Cube Shading Exercise (seeking advice/feedback)
3yr
James
Hello again!
I watched the videos on shading in the figure drawing fundamentals course but felt a bit intimidated by all the different types of light and rules of how light works they introduced. Before trying to shade something like the egg included in one of the videos, I wanted to try something simpler to make sure I understood the concepts explained in the videos.
I used a cube-shaped tissue box and a flashlight as reference and tried to replicate how the light and shadows would appear when the light was directly overhead. I chose a cube as opposed to a rounded make things more manageable for my first shading exercise.
This is my first time doing a dedicated shading study so if there's anything I could do better please let me know.
Thanks!
It's a very nice start! A thing that would add life to your cube is the reflected light and ambient occlusion!
Ambient occlusion : very few light rays would hit the bottom corner of the cube, so it would get very dark close to where the cube touches the ground.
Reflected light : Light would bounce from the floor to the sides of the cube in shadow so that would make them lighter, except no light would bounce from the cast shadow, so the parts of the cube close to the cast shadow would stay darker.
Example of a cube : https://courses.byui.edu/art110_new/art110/week06/images/cube_areas_light_small.jpg
Here is a example of a sphere you could use to continue your studying : https://courses.byui.edu/art110_new/art110/week06/images/sphere.jpg
Are you familiar with Scott Robertson's "How to Render' book? He teaches you exactly this. His Gnomon rendering videos are good too and I think you can also buy it on Amazon?
Besides that, I recommend to focus more on drawing than shading. Once you read his book I think you'll understand why. Drawing is a prerequisite skill you need in order to construct the methods for rendering.
