Portrait Drawing with Graphite - Timelapse - Proko
video description
Let's break Stan's process! Shall we! ;
>Block-In phase<
0: 11 - Placement/Proportions
0: 23 - Shadow mapping (placing terminator/core shadow)
0: 51 - Notan (Separation of light and shadows using 2 simple values - remember to fill in the shadows with a only 1 value. if you're a beginner, you'll tend to darken the shadows in the hair. It's an understandable mistake, because the hair had a much darker local value. But that's not the case in the Notan stage. The aim of Notan is to just separate light and shadows even tho some forms had a different local value. Notice that Stan put the same shadow value in the skin too! He's thinking about where to put the shadows first. And he'll solve the problem of adjusting his value groups to imply that the hair is much darker that the skin, later in rendering stage)
>Rendering/Modelling phase<
1: 23 - Dark Accents & Ambient Occlusion (Face & Hair)
2: 11 - Halftones in the Hair (As i said above, this is now Stan, adjusting and putting new value groups to match the local value of hair. Remember that when rendering something with much darker or lighter local value, you can determine its local value or average value by looking at the form light. This is why in this stage, Stan put a much darker halftone value in the hair. As a self taught artist, i always remind my self that FORM LIGHT = LOCAL VALUE. Notice too that Stan made the Shadows a bit more darker in the hair because of its dark local value. This thing always trips me up and i wish i helped you with this)
2: 22 - Highlights + Textures in the Hair (As Stan said in his Shading vid; -Most of the story is going to be told in the lit areas. - So he put detailed textures there than the shadows)
3: 10 - Halftones in the Face
3: 32 - Adding Reflected Light by darkening the Core Shadow and some of the Ambient Occlusions - (This is why the Shadow Value in the Notan stage should not be too dark. An average value is enough so you have a bit of -wiggle- room to put much darker values like the the core shadows and ambient occlusions. In this case, the Shadow value in the Notan stage earlier is now the value for the reflected light. This is why you don't need to use an eraser to put in the reflected light if you did a good Notan. Because Reflected Light is the -side effect- of putting in Dark Accents in the Rendering stage)
That's it! Notice that Stan's process here is not linear. He tends to jump back in forth to other stages and still make the picture intact and harmonious. Mainly because Stan have so much experience than us beginners. If you're pro and understand the Fundametals well enough, you can do what you want. But as a beginner, I don't recommend working this way. It'll trip you up and make your Value Groups bit janky. Trust me. Been there, done that. ---
In the last moments of this portrait, Stan just refines and made a bit of adjustments from here and there. Making sure that he implied the forms well by organizing the values in the right way.
5: 50 - And of course! That ring tho! ---
I recommend you too to do this same analysis whenever you saw a timelapse like this. This will make you understand how an artist used the fundamentals to show forms in their drawings. at least, do it in your mind if you're to lazy to break it down like this! ---
Date: 2022-03-14
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Comments and reviews: 2
Paris
I wanted to share a realization I had while watching this video for anyone coming after me who wants to improve and eventually be as good as Mr. Prokopenko here. We tend to take for granted that artists like him are simply able to copy what they see with amazing fidelity, and while that's part of the picture, it's not the whole picture. Watching this reminded me of the importance of design and simplification just as two examples.
Proko is making design decisions while he's doing this. For one such example, you can do an experiment with me. Screenshot a still frame some point after he's put the shadows down on the page. Save the image as a jpeg and open it in digital painting software of your choice. I'm using Corel painter. Using a color picker, compare the value ranges in the shadows of the original with the shadows of the portrait. When I check this around the cheek and the mouth, the shadows on the portrait are notably darker than the shadows of the original. The importance is on the relationship of values to each other more than an absolute reproduction of tone. Also, the appeal of the -pop- that the darker tone creates is more than an absolute reproduction would have given.
Additionally, notice how when he's laying down his values, he is very careful to make the stroke lines follow the forms of the face.
If you're an artist watching this, don't get discouraged. This is a man who has an immense visual library from drawing A LOT. There are a lot of implicit things he's memorized that are not made explicit by watching him draw. Break down what you're seeing and use the takeaways to your advantage. He's given us the pencils, and type of paper. He lays out a clear process from laying down his guidelines to defining his shadow shapes. If you can properly set up the proportions, recognize values and move your hand in the appropriate different directions based on planes, you can do this. Just a matter of building up the related skills one step at a time. If nothing else, you should realize that the only way to build the absolutely gigantic amount of experience it took him to draw those hands into this picture is to sit down and do the legwork yourself.
Lastly, if this really was a proposal video, most legit proposal of all time.
reply
I wanted to share a realization I had while watching this video for anyone coming after me who wants to improve and eventually be as good as Mr. Prokopenko here. We tend to take for granted that artists like him are simply able to copy what they see with amazing fidelity, and while that's part of the picture, it's not the whole picture. Watching this reminded me of the importance of design and simplification just as two examples.
Proko is making design decisions while he's doing this. For one such example, you can do an experiment with me. Screenshot a still frame some point after he's put the shadows down on the page. Save the image as a jpeg and open it in digital painting software of your choice. I'm using Corel painter. Using a color picker, compare the value ranges in the shadows of the original with the shadows of the portrait. When I check this around the cheek and the mouth, the shadows on the portrait are notably darker than the shadows of the original. The importance is on the relationship of values to each other more than an absolute reproduction of tone. Also, the appeal of the -pop- that the darker tone creates is more than an absolute reproduction would have given.
Additionally, notice how when he's laying down his values, he is very careful to make the stroke lines follow the forms of the face.
If you're an artist watching this, don't get discouraged. This is a man who has an immense visual library from drawing A LOT. There are a lot of implicit things he's memorized that are not made explicit by watching him draw. Break down what you're seeing and use the takeaways to your advantage. He's given us the pencils, and type of paper. He lays out a clear process from laying down his guidelines to defining his shadow shapes. If you can properly set up the proportions, recognize values and move your hand in the appropriate different directions based on planes, you can do this. Just a matter of building up the related skills one step at a time. If nothing else, you should realize that the only way to build the absolutely gigantic amount of experience it took him to draw those hands into this picture is to sit down and do the legwork yourself.
Lastly, if this really was a proposal video, most legit proposal of all time.
reply
Maria
Watch Jing Astor vlogg crying lady and it's very good. He's just started to do it again. I'm amazed with you and at the same time with him, you both talented.
reply
Watch Jing Astor vlogg crying lady and it's very good. He's just started to do it again. I'm amazed with you and at the same time with him, you both talented.
reply
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