Steven Zapata
New York
Designer, Illustrator, Instructor
Stan Prokopenko added a new lesson
1yr
Ahmed Aldoori added a new premium lesson
2yr
Steven Zapata added a new lesson
2yr
Isaiah
added comment inForm Design - Vases
2yr
And with this, I am considering myself done with the course! (Though certainly not done with the exercises themselves!) This was the first course I've taken in the Proko ecosystem. Thank you, @Steven Zapata, for sharing your wisdom as an art professional. Thank you also for the interesting assignment prompts; I had a lot of fun with each of them.
2yr
Nice job Isaiah, I think these came out great. Love the top middle one! I like the extra step you took to design the graphic break ups as well. Keep up the good work.
Marshall Vandruff added a new lesson
2yr
2yr
Hey, Steven!
What is that pen-like eraser called? It's hard for me to find out in the online store where I am from: Singapore.
The brand you're using is Mono Zero, but what is it technically called?
Thanks, Boss!
2yr
Any thoughts comments or critiques? Really nice course btw love it! 👍
2yr
Love that you got creative with the second one- adding the geometric shapes to it is a great idea! I think with how nice and dark you have the shadows you can afford a little bit more rendering in the light. Yes, we must compress it, but having nothing there often gives a "bleached out" look that hurts the form.
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2yr
Asked for help
I had an attempt at the tentacle and then drawing my own. I got carried away and went way too big for my first go. I made a lot of mistakes along the way but it was fun to see it come together.
2yr
Asked for help
My attempt after watching part 5 & part 6 and I'm not sure how I feel about it but I could a lot better with adding the finer details but considering I'm working on a small drawing (half a page on A4) I pretty much found it difficult to do the small renders of the drawing. I don't really do imaginative drawings as I mostly draw from reference so this was a new horizon for me.
Off topic but whenever I take a picture of my drawings they seem to make it worse then they are or that might be a reflection of my drawing isn't rendered enough.
2yr
I think it's a great start! Good job. It is true that photos tend to make pencil drawings look bad, but you're right that if you push it all the way to the other side nothing will stop it from looking good. I always prefer scanning my pencil drawings, but using a diffuse window light tends to work best for me when I can't do that- it does create a gradient across the photo however and usually requires a temperature adjustment. Your phone's editing tools usually have some options to address those, though.
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2yr
I think I just had a religious experience from watching this video
Asked for help
I was rewatching the video and decided to try it out. Drew a reference (sorta bulging crescent shape) below.
Used a combination of random mechanical pencils lying around (not artist mechanical pencils) for the outline, and a Prismacolor 6B pencil for the shading (as well as a tiny bit of erasing, using a Tombow mechanical eraser and a gum eraser I ripped a chunk off of).
2yr
Nice, I think the side view and the 3/4 view schematic generally agree with each other- good job. Your shading in the shadow areas looks a bit patchy, try to go a bit slower next time and fill in gaps more evenly- this makes it easier to assess the true value of the shadow for yourself and keep value differences in the shadow area very subtle. Right now your reflected lights jump up in value too much. Don't do it as fast as I do it int he video- I need to rush to make it watchable in real time, you should go a bit slower with laying in shadow areas.
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2yr
Asked for help
I tried treating the top and bottom "meat spear" like they were in space, being lit from a point that acted like a spot light (lit from bottom for the top one, and vice versa for the bottom one). I did have some issues with the middle "meat spear" as I tried to have it lit "point-wise" or perpendicular to its length. Any advice for that would be most appreciated.
2yr
That lighting set up is indeed tricky, though it's one commonly encountered in figure drawing- a common example being un-bent legs in a standing pose when the light is mostly from above. The pocket solution is to minimize the amount of "true" light shapes as the ones at the "front" of the spear will be blocking most of the light from the ones behind them, and to get a bit off fall off as you move away from the light. By fall off I mean make each light shape slightly darker overall than the ones that are closer to the light source than it. That falloff doesn't actually happen with the sun, whose illumination is generally even, but it does with most other light sources and explains things clearly to the viewer.
