Workshops

Artist insight
BECOME A
BETTER ARTIST!
Get to grips with fundamental skills you need
to improve your art. 40 unmissable tips on
colour, tone, anatomy and lighting…
o become a great artist, you colour, tonal values and lighting? Learn digital painters – Rebecca Kimmel,

T need a solid grounding in

the basics. There’s no point
trying to be a comic artist
for instance, if you’re knowledge of
anatomy isn’t all that. Similarly, how
could you ever expect to be a concept
artist without an understanding of
the basics first – and get them right –
and your opportunities as an artist,
both personally and professionally
are certain to grow.
In order to help you start your artistic
journey, or simply refresh your memory,
we’ve enlisted the services of four top
Marta Dahlig, Michael Dashow and
Philip Straub.
Over the following pages these
artists show you some of the basics
through snippets of essential advice.
Then it’s up to you to continue your
development as an artist…

Rebecca
Kimmel
COUNTRY: US
Rebecca
Kimmel runs
the Artistic
Anatomy and
Figurative Art
forum on CG Society.
Her website has become
a valuable resource for
artists studying life
drawing. Artists of all
levels are welcome to
take part in workshops.
http://forums.cgsociety.
org/forumdisplay.
php?f=177

92 June 2007
 Artist insight Become a better artist!

Michael
Dashow
COUNTRY: US
Michael
Dashow
balances his
time between
illustration for fun and
profit and Art Directing
at 3D avatar site Meez.
com. He loves painting
humorous science
fiction, fantasy and
children’s images.
Michael lives in Oakland,
California, USA, with his
wife and newborn son.
michaeldashow.com

Philip Straub
COUNTRY: US
Philip Straub
is Art Director
for games
company
NCSoft. He’s an expert
in colour theory, and has
worked with Universal
Studios in the past.
www.philipstraub.com

Marta Dahlig
COUNTRY: Poland
Marta Dahlig
was born in
1986. She is a
talented artist
and freelance
illustrator, and is a
regular contributor
to ImagineFX.
www.marta-dahlig.com

June 2007 93
 Workshops
TOP TEN
COLOUR TIPS
Art Director Michael Dashow shares his favourite tips
for effective use of colour in your artwork
1 CONTRAST
Colours on opposite sides of the colour
wheel stand out against each other.
Use this contrast to call attention to the
focus of your painting. Balance intense
colour with more muted other colours
in the background.
2 COLOUR VARIETY
Objects in nature incorporate a variety
of colours. Paint natural objects with
many similar colours. Especially keep
this in mind when painting skin. Areas
where the blood is closer to the
surface show more reds. Areas around
the eye reveal more purples.
3 COLOUR MOODS
Choose colours that best convey the
mood you’re aiming for.
Strong reds get the pulse
going, and impart a sense
of drama or danger. Cool
blues and greens have a
more calming effect.
4 ADD A LITTLE MAGIC
We’re used to seeing light in warm
colours such as red from light cast by
the sun. Blues are familiar from light
reflected from the sky. That leaves
green and purple as colours we don’t
normally see. Incorporating them can
give a painting a mystical air.
Using several test thumbnails
will help you to come up with
the correct colours.
94 June 2007
The bright, warm colours pop
against the cooler, whiter
blues and greens.
Colours on opposite sides
of the colour wheel stand out
against each other
The sky is orange so the
buildings further back appear
more dull orange too.
5 DRAMATIC SKIES
To really set a mood for your piece,
choose an appropriate colour for the
sky. I rarely stick with the traditional
blue. Instead, I opt for colours to
heighten the drama and emotions
that I want the piece to illicit.
6 AERIAL
PERSPECTIVE
When there’s more distance
between you and other
objects, there’s more
atmosphere between them.
Add more depth to your
painting by bringing your
atmosphere colour into
objects that are further
away. Traditionally, this
means making them more
blue and less saturated.
7 BOUNCE YOUR LIGHT
Shadows pick up bounced light from
the environment. Pull in your ambient
colour, such as the colour of your sky.
Light bounces off other parts of your
scene, too. Grass, for example would
add greens into your lower shadows.
8 SIDE LIGHTING
Rather than just using a single light
source, consider adding more light
from a different direction. The
additional light helps round out the
forms more, and can also have an
exciting colour impact.
9 CHECK YOUR VALUES
It’s important not to neglect
the values while you’re
working with colour. If
your colours are all
of a similar tone,
your painting will
have less impact.
Checking the
image in greyscale
can help you here.
10 TEST IT OUT
Don’t expect instant
perfection. Just as sketches
are important for drawing
a finished piece, they’re
equally helpful for colour
composition. Make some
colour thumbnails before
jumping into your painting.
I try out different palettes
by using my paint program’s
layers to block out areas of
colour and shift their hues.
 Artist insight Become a better artist

