Jason and Brad's learning thread (free to follow along but read description)

[Jason Rainville]

In this thread I'm going to be giving brad.houghton some studies/projects to work on and helping him out with some basic principles that I've found useful. This will start Dec. 14th when he's on break and will last about a month until he heads back to school.

If anyone wants to follow along and do these projects they are welcome to, however;

>> please do not post in this thread <<
- create a separate thread where everyone following along can post
- I will only comment/critique on other work once I've commented on Brad's project for the day.

The projects will fall into 3 themes; anatomical/figurative, landscape/environment and lighting/colour/rendering Please remember that I'm still learning (especially landscapes/enviros) and that this isn't your only source of knowledge/development. learn from everyone and everything.

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The tentative project schedule is as follows:

*I'll likely post a number of projects at once so that while I'm critiquing one comlpleted project you can be worknig on another*

Basic/mandatory
I hope to get through all of these before our time is done, each of these projects amounts to about 2 hours of work (or however much time you have set aside during a day) so hopefully they each work out to be one project per day. You can take this all at your own pace, but remember that the more we do here the more things we get to cover later.

Anatomy

- Studies of torso plates
- Studies of arm plates
- Studies of leg plates
- application of muscles on male and female figure

Landscape/Enviros

- perspective, 1 2 and 3 point, creating boxes
- perspective, city scene with building added
- landscape studies
- application of receding planes to create the illusion of depth

lighting/colour/rendering

- Colour self portrait from mirror if possible, identify colours of light sources and local colour
- application of colours/lighting onto a face from imagination
- lighting as applied to large and small features (ties in with anatomy)
- Colour constancy, bounced light (everything is a light source)


Extra work
If we have any extra time we should get to some of these as well.

Anatomy

- basic blocked out forms
- Nude figure study
- figure in perspective
- motion of the body and muscle dynamics

Landscape/Enviros

- compositional application
- figures and environment in perspective
- other general landscape studies

lighting/colour/rendering

- heavy ambient colour scene
- skin tone application
- other general studies

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I'll post the first few projects up before the 14th if Brad or anyone wants to get a head start.

[Jason Rainville]

It's about a week before we officially get started so I thought I'd post up the first few projects so that Brad or anyone interested can get a head start (remember if you're not Brad, please make a new topic for work from these projects that you want to display/get a critique on) Also, there's not going to be any due date for any of these projects. the incentive though is to do enough so that we can get to more advanced stuff later. So;

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Anatomy
Part 1: Studies of torso muscle plates

These first few projects might be a little boring, but they are essential for understanding the movement and overlapping of muscle masses. This fist project starts with the torso. You can use whatever medium you want, but I’d suggest pencil to start off.

A note for these muscle studies: don’t worry about copying the parts of the images with a view of the external body, just focus on the muscles for now.

Copy these two images of the torso muscle as best you can;

Torso - Front
Torso - Back



Make sure to take note of patters in the ways that muscles overlap, such as how the lats and glutes create a diamond shape on the lower back, or how the pecs all converge on one point.



Anatomy
Part 2: Studies of arm muscle plates

This second study is important as of all the parts of the body that are exposed, the arms are usually uncovered the most after heads and hands. The arms are also the “doers” of the body and are often in various positions as they interact with objects. Copy at least 2 of these images as best you can. I’d recommend the lateral and medial views (which would be from the outside and from the inside respectively) but doing all of them would be even better.

Arm - back
Arm - Lateral
Arm - Front
Arm - Medial



Anatomy
Part 3: Studies of leg muscle plates

As with the arms you can choose to do only 2 of these images (I’d recommend the front and back view) but again, more in this case is better.

Leg - back
Leg - Lateral
Leg - Front
Leg - Medial

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Once you complete one of these I'll respond with any critiques or insights I have (there are usually important things I know about the muscles that I like to elaborate on) and eventually post the next project in line.

[brad.houghton]

I would just like to start out by saying thank you so much Jason for all the time you've set aside for this. I really, really appreciate it and I intend to learn as much as possible in the time we have.

Here is lesson one, part one, both the front and back trunk muscles. I found the back muscles particularly hard, although I'm happy with how they both turned out.

