Rebecca Kimmel's Anatomy Review 003: SHADING TUTORIAL AND HUMAN SKULL EXERCISE

#61

This is a great lesson! skulls are fun to draw
I can’t help humming heavy metal tunes when i draw skulls (and i’m not a metal fan)

It’s mechanical pencil, about half an hour
reference from a picture from Corbis

#62

scorpion007,

Wow, it’s cool to see the differences between the piece you did in Painter vs. the one you did in Photoshop ~ could you tell us about what your drawing experience was like in one program vs the other? Were there any major advantages or disadvantages to using one program vs the other? Thank you for posting this ~ keep up the great work! :slight_smile:

Xillion,

For some reason, I cannot see your image, which is disappointing since I know it’s a good one! I seem to remember there being this problem when you posted work on the last lesson ~ what image hosting service are you using? It could just be me, but I’ll double-check later today when I get to work ~ hoping I can see it then! Thanks for posting! :slight_smile:

Zarracin,

Wow, it’s cool that it only took you a half hour to do ~ seems like folks are pretty speedy these days!

My recommendation would be, however, to slow down and to draw larger. This forces you to acknowledge all of the little details which are important.

Great work, guys! Keep on posting your updates! :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak

#63

Hi Rebecca,

Thanks for your comment :), about my drawing experience with those apps, well, firstly I would have to say that I havent used Painter nearly as much as PS so I dont know the program as deep as I do Photoshop. With the paint tools, PS is fine if your not trying to recreate those traditional subtleties that Painter is designed to do, but PS’s brush engine is quite powerful and will allow you to create most kinds of brushes, except things like watercolour dripping down your page and diffusing, etc. But you can create all kinds of rough conte, charcoal kinds of brushes…

I think PS is geared towards general digital painting of all applications (such as texture painting, compositing/matte painting), not so much traditional media, so that’s why the brush engine is more generic than painters.

In that last skull I did, all i used was a simple hard edged brush, with pressure based flow, and 100% opacity. Nothing special.

So thats my comments on the programs…

Nice work all!

#64

scorpion007,

Thanks for elaborating on those differences between Photoshop and Painter ~ it’s cool to hear! Painter does take you a long way in terms of that more artistic effect, but sometimes you can too easily gloss over a real understanding of the details of a study ~ tho in your Painter skull piece you did a great job of capturing details ~ because with painting in any medium you get wrapped up in the physical properties of paint to the detriment of detailed, observational drawing.

At any rate, thank you for your thoughts on this, and I hope you will be posting more work! :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak

#65

Hi Rebecca,

First thanks for sharing your experience through CGtalk, with kindness and open-mind :applause:. I discovered your tutorials recently and i found them just great. It’s really a pleasure to find such knowledges without buying books or schools… So i decided to involve myself in the process. Here is my participation, not much time to do it, i tried to use 3 tones of shade, find it really hard… But done with pleasure :slight_smile:

#66

rebeccak: I use Imageshack as a host but I think the problem was that I was in edit mode while you were viewing. Let me know if you can see it now…

and you guys ? can you see it ? (post #58)

#67

Yes definitly… And i found it very very good :slight_smile: (i like both)

#68

Xillion,

Yep! I can definitely see it now ~ thanks! Great work ~ I definitely like the second one, tho in truth probably you could put the darker version as a 80% opacity layer over the lighter version and have a better result ~ the blacks may be a tad too black in the darker image now, but I do like the effect. Ah! And I’m happy you didn’t use a ‘live’ model, because then we would have to send in the police! :slight_smile:

inkonyto,

Thank you for your kind comments! I’m happy to see you are enjoying the lesson! Thank you for your post. Can you tell us something about your background? I’m happy to see you are participating! :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak

#69 
 hihi, i'm a bit confused, thanks for your interest. Here is my background : I'm from Paris (sorry for my english :)), i draw since a few years, but without any formation or artistic education, just for fun. No anatomic studies, no opposing curevs, no methods...

Recently i had the impression to reach my limits, therefore i tried to search on the web for tutorials or lessons which can help me. If i can learn more about drawing, maybe i could progress… no ?

As i said, i discovered your tutorials a few days ago, “opposing curves” : Well, it really helps me : For exemple, knowing that human top body could be reduced to a peanut shape was like a revelation for me… Thanks for that…

Here is a few sketches i did recently, trying to use what i learned. Nothing great but believe me, it’s better than that i usually do… :wink:

#70

inkonyto,

Thanks for telling us about yourself ~ sorry to confuse you, it just helps for me to know what training everyone has artistically so that I know what they are interested in and what they want to learn. So thank you for telling us that you love to draw and are open to learning new things ~ that helps me in terms of ‘teaching’! :slight_smile:

I really like your drawings that you posted (Here is a few sketches) a lot, and I think that you should post them in this thread so everyone can see them:

Gesture Drawings - Post Your Best Gesture Drawings Here! - 2D TRADITIONAL / DIGITAL

Thanks for participating! :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak

#71

Rebecca,

Thank you :slight_smile: I have posted to the good section.

#72

hi rebecca,

thx for this interesting thread…

my first try…
time 10mins.

#73

Great post there! Great to see :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak

#74

maj3d,

Good work! I see you really worked on the interior shading of the eye sockets, which is nice to see. I hope you will submit more of these! It’s great practice, and I think pencil is a good medium with which to go. You might also try ballpoint pen and do consistent, smooth cross-hatching in small strokes to approximate the same effect as pencil. I think ballpoint pen is a great medium for these kinds of studies as well as charcoal and digital media.

Thanks for posting this! :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak

#75

thx rebecca,
i know what you mean,
i like to draw architecture with ballpoint pens and nature with chalk.
hope you keep the great thread leading on…

#76

Sorry rebecca, I sayd I’m going to do a skull today but when I uploaded it I found how bad it really was so I thought I’d finish it later but then I had to doodle with my friend over drawboard.

#77

this was a real challenge, didnt realise a skull had so much details

[](http://www.imageshack.us)

#78

commodore,

no worries! It’s completely funny, it’s funny that you should worry :).
When you can post your work, feel free to do so :).

Kitami,

Wow! I am impressed. This is a really nice pencil study ~ I can see you put a lot of effort into it. Thanks for posting this! I especially like the attention you paid to all of the cracks in the skull differentiating each of the three sections. It’s really nice work ~ do you have time to attempt other views? Which did you find more challenging ~ the drawing of the skull’s details, or the shading?

Thanks for your post! :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak

#79

Thanks alot Rebecca, Most challenging was the shading, I did a totally new method trying to listen to your advice, and it was so much details that it had to be alot of diffrent levels of shading, phew. I will start with frontview now, however this will be harder cause I suddenly got a pressure on me to do good again… hehe!

#80

Kitami,

No pressure! Just encouragement :). I really liked your first, so I am sure you will do an excellent job on your second.

Looking forward to your posts! :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak