The Peer Project- OPEN Foundational Exercises for All, A great place to start.

[SPACEMOD]

I am new to Digital Art, and color theory. I Could Really Use Help And Advice On this.
Here Is Exercise 1....

I Tried.

[Idiot Apathy]

Hey guys, I've probably got a good dozen hours or so of replies to catch up on and no clue when I will be able to sit down and do it. In the mean time - I've honestly just about said everything that needs to be said for the first few exercises in all my other posts - I've repeated myself in each on actually. So I really recommend you check those out. Thanks!

[Vyliss]

I did a bunch of exercises from vol1 but since that one is dead, I'm switching over here. This is the first exercise from here. Just tried to kind of eyeball the lighting and shadow so it looked like it was coming from top right of the ball. The exercises from vol1 really helped me do this one actually. I figured the closer the ball is to the table (where they're touching) the more yellow it would be because of the shadow being yellow also, and as it moves further away, more of the blue is reflected to the ball since the shadow colour isn't as strong a yellow. One thing that helped is also putting a soft blue around the outline of the ball so it looks like it's sitting more in the picture.

Ok to the next exercise! These are fun :)

[Vyliss]

ok ex 2

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/9853/tonecolourgp7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/9853/tonecolourgp7.8273625985.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=515&i=tonecolourgp7.jpg)

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/4061/tonecolourgreyrb6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/4061/tonecolourgreyrb6.1d9c4b171d.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=520&i=tonecolourgreyrb6.jpg)

Ex 3

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/7110/lightcolouroi6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/7110/lightcolouroi6.b657b1c585.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=518&i=lightcolouroi6.jpg)

1. Absorbing all hues except red = reflecting red, so it's a red ball
2. Same as above except it's blue
3. Reflecting everything would mean a white ball
4. Reflecting nothing would mean a black ball
5. Reflecting red and yellow would mean an orange ball
6. 50% hues I guessed would be about 50% grey ball
7. Didn't really get what you meant by sky blue, so I just did a sky blue coloured ball :O

Ex 4
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/1426/ex4ig3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/1426/ex4ig3.4abdb15554.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=515&i=ex4ig3.jpg)

This one was tough! and I know I probably have most of these wrong but whatever, I'm curious for the answers for these, but most people seem to be guessing it too so, thought I might as well post my interpretation


1. I tried to think real world situations with these instead of theoretically, so I figured a blue light on white ball, the blue would be not quite so blue, a bit faded not quite so intense, maybe I'm wrong ?
2 or 3. I couldn't figure out what colour this would be! lol So i did two, one being red but slightly blue I guess, so it was a more purplish blue and the other yellow, not sure why I thought this. I guess I thought if the ball was yellow, it wouldn't reflect blue, cos blue light would might it green? lol No idea
4. With this one I just tried to imagine what colour the ball would be if it had a red light on it lol I don't know I guess I made it a warmish blue.
5. This one is probably wrong too, I tried to make it a bit red, so it's a bit in between red and blue
6. Red and yellow light and ball only reflect yellow, I figured it'd just be a yellow
7. Red and yellow light on a green ball, this was tough too. I ended up making it a yellow/green ball lol
8. 30% of all hues, I figured would be a 70% grey ball
9. Again, no idea, just guessed, it sounded like a dull red ball with a slight white blue light. So I made the ball kind og red/blue

Project one
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/2985/matprogyl0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

The metal one is probably wrong, the highlights look quite off but oh well.

Ex 6a
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/6666/ex6templatewl6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/6666/ex6templatewl6.d7c591e460.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=515&i=ex6templatewl6.jpg)

Ex 6b
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/7676/ex6btemplatewe6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/7676/ex6btemplatewe6.e11d2b3f27.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=519&i=ex6btemplatewe6.jpg)

[ronin-tiger]

Ok so here is my first attempt to use my wacom tablet and first attempt at painting with photoshop. I havent figured out how to link the picture directly on to the forum so its just a link for now, please take the time to view it and give me some feedback.

excercise 1 - from volume 1

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=291037&id=503814684

Basically i felt that i did not have a problem with the grayscale sphere, i figured out afterwards my brush size was too small and it left a lot of strange lines and brush stroke instead of a smooth finished sphere. With the colored version i really felt as if i was fighting the shadows and shading on the ball itself. I couldnt figure out if i was pushing the shadow too close to the light reflection or if i was making the entire sphere too light and not enough shadow... overall i spent too much time tweaking and blending but im happy with my first attempt. Im also not sure that the colors progress naturally into the shadow... maybe too much saturation in the dark zones. I will be trying the second excercise later this week and i hope to progress a little further in my abilities.

[UnSharpened]

Huwee~~it's really a treasury!! Thank you Idiot Apathy<3 !!

I have found a lot of problem I've come across constantly in my work, and this thread is absolutely a cure for that.
The most crits I got is about the blurry in my painting (other weakness I had are piles-high), and I just can't figure out where it goes wrong. The brushes I mainly use is your basic round brush. I love it most too!!!:blahblah: Yet I found the setting has led to low saturation of the colour, which makes the edge become vague. I love the stroke it provides, but I guess I need to find the right way of using it.

Here is my Ex1. version1 :P. As you can see, the problem of the low opacity is fairly clear. And didn't feel happy with the back ground, so, rework.
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc33/matining/Excercise010108-a.jpg

Ex1 version2. Hadn't come to realize should get more saturation to my colour, rework
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc33/matining/Spherestudy010108-b.jpg

Ex1 version3. Finally felt ok with it. I use the basic round with un-checked other dynamics, and tried to use smudge tool to get the gradient. That's another reason why I love your brush. I can, at least, use it for gradient while my laptop keeping crashing every time when I use smudge tool.
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc33/matining/my-orb1.gif

Ex2. Matching the same tone? Not sure did I get it right or not.
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc33/matining/Exercise2010108-a.jpg

Ex3. That' really a great fun. I was like a child that being eager to know the answer, but had to finish my exercise first.
#5 I think it's too gray. It just that the 100s white burnt my eye...:P
#6 Same reason I applied a mild black.
#7 Yellow/Red, which one is stronger in orange? Gotta find it out it Painter..
#9 Uhmm... as exactly you said, is sky blue? Thus I picked it from the colour panel due to my conventional brain.
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc33/matining/Excercise3010108-a.jpg


Thanks a million!!!
#

[UnSharpened]

Managed to do Ex4 before going to bed.
This is really a tricky one....I have to say.
The main approach I used here is take 3 primary colour in as math equation:p, it can probably be read in my note. Got questions of almost all of them:blahblah:, but just one thought after finishing it: WHAT IS THIS FOR?:anime:
Something seems just over there to be helpful to my work, but it seems so far as well.
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc33/matining/Exercise4020108.jpg

[UnSharpened]

Project beta1. Though lack of progress, I generally still think this is very helpful, as long as one goes through it.
Note: One difficulty I came across was the metal one. The plane of right hand side should be hit by light directly. So I gave it a very light gray, yet the result didn't look as shiny as I expected. I think the problem is that I have no idea of where should I strengthen the contrast, in generall:P.
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc33/matining/Pearprojectpart5-a.jpg

[ikuru]

Idiot Apathy, You are indeed the dude! (I will try and get in to this whatever it is) and hopefully learn something.

/Danny

[Apothecaria]

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f195/binky2bink/sphere_exercise_01.jpg

[Apothecaria]

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f195/binky2bink/toneWithColor_practice.jpg

I initially put in the shading and lighting with the color pick tool, then I used the burn tool to punch up the shadows. I couldn't decide whether to add or subtract saturation in the shadowed area, since I preferred the look of more saturation but knew that less saturation would be technically correct. The rim lighting is maybe excessive, especially on the colored sphere. But there it is.

[Apothecaria]

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f195/binky2bink/lightAndColor_practice.jpg

White sphere: I was unsure whether to shade this or not, but ultimately decided to.

Black sphere: Unsure of whether to add highlights or not, then thought of black holes...

Sky blue: The sky is blue because the molecules in the atmosphere scatter short blue wavelengths the most.

Interesting stuff: The sky on mars is red because of the red dust that gets thrown up in storms. If there have been no recent storms the sky is blue, but darker than on earth because of the thinner atmosphere. (I thought it was always red before I googled it~!)

[MiXRuivo]

Hi guys, i'm a begginer who wants to learn more. I'm a real zero with tone, value, colour and shadows, so i will do the exercices from the very beggining and try to make them the best i can...

So with this said, i present you with the first half of the first project. It was a fast thing but i whant to know what you all have to said.

Thanks in advance and keep up the good work!




Ps: SOrry for the post in the other thread.

[4ntimatter]

Firstly apathy I'd like to thank you mate for starting this study and lessons thread, I love it, and it's exactly what I've been trying to find for a long time.

Secondly I'm sorry for joining your lessons so late, I've only learned of this thread a few days ago.

This is my first orb and I've only ever painted once with my wacom tablet, witch was an apple I done using the quick guide from bumskee in the old Photoshop painting thread before it was deleted.

I know I haven't finished this yet cause I wanted some advice before I continue.
I Used a size 3-4 hard brush at 30% op with no size jitter on this orb which took over 3 hours to get somewhat smooth, I used a larger brush to color it in at the start and put in the basic shadow and light, which took minutes. I tried using a larger brush but I found it impossible to get it smooth without a small brush. I'm well aware that if you don't put in the time you won't get the results unless I'm Apathy, :P I just wanted to know before I color the red orb, should it really take this long and do I have to use a size 3-4 brush.

Also please crit and abuse me on the orb I done cause I know it's not quite right. And with your advice I can fix it.

PS Sorry for posting this and feel free to delete it if I've interrupted you guys.

Thanks!

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h53/4ntimatter/Greyscalegetcrits.jpg

[4ntimatter]

(had to double post sorry)

Exercise #1

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h53/4ntimatter/OrbPractice1copy.jpg

Notes.
Although I'm new to painting I'll just post my notes for the sake of the threads guidelines.

I started this as a quick orb for practice after I'd posted previously.
I started with a light green because I noticed some nice eye catching orbs along the thread.

A) I simply got a large brush "size 200"and with one stroke made the orb.
B) I then made a new layer and began the basic shading for a foundation.
C) Using a hard size 30 brush to start the basic shading of the form shadow.
D) I then used my color picker to quickly blend the form shadow into the full light.
E) Then I simply got a smaller brush but unlike the previous orb I used a larger brush so I wouldn't take over 3 hours again. lol.
F) I then very slightly brightened the full light surrounding the highlight,
G) Then using a small brush with a slightly softened edge, I put on the Highlight.
H) Then simply using a soft brush I added some Radiosity or reflective light coming from the surface to the orb. Then I guessed where the shadow would go and then added a small reflection near the highlight.
I) Finally I gave it a background to add some overall contrast and to make it look more like a surface.

Thanks guys and any crits would be great.

Also I love your balls Apothecaria. I mean spheres! :P

[Sharkcellar]

I'm doing these exercises now. This is exercise one. I didn't look at your finished version until I was done. I did look at briggsy@ashtons suggestions for modeling a sphere though. I did't do any blending as the instructions for this exercise didn't mention anything about blending the tones (perhaps I'm just dim). I will blend the tones now that I looked at your finished version. But, I'm posting what I created before looking so that I can get some advice. This is an awesome thread!

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/4926/exerciseonesimplifiedcogr1.jpg

Here is the blended version with light source arrows. I messed with the cast shadows a bit after I drew my light source guides back in.

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/1595/exerciseonesimplifiedcoqy5.jpg

[enrigo]

I'm just starting to do the exercises in this great thread, I don't want to be shot on sight so I'll post some of my tries.

I used a circle lasso tool to clean off the edges in the first one, I'll do a few more of them to get to know how to handle the tool in photoshop a bit.(also I haven't read some of the in-depth theory yet)
321789


I have a bit of a problem blending with the hard-edge-color-pick method, well it always leave these frustrating hard edge that I don't know how soften them out without ruining the gradient. (again I haven't read the old advices yet and I'll probably dig in to it later :P)
321790

321791

[Azalin]

hi, i´m also new to digital painting & colors, and i want to learn more about it, so i thought just post what i´ve done in this thread.

exercise 2
I´ve done it in Painter using the Digital Airbrush tool, with the opacity set to 9%, the only time i changed the brush size to a more little one was to mark the core shadow, the rest i did with the same size, and without using any blender tool. since i don´t much about color theory i just kind of did it intuitively, trying to get the color transition right of course.
i repeated the exercise 2 twice cause the first time i didnt get the core shadow right. i think the second time was better but still i´m not sure if i used the correct range of colors.

so thanx for this thread, i´ll post more of the exercises later...

[Azalin]

ohhh sorry i forgot here´s a quick sketch from exercise 1.
Its done the same way as #2 but a bit sloppier
i´ll do it better next time, promise ;)
btw is this thread still alive? if dead is it ok if i post my work?

[Azalin]

Hi again,
here´s exercise 3.
Spheres 1 & 2: were easy to make. at least it seems to me, i might have made lots of mistakes, but that´s why i´m here for.
Sphere 3: absorbing nothing and reflecting everything = White, shadows must be grey.
Sphere 4: absorbing all colors and reflecting nothing = Black, total darkness, there´s only the cast shadow.
Sphere 5: absorbing every hue except yellow and red = Secondary color, Orange.
Sphere 6: 50/50 = Grey
Sphere 7: beats me, i only know the sky is blue because of x(i forgot wich) molecules... anyway i´m still confused with this one, so if anyone out there could help... thanx

[mellongcreate]

Did this last night. Didn't look at yours first, read up today about brush economy so next post will be keeping that in mind. I blended the crap out of this lol.
Lost the ball shape in the last steps. Also the cast shadow is off :S Darn

http://mellong.co.uk/site/images/archive2008/sketch/BallExercise1.jpg

Drawn step one. << lmao Yay!
I won’t complicate myself with putting down a surface. I can always paint a new ball after when I have more confidence (or cheat like Idiot_Apathy did!).

Adding Step 1.1 – After reading Briggsys post on how light is cast on spheres I decided the Centre-Light needed to be added here as it is the “base” colour and other values are worked out from this.m

No problem with step 2 – instinctively I would know where the light stops having effect (terminator) is on a sphere so I simply used an arrow. Idiot’s method would be more useful in a dynamic perspective of a shape though

Step 3 – After reading briggsy’s post on light theory relating to a sphere, I would say that you need to decide on the form shadow based on what the Centre-Light value is.

Step 4- More reading on this is needed but I did it anyways.

Step 5 – Light Tables

Keeping the Centre-Light off white to allow room for the specular-light and highlight to show.

Centre-Light: R230 G230 B230 (H:0, S:0, B:90%)Hardest
Full-light: R200 G200 B200 (H:0, S:0, B:78%)
L-Half-Light: R185 G185 B185 (H:0, S:0, B:73%)
Half-Light: R170 G170 B170 (H:0, S:0, B:67%)
D-Half-Light: R140 G140 B140 (H:0, S:0, B:55%)
Shadow: R110 G110 B110 (H:0, S:0, B:43%)Softest (on sphere)
Cast-Shadow: R80 G80 B80 (H:0, S:0, B:31%)Softest (In composition)

Swatched and saved!

Step 6 – Edges:

Elwell’s definition of how Hard and soft an edge should appear depending on various different variables looked at.

After thoughts on the thread:

Edges can be defined as a plane change or in painting where 2 different colours are placed adjacent to each other.

The rules can be changed depending on what you are communicating. If you want to soften something hard to give say femininity in a butch female character, do it. Another example is if you have 2 objects very close in properties i.e. lead and steal, but you want to show the different between the two the softer edged item would be the lead as it is softer and duller than steel. In this case within your own designs edge softness can be relative.

I can add hard and soft edge specs to the above colour spec in step 5.

I used a regular brush set to pen pressure for size at 60% opacity (the lower the opacity the more blend increments you can have, however it takes a lot more time effort!)

I did this in detail as I was also learning about light theory along the way and also getting to grips with my new wacom, 1 day old with me :D

[Rabbi Satan]

Here's my first 3 assignments. I am COMPLETELY confused on how to do exercise 4 - can anyone help clarify what I'm supposed to do? Thanks :)

342304

342305

[mellongcreate]

http://www.mellong.co.uk/site/images/archive2008/sketch/PtoPExercise2post.jpg

Slight hue change in the half-light blue to form-shadow blue (brilliant blue hue - slightly green-blue hue respectively). Just to see what it looked like but really can't say what I achieved out of it.

No strict colour picking using increments of RGB working out. This time just open colour picker and swatched the colours I wanted naming them by there use in terms of light and shadow.

Off to look at your example (apathy), but I'm fairly pleased with the blue one as I'm still learning to blend etc. Was really focusing on getting the specular reflection right on this one. Edges left a little hard for my taste but meh.

[kikindaface]

Hi all here is my first assignment

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/222/ballqe1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[ovolon]

Hi, I have a question about the color of shadow?

I've been over to http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/ to look at his tutorial but apparently he took down the last pages 5--7 including the one about shadow...

So I was wondering what is the color of a shadow? And what does this depend on? Well forgetting about reflective light, does shadow color depend mainly on more what the color of the object in question if at all, or the light source? Is it a bit of both?

I keep hearing that shadows are supposed to be complimentary to the main light...

Say yellow light on a red apple on a white table, is the shadow going to be more purple or green?! Or is it not green at all? Does red light bouncing off the apple affect the shadow?

Thanks a lot, I have been puzzling and have been confused about the question of shadow color for a long time! Also if you could perhaps point me towards any shadow color tutorials or something that would be awesome too. : D

[Idiot Apathy]

*pops his head in*
Fundamentally shadows depend upon the local color of the object, the color of the light source and of course any and all secondary as well as reflected lights.

I don't quite understand the notion that shadows are supposed to be complimentary to the lightsource. It does seem to happen under a very pure hue light source however I am unsure as to whether the effect is logical or is a trick to our eyes. Regardless - the effect if any is not noticeable enough for you to worry about it in most situations.

Do however experiment with stylizing your colors and see what pleases your eyes.

*slinks back into the shadows, no pun intended...*

[GDonaldson]

http://www.gd3dart.com/images/lightball.jpg

comments and questions are on the picture hehe, thanks for these great tutorials, I really need to work on my tone, values and lighting so I might be doing a few of these studies

[GDonaldson]

http://www.gd3dart.com/images/peer_excercise2.jpg

excercise 2. not quite sure I totally understood this one.

[Homeless Foxman]

excercise 2. not quite sure I totally understood this one.

Have you read the PSG art tutorial, if you haven't I suggest you do, it really helps. In there it mentions the problem you have with the shadow of the colored one. The light it LESS saturated, as the shadow is also less saturated, the midtone it the most saturated part of the object. Another suggestion I have is to make more of a gradient, your shadow is perhaps too hard if thats the way you would say it. it shouldn't change color that drastically without a very powerful light source, but in that case most of the sphere would be closer to white and still wouldn't change in value that drastically and fast.

[GDonaldson]

Have you read the PSG art tutorial, if you haven't I suggest you do, it really helps. In there it mentions the problem you have with the shadow of the colored one. The light it LESS saturated, as the shadow is also less saturated, the midtone it the most saturated part of the object. Another suggestion I have is to make more of a gradient, your shadow is perhaps too hard if thats the way you would say it. it shouldn't change color that drastically without a very powerful light source, but in that case most of the sphere would be closer to white and still wouldn't change in value that drastically and fast.

Thanks yeah Ive read the PSG tutorials over and over again I just keep forgetting to put what IVe learnt into practice :P

[Whitevillage]

The first assignment wasn't so easy as I thought, but I'll experiment more soon to get the hang of this. :)

382617

[foresthippy]

http://lh5.ggpht.com/foresthippy/SF6969CXqxI/AAAAAAAAADc/qHvjHgZYaUU/sphere.jpg

This is my attempt at exercise 1. My 4th encounter with a tablet.

[shutupyourface]

here is my attempt at number 1!

now looking at it i realize it's off. the shadows are totally wrong, but i really couldn't quite figure out how to get them situated properly. i tried to overpaint with guidelines for how it would fall, but i was having trouble visualizing in 3d the paths.

[shutupyourface]

i really needed to have done this with a softer brush maybe.

overall maybe 30 min? i tried my best not to cheat and eyeball the first sphere to match it, not that they are even close anyway. like others i went darker than the grayscale. these lack a lot of finesse. i suppose they are spheroid-ish though.

[inDissonance]

http://www.rediscoveringsanity.com/blog/ball_01.jpg
Step 1: basic shape and shadows...
http://www.rediscoveringsanity.com/blog/ball_02.jpg
Step 2: start blending the layers together...
http://www.rediscoveringsanity.com/blog/ball_03.jpg
Step 3: The end product

I think the shadows aren't dark enough on the ball, and the shadow on the wall appears to be off if you look at where the light is. I should have used bigger brushes and maybe a different method for blending. Anyway, it's good to go over the basics again and helps to work faster... learning a lot and will continue to work on these simple processes.

[StreetBehemoth]

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b300/dyslexiaart/mudman.jpg
I had a bit of trouble with the metallic texture, so any advice is appreciated. No compliment sandwich needed

[shutupyourface]

ok second and third try at this... light source/cast shadow is maybe a little bit more correct? i don't know.

any help appreciated!

first sphere is hard brush and blending and second is soft brushes and blending. i really need work on hard brush blending B(

[shutupyourface]

hmmmm... this didn't work as well as it could have i think.

i really was at a loss for the metals. my brain just couldn't process it necessarily. i understood it was a higher contrast between the darks and lights? with lots of reflection?

the other two aren't bad and it was an accomplishment to be able to "render" a figure in semi 3-d ;\

[dischord]

Ohh! The PP is still alive, which is what I wish I could say about my creativity. Going back to the basics seems like a good idea so I'll see if I can do (and in some cases redo) the exercises tonight.

Since I got rid of my web host and domain name a while ago, the link in the header for the specular highlight guide won't really work. So Apathy, you can link it to this post instead.

---

So here is at least one of the ways of finding the true position of the specular highlight.

[dischord]

Maaaaybe it's not a great idea to correct the teacher first thing after only completing the first exercise :)

Edit:
And here is some text
1. First a circle (or sphere).
2. 3D-ish arrow indicating the light source. At this point I have already decided where I want the form shadow and highlight to be.
3. I "split" the sphere on the middle and darken the part which won't be illuminated by the light source. Now it's a monochrome Pokemon ball...
4. Quite wrongly, I figure out where the cast shadow ends up. The shape of the shadow would be correct if the light was shining towards instead of away from the viewer. So far no shadows have soft edges, which would mean sunlight.
5. Fixed the shadow, darkened the whole ball (because I didn't like it that bright) and picked a colour for the whatever it's called part.
6. A little bit of blending with a custom smudge tool. Didn't turn out that great. I'll try soft brush blending next time. The hard edge vs. the soft edge on the cast shadow indicates it's not sunlight. More likely a lightbulb.
7. A little bit of ambient light on the shadowed part of the ball. This looks odd in my opinion. I can't really explain why, but it does.
8. The ball is not very nice polished one, so no hard edge on the specular highlight. I also darkened the form shadow a bit to define the ambient light. Now it looks even more unrealistic for some reason.
9. The bottom of the ball is a little bit darker due to the cast shadow.

[Idiot Apathy]

Kekeke, it's a peer project. There is no teacher.
I'm not sure what is going on in your illustrations though :O How about some text?

[purb36]

dischord, your shadow angle and the value of it depend not only on the angle of the light source, but also on the angle and color of the table that the ball is resting on. if the local color of the table is the same local color (hue, value, saturation) as the ball, the shadow values on the table and on the shade side of the ball should be the same in the absence of ambient light. so i would think that the terminator and the cast shadow should be around (if not actually) the same value. the reflected light lights up the side of the ball behind the terminator (how much will depend on the reflectivity of the table and the ball). so your first shadow is not "incorrect" per se, it just depends on what orientation you want to show the ball. does this make sense? somebody feel free to correct me if i'm wrong.

[dischord]

purb36, for some reason I completely forgot about the fact that the table could be viewed from different angles. I'm not sure how, but I did. However, it still feels like the first shadow is impossible with a planar surface. If the minor axis of the shadow was wider, it could be a ball on a table viewed from above, but now when it's so narrow, there must be some perspective involved.
As for the shadows, it all makes sense again now. Thanks.

Exercise #2. It turned out ok, but I have to admit I'm not a fan of spheres.

[siae]

Tried this one. Maybe I shoud use darker shadows?

[Idiot Apathy]

dischord, your shadow angle and the value of it depend not only on the angle of the light source, but also on the angle and color of the table that the ball is resting on. if the local color of the table is the same local color (hue, value, saturation) as the ball, the shadow values on the table and on the shade side of the ball should be the same in the absence of ambient light. so i would think that the terminator and the cast shadow should be around (if not actually) the same value. the reflected light lights up the side of the ball behind the terminator (how much will depend on the reflectivity of the table and the ball). so your first shadow is not "incorrect" per se, it just depends on what orientation you want to show the ball. does this make sense? somebody feel free to correct me if i'm wrong.

Terminator should be at least slightly darker than the shadow side.

[purb36]

because of the reflected light in the shadow?

[Idiot Apathy]

Yaaaaa. The terminator is/should be perpendicular to the lightsource thus making it much harder for said lightsource to bounce back into it off of any other surfaces. Adding in multiple lightsources is a whole nother bag - but having a terminator in your illustrations can add a lot of punch.

[Fhuel]

Hi guys, this is my first post in CA forum... I think this forum is really great, ad so is this thread ! (even if I had no time to look everywhere yet... this forum is really BIG !!!)

I always looked around for something like this... I want and I need to take my illustrative skills at least to a decent level :p
I wish I had found this place years ago...

I will start doing these excercises, cause this thread seems still active even if it's 2years old...

Please tell me if this is not the right place to start, and if there are other threads o section of the forum that are "more right" for me...

thank you

[Someone Else]

Hey Fhuel

I just started working on this thread myself, and it is great for developing a good eye for tones and blending colours. I suppose it depends on which area you feel you need to work on, e,g, this thread may not help you with line drawing but it'll certainly help you with tones and forms. Post your exercises when your finished and perhaps others may be able to comment and give you some advice. Hope this helps.

[b h a v e s h]

Hi Everyone,

It's my first time posting on this site but i've been long inspired by the quality of work on display and really looking forward to improving my Digital Painting skills with thanks to this thread and it's author Idiot Apathy and co-authors - everyone who's posted.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/BLitZng/Digital%20Painting%20Skills%20Development/CAPPEx01.jpg

Notes: My first attempt at the exercise. The spheres have very strong shading and feel as though there isn't much ambient light going on? And you can kind of notice "steps" in the tone variation? I hope i'm using the right terminologies!

I'll be giving exercise 2 a go tomorrow!

[almyki]

Hello, uh, I have a small question, if I may?

I was wondering... when I'm drawing a picture, would it be 'cheating'/not good/etc. to take a photograph/picture from the internet and to copy the poses of the people in it for a drawing of my own? I don't mean as practice sketches in my notebook or life drawing or anything, but drawing a picture with my own characters and... stuff... (duz'zat make sense...?) . I just feel like whenever I think about looking online for a picture that captures the pose/angles I need for a drawing, I'm being a dirty cheater (since I'm basically just eyecopying, right?) and should figure out how to make it work myself... But I'm not really sure of it. I usually just end up winging it, wincing, erasing it, and then trying something a little closer to my 'circle of comfort'... So, um, yeah. Is it OK to 'copy' like that? Or isn't it...?

Thanks for any help on this,
<3 ali

[Idiot Apathy]

Absolutely anything that helps you learn - do it.

[Senira]

Here be my entry for project 1. I think I've tried doing this project at various points over the last two years, and have always been too ashamed to submit the results. I figure I might as well suck it up and get started.

From left to right:

Shiny ball (Ref), Dull ball, Some kinda shiny ball, and a metal ball. Metal always gives me the most trouble because I have such a hard time understanding reflection/refraction at that intensity.

[Senira]

Here's my assignment 2. In addition to it I tried to do a study on reflected light/color influence on a sphere. It's not as horrendous as I thought it would be.

On the second one especially, I tried to think about all the different ways light could be reflected onto the ball. I re-discovered this (http://huevaluechroma.com/021.php) site, which helped immensely. I'm starting to realize that one of my biggest problems in rendering is that I follow the surface without really considering form. When I tried roughing in ellipses before blindly shading the ball, the results were much better than my previous attempts.

I still feel like the transition from light to dark is too dramatic on the set of reflected balls; I need to work on my values more.

[crdf]

Exercise 1
So i have this question. it is about the shadow of the sphere - do i have to use a darker colour of the sphere colour, or i must use black - painted on the same layer or blend as multiply in a next layer?

The light source - does it have to be reflected as a distinct point/dot or it must blend with a lighter colour of the background colour?

Is it necessary to have a reflection from the background?

[crdf]

Exercise 2

So the point of this exercise is when converted to gray scale, the two spheres to be as more similar as possible? Correct?

What was important - the light of the colour or the intensity? The shadow is dark blue but is closer to the shadow of the gray sphere (is it because it is darker?), but the main colour is far from the gray sphere colour.

[crdf]

exercise 3

what is hue? I found this explanation but dont understand it very good - probably the lenguage berrier:

Hue is another name for color. When an image’s hue is adjusted, the base color of that image changes in correlation with the color wheel.
(http://iit.bloomu.edu/vthc/Photoshop/enhancing/hue&saturation.htm)

the bonus sphere - bubble.

exercise 5 - the second picture
So i am completly wrong or i am starting to understand teh concept.


