The Shading Course

Practice: AO Study 2 (3D)

Lesson by

1.8K

Mark as Completed

Assignments 80Lesson NotesDownloads 1

Practice: AO Study 2 (3D)

Lesson by

Dorian Iten

in The Shading Course

1.8K

Mark as Completed

Assignments 80Lesson NotesDownloads 1

Overview

Now it's time to take the Ambient Occlusion (AO) Study to the third dimension! In this project, you'll take an existing image and shade it again, using only soft ambient sky light.

Materials Needed

One of the project images (see downloads section) or a reference image of your choice.
You can do the occlusion study in any medium. Choose the medium you are most comfortable with.

Steps

Select an image you love or download the project image.
Either A) print the image or B) open it in your preferred digital painting application.
Create an "ambient occlusion pass". This means you shade the subject as if it were lit only with ambient light, like an overcast sky. Shade your subject as if it were made of white plaster.
Upload your study alongside the original image.

Duration

This project should take 1–3 hours to complete. Go for high quality.

Examples

Common Mistakes

1) Making Ambient Occlusion too small or too big

2) Making Ambient Occlusion too light or too dark

Tips: Ambient Light vs. Key Light vs. Fill Light

Mahfam Zohrabi

•

@samanthelle

•

21d

First attempt and second one (analyzing other students´ submissions). I still think it looks a bit muddy.

Viktya

•

2mo

Aubrey Hannah

•

3mo

This was certainly more challenging for me than the previous assignment. It took me a good while to understand which areas had occlusion because of how complicated the shape of the model was. I think my weakest point in shading thus far is my ability to shade smoothly. Quite often the graphite I use in my values seems to come out rough. I seem to be correct in my assumption that shading is a slow and methodical exercise.

Caroline Kloppert

•

4mo

IcedOutVoltron

•

4mo

hello, could someone critique this? I am not to sure if I’m even close.

Aubrey Hannah

•

3mo

Yours looks pretty good to me, especially on the Lego minifig. The fish was definitely difficult for me too. I'd say, maybe make the occlusion on the bottom of the fish smaller? Or just add some lighter tone in the outer areas.

Morif

•

6mo

i feel like I don’t know What I am doing or suppose to aim for

Aubrey Hannah

•

3mo

This was definitely a challenging assignment for me too. It looks like you tried too hard to shade every area. Try to remember some of what you learned about ambient occlusion in previous videos and only shade parts that you're confident have occlusion.

Maria Bygrove

•

9mo

I find it sometimes difficult distinguishing between Ambient Occlusion and Form Shadow but it was a fun exercise :)

@soukakapo

•

10mo

Aubrey Hannah

•

3mo

Wow, that looks great! Well done on the occlusion!

@doublejon

•

10mo

@doublejon

•

10mo

Dedee Anderson Ganda

•

10mo

I'm not really satisfied with my first attempt so here another run!

Dedee Anderson Ganda

•

10mo

Fiuhh, its harder than I thought. At first its real slow and I'm afraid of messing up. On the third attempt, I start to brush faster and in more confidence

Aurora

•

11mo

@delia

•

11mo

@tonyhcf

•

11mo

@rfrimpong3

•

2yr

This is what I was able to do.

Martha Muniz

•

2yr

Looks pretty good! You got the occlusion shadows in all the key areas. I think you could still add some very soft shadows from the jaw to the cheek and for the skin folds around the shoulders, as this can continue to communicate the roundness and 3-dimensionality of the figure. But overall, nice work :)

@marq777

•

2yr

It seems like there used to be more than one reference image in the downloads but for some odd reason all I could find was this fish image. So I just worked with that.

Martha Muniz

•

2yr

Looks pretty good! I'd suggest easing the harsher dark crevice areas into the soft, lighter shadows, so it's more evenly distributed out. Also, in case you want to try this assignment out again, under the Assignments tab in the Examples section, you can find more images to use as reference, or you can use your own images -- sculptures, figurines, simple 3D models have worked well in my experience.

Vin

•

2yr

This is my second attempt, and this time I used digital tools. Shading AO in high quality is difficult for me. It looks rough, but I spent more time on it than it seems…

Martha Muniz

•

2yr

You're not alone! It can definitely be challenging and takes a bit more time than expected, but it seems like you're on the right track. You captured the fade as it transitions closer to the ground, without getting messy halftones. I do think it would help to further spread out the shadows a bit more, softening the outlines especially as you move further upwards. A softer spread can help bring in more of the roundness of the figure, similar to the model of the 3D sphere, showing more of its volume. I put an example here with the beard to hopefully help illustrate it better:

Vin

•

2yr

It's more difficult as I thought, and my drawing looks dirty ( just like Dorian pointed out in the lesson notes).

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About instructor

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Dorian Iten

Former program director at Barcelona Academy of Art. Passionate about teaching craft and exploring the inner game of art.