Med's Map

More Blending! + Assignment

Lesson by

373

More Blending! + Assignment

Lesson by

Ahmed Aldoori

in Med's Map

373

Assignments 34

Downloads 1

Use the references provided to draw and paint the values as shown in the demonstration. Starting with a careful drawing, and laying in a midtone value on a layer beneath the drawing. Then build up the highlights, and place shadows if you’d like. The illusion of form should still work without the darkest shadows, that’s up to you. Be sure to carefully isolate the value groups to help indicate form, lighting, and contrast.

Lyn L.

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6mo

@elkad

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6mo

assignment finished, yippee

@elkad

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5mo

Back after watching the week 4 critiques. My biggest area for improvement was with value groups and making them read clearly. The saying "the lightest dark is darker than the darkest light" and vice versa is a good guideline and definitely applies here, there were a few instances where I didn't follow this guideline which I had to correct. I simplified some shadow groups and toned down the secondary light slightly so that it wouldn't distract from the primary light family of values. The changes are kinda subtle but i think it makes it easier to read especially at a distance or when squinting

Johnathan

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11mo

Assignment

Martha Muniz

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11mo

Nice work! I think you really got down the rendering with well-executed light and shadows. One smaller thing to watch out for would be the jaw area, especially the chin, as I notice the tendency to make it larger and flatten it out. It helps to think about the chin as a simple sphere-like object, especially with softer rounder faces like these, so it's easier to pinpoint the terminator and describe the round form as it curves around. Hope this helps, keep up the good work :)

Luke

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11mo

I've finished up this assignment. Though I feel like i could use with more practice, I was definitely bleeding steps into each other. All the rubbing out ended up happening on the line art layer.

Martha Muniz

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11mo

Very nice, I love the thoughtfulness of your rendering. I do think adding in a dark value as a final pop, much like highlights on the light side of the spectrum, could bring an added dimension to your work. It could also bring in some counterbalance against all the soft edges and transitions in the halftones. Either way, good stuff!

Bill Burroughs

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1yr

Here are my submission for critique. I felt the first couple were not very good trying to follow along and maintain a painterly style. On the later ones I mixed some techniques to help paint the portraits better. I also decided to render them just a little more other than a rough painterly style. I wouldn’t mind trying to figure out how to design and paint the shapes so they have more appeal. Any critiques are welcome.

@andek

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1yr

Additionally, if you would like the characters to be more similar to the reference, also work on the angles of construction. This trick works very well for me. Even slight differences are quite noticeable to the human eye. I hope I helped at least a bit. Best regards!

@andek

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1yr

Hi Bil, I believe your painting skills are fine. To improve the drawing, I would suggest focusing on values (light and shadow) now. If you don't want to use edited references, at least for self-check, I recommend a quick test at the end with a background change. See how immediately it becomes apparent that the lost edges are incorrect (highlighted section in the jpg).

Jacey King

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1yr

This is the only one I had on hand to upload, might upload the others later. Enjoyed the assignment and am pretty pleased with this one over all, though I do wish I had slowed down in a few areas to get some of the shapes better.

Martha Muniz

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1yr

I love the use of edges and painterly strokes, well done! I did a quick paintover to help explain, but for assignment feedback, it comes mostly down to lessening the intensity of the shadows. When adding detail, it can be easy to get carried away with too much use of shadows for definition, as this can quickly age a person up. Though you show anatomical/structure knowledge, the glow of light as well as the softness of the face (especially with women/kids) will reduce the visibility of some features' details. I also included some quick proportion fixes I hope you find useful.

Marco Sordi

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1yr

2023/8/14. Good evening everybody. Here's my assignment for this section. Thanks.

Martha Muniz

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1yr

Hi Marco! I did a quick paintover for one of your practices that I think covers some overall tendencies and suggested changes for the rest: - Using value to create edges instead of line - Brush stroke direction to indicate significant plane changes - Casting darker shadows based on light source direction, it helps to map out the light sources - Overall increase in contrast / value difference between planes I hope the image attached is helpful but let me know if you have any questions :)

MEGA COMPUTER

•

2yr

This was a very fun assignment-- things are starting to really feel like they are all coming together. I think I need to work on proportion and, consequentially, likeness. I felt as though the most useful idea to keep in mind while working through these was brush economy, and while I certainly got lost in the weeds at times, the moments when I remembered to make that brush big and place one well thought out stroke lead to the most satisfying results. I'm open to any feedback on these pieces, as well as any discussion on the assignment to further all of our mutual understanding. <3

@morelock

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2yr

I think these look pretty good. For me so far the further I get from the likeness the harder it gets to get the "right" values in place. Something subtle shifts a bit and then everything ends up just looking...off, so I've mainly stuck to trying to keep it as close as possible for now. I'm also very bad about using a small brush!

@morelock

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2yr

This one was a real beast, will likely come back and try it again at some point.

Jacey King

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1yr

I know this post is relatively old, so I don't know if you're still looking for critique or not, but I thought I'd throw my two cents in anyway. I think your rendering is fairly decent, especially on that right (her left) eye. I mean, holy dang. You did a good job on that eye. Beautiful rendering, the shape is there, super lifelike, a fantastic job. The biggest problem I've noticed is that the proportions are out of whack in a lot of spots. For example, the chin is too large and is slightly facing forward instead of being tilted down, and also she has a much more rounded face, whereas you've really cut it in on the right side. If I were to offer any advice it would be to continue to watch proportions, as well as doing more skull studies to make sure you have the anatomy down pat.

@morelock

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2yr

Here's everybody together. Some tough work in here

@morelock

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2yr

Specifically trying to go from my sketch (a bit more stylized) instead of straight copy of the reference and still keep solid / similar values. I think this one turned out pretty ok.

Tony Vu

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2yr

Had fun with this assignment. Think my understanding of values has improved a good bit. My understanding of the brush economy has also imrproved a lot from this assignment.

Jesper Axelsson

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2yr

Hi @Tony Vu, cool paintings! I haven't taken Ahmed's course, but I thought of something that helped me when I practiced value studies: It might help to start with only 2 values, then add extra values from there. I struggled with my 5 value studies. What I realized was that I struggled already at 3 values. So I decided to pracitce 3 value studies first, until I had good control over them. That really helped. Going from 3 to 5 values was pretty easy, I just split two of the groups I already had to end at 5 values total. Dorian Iten has a great video on value studies. How to Organize Values. You can get it for free in the Proko Course Sampler. Hope this helps :)

Myles Goethe

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2yr

Not frustrating in the slightest...this was a blast of fun and pleasure applying what the course has provided so far. I can see a clear progression in my art but I know there is still much for me to master. best assignment to date XD

Nio

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2yr

This was by far the most confusing lesson. I was VERY lost and even a little frustrated because of my confusion. I hope nobody after me becomes frustrated with learning so I'm including my personal process and MOST of the information I gathered. And keep in mind, my process will not work for everybody. It may not work for you, and it sure as hell doesn't work for every single reference. But its an overview and a base. Most importantly: what I say and paint isn't perfect. There will always be mistakes. I want you to learn from what I'm providing. And if what I'm providing includes mistakes, learn from those mistakes. Out of all the information, the most important thing Ahmed mentions and what helped me the most is focus on high contrast areas and brush economy (macro to micro). More information about what I learned and why I posted weird screenshots of my art is included in the text