artist toolkit 2d - painting and lighting

Painting, Rendering and Lighting

This week in class, we discussed different painting techniques, how to use them and practiced them. Personally, I really love painting and rendering my artwork so I'm always happy to practice these techniques! I also experimented with a few different lighting examples too.

Firstly, I decided to do a lighting practice using the painting technique. I found some references on Pinterest of a dramatic lighting that i liked, and settled on a blue and orange lighting as I felt like the colours looked really nice and i like the dramatic contrast between the two colours. I tired to replicate this technique and understand how the different light sources would effect and cast across a person. 

References I used:

These were the reference images I used a s source of inspiration. Overall, I think that i replicated this relatively well thought I would like to practice it again, as looking back I feet like there were defiently areas of the drawing where the lighting wasn't correct or could be tweaking slightly. 

I then practiced this technique in greyscale, To try and help myself get a better understanding of lighting and value. Usually when I draw and render artwork, I only ever use colour and never really practice in black and white so its usually quite a struggle for me. However, I felt that trying to practice this would work better than using colours to try and understanding lighting.

I drew a simple character, and wanted to practice lighting being cast down upon her face from a top angle. As the light spruce was coming from the top, the shadows would be cast underneath. As this character is also posed in an angle where she is looking upwards, the shadows would be more prominent.

I drew lines to help guide myself and understand where the light source was coming from to try and understand better. I added highlights to areas like her hair, the point of her nose, cheeks and eyes and also her body.

Overall, I am quite happy with this lighting practice, though i defiently think this is something I will need to continue to practice if I want to keep improving on it.

Finally, I also did a practice with a fully coloured piece to practice my painting and rendering. This piece didn't have a dramatic light source like the others, but I wanted to focus on practicing my rendering skills instead. This is the technique I usually use, where I paint and render fully in colour from the start. I like my artworks to be bright and colourful, So i use a large variety of colours when I am painting. 

I start by creating a sketch. This is usually very messy and just a simple block out of what I am drawing. Sometimes, I will go over my sketch a second time to neaten up certain things or add smaller details. 

When I'm happy with my sketch, I begin adding the flat colours underneath the sketch layer. I use very simple and bright colours usually for my artworks, but I always create colour palettes beforehand to make sure everything works well and looks good together.

Then, I begin painting ontop of both layers. I rarely ever draw line art, and go straight into painting ontop of the sketch and base colours, as I feel my painting style is quite soft and line art usually looks to harsh and dramatic against this style of shading. Sometimes, I will neaten up the edges of my painted artworks with a soft line art at the end, but I usually leave this till when I have finished painting.

When painting a face, I use a very soft brush and bright colours in similar tones. I like the mix pink, purple, orange and blue when painting skin, depending on the tone and colour of the base skin tone. I use soft watercolour brushes which i slowly smudge and blend outwards.

When I've finished painting the main details of the face, I neaten up the edges with a thin soft outline and clearing up access from the watercolour brushes around the edges. For painting hair, my technique is usually the same. I really like my artworks to look soft and smooth, so I rarely use dramatic harsh shading and make sure its usually blending out with a variety of bright colours.

I use a similar technique of painting for my entire illustrations, and line the entire outside of my art with a thicker yet still soft colour. I also add this to areas I want to stand out more, such as the faces and hair where it overlaps the legs. For my entire piece I use a variety of bright colours in different shades of blue, pink, purple and yellow.