Original subtitles

Good morning.

Everyone Good morning.

Who saw spider verse.

Yeah.

It was really good.

Thank you.

Congrats on finishing the film.

Yeah, thanks so much.

Yeah, I saw it this weekend was awesome.

Thank you.

I thought.

It's definitely.

I won't do say any spoilers or anything but I thought it was.

I thought it was as good as the first one. I thought it was as good maybe, maybe better in some ways than the first one so.

I saw it opening night, and I remember everybody was like, I can't believe it said to be continued.

I mean they warned us in the trailer they're like this is into the spider verse part one. So like, I assumed that it would at least end with like a, you know, coming soon, females Morales in whatever, like, yeah.

Yeah, it definitely ends with like a cliffhanger.

Cool. So I was thinking, since the movie came out, I can share.

Here's, here's a piece.

This takes place in India, because they go, they go to the India dimension for a bit.

So this is one of the earlier pieces and we're still like trying to figure out like the style of that world.

So they told me just to paint some story moments of the four of them like crashing through like shops and this was like an electronic store so we have like DVDs and TVs, you know the shop owner.

And you guys will be happy that I have my PSD file with tons of layers.

Fuck.

If there is any to talk.

You get what I mean.

Someone talking to me, or they've been to mute everyone.

Yeah.

You're very young.

All right.

Yeah, so for.

Yes, yes too many layers.

I'll see why I have like all these. So, is based on a storyboard.

Like the boards for this we're just like incredible so it's like I'm gonna.

I'm just going to copy the storyboard basically.

And

so I just kind of built, I painted, just in black and white, and I tried to figure out what the shop could look like.

So, made like a crash through this hole in the wall.

Having the light come in create some interesting shapes.

Start thinking about the shop owner, they're sketched in the characters are just really simple graphic lighting. So the environment is kind of like a middle gray, and the characters are dark.

On top of that, creating my high contrast and focal area.

Some debris and stuff being knocked over.

Or ground elements.

And then I tried to simplify things that I kind of had to figure this painting out just kind of painted how I normally would.

But then I had to simplify things and try to figure out how to make this look like that comic book style.

So I posterized it, got the characters on a layer.

And then I dropped in colors, started to put in some textures.

See I've got some areas where I'm like using the dots and things to show, show the light.

Making little logos for some of these, making some signs.

Just color adjustment.

And then I was looking at a lot of like the India comics and something that they did a lot was have like really offset colors. So you, you really saw the, like the printing process, I felt like.

So, I was thinking what if they printed this thing like this yellow orange.

And then you felt like they printed the purple on top of that. So I, I just let this orange color like create like this big shape.

And it's not like perfectly

like masked to, to the elements in this, I just let it like be this kind of abstract shape.

Like the Spider Man in different, in different angles as if they're being watched by like security cameras.

Some of those elements are nice to add, it's like the longer you look at an illustration you might start to notice some of these things.

Putting in like atmosphere with these dots.

So I use the dots to show the light.

More dots, more texture.

I found this, this like paper texture online.

I used this a lot in these India ones because it felt like, like it felt it helped things to feel like printed and more like handmade.

And then I would start drawing over things.

These lines, drawing the shop owner.

These characters in there.

So originally I did this which was, I think was what was in the storyboard but then I ended up moving miles over here.

So this, this wasn't like too many things like intersecting.

Would you hand the texture over to look, or did they try to imitate themselves.

I would, yeah, I would give them this, partly why I have all these layers and stuff like I would say that I would give them this full file so they could go through they could grab textures they could grab like the painting I did for this wall and like use the actual,

like the actual elements that I painted.

So they would, yeah they would use as much of the duty as they could.

How long did this take me.

These took me a long time to do.

Because there's so many versions of this one painting so many color variations so many like render script versions.

Render script is like the way we use like the dot patterns and all the textures.

So when you, when you watch the movie you see, like, when there's movement, there's like more dots, there's more.

There's more of these like, like texture patterns and things so we had to paint all those and show what that could look like.

So, it probably, it probably took me like two days to do the painting but then it took me like a full week to do like all these different variations and like back and forth with like art directors and stuff.

So, can you show us what reference you used for this. Yeah, let me see if I have those.

foreground elements.

And then you can see all these like little.

Background back a warmer version cooler version.

This layer is like that.

That offset that

trying, trying to like offset more colors, layering and more, more elements.

And I would, I would deliver this in like inversions, so I'd have like painting version one, version two with like more offset version three with like a ton of offset.

And they would ask me like, put, put in like big dots like everywhere.

So that would be a version.

And he's like CDs I would just paint

straight like this and then I would work them into space.

Yeah, I would paint like I would do like some DVD covers. I'm just like paint, paint the graphic.

And then I would use

I forgot where I use them. I thought I, oh yeah I use them in here, like these DVDs.

And when I paint elements like that I always say like the flat of them so then they can use them in CG.

Sometimes I'll just take my whole image poster as it and then I can like select out like sections and kind of utilize those.

Perspective.

Yeah, let me see if I have the references. One second.

Some.

I don't know, I can't find my exact references for this one. But these are references for for other paintings and stuff that I did.

So,

so yeah this is what my research would look like.

Looking at the comics at this place, this location was inspired by

images that I find online.

If they, like we, we liked this piece that Emmerich did, the original production designer on the movie.

So we're looking at that for kind of the style that we're going for.

And then, yeah, I was just researching working for interesting, interesting things.

If this was talked about, we'd love to take to the PST.

Yeah, I can.

I'll put this up so you guys can can download it if you'd like.

Yeah, I use the lasso for the figures a lot, or I kind of just use the pencil tool.

And then I'll go through and

paint my silhouettes like that.

So they're like nice and bold and graphic.

You can mostly keep the backgrounds this graphic, or were there some paintings where you had to render more?

No, we wanted the backgrounds to be like super, super graphic and kind of simple with like line work.

They, the leadership liked

the paintings that were more like, just like a color with like some texture and then line work on top of it so it was like less colors were better, is more like a bold shadow color bold light color.

Rather than having like, like lots of different colors, because the printing process was like pretty simple for these comics so we want to to represent that in the, in the paintings.

You possibly see what you would consider first pass of it ready to be.

Um, yeah, my first pass.

Yes, I did.

Um, yeah, this was my, my sketch that I showed them.

