The Peer Project- OPEN Foundational Exercises for All, A great place to start.

[cocoumi]

Hey there Concept Art People!

I had been scoping out this thread and decided to crank out one of the older studies from the 2nd peer project of 2005 just before work!

This is the first time I actually picked up my tablet, that I have had for a year, but had not used, to do the study.

I used Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and I shaded my spheres focusing on the value concentrations. I first filled in 8 different values and then filled the breaks with values in between and used the smudge tool to get the desired effects. I then selected the least concentrated value for my light source (the top corner, right).

This was the result:


Here's the result, transformed into greyscale:


This was a lot of fun! I think I will do the more "up to date" projects that have been explained in this new peer 2 peer thread. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!

-Cocoumi

[JAK]

Good to do even these old exercises.....Yep I have started again and gone back to basics
So here is my submission- (why I didn't get on board years ago I don't know).



and Greyscale

Still-re learning
Cheers to Idiot Apathy for getting these threads going

[Vaejoun]

I am just beginning to understand how values work and how to change them porperly. How value goes along with saturation/chroma and the color itself.

This is what I've done today.
1st the one in grey and then painted the color spheres. Sometimes checking with photoshop and going on until this came out.



Strange...for some reason the grey-sphere looks brighter here. Or is it just me ?

[Idiot Apathy]

VaeJoun: Glad to see you posting. #1: Good to see the sphere divided into hemispheres. Half-light might be a bit big. In this case your cast shadow would stretch out much much further to the left I do believe. #2: Good, definetly a glossier object. I think perhaps the specular highlight is too close to the edge or rather not close enough to the center. Could use a little more contrast to differentiate the cast shadow and the object's form shadow. Your questions; Does an object that reflects the light better have a darker shadow than a matte object? I interpret this as, shadows on a glossy object vs. a matte object right? I would say, the matte object would technically have darker shadows as it will absorb more light however if you have something very dark underneath or reflected in the glossy object it too can be very very dark.
VaeJoun #2: Nice, better form on these spheres and some nice blending. I do think however you are perhaps adding in too many values. You can get away with just full-light, half-light and shadow if you wish. These objects appear to have a large and very diffuse highlight making everything blend together. Values look very close good job on that. Colors seem rather dull and boring though wouldn't you say? Experiment with changing saturation as you add/subtract light as well as shifting hue. Cheers!
cocoumi: Hiya! Welcome to Conceptart.org! Sorry it's taken me awhile to get back to you, hope to see you again soon! The study you chose to do I redid for this volume, most of this volume is from the old one actually. Make sure and read up, I tried to make them better Now, your spheres; 8 values? Jez! Use 1 for full light, 2 for half-light, 1 for shadow, 1 for highlight and 1 for reflected lighting. The rest should simple be blends in between. I think I explained this in one or two of the projects, have a look. I don't recommend using the smudge tool, at least not for this. Set your brush up in Photoshop with opacity and flow to pressure and play with hardness and manual flow to blend. Cheers!
Jak: Cool man, glad to see you here. I redid this particular exercise for vol2 so you might check that out, I hope it's written better and makes more sense. Your spheres; I think your highlight is too close to the edge, making it feel more like a beveled object or like an m&m rather than a sphere. I'd like to see a clearer distinction between full light, half light and shadow. Check your values in the grayscale, quite a bit darker in the colored version; let's see another one but this time use the updated version! cheers!

[Henrikg]

Here`s my try at the promotheus surface material excersize:



+A question:



This is the problem: - the cast shadow falls in accordance with the direction of the light,and the highlight is a reflection of the lightsource. So this should be correct.However: while it is true that the cast shadow will always fall in accordance with the light source. The speculars ( high light ) follows the eye. So while the cast shadow indicates the directioon of the light source, the specular "doesn`t neceserally".That is-the reflected light inicates the stand point of the beholder-the artist as the light is reflected at the right angle into his eye,while the cast shadow inicates the direction of the light.-So is it reasonable to suggest that the placement of the specular, doesn`t neseseralily dictate the placement of the cast shadow?

+another thing thats driving me "crazy" is the fact that I find it close to impossible to get satisfactory edges and transitions when blending ( both in painter and photoshop).That is unless one wishes to use hours focusing on blending apparently...I did these in photoshop and " blended" with a reasonably soft edged brush set to opacity. - I think one of my problems might have to do with the fact that I ( because of my limited RAM,slow processor) usually paint at a small resolution. This last sphere i did at 600x600pix-which I think should be enough. When I`m doing finished pieces of art I work maybe at 1600x1800pix or something. I guess it would be better ( if I could to paint at e.g 3500x4800) or something bcause then I could zoom alot and even though the edges might look rough way close, this might dissapear when one zoomes out I reckon.

