Top tips to improve your art skills
Workshops Rebecca Kimmel COUNTRY: US Rebecca Kimmel runs the Artistic Anatomy and Figurative Art forum on CG Society. Her website has become a valuable resource for artists studying life drawing. Artists of all levels are welcome to take part in workshops. http://forums.cgsociety. org/forumdisplay. php?f=177 June 2007 92 BECOME A BETTER ARTIST! Get to grips with fundamental skills you need to improve your art. 40 unmissable tips on colour, tone, anatomy and lighting… Artist insight o become a great artist, you need a solid grounding in the basics. There’s no point trying to be a comic artist for instance, if you’re knowledge of anatomy isn’t all that. Similarly, how could you ever expect to be a concept artist without an understanding of colour, tonal values and lighting? Learn the basics first – and get them right – and your opportunities as an artist, both personally and professionally are certain to grow. In order to help you start your artistic journey, or simply refresh your memory, we’ve enlisted the services of four top T digital painters – Rebecca Kimmel, Marta Dahlig, Michael Dashow and Philip Straub. Over the following pages these artists show you some of the basics through snippets of essential advice. Then it’s up to you to continue your development as an artist… Michael Dashow COUNTRY: US Michael Dashow balances his time between illustration for fun and profit and Art Directing at 3D avatar site Meez. com. He loves painting humorous science fiction, fantasy and children’s images. Michael lives in Oakland, California, USA, with his wife and newborn son. michaeldashow.com Philip Straub COUNTRY: US Philip Straub is Art Director for games company NCSoft. He’s an expert in colour theory, and has worked with Universal Studios in the past. www.philipstraub.com Marta Dahlig COUNTRY: Poland Marta Dahlig was born in 1986. She is a talented artist and freelance illustrator, and is a regular contributor to ImagineFX. www.marta-dahlig.com Artist insight Become a better artist! 93 June 2007 BECOME A BETTER ARTIST! Workshops 94 Art Director Michael Dashow shares his favourite tips for effective use of colour in your artwork TOP TEN COLOUR TIPS 10 TEST IT OUT Don’t expect instant perfection. Just as sketches are important for drawing a finished piece, they’re equally helpful for colour composition. Make some colour thumbnails before jumping into your painting. I try out different palettes by using my paint program’s layers to block out areas of colour and shift their hues. Using several test thumbnails will help you to come up with the correct colours. 1 CONTRAST Colours on opposite sides of the colour wheel stand out against each other. Use this contrast to call attention to the focus of your painting. Balance intense colour with more muted other colours in the background. 2 COLOUR VARIETY Objects in nature incorporate a variety of colours. Paint natural objects with many similar colours. Especially keep this in mind when painting skin. Areas where the blood is closer to the surface show more reds. Areas around the eye reveal more purples. 3 COLOUR MOODS Choose colours that best convey the mood you’re aiming for. Strong reds get the pulse going, and impart a sense of drama or danger. Cool blues and greens have a more calming effect. 4 ADD A LITTLE MAGIC We’re used to seeing light in warm colours such as red from light cast by the sun. Blues are familiar from light reflected from the sky. That leaves green and purple as colours we don’t normally see. Incorporating them can give a painting a mystical air. Colours on opposite sides of the colour wheel stand out against each other 5 DRAMATIC SKIES To really set a mood for your piece, choose an appropriate colour for the sky. I rarely stick with the traditional blue. Instead, I opt for colours to heighten the drama and emotions that I want the piece to illicit. 6 AERIAL PERSPECTIVE When there’s more distance between you and other objects, there’s more atmosphere between them. Add more depth to your painting by bringing your atmosphere colour into objects that are further away. Traditionally, this means making them more blue and less saturated. 7 BOUNCE YOUR LIGHT Shadows pick up bounced light from the environment. Pull in your ambient colour, such as the colour of your sky. Light bounces off other parts of your scene, too. Grass, for example would add greens into your lower shadows. 8 SIDE LIGHTING Rather than just using a single light source, consider adding more light from a different direction. The additional light helps round out the forms more, and can also have an exciting colour impact. 9 CHECK YOUR VALUES It’s important not to neglect the values while you’re working with colour. If your colours are all of a similar tone, your painting will have less impact. Checking the image in greyscale can help you here. The sky is orange so the buildings further back appear more dull orange too. The bright, warm colours pop against the cooler, whiter blues and greens. June 2007 5 DRAMATIC SKIES 7 BOUNCE YOUR LIGHT 6 AERIAL PERSPECTIVE 1 CONTRAST Need some help with tonal values? Philip Straub shares his secrets TOP TEN TONAL VALUE TIPS 1 LIGHT All objects in nature are made visible to us by some form of light source. The form of all objects in the world simply wouldn’t be apparent without light. My editorial illustration, below, is a simple example of the importance of light. 