Hello! I'm a self taught artist who wants to get better at shading/lighting and backgrounds especially. But whenever I try to do a background study, I can't break it down and it ends up looking terrible. Do you know of anything that would help?
Hi! I would like to talk a little bit of the thought process behind photo study and the importance of simplicity.
It is really important to break down an image to chunks of value rather than seeing the detail first, which can lead to over-complicated mush of colors with no constructed value.
These are some of the artists that inspired me to get used to breaking down images in the most simplest way possible:
Notice how super simple and straight-on-point his thumbs are? And this is how his colorscript for Moana looks like:
Zero detail. Yet you have all the information you need!
I personally think these thumb studies are super important to train your eyes to break down an image in values and colors and therefore be able to organize and design your painting better.