Shading Light and Form – Basics
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Figure Drawing Fundamentals

Shading Light and Form – Basics

1.4M
Mark as Completed

Shading Light and Form – Basics

1.4M
Mark as Completed

Shade an Egg

Take an egg out of your fridge and place it on a piece of white paper. Light it with a direct lightsource (desk lamp, flashlight, etc…) Shade the egg using what you learned from this lesson. Identify a clear shadow shape with the core shadow and cast shadow. When you fill in the values, separate the lights and dark and keep that separation and you add the halftones and occlusion shadows. Change the light angle and draw it again!

Newest
@lazy0
8mo
Another Batch of shading studies, could someone give me honest feedback of these? I'm having trouble with the bounce light also having trouble with placing the cast shadows to look somewhat accurate to the reference, Honest feedback needed please thank you.
Camellito
8mo
Well, if I had to give you some advice, it would just be to darken the shadow values ​​a little more. But everything else is fine. It shows that you understand the concept of light shadow. Keep it up!
Rachel Dawn Owens
These are perfect!
@lazy0
8mo
These where done digitally, I know the cast shadows are a bit wonky and out of shape, but I need some help with seeing more mistakes in these shading studies. Also the proportions are off in the second and third one, but I cant find any more mistakes, Please critique and don't hold back I want everyone's honest feedback.
@lazy0
8mo
Okay thank you
Rachel Dawn Owens
Spot on! The values are excellent and I see no issues with proportion. You could try to add that bit of reflected light from the ball on the tables. Light can bounce all over the place. Bounce light makes a form feel more real. Overall these are rendered very nicely. Good work!
Sofi
11mo
Hello, here are my shaded eggs. Feedback would be greatly appreciated.
hArtMann
1yr
Had a lot of fun with this assignment. For some reason I didn't get highlights.
carla toms
1yr
super fun to look at! the form light, half tones, and bounce light look great to my eye, particularly on images 3,and 4. On image 1, the egg on the left, and on image 2 there is a little more half tone on the pointy part of the egg than my eye is expecting and i'm wondering if lightening it a little would improve the image but i'm not sure. now, consistently, there's a darker cast shadow and a lighter cast shadow. are these the ambient occlusion shadow and the cast shadow or the cast shadow and the penumbra? i can't be sure from looking. i'm wondering if it would improve the image to darken the ambient occlusion shadow and blur the penumbra. what do you think?
Donald Nichols
these look amazing
@atv
1yr
Hi, these are my attempts for the egg shading. I have problems with the reflected light.
@bettkevin
1yr
@bettkevin
1yr
these were my first attempts where l faced quite a challenge with value. Despite the challenge l noticed that in some instances the cast shadow could be casted on the form shadow and l wondered of the drawing approach towards that.
@bettkevin
1yr
Martha Muniz
Hi Kevin! It looks pretty nice, I would just recommend fading out the core shadow more into the light, not too much where the light becomes dark, but enough where it's a softer transition. Right now there's a bit of a sharp divide between the dark and light sides so fading it a touch can help.
@bettkevin
1yr
My name is Kevin, and this was my take on the assignment. Gladly pass on any critique on how l could further improve my pencil renderings
Samuel Sanjaya
Did a simple (traditional, charcoal) and a more complicated shapes value study(digital). Is charcoal supposed to be this texturely ? I saw on youtube people seems to be able to shade with charcoal evenly.  Anyway, any feedback/critiques on the value study will be greatly appreciated..
Martha Muniz
Hi Samuel! Great Asaro head study! Something for the simples shapes studies is that I'd recommend starting by placing the terminator line, then the shadow group, then layering on top to add the halftones and darkening the darkest areas of the shadows. Being able to break down any subject into just light and dark groups is key to rendering and shading. Also, as for charcoal, it can be rather textural depending on what type you are using and on what type of paper. In my experience, charcoal paper has given me more texture, so I opted for smoother drawing paper, but I didn't experiment much beyond that. I would recommend just trying different kinds to see what you like best personally or looking at reviews. Also, as you are practicing, try out newsprint if you can--it's very cheap so you can get a lot of mileage practicing without worry, it's good with charcoal, and ateliers tend to use it.
Samuel Sanjaya
attempting the egg again, I hope i can get some feedbacks..
Martha Muniz
Hi there! Remember to keep the shadows darker than the lights. While it's great you're taking into account the reflected light, the effect it has on the egg would be much softer, so the value would remain darker than even the darkest light area. Hope this helps, keep up the good work :)
Samuel Sanjaya
I could swear that I shade the halftones much darker than that. I guess my eyes still need more practices.
Eveline Rupenko
