenty of homework to do again, now that the semester has started. so my plowing through projects to catch up will have to slow down a bit as i have time... :\

[Kitsu]

I spent a little time thinking about speculars this weekend. I think the problem explaning this stuff is that diffuse and specular are really the same thing, only at different scales... Anyway I think I figured out a way to explain the phenomena that makes sense to me, lets see if anyone else can get something out of it.

Speculars are: The reflection of the visable light sources on a surface.
Diffuse is: The reflection of light off a surface...

Diffuse reflection is the smooth gradient of bright to dark which directly indicates the direction the light is coming from. Diffuse reflection bounces off surfaces at random angles and so does not carry any reflection information with, only color and brightness. Speculars on the other hand are coherent reflections just like those from a mirror, but they are usually fuzzy/dim so only strong light sources are decernable.

Anyway pictures work better:
http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/speculars.jpg
(This is just the stuff I scribbled while trying to figure out how this all works, i'll make a nicer version latter.)

In the main illustration you can see how light hits the upward facing surfaces of the sphere, and how the sphere casts a shadow on itself. You can also see how light is only reflected directly at a viewer at specific angles. The location of speculars will move depending on the viewer and light positions, and the angle between them. Changes in the brightness of the light mainly effect the brightness of the specular, not its size. The only time the size of a specular reflection will change is when the (relative) size of the light source changes.

Bleh, moving pictures work better still:
~50k divx5 encoded avi (http://kitsu.petesdomain.com/images/speculars.avi)
Notice how the spec moves compaired to the diffuse region...

Well maybe that didn't go so well... Hopefully it makes sense to somebody now, where and why those little bright spots are on some surfaces? Maybe just ignore all the rambling and just look at the sketch and the video, then it ought to make sense! If anything is wrong or confusing (:teeth:) let me know! I just made this stuff up while noodling this weekend so feel free to post any more official explinations or demonstraitions on the subject!
:yayca:

[briggsy@ashtons]

Kitsu

Great work on the notes and movie. Maybe the lit area on the sphere in the movie should be more crescent-shaped (like a new moon) when the sphere is approaching the backlit phase? The lit shape looks a little too straight-edged in those positions to me, and seems to completely disappear in the fully backlit position. Love it nonetheless.

I'll quote below some of my own notes on specular and diffuse reflection in case they're helpful to anyone, although you and Chris have already covered many of the points:

http://www.mypicturespace.com/uploads/15de4a7a11.jpg

"We see the red ball by virtue of light reflected from it. Like most surfaces, the ball reflects light in two different ways, called diffuse and specular. The shiny highlight is the most obvious specular reflection; the red light coming from the rest of the ball is the diffuse reflection.

In specular reflection, light bounces off the surface like a super-elastic ball, obeying the law of angle of incidence = angle of reflection. In diffuse reflection, light penetrates the surface, and emerges equally in all directions.

The highlight is a specular reflection of the light source. It is seen wherever the surface is at just the angle needed for the angle of incidence from the light source to equal the angle of reflection to the observer. Its position therefore moves as the observer moves. The position of the diffuse reflection does not depend on the position of the observer: it is always brightest facing the light source, and diminishes as the surface turns away from the light source, receiving and therefore reflecting less light per square centimetre. The diffuse reflection thus creates the modelling that we use in drawing and painting to describe form.

A polished surface creates a crisp highlight that is an image of the light source. Because of their slightly different locations, the eyes of the observer each see this image at a slightly different point, and the brain traces these two images back to an apparent position below the surface of the ball (just as the image in a mirror appears to be behind the mirror).

Close inspection of a polished object will also reveal specular reflection of the entire surroundings, not just of the light source. This specular reflection of the surroundings tends to be strongest on the receding planes around the edges of the object. This is because the specular reflections in these regions are created by light from the far side of the object hitting the surface at a low angle, and when light hits a surface at a low angle, a relatively high proportion of it is reflected in a specular manner. Specular reflection of the surroundings usually tends to dull the apparent colour of an object, and so this dulling effect tends on average to be greatest on the receding planes.

If surface is textured (like an orange), the highlight is "fuzzy", as tiny points that are at the angle needed to reflect light to the observer are spread over a broad area.

