[Bubonic]

WAIT, Even though there is no art on this post, Please read on..

I need help with shading and lighting with graytones and everything like that.. I am drawing simple objects from real life.. But when it comes to shading them with lights and darks it doesn't come out right with my 2B pencil... I was wondering if anyone could make a tutorial on how to make smooth transistions from dark to light, and tips on training your eye to see dark and lights more precisely, and certain techniques for holding the pencil..

Everyone knows Graytones are the basis of painting.

So a tutorial on values would not only help people who are struggling with shading with a pencil, but it would also help someone who is struggline with a paintbrush..

Thanks,

Bubonic..

P.S I hope great some of the great artists see this post.. and can help me out.. Like....Frost,Fred Flick Stone,Sa'age,Spooge.. Etc...

[Rinaldo]

I'm always supprised to hear this question, but it appears a lot. "how does one shade?". I don't really know, Isn't it pretty obvious. the lighter your touch the less lead you put down- the more white paper shows through- the lighter it is. push down harder and you put down more graphite-less white shows through etc, etc, so on so forth.

The trick is to have the right pressure. don't go in hard. don't try to get a really dark tone with a light pencil, if it's not getting darker the answer is to swap pencils not push harder. once you push too hard the surface glosses over and impares the adhesion of subsequent graphite. Get a good eraser as well, a bad one will shred the page and not really "erase". A kneadable eraser is good for toning down areas that are too dark.

It's really practice makes perfect. draw a rectangle and try to get a nice gradient from one end to the other.

You need to be really specific and post a pic with your faild attempt. what kind or paper are you using?

[This message has been edited by Rinaldo (edited October 21, 2000).]

[Bubonic]

Thanks for replying Rinaldo

I use regular white paper, but its a little rough... Sketchpad paper is what i usually use.. And i only use a 2b pencil which might be my problem..

[Rinaldo]

I would probably suggest using a darker pencil for some things.
http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/gremlinsmall.jpg

this was done with A 4B. I tend to go for 6B a lot of the time but 2B should give you a good range. If you're using a really smooth paper it can be hard to use a very dark pancil all the way, maybe use the dark pencil for the very dark bit's only, it's easier to control a light pencil.


Havea look: http://www.twingles.com/hoang/

The guy who runs this site does some fantastic pencil work. not all the stuff is his becase it's a sort of showcase but if you have a look at "the art of hoang" section. There is some good stuff in the showcase area as well. That pic on the main page atm looks pretty good actuialy.

I could take some scans or digi photos of a drawing in stages if you want, I'm no fred but it might be helpful (still a long way to go before people put my name alongside "Fred and Spooge" )

Hehe...Check out that site tho


[This message has been edited by Rinaldo (edited October 21, 2000).]

[Bubonic]

It would be truly great if you could do a few step by step scans.. thank you soo much for going out of your way to help me

nice creature btw, i hope to achieve that kinda of shading gradient, i notice how you can go to dark to light, and not see the exact transistion, it fades into a lighter shade, i want to get that down..

[Jenn]

hoangs arrt rocks... its jsut a shame he is so busy at the game company that he works for casue he rarely updates!

His chicks rock ass!

------------------
DarkChyld

[Transcendence]

I usually use light wash hb or 2b.

[pierre]

I think that one often mistake is that we often tend to think that as long we use "shading" in our works, the artwork will stand strong. I believe it is a very common mistake that we very often get so deep and concentrated into the shading that we forget everything but that. It becomes more important to "shade" than to concentrate on more important things.

My advice on this one would be to actually forget about the shading and go the opposite direction, BREAK DOWN any shading you see in your mental image or real life object. When it comes to greytones, human's (generally speaking, some color anomalia people can detect more because of some states of more overlapping curves in the RGB spectra area, in the cones and rhodes) can detect about, when put against eachother (sides overlapping) a couple of hundred steps of greytones. What I would do if I were you was to try to break down the shadings that I see into flat areas of greys, just like your graphic card does when displaying greytones by pixels. The image that you see is actually broken down, but the bits and pieces are just so small that they will blend in your retina. Try to isolate the areas you want to break down and let one singel grey tone be the most representative for that area. You can break down fully shaded image into say some 10 steps of grays and still have it look good, and even shaded. Once you do that, you will think that 10 steps are too few and you will move on to more steps, you will do that til you will understand the point in shading.

That is also my point with all of this, I think that if you start to shade right away, you will welcome the risk of forgetting why you shade and why exactly that amount of shade needs to be there. It is also very easy to lose the shape of objects when you want to shade 100% right away. If you break the shading down, say, of a sphere, you will soon notice that 10 shades may not be sufficient for displaying the round forms of the cube, hence you will seek more shades, and hence more you will understand better the point in shading.

It is interesting on how shading can create depth. It is the same principle as the size depth phenomenon. Have you looked down the road sometime and seen all these street lights in the perspective. The farthest light is the shortest while the one near you is the tallest. The size gradiation create an illusion of depth, just as overlapping does, just as gradiation of speed does etc. It is the same principle with shading. An area with (speaking about greyshades only now) with one flat shade different from another flat shaded area will appear on a different depth level. Now wich one is the farthest or closest to you, can vary, but the way we use the perspective in our images will help to define the definition of depth in the image that we are working on.

To summarize, my advice would be if you did not concentrate on shading, but instead breaking down the gradients that you see, and you will see that the shading will come.

------------------
http://www.crosswinds.net/~pierrehannah

[burn0ut]

weird, oneday i was drawing and was thinking... try and do the shading in steps thing like perrie is saying, and even blocking it kinda to create more depth and structure, because i thought if u do it in painting, why not in pencil?

anyways, i wasnt all that successfull at it, pierre do you have any examples of this id Love to check em out!