Group 1
sphere 1 reflects only blue, so must be pure blue, sphere 2 reflects mainly blue and lots of the others so must be dull blue. Maybe darker than the one i made? I dont know.

Group 2
Lightsource is pure blue, Sphere A reflects only red light - so the sphere must absorb blue and yellow, The lightsource is blue - no red, so its black? Or it has to reflect something?
Sphere B you would call 'pure' violet in a white light situation. So th elightsource is white light?

Group 3
Sphere A is white - reflects yello, maybe a mirror but Mine is more dull .
sphere b - Yellow with yellow light. I dont know if there must something specific

Group 4 - same thoughts as for group 3

[RealDraggor]

Exercises 1 and 2

1.
Pinball-ish orb on a wood surface.

2.
I read the information in the exercise and used the grayscale mode.
I seemed to have painted a light source less intense/farther away. Other than that, pretty close I would say.

[thirteen]

This is my first attempt at one of these exercises, and also my first post on this site.

[yaniv]

hi all, i'd like to practise also, is the threads still open ????

[Form]

if it isnt closed, its open! im going to be starting these foundational exercises again today - this time in oils - as a way to refresh my light and colour knowledge, and a way to sharpen up on my paint application. looking forward to it!
A

[Obi von Knobi]

I made these a little while ago in v1 of this thread so I`ll post them here too
http://i381.photobucket.com/albums/oo258/Fotobotte/Color.jpg
http://i381.photobucket.com/albums/oo258/Fotobotte/Grayscale.jpg

[robolee]

Here's my shot at the first project (done without reading into anything from the previous thread, or this one):
http://filesmelt.com/Imagehosting/pics/f1ecc3956b8eba7abb7dd08f8847c57c.PNG
...Too dark...

[purb36]

hey y'all, here's a response i gave to somebody starting to study spheres. maybe it'll help somebody...

[briggsy@ashtons]

A great next step after these exercises is to paint your sphere in to a photograph so that it looks like it belongs in terms of lighting and atmosphere. I've just started giving short courses in colour and light for digital painters etc at Billy Blue in Sydney, and I found that this task was fantastic for getting the students to put into practice most of the colour/light/photoshop theory we had been covering. I've just posted the first couple of class demos on my colour theory thread (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=112049&page=3), so please take a look and then add some efforts of your own!

[Idiot Apathy]

Thanks for dropping by Briggsy, hope you are well!

[briggsy@ashtons]

I'm great, Tom, but I miss our talks about colour! I've only just realized how active you've been in over here in mentoring. What a wealth of great info you're giving out - fantastic!

[Idiot Apathy]

Yeah man, I sure learned a lot from talking with you. Trying to spread the knowledge is all :)

Not sure how I missed your color theory thread before, going to read through it now.

[Chiko]

A great next step after these exercises is to paint your sphere in to a photograph so that it looks like it belongs in terms of lighting and atmosphere. I've just started giving short courses in colour and light for digital painters etc at Billy Blue in Sydney, and I found that this task was fantastic for getting the students to put into practice most of the colour/light/photoshop theory we had been covering. I've just posted the first couple of class demos on my colour theory thread (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=112049&page=3), so please take a look and then add some efforts of your own!

Thank you so much for this simple exercise advice! I would have never thought of that. I'm going to try some tonight. Paint a sphere to match the color in a photo. Thank you! This thread is very helpful, I'm trying to get back on my feet and practice some studies everyday.

[SirCalypso]

GRAH.

I've never been much good at the damn circle-cube-pyramid exercise, even if my teachers thought I did well. I can draw it, but I just don't "get" it in my mind yet. @___@

ETA

Okay, I just did exercise two and I think I am getting used to this brush and edges concept. Maybe? Yeah? I doooo find this tone thing interesting! I have been weaning myself off the eye dropper tool through eyeballing and correction, and this seems like the next level! I think I did well. I did have a few instances where I was nervous about going too light or too dark, but I corrected them. They just look a bit odd because I didn't shade them exactly the same. @_@

[SirCalypso]

This was for exercise three. >.> I'm bad and didn't actually color in order....

3: Easy enough, I had a looksee at the link from briggsy@ashtons. Still trying to figure out this light source 3 dimensionality concept. >.>; Never been my strong suit, lol.

4: Getting a little better at it, this time I wanted to go for something a bit duller.

5: I actually saved this one for third to last, but ooohhh well. I was pretty excited to do this one. I had already guessed at what it may end up being, and then took a peek at the answers and saw I was right so yaaay. I'm obsessed with ridiculous reflections, so I positioned this one specifically there so it could get as many colors in as possible. It was frustrating trying to get a proper shadow in there, and at times the part facing the light was too soft and it was also frustrating trying to make it better. In the end I think I did well. I took a guess at the shadow and thought it would look best if the orange seeped in there as well- is that right? The little bottom right smudge is supposed to be reflected the black sphere.... I'm not sure how to do it without it looking that odd.

6: I pulled out a bowling ball, great recommendation!

7: I wanted to try something dull again, like maybe clay. >.> I was also starting to wonder about whether or not the shadows I am/was applying were misplaced. Again, not my strong suit- help?

8: I think I did this one fourth. xD I was attempting to make it look like worn metal...of some sort. >.> Since it was before I did the mirror one, I didn't yet have the idea that it should reflect the other spheres.


9: I was excited to do this one as well! It said sky blue, so I decided to make it look as if a little sky was painting onto it and have it lay in the grass- like a cute marble. >.> It is reflecting the color of the grass in its shadow, and the grass is reflecting the color of the marble in its highlights. Is that how it goes?

[kizoku]

Hi all! Great thread! I've been looking a long time for something like this!! Here's the first two exercises with my thoughts:

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l166/puttemansland/exercise1and2.jpg

I've worked with 3d for almost five years and half a year as a "pro" (at least I get payed for it xD) and when you work with shaders, the previews are almost always in the shape of a sphere. Looking just like the ones we are supposed to do here. That was what I was trying to recreate. Some kind of lambert or blinn-shader.

I personally think that the grey one has the best result. The biggest difference is how I painted the highlights from the main (right) light.. I found color to be a bit harder to work with for some reason I can't explain, but that seems to be pretty usual since many exercises on the web mainly focuses on black and white in the beginning. I cheated and copied the shadows b ut the rest is more or less unique, copied the shape as well since I'm no master in painting spheres...

[thinsoldier]

all you need to know are these in my opinion; other systems will simplify it even more: Yellow, yellow orange, orange red, red magenta, magenta, blue magenta, blue, blue cyan, cyan, cyan green, green, yellow green.

Anything more isn't necessary however there are probably millions of hues.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/PeerProject%20V2/Photoshopcolorpicker.jpg
In photoshop box D is basically a color wheel, maybe we should look at a color wheel too? The top box in box c is just for hues; measured with degrees as if it was get this a circle (or wheel!). You will find each of the hues listed above are in 15 degree increments.


Ok I just tried the 15 degrees thing in photoshop and labelled them with the names you provided, leaving 10 colors missing a name.
Now there's a big argument in my house over which colors are actually
blue-violet, red-violet, purple, cyan, magenta, yellow-green, lime, sea green, pink, fuchsia, aqua, aquamarine.... and trying to explain why you didn't have some of those in the list :(

[Ingunn]

Hellu! I wish I was like much earlier here because there are neat exercises here.
I'm such a wuzz when it comes to posting, but maybe an opportunity to get directions :)
I'm using Painter since I would like to learn how to use it!

I started with exercise 1.

I think it's not really right, maybe too much light, needs more dark, I probably gonna do it again with briggsy@ashtons post in mind seems hard for me to understand ._.

[Idiot Apathy]

Ok I just tried the 15 degrees thing in photoshop and labelled them with the names you provided, leaving 10 colors missing a name.
Now there's a big argument in my house over which colors are actually
blue-violet, red-violet, purple, cyan, magenta, yellow-green, lime, sea green, pink, fuchsia, aqua, aquamarine.... and trying to explain why you didn't have some of those in the list :(

With the colors I listed you can create these other colors and at their greatest intensity.

It's just semantics really but I prefer this system for it's simplicity and accuracy as well as it's direct relevance to digital art.

Colors such as lime, sea green, fuchsia, aqua and etc are hard to pin down and mean different things to different people.

[George Abraham]

Awesome thread.

Did that apple thing about two years ago when I discovered this place but now that I got into it I really sucked at the apple. I remember doing these exercises and it helped the first time around. As you can see, I suck at judging value at the moment and I need to tune me senses a bit. It used to be better but that's what you get for waiting too long.

I also got a tablet and need to get used to it so I guess this is the place to hang out for a while. Thanx IA.


I started with the colored sphere. I then painted the gray one but used a grayscale bar for sampling ontop of it as not to be confused or to cheat when seeing the color in the color picker.

The second exercise is the first one from this thread.

Self Critique:
Reading the Shpere description again(Was too tired to fully concentrate last night)
I noticed that the only way I could make the sphere look relatively correctly shaded were if the saturation stayed the same. I picked a base color that were kinda pinkish or desaturated.
Misconception:That light desaturates a surface color or saturates it with it's own. New word, diffuse reflection(Thanx Briggys), because the surface is colored or act's as a filter that only allows stronger or weaker energy of it's own base color. It's base saturation value won't change at differant angles unless it has special surface qualities like skin. It's better to think then of light as energy and the effect it has in energising a color rather than it being a airbrush.

OK, NO saturation change? What about a black sphere? Surely you have to.... No Now I'm confusing myself. Looking at the photoshop color picker kinda made me realise that black actually behaves the same, the slider moves only up or down, all the energies R, G, B changes at a relative rate just as with a red ball. So the hue remains constant but the amount of energy blowing through it changes or it get's darker(less lit particles, more black or in graduation darkening or greys). So, if you painted a perfect red ball and ended up with pinkish fully lit areas you did it wrong. Is that right?

Question:
Colored light, as the object surface changes from the full lit area to the half lit area, will the degree of hue influence it get's from the light source diminnish? or will this also stay constant but with just less brightness?
[EDIT]
Ok the answer kinda came to me, That would depend on the light color and surface color. A color absorbs it's opposite color. A green ball would appear black in a dark room(Red light). The hilight will still bounce off the surface as it's not a phenominae of the color but a texture phenomina, feflection happens before diffusion can, at that point there are some molecular surfaces at a rightangle to the light and acts like metallic or like mirrors would.

But the question still remains then, should a yellow light shine on a red ball, which will affect the apperance of the red as to make it more orange looking, what degree does this happen at in the full lit and half lit areas?
[EDIT2]
OK, I think I had a ball in mind that is both lit by a white and colored light. Should a colored light be the only light then the effect will be constant as the diffuse response will be constant. When there is a white fill light and a colored main light then the effect will obviousely be removed from the shadow(Fill light). The spot light's effect will be directionalised but constant but since the fill light has an even effect, that needs to add to the full lit and half lit effect equally. So that would make it appear that the main lights effect on hue dimminished.

The green sphere in the first pic then also look wrong because the shadow is more saturated than the lit areas. I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out what was wrong with it. But now I know. The way I rendered it makes it look like it is kinda like jello, the shadow glows a bit. So the jellow effect is created with saturated shadows?

[Klandestineone]

Here's my submission to an older assignment.



Usually when I pick values, I choose a mid tone first and then work from there. Most of my difficulty came from properly blending the tones to show a smooth gradation. I think that I did an ok job with this. But I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed when I change the image to grayscale and it was too dark. I guess it was still not a bad first attempt overall.


Hey does anyone know how I can get rid of the white outline from the spheres. I used magic wand. I admit I'm not too familiar with all of the PS tools.

[George Abraham]

Ohh! The PP is still alive, which is what I wish I could say about my creativity. Going back to the basics seems like a good idea so I'll see if I can do (and in some cases redo) the exercises tonight.

Since I got rid of my web host and domain name a while ago, the link in the header for the specular highlight guide won't really work. So Apathy, you can link it to this post instead.

---

So here is at least one of the ways of finding the true position of the specular highlight.

Is this right? Looks like it's finding the spot facing the light and not a specular position. Attractive Discordia.
It might be the loomis confusion.

[Kanukki]

Hey, I'm a bit of an older geezer reviving my childhood interest in drawing via the digital realm. First, huge thanks to Idiot Apathy and the regular contributors to the Peer Project threads. I've learned a lot, but of course have more questions as I am quickly becoming overwhelmed with some contradictory information and my own confusion about color theory.

Anyway, first my spheres:
http://www.box.net/shared/static/3iqrj2onfr.jpg
Thoughts:

dunno what's going on with my shadows (direction and shape both off)
is spectral highlight close to being in the line between middle of centre light and centre of object?
should fix some darker areas in light side that are darker than terminator transition


My first question arises when I convert this to greyscale. As I understand from David Briggs' site (http://www.huevaluechroma.com/081.php), the effect in Photoshop of converting into greyscale is quite different from the Desaturate command. I'm not sure what the technical difference in the final outcome would be (can anyone give a good answer?).

First the conversion using Greyscale:
http://www.box.net/shared/static/0p642x1e6p.jpg

And next the conversion using Desaturate:
http://www.box.net/shared/static/ag93lvr6as.jpg

To my eye, the values betwen my colored and greyscale spheres look closer using the greyscale conversion than desaturate, but I'm not sure whether my own construction of the spheres or the difference in Photoshop's conversion methods is most responsible for the differences here.

Which leads me to my next question: There seems to be differing opinions of whether saturation varies in a shading series, or whether the color value (tone?) is the only thing changing (brought up by briggsy@ashtons here (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=699669&postcount=175)). Possible answers are that a) saturation never varies across the shading series, b) saturation changes only at the terminator (change from light zone to shadow zone), c) saturation also varies within the light zone between full light and centre light (also probably some other answers, such as the effect of the kind of surface material). Did this dilemma ever get resolved?

Thanks, and I hope that folks are still commenting on this thread!

[Tighe]

This is my version of Briggsy's sphere.

I was pretty confused for a while when I was doing it. I guess I skimmed over the notes too fast and didn't catch what center-light, which threw me off. I'm not sure how he did his gaussian blur while maintaining sharp edges, so I just did a little manual blurring on it.

I'm still confused as to how to know where to place the "flat shapes": he said "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." How do you know where those shapes belong?

As for the brightness of the different lighting, he said "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." Are these numbers always the same? For example, do you take the brightness of the full-light, then add a value of four for the center-light, etc?

[Tighe]

Hellu! I wish I was like much earlier here because there are neat exercises here.
I'm such a wuzz when it comes to posting, but maybe an opportunity to get directions :)
I'm using Painter since I would like to learn how to use it!

I started with exercise 1.

I think it's not really right, maybe too much light, needs more dark, I probably gonna do it again with briggsy@ashtons post in mind seems hard for me to understand ._.

Hey Ingunn, that's a good first try! It took me a while to figure out Briggsy's post too. I had to keep rereading sentences over and over until they made sense. Your sphere could use more contrast; you can do that by darkening your shadows. That'll make it look more 3D and less flat. Other than that, good job!

