My project for course: Lighting Principles for Digital Painting

I started by following Sam's example and creating my own character, exterior and interior scenes with lineart. I struggled with trying to keep the balance between simplified shapes versus wanting to add more details, so I ultimately ended up with something pretty similar to Sam's.

I continued with choosing my flat / local colours. I tried to keep in mind Sam's shortcuts and checked my values often, this was very helpful in keeping my colours readable. I tried to make sure the colours weren't too bright or dark, but I'm still not too sure about this. I think it just comes down to practice.

From this point onwards, I followed Sam's various lighting scenarios and did the same with my own, utilising the Multiply and Add layer modes. I feel like there were instances where I overworked the pieces and used too many brushstrokes / smoothing, so I would like to work on my brush and colour confidence moving forward. This was my first time working without lineart in the finished piece, and I did find myself struggling a bit without that structure.

I found myself not adding a lot of extra details in the transparency / reflections section, as I found quick to make things look too muddied / plastic-y... so I do need more practice with this.

I particularly liked my interior day scene and exterior night scene :)

After I completed all the example scenarios, I jumped into creating my own lighting scenario. Instead of using the same character, I chose to create new ones along with a new exterior scene. I knew that I wanted to create a relaxing forest scene with emphasis on the dappled lights shining through the trees. Initially I focused on how I wanted to expose the scene, and ultimately chose to expose more for light.

So I started by creating the initial linework. I didn't spend much time planning the composition for this piece so it does feel cramped to me in the end.

I then went on to the flat / local colours. Again I utilised Sam's shortcuts and checked my values often to make sure my colours remained readable against each other, which was very helpful. I ended up omitting and changing some details from the linework stage, to keep emphasis in certain areas over others.

Then, I used a range of layer modes (mostly Multiply) to add the ambient light. To create the lighting, I used the eraser instead of the Add layer mode.

I actually did bring the lineart back into the final piece, but on Multiply mode, lowered opacity and coloured over or erased in certain areas. I feel like this brought back a lot of structure to the piece which I liked in the end result.

Overall I'm super happy with how my personal piece turned out! And I found myself using a lot of Sam's teachings to make it work, alongside adding in my own alterations.

This course was full of valuable information, taught in a super clear way (even for those not completely familiar with Photoshop!). What I found especially helpful were the shortcuts Sam used, as I often found myself working faster and checking values / flipping the canvas which I never did before. Also the talks about exposure.