[Jason Rainville]

Great job on these Brad When I said "take note" I meant just in your head, try to notice certain things but you're free to keep writing them down (might help remember them better and give me an idea of what you see)

The back muscles are hard, mainly because it's more complicated back there what with the moving shoulder blades and all. It's also hard because the forms can change quite a lot depending on the muscle mass of the individual;




It's important to remember to not immediately build up a "symbol" of what the back looks like, because there's just so much variety back there.

[brad.houghton]

Thanks a lot Jason, the muscled man versus the thinner woman really helps to clear things up, I was struggling with the shoulder blade before and I think that will help a lot. And ya, I'll make sure I don't just categorize all "backs" as the body builder type, it's a good thing to keep in mind.

Here's part two of lesson one. I didn't find anything particularly harder then anything else with these, although I think they helped me understand the forearm a lot better then I did before.

[Jason Rainville]

Nice, watch the proportions on the front view though, it's getting a little chunky. Even the strongest, most muscle bound men have relatively thin wrists compared to the rest of the forearm, reason being the bulk of the muscle is close to the elbow.

I did a little diagram of some things I learned about the forearm that might be useful:


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Here's the next project after the legs studies:




Anatomy
Part 4: Application of muscles to nude figure study

In this study you will select 2 nude figures to draw, one male and one female. Make sure the entire body is mostly visible and that the subjects are in poses that are more complex than simply standing. Do a very basic sketch of the models, but do not render their features fully; you will be drawing muscles on them as if they have been flayed, using your drawings and the muscle images as reference. Take note of how the muscles are positioned in various parts of the body as well as how they flex in different configurations.

Here are a few recommended images but you can use any decent ones you find:

[brad.houghton]

Ya I have got to remember to keep basic shapes in mind while I go at these, such as the tapered cylinders for the arms plus the basic ovals you showed in your diagram.

Unfortunately I was really busy today and was only able to get 2 of the leg diagrams done. If I have more time tonight I'll try and crank out the other 2, not sure though. What I found most helpful (and most difficult) about these two was that they showed how the leg attaches to the hip and how those muscles continue down the leg.

[brad.houghton]

This is the first part of this assignment. I really enjoyed this, as it posed a lot of new problems for me. I had to adjust the muscles in the reference we have been using so far for the female figure, as all of it had been from a male. I also found that rotating the muscles in my mind and trying to figure out how they would look in this particular placement, being flexed in certain ways, etc. was very challenging but also really enjoyable. I did do a quick google search for the side view of the muscles on the torso, although it didn't yield very much. I tried to piece it together as best I could Definitely the hardest assignment yet, but the most enjoyable, can't wait to do the next part tomorrow!

[Jason Rainville]

nice work brad and welcome back, there's a few issues I want to point out with this one;

For one, her face is a bit too big compared to her cranium. this is an issue with observing accurately;




There's also an issue with the anatomy around her midsection;

[brad.houghton]

Thanks Jason, those paint overs are great, they really help me to see where I screwed up. Especially where the torso meets the then the leg, that area I found pretty hard, but your paint over plus pointing out the observational landmarks on her body really helped sort that mess out.

I chose a picture of from my own collection of reference for the male study. I know he's wearing shorts and it obscure the upper thigh area, but I thought the rest of the picture was a great example of the stretching and compressing of certain muscle groups (plus I really love MMA lol). I had some trouble on his right side of the torso where the muscle curve around the ribs, I wasn't sure how far around they should come, and specifically where they should be.

[Jason Rainville]

Hey brad; sorry for not being on the ball ,I'll post the new project up tomorrow as soon as I can.

[Jason Rainville]

Alright, enough anatomy for now, time to switch gears;

Landscape/Enviros
Perspective, 1 2 and 3 point

If you've ever taken even a hgihschool art class, chances are you've come across the who perspective lesson with 1, 2 and 3 vanishing points. If so and this is easy peasy, then it should be easy to bang this one out. If not, then this will be an essential lesson for dealing with perspective. Below are some quick examples of 1, 2 and 3 point perspective;


One point








two point











three point













and lastly, here are some things you should avoid/common mistakes when dealing with vanishing points;



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Alright, what I want you to DO is;