[Tighe]

This is still exercise 1. I just wanted to do the lighting from different angles and attempt shadows since all I ever do is the lighting from the top right whenever I do spheres. :S Not sure if I got them quite right though.

[Euphrosyne]

I'm a complete noob at painting both traditionally and digitally and I've only learnt how to do blending this week. Having a hard time with the placement of the full white dot. Also edges and adding details are giving me a hard time.


These are all quick rough work and I didn't spend too much on cleaning up any of it. Critique is welcome and appreciated

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=624250&stc=1&d=1237560781

-sorry for the large image size. thought the site was going to resize it

[Euphrosyne]

In this I've tried to add a kind of golden glow onto the sphere and I'm unsure of what colour the shadow should be.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=624300&stc=1&d=1237565646

[Lionese]

Hey There, I have been keeping an eye on Peer Project and i absolutely adore it so thank you very much Idiot Apathy for starting this up.

I bielieve it will help out alot of artists to grab onto some basics and prepare to face the great world that is painting, coloring, drawing, etc.

I have been without internet for awhile now but on the past like 2 days i have done the 2 first exercises from Peer Project Volume One and thougt to post em around here for your viewing pleasure.

I havent started reading Volume 2 but i will tomorrow when my head is all fresh and ready for reading alot and yeah i will start doing the V.2 exercises.

Till tomorow i just wanted to post the results of the exercises from V.1 of Peer Project, so i can get 'em off my back.

I'm still just stating to color traditionaly and digitally as a matter of fact but i hope you enjoy :). I wont comment on these my head hurts and it's late D: but i will comment on my future ones i promiss.:heart:

[LosPescados]

It's about time I do some color exercises!
Thank you Idiot Apathy for this WONDERFUL Thread !!!

http://i42.tinypic.com/2929wep.jpg

[Raptorbot]

hey, just spent ages looking at all the awesome stuff in here, its great to learn from other peoples critiques, mistakes, amendments and so on. awesomeness lives on in this thread.

attempt at the blocks:

[Kisha]

Okay.. well i'm pretty new to conceptart and i stumbled upon this thread and some other and i though that i'd like to try it..
So i started with the first exercise..
Have to mention that i'm not really familiar with photoshop and i actually don't like painting with it (prefer SAI)..
The results:

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l87/Aylalyon/Ex1.jpg
Well this is the first one..
I started with a saturated pink, then the highlight and then the shadow.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l87/Aylalyon/Ex1-2.jpg
The second one,
the same as the one above..

umm.. forgot to save the steps, sorry >-<

[Kisha]

So I tried exercise 2..
Not really happy with it, but who cares...

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l87/Aylalyon/Ex2-ColorKopie.jpg
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l87/Aylalyon/Ex2-Greyscale.jpg

No steps available xD
Well.. After painting the greyscale sphere, i chose a color at random and took a little lighter shade for the second sphere.
Was a little to light i guess. :3

[Jazz]

Heeeey, cool! I haven't been here in a while! I may have forgotten quite a few things, and I'm so in need of help right now. :(

Idiot Apathy, I was reading your and Ryn's thread (wishing I could join in), and I wanted to attempt the whole warm light/cool shadow (and vice-versa) kind of shading. I don't even know if I did it correctly, and my spheres look like my 5-year-old version of playdough balls. I thought I'd just put it up here, and if you or anyone can give me tips about the idea, I'd love some! Yes, make rounder spheres is a big one. XD

692946

I tried using different saturations of the same hue (and brightness, if I remembered), so I could make a warm light (more saturated) with cool shadow (less saturated) and vice-versa. I don't even know if I did that correctly, but I hope I'm on the right track. :D

--

I also tried shading the blocks in your 1st peer project thread.

Made the light source orange (though the background is misleading; makes it look less orange), and the shadow black (which might've done me in. Maybe I should've made it blue or something). I made the blocks red, green and blue.

692947

The blue block would probably end up just looking black, unless there was a bit of mirror reflection in it.

The green block would look more yellow instead of green, since the yellow light would reflect on the yellow hue in the block.

The red block would reflect that half-red from the light, and would probably look especially saturated.

I also thought of have the light half-reflecting when looking at the sides of the blocks (the sides more facing us), and shadow would just absorb all colour on the other side. The tops of the red block have me confused, though. I made one black, but should it actually have some red from the light? I don't even know!!

I put the reflection (slightly) in all the blocks at the end, because nothing was reflecting and it would have looked all black. So really, this exercise was daunting but helpful! The shading got me confused! :P It's been too long since I've done an exercise. I could use some guidance, and I'll appreciate it! This is one reason why I have trouble making and completing things. Grah!

[Kisha]

okaay..
Somehow there's not really sth going on in here..
anyways.

JazzW, i think of your first exercise No. 1 , 5 and 6 are the best ones, because the shadow, especially of No 3 and 4 looks so unnatural. Even if the shadow is supposed to look blue, you should make it less saturated for example greyyellowblueish for No 4.
Hope you understand what I mean.

[Jazz]

Thanks, Kisha. I was trying to understand about warm (saturated) VS cool (desaturated) light and shadow, that's why that blue shadow is so bright. I don't know if I did it correctly, though. I don't even think it's supposed to look "natural", unless there was some powerful blue light on the other side. I guess if the ball were actually white and reflected yellow on one side and blue on the other, it might still be fine. Pfft, no idea. :P

[Kisha]

Umm.. okay.. different things went through my head while reading and drawing the exercise.
First things first..I randomly thought about doing the "exercise" about different materials, but foolish as i am, i didn't read the instructions beforehand and just started drawing.
So sorry for not following the exact same steps >-<

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l87/Aylalyon/projectone-beta.jpg

diffuse/matte/dull: paper, clay, untreated wood
concentrated highlights/is shiny: plastic, glass, oil

wellll, theen.. thinking about the reasons why the light would be scattered once it hits an object and has a broad highlight or concentrated highlight. I thought about it quite a while.. and i think there are different reasons. I don't know if they are right or wrong, soo..

firstly i think the way how light is reflected has a lot to do with the material and color whatsoever.

Then.. imagine a surface with a structure not as smooth as maybe plastic can be.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l87/Aylalyon/step1.jpg

so.. then imagine a light source on the upper left side.
Would the light be reflected on every grain it can possibly reach? and following that, it would conclude to a concentrated highlight, wouldn't it?

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l87/Aylalyon/step2.jpg

hmm~ so imagine..the surface was something smooth and reflects light pretty good as well.. Wouldn't it rather conclude in the same outcome? only a little smoother?

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l87/Aylalyon/step3.jpg

How about a sphere made of clay? Clay does not reflect and focus light as good as in the examples above. But why that is, i don't know.. sorry.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l87/Aylalyon/step4.jpg

So a sphere made of shiny metall focuses and reflects light. It's almost like a mirror, so it does not only reflect the light which hits directly, but also the light reflected from it's sourroundings i guess.



Sorry if it's wrong. But i thought about it and i don't really know what's right or wrong. totally confusing.

[BlackDelphin]

Hey guys!
I've bin browsing this site for a while now, reading all the cool stuff, and then i got to this thread...i instantly wanted to start the exercises!!!
THANK YOU FOR MAKING THISSS!!
This totally helped me, and made my colour choosing senses....something in me get better!!

So i did the first 3 exercises, and i now wanna show them to you guys. I'll write my thoughts down here.

Ex 1:

I actually painted this first, because i didn't understand that i was only out of tones...like..without colour.
Took me a whole lot of time because i didn't know what to do LOL...1h or less...idk

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg74/Nekokristin/reflection_exercise.jpg

After REALISING that it should have bin grey, i redid it like this:

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg74/Nekokristin/exercise_1_by_BlackDelphin.jpg

Notes i took while doing exercise one, the coloured one one:
~ i lower the spacing for a smoother result, till 10%
~no shape dynamics
~i choose less saturated lighting and much more saturated shade
~more saturation towards the middle
~added some reflection from the surface on the sphere
~eyedropped some tones for smoothing surface out


Ex. 2

This one went a whole lot smoother!!

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg74/Nekokristin/exercise_2_by_BlackDelphin.jpg

GRAYSCALE version:

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg74/Nekokristin/exercise_2_grayscale_by_BlackDelphi.jpg

Notes i took while doing exercise two:
~choose a good colour pallet so you won't need to adjust colours or anything
~so i chose a saturated shade and a desaturated light
~i added more dark tones to make the contrast clear
~i re-chose the dark tones, adding more saturation for each

After this, i did a few more colour exercises.

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg74/Nekokristin/exercise_3_more_balls_by_BlackDelph.jpg

I saw #7 in the next exercise, so i decided to to 7, to challenge myself and to speed things up. And it worked!! YAY

Ex. 3

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg74/Nekokristin/exercise_3_by_BlackDelphin.jpg

This one was tricky at first cuzz i couldn't tell what it wanted me to do.
I am still asking myself if it's good...
That aside, i feel smarter haha

Notes i took while doing exercise three:
~i shall continue varying the hue-saturation
~pure white light source made me feel uncomfortable all the way until the last sphere, the 8th, optional one...idk why
~white is made of all the colours, so if it absorbs everything else BUT x, the ball shall be X...if x and y are left behind, then the sphere will be a combination of those
~sky blue...that sounds like a sunny day!...white clouds..baby blue...sky...bubbles!! floating bubbles in the sky that's what i thought..but that should need all the colours so i ended up making a blue..sphere..thingy...



GOSH!! I LOVED doing these!!! I'll do exercise 4 too after i take a break haha
And i hope to find some more exercises here on conceptArt...i just get LOST

Could you guys help me a little bit with that? *blushes*
And so sorry for my loong post!

[BlackDelphin]

And here are exercises 6 and sever...or 6 and 6..whatever

I did them, and then i eyedroppeed, to see how close to the values i was.
The ones that were wrong, i wrote the correct value in the corner.

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg74/Nekokristin/ex6template.png

After doing this exercise, my eyes got used to the idea and i got a lot more right in the second exercise.
And from what i saw in the two ex, the one i got really wrong was the pinkish tone, witch i am not so frustrated about, being the only one i messed up badly.
...i hate pink! and getting the tone wrong and wrong again made me rush and even though i saw the pink circle on the tone, i moved on >_<

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg74/Nekokristin/ex6btemplate.png

These were really fun to do!!
Great for a break from painting too!!
I think i'll make myself more of these :D

!!THANK YOU FOR MAKING THESE!! Keep them coming!!

[cppiii]

This is my try following your demo.708721

[shh]

Hi, I'm just back here after being away for a good while, I want to start these but just wanted to ask, I normally use HSB sliders, should I switch to RGB?
Cheers.

[Pixitu]

One from me as well (just signed up today, hello all!).

I realize the details are not well thought through (shady bit between legs on right side, tip of the chrome head...).
I'd appreciate any helpful comments!

http://www.electric-zombie.com/ac/spiderlets.png

[angelus2402004]

Here's my first project from vol 1 Value and Value with Color.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v309/angelus240/coloredvsgray.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v309/angelus240/graycolorsaturated.jpg

[anjyil]

EXERCISE 1

In constructing this sphere, I kept thinking of a marble or stone sitting in sand at sunset or dusk, hence the color choice. So I chose a soft blue-purple for the stone (like the blue of the ocean) and a brownish color for the table (like the sand). The background tone that I picked as kind of a salmon pinkish color, darkening. The sun is usually a more orangish red, but I didn't want it to overwhelm the focus on the stone/jewel/marble in question, so I toned it down and instead went with more softer shades of pink. As I look at it, I think it works because the colors I chose for the background and table are in a similar family--I think--and so it seemed to flow. (EDIT TO ADD) I use photoshop, wacom tablet. This took me about 20 minutes.

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g260/anjyil/Artwork/CAExercises/constructingsphere092009.jpg

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g260/anjyil/Artwork/CAExercises/constructingsphere092009.jpg

And I want to thank you for this project thread--this is exactly what I have been looking for to hone my skills!

[anjyil]

Some comments for others

ANGELUS2402004--
I really like how you used different intensities of light to show various shadows. I like the color change, as well. I think that the core of the shadow should be more toward the center, rather than right on the edge. It will actually make the ball look more round, I think...

PIXITU
Which exercise are you doing?

CPPIII
The sphere shape is generally good, but it is really hard to tell exactly what you did because of the straight white-on-white. The form of the sphere is completely lost in the glow. More tones can help. It looks like you have a very intense light, in which case the core of the shadow should als obe stronger to show the strength of the highlight. The cast shadow is really nice.

BLACKDELPHIN
I really like your exercise 1--it looks really cool the way you have the lightsource coming from the top. The ambient light is very well done. From this pose, I am not sure what kind of core shadow there should be, though...I think there would still be a darker shade of the ball near the center, ,but I don't think it would be much stronger.

[anjyil]

Exercise 2...this is the one I finally got right.

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g260/anjyil/Artwork/CAExercises/10tonespherecolor.jpg
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g260/anjyil/Artwork/CAExercises/10tonespheregrey.jpg

[LosPescados]

sorry to say, b ut you are wrong, how can you have reflected light on the shaded side of your ball ? The drop shadow is right behind your reflected light..

[anjyil]

I appreciate the comment, but a lot of sights that I have read about ambient/reflected light, cast shadow, core shadow, highlights, etc, do point out that the reflective light can be between the cast shadow and object. Here's a link to one spot that demonstrates this. I can provide others. Here is also an image.

http://doloresjoya.com/blog/color/
http://www.doloresjoya.com/images/gradient-light-shadow.jpg


I don't mind the criticism, but try not to say "you are wrong". I know I am still learning, but it sounds very...mean :( Even with "sorry to say"

Looking at it now, I do think that the ambient light is a bit too strong. I will work on that, but not tonight. Thank you.

EDIT to add: Oh, and the point of the assignment was to match values of color to greyscale, which I think I managed to do fairly well on this one--after about 9 tries. It is the closest I could get.

[GweNdZ]

EXERCISE 1:

I first did it by only reading the step-by-step instructions:
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/94/stepbystepex1copy.jpg

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/6619/finsihed.jpg

And then I looked at the given ref and corrected a few things:

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/7181/peerprojecttex1improvem.jpg

[anjyil]

Wow, nice job! I actually think that your shadow was more accurate in the first one, as the wall is pretty close to the apple and it looks like the light source would make the shadow hit the wall. It definately gave a more 3d look, in my eyes.

[anjyil]

What was I thinking as I did this----ugh I want to scream! It was very hard to visualize, so I did my best. I hate math :P And it felt like math. In anycase, I tried to avoid highlights for the most part--only vague indications because of some surfaces, even if a pure hue, might reflect the oriignal light source. After I finished, I looked at the key. I was actually pretty close, though as I color-picked towards the edges and blurred shadows the S/B moved slightly.

