Reddit reviews Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist (Volume 1) (James Gurney Art)

Yuuuup. Color and Light should be taught in every art class, it's foundational and I'd recommend it to anybody with an interest in looking at art and understanding it, let alone actually making art.

Imaginative Realism is just as good, but it's a little more focused on the craft of illustration.

Last time I tried to give advice on drawings the person got upset and quit reddit, soooo, please don't do that. My suggestion if you're absolutely serious about drawing is to absolutely learn the fundamentals.

Fun With A Pencil: How Everybody Can Easily Learn to Draw https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857687603/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ijZZDbCWDFEAQ

Drawing the Head and Hands https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857680978/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_AjZZDb0B3RBPF

Figure Drawing for All It's Worth https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857680986/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_OjZZDbW37G79H

Successful Drawing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857687611/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_4jZZDb95Z0W96

Creative Illustration https://www.amazon.com/dp/1845769287/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ikZZDbFRJYAJD

And after the basics


Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist (Volume 1) (James Gurney Art) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0740785508/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_alZZDbZW0Y1P4


Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter (Volume 2) (James Gurney Art) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0740797719/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_DlZZDb676AWT6



It doesn't matter what medium you use, learning how to draw and understanding what you're doing will help out the most.

THIS BOOK, and THIS BOOK, are damn near the gold standard for getting started and professionals alike.

u/KnivesMillions is dead on with the point on fundamentals. Start with a good foundation of drawing and color theory. Drawing and painting from life and observation are also an excellent way to get better quickly.

A fantastic convention/gallery show to attend would be Illuxcon (if you can make it to Pennsylvania), where you can meet top-tier working artists in the industry (Danato Gincola, Scott Fisher, Iris Compt, both of the Gerards, etc.), see their work in the flesh, and ask them questions (they are usually quite receptive to questions if you are professional and polite).

Also, there are no set in stone rules for what constitutes "amazing fantasy art" aside from craft. All is chaos, embrace it.

Maybe the James Gurney books, Imaginative Realism and Color and Light

Hey! I graduated from IB in 2007 and did standard and higher level art, got a 6 out of 7 (I slacked a bit towards the end, senioritis). I then went on to do a 4 year Illustration program and graduated with a BFA. I hope you go down a similar path, art is very fulfilling and you seem to have some passion. Don't feel discouraged if your work doesn't yet match your ideas, you need to crank out tons of studies and eventually you'll feel yourself improving in leaps and bounds.

What IB really wants to see from you is a consistent theme. You've got a lot of experimentation in different media which is great, but I recommend you get some inspiration from art history. Just straight up copy old masters, if you see an old painting that you enjoy try to duplicate it and you'll understand it in a way you could never imagine. Try you hand at things like chalk pastels (Nu Pastel is a good brand), charcoal, watercolor, maybe even some oil paint. Avoid using small scratchy lines all the time, try flipping charcoal on its side and making broad strokes or get some powdered graphite and apply with a brush. A quote I try to live by: "Big artists use big brushes."

Find one or two types of media that really appeal to you and run with it, struggle with it, learn from it, study it, become bored with it, master it. I did digital painting for the most part which was sort of cutting-edge at the time and scored me some originality points and still to this day I work in that style.

Contemplate what you think is an interesting theme to make a series of artworks about, go to a local art gallery or museum and see how other artists approach themes. Get inspiration everywhere and write it down, lyrics in songs, things on the news, ideas in the shower. I did 'Creation / Destruction' as my theme and focused on the duality of the two through mythical stories of gods, warfare, self esteem and perception, yatta yatta. You're in high school, remember that this is a good time to just noodle around, try crazy shit, don't worry about being judged for failing, failure makes you better because you learn what not to do. And originality isn't the most important thing, imitate the art you love and once you feel you understand it you can tweak it.

Here's the biggest secrets I never knew in high school. Artworks are broken down into a few essential components, if you keep these concepts in mind you'll do much better.

