Concept Cookie » Exercise

Exercise Review: The Eyes

Tim Von Rueden — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:33:20 +0000

Hello and welcome to the Review section of last week’s exercise, Drawing the Eyes.

Here was my thought process for My Eye Exercise and Timelapse.

In this exercise review I focused on drawing my eyes with color being my main tools. I laid down an initial sketch of the eyes highlighting the main features of the eyes and the area around them. While I was color picking I noticed how many different shades of the skin I was color selecting and adding to the image and not only that but how many different hues were going into it as well.

Using my custom skin brush I blended the colors i laid down to appear more natural and skin like. I also tried avoiding zooming in at all to try and focus less on the smaller details and more on the overall composition. Another tip I learned was that shadows on the face can vary in hue depending on their location. The shadow from the nose was a scarlet red while the shadow under the eye was a neutral gray.

After I have the larger sections filled in, I then add the details on top such as the eyebrows, eyelashes, skin pores, and freckles using 2 more of the custom brushes and rather than using the standard circle brush which has a very refined edge, I used the skin brush on a much smaller scale to give a softer look to it and not stand out too much.

After that it was all finishing touches and minor details to flesh out with a slight overlay pass where the light was hitting the skin the strongest.

Included with the source files are the brushes I used along with the .PSD of the final piece.

Below are some of the still frames from the timelapse that showcase different steps during the process.

1. The basic outline laid out as the foundation for the colors.

2. Laying the colors down, notice how many hues go into the skin, just just one solid skin color coating

3. Blending and smoothing out the colors together

4. Adding the details: The eyelashes, eyebrows, skin pores etc.

5. The Final Result

Now here are some of the eye submissions from this past week:

This one was done by sviolanis. Great use of light in the eyes, I would focus on the placement of the different shadows in the areas around the eye. My biggest tip for you is to watch how you draw your eyelashes. They feel stiff and too straight. They have a natural curve to them and the positioning of them is important to. Make sure you follow the angle of the eye and curve it off of that. Lastly the two circles I drew in that are connected is an example of where one side doesn’t match the other in terms of the eyelash placement. Great start!

2. This piece was done by mymatt11. So the placement seems to be relatively right but it seems you worked a little too hastily on the actual rendering and shading of the eye. If you just go in and spend some time cleaning up with blending then you will see your shapes really come forward and give that sense of realism. And the placement of the highlight should be coming from the same direction, where as one eye the highlight is on the left and the other is on the right. Good start and keep going!

3. And lastly, aduahawen‘s eyes exercise. These are excellent sketch drawings and challenging because of the different angles. I can tell you understand the different shapes and forms of the eye so my only critique will be on the color selection. Very simple clean shading and while the form is great I would recommend adding some more color to flesh it out. Even subtle hints of red in areas where the skin thins out around the eye and you would be able to see it come alive a bit more. Other than that, great job and great eye exercises.

Thanks for checking out this review post! Excited to push more of these exercises out and keep challenging the community to improve and progress!

Drawing Exercise: Eyes

Tim Von Rueden — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:10:19 +0000

Hello everyone and we’re bringing back the drawing exercises on Concept Cookie, and to start off eye think we should focus on a specific facial structure.

I believe these drawing exercises are great ways for beginners to find some good tips and critiques to better themselves as well as for those who are more advance to practice their skills and better themselves as an artist or if you just are fresh out of ideas on what to draw and would like to get some practice in.

SO LETS DRAW SOME EYES!

The Objective:

Taking a picture of your own eyes and drawing them in any style you choose, from lineart, grayscale, or color.

Due Date :

Review Post on next Thursday, May 3rd, I will be choosing some of the communities results to give some insight and helpful tips, so get them in before that Thursday!

The Exercise:

Now for this eye exercise, we are focusing not on drawing the face or the other facial features but rather the shape of the eyes and observing the different features just on the eye.

I believe that you are your own best free resource. It may seem uncomfortable at first but when you study yourself and create self-portraits, you are learning so much about the human anatomy and if you ever need a certain angle or view point than you can recreate that. So for this exercise I choose to take a picture of my own eyes to draw and study. For yourself, I highly recommend taking your own picture and really examine your eyes to draw them.