For the bonus of sky blue, the first thing that popped in to my head is that the blue is maybe around 50 percent reflected back, as are some hints of red as at times you can see a very faint purple hue to the sky. I am sitting by a window, so I looked outside (wow, lucky it was a clear day!) and the sky is a very light blue with white, so other colors are being visible. Hence why I did a kind of light blue with hints of purple (hey, it's open to interpretation and eyesite...mine's not good, I need new glasses :)

Oh, I opted for the white background because he said our one lightsource was white haha

[anjyil]

My thoughts as I did this? Shoot me!!! Ah!!! But I do understand the point of it. Light affects objects differently in a given piece, and sometimes the affects can be very dramatic. This can really impact a piece--say if I want a red post but am using a blue light. This is actually really good stuff!

So I did the exercise first one my own and tried my best to understand the dynamics. My mind wanted to shut down with all the math numbers and percentages ,but I still gave it my best. Then I scrolled through all the posts to find examples of others and feedback, and finally found the post with the key. I got about 40% right. I made corrections in the second one by going over the original, so you c an see blurring on the ones I corrected. Some of them just need more of the hue and I count that as being pretty close. As much as I really wanted to bang my head against a wall on this one, this is definately an assignment that I really appreciate and will never forget.

[anjyil]

I have no clue if I did this one right and I couldn't find a post from the starter for the key ahh well...I tried.

At least this time, there wasn't all those percentages. ACtually, I think those percentages helped a bit....but meh. My thoughts were...what is going on...what will happen? Just for fun, since the exercise said one sphere was a strawberry and one a banana, I decided to draw them as such. Interesting, though, that a banana can be white-yellow, and thus still reflect light off the white end, or brown, or green, or green-brown, or black. So depending on the banana, how it reflects light would be different.

[anjyil]

This was a very interesting exercise, I think..but I was kind of disappointed that the H/S/B was provided. Once I realized this, I depended more on the numbers than my eyes. Still, most of the time I got it really quick. Towards the end, though, my eyes were burning and it was hard to find the right spot on the color picker. I could see the very slight slight difference...just a touch too light or a touch too dark. I noted the two that I used the eyedropper for. Actually..now that I think of it, it was only one---my nemisis, pink!!!! Well, the first one the H and S was completely wrong so I was looking in the wrong spot. That was when I realized I was too dependent on the numbers. Would have been much better without that provied :)

[ozzie84]

im super late on this...but i need to get painting...i never could do it successfully
so here is my exercise 1
i noticed that my greyscale wasnt dark enough...but practice makes perfect..right?
http://i956.photobucket.com/albums/ae45/ozalonso/color-sphere.jpg

[anjyil]

It isn`t that your grayscale was not dark enough, but that your color choices were too dark (if you did the greyscale first, per assignment). You may have been too far to the right for colors. I made the same mistake and eventually found that when using lighter greys, usually light colors like yellow or pink are appropriate. When using darker greys, stronger colors like red and green are appropriate. It was an interesting experiment. You should play with various colors until you get a greyscale match :)

[Dococo]

I tried the first exercise.. It was the first time I have ever used photoshop to draw, and the first time I have ever drawn digitally.
It felt extremely awkward and I wasn't sure what tools I was supposed to use. Please be kind.. I don't really have any idea what I'm doing right now.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2595/3973866538_328b9918c4_o.jpg
All I did was I tried to pick lighter and darker greys and just kind of scribbled in where I thought they should have gone, then I added and filled in the drop shadow.
Then I went in with the smudge tool and just tried my best to blend it and make the drop shadow fade off at the end. I don't really know what anyone else did but my drawing looks really messy.. But it's all I know how to do, I couldn't imagine trying to make a perfect sphere with awesome shadows. Just looking for some advice.

[anjyil]

Not bad. Well, get some confidence--everyone started the same and practiced to get better.

For Photoshop, the smudge tool is actually not so useful as you can see. One trick that I have learned from various tutorials, but I am not sure how to accurately explain it without writing a novel in this post. Someone more experienced might be able to walk you through it, or if you want I can private message you with what I do. I`m still learning, too, but I can try :)

[Dococo]

Yeah, go ahead and send me a private message if you don't mind.. As of yet I'm pretty clueless of where to start and any help I can get would be great.

[GweNdZ]

795578
795588

I was actually surprised at how close they were ^^

[anjyil]

Very cool! :) You probably could go a little darker in the green and a little more saturation. It will probably get a lot closer :)

[GweNdZ]

thanks ^^

[Junpei]

http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af134/junso8/colorpractice.jpg

Can someone help me? I haven't drawn in years, I just bought a tablet, and I'm trying to re-learn the basics.

I don't know what's wrong, I'm not sure how to do the shadows or blending. I'm using opencanvas. If someone can do a paintover that would be great, even better would be if you could draw lines for how to tell where the shadows go?

if someone has open canvas it would be great to have a tutorial on shading and blending with that software. :yayca:


wowowo,
http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af134/junso8/colorpracticgse.jpg

when I turned to grayscale the yellow one is obviously way lighter, but I couldn't see that at all in the color version. something wrong with my eyes? O_O

[anjyil]

Nothing is wrong with your eyes--I think it has something to do with the value, so naturally yellow would be a lighter shade of grey. As for lighting, the best thing to do is choose a direction of your lightsource--maybe draw a little sun over it. Then use lines or arrows to show the flow of light and plan your shadows from there. I can describe it in, but I am still learning how to do it myself. This is a challenging shape that you are working with, and positioning. It looks like your lightsource is coming mostly from the left, but your shadows are kind of all over the place.

[Junpei]

http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af134/junso8/colorpractice2.jpg
maybe that's a little better. I want the light to be from the left. my shadows are all over the place cause I'm not sure how to draw the lines :s

oh, and also my paintbrush is really weird, it seams like the dark colors always have priority over the light ones, I can't paint over something dark with a lighter color unless it's much much lighter, on the other hand even if it's a little darker it totally destroys the light colors when you paint over it,even with a low opacity. :O this is the standard paintbrush in opencanvas.

[citrusfrukt]

My colored sphere looks really flat, trying to do something about that.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[crossmirage]

Chamo, try to follow the contours of the object when you're painting, and use less saturated colors. Don't use a single brush 'tap' for smaller areas. Instead, use small, tight swirls.

Also avoid pure whites or blacks, they tend to flatten things.

[anjyil]

Junpei---dark colors always take over light, even in paintings and pastels (or so has been my experience. I did a paintover (sorry it took a while). I am not very good yet, but this is what I am starting to understand. I know someone can probably show you a better example, but maybe this will help you see what I am trying to say. I did it over yorus, so you can still see some of your shadowing on the bottom that probably wouldn`t be there.

Chamo--check some websites on shading and light. I am still learning, but there is more to shadow than light and dark. There is the darkest part of the shadow on the object, the cast shadow on the ground, and the backlight on the backside of the given object. Just google light and shadows for artists or something along those lines. You can also check scribd.com for some artist books, and google allows you to review similar books. I can`t recommend a book yet, as I haven`t read one yet,but they all follow the same patterns.

[PonderousJay]

Okay I'm new to this forum but thought I would give this a shot.

Here's the stages;

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q78/jays2007/stages.jpg

And here's the final piece;

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q78/jays2007/spherefinal.jpg

Yeah I used a mask but next time I will do without I just wanted to get the idea of what's happening with the light and shadows. I need to work on how the object cast shadows as I haven't yet quite got my head around it but I will do more when I can. Please Crit.

[anjyil]

PonderousJay-- those are really good! My only comment is on the cast shadow. It should form with the wall more. Right now, it seems like the shadow isn`t touching the wall but is rising up in the air.

[PonderousJay]

PonderousJay-- those are really good! My only comment is on the cast shadow. It should form with the wall more. Right now, it seems like the shadow isn`t touching the wall but is rising up in the air.

Yeah I can see where your coming from now, just done another two...

Here's the first one http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q78/jays2007/628bwsphere.jpg

And the second one in color

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q78/jays2007/spherecolor.jpg

I'm a bit unsure with the shadow on the colored one but I think the first one was OK and I see myself quite a bit of improvement from my earlier one.

[anjyil]

PonderousJay--I don`t know if this would help, but when I see shadows that go from the floor on the wall, I always see an actual bend--the shadow has more straight-lines and is usually more squarish on the floor, then forms on the wall. Even with round shapes. So I did a paintover to show you what I usually see when something is so close to the wall. Not very good--I am still learning.

[PonderousJay]

PonderousJay--I don`t know if this would help, but when I see shadows that go from the floor on the wall, I always see an actual bend--the shadow has more straight-lines and is usually more squarish on the floor, then forms on the wall. Even with round shapes. So I did a paintover to show you what I usually see when something is so close to the wall. Not very good--I am still learning.

Oooohyeah your paint over gives it the edge I understand what you mean now, I can see how mine was way too curved :S thanks a lot :).

[anjyil]

I`m glad I could help :)

[comixnut]

I am starting this today and i would like to think it is the first day of the rest of my life studying colour. Just to make things clear, i think colour is a fucking pain in the arse. LOL Now onto trying the first exercise. :D

[anjyil]

Comixnut--Good luck! And remember, color is just another tool to bring something to life! :D

[comixnut]

anjyil - dude cheers muchly! :D

Ok i am going to have to stop now because i tend to just want to read and understand everything before attempting it (perfectionist, what can i say) and it never really works. I have been jumping from one thread to the next reading stuff and my head hurts like hell. LOL

So even though i know it's not correct here is my first attempt at ex 1.

Exercise 1

[anjyil]

That is actually pretty good ^_^ The direction of the shadow versus the direction of the light seems a little off, but that could just be me as I am still learning too. Outside of playing a bit with blending, I think you are doing fine for your first run.

[Kristoff]

Hey! Great work on Peer project 2! (I think the name is great! ^_^)

Here are a few of things i've done while reading peer project 1-2 =)

http://s48.radikal.ru/i119/1003/98/56060bcfc6ac.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)

http://s005.radikal.ru/i212/1003/e6/2a7507ac5374.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)
http://s58.radikal.ru/i162/1003/f3/02135c370f8d.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)
http://s57.radikal.ru/i158/1003/6d/7b80a4db4561.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)

I'll be glad to have some crits! =)

[anjyil]

looking good so far. The inside of the orange looks very juicy! One thing I have learned about shading and spheres is that the shadow ON the object is just as important as the one under it. Usually, the underside of the sphere itself will have the darkest value of shadow. This will actually make it look like it is sitting on the ground more. Also, the shadow band needs to be a touch darker and more up. I found that using a ball of some kind really helps you to see where the shadow lies and its values ^_^

[BloodyAmateur]

Alright, then...

I tried trying to give it a try. I'm not sure about the edges for the turquoise sphere, it's supposed to be shiny/metallic/whatever rather than dull, like the yellow one.

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/6436/excercisespheresmall.jpg

[anjyil]

Bloodyamateur---looking good on the spheres ^_^ One of the things that I learned is that there are gradients to the spheres. the first two look somewhat flat on the top and the highlight is really seperate from the spheres . I think the third one is your best one, but the gradiation is lost between the core of the shadow on the ball and the mid-tones. Also the reflective light on the ball is too strong and shouldn`t go around the edge all the way. the very bottom of the ball where it touches the surface should actually have the darkest value of shadow to show it resting on the surface more. I just learned some of this stuff, and one of the things that helped me see how the shadows interact on the surface and object is getting an actual ball of a solid color and setting it up on a still life. Still, you really have a good start ^_^

[OnyxAuger]

http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/2272/newcanvasd.jpg

I hope this Alright didn't really know exactly how to handle this.

[BloodyAmateur]

Another attempt at decent spheres, or, more precisely, at a white sphere during different times of the day (somewhat out of order after rearranging). Dusk (middle right) didn't work out so well, though it's more about the way the "sky" looks.
I'm the most uncertain about midday (upper right). I think I overdid the contrasts on that one.

http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/9886/spherecollage2.jpg

[anjyil]

Nice works--there are two things that I noticed.
One, the shadow band is too strong and doesn`t blend back toward the reflective side. This is most apparent on the top right next to the white sphere, and the two below the white sphere.
Second is the reflective light itself. It is far too strong, especially in the top right. On the two below the white sphere, it is coming from no where. Reflective light bounces off a surface. It should be more subtle and closer to the bottom of the sphere.

I am not sure about the lightsource for the last two on the right. Is it supposed to be a backlit view? Or a top-lit view? You might want to seek out a reference and check that, if it is either.

But other than that, I like the tones and the colors used. The cast shadows look really good, too, as does the high light on the objects.

[anjyil]

blackheartK--- looks like you got pretty close to the values--nice job ^_^

[BloodyAmateur]

@anjyil

About the sourceless light, that's because there are actually three sources in most of the images, sun, sky and the ground. In the middle and lower right though, it's just sky and ground, so I figured the light wouldn't be shining particularly strong from any single direction.

About ambient light where the spheres touch the ground, you're right. I can't let that become a bad habit. :)

[anjyil]

@Bloodyamateur: I don`t think that that ground or sky counts as a light-source as it only produces reflective light, and the strength of it is varient upon the main source. Sky as well actually doesn`t produce light. It is always best to stay simple--when light from the sun reflects down to the earth, it is only the sun`s light and it is the sun`s light that creates a reflective light from the sky. The only way the color of the sky would directly influence the surface of the object would be if the object was highly reflective, like metal or glass--in which case, it would be reflecting the sky itself along with the image of the sky.

Best to focus on one source of light and your ambient reflective light, rather than throw in a bunch of different sources when starting out. ^_^

[BloodyAmateur]

I think it depends on one's own definition of what constitutes a lightsource which for me includes the sky and the ground, even though their light is originally from another source.

Also, if I remember correctly, skylight influences more than just highly reflective surfaces. It's very noticeable if you're outside - many shadows have a blue tinge (it should be more obvious if you aren't standing inside them).

[anjyil]

I agree that it produces a variable and creates the reflective light, but if you take the sun from the sky--the sky doesn`t produce the light. It is refleceting the light of the sun. I have noticed that the surface affects shadows outside. Cement, for example, produces the blue tinge--but when I look at grass, the tinge is different.

[OnyxAuger]

blackheartK--- looks like you got pretty close to the values--nice job ^_^

Thank you very much.
I'm still working hard though.
I really ended up surprising myself quite a bit.

[anjyil]

I can understand--I am, too. I feel like I have a long way to go--but it is nice to look back and see how much distance you have covered ^_^

[Pedro Cardoso]

hey there,
i`m an old new guy to this forum, specialy for this thread.
love what you done here Apathy! oh, and i`m from brazil, so appologise me for any english mistakes, and correct them, like my drawings!

heres exercise 1:
i have done a sphere before this one, but it wasnt what you asked for...
i watched your demonstration and done it, without going back to yours.
tried to keep in mind the bloking of values, if the cast shadow were placed right.
oh and i done all my spheres with circular strokes, is that the way to do it?
968665

exercise 2:
i believe that these are better, i was warmd up and more confident with the strokes, got the control on the tablet( a bamboo pen and thouch, lovin it!!).
kept thinking about the placement of the shadow zone, of the refleting light, of the light zone.
the greyscale seems quite similar to the values.
968670
968677

exercise 3:
the best ones so far, at the fourth one( the black) i re-done the previous, as they were lookin wierd...
now they`re much better. kept thinking about the chroma and lightning of the the colors, not that i captured them correctly.
liked the result!
at the last one i used a bigger brush, liked the result and done it much faster!
968679

critics!!
i`ll try to keep following, althoug i`m kind of late....
and theres plenty work to do for collage...