So they launched me on the assignment they're like spider people going through India smashing through

shops and and stuff like that. So I did, I did a bunch of these, you know, different camera angles different kind of shops like more epic ones more closed in ones.

And then they kind of picked some of their favorites.

And then I would paint them up like this.

Emmerich.

Oh, yeah, you know I don't use procreate.

I use heavy paint.

I did not use 3d for this one.

I did some like bigger like cityscapes, where I did build stuff in 3d first, but this one is pretty simple. So I felt like if I did 3d you would just kind of limit me more. This one is simple and messy and I can just kind of like, I didn't feel like I needed

3d to help me with this one.

Hey, Tom.

Here's like another one of these sketches that I would show.

So, a bunch of people down here walking and then all these shops and stuff on the sides.

So yeah, I would just show a bunch of these like black and whites.

Like this one.

Here's like a map, and upwards, showing like a go through this section, and this one feels like this and then they go around here.

It's like these, and go through here it's maybe a taller area, and then they end up in this kind of like courtyard kind of thing.

So along with my sketches I would show like how I'm thinking about how the action would take place.

How many shots do I do? I feel like I didn't do that many.

It's like each piece, like I would do a piece, and then we would just do like tons of versions of this piece, and we'd spend like a ton of time doing that.

So yeah, it wasn't

like I'm like, looking back at my artwork, I feel like I don't have that much.

But yeah, probably did like 20, 20 like, kind of like nice environments or something.

Will you start from storyboard get into you?

I have to make your own concepts.

This piece I started with a storyboard but I don't, I don't always like the previous one I just showed that was just my own idea, but if there's an awesome storyboard then you may as well, you know, make a, make a painting out of it.

I'm assuming you missed the beginning where I showed the storyboard.

Okay.

Any other questions on this, or close it down.

Cool.

Yeah, let's

I'll share more, more of that, or the Spiderverse stuff as I go because I, I kind of had to save like a lot of my process and stuff for these, just because there's so many like iterations of things and we're just like developing this like unique look.

That would force me to like save each version and do a lot of development on them.

If they invite me, I will definitely work on it.

They asked if I would be available, a while ago, for the second one so yeah hopefully, hopefully they bring me back. I would love to.

It's always like a huge challenge, working on Spiderverse because it's,

there's all these different styles you have to hit.

And they always bring in like, like the best visible team I feel like, so I feel like I'm like one of the worst, the worst artists on the movie so it like really pushes me to like you, you're just seeing like amazing art, all the time you're like oh shit.

Okay, I gotta do, I gotta do better.

So it's good to be on a movie like that once in a while where it just really pushes you.

I always grow a lot from, definitely from the first one and a lot from the second one.

Yes, so

yeah I guess I got lucky.

After seeing the movie everyone is also like, oh shit I gotta do better.

Yeah, so imposter syndrome.

How was homework for you guys did you, did you enjoy doing these? Was it fun?

Great.

Beautiful.

So fun. Cool.

So we won't go through all of them but I like to take a little bit of time at the beginning of each class if anyone has like some specific questions on the homework.

If you struggled with something if something was confusing.

Yeah, this looks great. It looks like you guys definitely got it.

Amazing.

I guess some of these are getting a little bit more bold you're taking like a harder brush.

Yeah, great.

Awesome.

And hopefully through doing these you will, you'll start to pick out the artists that you really like and pick up on some like some of their, some of the elements of their work that you want to incorporate into your style, and that this is a way to kind of start

to lead you down a path where you're creating a unique style for yourself.

So, throughout this class I'll talk about artists that inspire me.

Maybe you, you, you have different ones that really inspire you so you can start to grab those.

Beautiful.

My biggest fear is starting from value and then adding colors. Well, we'll do that today.

So hopefully I give you some, some ideas.

These are great.

Yeah, we won't be able to look at all of these, but I'll just scroll through. These are all

the slides. Yeah. It's some application. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It looks like you're all really doing a great job seeing the values. Awesome. Cool.

Is it okay to color pick the values when doing this assignment? I would say no, you should

look at your reference, what you're looking at, and then screen your eye to replicate

that. Because you want to be able to, how do I explain this? You want to be able to look

at a, like at a piece, piece of art, a photo, or an environment outside a scene outside.

And just be able to envision the values and be able to capture that. Because you want

to capture the impression, the feeling of the space rather than accuracy in the values.

So what that means is sometimes, you know, if you're like right now, I'm just I'm inside.

My eye can go around and kind of focus on the inside. And then I can look out the window,

I can focus on the outside, and I can see all the values of everything. But if I want

to do a, an interpretation of what I'm seeing, maybe my eye would kind of focus on the outside,

and then my interior would just be like a darker value. So I would like push everything

down so my focus can be on outside. So there's, there's artistic choices that you'll make,

and you'll push the values here and there. So that's why you don't want to just color

pick, you want to like, look at what you look at the environment and then make some bold

choices. I started painting traditionally using limited RBY and white palette, it's

helped with my understanding of color. Cool, that's, that might be similar to what we're

doing today, like limited color palettes. Yeah, and just just a reminder, I will always

post announcements. If you posted stuff here, it's fine. I would just take these, take these

out, delete them and put them in, in the homework or class chat. Yeah, if it's a if it's a homework

assignment, put in homework. Announcements, this is for me to post things like, okay,

next class, here's the here's the zoom link, or important stuff that I want to share. But

every every week, I'll always post the zoom link here. So you have it. Just just so we

can keep that that clean, clean and organized. Oh, yeah, yeah, if you're not used to this

course, totally fine. You'll get it. But also make the announcement channel so that only

you can post there. There's no confusion. Oh, yeah, I could do that. All right, week

two. So we're jumping straight into color. And in order to understand color, we need

to understand temperatures. And I want to start with simple color palettes, just just

talking about warm and cools. And, you know, not doing like full color range. We've got

five pounds of colors up here. But this week, we're gonna just focus on maybe warmer palettes,

cooler palettes, like the subtleties. So we can really, really focus on understanding

the subtle shifts in color. And that'll, that'll be a good stepping off point to adding more

colors to your pieces. And we're going to be focusing on timed studies, when you start

with five minute studies and like work our way up. So how to choose color? I know when