Below is the observational step I am taking to drawing my eyes. I located and noted out the prominent eye features and focused on outlining those first. This is important in understanding how the different shapes work together and how from different angles they need to adjust as well. I do not recommend drawing right over the picture. It is good to test yourself and see where the placements would go free handed. Next Thurday when I do a Exercise review post I will include a time-lapse of the final drawing that I create along with some helpful tips on a selected few of the communities submissions. Can’t wait to see what you guys create!

So next week Thursday I will create a time-lapse showing how I drew my eyes from the picture along with some tips for those who added their own images. Check back next week for the results!

Also included in the source files is the Eye Reference sheet from the Natalia Series.

If your looking for some tutorials on getting some help drawing the eyes here are two previous ones on concept cookie that focus on the eye.

Drawing the Eye - The latest eye tutorial focuses on explaining the foundations of the eye and gets into understanding the different shapes and forms.

Drawing the Eye in Gimp - A step by step on drawing a simple image of the eye in gimp.

Thanks for checking out this drawing exercise and if you have any questions or comments, leave them in the section below! And to add you image click on the submit image button below!

Drawing Exercise Review: Hair

Tim Von Rueden — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:41:05 +0000

↑ In the Exercise Timelapse I take you through my process of drawing the hair based on the reference given last week. I start with the dark done colors and build up my shading and lighting. This was done using the color building technique.

Actual Production Time: 1 hour 45 min

Song
Title: Réalité
By: Silence

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/830

↓ As for the steps I took with this drawing check out the stills below ↓

1. Laying down the base foundation color.

2. Quick underlying color

3. Blocking out shapes with shadow strokes

4. Highlights and detailing, detailing, detailing…

5. Final Result

↓ Thank you to those who submitted and here’s a few thoughts and ideas I had about them below ↓

Overall I was impressed with how many of the pieces captured the feeling of her emotion. It was a sad contemplative mood that was shown quite well throughout. As for the focus of the week, the hair, I noticed one overall mistake, even in my own, and that was how little variants in size the brush strokes were. There should have been more grouping of the hair to create more shapes that are represented in the reference photo.
Also I give credit to those that went ahead and tried the orange hued hair. This can be a challenge considering how lighting affects this color differently than a brunette or a blond. Color picking from the picture may have helped but that doesn’t always leave a successful finished piece. Also being the first color exercise I thank everyone who submitted!

Now since everyone has their own style I won’t be critiquing what style it is done in but rather point out some tips that are meant to help each artist grow in their own strengths.

I choose four that I feel stood out the most in terms of what I think was done right and those that I think I could point out some helpful tips for their future pieces.

fusobotic’s

For this piece, I see a lot of similarities in how I work a piece. It is soft, and the colors are slightly muted and around the same tone range. My suggestion would be to push those shadows and darks, that will really push the midtones even more. Also just some addition of fringe around the edges will give it more of a textured hair feel rather than the edge being very crisp and clean. Well done, it shows that you understand how to mix color and shading, my suggestion would be to continue pushing those darks and to keep going!

darianoir’s

This piece took the reference and made it their own. So instead of trying to critique the hair since it is done in a different style, I am going to suggest working with a range of color variants from the dark tones to the high lights. in your piece I samples two colors from two different areas of where there is shadow and mid range. You can see how the hue is very similar so I took just created a multiply layer and laid on the same color pushing the darks forward and giving the hair more depth. I enjoy seeing this kind of style and well done on creating shapes with the hair, something I feel the rest of us, including myself overlooked a little bit.
shrapnel’s

Shrapnel has become one of my favorite artists to see on Concept Cookie. The work is always done in a recognizable style and It is always a pleasure to look at. With this one there wasn’t much to critique since I was impressed with this one. It looks like a custom brush was used for the hair and that’s the only area that I feel maybe should have been broken up a bit more with some shaping or even grabbing a standard brush to lay on top to break up the pattern a bit. One section looked a little flat and I think I over-pushed it out but I was just trying to round the hair around the head a bit more. Like the last exercise review, I’m just being nit-picky because I know how great of an artist you are, and me critiquing is meant to be constructive to enhance you as an artist even further.
jawsify productions’