PS: what is the terminator? the dark "line" that divides shadow from light??

[anjyil]

Pedro-- Looking good. I am noticing that the core shadow and highlights are not lining up, so it makes the shadow seem a little awkward. Your first one had the closest line up, and just raising the core shadow on the ball up a little bit would line it up nicely.
Very nice work, and good gradiations ^_^

[Pedro Cardoso]

very excited with the tablet!!! it is the first good tablet that i use!
the pen tip is deforming already...

exercise 4:
1- blue light in a blue object=values of blue hue.
2-blue light in a object that doesn`t reflects blue=blacksphere with dark blue for light part.
3-red light in a blue object= violet with magenta for light part.
4-red light in a low reflecting red object=pink object.
5-yelow and red light=orange, in a yellow object, yellow(very little orange).
6-thoughst one. orange light in a green object, you can see the result, very intuitive, more heart.
7-grayscale.
8-let the photoshop do the math, match the hues, find the light, block it out in a red circle, darker red for shadow. the most beautifull!
969079

can`t wayt for crits and tips!!

[anjyil]

Looks good so far. It hink somewhere on one of these pages is the answer key--I can`t remember what they were.

I think that, if a ball of color was in a light that was not its color, it wouldn`t have a highlight. For example, a blue ball would not reflect a red highlight or any highlight because red has no blue in it, and blue has no red.

[Pedro Cardoso]

ANJYIL:
what do you mean by lining up?
i agree with you that the shadows were awkwerd, i could not identify what is wrong...
i put the highlight so that the balls seems more polished.

thanks for the compliment!!

[anjyil]

It`s okay to work towards a more polished ball, but everything follows a line--the line of the light, to be exact. There is a lot of perspective in it. I am still learning it, too, so I know how hard it is to spot. Here is an example of what I am talking about--this was really quick, nothing fancy. My lines are a little wobbly, too ^_^;

I lined up yours so that you could see where your highlight was telling me the light was coming from, then laid out the lines of the light to the shadow. I also did an example. I hope this helps.

[Pedro Cardoso]

thanks Anjyil
that has really helped me to understand where i were wrong!
i`ll try to fix it in the next ones!!

[anjyil]

You are welcome ^_^ glad to help and keep up the good work!

[Pedro Cardoso]

here`s exercise five and six:

exercise 5:

the matte one- no highlight, very dark light part, no reflected light...
the plastic one- some highlight, brighter lights part, very little or none refletcted light(didn`t done it)
the metal one- lots of highlights, very bright light part, contrast, lots of reflecting light.
971972

exercise 6:
very intuitive, compared with my eye the colors in the pallet and in the picker.
971974

more to come
the thread is really awesome!! congrats Apathy, and everybody!!
really great stuff in here! inspiring!

[anjyil]

I think you are doing pretty good. Matt is hard to shade, but I think you can get away with a little more sharpness in the contrast between the shades. Even though there is no highlight, you can throw in a slightly lighter value to help give more form. Double-check the example in the exercise and see how the gradients transition across the form. Same for the metallic one--you could definatley get away with more movement and lines to really emphasize the shape. I think the middle is your best one.

[kvalliant]

Hello all, I've been focusing on graphic design for several years but have decided to return to illustration (I got a bit burnt out during college. And when I say 'a bit' I mean I didn't really draw anything for over a year). Upon returning to illustration I've found that a lot of what I learned in college has deserted me, so I'm starting back with the basics to re-learn and refine my style - and to break myself of needing reference for EVERYTHING. It's annoying and a bad habit.

The sphere project (project 1) is my first attempt to try and nail down some issues I've had with value and form. Not sure how successful I was with the cast shadow, though - I have a hard time with curved shadows and perspective, which is sad considering we focused on shadows for something like 3 weeks in uni. Blegh. Currently re-reading/digesting some Loomis on the matter, and really missing my perspective for dummies book (ok, that's not what it's called, but I can't remember the name of the book anymore).

http://valliantcreations.com/learning/Sphere-1.jpg
______________________

Followed by the matching value (Project 2) - I went through like 5 different versions before I finally got a decent match, which tells me I've got a teeensy problem with recognizing value. I tried the squinting thing mentioned on the Peer Project 1 thread, and that seemed to help. And in the interest of saving time I simplified my spheres (it's my comicbook coloring twitch - I like having flats on a separate layer for selection purposes) and used the circular marque and soft brushes to shade and highlight them.

http://valliantcreations.com/learning/ColorValue1.jpg
http://valliantcreations.com/learning/ColorValue1Grey.jpg

I also found that using the channel mixer in Photoshop seemed to give me a truer match than just converting to greyscale (I think?).
______________________

And the Beta project using different materials. I think I'll try it again with something not found online - something like an apple? Working off of a photo seemed too simple (though it did make me yearn for a second monitor so that I can easily set up reference on one screen and work on the other... oh, money, the things I could do if I had thee...)

I even remembered to write down some notes. =D

http://valliantcreations.com/learning/Body1.jpg

[anjyil]

Kvallent--Wow, those are really smooth. I think the one thing I notice is that your sphere looks like it is sitting above the shadow, or floating. It needs to have the darkest value where it touches the ground and kind of blurred in so that we can see it resting on the surface. Other than that, I think you are lightyears ahead of me ^_^ Even the textured surfaces are really good, though I bet you can push the dark values a lot more .

[kvalliant]

Kvallent--Wow, those are really smooth. I think the one thing I notice is that your sphere looks like it is sitting above the shadow, or floating. It needs to have the darkest value where it touches the ground and kind of blurred in so that we can see it resting on the surface. Other than that, I think you are lightyears ahead of me ^_^ Even the textured surfaces are really good, though I bet you can push the dark values a lot more .

Meh, I got a degree in sequential art - I feel like I should be way better than I am. ^^;; But thank you. ;)

And yeah, I'm having a tough time with the shadow on that sphere. I think lightening the rest of the shadow and darkening the value where the sphere touches the surface helps a lot - but then I've been staring at it for a while so I could be too close. Any other issues you see?

Here's the old version compared to the new version:

http://valliantcreations.com/learning/Sphere-1.jpg
http://valliantcreations.com/learning/Sphere-2.jpg
_____________________

And your advice about pushing the shadows on my materials was spot on - it pops the lighter tones and pulls the form out without going overboard;
(old and new, for easy reference to the difference)

http://valliantcreations.com/learning/Body1.jpg
http://valliantcreations.com/learning/Body2.jpg

I honestly think you pegged one of my biggest issues - I'm leery of using dark values in my rendering, which flattens everything out. I think I'll do a value version of my thumbnails now, so that I've worked out all of my value issues before I even get into the coloring. Thanks! =D

[anjyil]

I hope this helps you---on the ball, I raised the shadow on the ball itself, increased the darkness, and added more dark onto the bottom of the sphere. I also decreased your reflective light--your highlight was being overpowered by it, making it look like you had three sources of strong light. I adjusted the shadow slightly, too, to follow the flow of light a bit better (I hope ^_^;)

On the figures, for the metallic one I added white to your highlights and black to the shadows. On the middle one, I took a light shade of greyish-white for the highlights, and also used more dark-grey and black for the deepest shadows. For the final one, I used only light to dark shades. Black can work on the deepest shades, but no white for highlights unless the object itself is white.

I`m really just regurgitating what my mentor has shown me and what I picked up from some gnomon videos for shading. I still have a lot to learn myself, but trying to help another person with it helps me understand it more ^_^

[kvalliant]

W00t, yeah, raising the core and darkening the bottom of the sphere made a big difference, and the lighting looks a lot more natural now.

As for the materials, I guess I'll have to be even ballsier with my shading and highlighting. I was being too conservative with my values (a chronic problem for me - some deep-seated inner fear of making the materials look too similar, as well as an irrational worry about going too dark).

What are these gnomon videos of which you speak? Sounds familiar.

As a sometimes-teacher, I can tell you that the saying that 'teaching is the best way to learn' is totally true (I've learned more about the intricacies of English from teaching it to students here in SE Asia than I did from school or university or being raised speaking and reading it). I think it's part of why study groups are so beneficial - we get little chances to teach as well as learn things that we might have missed - because really, what is the peer project but a big study group? I certainly appreciate the help and the theory. ;)

[anjyil]

Yeah, I was also very afraid of values. The gnomon workshop is what I am refering to--specificall Scott robertson
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/category/110/Scott-Robertson

You teach, too? ^_^ I am currently in Japan and I teach English as well. I can completely agree with you about learning some of the finer points of English by teaching haha.

[kvalliant]

I'll be checking that out, then. Thanks for the heads up! =D It looks like he has a neat beginner/refresher course just perfect for re-introducing me to the fun and joy of basic rendering. ;D

Are you in JET? What part of Japan are you in? Busan's a hop, skip and a jump (well, a ferry ride) away from Fukuoka. =D

[anjyil]

Yeah, it really helped me when all those books couldn`t. I am so visual when it comes to art haha.

No, I am not with JET--I tried for them once, but didn`t get my foot in the door. Fukuoka is kind of far...hehe I am more near Nagoya on the other side of the island ^_^

Got you on DA ^_^

[manitwo]

Just discovered this "Peer Project". Really amazing!
Also great to see this thread's still kinda active. :steph:
Thought i'd share my outcome of the color&light exercise of the peer project v1.
(Initially only done for myself - thats why the source image is integrated :) )

[anjyil]

Nice stuff, Manitwo. I think you can push the values on the darkest shadow side a bit more to give more contrast, but it is a good composition and nice choice of colors ^_^

[manitwo]

Somehow my little exercises always get more detailed than i initially wanted it to become. :rolleyes:
For the form i used a reference ("venus von willendorf"), shading was done without any reference.
What do you think?

[anjyil]

the little earth goddess!!

Well, I would recommend using references whenever you can. For the three of them, they are pretty good but all but the metal one are very flat. Don`t be afraid of pushing the values as much as you can. You can definately add some darker and lighter grays to both the clay and coated figurines...even black for the darkest shades. That will really make them pop out more.

[Ak-Nolij]

Awesome, I'm overjoyed and relieved to find this thread. I'm pretty new to CA and digital painting, so I hoped there was something like this here. I'm currently working on my first exercise with lighting spheres! Will post my results soon!!

~Ak-Nolij

[Kristoff]

Ok, I forgot about the steps, but I have b&w and color! =)

The first exercise, helped me a lot to understand how edges are drawn, thanks!


http://i069.radikal.ru/1005/df/902a8772d691.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru) http://s001.radikal.ru/i193/1005/32/262491bab71f.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)

[anjyil]

Those look good, Kristov ^_^

[Kristoff]

anjyil, thanks! ^_^

Second exersize

I've tried my best to make them both look right =|

http://i053.radikal.ru/1005/6a/a432386aac63.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)

http://s41.radikal.ru/i094/1005/92/03c0ef31fa47.jpg (http://www.radikal.ru)

[Myllys]

Step two: So sphere reflects all the colors equally. And lightsource is blue. So the brightest point is pure blue with 100% sat. And because there's no reflected light, the core shadow is 100%. I guess the transition should from 100% brightness to 0% brightness with full sat.

Step three: Light source pure blue and sphere reflect everything, but blue. So sphere doesn't reflect any light, so its pure black. (No reflection of blue, so original color of sphere=yellow??? So, why doesnt the sphere appear as green?)

Step four: lightsource pure red. Object reflects blue. So i guess towards the shadow, with less light, the object should be more blue and towards the highlight should be more violet. Actually afterwards I feel, it mayde should be less saturated??? I dont know.

Step five: light source pure red. Sphere reflects only little red. So all it reflects is red -> so saturations should be 100% just with lower brightness.

Step six: lightsource pure red and pure yellow=orange? Object reflects only yellow. I guess the object appears yellow with a little tint of orange in full light ares?

Step seven: Light source red and yellow =orange? Object is green. So towards core shadow the object is more green with more saturation. Full light areas object is of course brighter, but more of a yellow with less saturation.

Step eight: Object is white in weak light so, full light area appears gray.

Bonus step: Light source is highly bluish. And the the object is dull red. The core shadow is of cource black. The full light area is more blue than red but not fully saturated. When moving towards darker areas the hue shifts towards red and saturations get lesser and lesser.

Pheww.. that was a hard one. Now just have to see the "correct answers".

[anjyil]

Myllys--sounds like you got it about right. The gradiation on the spheres is a little hard, but that is okay. Somewhere in this thread is the answer key---just can`t remember where.

In answer to your question--If you have a red or yellow sphere in a blue light, the colors do not mix in the way you are thinking. There is no green in the sphere, so it can not be reflected out. If it was a green sphere in a blue light, that would be different. It has blue in it to reflect out, so you would see the blue. I hope that makes sense...

[Vertical]

Okay, never really learned the basics so i thought I'd do this. I didn't really notice that we were supposed to post them here. The thread seems kinda dead, but it looks like it dies and comes back to life with new assignments periodically so hopefully I'll get some help. Okay so I did #1 in color first then reread it and did it in greyscale then did #2 yesterday and #3 today.

[anjyil]

The blending need s a little work, and the gradiation has a sharp change frmo dark to mid tone. There needs to be a smoother transition. The highlight is also too strong, as is the reflective light. A final note is that the cast shadow of the spheres does not line up with the lightsource.

You have a nice start---keep it up ^_^

[Vertical]

Okay here's the next one. I never thought about color like this before. it's really confusing.

[Myllys]

Thanks Anjyil for taking the time to comment these :) I think I got the point you were making about the light and color mixing. It's good to keep this thread alive. This has helped me a lot with understanding the way light/colors work.

Ok. Here's my stab at exercise five. The first one is on top left and secon on top right and so on. The spere on the right, closer to us, is the sphere no. 1.

Step One:
Lightsource is pure white, all hues at maximum intensity; Sphere A reflects all blue light and absorbs the rest. Sphere B reflects all blue light and a large amount of all others (rest is of course absorbed). (I've cut out the math jumbo as well - who am I kidding we're artists remember?

Ok. Light source white. Sphere 1 is pure blue so it's fully saturated blue sphere. Sphere 2 is less saturated blue sphere since it reflects also the rest of the colors.

Step Two:
Lightsource is pure blue at maximum intensity and only blue. Sphere A reflects only red light; Sphere B you would call 'pure' violet in a white light situation.

Ok since light is pure blue and there is no blue components in red, the sphere no.1 is absorbing everything and is black. Sphere no'2 is violet so it reflects both blue and red colors. So it appears perfectly saturated blue. (But with less value???)

