Understanding Light and Shadow for Painting

Lesson by

Proko

Jon Neimeister

inDigital Painting Fundamentals

371

Assignments 18

Downloads 13

Understanding Light and Shadow for Painting

Lesson by

Proko

Jon Neimeister

in Digital Painting Fundamentals

371

Assignments 18

Downloads 13

Before we move on, lets take some time to practice.

Your assignment for this lesson is to do some studies of forms, focusing on their form shadows, cast shadows, and edge quality. You have three challenge options:

Easy Challenge: Use the provided reference and try to paint the forms as accurately as you can. Avoid merely copying what you see in the image. Instead, focus on understanding the direction of the light versus the direction of the planes and how they create shadows.

Intermediate Challenge: Change the direction of the light source from the provided reference and repaint those same forms from imagination. This challenge will test your ability to apply your knowledge of light and shadows creatively.

Advanced Challenge: Take a more complicated reference, such as a portrait, and simplify it down to planes. Render these planes and then, from imagination, change the direction of your light source. Try to paint the planes with the new light direction, showcasing your skills in painting complex objects without direct reference.

These assignments are designed to help you practice and apply the concepts covered in the lesson, ultimately improving your digital painting skills. Choose the challenge level that suits your proficiency and have fun exploring the world of shadows and form!

Lenserd martell

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2mo

Kassjan Smyczek

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3mo

Here are my assignments. I looked at the Asaro head but also tried to find my own simplified planes. I will do another round lighting it in a different way.

Kassjan Smyczek

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3mo

here is the light from another direction

Holly Laing

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8mo

I decided to try the intermediate challenge (I'm a bit late submitting these, but I'm trying to get caught up now that I have more time to dedicate to my studies). Any feedback/critique is welcome! :)

Ale Miranda

•

1yr

Hello, these are my studies!!

@jasonj33

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1yr

Getting better at lighting

Tsotne Shonia

•

1yr

Thanks for the lesson Boss :D I'm finally back too! I haven't drawn/painted in almost a full year, doing those simples studies was a really nice way to get back into it. The face was above the abilities I could salvage after such a hiatus, but I still gave it a shot. I had a strong desire to copy the reference, but that's not the point of the assignment. Also, I don't know how to "translate" the information from an asaro head to a photo reference of a real person.

@tomasmax

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1yr

Hi! thanks for the lesson I went with Intermediate Challenge for this assignment and I hope the level of render is enough. To keep things simple I did everything with regular sfot air brush with opacity with presure sensitivy. One thing I change was that I made the floor much more light to increase the influence of reflected light (I was feeling like it would beraly visible if it was supposed to bounce from very dark floor). With best regards, have a great day.

Nicole Drews

•

1yr

Easy Assignment: Relatively easy. Blending super subtle transitions was hard for me though, even with a soft airbrush it felt jagged and muddy Intermediate Assignment: The first page went okish although I struggle with cast shadows. 2nd page feels all wrong but idk how to fix it Advanced Assignment: Also feels wrong but I'm not sure what. And I'm still not great at painting faces so the guy looks more like a brother or a cousin to the ref

Jesper Axelsson

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1yr

Hi @Nicole Drews, nice studies! - In some of the drawings I feel like the values in the light get a little mixed up with the values in the shadow. In the box in image 3, for example, the left side of the cube feels a little light, like it's breaking out of the shadow group, becoming a dark halftone. You usually want a clear value distinction between light and shadow. So as you start a painting, think of the two groups, and get that set in your lay-in. Then as you flesh out with values, you try to make sure not to break those groups. I hope this helps :)

@hyki

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1yr

Hi everyone. Here is my attempt at the intermediate and advanced challenges. I tried to keep the details to a minimum when changing the light source on the portrait, but rendering the hair was a huge obstacle for me. I think it still looks muddy where the light hits above her left eye socket (the right eye socket from our perspective).

Sean Ramsey

•

1yr

Nice, these are looking great! a tip for the hair if you're struggling there, you could try thinking of the hair in more geometric "chunks" of large shapes to help you visualize the shape that it'll take. You can then texture out those large chunks to get that "hair" quality, but the overall approach to shading hair like that could help you. Stan's lesson on hair (here: https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/how-to-draw-hair/assignments) kind of goes over his approach and that could be useful.

onigi *pronunce [on-ie-gee]*

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1yr

I completed the sphere, rectangle, and cylinder for the easy and intermediate challenges. They're simple but hard to paint light and shadow from imagination. I'll tackle the other three shapes over the weekend and then attempt the advanced challenge. The marquee tools were helpful when I created shapes, and I also used some guides on a separate layer to better understand the shapes in 3D space.