WIP - Snow Shadows.

While listening to a nice cd and flicking through my most recently bought art book, “Landscape Painting” by Patricia Monahan, I thought I may as well fire up Pixia, and do some digital painting, using one of the tutorials in the book for inspiration:

http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v294/renderedbrian/2D_Art/snowshadows-003-wip.jpg

http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v294/renderedbrian/2D_Art/?action=view&current=snowshadows-003-wip.jpg

About an hours work or so (or twice the cd)

Kind of enjoying 2d painting!

any suggestions?


Brian

I hope this is a WIP, and if not, that you’ll turn it into one. I like it so far, but I think it could be added to. Are those other markings tracks in the snow or shadows? And did you use a mouse or graphics tablet? :slight_smile:

It’s a wip! The markings in the snow are supposed to be shadows cast from the trees / posts.

Used a wacom graphire 2 with Pixia.


Brian

rndrdbrian: Looks great! Looks like it’s really taking shape nicely.

I’m keeping an eye on this one ;).

Cheers,

b01c

I know the darker ones [shadows] are shadows but the other shadows in the foreground for the tops of the trees are less obvious because they are in a lighter tone, and it isn’t in the shape of the branches. At first I thought they might be shadows of clouds in the sky or footstep tracks.

This image shows which part I’m asking about.

[image removed - not needed any more]

If these are meant to be shadows of the branches of the trees, why are they in a much lighter shade?

I might take a look at pixia.

oh, they aren’t meant to be the shadows of the tops of the trees, but I was trying to give the impression of crumply snow. Im thinking of adding another layer specifically for the snow.

thanks for the reply.


Brian

very nice colour palate, but it looks like your shadows arent parralell. you should also be able to see some of the bright side of the tree by the angle of the sun, but tis a wip :wink:

Done a little more work this evening:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/renderedbrian/2D_Art/snowshadows-007-wip.jpg

Reworked the snow, and redid the trees and shadows. Also added a little sun!

Any comments?


Brian

Great picture but I think it looks more like ice now.

What do you think is causing that? The shadows of the trees?


Brian

What do you think is causing that? The shadows of the trees?

the shadows have got thiner and there isnt any of those shadows in the right hand corner which made it look lumpy as snow would be,
What uve got now looks to smooth and reflective to be snow

Anyway i really love the picture, keep going its great!!!

yes, the new shadows look like reflections… it’s a combination of a few things:

—the wavy shadows > point the brain to blurred reflections.
—the direction of the shadows > they seem to"dive" into the white surface… they do not seem to lay on it (hum?). Shadows are cast on the surfaces, they fall on them like pieces of cloth. Reflections are hte continuation of the perspective on the other side of the surface…
— the white surface: that’s ice! snow is white (yeah?!!) but has more contrast when bumps/accidents occur… and snow doesn’t fall flat, especially on mountains… it behaves like chantilly, or ice-craem if you prefer…

Ciao
Dani

okey dokey, i did a it of a draw over for you, hope it helps…

basically you need to think about your shadows a lot more, everything spawns from the one lightsource, the sun…

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/dborrett/ps/snowdraw.jpg

But won’t shadows from the sun be parallel?


Brian

hum… well they are parallel in a certain limit and if you consider you’re in an orthographic projection…

But here, there’s perspective! you must take that into account!

Ciao
Dani

no, not at all.

i actually screwwed up the shadows a bit now i look at them, if you see, the tree branches are above the sun, so you shouldnt see the top of the trees, or even really the top of the trunk, and the post shadows should be alot longer.

Hey rndrdbrian… :-?

In my opinion the first picture you made (with the horizontal -things- at the bottemright) was the best one so far. The stripes at the bottem-right of the picture (as other people asked if they where shadows casted by the trees) look like there are some dents/pits on the ground in the snow what gives it a realistic effect and gives you the idea like what you are looking at isn’t flat but 3d and dented.

THAT first picture is one I really love! It is a beautifull painting of a beautifull peacefull snowed landscape. Beautifull!

Sander Wit (The Netherlands)

[quote=“traitor”]

no, not at all.

i actually screwwed up the shadows a bit now i look at them, if you see, the tree branches are above the sun, so you shouldnt see the top of the trees, or even really the top of the trunk, and the post shadows should be alot longer.[/quote]

ABOVE the sun?! I don’t think so. The sun is so far away, that EVERY shadow cast by it, would be parallel, except in the theoretical sense. The sun is over a million x larger than the earth, and so all shadows would be parallel in every sense, except of course, the theoretical one.

get that man a beer…

i’m referring to in the image, the branches are higher than the sun.

with the low camera angle (comparativeley) the shadows will not appear parallel, if you can show me a sunset / rise with shadows coming from a light source that is nowhere near the sun, i’ll eat my words.

Yeah, the branches shouldn’t be visible in the shadows…