I choose this one because I think it covers what a lot of people did for this exercise. This could be a specific style that this artist may have where the brush strokes are very strong and bold so rather critique based on how I draw which is more soft I’m going to offer some tips for you and this style. You should look at the shape dynamics on the brush so that their are more size variants in your strokes. The smudge tool might be a great starting tool, so I took that tool and did a quick 30 sec pass to your piece giving it that softer look. But don’t leave it at a smudge state because then it looks well, smudgy so on top of that go back to a standard brush and work your details from there. Also remember that hair starts at the scalp so I highlighted where your brushstrokes seem to start and it comes across choppy but that can be fixed with your shape dynamics turned on. Lastly for highlights on hair I recommend using a lighter tone of that hair color and maybe an overlay but never solid white strokes. I would recommend using white as a defining highlight color so use it very exclusively on areas that are catching direct light.

Thanks again for submitting and I look forward to many more of these Concept Cookie drawing exercises!

Don’t know what this Exercise review is all about? Take a look at the first part here:

http://cgcookie.com/concept/2012/01/11/drawing-exercise-hair/

Drawing Exercise: Hair

Tim Von Rueden — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:27:07 +0000

Hello and welcome to our second free drawing exercise! This is a new thing we are trying here on CG Cookie as a way to hone in on your drawing skills with the cookie community! These exercises have a single goal and purpose, to give everyone the opportunity to improve and fine tune their skill sets.

Drawing Exercise 02 – Hair

This exercise assignment is to focus in on drawing hair based on the photo reference provided. After creating the hair tutorial I wanted to see how others work to draw hair and which technique they used. I went and found a simple photo showcasing the hair with simple lighting and shapes that make for an interesting composition. For this I wanted to focus on the color of the hair and how it changes in value and saturation as it plays and curves with the lighting. Also I wanted a hair exercise that had more shaping to it rather than laying flat straight to focus in on looking at the hair through shapes wither than strands. This is a great practice for intermediate users.

Reference Material

Hayley Williams – Photo by Chris Floyd/Contour by Getty Images

we claim no ownership to this image, used as reference and personal study only.

Here is the reference picture for this exercise in which you can grab and drag to your desktop

Once you have finished your drawing…

You can submit it to us via the user submitted images link further down below ↓ Please keep your files in a .jpeg or .png format.

Next week, I will look over each of the submitted drawings, pick out a few examples work or ones with common problem areas and talk about how those problems can be fixed. Then I will walk you through how I would go about drawing this exercise.

If you are not familiar with these exercises, read the text right below for a rundown on how it works and why we do it!

————————————————

How does it work?

This drawing exercise works by taking the above topic, along with the linked references and drawing said reference as best you can. Once you have completed your drawing, you can submit the drawing to us for review. The exercise will run until next Wednesday, at which point we will take all your submitted drawings, review them and then produce a tutorial showcasing how we recommend approaching the subject matter. We do ask that you use the reference material provided so as to make the review process more streamlined and focused. This allows us to focus on the technical quality of the model rather than the design.

Why are you doing this?

In our continual efforts to provide Concept and general 2D education, we are always looking for new ways in which we can help people excel through not only us at the cookie headquarters but from the cookie community as well. This is just one more of those efforts. The idea is to provide you with a exercise in which you do not need to worry about choosing a topic or trying to master all aspects of the 2D process in a single image. We think these will be a lot of fun and we hope you like them!

How can I participate?

Take the above reference material, make something awesome and submit your file via the “Submit Image” button below.

Drawing Exercise Review: The Female Headshot

Tim Von Rueden — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:53:49 +0000

↑ In the Exercise Timelapse I take you through my process of drawing this female headshot from putting down the base color to blocking out the shadows and highlights, and lastly the detailing process. This was done using the building grayscales technique.

