Skills 2.6 - Lighting
Full and finished image at the very bottom of this post! This is a WIP screenshot.
Welcome again, this post is about our recent assignment regarding practicing lighting and texturing during our art classes. I've personally found this period to be rather helpful to help me have some insights regarding myself and my skills. So without further ado, i'll explain below how this period went for us and what we had to do for it.
We had started our first classes by having to draw shading and lighting for a few objects assigned to us to draw as realistically as possible. These shapes were a ball, a cube and a cylinder. I personally found the ball the most fun to do, as the cube looks pretty bland and the cylinder perhaps could've been better. These were my end results for said shapes:
As you can see, i've practiced with surface reflection back into the objects, used shading accordingly, and lighting in a way which i found pretty sufficient. Although, i do notice i haven't used enough shading on the cube, and i probably should've added more light reflection onto the cylinder. It feels okay to me, but i feel like i still could've done it better if i put a 100% effort into it.
For our next practice, we had to draw 2 textures. Mine were rather simple, because texturing is still a bit of a weak point for me. I've noticed i rely a lot on brushes instead of actual texturing made from hand, which is something i'd like to improve on but haven't really found a way to do so yet. So i'd like to get any further help and tips into that, if any is available i'd appreciate it.
Here are my 2 chosen textures; (cracked) concrete and rough metal. I've tried to incorporate the concrete's rough texture, and i think that went rather okay. But the cracks still feel rather off to me, and i don't really know how i could fix that or improve on for the next time with textures like these. As for the metal, i tried something rough and i think it looks alright, though maybe the reflection looks too shiny or too reflective. I can't help but feel like there's something with it, which tells me i have a lot to learn or improve on regarding textures. I'd love to learn more about it so i can work into more fine details on my art next time.
After these two practices, we were assigned to create a poster using lighting and texturing which was related to one of our other projects of a different subject. The game my group has chosen to make is about a candy crush type of game, but with trash instead of candy to promote cleaning products. It's a rather... interesting idea, but i've felt very unconvinced by the idea to make a poster about that. During our holidays, i started a different artwork of mine of which i actually wanted to practice lighting and some glow into it to actually improve my skills on a subject i liked doing more as it motivated me more to improve my skills on rather than a bland poster. I'm not sure if i was supposed to do that, but i've done it anyway and i'm still hella proud of my work, so i'm presenting it eitherway. Here are some progress shots:
A different challenge i proposed myself with was that i wanted to try out lineless art instead of using the actual lineart in the final result, so i still managed to challenge myself and broadened my boundaries while doing something i love doing without regrets. This one drawing has taught me a lot regarding how artists manage their layers, how light reflection works regarding glow, and how to really make something look like it's glowing instead of just giving it lightsaber sort of effects. As seen in the progress, i used white instead of green at first until a friend pointed it out to me and i had to restart all of my lighting because i couldn't replace the white with green. Oh well, at least i can safely say it turned out great in the end because i'm extremely proud of it. I've made multiple variants as well, so here they are:
Finished version!
While i technically didn't exactly follow the guidelines for what i was supposed to draw, i do feel like i've learnt a lot despite not making this as a poster for my group's game project. My lighting and glow skills have improved tremendously, and i'm really proud of how far i've gotten so far in my skills. So i can still technically say that this period/assignment has taught me to set my boundaries further away and learn something from it.
Eitherway, i hope this was a rather enjoyable read for anyone who is reading this, and you'll see me again in my next post. Bye for now!