TOP TEN TONAL

VALUE TIPS
Need some help with tonal values?
My editorial illustration, below, is a simple
example of the importance of light. Philip Straub shares his secrets
1 LIGHT All objects in nature are
made visible to us by some form of
light source. The form of all objects in
the world simply wouldn’t be apparent
without light.
2 SHADOW If an illuminated
object is more or less opaque,
when the light is obscured by
that object, the resulting shadow
is a darker version of the object’s
6 POSITIVE/NEGATIVE
Positive space is usually defined by the
areas of a painting or drawing that are
occupied by a form. Negative space is
the areas of the painting or drawing
that are not occupied by forms. It’s
important to remember the balance
of positive and negative shapes.
The consistent visual
language used in the shapes
7 UNITY Like contrast, unity is an and line within the image
element that describes a relationship below shows unity at work.

colour. By virtue of shadow, all between two or more elements or

objects of nature assume form
or shape.
3 HALFTONES Halftones
that utilise texture and colour
should be used in the area where
light affects the surface of an object
and should be made brighter than they
appear. Those that describe form
should be applied to the shadow area
of the object and should be darker.
4 FORM It’s possible to have form
without line, and to have
line without form, but
usually where one exists so
does the other. I’d argue
form truly defines the
shape of an object.
5 CONTRAST Contrast is derived
from a comparison between two or
more elements. Most concept artists
will create the highest point
of value contrast at the
focal point, or the place
where they want the
viewer to look.
objects within a composition. Unlike
contrast, however, unity usually
describes such relationships within the
context of the composition as a whole.
Unity can be said to define how any
one element or group of elements is
related to the rest of the composition.
8 HIERARCHY It’s one of the
most important qualities to consider
when dealing with value structure, yet
the implications of hierarchy are often
forgotten. Put simply, hierarchy
answers the question ‘what is
important?’ in a composition. By
making his painting hierarchical, a
painter places the greatest emphasis
on those things that are most
important, and the least emphasis on
those that are less important.
9 BACKGROUND, MIDDLE An example of applying the
use of line in unison with your
GROUND, FOREGROUND value structure.
Thinking of your value structure as
three separate plains in space –
background, middle ground, and
foreground – will simplify how you deal
with your overall value structure.

10 LINE
Most drawing relies heavily upon line as a means of defining
objects. While painting also uses line as a means of
definition, it often relies upon it as a sort of infrastructure
upon which the rest of the value structure is built. This
infrastructure of line may be hidden in the final painting,
but its influence dictates what the viewer sees.