1. Color is composed of a few parts - value (lightness and darkness), hue (red, green, blue, etc.), temperature (cool or warm), and saturation (how gray the color is). You can have a dark, cool, desaturated red or you could have a dark, warm, saturated red. When you're trying to paint skintones or landscapes, ask yourself - how dark is this color? What hue is this color? Is it cool or warm? Is it gray or saturated?
   
   
2. Take your artwork into photoshop or any editing program and turn it to grayscale or desaturate it. If your art works in black and white, you can apply any color on top of it and it will still work. This is why the art of people like Andy Warhol works, even though the hue is crazy out of control nonsense, the value (lightness and darkness) matches so your eye can read it properly.
   
   
3. When you are drawing from observation, squint to see value and open your eyes to see color. Squinting helps so much, it fuzzes out your vision and will remove a lot of unnecessary detail. When you squint you will only see the most important forms, the lightest and darkest areas.
   
   
4. Reflected light is important for creating realism. When light hits a surface, it bounces off and casts light on the sides of other objects. A sphere, for example, will have a bit of light in the shadow area because it bounces off the table and hits the bottom part. Keep an eye out for this, do studies of things on your desk and learn how light works in reality.
   
   
5. Never center anything. View objects on the page inside of 'envelopes' that encompass their widest points and move these around abstractly. Don't line up the tops or bottoms, keep them uneven, keep the shapes significantly different. I was taught that people usually cannot perceive a change in size unless it's at least twice as big or small. Try to have one center of interest and a couple areas of lesser interest. View your composition as a dart target where the bullseye is the most interesting part and the outer radiating circles are increasingly less important. You should view your center of interest like a shiny jewel. If you surround it in other shinier stuff it won't be as impressive because it won't pop out. But if you put it in a nice velvet box with a subdued but gorgeous color suddenly that gem seems very beautiful.
   
   
6. Few things are ever fully black or fully white. When you are observing a black object, ask yourself if you can imagine a black that's darker than what you're looking at. If 0 is black and 10 is white, a 1 is a very natural darkness. A 9 would work in the brightest highlight on the object. Most objects are a middle tone between 3-7 including skin. Black and white are also boring, instead of black try a super dark color. Instead of white try a really bright hue. Think mostly about temperature, do I want a warm feeling or a cool feeling?
   
   
7. Most objects have a warm-cool relationship when hit by light. Go outside and look at a rock. If it's cool, overcast day, you might notice the light is cool and the shadow is warmer. Not way warmer, but maybe it's a more reddish purple instead of blue. Or go outside when the sun is low and check out how warm the light is. Orangey red tones on everything, but look at the shadows and you'll see beautiful cool blues and purples.
   
   The books I'd recommend are:
   
   The Story of Painting
   
   Imaginative Realism
   
   Everything by Andrew Loomis (Free!)
   
   Classical Painting Atelier
   
   View these websites:
   
   http://www.linesandcolors.com/
   
   http://www.googleartproject.com/
   
   http://gregnewbold.blogspot.com/
   
   http://beardedroman.com/
   
   http://www.artrenewal.org/
   
   Good luck! My website is www.caycegoldberg.com so feel free to contact me if you want critiques or advice or whatever. And don't let the stress of IB take you down, stick through it. It's a tremendous struggle but it gives you a huge leg up on life, you'll appreciate it forever.

A photo study helps you fine tune your technical and perception skills. Almost every professional illustrators/artists today have tried using photo ref for either just practicing and for an actual project.

Even the old masters from the renaissance era have studied and reproduce other old masters. Drawing from imagination and drawing from observation are two different things. One way to improve your imaginative skills, believe or not, is to fine tune your observational one. Gurney's book covers a lot of these idea.

Only 5~ months ago did I decide to get serious about improving my art in my free time. For most of my life I only doodled occasionally. So I thought I would describe my plan of action with books and resources that I will likely be using. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

My process will be basics of construction-> perspective -> figure drawing -> digital art and rendering. Approximately 45% will be improving, 45% will be doing what I want for fun and 10% will be a daily sketch(this subreddit) that takes anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour to complete. for fun I will be doing anything from digital to water color.

