nathanaardvark

Tutorial 138 - The Head in Profile

When beginning to work with the head in profile, it pays to memorize a basic pattern to avoid a disproportional design. 

By pattern I mean an outline that provides a basic design framework to f...

Tutorial 137 - Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro (ki-aro-sku-ro) is an Italian word, chiaro meaning light, scuro meaning dark. It was a technique used to full effect by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt and Caravaggio to ...

Tutorial 136 - Rembrandt Lighting

Rembrandt lighting is commonly used in portrait photography and painting, cinema, animation and manga.

A triangle of light appears on the less illuminated side of the face, as form shadows g...

Tutorial 135 - Lighting the Head

As an exercise, painting the head with a variety of lighting setups can help us understand the complex planes of the head and face. Learning the shadow shapes as they fall across different kinds of fa...

Tutorial 134 - Occipitofrontalis

The occipitofrontalis muscle runs from the front of the skull (the frontalis, as illustrated) across the scalp as a tendon, to the back of the skull (the occipitalis).

The muscle is for expr...

Tutorial 133 - Depth of Field

Depth of field is a term to describe the range of acceptable sharpness within an image. 

Often used in photography to make areas pop by contrasting sharpness with blurriness, depth of field is ...

Tutorial 132 - Camera Angles

Angles offer the storyteller an effective way to relate the audience to a scene and/or character. The audience's judgment of characters can be guided and influenced when using angles to en...

Tutorial 131 - Framing (Field Sizes)

If you ever do sequential art like comics or storyboards, or if you're planning an animation or a film, then some cinematography basics will come in handy. 

The right framing will serve...

Tutorial 130 - Caricature Action

When creating a caricature of a subject we have the opportunity to include an action or have the character placed in a situation. 

This should add to the comical feel of the image overall, and ...

Tutorial 129 - Character Exaggeration

There's a tough balancing act at play in the creation of a character portrait, or caricature. 

The trick is choosing which features to exaggerate. For example, it might seem that exaggerating t...

Tutorial 128 - Baby Head Proportions

This is a general break down of the proportions of a young babies head (1 yr old). Of course, there are many different shapes and sizes, and arrangement of features, but there a few things we c...

Tutorial 127 - The Grid Method

The grid method is not only a really effective and accurate way to transfer an image into a drawing or painting but it's also perfect for getting into your subject in preparation for a greater artwork...

Tutorial 126 - Drawing Curves Freehand

Drawing curves without the aid of tools like the french curve or compass can be one of the most frustrating things for a learner or even for a seasoned pro. I bet even Leonardo Da Vinci struggled!

&...

Tutorial 125 - Pinkish Extremities

You might notice your fingers turning pink in the cold, or your nose, just before an awkward sniffle. This is blood rushing to your extremities to keep you from getting too cold. It's most noticeable ...

Tutorial 124 - Texture Before the Terminator

Texture is going to be visible depending on the depth of the textured surface and the lighting setup in a scene. 

If the lighting is mostly ambient or soft then we'll see a fairly well defined ...

Tutorial 123 - Ambient Occlusion

Ambient occlusion is a painting or rendering technique which adds realism to an image. 

As light is hitting a variety of surfaces, all points that aren't absolutely hidden from light are il...

Tutorial 122 - Reverse Gradation

Here's a quick tip to help your subjects stand out from their backgrounds. 

Used often in cinema and photography, reversing the gradient of the background will give  greater contrast w...

Tutorial 121 - Simple Shadow Shapes

Here's a quick process often used in observational drawing. 

Learning to simplify the shadow shapes and other forms is a great exercise which will transfer skills to other areas of your wor...

Tutorial 120 - Depth with Occlusion

To go a bit further on spatial depth, I've illustrated how objects are most effectively placed spatially using occlusion, or overlap. 

Occlusion trumps all other depth cues including perspe...

Tutorial 119 - Box Construction: Hand

We can simplify complex  forms and body parts into simple boxes and tubes

Though quick and effective, construction techniques are best employed after a we have gained a good understanding o...

Tutorial 118 - Continuity

When we wish to create a composition to lead the eye around an image, then we can use the gestalt principle of continuity.

The eye will follow paths that are clearly connected until the lin...

Tutorial 117 - Figure Ground

The figure / ground principle describes how we tend to separate elements (figures) from their environment (ground). It's impossible to have a figure element change its outline (silhouette) without als...

Tutorial 116 - Closure

Closure is perhaps the most important gestalt principle for the sketch artist wishing to use economical marks to convey information, playing on the viewers own inventiveness driven by the memory ...

Tutorial 115 - Minor Key Variations

By now we should have developed a sense of what we mean when we talk about key as it applies to visual art.

Here are some examples that explore a few ways we can vary the minor key to make adju...

Tutorial 114 - Major and Minor Keys in Color

Here are some color arrangements to demonstrate a measured application of major and minor keys. 

The major key is the dominant, majority color in an image. It sets th...

Tutorial 113 - Major and Minor Keys

The last tutorial (112) explained how high, mid and low value ranges can be applied to give us some options for mood and story.

This tutorial goes a bit further. We can play with accents to add a bi...

Tutorial 112 - High, Mid and Low Key

Here's a visual example of how to make value arrangements based on the concept of delegating key value ranges.

You might notice that the key of an image can effect the mood or story quite effect...

Game of Thrones Tribute Show in LA - Tonight!

Hey homies! 

Just in case any of you guys live in LA and are around the Pasadena area later there's a show over at the Pop Secret Gallery in Eagle Rock, about 10 mins away from Pasadena....

Tutorial 111 - Proximity

This image plays with the gestalt design principle of proximity. 

Whenever we place things near each other in a painting or drawing, the viewer will usually assume those things belon...

Tutorial 110 - Similarity

Here's a simple graphic illustration of a scene from Game of Thrones when Jon Snow battles a white walker. I've tried to use the gestalt principle of similarity to make a distinction between the white...