I started digital painting, like this up here was like so overwhelming. It's like, there's

so many colors, like, where do I go? How do I? How do I choose the right color? And since

we focus on value our first week that that already helps us a lot to we can pick the

right value. Now we have to pick the right the right temperature. So when we think about

color, we want to think about the temperature first, I would say that's the most important

thing. And it's always the color within context. So you have to look at the specific color

in relationship to the colors around it. And then you ask yourself, is it warmer? Is it

cooler? Is it a little bit more? A little bit more yellow, it's a little bit more green,

it's a little bit more blue, you, you look look at those subtleties. So say you have

a cool color palette that you're going with. And you make an artistic choice to stay within

this cool range. You can have warm and cools in there, you need to have warms and cools

if you want it to feel like real light and real, real light and shadow. So how do you

make a warm a warmer blue, you you take a cooler blue, you put it next to the warmer

blue and then you can shift them does is this blue become warmer when it's a little bit

more saturated? Or vice versa, you know, do you do create a warmer blue by adding gray

to it, you have to look at you have to look at these colors, and how they relate to the

color next to it. Like if you have a primarily like red palette, and you don't use like a

blue color, how do you get those cools, you have to just add gray to the red. On my recent

trip to Japan, I my blue was I think it was dried up or I forgot to bring blue. So I did

all my paintings using gray instead of blue. And I use my gray to just cool down my warm

colors. And I'm actually thankful that I didn't bring a blue because then I could it was just

like a nice like limited palette. I just had these these kind of warm paintings, but I

got that cool color from just using a cooler version of the warm. How many studies do you

recommend doing each day? So what? Also, should we limit for amount of values we use? How

many studies to do every day? Well, it depends on how much time you have. Like when I was

working full time, I would just do a couple studies every day. And then you know, that's

what I had time for. But when I wasn't working, sometimes I would spend you know, half the

day and I would just do like 510 studies or something. Yeah, do 100 a day. Later on, we're

going to talk about the timed studies. And I'm basically I'm giving you the tools and

it's, it's up to you to kind of schedule and figure out like, okay, these five minute studies,

I'm learning a lot from these, I need to spend the next few weeks just doing five minute

studies. You know, you need to kind of evaluate that for yourself. So yeah. Yes, you should

always limit the number of values you use, you don't want like full value range in every

in every painting. You want to like group group things be like, okay, this painting

is primarily I have a lot of a lot of these shadow shapes in this painting and then my

light shapes are going to be like a smaller percentage of that. Yeah, so I always say

like start really bold and graphic and then you can add in like some painterly brushstrokes

like what we did week one. I noticed you use HSB slider interesting. Why you don't pick

why you don't pick colors directly from the color wheel some specific reason or just personal

preference. Yeah. What's his name? Hey, Susami, Robert Condo. I took like one of their workshops

or something and they they use this method that I'm showing. And it just made things

so simple, because when you have the color wheel, you are looking at you're looking at

all these colors and you're trying to figure out like, where do I where do I pick like

that's that's too much too overwhelming. This is so simple. It's just okay, what is the

hue? Is the saturation you know, is it cooler? Is it warmer? What is the brightness? You

just think in those three steps. And you can just ask yourself these questions every time

you mix a new color. So for me, it's just simple and makes sense. Should I paint cool

light warm shadows? Or should I follow light logic generally because I heard that it's

not always cool light warm shadows. Yeah, there's what I've learned is there's no rules.

There's there's guidelines, you know, like if the light is warm, you're gonna have a

cooler shadow, cooler light, a warmer shadow, like that's generally how it goes. But that's

related to cast shadows, contact shadows will be will be always warmer because you don't

have as many light sources affecting those deep shadows. And then there's like limited

palettes where you maybe you have an entirely warm painting. So everything is kind of kind

of warm in it, you know, you've got warm light and warm shadows, sometimes you make those

choices to for artistic reasons. It's like we're talking about Spider-Verse, it's like

Spider-Verse, we break every rule possible. It's like, after watching the movie, like

I really had a difficult time painting color keys for that movie, because we threw out

all logic. And we just did things for the point of making things like, like, for like

an artistic choice. It's like, okay, if we all the shadows are just purple, it's, it's

because it's not related to the light at all. But to make this like cool, like comic book,

like crazy effect to like, we need to make some of those weird choices. And sometimes

we would like we'd have scenes with all the characters, and then some some characters

would just have like a random like green light on their face. Just because it, it looked

cool. And because it kind of showed like the difference between this character and this

character. Yeah, so that's why I say there's, there's guidelines, but not rules. Yes, we

are getting there. Examples. So to understand color temperature, the best way to do this,

because like I've taken other classes and people have shown me like, like diagrams and

like, like the science and all that and it's like, that's all great. But the best way to

do it is kind of go through these pieces and pick out, talk yourself through like, try

to understand how this artist is, is looking at and understanding these colors. So I'm

taking this, these pieces, and I'm analyzing them, I'm studying them. So I'm going to show

you this. Alright, so what we can do looks like he has, he starts with a, like a warm,

kind of neutral underpainting. And then, like I'm looking at the layers of paint, and this

will, this will really help you to kind of like create a process for yourself. So it

looks like from there, he puts in these dark warms. So I'm looking at this, I'm like, okay,

it's, it's warmer and darker than the color that I'm putting down. So

we look for another color. And then it looks like I'm just kind of looking at the ground

here. And then it looks like he's layering in cooler colors on top of that. So I'm looking,

we have this, then how do we get some of these cooler colors? Some more of the gray. And

then some of these grays feel a bit more yellow. So I shift this temperature a bit more yellow,

a bit more saturated. Okay, it looks a little darker. So I move the brightness down, move

the saturation up. So what I'm doing now is I'm training my eye to kind of understand

and see how this artist sees the color. I make adjustments, looks a little warmer in

areas brighter, used to be cooler. And then as we go back, he's introducing more cool

colors. So it looks like we have to get a little bit more.

So I get this rock color, looks like we have to bump up some blue. Yeah, bring the brightness

down a bit. Let's get these darks. These darks are very rich and warm.

Yeah, so that's how I would go through and analyze those colors. Let's take a look at

this one. You can see kind of that initial toned palette. So we have another warm palette

here. And then the sky gets cooler. So we shift this cooler, lay those cools on it.

