Value and Highlighting

 Hey everyone! I hope you've all had a wonderful day! 

I've been hard at work with some more portfolio progress. This week, I've had the pleasure of being able to work on value and highlighting in my work. 

I was especially thankful for this assignment, particularly because lighting and shading has always been something I've struggled with. As a cartoonist, I usually work with cel shading, so I don't usually pull out all the stops in my drawing.

Today, I made an exception to that rule. I worked entirely in black and white (and all the tints and tones between) and did almost nothing but shading! Woohoo! 

Now, let's see what I ended up doing with all of that...

I ended up choosing the Billie Storm Anderson picture because I loved the subject matter... the desert! 

I'm homesick, don't judge me! 

Homesickness aside, I had a lot of fun with this project! I started to get to the point where I was overly-nitpicking this, which is how I knew I needed to stop. I could work for hours on end on my lighting and stuff- it's definitely a vicious cycle. 

Here are all the layers, just to give you an idea of how much is going on in this picture.

Thankfully, I was able to pull away from the drawing and I ended up with a piece I'm really proud of! 

But I couldn't do a great job without some great references. Props to the photos below for serving as my project reference! 

This one was great because it showed me that the differences in color are subtle when compared at distances. I had initially made my color differences more noticeable, which I promptly changed to make them more subtle. 

Here is another great picture of the same rocks, but with some set dressing! 

And another picture that helped. I love the way these rocks look! 

And last but not least, my favorite picture yet. I've actually been here a lot. I used to hike here!

But yeah, hopefully you liked my picture and also these wonderful references! 

I hope you have a great day!