JyonnyNovice - from Novice to Master!

[JyonnyNovice]

Art44 Thanks man! Thanks for stopping by!

Adrian I feel you about the Bargue stuff, I skimmed through the introduction text that outlines the point of it and picked up a little - basically to teach students how to draw accurately from observation (to apply to their own stuff)? I really want to improve my observation and getting angles right and stuff... and stop this god awful skewing to the right that everything I draw has >.< Thanks for the visit : )


Might be another update later, been working on something for the last few days, in the meantime some digital heads - these are so hard... I'm finding it much harder doing these with paint... which is probably a good thing... but the hours I put into these, where I could've done maybe 10 pencil drawings, I dunno which way I'd improve more. Gonna stick with this for a while though and see.

[JyonnyNovice]

This is what I've been up to the last few days mainly, went back to the beginning of the How to Render book and redoing all the exercises in digital (up to page 43 so far), trying to choose correct values - all painted straight, no blending modes or adjustment layers, just paint. Some are better than others, but I figured out my mistakes I think.

The candle one is a bit off - shadows should be much, much softer and lighter in value, the fourth one the light to dark value difference is too great and the last diving board looking one I mixed up the light direction and got a weird looking shadow but the others seem pretty ok to me. Not too concerned with accurate reflected light and gradation in the shadows yet, just trying for solid construction and values so far.



EDIT

Actually I dunno about the last image now... Mr Gurney says that if there is full sunlight, a white in shadow is darker than a black in light, which isn't the case in my image. I followed the 'halfway to black' rule, which Scott Robertson explains, my white was 100 on top, so shadow side was 50 (halfway to black), yet my black was already down to value 32 or so in the light side (halfway to black 15/16 in the shadow part)... guess I should've made my 'black' a much higher value in the fully lit part.

[JyonnyNovice]

Did some tests since I still had this stuff on different layers, bit confused over this issue of whites and blacks in light / shadow. I did these three variations.

1) Adjusted just the black patch areas to fit both, Gurney's rule and the halfway to black rule (doesn't quite get there and looks wrong and washed out this way)

2) Brightened the black patches in the light to bring it above the 'white' in shadow. Fits Gurney's rule. Doesn't fit halfway to black rule'

3) Adjusted contrast of whole structure, brought 'white' in shadow value down below the 'black' in light. Fits Gurney's rule. Doesn't fit halfway to black rule.



Number 3 looks the more realistic one, to me anyway, but it smashes the 'halfway to black rule', which is supposed to apply to sunlight conditions... anyone can shed some light (:D) on this for me?

I'm using Coolorus on photoshop to get these value numbers btw, if that affects anything.

[Patrick Gaumond]

Technically speaking gurney's rule is really referring to simultaneous contrast, meaning that the perceived value is 100% affected by the values surrounding it, same thing with colour.

Halfway to black is actually true in sunlight conditions, but not all the time. It depends a lot on circumstance obviously, where you are in relationship to the light and how reflective the surfaces are.

Simulataneous contrast is not a rule you plan values out with, it's a phenomenon that describes how colour and value are shifted in our brain. It's hard to replicate it the way gurney did in an actual painting intentionally. Usually, what you end up doing is taking a dark value thats in the lit side and placing it in the shadow side so it appears as a lighter value or taking a value that appears relatively light in the shadow side and putting in the light side so it appears dark. Theres no real rule to it.. its completely and unabashedly situational, and you need to experiment with it to really understand it in an actual painting.

On the other hand, halfway to black was conceived solely as a rule of thumb. It's also situational, but much less so. It's meant as a starting point, and technically speaking it is correct but it might not give you the desired look, so feel free to push and pull within reason to get what you want. Even if you set your painting up so its under perfect conditions for it, ie its 12 pm in the middle of summer and the surfaces are 100% matte, it still might look meh. I find that the rule actually makes more sense in colour, oddly enough. For instance a local value 1 surface should have 4.5 or 5 as a shadow side yet it looks washed out, however when you see that in real world in a colour painting it looks fine.