10 LINE Most drawing relies heavily upon line as a means of defining objects. While painting also uses line as a means of definition, it often relies upon it as a sort of infrastructure upon which the rest of the value structure is built. This infrastructure of line may be hidden in the final painting, but its influence dictates what the viewer sees. 2 SHADOW If an illuminated object is more or less opaque, when the light is obscured by that object, the resulting shadow is a darker version of the object’s colour. By virtue of shadow, all objects of nature assume form or shape. 3 HALFTONES Halftones that utilise texture and colour should be used in the area where light affects the surface of an object and should be made brighter than they appear. Those that describe form should be applied to the shadow area of the object and should be darker. 5 CONTRAST Contrast is derived from a comparison between two or more elements. Most concept artists will create the highest point of value contrast at the focal point, or the place where they want the viewer to look. 6 POSITIVE/NEGATIVE Positive space is usually defined by the areas of a painting or drawing that are occupied by a form. Negative space is the areas of the painting or drawing that are not occupied by forms. It’s important to remember the balance of positive and negative shapes. 7 UNITY Like contrast, unity is an element that describes a relationship between two or more elements or objects within a composition. Unlike contrast, however, unity usually describes such relationships within the context of the composition as a whole. Unity can be said to define how any one element or group of elements is related to the rest of the composition. 4 FORM It’s possible to have form without line, and to have line without form, but usually where one exists so does the other. I’d argue form truly defines the shape of an object. 9 BACKGROUND, MIDDLE GROUND, FOREGROUND Thinking of your value structure as three separate plains in space – background, middle ground, and foreground – will simplify how you deal with your overall value structure. 8 HIERARCHY It’s one of the most important qualities to consider when dealing with value structure, yet the implications of hierarchy are often forgotten. Put simply, hierarchy answers the question ‘what is important?’ in a composition. By making his painting hierarchical, a painter places the greatest emphasis on those things that are most important, and the least emphasis on those that are less important. An example of applying the use of line in unison with your value structure. The consistent visual language used in the shapes and line within the image below shows unity at work. June 2007 95 Artist insight Become a better artist My editorial illustration, below, is a simple 6 POSITIVE/NEGATIVE UNITY Like contrast, unity is an element that describes a relationship between two or more elements or 7 UNITY UNITY 3 COLOUR CHOICES While it doesn’t matter what basic colour you choose for the skin of your character, it’s extremely important to pick shadows and highlights correctly. Basically, when you choose shadows and highlights for your midtones, make sure they’re not only of a different brightness, but also a different hue. Marta Dahlig reveals ten of her favourite pieces of advice on how to tackle lighting in your painting 4 CONVEXITY Sketch an object’s most convex places (red lines). After you choose a light source, mark the highlights (white lines). The most convex areas are going to be the most highlighted, and will also create a slight shadow (blue lines). 1 HALO EFFECT If you want to create an aura behind a character, place the light source behind it. This way, the hair will seem to be glowing. Shading hair like this is different from usual because, aside from the ‘typical’ shading of the strands in ambient light, you have to take into account the additional light source, making the outer edges of the hair lighter then run over the outer strands with a moderately sized transparent airbrush to add ‘glow’. 7 STRONG LIGHT SOURCES While the general, ambient light is a good basis for a picture and it might be enough for simpler portraits, you might sometimes want to spice things up a bit. There’s nothing better than a strong light source to add some drama. 8 GOLD EXPLAINED A common mistake in painting gold is to only use colours from the yellow palette to render it. Analyse a golden object and you’ll see hints of grey, brown and green, and remember that metal is reflective. 2 LIGHT AND FLESH When painting a body part that’s lit from the back, don’t limit yourself to merely adding a white outline around it (0). Remember the light will also beam between all the lit objects, creating rays (1). Furthermore, the light will also shine through the skin and flesh. To depict that, simply make the ‘softer’ parts of the body part more saturated (2 and 3). 