nathanaardvark

Tutorial 49 - Contrapposto

Contrapposto or 'counter pose' is a term used to describe the alternating angles of the shoulders/arms to the hips due to the weight being on mostly one foot. This particular pose communicates a relaxed look, perhaps sad, bored or tired. Contrapposto is also present in many other poses, think of a swordsman leaning in for attack. Animators need to communicate this weight shift in a walk or run cycle. 

When designing a character it's a good idea to place your character in some sort of cont...

Tutorial 48 - Bounce Light

Bounce light generally effects the color we see in shadows, both form and cast. It's quite noticeable underneath the chin of a person wearing a brightly coloured sweater, for example. There is an observable color shift on the skin surface. 

It's much more subtle in other places but we can be fairly sure, it's almost everywhere as there are few places in the world were objects don't effect each other. Space perhaps, maybe on the moon!

As artists, we can exaggerate the bounce light ef...

Tutorial 47 - Backlit Hair

A common technique used in photography, a backlit subject gives a romantic, dreamy feeling to an image. An effective way to convey emotion and feelings in our artwork, though be careful with back lighting, it's easily overdone and can kill an otherwise great painting. 

Tutorial 46 - Painting an Energy Ball

More magic. This technique is a simple build up of layers, from dark red, through orange to yellow. Stay away from getting too bright with the yellow until the end, then add some subtle hot areas. 

Use the selection tool to make curvy edges, apply some orange and yellow, deselect and smudge a little here and there. Play around with the layer modes. 

The trick here is to keep things subtle. It's very easy to get carried away with layer modes, over detailing and getting too hot t...

Tutorial 45 - Folds, Creases and Edges

Here's a demonstration of one way to render geometric features. Good for some types of materials, like paper and other matte surfaces, some parts of buildings, types of metal and plastic. Painting hair using this method is also good, especially if you want that 3D look or anime style. 

The most important factor is the values. The values should stay fairly close - dark grey, or light grey but never black and never white. This gives us more flexibilty when it comes to final touches with tex...

Tutorial 44 - Studying from Reference

Using reference is a personal choice and we should find out for ourselves how it can both enhance or hinder our work and progress. 

For client work: 

Personally, I use reference daily in my freelance jobs. When dealing with existing intellectual properties (IPs) or a client's narrow specifications, we have to do whatever it takes to swerve our creative impulses and get the job done for the client. So, a good body of reference is essential and yes, even tracing is recomme...

Tutorial 43 - Hard vs Soft

Here's a very simple demonstrations of some basics of form behaviour. 

The harder the surface of an object, the less it will change it's form when touching other objects. Soft objects, of course, will change when touching another object, even if that other object is also soft. 

It's good practice to learn how to draw these soft forms in their various states. Applicable especially to the human body, which is made up of many forms of varying degrees of softness.

Tutorial 42 - Abstract Shapes

Playing with abstract shapes can be a great way to begin a concept. It's quite a challenge as a designer or artist to deal with a blank canvas. Perhaps it's better to give ourselves a bit of a starting point somehow. Whether it's an accidental coffee spill or an interesting crop on a scribble, we can almost always find discernible forms in abstract shapes.

Tutorial 41 - One Point Perspective Basics

Here's a good exercise: Take a photo of a corridor or street and draw perspective lines over the top. Try to find out where the vanishing point is, it should be easy if you've selected an image of a corridor or straight street. 

Next, on a new piece of paper, draw your perspective lines and make a sketch from the photo reference. You'll find the sketch is much more accurate than would be otherwise. 

Now try to draw the same image or another, without setting up your perspective ...

Tutorial 40 - Painting a Crowd Scene

A few further notes here. 

When starting out be sure to gather a good amount of reference. Do your research not just on what crowds look like when they're stationary but also how they move. Observe in public areas or watch a scene in a movie. 

Movies are also good for reference because the photography will be stylistically stronger. You'll notice that the main character is wearing red (for example) while the other figures are lost in blues and greys. 