I can give examples of what I'm talking about if you're interested or if that didn't make sense

[JyonnyNovice]

Patrick Thanks for the reply, you've helped me to get it a bit with the halfway to black. It's not a cold hard scientific thing for all situations but a good starting point - that's fine. How Gurney explains his stuff though seems to be more than just a perceived shift - or well, he talks about both - I scanned the page for clarity, I think you were referring to the checkerboard illusion, where we see the black in light and the white in shadow as brighter or darker depending what our brain 'tells us' is darker or lighter. But in reality they are exactly the same value (& colour too). I put the swatches above the image to prove it to myself.



That part is mind blowing, but I accept it, it's all good, and shows how darker or lighter backgrounds can make an image seem lighter or darker, and how what we expect something to be affects how we perceive it.

What was confusing me though, is the photo in the bottom left - black shirt in light, white newspaper in shadow, he proves it with the swatches next to it that the white in shadow is a lower value than the black in light, it seems like it must be a consistent rule if the same light source is affecting both objects. I'm sure it depends on how much light is reflected into the shadow side of the white object - which is perhaps why my blocks didn't fit that rule, since the ground is very light.

I dunno, maybe I stress over these small details too much, but I want to really understand this. I can study photo's and movie stills and photo's of paintings - but no idea how realistic or how much image processing has been done on them. I want to really understand how light and value works in reality before I start to use it for artistic effect.

Thanks again for all your help, if you can clarify those things, please tell me!




Few of my own images so this post isn't all text. Some warm ups from last few days. The cubes are drawn looking at a 3D cube reference, trying to replicate the correct angles from observation (I stress the word 'trying'!). And some fugly heads - with these I wasn't concerned with how it looked as a face, just trying to make a head that's solid with the features balanced, I feel if I can master that my heads will start to look much better.

[KurtJeremy]

thats good head. Proportions are off. but the Form is understandable. now think of proportions . trace over a photo if you need to take note of the proportions then redraw.

[Patrick Gaumond]

This is where designing your illustration around light and shadow is super important. Everything you just showed is completely perceptual; we KNOW that shirt is black and that paper is white, or that checker is black and that checker is white, because we have 2 different sets of information: we have a part of it in light, and a part of in shadow. Despite the fact that they are the exact same value, and sometimes even the same colour, our brain/eye will still make adjustments so it reads properly and so that we understand the local value of and thus can separate it from the information around it. If he had set up those pictures in a different way, for instance removing the gradient in the background of the shirt picture, or setting things up so you dont see the light side of the newspaper, the illusion would vanish or be severely reduced. Because we have the light information, ie we know that under light the newspaper is extremely light and because we see the transition between light and shadow clearly instead of it being obstructed, it's much easier for our brain to make the leap that that is, in fact, white.



Also, the problem with his example is twofold

1: that shirt is not 100% matte like the paper is, therefore it reflects more light and despite being black it appears quite light. If he was a wearing a black cotton tshirt under sunlight the 1/2 way to black rule would be much more apparent, and the illusion we create to understand local value would still be present but much less drastic than this.

2:Black generally speaking is more blueish, especially in this scenario it seems as though its not pure black but quite a bit more saturated than the paper by comparison, while white, especially under sunlight, is more yellow-orangish, therefore not only is there value contrast going on, but also complementary contrast. So even though it seems black and white, it's emphatically not, though the difference is quite subtle. People always say you can't turn form or create separation with colour, but that is just simply not true. The effect is much more subtle, but its possible and often necessary to do so especially when you have situations like this.

I took a cross section of two different segments to show what I mean. The picture was quite low res though so its blurry but it shows my point about surrounding value/colour



The two samples were taken right around where he put the number. I also used clone stamp to remove some of white that was creating a separation of light and dark between the paper and shirt. Notice how in both cases the illusion seems less intense, and when you observe the colours in grayscale with Dot gain, you see how close they are in value. Some of the illusion was clearly due to complementary contrast, some to simultaneous contrast, and much, much less to value contrast.

