ProjectComment answers your questions! #4

ProjectComment is a Group of many projects centred around comments, but, more importantly, constructive comments. We offer Members of deviantART a lot of opportunities to get comments, give comments, participate in comment projects, win points, get featured and much, much more!

In this series of articles, our admins aim to answer questions about anything related to comments/commenting, art and more! Here are our answers to the questions:
How do you draw and colour/shade things made of metal?
How do you draw lights and glowy things (especially if you don't have things like gimp or photoshop)?

How do you draw and colour/shade things made of metal?

& , Felizias recommends this tutorial and Astrikos recommends this tutorial.

suggests, "I think this question leads a more fundamental one: how to draw different textures.
I never used a lot of metal in my works. Though, I think the basic steps for drawing materials are similar.
First of all I try to find a reference, because there are different kinds of metals fav.me/d5odx56
It's important to keep in mind what kind of lightning your artwork has. Every surface is not perfect, so I usually use some textures/brushes to show dirt, rust and cracks.

This tutorial explains a lot about metal: fav.me/d6zrct7
This is a drawing process, but I find it very helpful: fav.me/d6rn62u

Maybe they look like an advanced level, but I encourage you to try them. Just use a simple form for an exercise."

How do you draw lights and glowy things?

recommends these tutorials: Digital & Traditional

suggests, "For digital programs there are brushes you can also use (too less experience to explain how it would work by hand).

:thumb117052892:

There are so many - just enter "brush glow" into the search panel and pick what you need - don't forget to check the terms of use (there are a lot of free sets!) and make sure to leave a very kind thank-you-comment on the providers profile or the deviation. Remember that those people work for you and do not only deserve but also need your support.

In traditional I make sure I leave the spot I want to glow white and cover the rest at least slightly. The very source of light always stays perfectly white and then you start to colour the direction of the glow very softly in the colour you want to have it in. (In graphite you differ in the value - it needs to stay lighter than the unlighted areas...)"

suggests, "Regardless of what software you're using, or if you're going traditional and have no software, I think light is all about contrasting values.

Have a look at this picture: sergemeeus.deviantart.com/art/…
The cave mouth doesn't actually glow, but it looks like it does because the value used for it is might lighter than the rest of the image.

You can achieve this effect using traditional means, here are some examples: www.deviantart.com/art/The-Lig… & bongoshock.deviantart.com/art/…
The trick to it is to leave the glowing part of the paper untouched by your medium, well with any sort of pencils that's true.  Anyway, you leave the white of the paper there and add the medium lightly around it, essentially a circular value scale around that spot.  The strong light to dark contrast will appear to be glowing, regardless of the color you use.

To maintain that you have to preserve that contrast.  This might mean making the rest of your image darker.  If nothing else in your image has the same value as the spot you want to glow, then it will look like it's glowing.  As soon as non-glowing objects get the same light value, it will ruin the glowing effect.

Working digitally you can erase back to pure white to add the glowing effect.  With any sort of pencils there's no way to return back to pure white once you've put marks on the paper.  It's possible some white paints can achieve brighter whites, I haven't used them as much to know."

suggests, "I usually use soft round brush to show the glow around an object.
Also it's important to show the reflected light on the surface and other objects.
I want to add this tutorial, it explains how to achieve glow without any photoshop effects: fav.me/d4jag2p "

suggests, "In addition, it might help to learn the difference between hard and soft lighting. Soft is generally the more common and more practical, where surfaces very gradually get darker with distance from the light source. However, with hard lighting, the darkest shadows can be directly adjacent to the highlights (Google image search "hard lighting photography"). Choosing hard or soft, helps with different approaches to contrast, tone, glow, and of course, lighting. If you're using digital and it has a threshold option/feature/filter, try it out, and look at how you can transform your picture to just pure black and white.

It's unclear what media you're using, but with pencil/black and white, it is pretty straightforward, boiling down to varying the pressure for the shading on the canvas, and understanding lighting. A good eraser can help with fine-tuned highlights. Getting a smooth gradient however takes practice.

As for color, I keep the source of the glow a solid color, such as white, turquoise, neon green etc. and with digital I use a low opacity brush of the solid color either around the form/subject or on the surrounding surfaces, and to create the gradient, gradually decrease the opacity the further out from the source."

Do you have any suggestions? If so, post them here!

If you have questions that you would like us to answer, please ask here as a reply to this blog, or anonymously through this form. Our volunteers will then answer your questions to the best of our abilities, and we will then post our answers as an article for you!

Thank you for reading!

ProjectComment