It's a bit darker near the horizon. And then I know some glisten gets a little bit more

purple. So I'm going to shift these a bit more purple. You ever use gamut masking when

trying to achieve specific mood in a painting? Yeah, earlier on, when I was like really studying

color and stuff, I, I did use gamut mapping, and that's a great way to force yourself to

limit a palette. I don't teach it in this class. I do go into that in my color workshop.

Yeah, so gamut mapping is a great way to kind of force you to limit your your palette. And

then once once you understand that, and you get good at like having like self control

when it comes to the colors, then you can you you don't have to like actually make a

gamut mask and like go through that. You can kind of just think about it and do it. That's

how I listen. You don't know what I'm talking about. It's this where you you take your color

wheel, and then you you pick a couple colors that you want to use, and then you you connect

connected dots, and then you only mix your colors within here. And also adding black

and white so you get full value. Now let's get these darks. These darks are very warm

and rich. So I start with this color and like, okay, I need to warm that up. So bring up

the saturation, bring down the brightness. And then I noticed that the top points of

this get get pretty cool. So then I shift this back down, bring in these cooler colors.

Now we're not using blue in this piece. We're staying within the these warms here. So I

have to make make these cools by using grays. This gets really warm. I look at the shadows,

these get like super rich and warm. And you have to do this by studying master paintings.

If you do this by studying photos, all your stuff is going to look visual and photo real.

And that's, I mean, it's my opinion, but that's generally not what you want. As a painter,

you don't want your stuff to, to look like photos. Especially the color. You want it

to feel like interpretation of, of real life, not just like, how how a camera like digitally

like takes in something takes in like how the camera interprets light. You know, you

want like the artist side, like how does the artist interpret light? What questions should

we ask ourselves to decide which color to start building off of? And does it even matter?

I like to, it's probably part of the reason why I like like really painterly stuff is

because you can see a bit of the process in these pieces. So I look at this piece, and

you can see, you can, you can see like, like some of the first brushstrokes this artist

made, and how he's kind of built them up. Like, I don't even need to see like a, like

a demo video or anything, because it's like, you can just kind of feel like the process

from looking at this. This one's a little bit more difficult to see, but you can, you

can look through and kind of make and make a guess of what you started with. I would

say it's a similar color to this. Because I can see that color like in here, back in

here. So yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. 100%. It's just kind of like, use your judgment,

like a color that you think would be nice to build off of. And generally, I like to

start with like a neutral warm. So then I can, I can go warmer, I can go cooler, it's

just a nice color to build off of. I don't like to go like, super saturated. Like I wouldn't

start a painting, like on top of orange, to kind of start neutral. So then I can add in

those saturated colors as I go. Here's me doing research again, analyzing these paintings.

These are all like, more of like a green blue color palette. So it's the same thing, but

we're kind of like in this zone of the sliders here. So this one, what color kind of uses

like a desaturated kind of yellow. I think I would start the painting with that color.

Oh, these are, these are tipper Maggie, sorry. Jennifer McCushion starts with real saturated

red or orange backgrounds, if anyone's interested in seeing that sort of ground effect in painting.

Yeah, that's, that's cool. Everyone. I know some artists that start with a more saturated

color and they make that that work in their piece, they let those bits of saturation show

through. So it's like, it's personal taste. It's, you know, however you want, want to

do it. Okay, so I started with this kind of like green color. And then to get these blues

in the sky, let's shift this bit cooler. Get those cools in there, this gets a bit brighter.

And then since we are in this kind of like green blue palette, these darks, I'm not sure

maybe they are like a saturated kind of green color. And then you can layer in these cools

as we go. Looking for these cool, cool colors. And there's some bits of saturation through

here that get a bit warmer. So I put those in. And then uses a red, it's like an accent,

nice accent color. It kind of bounces that red around, they get like less saturated as

they go back. Let me bump up some of these, these blues, some of these get a bit more

warmer, a bit more saturated. I'm not trying to like do a perfect master study, I'm just

studying these colors and observing and thinking about like these shifts in temperature and

trying to understand like how he created this limited palette. All right, let's look around.

Yeah, I've seen these before, these are awesome. Yeah, beautiful. This might be not the greatest

artist to study for this this week, but save her for next week when we add in more colors.

This week, I'd rather you keep your palettes like very simple, but yeah, awesome artist.

Yeah, really nice. Yeah, I'm going to add a little bit of color. I'm going to add a little

bit of color. Really nice. Yeah, cool. Again, I think too much color for this week, but

good one for next week. Picking this piece, like you can see kind of like almost the white

of the paper here. So if we start with that, we're keeping this color palette in this like

red and purple zone. Just look at these temperatures. Okay, I take this red and make it very deep

and warm. It's like a little bit, I get desaturated.

It's to get a little purple. Yeah, a little bit, little purple. This needs to get warmer

so I should bring up the saturation a bit. Skin tones.

Ali Wadler uses some very impressive bright palettes, values. Yeah, if maybe in the class

chat you guys can just like post some some of these artists that'd be helpful for everyone.

Daniel Keyes, good for his style brushwork. Yeah, yeah, he does a lot of flowers. Does

a lot of great flower paintings. That's like his market. So is it okay to color pick from

what you are painting? Yeah, I would. I would try mixing these colors yourself because then

you're going to think like, because we can we can go in here and be like, okay.

Her shirt. There's a lot of different colors in here. So this is what I have. I see some

that are a bit warmer. So I'm not color picking. I'm like, I'm shifting. I'm trying to think

about like, how do I capture these colors? So I've got some that are a bit warmer. As

they go into shadow, they feel like they get a bit more purple. So I shift that purple.

So I'm really thinking about like, what is happening to these colors? And, and why? It's

like, okay, we're going into these deep, deep shadows. So these are getting like really

warm. I'm noticing. Yeah, much great artists there.

Richard Schmidt. A couple of these like very limited palettes for you can see how he just

like it's all like blues and cools and captured such a great mood with these like I love I

love the subtleties in this. You see like, how much of a great mood we we have here without

using like tons of colors, you know. So like, I always think like, man, if an animated movie

could do could back away from color sometimes and create a scene that's just like, that

has this feeling like how impactful that would be. Especially if the next scene is like the

sun comes out and it's like, like a contrast of these muted colors versus these bright

colors. Something I feel like a lot of times we we don't get in animation, they just want

like, sounds of saturation all the time. But, you know, if you study this, you can think

about sunlight passing through all this heavy atmosphere. And you still get that feeling

of light, but we're just limiting the palette a lot. Same here, got light hitting these

top planes. So it's like a cooler, cooler, more neutral blue. But then like in the shadows

where there's not as much light affecting things, it's going to be a bit more saturated,

more of that true blue color of these rocks. Yep. Richard Schmidt's book is great. I guess

having a balance of saturated scenes versus desaturated scenes in movies would make them

more impactful. Yeah. I'm doing a short film right now. It's like my own story. My studio

is building it currently. And there's a lot of gray in the movie. There's like so, like,

there's some paintings that are just like, just like fully gray, and then you get like

a little bit of saturation here just to draw the eye. And that's the kind of thing we don't

see a lot in animation. So I want to push that. Yeah, so these are, these have more

colors, a lot of these. Yeah, these, these have had more colors, but you you can think

about it in the same way. Like, here we have the tree. We have the local color of the tree.

And then you can see if we think of this as a sphere and that cool light hitting this,

it's cooling down these greens, as they hit that like top part of the of the tree. And

then these greens get really, really warm down here, they almost shift to like an orange.

I get really warm and dark in there. So you can see how these color temperatures shift

with the light. If we have like a sunset scene, we still think about this as in the shadows,

you know, because it's more of that overcast light, but then in the light, we'll get, we'll

have to push these colors around a bit more. So what you can do is just practice trying

to mix these kind of colors.

First, come up with de-saturated purple.

Alright, let me go over homework and then we'll do some demos. So our homework, you're

gonna do 10 color studies, do a variety of different ones, do some master studies, some

films and photos, and they're going to be five minutes each. So literally set a timer

and do them in five minutes. I will demo this so you can kind of see what I'm looking for.

Then you're gonna do five master studies that are 10 minutes each. So here, you're learning

how to be really bold and direct with your brushwork, just picking out a couple of the

main colors, putting them down. And then when you get into the 10 minute studies, you can

start to think more about the colors that you're using. You're adding a few more, few

more colors, a little bit more feeling of light, a little bit more, a little bit more

detail in these. And then the last step is to do is to do two color studies. These are

a bit longer, 30 to 40 minutes. And they're from photos, they're limited palettes, and

you're going to copy a master paintings colors. So I'll explain this more in the demo. But

think about what we're talking about today. Like, you're analyzing these these master

paintings with limited palettes, and you'll kind of notice that as you're trying to mix

these colors, they will end up like in a small portion of your color, your slider here. So

this is just an example like you might have painting that's all in this zone, we might

have one in this zone, or we had one over here. What's the difference first task and

third task? Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna demo this. So I always like to show things because

I'm not good with explaining things, you know, sometimes. So five minute studies. This is

what you could do for five minutes, I just picked a variety of paintings that inspired

me. paintings, photos, images that I liked. So this one we were looking at earlier today,

so I did just a five minute study. Yeah, some of these are difficult because you, what you

have to do in these is just pick out a couple of the big shapes and put them down, you don't

have time to like render things or really think about like your brushstrokes, your brushwork

stuff like that. It's, it's really just quick first impression capture the overall image.

Maybe a dumb question, but how to study from photos so the studies don't look too realistic.

Always looking for that painterly effect, but can't always achieve it. Maybe some tips.

Yeah, this. So you'll see like these homework assignments I give you sometimes I say, do

a variety, master film and photos, then I'll say do a bunch of master studies. And this

is for a specific reason. I'm kind of sprinkling in, we're doing a lot of master studies, but

I'm sprinkling in like some film and some photos. So the hope is that you will take

what you're learning from the master studies and start to apply them to the photo studies.

So you're not just straight up copying a photo you're thinking about these things that you

learned from studying the masters, you'll think about like the color temperatures, you'll

think about grouping the values. So everything's coming coming together like week one grouping

the values week two limiting the color palette, because you might take a photo and it might

capture like every color in the color wheel. But because we've studied master paintings

now, now we know that as a painter, we don't want to do that. We want to limit the palette

and be specific about what colors we use. So this is part, this is the last part of the

homework, the two photo studies, this one right here. So I found this photo, it had

a pretty limited palette already. So I would recommend finding a photo that kind of has

a limited palette. And then this was my study of it. So you can see I stayed within this

zone. I did my whole painting in the sun. Like my cools are just like a desaturated

green. Now my warms these oranges, these oranges, I don't even go fully read, I kind of do the

whole painting like great. Orange and orange and yellow and green. Yeah, so very limited

palette. But since I'm pushing some of these temperatures around, I get a variety of color

in there. So it feels like it's full of life and color. How do we know if it's a master

painting? Like, how old do they have to be? Yeah, so it's a good question. I did for me,

my definition is, I mean, it's all like taste. It's like some artists that I'm really inspired

by now are still living and they're, some are pretty young. But they have the qualities

of like an old master, like someone who's obviously painted outside for years and years

and observed real life and color. So yeah, like in week one, I gave some examples of

my favorite artists. And if you maybe you don't have like a bunch of painters that you're

that you're looking at, you're not really sure like what to look for. Just study those

artists then. And then like, you might Google them and you might stumble across another

artist. Like, so like Pinterest is great, you type in an artist, you click on the painting,

and then it might lead you to another artist. But yeah, we're training throughout this class,

we're training our eyes to see better and to see like what good art is. I know it's

a lot of personal taste. But hopefully by like talking about these topics like value

grouping, color temperature, you'll you'll understand like, what is good, what is not

good? What is observed from real life? What is just kind of like haphazard, like someone

who's not thinking about it? Yeah, so you're just you're just growing your eye and you'll

you'll see these things better as we go. We didn't talk about value grouping too much

last week other than foreground, middle ground, background, groupings and soft edges. Are

there any other techniques for creating interesting compositional movement in paintings? Are there

any other techniques for creating interesting? Yeah, it's, yeah, I mean, this, this class

kind of like a crash course, like, like just leveling up as a painter, like to really dive

in deep in these topics. I hate to like, like pitching my other classes, but if you take

VisDev one, then we talk about really how to like simplify these light and shadow and

to direct the eye and lead the eye using just two or three values. Then we talk about composition,

like all these different types of compositions that you can use to lead the eye. Something

that you can look up, like your pain composition. If you if you have this book, that's great.

