[Chaz]

Hey Guys just thought I would toss this up, nothing to really impress and its not done with brushes this is all fills and dodge/burn and with no reference... its the first time I have really ever colored and shaded anything in PS. I know its real basic but I still have a couple questions.

How can I make the felt look better.. IE texture?

How can I mix the shadows better becuase the one on the 8 ball even when smudged still looks like there would be two light sources and its buggin me.


Plenty of C&C please I am a noob graphics designer and I need to get my illustration skillz up not to mention my eye in form.

Thanks,
Chaz

[roundeye]

hey man, not bad. problem with the 8 ball though. pool balls are highly polised so they reflect crisper light. when a surface is rough, it scatters light from its surface, like youve depicted.

i hope this image works.



also the shadow of the cue is to far to the right.

hope this helps somewhat

[Pat]

I think it looks great. But there's a couple of small techncical issues bugging me.

1) The highlight value should be blown out more. Our experience with pool balls tells us they're hard and shiny. Yours looks soft and diffuse. Tighten up the highlight and crank the value.

2) Shadows generally fuzz out the further they get away from the subject. As you pointed out, multiple light sources can change this, as can transparency and focus. Try this: make the shadow directly underneath the ball the sharpest and as the shadow falls off in value, fuzz the edges more agggressively.

3) Shiny round objects often pick up reflected highlights. Your light is strong enough to reflect off the background plane and catch on the bottom edge of the ball. It should pop the form a little. It's also shiny enough to catch a lot of the surrounding environment.

Here. Quick paintover. Not perfect, but it kind of illustrates what I'm blabbing about.



-Pat

[Godwin]

the cue should have a lighter red reflection below rather than that white, but its a good pic though, people only learn from mistakes

[Chaz]

Thanks guys =) Thats pretty much what I was looking for... I knew the 8 ball didn't look right but since I had no reference, and I don't stare at them for the purpose of lighting I was a bit off. Good advice all around.

BTW I know this sounds like an odd question but could anyone recomend good books about how you should shade stuff or how you should handle values and such, like I said, I can pretty much do whatever I need on the computer but I need the basics of illustration down now.

I will probably take some illustration classes when I get out of school in a couple months, I know people can do Graphics Design and work around illustration problems, but I am trying to be good at both!

Edit: Man I keep looking at the stuff here and it amazes me but at the same time frightens me to even try to be in the same category as some of you guys.. on one hand I am like.. "well guess I need another 4 years of school" and on the other I am telling myself.. I can do this, really it'll be fine.

Thanks
Chaz

[ June 14, 2002: Message edited by: Chaz ]