Make sure your ...

Tutorial 39 - Muscles Beneath the Breasts

Underneath the layers of fatty tissue there is a network of muscles connecting to bone, tendons and fat. 

Most of the time, bodies aren't defined enough to see these individual muscle groups so we have to research our anatomy from pictures and photos. Look at the anatomy books and look at the illustrations and try to understand which muscles connect to which bones. Then you will start to grasp how they move and what they look like when they move.

When it comes to breasts, we usually...

Tutorial 38 - Powerful Blacks and Whites

Black and white areas and simple energetic lines are basic visual tools which can be used to suggest very complex forms. 

Form is expressed only by noting where the light is and where it isn't. Everything in between is midtone.  Usually, if there is a simple light setup, midtones can be subtly hinted at or skipped altogether.

In my example image, we are drawn to a central figure. The figure's head is popping out from behind his shield, in contrast to the other figur...

Tutorial 37 - Painting Fur

Here's one example of how to digitally paint fur. 

Take full advantage of your software's brush options. It's quite easy to create your own brush with a little research and experimentation. 

Play around with brush spacing and scattering . Angle jitter controls set to direction. Lighting is key to making believable hair and fur. Make sure you have plenty of reference.

Tutorial 36 - Color Harmony Basics

Color harmony is one of the main areas of color theory, so we should try to get our heads around it a little. 

The basic idea is that complicated color mixes will overstimulate the eye and provoke unharmonious, uneasy feelings in the viewer. On the other hand, if we use color in a vary basic way and limit the palette to just one color, then we'll usually fail to keep our viewer's interest. 

Music is a great metaphor to use when thinking about color. If all the keys are p...

Tutorial 35 - Leading the Eye

Composition is a really big subject but let's try to cover some areas here.

What is required for an image to feel pleasant to look at? It's definitely the question we ask ourselves most as artists. My example illustration is certainly missing a beat or two but there are a few areas that we can comment on. 

Depending on the story, we're going to want the viewer's eye to do certain things. Let's bring the viewer in and engage them in the action. We do this by following rules ...

Tutorial 34 - Painting a Reflective Water Drop

This is essentially a reflection of what we would see through the fisheye lens of a camera if we pointed it at the sky. Plus a little bounce light from whatever object or objects are near by, like a green leaf perhaps. Maybe some slight specular highlight, if the sun is out.

If we look at the blue sky on a clear day, we'll see it's darker blue right above our heads and then there is a gradual fall into lighter blue. If you look close at a drop of water, somewhere outside, you'll se...

Behind the Scenes: The Chemical Brothers 'Wide Open'

Here's a cool behind the scenes video showing how we go from concept art to full realization. Should be of interest to anyone into visual effects. :)

Also, see my previous post which breaks down the process from the concept artist's POV:

patreon.com/posts/4221793

Tutorial 33 - Painting Magical Dust

This is an effect useful for anyone creating fantasy or sci-fi artworks or concepts.

Let's start by setting up our colors and our brushes.

We're using an analogous color scheme  - we pick a dominant color, in this case plum (purple/pink) and we use a supporting color, close to our dominant, in this case blue (we could also go red, but not green, yellow or orange, we have to stay near the dominant).

Our brushes are;

- a  2016-02-03 09:03:22 +0000 UTC View Post

Tutorial 32 - Inspiration from Inanimate Objects

Can you make the dead come alive!? No, not that way, I mean can you see life in inanimate objects? If you think like an artist you can. If you can't, then you can learn how. Look for clues to a face or a pose. Is there a nose in that fire extinguisher? What about the rocks and the clouds? That's easier, right?

Exercises like this will help you train your most important skill, your imagination.

Sketch what you see and share it with me.

