This box for rants

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so you want to draw a character with sharp teeth? that’s cool! you have a lot of options. like most things, how you draw fearsome teeth can be improved by looking at nature and i’m gonna show you how.

Lighting your Painting: 4 Ways to Solve the Lighting Problem

Fundamentals of Painting

“Most of the time when we are painting, we get so overwhelmed with all the info, which is why practicing the lighting fundamentals beforehand will be beneficial for future work. This will be a pretty lengthy article, but it is pretty comprehensive in terms of necessary fundamentals. 

Fundamental #1: Importance of the Plane

When painting and using light, you need to switch from the form build-up approach to thinking about the right plane structure to make the right lighting decisions.

If you can simplify the elements into the proper planes you will understand the structure better and you will be able to assign the right values (when lighting).

Fundamental #2: Light Properties

There are  some consideration to make when thinking about lighting. I will try my best to explain some of properties and explain how the lights affect the values and colors of a scene.

Light-Shadow Ratio: The light-shadow ratio determines how much of a contrast there is between light and shadow. A higher contrast is created due to sunlight, and a lower contrast due to overcast weather for example. This is caused by different intensities in light.

Value Keys: Value keying is mainly a design technique used to adjust the value scale while maintaining the light-shadow ratio. Depending on the light situation we have a specific value key in the scene.

Value Compression: Value compression is needed, because we as painters can´t get the full range of light into our paintings. We need to decide, if we want to expose for the light side or shadow side and sacrifice the values on the other side

Light Color: The first thing to understand about light is that it constantly changes it´s wavelengths, therefore changing it´s color. To simplify the process just identify the light as a warm or cold light.

Shading Components

Fundamental #3: Light Set-up

Now that we know how values and colors and affected by light, let´s look at how to set up lighting situations. These lighting situations are always used, and can be divided into natural and artificial light:

Light Types: There are only 3 basic light types you need to know to light your scene. Key Light, Fill Light and Rim Light.

Light Sources: There are only so many light sources that exist. Knowing about them will help you identifying them in any given reference and use them creatively.

Global Illumination: The characteristics of global illumination is the use of bounced/reflected light. It is used to calculate where reflected light is coming from, so we know which planes receive what light in any given scene. You need to treat it as a diffuse light source. It is most effective when there are a lot of shadows.

Fundamental #4: Material Behaviour

Many Material renders disregard the properties of Light. The reason we have learned about light in the first place is to convey materials in different lighting conditions and make them congruent to the scene. Let´s look at the materials and how light interacts with different surfaces.

Learn how to think about shapes, value, color and edges and understand it to apply the knowledge of physics to adjust your values and colors. A proper artist knows both the mechanics of painting and of physics.”

Art block is that moment when you realise your skills could be so much more then they currently are. It frustrates you to draw because you can finally see your drawings differently. You can see where they can be better and you want them to be better.  It’s not a matter of “I can’t draw today”, it’s a matter of “I imagined this would turn out so much better” and “there’s something missing, I just know it. What technique did I miss.” You’ve got past that temporary phase of analysing and researching and now you’re able to incorporate it in your own work, you just need to figure out how, and when you get past that art block. Well, you’ll see the improvement before you know it. Slowly, but it’s there. And once you get comfortable with using those new skills you’ll move on and start analysing again, and you’ll see where you can improve.

If you’re going to look at someones work for ref, make sure you are not just redrawing it. The key to improving is STUDY. 

I’d suggest if you want to learn body proportions you should draw real people first, even if you want to stylize later. Thats always a base foundation for anything ! but if you want to study up on other things that inspire you and you ike thats ok too, but make sure you’re asking yourself WHY you like them.

how many ‘heads’ tall is the character ? how wide are there eyes apart or how long is their nose compared to the rest of their face ? break it down and see how someone builds their drawings and their proportions and then you can learn from artists you admire. You get a lot more out of learning that way then re-drawing anyones work. 

take a look at this crazy breakdown - now this is so animators can keep the proportions on model BUT if you learn how to use this method ( maybe not as in depth ) you can start to study up on ANYTHING that inspires you when it comes to proportions/anatomy or style. its just about understanding the form , but in order to understand it you need to know it too , which is why lifedrawing is always very important as a base :) have fun , experiment , but dont forget that base foundation ! it will aid you in everything moving forward. If you dont have lifedrawing classes then look up stock photography or use this website  to time some poses so you can get long and short ones in.