Preserved Topic: Shading

I find this really difficult. I did what u guys said I should try for practice. This is my result, it is a pingpong ball that I had.

I think I am going about this shading all the wrong way. I believe that next week in my drawing class we are going to start shading, which I hope helps.

what shading Duck?

I knew I didn't make it dark enough....

It looks like you've got the right general idea: imagine light is shining on it, then make the light side bright and the dark side dark. You just need to go a lot further with it.

Why not take the actual ping pong ball, put it under a bright light, and draw exactly what you see? The best way to learn is from life.

Is smudging allowed? I do not think that I am doing this correctly.

no you didn't... but... That *is* a good idea.

Ya know, every single object is made of some variation of a square, a circle, or a triangle. With the proper shading the square can become a cube, circle a sphere, and triangle a 4 sided pyramid. A true pyramid is a triangular shape on a square base... it has 5 sides.

So, it is very beneficial to practice drawing the cube, sphere, and 4 sided pyramid.... And that is your assignment if you choose to accept it.

Oh, by the way, do it all in shades of GRAY. yes... gray. not black, not white... but grays. okays?


                                   

[This message has been edited by eyezaer (edited 02-09-2003).]

[This message has been edited by eyezaer (edited 02-09-2003).]

Gotcha, But one quick question. Is there a special way to do this that I'm not aware? Also, the smudge tool or just paintbrush or airbrush?



[This message has been edited by Duck (edited 02-09-2003).]

no.. don't bother with the smudge tool.

people have preferences about the brushes.
I prefer the paintbrush far more than the airbrush.


FAQs n' Bits: Michael

I'm going to echo what VP said and say, "what shading?"



Make it look like light is shining on it. Nothing more.

hokay, ya got me kinda excited here... i did this really quick, but with a little more work it could look like some baaad spheres.



Yo notice that i said no black and no white? well... if you do use black and white, it will end up looking flater and flattest. hopefully you can see from my rough scribble.

cheerio!

                                   

Izzy: Great work there.

Just to clarify. In all the examples posted the one to the left is correct. The ones in the center are too white, as the ones on the right are far too black. These are by no means perfect, as they are simple sketches. Use the examples as examples, not as ultimate truths.

Wow, Thanks for spending that much time on me. I'll give it a shot, but how do I make it look so smooth like raptor did?

Are those donut holes Izz?

Better?



[This message has been edited by Duck (edited 02-09-2003).]

How would I get color though?

Eyezaer, that was a great post. Perhaps it should be placed in the archives to help those who are not trained artists.

Duck, this is what I do when shading. I lock the transparency of the layer. Then I select either the paint brush or airbrush. I select a fuzzy brush of medium size and slide the opacity of down to 15%. I then magnify the picture to 200% or higher. I choose black as my color and begin painting the edge away from the light. I build the shading in the same manner as Eyezaer. If I want an area darker I go over it again with the brush. Highlights are done it the same manner except the color is now white.

Please be aware this is only one way to approach shading. Other artists have different methods but not one of them is The One True Way. Play with the tools to find the one which is the most comfortable for you. Personally, I do not care to use the smudge tool for shading as it tends to destroy the detail.

I see you snuck a couple of posts in while I was making my reply.

Duck, you are definitely improving. To do shading in color is basically the same except you choose a lighter or darker shade of the same color. Alternatively, you could place a layer set on color above your shaded layer and add the color you want. Different layer settings will yeild different effects. Take a look at Doc Ozone's glass tutorial for some examples or you could just play around. I promise there won't be a quiz afterwards.



[This message has been edited by Moth (edited 02-09-2003).]

no Krets, they are snow balls... sheesh...

Raptor didnt *paint* his ball... it looks like he used a circular gradient tool, and then added a drop shadow to make the sphere lift off the page a little. the Shadow is a bit of a trick there... looks pretty nice... but it still aint painted. heh.

Duck, I may have stressed painting in black and white a little more than I meant to. I was trying to make the pont that if you use white and black it will look flat... you need variation in all the shades of gray... but you do need dark grays and light grays in there...

You have a good start so far, now, as you have noted, it needs more contrast. I would make an adjustment layer with the levels and then tweak it like so... All to bring more contrast into the image. Now, merge that layer down and then use a soft paint brush, low opacity, and the eyedropper tool to smooth out the overly dark spots. (use the eye dropper to pick colors from the picture... quick tip, when you are in the paint brush mode, just hit the Alt key to momentarily change to the eye dropper tool)

And as moth said, there are many ways to do this. (and sometimes blending the 3 methods mentioned in this tread could work very well) I am just trying to give you basic instructions that you can go do your own deal with.

                                   

[This message has been edited by eyezaer (edited 02-09-2003).]

????
edit - color shade now

I think the colored one needs some work... But I'm off to go play tennis, I'll check back in later.


[This message has been edited by Duck (edited 02-09-2003).]

quote:

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Raptor didnt *paint* his ball... it looks like he used a circular gradient tool, and then added a drop shadow to make the sphere lift off the page a little. the Shadow is a bit of a trick there... looks pretty nice... but it still aint painted. heh.

-- eyezaer

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Yep, I cheated. White-to-black radial gradient on a new layer, set to hardlight. It seemed to me though, that Duck was having problems getting the idea of what shading was about, so I gave an example

Duck - you've received some golden advice and examples from izzy. I would strongly suggest locally archiving that picture so you always know where it's at. As far as color goes, you have a lot of options. You could paint on a new layer set to color, just use a direct hue/saturation adjustment, use variations, etc, etc, etc. It's like incrementing a value in C++; there's a ton of ways to do it.

Keep at it.

New colored one. Is this better?

Much better. Just remember to keep your light source and shadows in check. Right now the light is comming from a slightly low right angle but the shadow is falling as if the light was comming from center right. Raise the shadow a little and it should look more natural.

Oh and if your going to put text on it you'll need to warp the text so that it looks like it wraps round the edges of the object. Have a bit of a play with the Distort > Spherize filter for that.

And remember that a 3D object will ahve refracted light wrapping aournd (and if it's up against a white surface, as in your image, it will also have reflected light) so that the darkest point will *not* be the edge.

The light will wrap around and lighten up the edges.

As it is now, it looks more like a curved disk than a sphere.

Big step in the right direction though.

I might also add.... the text wouldn't be the same tone all the way across.
I would think that where the light is hitting it, it'd be quite difficult to read.


FAQs n' Bits: Michael

Okay.... after re-examining things... I could be slightly off with my last comment.
It'd all depend on the intensity of the light source, of course...
but it'll probably be prettly legible.

So... do we have a reference for this?... or are we shooting from the hip?

Seeing as we all love to promote observation....
and though this is just a quick shot and isn't exactly what you're looking for....
I went and snapped a photo.




FAQs n' Bits: Michael

totally 100% from the hip mate. I was going to suggest lookin at some nice spheres, but eh... it slipped my mind.