Occasionally one encounters the mistaken idea that smooth surfaces reflect light in a specular way, and rough surfaces in a diffuse way. As I said at the start, most substances reflect light in both ways simultaneously, by quite different processes. No matter how highly polished most substances get, they will still reflect in a specular way only a relatively small percentage of the light hitting them. Metallic substances, on the other hand, characteristically reflect a very high proportion of light in a specular way (close to 100% in the extreme case of a mirror).

Finally, the diffuse reflection is commonly changed in colour by the object (in the case of the ball, becoming red), but in specular reflection from most substances the light retains the colour of light source. The main exceptions to the latter rule are the coloured metals such as gold and copper, which do change the colour of light reflected specularly from them."

[Ramzes_II]

Great thread, amazing entries!
And here's my submittion :) Started from the first one... Value balls.

http://www.ljplus.ru/img/r/a/ramzes_ii/peer_project_01.jpg

Drawn out grayscale ball in a minute, and thought that it will take me same time to do the other one, but nah, it was challenging to make the colored one the same value :) While drawing, found out (well, frankly speaking I just remembered what my teacher in school told us :) ), that it helps to squint your eyes, that way you see all those shadows and highlight.
But still, the colored ball turned out to have more shadow, than grayscale one :)

Reading about this lesson before trying to accomplish the task I firstly thought "Well yeah, and what?" But then it got to me, that it's really helpful and important to be able to "see" and make the right shadow\highlight value when drawing in color :)

So, now I'm gonna read further, and gonna do the rest of lessons, Thanks!

[rasdasa]

Ramzes, it also helps to check your accuracy by desaturating your pic into greyscale whenever you are unsure of just how well it's reading, just to check the interplay of light and shadow.
Yeah it's definitely tougher working with color representationaly.
IA, This is an excellent thread.

ras

[Idiot Apathy]

Uwaaaa! Sorry guys; I feel I've been so neglegent lately. School and work has all but tied up all the energy I have left; I've got a little time to burn here so I'll start from the top!

- - - - - - - - - - - -
@Azrael: Great job! Your values seem really close and the shape of your sphere is nice as well, not to mention smooth. Some things just to get you thinking; Do check out Briggsby@Ashtons posts about lighting upon spheres, I'm starting to understand this much better. A sphere is perfectly equal all around and thus so should it's lighting be equal. No matter where light hits a sphere it should be about 50% in the light and 50% in shade I believe, this doesn't really take into account reflected light or the half light mind you! Kitsu mentioned you didn't get a full range of values, true it's important to use your values to the greatest effect I think, however that won't always be a full range, you know? Off of his advice though do experiment with value ranges, try very large value ranges and very shallow ones! Ok mate, stick around yeah?

@ChrisMayernik: Where you going to school mate? You know some interesting stuff and the techinical jargon to go with it.

@FlyingMilton: Good job! You might try messing around with some softer edged brushes if you don't like the sort of jagged look you've got here. Your values seem pretty close however you mis-judged how dark you could go on the green; just keep that in mind from now on, putting this into perspective was the main concept for this exercise :). If your bored later why don't you try some different lighting situations as well, it will help you a lot in the long run. Hope to see you around! Oh, copied and pasted this from another reply, should help you too I hope! Some things just to get you thinking; Do check out Briggsby@Ashtons posts about lighting upon spheres, I'm starting to understand this much better. A sphere is perfectly equal all around and thus so should it's lighting be equal. No matter where light hits a sphere it should be about 50% in the light and 50% in shade I believe, this doesn't really take into account reflected light or the half light mind you!