You can look up his, he has these composition, composition sketches, I would go through copy

all these and start to retain them in your memory. So then you know, like, oh, I can,

I can use this kind of composition for this piece, like this makes sense for this piece.

Um, Zach, I have a question, it's a bit off topic, but what is the logic behind texture

and saturation? Is there, is where light meets shadow, and if shadows, you don't need dark

shadows? Does it fly every time? Um, a couple of things. So you'll get more texture in the

half tones where light transitions into shadow. I'll explain this with using an image.

We have this photo. Let's see. It's a little bit more, it's a little bit more, it's a little

bit more, it's a little bit more, it's a little bit more, it's a little bit more, it's a little

bit more, it's a little bit more, it's a little bit more, it's a little bit more, it's a little

bit more, it's a little bit more, it's a little bit more, it's a little bit more, it's a little

It's form. We can we can feel the form. And then where do we see the most amount of texture? It's right in this area. It's where light transitions to shadow.

So, the reason why I posterize is it's easier to see this effect happening here. Like here, a lot of texture, everything everywhere. But here we can easily see that, you know, if we were to simplify this, and like, observe it as a painter, we'd be like, okay,

most of our textural brushstrokes are going to be in here. Here, it's going to be a little bit more simple, where it's just being saturated with light. Here, we can be a bit more simple, where it just falls into shadow.

So you can get that the contrast between simple textural simple brushstrokes versus textural brushstrokes.

I hope that that helps and we'll continue to talk about this stuff as we go as well.

So what you can do is, I mean, timer, you can just do this right into Google Chrome.

Wait, how did I...

It used to just be right there.

So timer, five minutes. Okay.

There we go. That's what I was looking for.

Yeah, so it starts right away.

Let's keep that going. The pressure is on.

How do we paint this in five minutes? Biggest shape first.

Just light shade. I'm going to paint it like a desaturated yellow.

Second biggest shape is a shadow shade.

That's like a pretty cool

little color and then the sky.

Desaturated blue.

And I'm thinking about the temperatures as I'm doing this I'm adjusting it's really quick, but I'm adjusting as I go.

These get a bit more saturated.

Shifting these temperatures around. So these are a bit more orange here.

I'm going to actually shift this a little bit more yellow.

These darks.

Now I'm looking for smaller shapes. This is a bit more yellow.

I'm going to shift that temperature over.

Here.

Relax.

Okay.

There's some interesting blue colors I'm starting to notice.

I'm going to use some light blue.

It's almost time to hang out.

It's funny how animals like know the schedule so well.

25 seconds left.

Now I'm just looking for like anything I can add to just like plus this up a little bit.

Most accurate. Oh, there we go.

Cool. So in five minutes.

That's what I was able to accomplish.

And I always kind of surprised myself I'm like, okay, very.

With this time crunch, I'm able to actually the essence of the whole piece.

And that's what, that's what I want to do.

This exercise will help you to realize that,

that there's a lot of a lot of things that you can kind of omit when you're painting.

You can still create a finished piece.

And that helps you to to realize like okay I just need my information my detail here. I just need to show the shadows, going back into space to represent these buildings.

So it'll help you really help you to be efficient and make these choices as a painter.

And you can't go in and like perfectly like choose all these, all these little colors in here.

You have to make a choice you have to be like, okay, I see all these colors, all these different subtle shifts in temperature, but I have to represent that with just this kind of like the saturated orange.

I have some questions.

If I have a reference in English or Schmid, I had to copy almost all value texture

in these quick ones. No, you, you don't have time to copy all the textures, you're not trying to do a painting that looks exactly like there's your, like you can see I just did this with the heart, with the round brush.

You know if I'm going to do a study of this next then what I'm trying to capture is the essence and the feeling of this.

Rather than all the specific brushstrokes, you're capturing like the light and the color. That's what's most important at this point.

Yes.

Yes, I'm squinting.

I don't even think about it I just kind of, I think I just kind of squint my eyes, like naturally when I'm painting, just to help me to not get focused on details.

Someone asked earlier about common mistakes or issues you see people having when working in value.

What kind of mistakes do you see people make when learning color?

Yeah, the biggest mistake I see is people who've only studied from photos, their, their whole life.

That is, it's super obvious to me and to anyone who paints outside.

Because when you study from photos then you group values in a not good way.

You'll, you'll be like okay all the shadows are blue, when in reality, there's subtleties in the shadows.

Like, imagine if I only studied photos like this, like, I would have cool like kind of graphic compositions and stuff, but

all my shadows are blue because the photo, and I grouped those, those cools together, but if I were in the scene, I would be like, okay gets warmer under here because lights not getting into there, or it gets warmer in here.

So I would start to see the subtleties.

Yeah, I hope you have fun using the timer.

I'm guessing on the 40 minute one, we could also use some texture. Yeah, like, the longer you have then you can start to incorporate extras and, and some different brushstrokes stuff like that.

But these you don't, you don't have time for that.

For this week's exercise could you name three things to keep in mind.

Sometimes tunnel vision and start focusing on the wrong things. So, something to keep a target on would be helpful. Okay yeah it's a good, it's a good point.

Three things to keep in mind, let's see.

Limited

color palette.

Capturing the feeling.

It's important to capture the feeling of the piece rather than trying to render everything right now. So these are very quick paintings, so you want to just capture the field.

Capture the essence.

What, like what I did in that demo.

Color Studies from photos.

You know, I'll just give you two for now limited color palette and capturing the feeling I think that's, that's good for this week.

Yeah, great suggestion.

Oscar.

The studio give me painting count as Master Studies.

Yeah, I would, I would say so that's um, that's a style.

I think that would be cool if you if you study like Ghibli paintings and then you pick another artist so you're not just doing like the Ghibli style, you're taking the Ghibli style and you're bringing a little bit of something new to it.

So, yeah, definitely. I think that's cool.

Yeah, they definitely have a style to the way they use color which is gorgeous.

And then the studies, you have twice the amount of time. So what you do

is as you go further.

You would start the painting the same way.

But now.

Now you have some more time so you can be like okay I'm going to be scholars are pretty interesting right here so I'm going to start to be a little bit more.

Pick out some of these

subtleties.

