Hi everyone!

Here's my problem: I have great trouble understanding how to nicely paint lights and shadows on my characters/environments (in a colored version). I understand how light acts on a ball, a cube, or a cone, but when it comes to a more elaborate shape, like a human body, I just can't seem to do it right (unless I have the exact pose and lighting reference), and it gets very frustrating!  When I come up with a nice idea or sketch I end up spoiling it all because I just cant' color/light it the right way... Even when I try to observe what's going on around me in real life, where light is bouncing and where there's not any light, there are always spots where I don't get light's "behavior"... :S

Would you have any tip, link or tutorial for me on understanding light and shadows (mainly on human body or animals etc) ? Other than "I am shading a ball in black and white, now good luck painting a face with values on your own!". I couldn't find anything interesting or going any further than the usual "black and white ball or cube".. So if you can help, I'd be very thankful guys!

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Dreams are never too big!

Check out my art: http://sweeetlime.daportfolio.com/

There is no easy answer to the question other than observation and practice. James Gurney has a good book called Color and Light which shows how light and color work on complex shapes and on his blog, Gurney Journey, you can get some of the same things covered from the book there.

With enough observation you can roughly get the lights and shadows in close to the right place but even Gurney, with all of his paintings he has done, both Plein Aire (from life) and imagination, will make a maquette, or model of what he is painting to get it right in the end. His other good book for artist's that create from imagination is, Imaginative Realism.

So practice, observe, sketch from life and from models, that will begin to train your eye to really see. Start with shading the large areas, break the complex shapes into simple ones. A head is just an egg shape with a few other simple shapes attached to it like triangles, look for those shapes and then shade them like you say you can do. Make sure that your figures/animals look lit from your chosen light source.

If working digitally do a gray scale drawing/painting, you can always put color on a separate layer over the gray scale and play with it.

In the Renaissance it was common to paint a painting in gray scale and then using many layers of thin glazes to color the painting. Try this and see what you get.

Art is continually learning and observing the world around you so go forth and see. The more you do the better you will get. Good luck and draw on.

Yes, James gurney is a really good teacher when it comes to all this.. Maybe I should get his book. But I keep practicing and watching everything that surrounds me everyday. It just gets harder when it comes to actually coloring (digitally). I guess I'll have to keep using references, and try to set up my own "scenes" just like Gurney or many other great artists do to get everything right. For now at least. Thanks a lot for you advice! I had forgotten about him. ;)

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Dreams are never too big!

Check out my art: http://sweeetlime.daportfolio.com/

LillyBug:

I understand how light acts on a ball, a cube, or a cone

Based on tutorials you've seen, or based on physics? To me, successfully painting light is dependent on firstly understanding forms in three dimensions, and secondly understanding the physics of light. Anything else is guessing.

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Well both tutorials of all kinds and a little of physics.Though I guess I mostly lack the physics part. I agree with your point of view, I just would like to understand all that better.

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Dreams are never too big!

Check out my art: http://sweeetlime.daportfolio.com/

I also think it's difficult to figure out lighting - at least cast shadows and especially when cast on non flat surfaces. But maybe it'll help if you consider your complax shapes (e.g. a face) as a jumble of spheres and cylinders? It wouldn't be entirely accurate but it might be a start..

EDIT: or use references for the light. Nothing wrong with that :)

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www.charlotteahlgren.com
IFX Gallery
Elfwood Gallery

LillyBug:

Would you have any tip, link or tutorial for me on understanding light and shadows (mainly on human body or animals etc) ? Other than "I am shading a ball in black and white, now good luck painting a face with values on your own!". I couldn't find anything interesting or going any further than the usual "black and white ball or cube".. So if you can help, I'd be very thankful guys!

I'd suggest experimenting with some 3D software. Something like Daz or Poser would do or something more professional grade. Basically anything with a decent rendering engine. Set up a stock object (there's many to be found), light them, and hit render. Change light angles, number of lights, color, and materials and render again. Observe. Repeat until you understand what you're seeing. It really helps to do an exercise like modeling a head or a whole person. Even if your model turns out to be crap (and it will for the first half dozen times if not more) you will gain understanding of the form in 3D.

I also suggest looking at the Andrew Loomis drawing books. Especially the ones where he breaks downs the planes of the head and figure. I have copies of these pages on my wall to look at constantly. When I decide how to light I always start by referencing these figure planes to decide which ones will receive light and which ones won't. From there it's a matter of artistry to figure out how value and color.

I find that if I can't get the value placements in monochrome satisfactorily I'm going to have even more trouble in color.

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Story & Art blog - Sputnikx.com
Finished work - DA Gallery

I guess the key points to look out for are mainly where the light is coming from (it also has many different tones depending on where it's coming from.) also there's the case how close or far the shadow is most times it'll underneath the subject (depending on the subject) but that's just what I've learnt about it and like you I'm still learning but the things I've mentioned I've learnt over the past two years and it's still new to me so I can relate to this. 

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