@Boogieman: Nice! Finally some more people cracking into some of the later exercises. Nice job on the reflected lighting spheres, I can see you really thinking about it, especially on the red spheres where you've changed hues :). Something to think about however might be say a red sphere on red paper, if either object wasn't 100%Red only and was recieving more red light from another object it should go up in chroma (value and saturation) I believe, wait let me think here; perhaps just in saturation and not value being that it's still the shadow side. Just confusing in words I think, it's all a bit relative. On #7; good! Not too much to be said here, obviously you could make a few more distinctions between some values but that wasn't called for in the exericise. I would however include important distinctions where ever you see them from now on (not that you missed any, just can't think of how else to phrase that.) Keep seeing in value, it's very important in my opinion! On #1: Good! Values are great. I think all that's left is to work on the shape; copied and pasted this from another reply, should help you too I hope! Some things just to get you thinking; Do check out Briggsby@Ashtons posts about lighting upon spheres, I'm starting to understand this much better. A sphere is perfectly equal all around and thus so should it's lighting be equal. No matter where light hits a sphere it should be about 50% in the light and 50% in shade I believe, this doesn't really take into account reflected light or the half light mind you! Cheers mate, great to see some work ethic in here :)

@uRiDiAN: Hello! Hope the Painter class is treating you well :). If you have any specific questions and think I can be of help, feel free to send me a PM or post them here. Sphere is good and values are good too! I might mess around with some more intense colors just to get a grasp on what sort of palette you like. Putting this on most of the replies to exercise #1, don't worry I'm guilty too! Some things just to get you thinking; Do check out Briggsby@Ashtons posts about lighting upon spheres, I'm starting to understand this much better. A sphere is perfectly equal all around and thus so should it's lighting be equal. No matter where light hits a sphere it should be about 50% in the light and 50% in shade I believe, this doesn't really take into account reflected light or the half light mind you! Thanks for dropping in mate :).

@cognition.sb: Sweet, now I'd better see some work soon!

@Wargoul: Good mate good! Your thinking about color logically and that was the point of the exercise. Your values are good as well as the shape for the most part. I like the shallow or high-key value range, it has a nice effect to it sometimes, do experiment with other value ranges if you haven't already! Putting this on most of the replies to exercise #1, don't worry I'm guilty too! Some things just to get you thinking; Do check out Briggsby@Ashtons posts about lighting upon spheres, I'm starting to understand this much better. A sphere is perfectly equal all around and thus so should it's lighting be equal. No matter where light hits a sphere it should be about 50% in the light and 50% in shade I believe, this doesn't really take into account reflected light or the half light mind you! Ok mate, looking forward to seeing what you do in the future!

@Cup of Joe: Good on you mate, thanks for being brave, trying something you weren't sure about and posting it. Really shows your determination! And that's really 90% of the battle I think :). On Exercise #2: Values look pretty good, saturation makes me wonder; your getting more saturated in your shadows; I suppose... I mean this actually looks fairly realistic I think... this might be because of the severely white enviroment washing everything out. Very cool, this has got me thinking! Do watch yourself in the future though, I'm not sure if you did this on purpose or not but I don't think it's the sort of lighting situation that happens too often. Shadow shapes are pretty good, I like where you've cast the gray block onto the front of the orange however it shouldn't effect the side of the orange block. The whole side of the orange block should probably be about the same color as the shadow cast from the gray block. Also the shadow cast upon the white background from the orange block needs to be thicker, think of the block as being made of glass and figure out where the hidden bottom edge should be and go from there :). On #7; cool building! Is it near a harbor or something? Only thing I would say is re-evaluate how bright the sky is in contrast to the building. Also, it looks like you've used the color picker and taken the dominant value out of the photo; not a bad way to learn but you should also try to eye-ball it mate! It's much better in the long run. Keep up the good work, stick around!

@splutty1: Great! Glad to see this is helping you out :). Good values and I like the colors and shape. Ok, do watch your saturation, it's gone up in the shadows. This is possible but it's important to understand why, think logically about your colors and it will become intuitive soon enough. Kind of hard to think of what to write about it right now but search around in the thread, you'll find what you need :). Welcome to the CA.org by the way, hope to see you stick around :).

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Ok, it's been about an hour since I started on these replies, I'm going to take a break now... huff huff. Try to get to the rest soon!

[Cup of Joe]

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll probably redo #2 with a darker ground plane one of these days. Oops, guess I havn't done one of these projects in a while. I got so caught up in anatomy I almost forgot. Today I tried #6. I tried to keep it simple and focus on color, so its not very big and not very pretty, but I'm proud because it's my first not using the color picker at all. I also did a little side project over to the left. The left column is my geuss of the value of the colors, and the right column is the actual values taken after I finished the project. From the top down the values are the highlight, midtone, shadow, and background. It was a little round about, but figuring out the values before the intensity and hue made this alot easier. I'll have to start doing that more often.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d109/cojcpm/405603_billiard_balls_1.jpg
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d109/cojcpm/Picture6.png

[MattGamer]

I forgot how much I love this thread! Wooo... i'll be back l8ter with stuff. ;)

[MysteryKing]

This thread is an awesome idea, I'm new to the forum, does anybody know if there is something like this but for drawing (graphite, charcoal, etc.)? Or a good web site. Thanks.

[Idiot Apathy]

I wish mate, I couldn't find much else out there like this.

Maybe someone here could start something up for drawing *hint hint, wink wink* You can put it in this thread if you want too! *nudge nudge*

[romance]

MysteryKing - What's stopping you from attempting some of the activities in here with drawing mediums? Almost all the them can be applied to every medium, not just digital. Give it a go.

[uRiDiAN]

Idiot Apathy thanks for the official welcome. :) The class is only half painter, and it's the second half, it turns out. I'm stuck pushing around anchor points in Illustrator for now. oh well. I'm SURE i'll have more questions about painter when i delve more heavily into it, but for now all i have time for is current classwork.

Briggsy and Kitsu Both very helpful and well presented. I've been taught most of that long ago when i started school. I guess i just forget when i come to the digital medium. Mustn't let the computer degrade my traditional skills. i'm learning that more and more lately, thanks for helping to remind me. Briggsy, the bit about specular reflection around the 'edges' of the object i had never even really thought about. i've done it in 3d plenty, but never even considered doing it traditionally/2d digitally. great thing to keep in mind.

thanks for the input of all... :)

[ChrisMayernik]

Idiot Apathy : Hey mate. I'm not going to school at the moment but I hope to go to Art Center soon someday. haha don't we all. I do study a lot , pretty much all day if I am not working and I really enjoy the study of light, and last year I filled up sketchbooks with hundreds of notes and sketches about light. I still have a lot to study, even walking home from the grocery store I realized I have'nt studied street lights at night and the eary effect of light catching the dust and fog in the air. There is just so much to study.

Also, I did recieve your pm and I'm so sorry about never replying. I have been very busy and I did make a sketch to illustrate what I was talking about. It's actualy real simple. The surface that the shadow of the object lies on is lowered in value and allows surrounding objects ( alot of which are lighted) to have a greater reflection in the shadow. Now if you look straight down upon the object hovering over the shadow you will not see much difference in value because your body is blocking any reflection from the ceiling. This is all easier to understand by actually picking up a cup and setting it on a desk and viewing what I am typing about. Now the reason the cup's reflection overtop the shadow is darker is because it is the shadow side reflecting overtop the shadow which really leaves you with the material being uneffected by nearby objects.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v59/designnrg/reflection-and-shadow.jpg

some thoughts

I think if you have not worked traditionaly and painted from life then things can get really confusing when working digitally. Take notes on light and think of it as system where if one thing happens then another thing happens. You need to learn and see how everything in the scene acts as a whole instead of lighting each object as if it's seperate. imagine building a sandcastle by just focusing close up on the little grains of sand. stand back! Build the sandcastle with all the sand and see how it goes together as a whole. This is what matters. One thing that is very popular is the global lighting where light comes from everywhere and you just " feel" it. Alot of drawings are also done with front lighting because the core shadows are nearly always on the edges and it is by far the easiest, but it's not going to help you build a understanding of planes and light if every drawing is rendered the same.

There is light and there is shadow. I know I made the mistake of thinking there was something called half tone. I mean it's true there are tranistion values but they are of no importance when first blocking things in. all you need is light, core shadow, shadow side ( with reflected light) and highlight . Now think there is a lighted side and there is a shadow side. You gotta choose one or the other. This is where your understanding of the underlying structure and planes of what you are painting come in handy. know that the planes that are facing the light source are the brightest. drawing and painting from life are very different. DO not draw from life if you want to learn how to paint. Draw from life if you want to learn about line or improve your drawing. If you want to learn how to paint then pAint quick 30 minute studies from life in a direct manner where you squint your eyes and put down light and shadow. Do not be caught up in smooth transitions or details because they are not what's important. The big forms are important.

