This week I'm showing you how to change the lighting on photo reference. Let's reverse engineer so we'll start at the end first.
We learn how to draw and paint from scratch but often on a job, the clients give us no time to start from scratch so we'll use photos. The biggest problem in using photos is that seeing the actual photo in the final piece is "undesirable" because several reasons. Whether it was because you didn't take the photo to it's stealing someone's "art". Whatever the case, we'll change it to fit our needs and far enough so that it'll look painted... mostly anyways.
Back to the very beginning now, it all started out with the initial idea. If we look at the art of any Marvel films, we will see a bunch of pieces that were created just to show what the hero's super powers could look like. It is usually a shot with only the main character with their powers in use. As always, I start off with a quick sketch trying to keep it as simple as possible. So what little do we know about Captain Marvel? She can fly in space and she has some fiery looking fists that look like she could shoot some sort of yellowish orange beam at her adversaries.
Here's my quick sketch.
Thought process...
What is the story?
Does the idea make sense?
What is the focal point?
While I sketched I thought about the story because this is after all, a story moment. What's happening here? Is she flying home? No, that sounds boring. What if she's flying away from the earth to fight some intergalactic beings? This is where I decide to turn her away from the earth. How much of the earth should I show? it's not the main focal point so I'm going to have it back lit. This de-emphasizes all of the details and textures on the surface so that we can focus on her. At this stage, I focus on using building blocks to construct her pose. Starting with gesture... Does she fly like Superman with one fist in the front? No, that's too iconic of Superman. For a minute I thought about taking a photo for my own reference but even that was not convenient so I decided to just eyeball the foreshortening. What level of intensity does this story moment have? These are all of the things that I think about while I sketch because I draw slow. Or maybe I think fast.
Lighting
Lastly, how will I light her? Where will the key light be? How will the light from the background affect her figure?
Next is gathering references. We'll start with the easy part; the earth. I grab a photo with surface texture because I do want to control how much detail to include or exclude.
Then the Milky Way makes the stars more interesting than random stars. It also lets me introduce a diagonal design element to my very plain background.
If JJ Abrams made this film, it would have to have a lens flare. This is put on a layer behind the earth.
The image below is closer to how much detail I want to actually show. It's just enough to know that it is the earth. In the end, I back lit the earth even more to hide more details.
We have one lens flare in the back. Let's add one more in the front for good measure.
In the photo below I chose this reference of the actor because she's fully lit. I can see every costume cut line and ever local color. She's in bright sun light but the shot is exposed for her. That is why the background is blown out. The rim light on her shoulder makes her look very heroic and strong. This shot also reminds me to use atmospheric perspective because look at those distant hills in the background. You'll notice that I didn't make my space background completely black. It is a very dark neutral color.
Pieces like this are used to pitch a film idea and to inspire. It's to excite the audience so we need dynamism. We need action, hence the active hair shape in the photo below serves as a great reference. I will also use her left leg from this reference.
I decided to use this typical lighting scenario on my figure. The key light is in front of her at about 45 degree. It's above her and it is an artificial light which means that there will be a falloff of some degree. I wanted to keep the lit side warm and the shadow side cool.
I think this is a fan made poster but I'm not sure but I saved it because it has a film color grading look using teal and orange as the color scheme. This is very typical and almost boring but people are so used to seeing this as anonymous to understanding immediately that it is a high octane action film. Look at Mad Max Fury Road and you'll see what I mean. The practical reason that I saved this was to remind myself to use a "post editing" technique to unify the colors at the very end. If you have the latest version of photoshop, open the filters menu and use the Camera Raw Filter. In the basic tab adjust the temperature a little towards either warm or cool. Then click on the fifth tab called Split Toning. This is where you can make the shadows cool and highlights warm. It's a good idea to make either the highlight saturated or the shadows but not both. Remember also that core shadows will have the most amount of saturation either way. You might want to create an adjustment layer on top of the final merged coy to de-saturate some areas. I tend to like less color but it's only a matter of taste in the end. This post processing step unifies the overall color so that your colors will not cover the full range of the rainbow and look odd. If you have an older version of Photoshop, try using Layers<New Adjustment Layer<Color Look Up and try out some of the film looks. I usually dial the opacity down on these layers so that they have an influence on my final piece but not overpower ALL of my color choices. Also you can try <Layers<New Adjustment Layer<Selective Color and play around with the sliders.
Finally, how to use reference when it's lit differently than how you want to use it? Just like this.
Here's the link to the "How to change the lighting" work file. Please download it and turn each layer on and off to see how I did things.
Here's the work file from my Captain Marvel Demo so that you can look at my layers. Please download it and look at it.
Last note; don't be afraid to use Photoshop. I use the Layer<New Adjustment Layer all the time to adjust levels, color balance, and saturation.
Sorry there's no video this week but I feel like it's not really necessary to sit to such a long lecture of me doing the same stuff you've seen me done before. These notes should be suffice but let me know if you have any further questions or need me to clarify any of my process.
Homework
Homework if you choose to accept it will be to select a portrait photograph and change the lighting on it. Then paint on top of it using your creativity. You can change the hair style, add a hat, change the costume, or change the colors of things, whatever you can come up with. Put a background behind the subject and use Filter<Blur<Gaussian Blur to blur it out so that your figure will be the main focal point. If you're clever, you can layer the background and blur the layer on the front a little more than a layer in the back to show atmospheric perspective. Have fun! Looking forward to what you can come up with.
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