Construction and perspective: First I am starting my art journey by completing draw a box . Next I will go through Marshall Vandruff's Linear Perspective Videos and Perspective Made Easy simultaneously while referencing with how to draw by Scott Robertson. Briefly I will gloss at Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain or keys to drawing pulling ideas of where I might find weakness.

Figure drawing: Once those are finished, I will begin my figure drawing phase. I will move onto free proko subsided with loomis books such as this, other photo references sites like http://reference.sketchdaily.net/en and Figure Drawing: Design and Invention. I will also reference Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist and maybe more depending on my budget.

digital art and rendering: For the final stage of my journey, I will venture into ctrlpaint. Simultaneously I will be reading How to Render, Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist and Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter

After that.... I don't know. We will see were I am in a year.

I think it's a bit difficult and unfair for me to comment based on one painting alone. Do you have any sketches (line drawing, preferably) of this painting, or anything that showcase what you can do so far? Almost everyone will suggest we start designing anything in line sketches, especially if learning, so I'm interested to see what you got :D

Edit: Since you're looking for advice on how to start, I'll just say a few things that might be able to help you start.

(1) Drawing, imo, is the very foundation of all art. I think before you start painting, you should start drawing first! Here are a few links that may help you start with drawing:

• Art Fundamentals (Free, and pretty good)
  
• Foundation Group (Paid, but pretty good)
  
• Ctrl+Paint (Free and Paid. Both are pretty good)
  
  (2) I suggest you follow an art school's course outline so you can progress pretty well. Feng Zhu Design School has an outline that they use for their students to learn how to do concept art in 1 year (16 hours per day). You can also download a detailed version of what they offer in their course, then you can have an idea on what each component means.
  
  
• FZD Course Outline
  
  (3) There are also a few books that would be really useful to you when learning how to draw and render. These are supposedly the best on the internet (I only have two, the first two books in the list) Here they are:
  
  
• How to Draw
  
• How to Render
  
• Figure Drawing
  
• Color and Light
  
• Imaginative Realism
  
  I think those are all I have for you now. I'm not in any way a professional artist (I'm currently studying Industrial Design), but I think the above things I've mentioned should prove useful to you. If you have any questions, you can send me a PM :D Work hard and practise every day!

I started this one as a gag on facebook when I was running a kickstarter for a painting. https://seanstastny.com/ i did a bunch of little ads and jokes and designed a few stickers and things like that. enough people liked so I added it as a stretch goal and got a few made.

The company I ordered my patches from is https://www.thestudio.com/. I just sent them my designs and a month later patches, stickers and postcards show up on my doorstep. There are a quite a few PoD places that can do patches so get quotes if you are going to get them made to sell.

Design wise the patch is a riff on the NASA EVA mission patch. It is on all the space walk suits so I knew I wanted something that was similar. I had done the original drawing and shown it to a few people and some wondered what his legs looked like. So I decided to riff on the original patches influences and make my own Vitruvian Cthulu thing.

I think the thing to pay attention to most for a patch is the size and line weight of your drawing. Thread has a thickness that you have to pay attention to. so your design cant be crowded or over complicated. Some times its an advantage to have things jumbled together and sometimes it looks terrible. For example the NASA part of the suit is mostly unreadable at that size, but i wanted a splash of red in the center to tie the red bounding box into the drawing.

I dont know any books on patch design but for any image making that tells a story I highly recommend James Gurneys Imaginative Realism and Color and Light.

OK, I get asked this type of question a lot so I have some pre-fab answers for you:

>Someone asked me about teaching yourself art (which is the way I learned) I thought I would share my replay in case It might be helpful to some of you.

>Fundamentals (walk before you run):

>How to draw http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933492732/ref=oh_details_o08_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 $30
Figure drawing for all its worth http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401411454&sr=1-1&keywords=figure+drawing+for+all+it%27s+worth $25
Color and Light (this book blew my mind) http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401411299&sr=1-1&keywords=color+and+light $15
Imaginative Realism http://www.amazon.com/Imaginative-Realism-Paint-Doesnt-Exist/dp/0740785508/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y $15

>Digital Painting:

>Digital Painting Techniques 1 – 6 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=digital+painting+techniques+&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Adigital+painting+techniques+ About $35 each = $210 total

>Also pick up some art books for games like Halo or Assassin’s Creed. There’s lots of great concept work in there to give you an idea of what to pros do.