[Kitsu]

Thanks Chris, very helpful!

[mir]

Nobody posts recently here :[ .

Idiot Apathy : Thanks for the answer in fact my question was that if for example I want to make a bright apple and I have to make the values right.But I am not sure how to make my dark values if I don't want to add black cause it seems to me it makes the light colors muddy may be I am wrong.But then if I try to add to an yellow apple blue or violet in the shadow side - it is not enough dark and also the color changes.May be I should figure it out myself by experiments.

I did another excercise.It took me a whole day to find out some rules for the casting of shadows.Yet it is not quite clear in my head.But at least I have a better understanding.I arranged some objects to see it from life.Then I read some things about perspective.I think it will help for perspective to have a wire cube.So some of the important things for casting shadows on other objects are that if we have a cube, all shadow lines which are cast from the vertical lines of the cube recede to the shadow vanishing point.And all shadow lines which are cast from the horizontal lines recede to the left or the right vanishing point(they are parallel to the lines which projection they are).
Another thing I read that seems important is that if the edges of an object are sharp so will be the edges of the shadow,and if they are rounded the edges of the cast shadow will be soft.
I arranged some boxes to see generally how the value relate in a similar situation.The first thing that was wrong was that I had made the shadow side of my yellow box much lighter than it should be related to the side facing the smaller cubes.
I have a question -how would you know where exactly the vanishing point of shadows in artificial light would be in the picture.I know it is under the light source but where exactly.
I am sorry I turned this in perspective excercise.And ended with no conclusions about color

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Mishkata/Excercise2.jpg

M.

[Idiot Apathy]

Hmm, give me a day or two and I'll write up a simple shadow in perspective guide.

Or if you've got the guts, try and decifer the pages of information this guy has:
http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/perspect5.html

More comments etc, when I don't have to study for a test in 4 hours...

[uRiDiAN]

heartbeat... you seem to have the theory down for casting shadows from an artificial light in perspective. the way to figure out where your shadow vanishing point is is drop your artificial light source vertically to the floor. it's that easy. you drop it where ever you want your light source to be in space. longer drop the the floor and your light source is closer to the viewer.

i whipped up a quick basic example:

http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/1025/shadows2wx.jpg

for sunlight when the sun is in FRONT of the viewer, you just drop the position of the sun onto the horizon line and that gives your vanishing point, for sunlight when the sun is BEHIND the viewer drop the light source (sun) to it's inverse position below the horizon line (for exmaple, sunlight behind and left of the viewer has the light source placed below the horizon on the right side of the view) then pull your shadow vanishing point UP to the horizon line and intersect ray lines and shadow lines like usual.

now, keep in mind that this is a real quickie thing and there are more rules for shadows cast on vertical surfaces, over round or complex shapes, etc. that link that idiot apathy put up is a really good resource once you understand the idea and can wade through the terminology.

-uridian

***edit*** for the record, you shouldn't really have the VPs on the page, as the cone of vision is really only a small area between the VPs, they're just here for demonstration

[Idiot Apathy]

uRiDiAN, your a stud. You did it better than I could have, thanks!

Also notice that the shadows vp's are also the boxes vps, after all they are parallel.

[Cup of Joe]

Finally set aside some time for this! I re-did Project two and strted project four.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/4503/032806project29xv.png

This time i tried to put more energy into corrrect saturation and value and not rendering, so it's not very pretty. I looked over some posts and decided that in the shadow, the red block and the blue block should both stay fairly saturated in the shadows, because they only reflect thier respective colors, while the brown block should decrease in saturation. I tried to plot the shadows, but I may have gotten the red block's shadow wrong, and the saturation in the shadow it casts on the brown block should be lower, in afterthought.

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/7042/032806project418sg.png[/QUOTE]
Not much to say for this, except it's not done, and for practice, I tried to vary the lightsource and reflectiveness (is that a word?) of the spheres.