So you can just you can get more, more temperatures in here.

You can start to refine some of these shapes, a little bit.

But you're.

Yeah, your colors can get more accurate, you can spend a little bit more time.

Observing and analyzing these colors.

Basically, the point of the five minute studies, is to get good at being quick, efficient, capturing the essence. And then when you add more time, you should maintain that like that energy, the quick, just capturing this capturing the feeling of this piece,

then you, you have a little bit more time to think about some of these color temperatures, and go back to what we did when we were like analyzing these, so you can kind of go in and start to analyze some of these colors a bit more.

When do you think you'll hold another biz dev class with feedback? Probably after this one.

There might be a couple weeks break or something in between.

Yeah, I'll post on the Discord so you have time to prepare for that. At least a couple weeks have noticed. Heads up.

Talk more about brushes. Yeah, brushes, edu-work, all that is going to come later in the class.

Are you doing plein air meetups?

I would love to.

Someday, I will.

Is biz dev class more composition heavy compared to this class? The biz dev class, we do a whole week on composition.

Or biz dev one. We do a week on composition. Each week is like a major topic. Like the each week is like the most important topic that I found to create amazing biz dev pieces, so I'm giving you each tool that you need, so then you can go off and just create

a great portfolio or like push your biz dev paintings a bit further.

Yeah, I'm coming to France, Tom, sometime. Maybe we'll plan a trip for next year. Go to like Anacin and stuff.

With the longer color studies, are we studying the photos or trying to create, redesign some amount? No, you're studying the photos, you're not redesigning.

There's, my hope is that you, you study the master paintings, and then when you do the photo studies,

you're, you're copying the colors that you see, but you can start to imply, apply some of the things that you learned from the master studies.

So you'll start to think about color, the way a master painter would.

So,

the way we analyze color here, you can start to apply those thoughts to the photos.

I'll have to take this class after this, but I'm not sure if my skills are up for it.

Just do biz dev one, if you're, if you're not sure.

It's like we go, we go pretty slow, and we, we'd spend a lot of time with the fundamentals, the values, and then we slowly introduce color and design and all of that.

So, Rome would be amazing.

Yeah, if I go.

You guys will have to maybe you guys can show me around or something, do some painting together.

I'm gonna do a

two minute one.

So I can get to get to the next thing.

Okay, so this one.

Let's start with a

like saturated warm rock color.

Sorry, I'm not gonna talk too much to this one because I want to do it like super quick.

Mountains, blues back here.

One minute.

Recipients.

This trees and here.

Yeah, that's, that's super quick, you know, but I'm just trying to capture capture the essence the feeling of this.

If I had more time than I would.

Oh, the next thing I do is these like deeper shadows so we feel that space a bit more.

Bringing some of these tools connecting foreground to the background.

Yeah.

Oh, cool. Um, I was wondering if you had any advice for like paint painting outside, because usually when I try. I don't have like a painting setup, and I try my iPad but then there's like glare, I feel like I'm faster and Photoshop so I'm like trying to switch

my mindset over to like using procreate. I feel like it's always just cumbersome to paint outside.

Yeah, I hate painting digitally outside.

I would recommend getting some acrylic paints, and

just like a pad of watercolor paper.

Like a thick, like a, like a one inch brush or something like a thick square brush.

It's like super cheap setup costs costs like nothing, you can get all your materials for like 20 bucks.

And, yeah, just go out and do some studies.

One second, let me share.

Like, these, these like studies that I'm doing, like outside.

They're really small, they're in like a little like sketchbook.

So, they're small they're like low stress.

You're just going out putting a few brushstrokes down trying to capture the essence of what you're seeing. It's kind of like the same, the same thing with the,

with these five minute studies, you know, you could do the same thing outside.

And tell yourself you're not necessarily trying to create like a beautiful, like a masterpiece, you know, you're just going out there and you're doing a study trying to like mix the colors you want.

And it's about just training your eye, like, you might not make the most beautiful painting in the world, but you are, you're going out there and you're really looking at these color temperatures and seeing what's happening in real life.

And that is so valuable as an artist.

Yeah, that's good advice. I've tried doing it before but I always feel like whenever I try, like, mixing the colors. Traditionally, they come out looking super like I'm like this is the garbage, and then like the whole thing.

I'm like, well this is a fail, but it was fun, but then what's like, you know like that beginning stage of like sucking at something for like trying to get past that is not fun, but the struggle.

Well, yeah, I totally know what you mean.

Just push through it, you know anything, anything you're going to learn is, it's going to be a struggle in the beginning.

But I like I guarantee you'll be happy if you spend the next next few months kind of like struggling through this you'll be, then you'll be able to go outside and kind of like capture something that has that feeling that you're that you're looking

for, you'll get over that, like hump, and know something really rewarding about using traditional media and like having something you can hold on to.

I think it'll like inspire you as an artist and push you to the next level. So, cool, cool. Thanks man. Yeah.

Oh, one more, one more thing.

Maybe before you go outside, do these little studies but do them traditionally.

So, to copy something like a traditional painting like this, like just do a copy traditionally and it's already a traditional medium, so you're not making as many jumps.

It's kind of like a baby step into painting outside.

That's genius.

Speaking of which, do you, what is that little like setup that you have it's like a box.

Yeah.

My brother.

I'll show you.

So my dad and my brother have this little business where I just my brothers are

in shop

team equipment.

So, they, they hand make these, these boxes.

My dad was a, he's like an amazing woodworker, like redid our whole house, built everything out of wood and so they make these painting boxes together.

So, yeah, that was one of my brothers like first ones that he made.

But they're, these are like, these are really nice if you, if you have the budget for it, you know, I recommend it.

It's nice because everything folds up together.

You just throw it in your backpack and it's easy to just open up and do a painting.

But the one you had was smaller right, or is that the same one. Yeah, mine is a little bit smaller he doesn't make those mine was made out of a cigar box.

Which he doesn't make those anymore because it's just these are these will.

These are like super sturdy and well, well made like a cigar box it's, it's cool, it's small.

But it's not, it's not as well built or these are like diesel last.

So, oh, thank you man. Yeah.

Got some questions here about the benefit of pastels you can't get detail forces you to capture a feeling.

Yeah, pastels are a great option to

five minute ones in planar. Yeah, do them planar, that's, that's awesome.