So in conclusion, if you want white to read as a white in the shadows despite it being darker than black in light, you must organize your light in such a way that we know in light that it is in fact white, and you must organize your colour in such a way that there is separation there as well. There's no formula like 1/2 to black, its very much situational. Also it's good to want to understand the subject, if thats the way you are don't fight it, just seek answers and experiment with them until you feel you have some understanding of it. It will help later on, not because you will be able to recite it perfectly or need to plan exactly every single contingency in a painting, but you will be able to resolve issues surrounding the design of colour and light in your work intuitively. If you're stressing over it in these exercises and studies thats a good thing, it's better than being faced with a deadline and running into then because you always brushed it off while studying. My sensei used to tell me "Bleed and sweat in the dojo so you don't have to in the battlefield". I think that's an apt way to put it here

[JyonnyNovice]

Patrick Thanks again for breaking this stuff down in such detail! I get what you meant about it being perceptual now - it's not 'black' or 'white' but we perceive it as black or white based on being able to see light and shadow areas - I guess this extends to different colours too although less easy to perceive (like blue probably has a different value 'range' and typical behaviour than yellow - so much cool stuff waiting to be learned xD).

It was just confusing in my black and white blocky renders above that I had the last few with clear black and white sections, that looked to me as black and white (because I can see the light / mid and shadow sides) yet they didn't fit Gurney's example (were not even close). Your explanation has cleared that up (although opened a whole set of other questions and uncertainties! but I can discover the answers as I go).

I've been trying to observe this stuff in real life. I was at a meeting today that had black frame chairs, the wall was painted white and there were skylights casting nice shadows of objects on the walls and funneling light to give the chairs a really clear 1 - 2 - 3 contrast. Sun was going in and out so I saw in sunny and overcast conditions. The chair frames were somewhat matte, although they did have some dull reflections. Anyway I could squint and move my head so the light part of the black frame was right next to the shadow on the white wall and the white shadow part was indeed a bit darker. Same in sunlight and cloud. I also tested at home facing a book towards me away from the light and holding up some black objects towards the light and the same was true - so at least that's a certainty in my mind. I tried looking at photo's of black cotton T-shirts and white things but the values were totally not what I expected probably because of image processing or the limited nature of cameras to pick up a full value range. Even still, I'm going to take some photo's of my own with various black and white objects in various lights and see what I discover.

In the meantime, I'm just doing some studies of black clothes with the aim of getting the values such that it 'looks' black, with the light and dark areas. Didn't really pull it off on this one, it's a hard exercise! so probably means it's going to be worthwhile when I nail it.

[rork]

Great progress, your work load puts me to shame, one tip I can give is to switch off your brain when observing and take you line for a walk, dont think about what your drawing and dont focus too much about whats on your page, try it with the human head, even if its not accurate you will end up with an interesting line drawing, i use a ballpoint pen as I find the pen and tablet doesnt lend itself well to this technique ( for me anyway )

[JyonnyNovice]

Firefox Sorry mate, I forgot to thank you for your comment before! I think I got proportions a bit better today but I'll try some tracing too.

Rork Thanks Rork, I'll give that technique a try for sure. Do you aim to keep proportion and stuff when you do that just in a line by line way (like upside down drawing or bargue drawing or something) or do you mean just go total freeform and pick up lines as you go round? (kinda like a blind drawing but while looking...?) Sounds cool though, I wanna try!

Stuff from today; trying to work out a good working method for photoshop to get lines / value lay down I'm happy with, kinda like the way these heads worked out, used a pencil texture brush for loose sketch, then hard round for some lines then chalk brush to add value. I'll try this approach for a while.







