04-10-2017, 02:10 PM
@klexvier. Welcome to the team! Also. Dayum great work. Honestly at this stage I have very little to no feedback so I'm going to nitpick.
The only thing I think could be improved is how well you "chunk up" or group your darks and your lights, in the two value studies. Talking about number 3 and 4 from the top mostly. If you squint your eyes at the original to crush down the values, you will see opportunities where you could have simplified more rather than go with more detail, in order to retain the clarity of the original comp. 3rd from top, the figure doesn't stand out as much as the original and the darks could probably have been crushed in that arch and lit wall surrounding the character to show the contrast more. At the two value stage, studies are less about value accuracy, but rather general lighting and showing the important compositional shapes and relationships. Squinting eyes is the best thing to help you to do this with any reference subject, including from life, so get your squint on.
With the 100, well I think you did well. Lots of variety, in shape, viewing angle, perspective, rhythms etc. Perhaps you are a bit hard on your process. I would not really be too concerned about how long these took. I only mentioned it in the video to demonstrate that it doesn't have to take days of hours long studies, to get a lot of practice in doing comps.
If you really want to focus on upping your visual library on comps, then I highly recommend being very aware of photography and cinematography in movies/tv whenever you see them in front of you. EVERY shot you will see has been composed for a narrative or emotional reason, but it is easy to just take it in passively. Instead be more aware and analytical even in casual watching and you will start to store and combine what you notice into your work eventually. I tend to be very aware of great cinematography when it happens...almost anything Kubrick, or Andrei Tarkovsky, Kurasawa, the tv shows Utopia, Mr Robot (for some contemporary examples) The Coen brothers movies, Hitchcock, all tend to have great shots. But really just up your awareness in general and it will help. Also check out the books Framed Ink, and the 5Cs of Cinematography.
Can't fault the 4 value studies at all.
Great work!!
The only thing I think could be improved is how well you "chunk up" or group your darks and your lights, in the two value studies. Talking about number 3 and 4 from the top mostly. If you squint your eyes at the original to crush down the values, you will see opportunities where you could have simplified more rather than go with more detail, in order to retain the clarity of the original comp. 3rd from top, the figure doesn't stand out as much as the original and the darks could probably have been crushed in that arch and lit wall surrounding the character to show the contrast more. At the two value stage, studies are less about value accuracy, but rather general lighting and showing the important compositional shapes and relationships. Squinting eyes is the best thing to help you to do this with any reference subject, including from life, so get your squint on.
With the 100, well I think you did well. Lots of variety, in shape, viewing angle, perspective, rhythms etc. Perhaps you are a bit hard on your process. I would not really be too concerned about how long these took. I only mentioned it in the video to demonstrate that it doesn't have to take days of hours long studies, to get a lot of practice in doing comps.
If you really want to focus on upping your visual library on comps, then I highly recommend being very aware of photography and cinematography in movies/tv whenever you see them in front of you. EVERY shot you will see has been composed for a narrative or emotional reason, but it is easy to just take it in passively. Instead be more aware and analytical even in casual watching and you will start to store and combine what you notice into your work eventually. I tend to be very aware of great cinematography when it happens...almost anything Kubrick, or Andrei Tarkovsky, Kurasawa, the tv shows Utopia, Mr Robot (for some contemporary examples) The Coen brothers movies, Hitchcock, all tend to have great shots. But really just up your awareness in general and it will help. Also check out the books Framed Ink, and the 5Cs of Cinematography.
Can't fault the 4 value studies at all.
Great work!!