I don't want to talk too much about planar just because we're, you know, around the computer it's digital class but yeah if you, if you want to do these studies like out instead of doing photos just go out, go outside, go to a coffee shop, you know.

And take a picture of it it's a sketchbook that I found in Japan. When I was there I saw another artist who had the same one.

And I was really inspired because she like it. It was like her her diary almost like just all her travels she'd like do a little sketch. It's like really small, it's like wow that's, that's cool.

Yeah, the paper is just like a little bit thicker so you can paint with acrylic on it.

Um,

I'm not someone who's like, like, like a snob with colors or anything it's like I use white, yellow, red, gray.

You can see I don't have blue in here because I forgot my blue.

I have an, like a, like an ochre color. This is great for getting these like warms, and then I use a deep green color, and that's how I get these blacks. These really rich darks, I mix the green and red.

So you can add a little bit red, a little bit more red to make it warmer and more green to make it cooler.

And those, yeah, this is my favorite palette right here.

I just have a square, a square brush,

and a tripod, a camera tripod. It's a

really nice one.

Yeah, it's something like this it's really tiny and folds can fit right in the backpack.

I think mine is a different.

Me photo. Yeah.

Oh yeah, here we go.

$89.

There's a bunch of different options that are like similar.

If you're, if you're interested in like a really compact setup, I can, I can share the exact resources, things to get.

It's all like fairly inexpensive too and it's, it'll last you forever. I've been using the same setup for years and years, I haven't bought like new paints in a long long time too because

yeah it's like you just buy the stuff you need and then you have it. So,

grayscale markers. Yeah, I did that for a while go outside sketch with grayscale markers.

I have a similar one from Cup Easel, but the rest Rhett's box looks cool.

I don't use black. I recommend not using black because black is kind of like a dead color.

You know there are like I know my brother he'll sometimes use black

as a cool color, I think I'm not too familiar with like some of these more like traditional like.

Limited palettes.

But yeah, for me personally I don't use black I get my darks from the green and red.

Yeah, I'll, after class I'll post in resources on Discord all the,

all the stuff that I recommend. And I don't, I don't use expensive acrylics either I use like student quality.

Yeah, yeah the Zorin palette. Yeah, that's it, using black as a cool. Yeah.

I hope to get into, like more, more plein air painting and have more knowledge that I would talk to my brother more about this stuff.

Alright we're out of time for class but I'm going to, I want to quickly show this third part.

Color studies from photos, like a longer study 30-40 minutes, limited palette copy master colors.

So what, what I'm going to do is I found this photo.

I just, I thought it was a nice photo, like nice light and shadow in there. It's interesting.

I just kind of adjusted it I pushed a bunch of warm into it to help me create this more limited palette.

So, what I'm doing is I'm just pushing some yellow, some red, kind of grouping these colors a bit more.

Because this week it's all about limited palettes. So here I feel like I can do warms, and you know, this might be a gray, I'm not sure yet or maybe it's a blue and then I just use like my palette becomes kind of like here and then a blue.

Sorry we're going over time a little bit.

I'll just, I'll just do a quick.

Okay.

Okay.

Let's start, start with value.

Okay.

So this is the value statement.

Let's tone this.

So this is the same idea. When we're looking at the, the master paintings, we're going to kind of tone the palette. So we have a nice color to build off of.

Okay.

So I just did like a desaturated orange, and it kind of gives me that cool blue feeling since everything is so warm.

So I'm going to, I'm going to try to do that.

I'm looking to these for inspiration, but I might.

So when you do this pickup photo and then pick like a master painting that you want to be inspired by the colors from.

So I'm just looking at these temperatures where things get warmer cooler.

I also have access to the brushes. Yes.

They are in the gun.

There's a folder join info. And there's, there's a file for the brushes you can download all these brushes.

No, you should intro intro to value.

Oh yeah I think my intro values class.

I just gave you a couple.

So this is, this is my full set of brushes.

Intro to values I didn't want people to get caught up in

work right away.

Okay.

I'll zoom in so you can see like how loose I'm keeping everything.

Now I can go back to this I can select

that selection.

Okay.

Okay.

So that's the answer about the homework, 10 and up minute pieces, do we need to take five minute ones that we did and start detailing them or start over with different graphs or try some different approaches.

Yeah, no, do your, your five minute ones.

And then pick a new set of reference.

And do your 10 minute ones.

It's, it's about repetition, doing a, doing a lot of these studies.

That's what's most important right now.

So last tool to block and shapes and cheat for the assignment.

The last tool to lock in. Oh, you mean my first step here.

This is just to help you to block in, like the structure and the values.

And then, so we have that in our mind as we go into color.

So usually I'll start a painting like this I'll just block in like a graphic statement.

Where's the purpose of using different texture brushes rather than a single round brush, for example, for added visual interest.

Yeah, you don't, I'm using, I'm using like, like a round brush and then a painterly, just like brush.

And then I use.

I'm using it, I don't have to I could do this all with just the round brush it's totally fine.

But for me, I think power naturally kind of pain is I'll use like a textural brush and then I'll use a really graphic brush and then I can get.

I can get the quality, I can get like this, like painterly quality that I'm kind of going for a little bit easier.

So it's, it's mainly like an efficiency thing.

I'm going to keep working this one up. And then I'll, I'll post the results later on but I'll try to keep it about about 3040 minutes. So you can see.

So this is what you'll do for that third part of the homework here.

Any questions?

If you were there in the painting.

Yes, I'm going about this as if I was like layering a painting.

So I'm thinking about it. I mean, I paint digitally like how I would traditionally. So it's very like tone the palette and start layering in thinking about my brushwork and because I've learned from, from these kind of artists.

I tend to paint in that way.

Any other other questions homework makes sense. I'll post all the examples on the discord.

Awesome.

Cool. Thank you guys.

I would love the PSD. Oh yeah.

If I forget just remind me, discord.

I'll share.

Well, thank you guys have a great week.

I'm always here if you have any questions.

Yeah, I hope you have fun doing these quick studies.

I'm a bit confused but I'll rewatch. Yeah, don't, don't overthink it I'll just post my examples and then you'll, I think you'll get it from seeing my examples.

If you're still confused just just asked me on discord we can explain it more.

Alright.

See you guys.

Thank you so much.