>Visual design:

>Picture This (a very simple explanation on how all the components of a scene can tell a story) http://www.amazon.com/Picture-This-How-Pictures-Work/dp/1587170302/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401412344&sr=1-1&keywords=picture+this $15
Essentials of Visual Communication (A detailed breakdown on how the human brain consumes an image and how you can use this knowledge to best communicate your ideas) http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Visual-Communication-Bo-Bergström/dp/1856695778/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401412394&sr=1-1&keywords=Essentials+of+Visual+Communication $30

>Structured Education:

>Digital Tutors (Perfect for learning a program) http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/index.php $50 a month or $515 a year
Ctrl+Paint http://www.ctrlpaint.com/ Free
CGMaster Academy https://www.youtube.com/user/CGMWORKSHOPS/videos?view=0&flow=grid

>Also I wrote on my blog “Become a better Artist Overnight” http://garretaj.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-to-become-better-artist-overnight.html where I take you through tried and true techniques on how to do focused learning revolving your sleep pattern. This is the way I did it (and still do it)

>Communities a must for getting feedback and ideas:

>http://conceptartworld.com/
>http://www.artstation.com/

>https://www.facebook.com/groups/400586640025350/
>https://www.facebook.com/groups/221278101324638/
>https://www.facebook.com/groups/awesomehorse/

>The final thing is you. You have to really want this, it’s not easy. Don’t buy this stuff or go to an expensive art school because you think it’s some kind of shortcut. The focus here is not becoming a good artist, but becoming a good student. Learn how to learn effectively, learn how to love learning, bust your ass, and always work on improving yourself.

>Do that and nothing can stop you. Or don’t.

Hope this helps

James Gurney made a book about how he created the Dinotopia art. He's also a really nice guy in person, and if you get him to sign your book he'll doodle a dinosaur in it.

His other book, Imaginative Realism is good as well, I own them both :D

If you've got the time and resources to spare, try making maquettes. You can get modeling clay fairly cheap, and it can be incredibly helpful to throw together a quick maquette, chuck it under a lamp, and see what happens with the light.

If you want a great pair of books on light and form by a master painter, check out James Gurney's Color and Light and Imaginative Realism. His blog is worth a read as well, it's always informative and interesting.

If you want a more technical approach to lighting, How to Render is a fantastic technical examination of how light behaves on various surfaces. The associated How to Draw is an excellent technical book on perspective. Both are a bit dry and clinical, but quite excellent.

Anything by Andrew Loomis is also well worth picking up.

1. Draw animals from life. All the time.
   
2. James Gurney's Imaginative Realism
   
3. Gnomon has a lot of options.
   
4. Feng Zhu has gobs and gobs of videos.

James Gurney's books are great. There's a couple ugly links for you.
http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719

http://www.amazon.com/Imaginative-Realism-Paint-Doesnt-Exist/dp/0740785508/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=010WGMHA6E5MNR6W03RW

Following artists on facebook has helped me more than anything. Well not more than putting in the time and effort to improve of course. Anyway, professionals are always posting advice and links to valuable resources. Its worth looking for artists that you like and seeing what their process is and how they solve artistic problems.

I'm late to the party, but I made a cheat sheet for my boss niece last week: here's all the ressources I can think of to kick butts at matte painting.

The sites where we pay per month

Gnomon Online School
Super school of vfx in California. They have on their site a lot of tutorials from 8 to 20 hours to learn to make your own camera projections. You can either pay (expensive but worth it) for a private class with a teacher via Skype. Or you pay (cheaper) for a bank of tutorials.

private lessons
https://www.gnomon.edu/courses/online


the bank of tutorials
https://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/tutorials?tags[]=matte-painting


I recommend: All the tutorials of Dylan Cole (vol 1, 2,3), Camera Projection Techniques in Maya, Matte Painting Production techniques, etc.




