05-01-2015, 05:31 AM
hey there and welcome to the forum!
Good job on the study, especially for 1 hour. If you want to achieve a good sense of realism, I think it would be helpful if you stopped thinking of it as "shading" and started thinking of it as "forms" or "lighting". I know its a matter of semantics, but a strong sense of lighting really is the key to higher realism, especially in work like Dave's. In digital work you have a lot of freedom in how you work. For instance in pencil or in watercolours, it's a lot easier to get darker than it is to add light. In paint, and also digital paint, you can go either way. In my opinion it's easier and more natural to start with darks and add lights on top, since that's the way light works in the real world and I think it's more helpful to define a form that way, by adding light to it rather than by thinking of it as shading
Other things you can do is to practice studying in grayscale as well colour. You've done a good job avoiding the anime proportions for the most part, however I can still see the anime influence when it comes to lighting and values. Studying real things in grayscale will help you understand how those forms really look. So if you like doing portraits find some well-lit grayscale portraits online and study those! Also if you want to get better at lighting i think it's also a good idea to practice not using lines, or using lines only for the biggest shapes (outlines of major forms like the head, clothes and so on). Lines tend to hold the form and can cause misjudgements in choosing values, and so when you remove them towards the end it might not look accurate anymore. Working without lines from the beginning can be intimidating if it's the first time but it's a good exercise regardless!
And last thing, add in some longer studies! Being on a timer can make you more efficient in mark making, but I think you don't learn as much about the small variations and subtleties as when you spend several hours trying to get as much information as you can out of 1 study. Not saying not to do quicker studies, they are useful but make sure it's not all you do. Quality is as important as quantity when it comes to art
Good job on the study, especially for 1 hour. If you want to achieve a good sense of realism, I think it would be helpful if you stopped thinking of it as "shading" and started thinking of it as "forms" or "lighting". I know its a matter of semantics, but a strong sense of lighting really is the key to higher realism, especially in work like Dave's. In digital work you have a lot of freedom in how you work. For instance in pencil or in watercolours, it's a lot easier to get darker than it is to add light. In paint, and also digital paint, you can go either way. In my opinion it's easier and more natural to start with darks and add lights on top, since that's the way light works in the real world and I think it's more helpful to define a form that way, by adding light to it rather than by thinking of it as shading
Other things you can do is to practice studying in grayscale as well colour. You've done a good job avoiding the anime proportions for the most part, however I can still see the anime influence when it comes to lighting and values. Studying real things in grayscale will help you understand how those forms really look. So if you like doing portraits find some well-lit grayscale portraits online and study those! Also if you want to get better at lighting i think it's also a good idea to practice not using lines, or using lines only for the biggest shapes (outlines of major forms like the head, clothes and so on). Lines tend to hold the form and can cause misjudgements in choosing values, and so when you remove them towards the end it might not look accurate anymore. Working without lines from the beginning can be intimidating if it's the first time but it's a good exercise regardless!
And last thing, add in some longer studies! Being on a timer can make you more efficient in mark making, but I think you don't learn as much about the small variations and subtleties as when you spend several hours trying to get as much information as you can out of 1 study. Not saying not to do quicker studies, they are useful but make sure it's not all you do. Quality is as important as quantity when it comes to art