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Shan Shan
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4d
Asked for help
Does anyone have any resources on how to take professional images of traditional work like Stan and the Proko-Team?
TLDR; I was interested into how the proko team takes immaculate images of their traditionally drawn work for publication and am trying to find ways to imitate their process for documenting and publishing my own traditionally made work.
I was interested in taking professional images of my work for posting online and portfolio making. In my head, my end goal is to take images similar to how Stan takes amazing images of his work for the course videos that almost look like they were scanned. Were they scanned? lol.
Even his video tutorials are so well lit that his traditional drawings, to me, compete with most other digital creators. Like, his sketchbook just stays flat white without any vignetting and it makes me so intrigued as to how he actually sets up his workstation and edits the images in post to look so clean.
I'm really confused, and searching online didn't really help as most other content creators don't actually show details like their lighting set-up and image post-processing.
I understand for most flat traditional work, the recommendation for professional publication, is to purchase a reliable scanner.
But what If I want to document something that is larger than A4 or painted? A3 scanner prices are insane and anything larger is definitely out of the question for individuals like myself, typically only established businesses have access to purchasing these. :/
If someone from the Proko team can see this and respond, It would be super helpful!
If not, I'm fine too
Would appreciate it if some one had a definitive guide to taking such images or new a resource with enough detailing on how to take professional images of artwork
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4d
Hey, Shan! You can see a little behind the scenes of what we use in Slew's recent video. 🔗https://youtu.be/R4ocBGf0614
We photograph art and do video with the same setup so it's a little different than if we were just doing photos. That can have a lot its own processes for the real high end version (especially for paintings) but this is what we do typically:
Our main setup has a desk that's as horizontally flat as it can be. (Fully flat for photos or a little angled if you're recording video). Two lights point down towards the drawing at 45°. This helps to give you even lighting. Those overhead softbox lights have a few cluster LED bulbs in each of them that we call "corn cobs". They're 5000k temp so it's an even and more white-ish daylight.
For photos and for video, we do some editing to address any issues we see. Contrast adjustments, removing noise, even out occasional reflection hotspots on the desk, making Stan's background perfectly white. and more. We use Lightroom from photos and Da Vinci Resolve for video color grading. Our cameras have ranged from a Canon 7D at the start of Proko, Lumix GH4s for a long while and now we're using Blackmagic 6K cameras.
We don't scan art too often unless it's HUGE and hard to get photos/video of. Our dinky office scanner takes a bad image so we go to a professional place nearby for that. This is very infrequent. The main thing is using a tool that gives you an honest image without pushing colors and contrast FOR you and then giving it the most even lighting so they see the work you did, not the light of the room you're in.
At one point, we considered making a video about how to shoot good photos of your art but it just became clear that it was a LOT if we were to do it proper, with a lot of it being situational to the medium, the room and the tools available. Use your phone or whatever camera you have but if you use your phone, try using an app that gives you some basic professional controls and less auto stuff that makes colors pop without you choosing it.
Feel free to follow up with more questions if you'd like!
Asked for help
It might look better if i tried a few more times but decided to continue and finish the available lessons.
Using more transparency and smaller brush helped a lot.
I find digital way harder then basic pen and paper.
I needed to learn a bit more on the digital side such as relation between brush size, brush resolution, working resolution and actual digital pens capabilities and limitations during this lesson.
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26d
I have no notes except that I love this little boy.
Thanks for sharing him!
@zenule
•
1mo
Asked for help
Here's what I managed to do.. first two photos are sketches after reference photos from google ( sorry for not posting the photos too, forgot to download them ), and the next three are the fooling arounds. Can't say I'm that proud of this "imagination" of mine, it's still something somewhat scary, but this too shall pass. Thank you for the great exercise, I hope everyone had/will have fun with it!
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26d
Nice! I think you're doing great here. I love that you've clearly drawn through the forms. That's given you a lot of believability to the placement and motion of the forms.
My favorite is the bottom left one on the first image you posted. That lil guy's the best.
Asked for help
I sort of miss understood the directions a little so my "experimental" sketches ended up being more just drawings from reference. I did find that they did help me gain confidence in the final drawing and the turn out was better than I expected from myself. I'm sure it still has problems that I wasn't able to spot so any critique are appreciated.
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26d
I see what you're getting at here. There's some invention about the posing that's a good departure from just using the reference. I don't think any critiques are necessary here. Just keep at with some practice and build up those drawing muscles like you're doing 💪
Try drawing a bunch more and see where that can take you. Put that newfound confidence to use!
Asked for help
It's hard not to copy the reference material. I hop it fits the criteria of the assignment.
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26d
Yeah, when they're right there it can be a little harder not to. Your full page one has some invention in it that fits well here and has a good, fun energy to it. I can feel the little guy's personality!
Try letting the reference fall away and just draw a ton of them! Think of a little story that shoots of from the action in the references and see how you can pose and move them. That'll help you break out of sticking to it.
Thanks for sharing!
Asked for help
I think I went a little too much in the anatomy, for lack of understanding the forms
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6mo
I can understand why you feel you went too far into the anatomy of the form on this mannequin study.
But if you're working from anatomy knowledge and trying learn how they work together, this is solid.
Good use of the cross contours in here too!
@maximilienle2d
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6mo
Asked for help
dis 3 of those, the dogs were constructed with yellow pencil but I decide to continue the drawing since i liked the gesture a lot
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6mo
Cool to see the process here! Great choices on the simplification of colors on the corgis.
Andreas Kra
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6mo
Asked for help
Here, I focused on practicing and repeating the drawing of skulls. To keep the practice interesting, I added some skulls of other animals for variation.
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6mo
Solid! Love the open mouth human skull on the second page! Strong studies.
