Whirly123
2015-06-07 08:34
For the study where you say the value you use it isn't the average value of the shape your draw but its darkest value is interesting. I have never heard that before and will keep it in mind for my next study.
jaimeiniesta
2015-06-12 20:57
I'm going to work on all the previous lessons using pen and paper by now, but it's good to have these lessons on digital painting, as I can take a peek :)
I have a Wacom Intuos Pen & Touch medium tablet, and for the software I'm really happy with Mischief -- it's a really simple interface. I'm also happy with SketchBook Pro, specially for their perspective tools.
Not sure if it would be worth getting into Photoshop as well, I guess it is as you use it :)
Uncomfortable
2015-06-12 23:11
I gave Mischief a shot back when it first came out. I really loved it, but at the time it cost over a hundred bucks, and I didn't think I'd use it much. I might check it out again now that the price is lower.
At the end of the day, yeah, I use Photoshop for 99% of my work. That is partially because it's the industry standard (and since I work professionally in a studio, it's important for me to know my way around the software those studios would have on hand), but it's also because I've always found it to be the most flexible. That said, in a way it's also my crutch. It's a good idea to shop around. Try some trials, see how they feel, give everything a fair shake.
Ultimately I can't think of any concept that I intend to teach that will be Photoshop specific.
Oh- I also have Sketchbook Pro, their perspective tools are fantastic. I never did like painting in that program, but their drawing engine is definitely better than Photoshop's.
megapizzapocalypse
2015-07-13 01:21
I'm nowhere close to starting these later lessons, but I just wanted to ask - would charcoal be an acceptable medium? I mean sticks/ blocks of charcoal, obviously pencils wouldn't work.
Uncomfortable
2015-07-13 20:01
For this lesson at least, I don't see why you couldn't, though it'd be more difficult to avoid muddying your value levels. The exercise requires you split up your composition into a limited range of values, and charcoal tends to be very smudgy. You'd end up with a lot of situations where different areas would bleed into one another.
Grieffon
2015-09-07 21:44
There are some errors in the lesson:
-
"Where do I put my Focal Points" section: second paragraph of rule of third, there's "You can look at figure 4.3". The correct number should be 5.3
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Leading the eye: the last two paragraphs is from some human anatomy lesson.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-07 21:54
wooow. Thanks for the catch! Let me know if you find anything else, I do this thing.. a lot. It's embarrassing.
Grieffon
2015-09-07 21:57
Also, there's something that I have heard a lot about, including here, but still don't quite understand: what kind of qualities would a shape need to have for it to be an "interesting shape"?
Uncomfortable
2015-09-07 22:01
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-07 22:02
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-07 22:10
I was going to say, "fuuuck, I donno man" but my graphic designer friend who is sitting next to me suggested that you find a piece of art that you like, and I'll point out what kind of shapes are interesting in the composition.
Man, leave it to a graphic designer to know all about how to tackle questions about shapes.
To add, however, a graphic designer I am not, so I'm not entirely qualified to answer this question with all that much accuracy. That said, there is a great way to learn about those aspects of composition: read a book.
Here are a few that might help:
Grieffon
2015-09-08 17:33
At this stage, would it already be considered an "interesting shape", or is it just a balance of value?
There's also another part that puzzles me:
Your biggest priority is hammering down shapes that look interesting together. At its core, composition is all about graphic design. Once you've nailed that down, you have to start explaining. You take a shape and say, "well this looks like a person" or "this looks like a big rock".
When I watch your thumbnail videos, and also of other people, it seems to be the other way around: what the shape is supposed to be is already decided (rock, person), but the shape will still be experimented with to make for an interesting human shape or interesting rock shape. For example, for the second thumbnail, the moment you lay down the Y shape, hadn't it already been decided to be support for a tent? Same for the human figure after that. And wouldn't that way make more sense? I feel like if I just start laying down random shapes, a round blob here and straight bar there, it will just become an incomprehensible scribble.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-09 17:32
It's true that when I'm laying down those shapes, I have a vague idea of what they're intended to be - but I'm still focusing on their existence in my composition as shapes, and their particular arrangement is still fluid. The tent's support can be set up in a multitude of ways. I decide which way works best for me based on the shapes they create.
Ultimately however, your decisions are going to be swayed if you have a vague idea of what you want to paint. Sometimes you have no idea at all, and you're just looking for neat combinations of shapes. Other times you know exactly what you need, and it becomes a bit of a struggle to try to forget about those preconceived notions of what you need to exist on the canvas.
I find what tends to make shapes more interesting is playing with the balance between different kinds of edges. A square isn't that interesting - it's a bunch of straight edges with 90 degree angles. Cut a triangle out of the side of that square though, and we start to get something a little more complex. Still a little boring, because everything's straight. Make one of the edges of that triangle cut-out a curve, and now you've got an interesting transition from flat and directional to an easing curve.
jaimeiniesta
2015-11-25 22:59
Hey, there's a repeated paragraph in lesson 14, Balance: "Looking back at our major masses..."
jaimeiniesta
2015-11-28 12:08
On the still-frame studies, should we stick to using just 3 values, right? Dark, medium and light, to represent the proximity to the camera.
Then, on a picture like this, I would use the darkest for the foreground character on the right, medium for the ground and the characters on the left, and light for the rest.
But then, I would paint both the mountain and the sky using the light color, there would be no difference. Is that the idea, or should we use 4 levels here?
Uncomfortable
2015-11-28 15:57
You'd stick with three. That's part of the challenge. If you look at the demo for this exercise, you'll notice that the background that you can see through the windows is blended between two value levels, and that they're not split up in terms of "this building is darker and that building is lighter". Parts of a building are made dark, and the rest is left to blend into what is behind it.
Rather than capturing objects, this exercise is about finding out how to describe the gist of what's there using interesting shapes and a very limited set of values. Also, the closer-dark farther-light is a good rule of thumb, but you don't always have to stick super closely to it. In the demo, if you look at the building all the way to the right side of the composition, I use a darker value to make the cut out of that building pop out.
Uncomfortable
2015-06-07 16:41
The levels of value at different distances from the viewer used to confuse the crap out of me. Doing it this way seemed to solidify the concepts, though. By immediately marking down the absolute darkest any section could be, you end up with a better sense of that hierarchy, and also end up fixing up your values less later on. Not to say I don't still have to fix my values.. I'm generally kind of unstructured and messy. But that's our little secret!