Thanks for everything Idiot Apathy! More soon!

[Idiot Apathy]

@Everyone: Sorry that I've been so neglectful of this thread lately, been a lot to do and a lot on my mind. I've lost track of who I've responded to and who I haven't so please post a link to your previous post if I haven't yet commented on it! Ah, P.S. If there is going to be renewed interest here, should we try to get this thread moved somewhere with more traffic? Maybe the sketches and wip thread?

@Cup of Joe: Nice, I like the colors mate. Now the shadows, just their shape for right now, should be uniform and predictable for each block; Right now your blue block looks like it's being lit from maybe a ceiling light and the orange block perhaps from the sun or a light from the side. Blue block's shadow is a little strange but I can't quite place it; On the orange block you've forgotten the hidden edge towards the back I think. If you have the time mate, I recommend going over the shadows in perspective links and demo posted above and doing just some really simple cubes and blocks. If you feel like doing this post them here and I'll give you what feedback I can :). Trust me mate, I know how you feel about these shadows, hard stuff! On Colors: I think it looks good, but your wording leaves me thinking you might be a little confused. Any object will only reflect "their respective" colors as you put it, so if the light reflected off a apple comes back to the apple it will increase the intensity. If the light reflected off a grape comes back; more intensity. Off a watermelon, etc etc. Now, what I think you should be thinking about is what kind of light is reaching the shadows? The blue shadow for example, say we are in a room, the blue shadow side is recieving light reflected off the ceiling, the walls, parts of the table, some of the orange block probably, and get this; from it's own cast shadow even (don't let that confuse you, it's not usually a noticable effect). Now consider the red block, it's recieving light from many or most of the same places, perhaps to a lesser extent however as it is blocked a little bit by the blue block. So you might think that it should change a little more than the blue shadow, perhaps darker and less saturated relatively. An important factor in choosing saturation on the red blocks shadow would also be how much light is reflected off of the blue block, becoming blueish light, is hitting the red shadow? This should not only change hue but dramatically effect saturation. Now, keep in mind this is all going to be relative to you local colors and several other factors; just keep thinking about these things and it will become second nature :). Man, let me know if any of that was confusing...

Ok, next ! A good try on the reflected light on the spheres. Do refer back to Briggsby's post on spheres though, it should help you create a little bit more convincing sphere :) It really helped me out. I can see you thinking here, good stuff mate. Where's the cast shadow on the blue sphere ?! Ok, where you've reflected the colored paper back onto the spheres, I think your right in thinking that there would be less of an effect near the cast shadow but I don't think it should be that drastic. It would be recieving light from many areas not just the area where the cast shadow is, make sense?

[Farvus]

That's fantastic thread. I was lurking here for a long time but finally decided to post something.
http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/4200/013ny.jpg


When I paint in Photoshop, I usually use quite dull colours + low contrast. My paintings always looked much better in free program Artrage. It has different pallette which I like more. There are hues mixed with different saturations and brightness setting is on seperate slider. It suits me more beacause I have easier control over value.
Today I finally noticed something so obvious. I didn't realise that I can change the settings for colour picker so that it can look very similar to this one in Artrage. From H/SB to HS/B. To me it looks better this way :)
http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/1555/picker3pl.jpg

[Idiot Apathy]

@Everyone: Keep an open mind on color and what I've said and possibly what others have said as well; I know I'm still discovering many things and many different interpretations. This doesn't mean that things posted before are wrong, it just means that they aren't always and/or necessarly right. Use them as guidelines and find the truth in your own mind :)

@Farvus: Really nice! I love how the purple turned out. Great value and saturation changes I think. As I've said before don't worry too much about your values not matching perfectly, the system for converting them isn't perfect and the exercise was really just a way of tricking people into thinking about how value fits in with color. Your english is really great by the way, but watch out for things like "a" and "the" :). Looking forward to your takes on the next project!

[Cup of Joe]

Thanks for taking the time to respond Idiot Apathy!