- create 2 boxes in 1 point perspective
- create 2 boxes in 2 point perspective
- create 2 boxes in 3 point perspective

for each image one box should be above the vanishing point and one below. this doesn't mean the ENTIRE box has to be above or below, just the bulk of it. be sure to create the entire box as well, showing what's behind it, how the rear of it is constructed (pretty much how I have it up there)

If you have any questions or want me to clear something up with the examples feel free, I skimmed over them mostly since I didn't want to waste time on getting really into detail with it. you can also use any medium you wish. I'll post up the next project as well so we can get ahead again

[Jason Rainville]

And the next one;


Landscape/Enviros
Perspective, city scene with building added

This project is a 2-parter, and will be more difficult than our previous ones since we're getting right into colour as well. I'll say that getting the colours of the scene to be precise isn't the main goal of the project, but you should still try your best.

What we're going to do:
I want you to find an image of a city scene in perspective. It doesn't matter what type of city, how big it is etc. as long as there are buildings in it where we can see more than one of their sides.

Once selected, do a study of this scene from observation as accurately as you can. Do this digitally, in colour. this is part one, just finishing a study of a city. In the second part, you will add a building to this scene using 2-point perspective.

how you will do this is to use the angles of the buildings in your study to find where the 2 vanishing points are. once you've found these points, you'll do like you did in your previous project and create a new box. this box should be mostly visible (IE not covered up in the background) and so should either be a smaller building in the foreground, or a large building such as a skyscraper in the background.

You'll finish up by painting the building as if it was in the scene. the building doesn't have to be fancy at all and can simpy be a coloured box that doesn't really fit. The point is to get it to look like it's jiving with the perspective (and colours if possible) make sure this building has a line running around it to describe its form (just a simple ledge will do) and at least one window.



I've done this project ahead of time, partly for myself but also to give a bit of a guide;















take your time on this one to make sure you do a good job, no rush

[Safria]

Wow nice thread Rhine! I'll have to partake in some of these studies

[brad.houghton]

Hey man no worries about the assignments, I was busy all morning anyways. The 1 and 2 point perspective was relatively easy, the three point was a little bit trickier, it was good to practice them all anyways; havn't done it in a couple years lol.

[brad.houghton]

Here's the sketch for the first part of the project. I'm already envisioning what I'm going to add lol pretty fun. I'll post the colour part either tonight or tomorow

[brad.houghton]

This one was really hard, but I feel like I learned a ton from this part of the project alone. This is the first landscape I've done with buildings in it, I tried to get everything in perspective, but I have a feeling I'll have to do some fixes.

[Jason Rainville]

Nice. no rush since it's the eye of the holiday storm, but if you could show the ref you're using for this I might be able to help

[brad.houghton]

Here's the reference, I omitted some things, such as the building attached to the tower, that I didn't think were necessary. If you think I should add them back in I will, also, I'm going to wait and fix things you give me crits on before I add in the imaginary building.

[Jason Rainville]

first off, that's a very hard piece of reference to use not only because of the odd lighting situation but also because there are few markers pointing to the left. We can't see the bottom left of the building or the tower, and I think that's going to mess up with your efforts to find the left vanishing point.
I wouldn't recommend continuing with the exercise from your image, as there are no markers to the left at all. I think we'll skip to the next one for now just for some general landscape practive, but we might do this on if we have time later.

there are also a number of issues with observation; look at the slope of the roof on your ref and your image, notice how in yours it's level while in the image it slopes down a noticeable degree;













We'll take the lessons learned here and apply it to a little less complicated exercise (there's a creative one coming up after this)

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Landscape/Enviros
landscape study


This one is relatively straightforward; find an image of a landscape and do a study of it from observation as accurately as you can. Try to make sure that not only the shapes/distances are accurate but try to copy the colours as best you can as well.

I would recommend finding something with both a ground plane and features protruding upward (meaning no shots looking up at mountains with no ground, and no endless fields with nothing on the horizon)

Here are a few suggestions;

[brad.houghton]

Ya, I kind of realized too late that the image was a bad pick, but oh well on to the next. Here's my progress for the landscape, I have been saving it in steps as well so when I'm done I'll post my process. Any crits so far?

[Jason Rainville]

The background is looking pretty good in terms of colour but the foreground rock is a little too saturated and orange; it should be a bit duller, and more of a peach colour. Remember to measure all the time; on the mesa on the left, look at the 3 dark bands on it's slope. You have them an equal distance apart, but are they really evenly spaced?