Plural Sight (formerly Digital Tutors)


a site that has courses on a little everything. This site is very good when you want to learn new programs. Excellent serie on the 3D which becomes more and more present in the matte painting, and some tutorials


https://app.pluralsight.com/library/


related to 3D

Quick start to modeling in Maya (volume 1,2,3)
Professional Tips for Modeling Complex Shapes


related to matte painting

Photo manipulation and Clean Plating Fundamentals
Matte Painting Basic and the Static Camera Shot


Sites where we pay per tutorial (Gumroad, etc.)



The tutorials of Anthony Eftekhari

Good DMP tutorials that show you the latest techniques and how to do it step by step.


https://gumroad.com/anthonye

The tutorials of Eytan Zana

More concept art, but the main lines apply just as well to the DMP.

https://gumroad.com/eytanzana


Free sites and tutorials


Garrett Fry's blog

He also has a Facebook group that helps each other in DMP, it is THE technical reference for matte painting. His blog is full of technical stuff for camera projections (aka moving your matte painting). A treasure of information.
https://www.gfryart.com/blog



Other


TEXTURES! (Or can we find good textures to make DMP)


CGtexture

http://www.textures.com

Flickr (Matte Painting References)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tjframe/sets/72157605581901392/

Flickr (Matte Painting Resources)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dman3d2000/sets/72157629164518650/

Photobash.org (paying a card)

https://www.photobash.org/

Pictures of Jacek Pilarski

https://gumroad.com/jacekpilarski

Books (yes yes, it's a thing)

Digital Matte Painter Handbook

it's old, the drawings are ugly, the photoshop stuff in it is pure candy though. Full of stuff in DMP that I have never seen elsewhere but that is the basis of the trade. Still actual today. The matte painting of the castle in is also an excellent starting point if you start from scratch.

https://www.amazon.ca/Digital-Matte-Painting-Handbook/dp/0470922427/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1523975893&sr=1-1&keywords=Digital+Matte+Painting+Handbook

How to draw and How to Render

Scott Robertson, a big shot of concept art, shows the basics of traditional drawings, perspective, etc. An essential.

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=GWB27RDDYF5E0JG7TTY0

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Render-fundamentals-shadow-reflectivity/dp/1933492961/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=K9W1RK5K9KVWMPY14EAE

Imaginative Realism and Color and Light

James Gurney is an illustrator who specializes in realistic fantasy artwork with traditional mediums, excellent cues on light and color

https://www.amazon.ca/Imaginative-Realism-Paint-Doesnt-Exist/dp/0740785508?th=1&psc=1&source=googleshopping&locale=en-CA&tag=googcana-20&ref=pd_sl_2y2j9az9y9_e

https://www.amazon.ca/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=YCNYYJCTNJ4405KD1S6B

Nuke 101

We can make the projection of matte painting in Nuke or Maya. An excellent book for Nuke.

https://www.amazon.ca/Nuke-101-Professional-Compositing-Effects/dp/0321984129/ref=pd_sim_14_8?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=FNST5YS1F7464SZY3QZV

This is looking really good! Keep it up!

I highly recommend you check out these books... they are something I wish I had read (or been available) when I was your age.

1)Color and Light: A guide for the realist painter

2)Imaginative Realism

These two books do a really good job of explaining some practical 'rules' for painting. You do not always have to follow them, but you should for sure know them and learn them.

3)Dynamic Light and Shade
This is just a book that is full of really great black and white drawings that that show how much can be expressed without any color. It is a great book to study from and to try copying images from.

Drawing on the right side of the brain is a good start, there's a reason people keep on recommending it for you!



Andrew Loomis's books is also good (all free there in digital form)

Constructive Anatomy by George Bridgeman

Imaginative realism by James Gurney more about painting and finishing, better for more advanced stuff.


Other than that, just draw things! Just anything and everything, it will help!