The soft edges to the shadows look pretty bad, trying to figure out a nice way to soften them - might be better to paint the whole shadow with a soft brush and use smaller size for the hard edge parts. The ones above I started with hard shadow with lasso tool and tried to pull back the edges with soft brush - looks too messy.

[KurtJeremy]

its all good dude , awesome figures see how useful knowing perspective in drawing them?
just do more gestures and youll get it down . my problem with the figure now is actually painting it. i mostly draw than paint so that is something i need to work on.

[JyonnyNovice]

Foxfire I'm the same, I've only ever drawn figures, never tried to paint them! Will get to that soon...


Some doodles and skeletons from today plus a rendering / design exercise that fell apart transferring to perspective, but I know the mistakes I made... gonna keep going with it since it's for rendering practice mainly.

[JyonnyNovice]

Figure stuff today. Watched Anthony Jones's videos called 'approachable anatomy', has a really cool technique for posing characters using dots to pre-visualise for the elbows / shoulders / wrists / knees / etc, then when it's set you fill in between and get some nice overlaps and foreshortening going on. Been trying that a bit - trying to draw more from imagination too since my colour figure below looks ok, few problems but mainly there is no life to it - it looks like what it is, which is a pose copied from a photo. Need to get some more feeling and emotion into these figures, which won't work if it's just a photo I don't feel a connection to. Working on that!

[Adrian]

Ohh nice man. Feels like you're leveling up even faster by the day lol.

Wanted to ask you about Anthony Jones's vids .. hmm I don't recall any with the name you've mentioned. Mind linking me to them ? :D

[JyonnyNovice]

Thanks man! I'm like you though, when it's from reference I'm not as happy about it. Today I'm gonna try and do a nice figure / pose / colouring from imagination!

Here's the link to the tutorial: https://gumroad.com/l/pjND only $6, can watch them all in an hour and really neat technique for posing.

[JyonnyNovice]

A warm up sketch. Some figure stuff from today, trying to apply stuff to imagination work (just referenced the dress and flower basket) - the hands and feet need much much more studying... Also a composition study (I did apply the stuff I learned but don't want to post it). And some random thumbnails from a gumroad tutorial.

[meat]

I like all the colors in the flower girls design! Look up patter designs for her costume too! Look for Eastern European traditional dresses.

[JyonnyNovice]

Meat Thanks for dropping by! Glad you like the colours, I really like the saturated cell shaded stuff, it's nice for a beginner to do. Yes a pattern would look great - so many things to think about when doing these characters! Feels like I am juggling so many balls when doing this stuff... I dropped a few on this one but it should get easier after a few more... I'll definitely check out those dresses and develop her outfit some more when I draw her again.


Some messy loosening up sketches - I'm really digging this loose, messy photoshop stuff, it's really fun.



A perspective / rendering exercise that I got totally bored with and abandoned unfinished... the long, slow, careful perspective construction stuff is starting to become not so fun anymore. Need to inject something into that...



And some Z-brush stuff - I'm learning this program so I can sculpt some heads to help me get better at drawing them. Kinda got sidetracked too much with lighting and texturing but it's great fun sculpting this stuff.

[Patrick Gaumond]

That sculpture legitimately belongs in five nights at freddies 0-0

[JyonnyNovice]

Patrick Thanks! It seems I have enough knowledge to build this stuff... just need to work on drawing skills to capture it.

Stuff from today:





Didn't try very hard on the render, was trying to do it quickly and it wasn't looking too nice and didn't want to start again.



I've started this weekly illustration challenge with a friend - idea is to plan an illustration on Saturday and then finish it on Sunday, so we can do studies and stuff in the week but always be practising applying stuff to a finished piece. These are my thumbnails, I started straight in colour because I saw this picture with the same kind of washed out purples / pinks / blues and the strong orange / yellow and I wanted to use them. Will probably redraw the one I use / do values and paint on top with these colours.

I will use one of them for the painting tomorrow - not sure which one yet, any suggestions?