I re-did project two again. I thought a lot more about light reflected from one block to another. I also plotted out the shadows correctly , although I think the edge on the brown block's shadow is off the page. I think my problem last time was mainly an uncertain lightsource and a hastily plotted horizon.

http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/4619/032906peer17rb.png

I also have a few questions in general.
(1)- Increasing saturation before a shadow makes an object pop, but how is this done in grayscale?

(2)- I usually start a sphere or surface by painting the whole thing it’s half-light color, because I think of that as it’s “true-color”, is this correct?

(3)- Saturation x Value= Chroma? What is the purpose of knowing the Chroma?
Thanks again for everything!

[Idiot Apathy]

Nice, good to see you thinking about it man. Shadows, still a bit funky; they are a bit confusing aren't they? I can't tell you much about what a shadow should look like when it hits another object (like another block) as I'm still trying to figure that out. But on the more simpler parts of shadows just make sure that all your shadows share a common vp, that should simplify a few things. Now, again on the orange block you didn't factor in the back! Just to make sure you get what I'm talking about here's a pic: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/Project-One-b.jpg
See the "invisible" back corner? There should be shadow there too! My lighting is different than yours but you see what I mean right? Now man, next time your free I want you to do a cube in 2pp leaving all edges visible and plot out a lightsource and the shadows, ok?! Post it when your done!

Your questions: That's some harder stuff...
1: I don't think that translates into grayscale, grayscale is a focus on values, probably just look wierd if you tried to simulate it I dunno, experiment a bit let us know what you find out.
2: Yeah, thats not a bad way to think of it. You might look into Local Color though, it's a widely used term in art and usually thought of as "true color" Half-light can be influenced by several things so I'm not sure it could be called "true". For me, an objects "true color" is what it would look like on a nice clear day, maybe at noon or so :)
3: Chroma, man... not the guy to ask about this; still wrapping my head around it I think. Check a few posts back where Briggsby was talking to me about it, some really good stuff there. Or, if he's around, ask him !

Cheers!

[briggsy@ashtons]

Hi guys, just got time for a quick thought about question 3 (must... get... sleep!).

Along with hue, tone and chroma are the parameters of choice for traditional painting, I think because it is a comparatively direct matter to judge them visually, i.e.:
Tone = relative position on a scale from white to black,
Chroma = relative visual distance from neutral (grey).

Saturation and value (in the specific senses that I've been using them) seem to me to be more relative concepts, not so straightforward to judge visually, but almost essential for creating shading series - and hence creating the illusion of light.

In painting with traditional media I tend to use tone and chroma as my primary frame of reference for most of my analytical thinking, both for finding the main colour components of a picture, and for fine tuning colour variations. I switch to thinking saturation whenever I need to create an accurate shading series of one particular colour.

It seems to me to be a huge bonus that saturation and value are handed to you on a platter in Photoshop. Nevertheless, I think I would still be using tone and chroma as my main frame of reference for many of my analytical processes in digital painting. Bear in mind though that this is a complete newb to digital painting speaking.

Great to see this thread moving again!

[Cup of Joe]

Wow! Thanks for the replies Briggsy and Idiot apathy! Got some real work done today. I finally feel like I'm making a little progress.

Idiot Apathy-
D'oh! I don't see how I missed this corner thing! I thought you were talking about something completely different. Thakns for the answers too!

Briggsy-
Thanks for clearing that up!

Here's today's work.

1- fixed shadows.

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/2403/033006peer15gz.png

2- I did that 2pp shadow you asked me to do. The fisrt one is with all the guidlines and such, and the next is just the shadow and the block. I didn't fill in the shadow because I did this in Illustrator, and I don't know how to do anything in that. (Another thing to learn)

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/3928/033006cube20xx.png

http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/3940/033006cube12ez.png

3- Tried out some things for my question no.1. Basically did a sphere and converted it to grayscale to see what changes in value there were around the saturated area. There were none that I noticed, but I may play around with this a little more. I'll post them both here in case there is something in these I'm missing.

http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/5374/033006spherecolor5wn.png

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/189/033006spheregs2qs.png

4- Did a study on complementary colors. Probably could have used a ref, but I'll post it here. (I know the shadow is wrong, but this was mainly a color study, so I forgot about it.)

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/8607/033006redblockg3bd.png

Thanks again for the help everyone!