Hasty first attempt at shading by value rather than independently going from the colours I have visable… but kinda unsatisfactory. Need to do some practice with it.
Sketch/doodle dump! Variety of awesome, stupid and sappy.
There are two here with aver different sketch/line style - after some input from kalemon - I’ve been trying out. It requires a bit more work than I’m used to but I love how it looks where I put the detail in. It seems like it’ll be a much faster way to work too, when I get used to it.
The first I did just now while taking a break from something. It’s THIS character I drew 4 years ago. Second in that linestyle (first I tried it with) is my friend’s OC Beryl.
Could you explain how to do lighting in landscapes?? I'm thinking specifically of how the heck they do it in Steven Universe. They have beautiful artwork and I'd love to be able to achieve that sort of lighting. Thanks!
Ah well lighting in animation backgrounds are done with the express purpose of guiding the eye to where the animation is going to take place - think of it like setting up spot lighting on a stage!
In fact, in a lot of cases the su team do literally set things up with what are essentially spotlights
Note that all of the characters are in areas where the light is shining. This is done because your eyes are drawn to the areas with the highest contrast, so your eyes jump to the spotlights - and by extension, the characters!
Now if i show you some backgrounds without the characters, can you guess where abouts the characters are on the stage?
Now the thing to understand about the lighting in these backgrounds is that there are some rules and guidelines that inform the colour choices and value ranges.
Scenery is divided into planes, the Foreground, Background, and the Middleground which is generally where the characters are staged.
In outdoor scenery there is also often Deep Space, which is things waaay off in the distance like mountains.
Take a look at this background for example:
This background has all of the different planes, you can flatten them each down into a solid colour
as i mention in the key there, the foreground is generally in contrast to the background and deep space.
If the background is full of cold blues and purples, the foreground is going to be warmer colours like browns and greens.
It’s also going to be on the opposite end of the value range - deep space is usually pale in colour and uses the higher end of the value range, whilst the foreground is usually darker and uses the lower end of the value range.
the colour of the sky is very important to the rest of the colour scheme! this is because of aerial perspective. It’s a simple enough concept, but it does need a little explaining
This is easiest to understand if you think of a really foggy day - you know how things get really hazy the further out in the fog they get?
This happens on regular days too! It’s just that it needs to be super far away for it to be noticeable.
So, basically, the further away something gets, the less contrast there will be and the colour will become closer to that of the sky.
The reason for this is because of the water in the atmosphere - the sun shines on it and it reflects the colour of the sky, which is particularly noticeable on foggy days due to there being so much water.
most of the time, this means that things in the distance will turn bluer, due to the sky normally being blue.
However! SU regularly takes place at different times of day, so you can see how the colour of the sky and how bright it is changes the aerial perspective
as for actually setting up the lighting, there are some simple rules to follow.
the area of highest contrast is where the viewer is going to look. To understand this better, look at the backgrounds in black and white only:
Your eyes are drawn to Beach Citywalk Fries because there is a stark contrast between the shadows and the spotlight!
It has the highest range of values going all the way through from black to white in the middleground.
The areas your eyes are not drawn to, however, only have a small range of values. The foreground goes from dark grey to black, and the background goes from light grey to white.
Generally, the foreground will be darker than the middleground, and the background will be lighter, whilst the middleground will have a full range of values.
I say generally as this is not always the case, there are lighting situations where the background will be the darkest part of the image
but they’re pretty unusual!
so in summary:
- figure out where you want the viewer to look, that should be the area of highest contrast. That means that there should be strong shadows and strong highlights.
- make use of aerial perspective to add depth to your scenery, the further away something is the less contrast it should have.
- Set your scenes up with the planes in mind, use the most values in the middleground and use opposite values for the foreground and background.
Well this is amazing. Reblogging as much for personal reference as to pass it on. Also I’m not dead, just on holiday.
Collaborative sketch done with Captain Hoers at GBBC over the weekend.
We… were involved in a lot of strange runaway events. Was fun.
This was sold as part of the con’s charity auction. Did first sketch separately for concept, then this was sketched in place by Hoers. Naturally each of us finished our own side, as you can see.
I deformed for first image, but included the original photo and my hasty touch-up also, just in case anyone would like them/can do better fixing it.
Hi dude, you said on your "Spitfires day off" video and at the GBBC that Toon Boom was a good free way to get in to animating, although toon booms 2d animation software costs about the same as Adobe Flash cs6, which is way too pricey for me. Any advice?
This is going to be reblogged to my mod blog after I answer it, but I want to clear this up:
Toon Boom have a free trial. You are probably not going to find any genuinely free animation software.
Actually pretty sure it was me that recommended Toon Boom, but yeah… neither of us said it would be free. I do still wholly recommend it though! It’s what I mainly use/
I’ve always believed there are three types of artist:
Those who don’t create enough and don’t experiment enough.
Those who don’t try to accept critique from anywhere and anyone.
Those who succeed and are able to earn enough money from their work to live on.
I count myself among category 1… a fact I wish to change. I believe anyone can become category 3.
(I realise this may come across as a little mean to a few people, but I thought I’d give my opinion on the matter. I do hope they won’t take it the wrong way though as it’s not meant to be insulting.)
And now back to what I was supposed to be doing.
(typeface I found in the Gameloft game files on Windows)
Since been informed that the font, ‘Celestia Redux’, actually originates HERE. So thankyou to them!
Trying to fix sleep schedule… apparantlly this is what happens when i open SAI while overtired.
Moth ponies because the mothpony thread hit #100. Also moth griffon for a friend.
New Best gem.
(Seems like I interpreted her face shape differently to literally everyone else.)
Another commission done for Roan RPG, which I still think looks like it will be a hell of a lot of fun!
Anonymous
![Another commission done for Roan RPG, which I still think looks like it will be a hell of a lot of fun!
Roan RPG’s [ WEBSITE ] and [ TUMBLR ]](https://66.media.tumblr.com/9d043dd229a2370f0dc9ea4400fad605/tumblr_nrej4bHF521s65fa7o1_500.png)