Step Three:
Lightsource is a weak yellow light. Sphere A is white - as white as it gets, (not a mirror). Sphere B is 'pure' yellow.

This one is easy. The sphere no.1 is white and reflects all the colors equally, so it reflects all the yellow light and appears perfect yellow. Sphere no.2 is pure yellow so it reflects all the same components as sphere no.1 and looks identical in this light.

Step Four:
Lightsource is hot pink! Sphere A is white, Sphere B is 'pure' red.

So sphere no.1 appears pink, naturally, since it's white and the light is pink. No-brainer. Sphere no.2 appears red since it reflects only red and the light contains red component all else is absorbed.

Optional Bonus/Lunacy Step:
Lightsource is strawberry flavored. Sphere A is actually a strawberry. Sphere B is a banana. (Sorry, look I'm not sure this even makes any sort of sense, I need sleep.)

:D

[anjyil]

Vertical and Mylles--

Nice work on those spheres ^_^ I honestly can not remember the answer key for those, but they look about right. The answers were posted by the original creature of this thread. It is on one of these pages.

[anjyil]

Vertical and Mylles--

Nice work on those spheres ^_^ I honestly can not remember the answer key for those, but they look about right. The answers were posted by the original creature of this thread. It is on one of these pages.

[Vertical]

looked in the thread for thos ekeys. here's excercise 3:

"Using Photoshop terms for this so you can visualize it on the color picker better perhaps,
S = Saturation B = Brightness

3: Pure red, since our lightsource has the 'maximum' amount of red and our object reflects the 'maximum' I think 100s and 100b (PS) is appropriate. Shadows, if you chose to include them, would be less B but same S. Highlights if there were any would technically be 100s 100b so perhaps you would leave some room in the full light for them.
4: Same as above, only replace the hue with 'blue'. Trying to get the idea across here.
5: Technically speaking I suppose this should be a mirror :|. But a white sphere is good too! Shadows still be grayscale, highlights even whiter if possible (probably not in this situation).
6: Ok, this I suppose would be akin to a blackhole - technically we wouldn't actually 'see' it - we'd see nothing. Remember, if you can see it it is either emitting light or reflecting light, don't forget that even shadows are visibile.
7: Should be orange right? And the shadows? Less B same sat. Not too different from steps 3 or 4.
8: This one is a bit tricky, it should of course be a shade/tint of gray - I would think 50% percent gray, but I need to think about that.
9/Optional: Oh noes, so? What is the sphere doing with sky blue? Well, that's a little bit of a vague name for a color - open for interpretation however generally I see a mix of blue and a little cyan as the hue - the saturation is fairly low and the tone very high. Very close to white, so if we are close to white that should mean we have a mixture of all colors, however we should also have more of this sky blue (blue with a lil' cyan in my case). How much more? How saturated is the sky blue you envisioned?"

and the next one:

"#4
1: Well, it should be a blue sphere of course - the 'white' sphere isn't going to absorb much of any color so all you have in the source is blue - you get blue! Highlight? Blue! You can't make it white as the source isn't white If you wanted to 'cheat' a little perhaps you might go a little to cyan.
2: Lightsource only has blue - sphere eats all blue, sphere isn't visible - pure black! Probably not all that likely to see this in the real world though.
3: Hrm hrm, red light? Object only reflects blue? It's pure black again! Woo! I keep hearing that if you shine say a blue light on a banana you'll get a black banana, I need to try that.
4: Reflects just a little bit of the source light and nothing else - which is red, so the value will be pretty 'weak' - now, saturation? Is there any 'interference' from other hues? Nope, this should be 100% saturation I do believe.
5: Hrm hrm, it's like a math problem! Eep. If the object is going to eat everything but yellow then your red is gone, we are left with only yellow and thus we see a yellow sphere.
6: Ok, like a story problem or something; red is out of the equation - green will eat that right up. Now, depending on the purity of the green - let's say it's a pure green it should reflect all yellow as green can be made up of yellow and blue. So I do believe you'll get yourself a yellow sphere this time around; nice and vibrant like.
7: Not too sure if it's as simple/exact as this - but I would think this would be about a 30% gray (0 being black).
8/Bonus: Let's see, it's written like a nasty story problem so I decided to solve it like one.
Lightsource has just for easy talking perposes - 30 of each hue except blue of which it has 100.
Object reflects 80% of all hues except red, of which it reflects 100%.
So, what's being reflected is composed of 80 Blue 30 Red and 30 of all others.
So, I think it's safe to say the 30 percent of all other hues is really only going to weaken the purity of our main hue - which is 80 blue 30 red. I suck at math, so lets just say it's going to be just under a third red mixed with blue - so kind of close to blue-violet. Blue-violet, dulled down by the amount of blue, blue vs red, and dulled by the 30% of the other hues. So I dunno, uhh uhh... 40sat and uh 90b? Ok, let's just say it's going to be a very light and dull blue violet? Math is dumb...
Yeah, not exactly the best way of doing things. Just a generalization."

[anjyil]

Nice find, Vertical ^_^

[Vertical]

okay next one.

[KingElvis]

I did Exercise 3:
1007752

The last two I wanted to do smth different. I just imagined the same white light, but the sky being blue ( for the left one) and I played with the complementary color on the right one. Put it in the shadow that is, to see what would happen :)

I read alot about color theory that its all a big cloud in my head. Reading about fancy things with wavelengths and all is smth different than applying that knowledge. Thats smth Ive learned..
Thats why Im very thankful for this Peer Project :)

[anjyil]

i think you did a spot-on job. Since this is about color and not the sphere/shading itself, I will leave it at that. ^_^

If you didn`t look already, here is the answerkey that was posted at the end of the original exercise
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1051503&postcount=97

[KingElvis]

anjyil: Thanks for the link! Nice thought that the black ball wouldnt even be visible, if it werent emitting any light...never really thought about that lol
anyway, youre right, in terms of shading I did a kind of a cop-out job :/

I still dont understand one thing tho: If you had a blue ball, and the lightsource is red, the ball would seem to be purple to the viewer, right? Lightsource and local color would just mix. Or am I wrong? Btw, Im talking about real life conditions here...
And if we pretend I had athmosphere in there too, than that yould add up to the mix as well, right?

[mikedimples]

This thread looks very informative - can't wait to do all the lessons! Here's my sphere.

[anjyil]

KingElvis-- you are welcome. Very interesting stuff. And what is interesting is that color waves do not mix like how we mix paint. If there is no red to reflect, then it can not make purple. If you put a purple ball in a blue light, it will look blueand if you put it in a red light it will look red because it has both red and blue in it, but any other color it would not reflect anything. I hope that helps some.

Mikedimples: Nice start on the sphere. Your gradients are fairly descent and you have a good line up of the shadow and the light, but your ball is managing to float just a little bit. Where the ground and ball touch, that should be your darkest value. The reflected light wouldn`t go completely around the bottom. ^_^ Good job, though.

[JR McGee]

okay i did exercise 1 but i didnt know it was supposed to be in grayscale off the bat. lol. so i kinda just combined it wit ex.2.

i read a number of links (awesome info) but i'm still a bit iffy on where to soften/harden my edges. primarily on the sphere.

also when i converted my image to grayscale there was little gradation(?) between full-half lights. if it looks this way in grayscale (even tho folks may not ever see this version) should one consider switching up the color version? I believe i read somewhere that the light bouncing back on the ball shouldnt be brighter tha the full light. looking at the grayscale version, i didnt pass this test.

ALSO...how should the color bounce from the ball onto the surrounding surfaces.

[anjyil]

JRMCGee The fact that there is little gradiation and you noticed it is good. I would definately to this exercise again, and increase the difference in tones. Use a really dark blue, a really light blue, and a couple of colors inbetween.

As for the strength of the highlight--it really depeneds on the material of the ball. Something metallic or really shiny will have a very strong highlight.

[KingElvis]

anjyil:
Of course! *sigh* I think that was too obvious for my difficult thoughts lol, so thank for clearing that up. It will only be more complicated in real life because you never really have smth like an absolute hue, right? thats what I read somewhere..

[anjyil]

KingElvis--it is okay. ^_^ And it is true that things in life are more saturated then we think. I still have trouble matching colors :D

[tim37]

Wow, Nice! I am really going to try these exercises.

[Fuzzy Brown Shark]

Gaaaahhh man I don't even.

First one I did yesterday from the original thread. First two, grayscale/color thing.


Second is from this thread. (Three and four? ) Tried to focus more on stroke placement and usage for the particular tool I was using as well as shadow placement but...yeah doesn't seem right. Ah well, I tried. xD'
The shiny one was an attempt at a different angle of lighting from up/behind, but I went experiment happy and made it into...what it is.

[anjyil]

You have a good start. Looks like you got the greyscale and color pretty close, which is really hard to do. One thing I have learned about shading is that you really have to plan out where your light is coming from, how it is hitting the object, and where the shadows fall. There isn`t much gradation in your spheres from dark to light, and no specific placement for the reflective light. Google some "shading spheres" so that you can see some examples. Study them, not the gradiation from dark to light, the light placement, how the shadow falls, and the cast shadow. It will help a lot.

[TopSecret]

http://i52.tinypic.com/33a5vzm.jpg

[anjyil]

Nice work, Top-secret. A few things I notice: on the light-blue sphere in the center, the shadow on the ball can be darker and the reflected light can be lessened, made more into a curve following the form of the sphere. The upper left (viewer left) is a goot attempt at creating a dramatic shading, but the form of the sphere is lost by lack of values. I am not sure if that was what you were going for. I think that your best on is the upper right (viewer) Did you use a reference or did you go by imagination? I only ask because of the choice of various lightings. Some of those are more challenging than otheres ^_^

[TopSecret]

Thanks for the input anjyil all of them were from imagination :)

[anjyil]

You`re welcome ^_^ Keep up the good work--practice really does make perfect, but you have a farther headstart than I did when I went through this thread ^_^

[TopSecret]

http://i56.tinypic.com/vy36ds.jpg
http://i56.tinypic.com/2h2ifqt.jpg

[anjyil]

Is this a new exercise? I don`t remember it....

[TopSecret]

no instead of using a sphere I decided to go for a tube of some type, in the first three you can see I tried to to go for the Matt, semi-gloss and full gloss finishes, the last one was my attempt at using the method to create a semi-gloss finish to a torchlight that was sitting on my desktop.

[anjyil]

Ah, I see! I thought I was missing out on something. Seems like a good idea, actually, though I think a cylinder would be much more beneficial. I may have to try this one some time, actually. It looks challenging ^_^. The shading on different textures is actually later in the exercises, but it is still done in greyscale. Color is extremely challenging and I think you did pretty good.

[shrumpy]

My shot at Exercise 1,.. Phew, I think I took too much time on this one.. Hehhe...

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/2323/ex1jgs.jpg
By shrumpy (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/shrumpy) at 2010-12-14

[anjyil]

Shrumpy--good start. The first one can be tricky, and the angle of the light is at a more difficult position. Especially since it is hitting a wall and is so close to the wall. I tried a quick google search but couldn`t really find a good reference. You might want to try getting a pingpong or small white ball and setting it up yourself against a wall with the light at the same angle. Most likely the darkest part of the cast shadow would be on the ground between the wall and ball, and not on the wall itself...but I am not sure.

[shrumpy]

Oh yeah, i agree with you about the shadow cast should be darkest at the lower part of the wall.. thanks anjyil! :)

[anjyil]

Your welcome ^_^ Keep up with the exercises, they are good to get your warmed up.

[aks9]

So i started some of these Peer Project exercises a few months ago but forgot about them
I'd like to get back into it, so I'll start by posting the stuff I've done so far. to be honest I cant recall too well my thoughts about them, so I guess just crits would be nice


thoughts: I found using a thick soft brush and after putting down a stroke, grabbing the half faded-colour on the soft edge and then using that again helped get a soft smooth gradient
1143727

i recreated the gray sphere. i had trouble finding the right colour for the lights and darks on the blue sphere, i wasnt too sure how to go about that.
1143728


////
comments:

shrumpy
looking good! i think you could use a thicker brush so we don't see the little lines. i forget his name, i think it might be IdiotApathy, in his art tutorial he mentions its good to use the thickest brush you can get away with.

[anjyil]

AKS9--nice work on the sphere. The problem with a soft brush is the soft edges you get. It definately helps smooth out the blending, but then you get a blurred look. Did you use the selecting tool or just eye-ball it? Since your focus is on shading and not on shape, you can use the selecting sphere and it will help give you a solid edge.

As for the blue sphere--the thing to remember about shadows is the color in them. What color is your source light, that kind of thing. Your cast shadow on the ground is very dark, which means you need to make the blue sphere more dark at the bottom.

I did a quick paintover of your blue sphere, then converted it into grayscale so that you could see the differences in that as well. Hope this helps some--I really struggled on this exercise for a long time ^_^;

[aks9]

wow anjyil, thats awesome! thanks a lot. ill study what you just did

[anjyil]

You are welcome. I am glad I could help ^_^ One of the things I did was go out and buy a pingpong ball and use it as a still life to help me figure out how the shadows fall. I got several and colored them for contrasts. Best way to learn is through life!---Though I still have a lot to learn, too ^_^;

[Trefle]

First, commenting;

aks9 : That's a great work especially the first one. The second one's blue probably needs more darker values, but I think you did a great job too. :)

shrumpy : You chose a somewhat complex angle, IMO. (or maybe I'm just stupid.), IMO, the transition point in the form shadow should be less...drastic. Right now it feels kinda flat.

..I don't remember whether if I'd done this before, but I'm sure as hell don't mind doing it again once more. :|
1162152

Thoughts:
a) why is it so fluffeh? It..doesn't look like a ball. But more like..a cotton ball. So fluffy..I want to sleep. Wait-- er, I mean, is it the shadow not being strong enough? Or;
b) AAAAA EDGES EDGES EDGES EDGES. Or; now I'm confused about the edges. So the darker parts should be more blurred and the lighter parts should be more defined..But..but... AAAAAAH EDGEEES
c) I haven't really gotten the shading yet.
d) Hmm, I found shading and/or smoothing the ball quite hard; is it because of my brush' opacity, I wonder? (30%)

[anjyil]

Trefle-- nice start. I can understand your frustrations and you made some great observations.
a) the fluffy feeling of the ball is a combination of things, but mainly probably because you are using a soft brush with lower opacity. If you are using photoshop, you can use the circular select tool to help keep you in the lines to start with and give you a stronger edge. This exercise is about shading, not shape, so don`t worry about cheating ^_^
b) To harden the edges and make the shape less blurry, use a hard brush . Start at the top opacity (at least 85-100%) to block in your major lights and darks. As you blend, lower the opacity. This will take a lot of time to get used to, though. ^_^; Also, hard and soft edges are difficult to explain. I am still learning them. What I have found is that your darkest part should be were the sphere touches the ground within the cast shadow. That is about where the blurr should be takin place. It will give a more solid feel to it. You can check the paintover I did up above on a previous poster.

