11-22-2013, 09:28 AM
Hey, you're a busy bee, mofo. Great works. You seemed to have a bit of trouble with altering the value structures in you orc sculpt image, so I did a quick demo of how you can go about that.
First off - SIMPLIFY. 2 value structures are great for this. Think about it as if you went into photoshop and put on a filter that reduced the image to simple shapes of light and dark. So I did that here, reducing the image to only 2 values, lights and darks. And it's interesting how that's really all you need to describe a form - it's why cartoons work as well as they do. It's worth noting that I'm not trying to get a good drawing or likeness here. The point of this is to break apart an image and try to reconstruct its value structure into manageable terms for yourself. With 2 values we can get various different results - full contrast/full value scale, low contrast/high value scale, mid contrast/low value scale, low contrast/low value scale. (Some people refer to these as full key, high key, low key lighting patterns, but I think addressing what range of value as well as how much contrast is in the image is important to describe.) If we introduce gradients into the image, we can get even more variations.
Moving onto 3 values, you can easily see how quickly we can get tons of different variations on the same image. Blocking these out will show you how your final image will read, and they're so quick to do that it's invaluable before you start an image so as to not waste time at the end by having to fix these fundamental problems.
One thing to say about "sculpting" an image is that your brushstrokes should act as planar strokes - big, blocky, single, opaque strokes. Don't worry about rendering, especially at the beginning. When sculpting, you slowly chip away at the larger masses. The least amount of strokes you can use to describe a form, the better. However, don't get too self conscious about it, just realize that that's the ultimate goal of any painter.
I know this was a lot of rambling on, so if anything seems like it needs clarifying or (even more likely) it's just garbage that you don't want to listen to, let me know. :) Keep it up.
First off - SIMPLIFY. 2 value structures are great for this. Think about it as if you went into photoshop and put on a filter that reduced the image to simple shapes of light and dark. So I did that here, reducing the image to only 2 values, lights and darks. And it's interesting how that's really all you need to describe a form - it's why cartoons work as well as they do. It's worth noting that I'm not trying to get a good drawing or likeness here. The point of this is to break apart an image and try to reconstruct its value structure into manageable terms for yourself. With 2 values we can get various different results - full contrast/full value scale, low contrast/high value scale, mid contrast/low value scale, low contrast/low value scale. (Some people refer to these as full key, high key, low key lighting patterns, but I think addressing what range of value as well as how much contrast is in the image is important to describe.) If we introduce gradients into the image, we can get even more variations.
Moving onto 3 values, you can easily see how quickly we can get tons of different variations on the same image. Blocking these out will show you how your final image will read, and they're so quick to do that it's invaluable before you start an image so as to not waste time at the end by having to fix these fundamental problems.
One thing to say about "sculpting" an image is that your brushstrokes should act as planar strokes - big, blocky, single, opaque strokes. Don't worry about rendering, especially at the beginning. When sculpting, you slowly chip away at the larger masses. The least amount of strokes you can use to describe a form, the better. However, don't get too self conscious about it, just realize that that's the ultimate goal of any painter.
I know this was a lot of rambling on, so if anything seems like it needs clarifying or (even more likely) it's just garbage that you don't want to listen to, let me know. :) Keep it up.