Actual Production Time: 2 hours

Song
Title: Leaving You
By: Stefano Mocini

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/87209

↓ As for the steps I took with this drawing check out the stills below ↓

1. Setting up a base

2. Blocking in the shapes

3. Detailing the face

4. The accessories

5. Final Result

↓ Thank you to those who submitted and here’s a few thoughts and ideas I had about them below ↓

Overall I was impressed with the overall proportions of each and how the facial features worked well together and didn’t make the face seem unnatural. Everyone also took the lighting into consideration for each piece and worked in that soft light very well into their own. After doing my own I should’ve taken the beads out because they were too distracting from what the exercise was all about and they over-complicated it a bit, so for those who decided to remove them I don’t blame you, because I was pretty close to doing the same.

Now since everyone has their own style I won’t be critiquing what style it is done in but rather point out some tips that are meant to help each artist grow in their own strengths.

For this one I sensed a more painterly style and this worked with with the directions of your strokes. The areas I thought could use some adjusting were in the eyebrow which seemed a bit lifted, pushing the right side of her head even farther. So just a quick tightening there with some minor curve edits in the nose and mouth I think would help file in those facial structure shapes more. Lastly keep in mind where you place the iris and pupil because at first it seemed as if she was looking past the viewer to the left so just a small select and drag to move it over would give it the feel that she is looking right at the viewer. These are all minor edits to an overall wonderful piece.

Being the first image submitted you set the bar for the rest that followed. The smoothness of the piece works well for a demonstration on how well you can place lighting. In some areas I felt there was a clash of styles from smooth and soft to rigid and defined. The lips are a good example where the bottom lip feel soft where the upper lip feels more cut in and sharp. This could be because the strokes lines in the lips are very horizontal but what would help is if you had some vertical strokes where the lips wrinkle a bit. You hair is well done but all the lines are going in the same direction where in the picture you can see how much more hectic these lines are. Have fun with this and let your hand create these hair strokes with a very small diameter. Lastly the eyes felt a bit small so maybe just selecting the eyes and enlarging them and add a bit more of the white section of the eye. I was impressed with how fast you were able to return a quality image. Well done!

This piece felt more traditional, almost in a rubbing charcoal medium. My biggest advice on this one would be to remember the natural curves of the face and work with them, not against them. In areas like the nose and eyebrows use your brush and follow those curves. And adding some slight wrinkles under the eye is an east fix to add even more realistic detail.

I recognized the name as the Kara contest winner so I was excited to see the piece and I was not let down. They choose a very sketchy looking style that works so beautifully with the subject matter and this can be a hard style to use when focusing on lighting but it was very well done. My only critique would be to pull out the jawline a bit, I felt it was pushed in just a bit too much but really I’m just nit picking. Very well done.

This style was more hard edged and very different compared to the others. I liked the look of this one and how it stood out against the rest. Well done with this type of shading and the heavy black eyeshadow I would have emphasized more to bring in that dramatic look that you seem to have going on even more. As with another your hair strokes could use some variation to break up the same downward strokes a bit more. Good job on breaking the mold and pushing for an interesting style!

Don’t know what this Exercise review is all about? Take a look at the first part here:
http://cgcookie.com/concept/2011/12/14/drawing-exercise-the-female-headshot/

Thanks again for submitting and I look forward to many more of these Concept Cookie drawing exercises!

Drawing Exercise: The Female Headshot

Tim Von Rueden — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 23:20:33 +0000

Hello and welcome to our first free drawing exercise! This is a new thing we are trying here on CG Cookie as a way to hone in on your drawing skills with the cookie community! These exercises have a single goal and purpose, to give everyone the opportunity to improve and fine tune their skill sets.

Drawing Exercise 01 – The Female Headshot

This exercise assignment is to draw the female headshot based on the photo reference provided using only grayscale to focus in on shadows and the highlights. I found a photo that was simple and where the features really stood out. This is because I wanted to focus in on the textures going on in the picture from the texture of the skin and how it curves around a shape to the sheen on the lips, to the details such as the freckles. The second focus is on showing how simple soft lighting affects these surface areas and how it reflects the light. This is a great practice for beginners and a good review for advanced users.