Creativity Post 4

 While drawing I often find myself building off of previous art experiences and habits, which typically later on snowball into characteristics of my style. One of the main examples of this is using quick simple lines to add depth and texture.

For example:

 

Here is an unfinished sketch of two ranchhands having a discussion. In the detail of the hat there is simple one directional crosshatching and unique squiggles to block out divets that would be in the hat. Typically once I render and shade a piece these silly shapes actually act as a guide and mental note to me on how and where to shade. 

Here's an example of a rendered hat.

 

Using transparency locks and clipping layers I color the line art different shades to show that the lines are above the divets and are the peak of the hat.

Personally, I think texture and cross hatching are very important tools in artwork to know how to use or be aware of, even if your aren't focused in illustrations knowing how shading and depth will effect symbols or graphics can make a piece really pop out. Which is why for this week's exercise I wanted to go through and recreate graphics (using circles) that represent a few types of shading.

Cel shading:

Cel shading is cartoonish rendering style that is not realistic, it is used to make something look more hand drawn and has hard edges and flat colors.

Soft shading:

Soft shading appears more painterly, it utilizes blending colors and creating gradients between shades to make depth look more natural.

Cross hatch shading:

Cross hatching is the use of many lines overlapped to build a sense of shadow, started in one direction this builds the base, then layering in the opposite direction to build onto it, this can have a variety of pen weight to add more or less shadow.

My mockup of the three as an exercise: