TV Tropes

If you love storytelling you'll find this website to be a real treat. I enjoyed reading through many tropes.
Tv-tropes oh and there's also this awesome Periodic Table of Storytelling.
It's a great resource

I think next week I'll make a post on feet since it's kind of relates to the "hands" post from last week

have a great weekend!

Hands

Hands, drawing them gets easier with practice.
These are some points to remember when drawing hands.

• The thumb reaches to the second joint of the index finger.

• The pinky reaches to the third joint of the ring finger.

• The thumb axis is placed at the palms' base.

• The thumbnail does not face the same direction as the fingernails.

The palm side is concave. 

The back of the hand is slightly convex.

In a fist the fingers are pointing toward the middle.

The alignment of the finger-pads in relation to the knuckles. 

The best way to learn to draw hands is through practice and observation.

That being said I hope you found this post... handy :P

Hotel Transylvania 2 - Lighting

An awesome video I had to share about the lighting in "Hotel Transylvania 2" and the thought behind it.
They talk about having a clear read, strong mood and a bit about camera effects.

Creating the Illusion of Depth

Depth is awesome! It makes a picture feel like a window to another world or something cool like that. Here are a few ways you can add depth to your paintings.

Perspective (no surprise here)
things appear smaller the farther they are and lines converging to a point on the horizon, are good ways to show perspective and convey a sense of space


Overlapping forms
It's not just the separate things that can overlap one another, but also the forms within a single thing



Lines that "describe"/follow the form
On figures it's usually the clothing


Shallow focus/Small depth of field
Choosing an area to focus on and blurring the rest.

Gradations

There are many reasons for gradation to happen in nature. Regardless the reason, It's rare for things to stay the same color and value all throughout.

Aerial perspective/Atmospheric perspective

With the increasing distance, objects fade into the background, lose contrast and details 

That's all for now

Take care!

  

More Tips on Composing for Mood

Previously we looked at using light and shadow, and camera placement when composing for mood

This post is about some of the other ways to evoke emotion in a painting. 

Noise

Adding some visual noise and clutter to an image will give an action a bit of a boost,

Omitting noise can help "slow down" an image.

  

Lines

Angles tend to seem less "friendly" then curved. 

This can be used to make a scene feel scary, serious or sweet depending on how far you take it.

  

Atmosphere

I find that atmosphere whether it's fog, mist, dust or whatever it may be, really useful in creating mystery. 

It's also a good way to enhance perspective. 

Time of the day and weather 

Are also important to consider when composing an image.

  

Well that's it for now

Hope you found this helpful, maybe your friends will too ;)

Using "Camera Position" For Mood

Continuing the composing for mood posts series... thingy from last week.

So, apart from light and shadows, we can use the "camera placement" to evoke or enhance a feeling in a picture.

To the examples!: 

Low angle 

Placing the eye level low, will make things appear big, powerful, imposing, in control, or important and looked up to 

 

High angle

Placing the eye level high will make things look small, weak or in distress 

 

Closeup

It's really good for showing facial expressions, it lets us see what a character feels or think. It's also useful for showing important details. 

 

P.O.V - Point Of  View

If closeup lets us see how the character feels, P.O.V, puts us in the character's shoes. This can be used for a lot of different purposes 

 

Tilted view (Dutch angle/tilt)

This is a fun one. Tilting the image, gives an unbalanced look, which really helps when you want to get a bit more action from your image, or to just create an uneasy feeling.

 

 

You should experiment with where you place the "camera", you may find something that works and unique, which will improve your composition.

I hope this post benefited you.

Next time other tools that can help us evoke a feeling in a painting.

Light and Shadows

Mood, in my opinion is really important for a painting, especially if it meant to convey a story point. Light is a very important tool to use when creating compositions for your paintings. How you light your scene influences the mood of the image.

Low amount of light (low key),

usually is more sad, creepy or mysterious.

 

While high amount of light (high key),

tends to have more happy, calm mood.

We can use the shadows to add or omit information.
Here the shadow adds information we know there's a teddy bear in the room

Here the shadow hides the figure. 

To me it makes it seems creepy or mysterious because we can't see who it is 

 

Just to play with this idea, I painted in the figure and brighten the shadows.

Much less mysterious.

Soft diffused lights are better to show beauty and well... softness.


while hard lights tend to be more dramatic


There are other ways to use light to create mood, such as its direction - different angles create different effect and its sources - for instance candle light vs sun light



Yeah it's fairly obvious and simple, but it useful and it isn't that much discussed.
That's all for now. I hope you found this helpful or a least entertaining :)
Next time Using "Camera Position"  For Mood