Anatomy Thread of .: Mr. Mu :.

#901

Great job on the lizard studies! Heh, I get intimidated by anything with a lot of intricate details.

How do you do a maquette? I did a google search, and looks like it’s a small scale model in 3D.

#902

aggie - feel free to read my comic script transcription of a sci-fi short story of mine which got published in 2005. That is not the project I am talking about as the successor of the dragon project, but it might be interesting for someone fumbling with a story.

Heozart - here’s a list of Gurney’s posts on that topic. Quite an eye-opener when you see how his maquettes directly work as reference for his dinosaur illustrations.
So, I bought a bit of wire and plasticine (hope that’s the word). The kind which does not harden. I will try and build a skeleton and apply “flesh” to it, using a bit of reference to come up with basic lizard anatomy (hopefully, lol) and then set the whole thing up, pose it, light it and paint it.
Basically, what people did before there was 3D modelling…:smiley:

#903

Hey Mu, if you run out of plasticine, even kneadable erasers are a great sculpting medium.
It works best if you put 2 erasers together though :smiley:




#904

Hey Johan,

I think that’s an excellent maquette! It delivers very useful information on the neck-frill’s shadow on the back. Did you ever use it to paint a triceratops?

#905

So,

started on the maquette. I took a iguana skeleton as a reference, because I liked the scales and the anatomy of the iguana head. I will base my dragon on it.

added tin foil for basic volume and to make the plasticine stick to the wire structure:

and a bit of flesh so it starts to look like I really started…:smiley:

#906

Great start on your sculpt!
Looking forward to see the next steps.

I have to admit that dino didn’t last too long. I made that at the office one day when I was bored. I keep my kneadable eraser in a tiny tin box though so I had to squeeze it in there again to take it back home.

#907

Hey Johan,

maybe you should give it a try, too! It’s faster than 3D modelling for me, lol.

Damn, I don’t know why I did not realize that the mouth came out twice as big as it should have been. But that’s not much of a problem. I am mainly looking for lighting information like this one:

(I am not even sure if I am going to paint the whole thing).

Of course, if you are able to sculpt so well you could use the thing as a direct ref like Gurney does it’s even better, but no use trying to get it all done on the very first attempt. For now, I am fascinated with the reflected light on some of the scale blobs behind the head. I did not expect that (unlike the quick light fall-off which I expected…)

Now, to finish the whole thing I need the tale done and a few additions. Also, the pose is slightly tweakable still and I can go and search for a nice perspective.

#908

Do you have the graphics to go along with your story? I would like to see how it turned out and correspondes with each other.

I also found this link that is somewhat useful.

#909

No, no drawings yet. Or, well, I tried a first page, but realized I need to learn a lot more about character concepts, interiors and page design and… :smiley:

You can see my attempts here.

#910

Try some candle light…get that flickering light effect going on…:smiley:

#911

Hi Glenn, it doesn’t exactly flicker, but see for yourself…:smiley:

worked on the tail, a bit of scale ref on the leg, and so on…

with the shaded lamp:

with one candle, extremely quick light fall-off:

Two candles and a better perspective. Will add a few details which I need as ref for the drawing, then shoot again from this angle and start the drawing:

#912

I think the guy who used candle light to its fullest was named LATORE… one of the OLD MASTERS…Not sure of the spelling, but check his works out if you get the chance to…MIGHT GIVE YOU SOME IDEAS for the lighting that you haven’t thought of yet…just a thought that might be useful to you…at this point with the piece your exploring and experimenting with.:slight_smile:
I’m enjoying this OLD MASTER approach to lighting that your geting into…No electicity back then…only sunshine and candles…which produced alot of masters, and masterpieces…:slight_smile:
TAKE CARE MISTER MU…:thumbsup:
Glenn

#913

Someone here needs to clean his PM inbox (over quota :stuck_out_tongue: )

Hey Mu,

I am currently reading “Alla Prima - Everything I know about Painting” by Richard Schmid.

He talks a lot about light and color etc.
on page 127, he explains that White is the coolest pigment on our palette, because every color you mix it with, will end up cooler (due to less saturation).

I remembered we discussed this a while ago.
I think the reason why we have problems with this is because we paint a subject that is in warm light. (warm highlights, cool shadows)

When we work in cool light, this works to our advantage, because then the highlights are cooler than the shadows.

So the trick to avoid this problem we had is to avoid a really warm light source.

A quote, (sort of):
“If we must work in warm light, we have a problem. The warm light then works against our mixtures and because we simply cannot avoid using white to lighten them, we must constantly compensate for the cooling effect of white by also introducing yellows and reds when raising values.”

I hope this helps explain our recent issue a bit concerning the color temperature change when mixing with white (or at least I hope to evoke some thought on the topic).
In any case, we will have to experiment a lot to obtain a deep understanding of the effects. But one of the main things I am learning now with this book is that it is very important to understand that we do not paint our subject, but we paint the light on our subject.
This book is probably the most expensive one I bought, but it is truly amazing and I highly recommend it if you want to learn more about painting from life.

EDIT: I just checked my Visa Invoice and the book was about 50€, so that’s not too bad all in all, considered the postal costs are included and this book is really a treasure of both information and eyecandy.

Cheers
Johan

#914

Hey Johan,

thanks for your time to write this down. It is indeed a very helpful insight into the reasons for my problem with mixing white. A thing to try now would be to really test a cool light against warm shade setting and see if that works better!

Thanks for letting me know about the book. Another addition to my ever growing list of amazon wishes…:scream:

BTW, quota cleared, hit the keyboard and pm me!

#915

Hi everybody,

here’s what I got following my sculpture (maquette) shots:

It’s all HB pencil until now, I guess another 90mins HB pencil of basic values and rendering details, then on to adding contrast and the darkest darks with a 2B.

Sorry for the color tint and that vertical line: the drawing’s a bit larger and I had to stitch two scans together…

#916

Wow looking good already!
(As expected… James Gurney is a man who really knows what he is talking about so if he says this procedure works, it works… this piece is the living proof of that :slight_smile: )

Looking forward to see the next stage Mu

#917

Hi - thanks Johan, yes, I am saving money for his “Imaginative Realism - how to paint what doesn’t exist”! The guy rocks…

Update, sorry for the crappy stitch, but the sheet got twisted a bit. Final touches to be expected in the coming days and then a final scan…
Anything you would like to point out?

#918

hm nope not really, just keep going :slight_smile:

#919

Good job Mr. Mu! I did not get anything done this weekend.

#920

Hi,

Johan and Aggie - thanks for watching this.

Just a few details, a bit more darkness. I consider this done. Can’t spend any more time on this. Maybe I will color it a bit digitally, maybe not. On to pen/ink character sketches, maybe a bit of watercolor…