Cred to you idiotapathy for still going strong!

[Idiot Apathy]

Good job! welcome to the thread

I think your materials look great so we will move on to your questions.

Cast Shadows and Highlights; find something in your house that has a nice cast shadow and is very shiny - now move around it; which of these moves with you? Cast shadow will not move it is indeed locked just to the direction of the lightsource - or rather the object blocking the lightsource. Highlights are tied to both the lightsource and your eye, you will find that it bound to the angle of incidence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_incidence. I think it's impossible to see the highlight in the direct center of a sphere's full light as either your head would have to block the light or the lightsource would have to block your head.

On blending; I think you would have greater sucess first with simplifying your shapes. Follow this exercise for how I think you should construct a sphere and simplify blending. http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...41&postcount=2
And check there if you get confused:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...8&postcount=37

Also I think you would do well to use as big a brush as you can - not talking about your CPU or resolution, just as big as you can in relation to the object you are painting, not only is it faster but the edges are more seemless.

Also try setting up your brush to both opacity and flow to pen pressure and even reducing flow to 40% for finer blending


Cheers!

[DanielC]

Oh boy i feel ashamed for not coming back earlier here.
Thank you very much for your attention Tom!
Actually the only thing that's a bit ackward to me is a more scientific explanation of how colours work. But what you wrote gave me a good idea of how it works (especially for the brightness and saturation).
But about hues, should i learn by heart all the colour combinations ?
I'll come back with the other exercices done.
Thanks alot !

[Idiot Apathy]

My pleasure dood, please ask any questions you have - and there is no such thing as a stupid question, except if you ask "is there such a thing as a stupid question?."

Anyways, what do you mean about hues and color combinations? Cheers!

P.S. Teach me to draw, HARrrrrrrrr~!

[DanielC]

... there's no secret, just draw a lot !!
So, about the colours, like red and green make yellow, blue and red make purple, and so on...
I now its the basics and all, but should i know each possibilities for each and every colours ?

Edit: oh and what i mean about colors: i mean those colors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colors
...it's not a combinations of 3 colors (RGB) that's gonna scare me, don't worry ^^

[Idiot Apathy]

hahah then there are no secrets to painting, just paint a lot.
---

Nah, all you need to know are these in my opinion; other systems will simplify it even more: Yellow, yellow orange, orange red, red magenta, magenta, blue magenta, blue, blue cyan, cyan, cyan green, green, yellow green. (what no violet? Cyan?! I guess I'm just a product of the computer age?)

Anything more isn't necessary however there are probably millions of hues.

Ok, the combinations? Yeah, I'd memorize as many of the ones up above as possible. Check this out;

In photoshop box D is basically a color wheel, maybe we should look at a color wheel too? The top box in box c is just for hues; measured with degrees as if it was get this a circle (or wheel!). You will find each of the hues listed above are in 15 degree increments. (0 and 360 are the same hue of red). You can use this to visually decide what color will result from a mixture of two colors. So, red and green? If it was a 50/50 mixture (not nearly as predictable with real paint btw) it would then be yellow - and check this out, red is 0 degrees and green is 120 degrees - the middle of both of these is 60, a perfect yellow

Now, when mixing different colors it is important to realize that saturation can only go down. Think of saturation as a measure of hue purity - you mix in other hues and that will go down. The further away in degrees the two hues are the quicker and more significant the drop will be.

When mixing light make sure you also add value, adding light will always add value.

What about mixing hues that are 180 degrees away from each other? These are complements, this means to complete and not as is often thought to compliment each other. To complete technically means to complete the primary colors, which for our purposes are Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. So yellows complement is blue, (60 and 240 degrees) 240 is technically a mixture of Magenta and Cyan so now we have "completed" all primaries. Ah, so the result of mixing a perfect complement? To use our example again; Yellow would lose it's saturation all the way to gray, from there it would then gain in saturation towards blue as the mixture becomes more blue than yellow.

That make sense? Let me know if I can clarify and follow up any of this garble.

[DanielC]

That makes sense
Now... after a small research in google, i've found many different color wheels... and, well, which one is the "good" one ?
After what you said (by making the red and green becoming yellow) i know that this one would be the one:

But why are there all those other wheels ?




...sorry with all the question, but that's the last one

[Idiot Apathy]

Nah man, keep the questions coming if you got 'em

Those would be the traditional paint based color wheels with primaries of Red Yellow and Blue. Works about the same but the complements aren't true - won't go gray.