2yr
what exactly does mileage mean? I assume that it means just how much you draw but I'v seen a lot of definition's online and I just want an offical answer
2yr
Well, there's definitely no "official" answers in art, but I think of it as just how much you draw. It does mean something on its own even separated from what or how you're drawing, as it gives you ease and relaxation when you draw and an intimate knowledge of what your medium does when applied in a variety of ways. When I advise someone to "get more mileage" I mean fill multiple sketchbooks with who-cares-what just fill 'em!
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Strathmore 400 Series Bristol Paper- Smooth Surface. 18x24 inches.
Pentel Sharp and Rotring .5mm mechanical pencils with HB lead
Palomino Blackwing Pencils
Faber-Castell Polychromos Black Pencils
Store-brand cheap blending stumps
Kneaded Eraser (Prismacolor but any brand will do.)
Pentel click erasers and Tombow Mono Zero click erasers.
Asked for help
maybe I missed something, but I don’t understand why is the shadow casting here, if the light comes straight from the top.
2yr
It wouldn't be! But pure top light is rarely useful, it looks unnatural. See Hawaii at high noon:
https://external-preview.redd.it/nouDqKHfUB0m9pc0m_QOMbBO6BzfHP0D639IyDfe-RE.jpg?auto=webp&s=d0ad73bc7aedf9032b0f218c0e8fe403fa89c5da
I always imagine the light is a bit off to one side or coming from behind so that I can add cast shadows that explain the form. Cast shadows have more wiggle room than form shadows- they should be edited and invented to do a job instead of being confusingly accurate. See this clip from Stan at about 5min 50sec:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3WmrWUEIJo
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2yr
I watched the trial lesson and drew along using my drawing tablet. It is very fun! I love shading!
2yr
Hello, I'm recently thinking to advance to learn shading but is on a fence regarding this course:
Since I'm mainly a digital artist, does the content of this course, it's concepts and techniques applicable to digital media as well?
2yr
Thanks @Steven Zapata This tutorial is amazing. I wish there is could be more tutorials from you. I see that you have tutorials on gumroad but they are quite expensive. If you could break those big tutorials into parts that I could buy one by one at the time then I would love to buy more from you. 800 dollars it's a little deep to me for single purhace.
2yr
Those big ones are tickets for workshops, not pre-recorded tutorials- that's for people who want direct feedback and contact time with me as instructor. I have recorded those as I did them and will cut them up into "best of" edit and make that available in the future as an alternative at a much lower price.
2yr
Asked for help
Hello!
I have made some drawings with the lessons from this course and need some help with criticism/feedback on what I have posted here. What is bad and what is good and so on.
The form on the buttom on drawing: 1, I decided to give myself a challenge with only using one B2 pencil and try to make the most of it in terms of light and shadow contrasts. The other two shapes in drawing: 1 I have used two to maybe four pencils on.
I would also like to say that this course has been fantastic fun to work on. I hope there will be a critique video like the ones in the Proko lessons for this course soon from Steven Zapata.
I also think that he is a very good teacher and a very inspiring artist with a good sense of humor, and am looking forward to see more from him in the future with new courses.
Hope people here can help me. :-)
2yr
Hi Mikal! Glad you liked the course! You did a good job here I like a lot of what's going on here. I think moments like the one I circled in the attachments are good north stars for things to pursue going forward. I really like how subtle but clear the rendering is on that particular...artery?... and I like the work put into transitioning out of that main mass into the little offshoot tentacles. I pointed some arrows at a drawing that looks almost like chrome- watch out for having too many little wobbly dark shapes. If you could make the same statement with less shapes that's probably the way to go. My main "meta" note going forward is to work on your shape design more- you have some grasp on the rendering here now it's time to refine your taste for what kinds of shapes that rendering is going to get applied to. How can you beautify them from the start and be more discerning with your distribution of shapes and the variety you find amongst them?
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3yr
Asked for help
Just wanted to say that I enjoyed your class very much so thank you. You are amazing and here is my shot on one of the exercises. Will definitely continue to practice shading more and with a fresh perspective on how to approach it. Thank you again and cant wait to see more classes from you.