Tutorial 31 - Structures of the Head

The illustration shows just some of the bone structures that are usually visible unless hidden by hair or fat. It's much harder to spot these landmarks on a child's head, for the masses of fatty areas. But you shouldn't have a problem finding these areas on an adult head. Next time you're on public transport, see if you can spot any. Wear sunglasses so people don't think you're a weirdo. Some heads are fascinating to the artist, because of pronounced features. Every skull is different, so draw m...

Tutorial 30 - The Finger Bones

Why is it a huge benefit for the artist to learn anatomy? When we draw anything, either from life or from memory, we can more effectively reproduce the form if we can divide it into parts. Knowing these parts by shape and function allows us to have a mental library, a checklist to run through as we draw the forms. We don't need to know all the names of every bone and muscle, though it's great to be able to run our pencil about naming the various parts along the way. If you study anatomy properly...

Tutorial 29 - Character Body Language: Arms

We should take advantage of the fact that most characters have arms! They are some of most expressive parts of the body, especially the hands.

When putting a character into expressive action, think about the options available to you when drawing the arms. The arms can be locked straight, or elegantly posed, wrapped up, or coiled like a snake ready to bite, etc.

Try a few varieties to see what fits your character's expression.

The Chemical Brothers "Wide Open" Concept Design Process

My client was The Mill, a visual effects studio with offices in the UK and the US. They will be releasing a making of video soon, which I will link to. 

Here's a breakdown of the process involved. An insight to anyone interested in concept design for VFX.

Feel free to shoot me questions.

Here's the music video: 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BC2dRkm8ATU

<...

Tutorial 28 - Character Inspiration

Getting inspired by characters from the past is always a great way to start a design and many of our modern favorite characters, films and songs are "remixes" from decades ago. Star Wars was inspired by The Hidden Fortress, an old samurai movie, Elvis Presley's I Can't Help Falling In Love With You is melodically identical to Plaisir D'Amour, there are countless more examples.

In industry, it's quite necessary for the art director to provide the art department with reference. It's quite...

Tutorial 27 - Carving with a Brush

Let's try to change the way think about applying marks. Rather than using the eraser just to remove mistakes, let's try to use it as a tool to reveal our forms. You might find your edges become much more interesting and blocking in areas becomes a more expressive practice.

The brush I use here isn't a particularly special brush, though I'm happy to share it with you guys. Just let me know!

Tutorial 26 - Value Relativity

It's part of our job as visual artists to understand how A: we perceive the world around us, B: how our perceptions differ to what is actually there, and C

: what we can do as artists to bridge the gap between perception and reality in interesting ways.

It's a deep place to go so it's better to talk about it in a video at some point but for now I'll explain the visuals I've presented here in this tutorial.

Tutorial 25 - Cross Contour Drawing

This is a brief demonstration of an exercise called cross contour drawing. There are other types of contour drawing exercises definitely worth trying but cross contour is very useful for understanding the details of form and plane changes. It's a bit like running your pen over the subject, only less messy. 

Try tracing over an image first. Pick something that has an element of foreshortening , some interesting curves and creases. Then try from life. After just a few tries, you'll b...

The Chemical Brothers - Wide Open

Just a link to the music video for now but I'll be putting out a full breakdown of the concept art I did for this job. Coming soon - sit tight!

Tutorial 24 - Subsurface Scattering

This is a fairly advanced concept describing light's effects on certain materials, commonly called subsurface scattering.

Most light reflects off of the surface of an object but some may also pass through, bounce around and depart in a scattered manner.

On the human figure it's most visible in the ears, nose, fingers and toes, throughout the thinner parts of the body. It's visible in many other materials too. Including grass, fruit, balloons, clouds, etc...

Tutorial 23 - Practicing Line Fluidity

Here's a simple warm-up exercise to help with line fluidity.

A fluid line is graceful and smooth, and may be used to communicate certain kinds of moods and emotions. Artwork with this type of line may appear to have been created quickly, which might be true of any such work, but an artist may take considerable time planning, often "ghosting" strokes or hovering for a moment before committing.

Try thinking a few lines ahead. Observe the overall effect of intersecting lines o...