9 SKIN TONES MADE EASY Use Photoshop’s Colour Balance tool to match skin tones, highlights and shadows if you have characters lit by a boldly coloured, strong light source. 10 TEXTILES Different textiles react differently to light. Silk highlights are bold and strongly separated from the shadows with a fast, smooth transition. Linen highlights are much more diffused and the transition is seamless. Placing your light source behind your character helps if you want to achieve a halo effect in your painting. To depict rays of light between the lit objects, I ran over the hand with a light transparent airbrush. Here you can see, by following the arrows, how the dress interacts with the skin and the skin with the dress. This was done by adding some extra shades with a low opacity brush. June 2007 96 Workshops 6 SHADOWS In general, there are two types of shadows: form and cast. While the form shadow (1) is naturally generated by an object in range of the light source, the cast shadow (2) is created by another object, placed in front of our primary one, blocking the light from the source. 5 REFLECTED LIGHTING One of the crucial things for a painter to remember is that all objects interact with each other by reflecting light rays that fall on them back on to other objects. In practice, you can easily implement this effect by adding some extra coloured shades with a low opacity brush (see arrows below for examples). TOP TEN ANATOMY TIPS 1 BASIC SHAPES Always think of big, basic shapes instead of anatomy. The major forms of the body – the head, neck, torso, pelvis, arms, and legs can be broken down into spheres, cylinders and boxes. Learning to draw anatomy is a lifelong process. Rebecca Kimmel offers some wise words to get you started 2 LIFE DRAWING It’s always best to draw from life. Try to spend as much time working in front of live models as you can. If you can’t draw from a life model, do a series of self- portraits to ensure you get a grasp of life drawing. 3 OUTLINES DON’T EXIST Think across form instead of in terms of a form’s outline. Outlines don’t exist. Try doing several cross-contour drawings, in which you map the topology of form by drawing what you might think of as an ant’s tracks across the form. This will give you a better feeling for depth. 5 TIMED POSES Draw and paint in timed exercise sets of two, five, ten or 15-minute poses. Usually a rendered drawing turns out to lack the life and vitality that a fast sketch captures. Remember that you are half of the ‘life’ in a life drawing. 9 BUILD A SINGLE VISION Look at figurative work and build your library of mental imagery. Find the Renaissance masters that you love and analyse what makes drawings and paintings work for you. Figure out what you want to say as much as how you want to say it, and combine your artistic goals into a singular vision over time. 6 SKETCH ANATOMY Draw large with charcoal to understand whole forms and gesture, but draw in a sketchbook with ballpoint pen or pencil to learn anatomy. Copy drawings from various anatomy book. There is no shortcut to understanding anatomy and drawing: you have to practise . 7 MASTER COPIES A master copy is using a great artist’s work as reference, doing your best to imitate that artist’s form and style. Use your eye to develop forms on the page. Studying master work enables you to pick up how artists denoted form and to incorporate this into your own work 8 IMAGINE Intersperse your drawings from reference with drawings from your imagination. Test yourself by seeing what you know without using any reference but what’s in your mind. You’ll be surprised at what you know well – and what you don’t. 4 STUDY GESTURE Gesture is the heart of drawing – if the gesture has no life, then the drawing won’t either. Gesture is about quickly finding the essence of the pose. It’s an art form to capture something quickly and accurately. June 2007 97 Artist insight Become a better artist! 9 BUILD A SINGLE VISION BUILD A SINGLE VISION Look at figurative work and build your library offers some wise words to get you started 6 SKETCH ANATOMY Test yourself by seeing what you know using only what’s in your mind as reference 10 THINK NATURAL Draw organic forms that aren’t human, things that twist and have human-like characteristics. I wrote an article for the CGSociety called Opposing Curves, which describes how offset curves interact to create form. Notice how there are rarely in nature curves which are related to one another as parentheses; rather curves in nature are offset in a DNA/ double helix fashion. This perspective will change the way that you draw. . illustrator, and is a regular contributor to ImagineFX. www.marta-dahlig.com Artist insight Become a better artist! 93 June 2007 BECOME A BETTER ARTIST! Workshops 94 . as an artist Michael Dashow COUNTRY: US Michael Dashow balances his time between illustration for fun and profit and Art Directing at 3D avatar