I don't like them because they sort of ignore or at least ignore the full potential of cyan and magenta. Red violet and Blue Green are probably dulled down low value Cyan and Magenta.

Cheers

[Koto]

Hello All, first post , I have been a lurker for ages . Idiot Apathy and well everyone else have been teaching some incredible stuff, I need to learn colour and well the Peer Projects look like the best place to do that. I'm so glad that all these 'god hands' take the time to help us beginners out Thanks, I really apreciate what's being done here.

Excercise 2 (maybe I shouldn't have skipped Ex1...)
First attempt:


Wow totally got this wrong still unsure how to change the values and saturation. I started off with a near pure hue (the one you can see in the middle of the sphere) then choose a darker version (mixing black?) and desaturating a little (hmm not sure how much to desaturate it but I'm guessing the lack of light means that it's becomes less 'pure' in hue?, err no idea what I'm talking about here ) Hmm the 'highlight' just looks weird, I'm wondering if it get's desaturated because the white light has no 'hue'? :/

Second attempt: done minutes after the first, after reading some tips by Apathy on blending!


Blending is a bit better...ahem. Values still way off :/ maybe because I'm not thinking about 'colour' having its own value? (e.g. purple being low in value, yellow being high in value?) Also noticed the specular is in the wrong place after reading briggsys comments. Definitely gona try this again..back soon..

[DreadRok]

here are the first 2 assignments from peer project v1.

1




2



i kinda messed up on the blue box, right before i saved i hit a low opacity midblue right on the corner.. right where it looks smuddgy.. thats what i get for chatting and painting at the same time
haha


thanks idiot it was fun..

also i used multiply layers for the shadows... is that cheeting?

[DreadRok]

first 2 assignments

[Idiot Apathy]

Koto Stomp: Welcome to the forums! Hope you stick around.
Definetly try to do the exercises in order haha, I hope I've set them up fairly well. Are you doing the exercises from Vol one or Two? I rewrote this one for V2 to hopefully make more sense. http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...42&postcount=3

I think you are overblending and have too many tonal areas, Here is exercise one, Simplified sphere construction; be sure and check it out: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...41&postcount=2

Understand on your spheres that depending on the color of the lightsource and the local color of your sphere the area that is most saturated can be elsewhere than the middle.

Read over page one; http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=76955
This will explain how to change tone, hue and saturation. Look for the PS color picker.

"I'm guessing the lack of light means that it's becomes less 'pure' in hue?"
A lack of light would lower the tone, interference from other colors of light would decrease the purity of hue - think of saturation as a measure of purity. White light essentially has every hue within it, it's then up to the local color of the object to determine what you see. Check out page one again for a bit more information on this.

Second attempt is better, still too many tonal areas which makes it so you have to over blend. You're right about the specular highlight - as it is now it's a lot like a beveled object instead of a sphere. Remember that highlights depend not only on the position of the lightsource but the position of your eye.

Keep trying to match your values - try a different color perhaps - magenta is a bit tricky .


Dreadrok: Get back to you in a bit!

[DreadRok]

ok.. ill be here waiting =D

[Idiot Apathy]

DreadRok: Thanks for joining us.
First exercise looks great, good value matching. I think you might be complicating your blending although it's nice and smooth. Check out this exercise for some simplification; http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...41&postcount=2

Your reflected light also looks a bit odd, more like a bump in the surface, Usually I think you'll find the area of reflected lighting to be a bit broader, and will wrap around the sphere just like the normal lighting. Grab yourself a sphere, baseball anything and check it out in real life

2nd exercise also looks great, good colors. Good to keep the lighting simple for the shadows hehe. The blue blocks doesn't seem to match the lighting compared to the green blocks shadow. Some things to think about; inside and outside corners - usually you'll see some corners that are a bit higher on the shading scale because they are more parallel to us, with some corners it can be a bit hard for light to reach them as well as bounce back to our eyes so they can often be darker. Something you said you kind of did unintentionally actually happens - planes rarely have just one light bouncing on them - consider that the table is also reflecting light and would affect these objects - or the green block could be reflecting a substantial amount of light onto the red; the blue block is even reflecting light onto itself. Consider even that the blocks are reflecting onto the table!

Using multiply for shadows isn't exactly cheating no, but I would "do it by hand" to get a better feel for it. Multiply isn't perfect either, there are lots of subtle things that go on so the color of your shadows won't be consistent throughout. Mulitiply is a handy tool however

Hope I'm making sense - it's a bit disjointed ... hehe.

[Koto]

Thanks for the help Apathy!

Awesome colouring DreadRok!

