Monday, 7 April 2014

Level Up! Sessions

There is a new online community currently posting weekly videos hosted by polish artists Wojtek Fus and Darek Zabrocki, along with Jonas De Ro. Each video is hosted as a live stream, inviting a guest artist from the industry. On this particular session, concept artist Titus Lunter was invited along to share his processes and produced two original pieces using different approaches:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eYip7nQ2Yc [accessed on 7th April, 2014]

Lunter shared his recognisable approach of 'photobashing,' an approach that seems to be growing ever more popular in the industry as it speeds up workflow and achieves more photorealistic and detailed results. Lunter also speaks about, composition, colour and how some briefs offer freedom and room for experimentation whereas some are more strict and require planning.

Where I found the session really helpful was with the overpaints. As Lunter paints and discusses his work flow. The hosts encourage viewers to send in some of their paintings for critique and adjustments. Below is a painting that was sent in with a strong edge light effect:


Darek painted over this piece, deciding to use the same colour palette but make the painting 'cleaner,' and to make the strangely broken mountain the background a complete object:


One main criticism with the original painting was with the hard edge light and the way that the light source is seemingly bouncing directly upwards away from the viewers eyes. In reality, the light we see is that which is bouncing towards our eyes, so any specular appears slightly inside the edge that disappears away from our sight. This quick diagram Darek drew explains this well:


Again, it always impresses me the level of general knowledge industry professionals have of the world around us, here how light bounces off of objects. It is also important to understand how light acts differently when reflecting off of different materials. The sharp white specular highlights on the rocks from the original painting makes them appear damp and moist, whereas if they were dry the highlights would cover bolder forms and be more saturated. Some materials are much more reflective that others, so will more likely reflect values from their surroundings, where other materials appear to soak up light so have softer more neutral monochromatic highlights like for example cloth. Artists achieve such an understanding through studies and careful consideration when working, thinking hard about the surrounding environment and the materials and surfaces within it.

Perhaps in the near future I could send in one of my pieces for critique from industry professionals and the online art community.


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