Hi! Here are few sketches I've made for this assigment!
faye zhang
2yr
I put a lot of effort into drawing these eggs. I even enjoyed doing them, compared to years ago when I wasn’t willing to spend sufficient time on them. I also watched Dorian Iten’s video on how to shade an egg.
@elkad
2yr
Here are some eggs! (In charcoal + 1 graphite. Might have a go at digital later). I haven't had much practice with charcoal or the overhand grip so these came out a little rough. Plus I think the paper was too textured or maybe the sandpaper I used was too coarse cause the lines ended up being roughly textured. One thing I could work on is hatching. I tried following the contours to some degree but ends up looking a little sparodic. Any other critiques are appreciated!
@kotka
2yr
I had the same problems, my paper was wave as if previously moist and dried, and there were some weird scratchy bits in the charcoal! Still looking for the perfect paper that I can get a hold of in Europe/Scandinavia without luck...
@elkad
2yr
Tasty digital eggs :)
@opaqueapple
Hi everyone, I did some shading on eggs as the exercise for this section; The first page i initially ended up taking the pictures for which i used as reference. the order which they are uploaded by should go by order of the number on the page. As for the second page, i unfortunately didnt take any reference photos. Any Critiques would be much appreciated!
Jesper Axelsson
Hi @opaqueapple, nice studies! I think the core shadows are really nice! - I think the values in the shadow are getting to close to the values in the light, which diminishes the feeling of form.  As a rule of thumb 'the lightest dark should be darker than the darkest light'. You might appreciate this video Mind-Blowing Realistic Shading Tricks. If you want to learn more about values, you can access the How to Organize Values lesson for free through the Proko Course Sampler. Hope this helps :)
@emmahubner
I did my practice studies digitally. Learning the different terms for the shadows and light was useful. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!
@tudor
2yr
This is today practice for the shadow mapping. Difficult but fun :))) Any comment is appreciated. Have a nice practice day!
@tudor
2yr
Hello there proko peeps :))) This is another exercise on the basics of shading. I see it as an improvement with regard to the shadow hierarchy, but the reflected light doesn't convince me in this one. The photo has a very strong bounced light from the table. Any suggestions on how can I capture it more properly is welcome.
@emmahubner
Your shadows stand out as being nice to me (especially the occlusion and the terminator) It could be the photo, but I think you could benefit from making the center light lighter. Also adding in a highlight would be nice. Overall I think your shadows are great and your egg looks very 3D.
Bryce Gay
2yr
Here's my first attempt at shading. Feedback would be nice.
@vital_ash
2yr
The transition from highlight to the darkest midtone should be a more gradual transition unless you’re going for a blown-out exposure where the light appears super bright. A picture of your reference would be helpful to know what conditions you were working off of. Also, the lightest dark (your reflected light) should not be brighter than your darkest light (the midtone) as a general rule of thumb. There are places where the rule does not apply, but those are much rarer than simple accidents.
@mikaedelman
The cast shadow need to be stronger
@tudor
2yr
Thanks to @Jesper Axelsson for his feedback on shading! This drawing is the result of the feedback. Any further comment is appreciated :)))
@tudor
2yr
Hi people! These are my some studies for shading. I can separate the light and shadow, but the volume it's not quite there yet. I think it's because the value hierarchy is not well established. Anyway, what are your thoughts?
Jesper Axelsson
Hi @tudor, I think these are really nice. The structure is great and the shape design really cool and strong. I'm still working on getting good at shading, but I'll do my best to help: -I think you're right about the value hierarchy. I think it would help to darken the shadows slightly. The value of the hair cheek and neck is quite close to the halftone value, which can confuse the viewer about the form. You might appreciate watching this video Mind-Blowing Realistic Shading Tricks, especially the two common shading mistakes from 6:50 --> - Another thing that helps clarify the form, is the quality of the edges. The transition from light to shade on a form is usually soft (the core shadow/the terminator edge) and cast shadow edge usually hard. Of course, there are exceptions to this, but it is a helpful formula that can give clarity to a drawing in the early stages. Trying to apply it will also force you to analyze what is form shadow and what is cast shadow. That alone, I think, gives the drawing a more authentic look. I tried applying this idea to your drawings in my paintover. I learned this from a course by @Joseph Todorovitch on New Masters Academy called From Paper to Canvas. It helped me a lot. If you plan on taking it I would recommend signing up for NMA's newsletter since they quite often have deals that can make membership more inexpensive. Hope this helps :)
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