[brad.houghton]

Ok here's my process, as well as a bigger picture of the stage I'm at now. I changed the saturation of the foreground rock (not sure if I did it enough or if its the right hue?) as well as fixing the dark bands you pointed out. The middle ground still has some work, mainly some more blending, as well as the background mountains could be shown a little more love. The thing I'm not too sure about is how to do the texture, and small bushes and tiny details. I know about implied detail, I'm just not good at it yet lol I tried a little with slightly textured brushes on the left mesa, but I wasn't entirely happy with it. How would you go about doing it once the bigger parts of the painting are done?

[Jason Rainville]

Hey Brad;

Texture is either about creating a foundation of texture that you refine overtop or by overlaying texture on top of something and erasing parts of it so it appears cohesive. i prefer the former and did a bit of a (crude, apologies) paintover to help. I have Whit Brachna's brushes that you could get by downloading one of his larger downloads (I got mine from his mountain one)

[brad.houghton]

Hey man, here's my finished study. I struggled a little with the texture, I think I might get one of Whit Brachna's downloads to get some good brushes(plus I might learn something lol), the standard ones on PS kind of suck and I feel like I could spend hours sifting through the free ones online to try and find a decent set. I feel like I learned huge on this one, especially when it came to the colours and trying to get the right saturation. I spent a long time going back and forth, guessing at a colour then checking it with the colour picker in the photo and I think it really helped. Excited for the creative project!

[Jason Rainville]

Hey brad, just a bit busy. I'll probably have an update today.

[Jason Rainville]

Alright, crits;

the brushes, like the suit, doesn't make the man. Whit's are just more convenient (and make more sense, I have no idea why the default texture brushes are on an angle) the important thing to remember is just sprinkle it around, you don't want to make the whole thing out of texture. There still have to be hard edges, solid forms etc.

For the rendering specifically (yes spellcheck failed me);



It's important to realize however that every style of rendering has its place. it would be a mistake to render everything hyper-crisp (unless trying to create an effect) as some things are naturally soft and because of emphasis.


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Landscape/Enviros
application of receding planes to create the illusion of depth


So, here's the deal;





In this project you'll be creating a landscape using the above principle. It's important not to rely on it in the future however; it's just a framework to help create depth. You can use any amount of reference you want, as long as it's more or less an original place.

For the sake of simplicity, don't worry about people or complicated buildings (a tower or simplified city in the distance would be alright) But other than a ground plane the image can be anything you want. Try to use what you learned about colour and saturation (things getting more saturated the closer they are, the clouds reflecting the colour of the ground)

[brad.houghton]

Hey Jason, good advice about the brushes, and the paint over for the blending was really useful, I'll keep it in mind for the next assignment.

So I started with a few thumbnails because I really wasn't sure where to go with this one. I'm thinking the bottom right one, it's pretty simple but interesting enough to keep me going at it. I've also got some general reference for the type of environment I'm going for. If there is any thumbnail you like in particular, or certain things I should add to the one I want to work on let me know, other then that I'm going to start painting after dinner.

[brad.houghton]

Here's what I have so far. I've been trying to keep in mind colour saturation as well as working with the brushes at full opacity (except for in the clouds). I'm going to bring some of the ground colours up into the clouds as well as have a lot of blue shadows on the ground reflecting the clouds and sky (more towards the background of the image).

[Jason Rainville]

Looking pretty good here, definitely a good start with the ground. the clouds are a little too mushy right now though, a lot of the times they have very smoothed gradations between values (such as these clouds here) or a bit of a hard delineation between two more solid masses of colour such as this bit of cloud I rendered a little while back where the top is more illuminated by the sun than the bottom. BUT their outlines are usually a contrast of hard and soft. For something that seems so easy clouds are just damn hard. I think overall what I think would benefit the coulds right now is just some simplification; less complex shading on their interiors might make them a bit more realistic.

Most important to remember is that clouds have form. they can be tall, roughly cylindrical thunderheads or flat broad sheets that stretch over the ground at a higher altitude. Lighting affects them just the same as any object hanging in the sky, so it always pays to plan where the sun is