This is a concept I've started to see in looking at all this art, especially the Corben. He filters everything through that claymation aesthetic I mentioned, and he simplifies the lighting scheme.
This goes hand in hand with a principle I learned from the Robert Beverly Hale Old Master series of books—the idea is that first you light the big forms of the body (the torso, the arms, the legs, the head), and then, within that large and simple lighting scheme, you work out your details. But make sure you don't overcomplicate things. The large masses need to predominate. Shading of details like the abdominal muscles or the serratus can really destroy your larger lighting scheme and break up the form. Shading of secondary forms and tertiary forms must be sublimated to the shading of the primary forms.
The video does a great job of explaining it.
I just remembered, I did a post about it back in my guide to constructive figure drawing:
I already knew this, but since I've been learning anatomy and concentrating on the muscles, I think I've gotten a bit lost in shading individual muscles and lost the big pattern.
The artist who did the video also used the spotlight effect. He made the lighting brightest on the left side of the torso and the upper arm, and faded it on the face and the leg, all of which in the original photo were equally bright. But he wanted to draw attention to the big body forms rather than the small details of the face, or pull it down to the thigh.
I discovered the spotlight effect when I was doing those black and white master copies I posted recently—artists tend to use it to pull attention where they want it. In Frazetta and Tiepolo I found it's generally on the torso—the chest usually, which denotes strength and vitality. Many artists put the spotlight on the face, which is the personality and intelligence.
No comments:
Post a Comment