woeful vortex
Hello all!
Im looking for some help/feedback in understanding layering shadows and highlight for the Reaper Learn to Paint Kit model posted. Im having a hard time figuring out where to shadow the model on the skin sections when the light comes from above (or from anywhere really). I have near the neck/top of chest an area darkened as if there are some shadows there but in my opinion it doesn't seem right. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
empty acorn
Having done this one myself, it’s such a small model that you have to be careful with exaggerating the shadows.
The reason it doesn’t look right to you is that you’ve made the shadow far too large for his head.
The expedient way to do it while learning is to base the the entire thing in your shadow color, then paint the upper side of each surface with your midtone, then a smaller bit of each surface with your highlight
Bring your midtone into the highlighted area might help. And then adding your highlight at the very top of the pecs too.
woeful vortex
Great! thanks for the feedback! Ill give that a shot and repost when ive tried it! 😄
woeful vortex
Another Question. Im assuming I would do the same thing for the arms yeah? The only place where there would be really dark shadows would be on the shoulder under the chest?
empty acorn
Pretty much. You may want to leave a very small area of your darkest shadow between muscle ridges to give them more definition if you’ve got the brush control for it
woeful vortex
So I tried to do as you instructed. I re-did the skin as the darkest tone and tried to move up in color with the mid tone and the highlight. After adding the additional layers, i tried to blend em together with a glaze to get the transition a bit smoother but I think i lost some of my dark tone with the glaze
empty acorn
That can happen. First thing I’d say is, take a step back. How does he look at arms length? If you feel you need definition then go back into the darkest areas with a little bit of your base
Because with my phone held at arms length it doesn’t look too bad
woeful vortex
thats how im feeling about it currently. At arms length, the definition is there, so ill call that a win and move on to the next part 😄
appreciate the feedback!
empty acorn
👍 early on you’re definitely better off with more reps (more minis) than getting bogged down in the details of ‘how’