Week 1 HW - Color and Light Course (Robert Kondo, Dice Tsutsumi)

Self Study Hw for Color and Light taught by Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi

I really like this class so far. The video editing and everything is really great. Good job guys. I liked how Robert and Dice Tsutsumi talked about themselves. Robert said that his first job out of Art Center - his Art Director was disappointed in his work he produced compared to what was advertised on his portfolio. And I was like "Wow! same thing happened to me!" So I feel really close we Robert because I feel like he is a human being. Dice talked about how he was an aspiring baseball player - but he wasn't able to make that as a career so he took up art instead. (I think Frank Frazetta has the same story! Did you know that Mr. Tsutsumi?)

I like how Dice emphasizes that importance of communicating lighting with the lighting directors. In the slideshow, he showed us his color keys, and compared them with film stills. Dice says that he learn a lot from the lighters.  He differentiates between making something look pretty and making it communicate essential lighting information. I already took a class with Nathan Fowkes - who is a Dreamwork color key artist, and I'm really interested in seeing how their approaches are similar and different.

Week 1 HW

Week 1 was on diffused lighting. Homework was to create 5 still life/ plein air set-ups. Focus was on form shadow, contact shadow and soft cast shadow (basically ambient occlusion pass + local color) Dice recommended us to take reference photos of the subject matter. (I think that was only for the students who were getting paint overs, but I did it anyways)

 Photo Ref

Above was the first plein air painting I did. It looked like crap. So I decided to do a master copy of the demo Dice did in class. I found that his painting was WAY SIMPLER than I thought. Step 2 was basic form rendering of the objects. Step 3 was loose treatment of the background.

 Then I got more confident and did this salad. I liked the way I rendered the plate. I felt it was really confident.

Photo Ref

Then I did this trash can. I was getting more confident and proud of the way it turned out.

 

Next I did this leftover plates from Panera bread. I really like the colors. I made this super simple and abstract shapes. I felt like Picasso! lol Then I rendered it. And treated the background loosely. 

Photo Reference

This was the last homework assignment. I used the soft airbrush tool + lasso for a lot of clean edges. When I rendered this I really felt in touch with the way Jana Schirmer, Yohann Schepacz renders their stuff. I love their artwork and always wondered how they got that clean 3D look. Now I finally start to understand why it looks like that. Ambient Occlusion pass. That's something they don't teach you at your typical Watts Atelier or Art Center class. That's more of a 3D modeler thing.

 

 

My dad saw step 2 and he was like.. so you are painting over a photo and editing it? And I was like "no.. I painted the entire thing". And I showed him step 1. "It's pretty good isn't it?" - I said.  And he was like.. "No it's really good, really really nice." He was so astonished and impressed. I think that was one of the first time I remember my Dad liking my artwork. I was so happy. And then my mom came over and was like.. "That area needs to be darker and Pikachu's ear is off." -_-||

Thank you Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo for giving me the ability to impress my father.