June 2007 95
 Workshops
Marta Dahlig reveals ten of her favourite pieces of advice
on how to tackle lighting in your painting
1 HALO EFFECT
If you want to create an aura behind a character, place
the light source behind it. This way, the hair will seem
to be glowing. Shading hair like this is different from
usual because, aside from the ‘typical’ shading of the
strands in ambient light, you have to take into account
the additional light source, making the outer edges of
the hair lighter then run over the outer strands with a
moderately sized transparent airbrush to add ‘glow’.
Placing your light source behind your character helps if you
want to achieve a halo effect in your painting.
2 LIGHT AND FLESH
When painting a body part
that’s lit from the back, don’t
limit yourself to merely adding
a white outline around it (0).
Remember the light will also
beam between all the lit
objects, creating rays (1).
Furthermore, the light will also
shine through the skin and
flesh. To depict that, simply
make the ‘softer’ parts of
the body part more
saturated (2 and 3).
To depict rays of light between the lit
objects, I ran over the hand with a light
transparent airbrush.
96 June 2007
6 SHADOWS
In general, there are two types of
shadows: form and cast. While the
form shadow (1) is naturally generated
by an object in range of the light
source, the cast shadow (2) is created
by another object, placed in front of
our primary one, blocking the light
from the source.
7 STRONG LIGHT SOURCES
While the general, ambient light is a
good basis for a picture and it might be
enough for simpler portraits, you might
sometimes want to spice things up a
bit. There’s nothing better than a strong
light source to add some drama.
8 GOLD EXPLAINED
A common mistake in painting gold is
to only use colours from the yellow
palette to render it. Analyse a golden
3 COLOUR CHOICES object and you’ll see hints of grey,
While it doesn’t matter what basic brown and green, and remember that
colour you choose for the skin of your metal is reflective.
character, it’s extremely important to
pick shadows and highlights correctly. 9 SKIN TONES MADE EASY
Basically, when you choose shadows Use Photoshop’s Colour Balance tool
and highlights for your midtones, make to match skin tones,
sure they’re not only of a different highlights and shadows if
brightness, but also a different hue. you have characters lit by
a boldly coloured, strong
4 CONVEXITY light source.
Sketch an object’s most convex places
(red lines). After you choose a light 10 TEXTILES
source, mark the highlights Different textiles react differently to
(white lines). The most light. Silk highlights are bold and
convex areas are going to strongly separated from the shadows
be the most highlighted, with a fast, smooth transition. Linen
and will also create a slight highlights are much more diffused
shadow (blue lines). and the transition is seamless.
5 REFLECTED LIGHTING
One of the crucial things for a painter to remember is that all objects interact with
each other by reflecting light rays that fall on them back on to other objects. In
practice, you can easily implement this effect by adding some extra coloured
shades with a low opacity brush (see arrows below for examples).
Here you can see, by following the arrows, how the dress
interacts with the skin and the skin with the dress. This was
done by adding some extra shades with a low opacity brush.

TOP TEN
ANATOMY TIPS
Learning to draw anatomy is a lifelong process. Rebecca
Kimmel offers some wise words to get you started
1 BASIC SHAPES
Always think of big, basic shapes
instead of anatomy. The major forms
of the body – the head,
neck, torso, pelvis, arms,
and legs can be broken
down into spheres,
cylinders and boxes.
2 LIFE DRAWING
It’s always best to draw from life. Try to
spend as much time working in front of
live models as you can. If
you can’t draw from a life
model, do a series of self-
portraits to ensure you get
a grasp of life drawing.
3 OUTLINES DON’T EXIST
Think across form instead of in terms of
a form’s outline. Outlines don’t exist. Try
doing several cross-contour drawings,
in which you map the topology of form
by drawing what you might think of as
an ant’s tracks across the form. This will
give you a better feeling for depth.
4 STUDY GESTURE
Gesture is the heart of drawing
– if the gesture has no life, then
the drawing won’t either.
Gesture is about quickly finding
the essence of the pose. It’s an
art form to capture something
quickly and accurately.
5 TIMED POSES
Draw and paint in timed
exercise sets of two, five, ten
or 15-minute poses. Usually a
rendered drawing turns out to
lack the life and vitality that a
fast sketch captures.
Remember that you are half
of the ‘life’ in a life drawing.
Artist insight Become a better artist!
6 SKETCH ANATOMY
Draw large with charcoal to understand
whole forms and gesture, but draw in a
sketchbook with ballpoint pen or pencil
to learn anatomy. Copy drawings from
various anatomy book. There is no
shortcut to understanding anatomy
and drawing: you have to practise .
7 MASTER COPIES
A master copy is using a great artist’s
work as reference, doing your best to
imitate that artist’s form and style. Use
your eye to develop forms on the page.
Studying master work enables you to
pick up how artists denoted form and
to incorporate this into your own work
8 IMAGINE
Intersperse your drawings from
reference with drawings from your
imagination. Test yourself by seeing
what you know without using any
reference but what’s in your mind.
You’ll be surprised at what you know
well – and what you don’t.
9 BUILD A SINGLE VISION
Look at figurative work and build your library
of mental imagery. Find the Renaissance
masters that you love and analyse what makes
drawings and paintings work for you. Figure
out what you want to say as much as how
you want to say it, and combine your artistic
goals into a singular vision over time.
Test yourself by seeing what
you know using only what’s in
your mind as reference
10 THINK NATURAL
Draw organic forms that aren’t
human, things that twist and have
human-like characteristics. I
wrote an article for the
CGSociety called Opposing
Curves, which describes how
offset curves interact to create
form. Notice how there are rarely
in nature curves which are
related to one another as
parentheses; rather curves in
nature are offset in a DNA/
double helix fashion. This
perspective will change the
way that you draw.
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