Practice: Shading Creatures
This lesson has a premium version with extra content. Get it now!

The Shading Course

Module 5 - How to Create Realistic Shading

Practice: Shading Creatures

485
Mark as Completed

Practice: Shading Creatures

485
Mark as Completed

Overview

Let's practice shading simple forms! In this assignment, you'll create a realistic rendering of a little creature.

Steps

  1. Download or print at least one of the project files below.
  2. Complete the four stages.
  3. Upload your image.

Duration

This project should take 1–2 hours to complete.

Examples

Newest
@doublejon
14h
@tonyhcf
1mo
Kristina Gehrmann
This was trickier than I thought. Quite fun tho :D
@marq777
7mo
Definitely could use some fixes but it's surely a improvement from where I was before
@rfrimpong3
Derek Adams
Seems, after takeing my pictures, I always see my mistakes, fix, retake, fix……. And then they look too over worked, and not that good….. I feel, I'm not satisfied, and want to redue the assignments again, and again….. Any suggestions?
@kotka
9mo
This exercise was a lot of fun even if it messed a bit with the shading and planning order. I realized that I erroneously used white, the color of specular highlight, as the fourth and lightest color during planning. This was because I got a bit confused by the four-value instruction after getting used to working with five values. I should've just forgotten about the specular white, even though it's technically the "fifth", lightest and last value to be put down. I adjusted this misunderstanding as I went along the four stages and it turned out just fine.
Vin
10mo
Here are my shaded creatures. I followed the steps, and I do feel they look more realistic than what I have drawn before. Although my digital drawing skills are still very limited…(I am still trying to find a suitable brush to use in krita.)
@rfeistauer
Nice!
Samuel Sanjaya
here's my assignment submission. This helped me of breaking my bad habit of jumping all over the place when shading. Any feedbacks/critiques will be greatly appreciated.
@cindygs
2yr
Romain Decotte
Here's my shading creatures assignment. I was so much into it that I combined steps 3 and 4 in...step 3.
@selenitis
2yr
I found this a really helpful assignment, and I was able to identify that I struggle the most with reflected light, like determining where it would be strongest.
Dorian Iten
Nice! On the first one, you could get a stronger sense of form by pushing the dark halftones a bit darker and letting them come into the form light more. But these are both really solid overall!
Kwame Alexander
I messed up the notan version a bit, but no big deal.
Karlo H.
2yr
I don't have a printer so had to do everything by hand, hope it's ok!
Chris Bodary
This is with graphite 2H and 2B on regular computer copy paper
@ivat
2yr
Sharntel Davey
I found this harder than I would have guessed. Pretty cute idea for an assignment.
@flugmodus1
@flugmodus1
Thanks a lot for your feedback, means a lot to me! Even while drawing the right foot the reflected light felt off. :-)
Dorian Iten
Good work! The floor is quite dark and would probably not cause a reflected light on the body that is this strong. The reflected light on the right front leg feels a bit much.
Henri Gerrits
Shading Creatures (II). Does anyone know if there will be a 2nd round with critiques from Dorian?
Dorian Iten
Hi @Henri Gerrits, I'll do another round for modules 7 and 8 when there are a few more assignments, and I'll check other assignments for posts periodically. Good work on this little fellow! Two areas where you could refine more: keeping the light halftones as clean as possible and keeping the occlusion inside the cast shadow more consistently dark.
Henri Gerrits
Shading Creatures (I)
Full course
You will be given unexpiring access to watch the videos online .
View course details
Give a gift
Give a gift card for art students to use on anything in the Proko store.
Or gift this course:
About instructor
Former program director at Barcelona Academy of Art. Passionate about teaching craft and exploring the inner game of art.
Help!
Browse the FAQs or our more detailed Documentation. If you still need help or to contact us for any reason, drop us a line and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!