So basically, start with a hard brush and strong opacity. After your colors are in, lower the opacity and color-pick from the pall itself until you get a smooth gradient from light to dark. Keep lowering and color-picking until you have the smoothness that you want. I sometimes go over the final product with a soft brush and low opacity to smooth out the roughness. Like I said, I am still learning, too ^_^

[Trefle]

anjyil : Thanks a lot for the tips! :)

Well, so I was retrying using bigger opacity then slowly adjusting...
1163274

I have to say I'm not really used to it (am used to abusing low opacity brushes) but indeed it's quicker and the result is smoother and less cotton-like.

That being said, at some point I:
a) becomes confused of the shadows. Because the light comes directly from the left, so the light should technically cover all the left side, but the ball should also has some cast shadow from the floor, isn't it? Also, should I add another reflected shadow on the left side?

b) am unable to smooth it more than it is. Even with the fewest opacity around, it breaks the shape and becomes flat-looking (more than it already is right now). The bottom-left shading is the worst part. -A-

c) am believing the light source is changing as the result. This looks like the light is coming from the behind, upper left side.... well. :|

I don't know whether if this is my form knowledge of a sphere that's bad, or my shading..but..well. :|

[anjyil]

This one is actually looking better ^_^ You have a more definate shape. Yes, the blending does take some getting used to. I can`T remember how many spheres I did before I started to figure out the flow and rotation between opacity and brush size. Don`t forget that at this point, you can use softer brushes to help with blending. Try to stay away from the edges, though, or it will make it more blurry for you.

Light and shadow is actually not as "simple" as people make it out to be. Later in this peer project thread you will see more of what I mean . In anycase, here is an image that may help you get a clearer picture of the shadows and light and how they work on a round object.

http://www.huevaluechroma.com/pics/2-4a.jpg

It is really about angles and shape and how the light hits the object. If you box the sphere, you can use the edges of the box to help you find where the light hits and where the shadows start. If I have time later, Iwill try to draw up an example. I learned a lot about light and shadow from Gnomon workshop`s Scott Roberston 7-9th videos. Definately try and get ahold of those or, if possible, see if you can find some example clips on youtube.
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/333/How-to-Render-Matte-Surfaces-1

Don`t worry. With practice and observation, you will get better and better. I don`t know where in this thread my spheres are now, but if you find them you will see I really started out terrible, too ^_^ I still am not quite good at it yet. haha

[Trefle]

Thank you for the reply :) And thanks for the images
And another one; yay! This one is for exercise 2:

1163412
Thoughts:

a) Indeed I have to learn more with the blending. It's getting (probably) smoother but..not smooth enough. It takes less time than the second one, admittedly, but then again both spheres shows more flaws. :|

b) I'll be honest that I'm not sure whether the lighting is correct with the shadows, and the intended light source. I guess I got ahead of myself.

c) I want to use pink, but I got...rather a slight change of mood and changed it into blue. (Not important, I know.)

d) Does the half light for the colored one is slightly darker than the grayscale one, I wonder?

e) OH CRAP. no reflected shadows. D:

[anjyil]

Relax Trefle--you are starting out great. One of the things to remember about any exercises to improve your skill--don`t rush. Take your time and really try to plan out and construct what you are trying to do. As you get better, it will become second nature. Here is a quicky I did of how I figure out the light and shadow on spheres. I learned this from the gnomon workshop videos I was telling you about.

It is the same with blending. I did this one at 1000x1000 pixels. I ended up with a brush size of about 50 and an opacity of about 3 by the time I finished with this. Then I kept the lower opacity and got a larger, soft brush to smooth it a bit more. Since it was a quick one, I didn`t spend as much time as I normal would.

[Loki213]

Hi everyone, I'm a cartoonist by practice, and recently have grown really dissatisfied with my work. I'm working to expand out of my comfort zones and build some new skills. Like digital painting! I've been lurking for about a week and I'm really impressed by this community and support and the willingness to help others learn. I'm jumping in. Here's exercise #1.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v44/Loki213/loki_sphere1.jpg

Notes: First time ever "painting" as opposed to comic coloring. You know, laying flats, throwing on some highlights and shadows with the gradient tool. Coloring that way is time consuming, boring, and tedious. This was a lot more fun!

But, looking at the example, the form shadow is a lot more defined and a lot higher on the sphere. My original big colors were closer to this ideal, but as I blended I ended up pushing the shadow way far down.

I forgot to create a surface for the sphere to rest on, so I threw in some yellow at the end as a kind of ambient light I guess. Also, I tried to make the shadowed edge softer with the eraser tool. Whoops?

[anjyil]

wow, cartooning! I would love to get into that some day ^_^

You have a very nice start. What I would suggest is pushing the contrast more. Don`t be afraid to go really dark for the shadow. Your assessment was pretty right on, though. The contrast was lost as you blended. A tip, try blending from dark up to light and from light down to dark so that it meets in the middle. It might help you get more values within the sphere.

Another thing I noticed was the shadow of the sphere. There is no form and it doesn`t follow the line of light. The cast shadow will still maintain a sphereical or elliptical shape and come more towards the viewer as well.

I sometimes use the erase tool to soften the shadow, but only when it is too big. I put it on a soft brush and lower the opacity a ton so that I don`t lose the form to much.

^_^

[Trefle]

Loki213: Hey, I think it's a very good sphere you have there. :) (and an aside; I like the ambience. Very bright!)

A thing I noticed is the shadow still lacks form, especially the left side. As a result it looks kinda flat....this is also a problem I also am struggling with, so you're not alone there.

As a tips, I would recommend zooming in and trying to maintain the form while carefully blending the shadow with a small brush. Soft or hard opacity, I guess it's up to you. (I find soft opacity works better at the blending phase, but if you're used to using brushes with hard opacity, all the better!)

[Blauringkraken]

Hey you all!

I've tried ExOne and ExTwo and I'd really like to ask if I missed something. This stuff is basic knowledge and I don't want to get rid of bad habits later. Btw a very cool thread here, I hope it is active after all :D

Exercise One: Simplified Construction of a Sphere. I'm just not sure about step 4... to cast the shadow on the ground, how do you determine the exact round shadow? (In the first one I made the mistake to look at the thread... I shouldn't cross read everything... that is the cause why it looks so similar.)

Exercise Two: Tone with Color. I think I really sucked at the part to get the harshest part of that. To use the eye to see the dark/light of the values. #1 is drawn in gray tones, #2 is drawn in colors where I tried to use the same lightness as in #1. #3 is just a duplicate for #4 (which is the B/W-version of the colored one). Cheez! °°

[Blauringkraken]

Exercise Three:

#1 Pretty easy, just redundant. (I just get that I made a mistake... the table color, gray, shouldn't be here... you got me, Apathy... °°)
#2 The same in blue. The main idea was to show off the color-shading, I guess.
#3 Gray tones, Nothing else!
#4 If it absorbs any light, there will be no reflections at all. A gray dot.
#5 Mixing red/yellow light there will be a orange sphere I guess.
#6 Didn't get the difference to #3... is the idea to get a more smoother shadow?
#7 Sky-blue sphere. The light can't be white, so I used a bright blue for highlight.

So, I think that's it. Yours, Steffen

[anjyil]

Nice start on the exercises. Seems like you are reving up some steam ^_^

Yeah, the hardest thing is to setup those shadows around the spheres. The best way I have found is to setup the sphere in a box and use the edges of the box to determine where to put the shadow. Use the box to create the ellipse that will form the shadow. I think there is a post higher up that shows what I am talking about...I am a little short on time right now.

Also, for the third exercise, the answers are somewhere in this thread :/ I lost the link a while ago, but it seems like you got the right idea. Color theory is a different beast all on its own anyway, so don`t stress too much on it.

One thing I would suggest is using the circular selector tool to create a frame for you to color in while working on the shading exercises. It will help give a smoother line and good sphere shape. Your focus should be on values and shading, not trying to draw a sphere. That can come later ^_^

[Blauringkraken]

Thanks for your comment, anjyil! I found a way to get the shapes in the right form now.
I need to construct that anytime, but I'm sure to get this in mind with more practice. And thanks for the selector-tool thing... I should use more tools anyway ^^

Yours, Steffen

[Blauringkraken]

ExThree: Clay/Matte distorts lightnings everywhere, used soft round brush to give light to one side + inside, darkened the hole. Plastic creates more lights at it, but still not the clear reflection. Used round brush and make light side brighter. Metal has smaller highlights and well defined edges at light. Also put in some scratches... Second pic is only me using the selection-tool to safe object form.

[Blauringkraken]

ExFour: Hues Awesome exercise! Totally loved it... I found myself defining the HSBs in the skycolor and everything XD

1. H 60°
2. H 137°
3. H 326°
4. H 85°
5. H 25°

6. H 186°
7. H 61°
8. H Random / S 0% / B 78% (Nice one ^^)
9. H 56°
10. H236°

[anjyil]

nice work Blauringkraken ^_^ The surface reflection exercise looks pretty good. Remember that for metals, the contrasting shadows have equally defined edges, though neither are quite as strong as solid lines. For the matte surface, you can definately push the contrast a lot more on it. Yes, there shouldn`t be distinct highlights, but there should be a definate gradient of value.

The color spot exercise looks good ^_^

[Blauringkraken]

Thanks for your help & advices, anjyil! I've noted that and I will try to practice that.

ExFour: Brightness (to bad this is the last one :/ )

1. B 100%
2. B 100%
3. B 100% (first three are pretty simple...)
4. B 66% (nearly... that is the closest color, given that the others are right)
5. B 56% (but here is a mistake... H 126° & S 58% are right here)

6. B 96%
7. B 95%
8. B 42%
9. B 87%
10. B 51% (and the same problem as in 4...)

[anjyil]

You are welcome--I find the best way to learn is to share what you are learning. This exercise I can`t really help much on, though...It looks pretty good ^_^

[mitchoo]

Great lessons! Here is my take. This is quiet new for me, I knew about values etc. but never looked at them this way. Got some tips?

[TheGreekDollmaker]

Great lessons! Here is my take. This is quiet new for me, I knew about values etc. but never looked at them this way. Got some tips?

Thanks for this image.

I just started coloring recently and i was trying to think how sphreres can be colored and the details about the lighting.

While this image is helpfull does any of you have any some begginer tutorials about acrylics or geometrical shapes.

Edit: Seeing the previous pages heres a nice exercise.

Try to create a sphere with 2 light sources.For extra point let them be different color.

[SSquir33]

elo.1st post woo. 3d artist here trying to paint shit. this thread is soooo big. i dove in and started with ex.2 on spheres.

tell me if im doing anything outrageously wrong, from what i gathered, u can get away with anything as long as the value reads correctly??? idk. i need to study colour theory more.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5305/5647009190_e578c2afbb_b.jpg

[anjyil]

Mitchoo-- Nice start for the exercises. I had never heard about the eyelash trick, though I had heard about blurring your vision to help. I think the big thing is that the transitions are very sharp in your word. Values should be gradual, regardless of the material. You will want to work on blending, especially on the computer. That takes time and patience.
The light value above the sphere is a great idea and really helps you align your shadows well. I wish I had some suggestions for transitioning between colors and grayscale, but unfortunately I haven`t found the quick answer. It is just practice and practice. Take the object, photograph it, then turn it into grayscale on the computer. I also heard that you can take a piece of colored glass and use that instead of using the computer.


TheGreekDollmaker-- there are a lot of tutorials about spheres and geometrical shapes. You can check deviantart.com, or even just use google. I don`t have any of my own links with me right now--sorry ^_^;


SSquir33--I think that it would have been better to have the light source more near the front of the sphere to see it easier and give more shape, but in all I think you got the right idea. There is the answer key somewhere in this thread but I am not sure where... ^_^; As for color, there are actually some extremely strict rules that if not followed can make the image look really bad--even if the composition is good. It has a lot to do with complimentary colors, contrasting colors, hot, cold, and several other things I haven`t figured out yet. I have only dabbled in color-theory, but I have seen the wrong things really hurt a piece. It is not just value, unfortunately.

Sorry I don`t have any of my links on me today...a quick google search may help on some of these. The answer key is buried, I think...

[Little-Maiden]

Um yeah I guess this is task1?

Tbh the shadows are much more difficult to get right, I'm confused though, if the sphere rests on a surface, is the cast shadow supposed to be a simple grey? Shouldn't it be taking on the colour from the surface beneath it? (unless its a deep deep shadow in which case its just black).

Also task 2 (EDIT)

I had a fun time with this (pardon the shabby cutouts, I was in Sketchbook Pro11 and it doesnt have a greyscale feature so I had to cut out and to PS) Still though, its really odd, I did the first purple sphere (no.1) as dark, i was close to the colour of the grey sphere but it was off by just a bit dark, so I lightened up the sphere slightly in purple no.2, still a bit dark, but better.

[nahumfarchi]

hey all, this thread is really cool. I was just looking for back to basics sort of excercises.

I made two attempts at exercise 2. I went too dark in the first one. My values are much more accurate in the second one but still not perfect. The value around the highlight is too dark I think. Still new to digital.. my control is kind of lacking and I still can't get the transitions smooth.

Here are my results:

[Lois Tan]

http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/9717/simplifiedconstructiono.jpg
Good exercise :) Never really thought about lighting so much.
I think the 1st difficult for me is, should I draw the dark part 1st, or the light part 1st?
I'm still a bit confused, but I chose the dark part 1st. I find drawing layer upon layers very difficult. some how, my form shadow didnt really turn out the way I wanted it. Yet I'm kinda stuck as to what i can do about it.
Please give me ur critiques :)

[darkisato]

Exercise One: Simplified Construction of a Sphere
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/385628_3551470039149_1644588212_2833814_1343424707 _n.jpg
Exercise Two: Tone with Color
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/295057_3535539240889_1644588212_2831455_568552441_ n.jpg
Exercise Three: Light and Color
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/156150_3536117855354_1644588212_2831798_247929179_ n.jpg
Exercise Four: Light and Color Part B!
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/540634_3551066789068_11197550_n.jpg
Exercise Five: Light and Color Part C!
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/574504_3551509480135_1644588212_2833830_485469240_ n.jpg
Project One (Beta): Simple Shape Rendering, emphasis on different materials!
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/563019_3551332635714_1644588212_2833769_1856004272 _n.jpg
Exercise Six: Color Recognition: Part A: Hue!
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/575206_3551067429084_1644588212_2833587_1525107550 _n.jpg
Exercise Six: Color Recognition: Part B: "Brightness"!
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/582185_3551067149077_1644588212_2833585_1398981314 _n.jpg:lounge::yawn::zzz:

[Care]

hi i found this site really helpful when studying the effects of color light and shadow. its done by a concept art member.

http://www.huevaluechroma.com/

V, informative will explain why the highlight always needs to directly face the viewer (i.e YOURSELF! :)) and why the terminator (where light goes into shadow) is always at a right angle to the light source (try it u will see!)