02-12-2016, 05:04 AM
I think it's hard to see the benefit of those kind of studies, but each one you do is further ingraining those principles into your head. You could try things like (I dunno if you are doing these from life) putting a cone on top of a cylinder, to see how the core shadows don't line up, or setting them up so they cast shadows on one another. Personally I found doing little quick sketches of this stuff more useful than doing fully rendered stuff, but that's just me.
They are looking really solid and 3D, in my opinion, since you said you had concerns about that before. Just watch the reflected light on the sphere - where the form is nearing the contact with the ground and the cast shadow, there shouldn't be much / any reflected light and it should be a darker occlusion shadow instead (try to observe this in life on a ball or an egg or whatever and you should see it).
They are looking really solid and 3D, in my opinion, since you said you had concerns about that before. Just watch the reflected light on the sphere - where the form is nearing the contact with the ground and the cast shadow, there shouldn't be much / any reflected light and it should be a darker occlusion shadow instead (try to observe this in life on a ball or an egg or whatever and you should see it).