Post #3 The Dark Side of the Sphere

I did a bit more work on shading over the weekend. I had to run out and grab a few supplies before I could finish work on the blending and the rendering (figured if I was going to do it, I might as well do it properly). 

So I got myself some more pencils, blending stumps, brown pastels, black pastels, a plain eraser and a couple of kneadable erasers.

1. Hatching/Cross Hatching 2. Blending 3. Rendering 4. Squiggly Lines 5. Cross Contour Lines

Quite happy with the result. They seem a little crude close up but they looking decent enough if you take a step back. Found the blending and rendering methods gave the most realistic look, whereas the hatching, squiggly lines and cross countering gave a more impressionistic look. I wouldn't say any method was the 'right' way to do it, and I could see all of them being useful in different situations. You could easily mix most of these methods as well. I quite like the rendering method because, as you lay down the graphite originally, as you erase the background away you leave just enough graphite so that the background isn't quite solid white, which means you end up with sharp contrasted image. Also, i found it easier to get more graduated shading by using the combination of the blending stump and erasers.

I enjoyed this little exercise. Drawing is something I'd like to practice more. I'm not great at drawing people, or getting the scale of things correct, which are areas I'll need to address. Being a filmmaker, storyboards are quite important, so I'd really like to get better at drawing.