These are from vol2 of Peer Project Probably still overblending but it's getin slightly easier..

Ex1: (the one I skipped last time like a fool..)


Not sure why it turned out like this, I sould have planned it better. I think the light angle is a little too difficult for me :o Was having a tough time with the shadow and reflected light. I picked the colour of the background (grey) and decreased the opacity on the brush so it would 'mix' a bit with the red of the sphere. I tried making the edges of the reflected light a little more 'harder' than normal because the surface was glossy and so, I thought, the light doesn't diffuse as much (does that make sense? doesn't make sense to me ). The shadow is just wrong, no idea what angle and stuff it should be so I guessed it also the 'value' of it is wrong should have been darker, right? Hmm specular is possibly in the wrong place too, should be a bit higher and to the right. Oh and there's some reflected light coming off the ball on to the table, again I guessed it and wasn't to sure where and how much there should be on the table (should be more towards the light source, right?)

Ex2 (again)

Attempt 3:


Oh dear Values wayyyyy off, was thinking to much about how the green is 'naturally' dark (the yellow/purple thing again..) so I made it brighter to compensate for that..

Attempt 4:


Closeset yet but still wrong :/. This was actually attempt 5, attempt 4 was a different shade of blue but when I converted it over to grayscale it was nearly all black compared to the grayscale! so I deleted it and started with a different blue, still to dark especially the shadow, I want to try excercise 3 tomorrow but don't think I should since my ex 1+2 are baaad. Thanks again Apathy, I know you must be busy creating uber masterpieces .

[Idiot Apathy]

I see to remember another post here? Did someone get shy and delete it or something? Don't be shy.

Koto Stomp:
Fantastic, much better sense of form - really feels round yeah?

I'm still not sure about your reflected lighting - picture what is reflecting light into these areas, what size - how big the shape should be and any other influences. Take a peak at these; http://www.infomotions.com/gallery/m...and_sphere.jpg
http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?...re_food016.jpg

I think the color for the reflected lighting is ok for this sphere as it seems rather glossy - but be aware if it wasn't glossy that usually only a white sphere would replicate the hue like this and you won't always be able to simply mix paint like you did here.

Your thinking of harder edges on reflected light - including the highlight to some extent would be harder - it is a more complete replication of the source; the extreme of which would be a mirror.

Cast shadow could use some work too, it will really help the viewer understand where the lightsource is coming from Here is a quick example I did of exercise one; http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...8&postcount=37

Attempt 3,
Don't let your mind get in the way, use your eyes. Squint to reduce value range and compare. Keep it up!

Attempt 4,
Spheres are looking much better, are you getting faster?
Great value matching, keep it up and I say go for ex3; you can always go back if you want more practice

Uber masterpieces? Lolz I wish.

[yoitisi]

Hey IdiotApathy, I was scanning through this thread and saw this last post. First of all, great effort here to get the basics right, once in a while it's good to go back at em and practice them (although I am not going to right now, lazy bum as I am )

What I noted, the shadow of the sphere in this post: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...8&postcount=37 you made the ellips of the shadow horizontal. This is only true if the lightsource was shining right on the edge of your sphere (for the viewer). Look at the 2 examples in your post above, check their shadows. They're both ellipses at an angle, not horizontal. Shame I can't really remember how to construct it, I should know it...

[Idiot Apathy]

Lol, yeah I got nothing either.
I foolishly flattened my thinking on that example it seems.

*goes to research*

[yoitisi]

Spent a couple of minutes figuring out how to construct the shadow, thought I'd show it here. The sketches might be a bit incoherent and dodgy, but I hope its clear enough. If not, feel free to comment and stuff



These three steps are necessary if you want to construct the shadow. The thing with shadowconstruction is to find points which you can project on the ground, so you can find some usefull spots of the edge of the shadow with projected and actual light direction (see below, nr. 4) Therefore you need the two cross-sections of the sphere, which are elipses.

I started with an elips, then with help of the tangent line on the ground (Tangentline 1) I made the orange line in the middle (not the vertical, the other one) to aid me when drawing the second cross-section. Nr. 3 shows the result without shadow, and a quarter of the sphere cut out to make it a bit more clear (hopefully..)



Nr. 4 shows a simple pole standing straight up, with its shadow constructed with the help of the projected light direction on the ground and the actual lightdirection through the top of the pole and onto the ground. Basic stuff. 5 and 6 show the constuction of the shadow on the sphere, where in 6 the blue spots are the intersections of the edge of the shadow with the cross-sections from 3. Project these points on the ground (using projected and actual lightdirection and the 2 tangent lines)to find their relative spots on the edge of the shadow and then use these to draw the elips (If you want more information where to draw the elips you can use multiple cross-sections and stuff, you can make more cross-sections than just the 2 in the middle of course).

Some important sidenotes: Although this method can be used as an aid to draw the correct shadow, it by no means is acurate. Drawing the elipses in the right perspective, projecting the points in the right spot etc. are bound to be a little off to say the least

Also, it is way easier to just guess the elips as shadow once you know how to construct it, because it saves you time and frustration of getting it right. Most people won't know the difference anyway

[Jazz]

Hi!! I've been feeling lonely about the forums, so I thought I'd mingle JUST a bit more so I can really get going on improving my stuff!

I tried Project 1 of Vol. 1, actually. Then I saw that you headed to another thread, Apathy. But here's what I tried with the first:




I was SO close!! ...Okay, not quite so close.



Ugh...so horribly off! It doesn't even look like a sphere! XD And I decided to use a light background AND a light surface hue for the sphere. Oy.

I admit that the instructions for volume 2, Project 1 were a tad confusing for me. I was trying to follow your example, because the image through that link you gave was broken. But I just couldn't do it. -_- But I'll keep practicing anyway. I would like to understand lighting spheres (and everything else) better.

I like this topic very much, Apathy! I'll try to do more challenges.

[n0ireclipse]

Hmmm..I'd love to join but I think I'm really behind here. Do I really have to read three pages? -whine- Or are there just a few specific posts I can read? And..assignment? x___x WHAT IS GOING ONNN

[Idiot Apathy]

Yoitisi; you sir are a stud. I've added this up as a link on the header, thank you kindly. All that is left is for me to understand it hehe. Cheers, hope to see you in here more!

JazzW; Lol, lonely on the internet? That's odd. Welcome to the thread, hope you can learn some things here. Good try on the first exercise, it's the saturation that's messed you I think. Try it with different colors and with your saturation in different areas, see how you do. Heheh, your sphere looks good though a bit wobbly. You might try using larger brushes or a sketch to lay it in. I think you may also be blending too much. You say the link was broken? This one? http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...8&postcount=37 Works for me hrm hrm. Let me know what is up. Check it out, hopefully it clears things up for you. Your reflected lighting should be a little more even I think as well. Cheers, hope to see more of you soon!

n0ireclipse: Yeah, you'd do well to read 3 pages and you'd do well to read as much as you can about art in general. For just here and now - start with the introduction on page one and keep reading until you reach exercise one, then do it . Cheers!

[n0ireclipse]

xD whoo...thanks for that fun reality check there. Alright, I'll try to get my work in later, after my school work is complete and such. Cheers to you too!

[yoitisi]

Yoitisi; you sir are a stud. I've added this up as a link on the header, thank you kindly. All that is left is for me to understand it hehe. Cheers, hope to see you in here more!

I'm actually getting paid to teach this to first years over at the university, although most students forget this as soon as they've seen it...(maybe good to point out here I'm not a teacher, just the assistant. So I still make mistakes ) Anyway, you're welcome. If there are questions feel free to ask, I am aware that I may have stepped lightly over some important stuff and the sketches were done early in the morning.

[n0ireclipse]

And this is where Jessica demonstrates the fact that she knows nothing about coloring! Yeah, I know, extremely messy. I really ought to get over that lazy tendency of mine..
Anyways, enough complaining, here's the...-ahem-..outcome


Thoughts while I was doing this? Ahhh..I realized it's a lot more difficult than I thought to color digitally, though I still used the traditional paint xD. And uh...Then I thought "I don't know what I'm doing"
then I thought "I hope the peer project helps" [xD not the kind of thoughts you were looking for?]
And the rest of the time I was messing around a lot. I still have a lot to learn about shadows and colors.



OKAY, DONE RANTING/MAKING EXCUSES, I PROMISE. Please proceed to beat me with criticism DD

[Koto]

Oh Emm Gee! *it let me into the thread..

*HAL

Cast shadow practice:

hmm o.k. not lookin' too hot right now, guess I need to go through a bunch more of these thanks for the demo Apathy.

Exc3:

Sorry for the crappy image..I actually forgot all the stuff I learned on blending :o that blue sphere highlight is wrong, so wrong, makes it look like a flat button I got a question, how would you do a white high gloss sphere? would you reserve the 'pure' white for the highlights? arghh sky blue! I had a go anyway The spheres are getting easier to make, just nowhere near as fast as you lot.

Cheers for the feedback Apathy and yeah I remember that mysterious post...if your reading this, come back the crits here are invaluable!

Next excercise 4, unless my excercise 3 needs redoing...