Step into the light. Painting target.

As I've mentioned before I enjoy having a goal to work towards when painting, a new skill to try and learn. It helps me keep motivated and focused on painting instead of just knocking out models.

My last target was to get the basics of NMM down and while it's far from perfect, I've got a handle on the idea and know enough to see my own mistakes.

My best attempt at NMM

My next project is a bit more vague. I want to try and get a better handle on lighting and how it effects models.

When I started painting highlighting was simple if it was higher it was lighter, light came from above and nowhere else.
As I painted more and looked at better painters work (always a great inspiration) I've learned that light can have many sources on a single model. Think of areas like the underside of a chin by the logic of a single vertical light source under the chin would be in complete darkness, but of course we don't get this because light is coming from lots of other angles and also with different strengths.

So if my clumsy chin (great name for a band) explanation makes any sense you get a rough idea of what I'll be working on.

I'll try and start with fairly fixed ideas of where each light is coming from using a mixture of top down and OSL (object source lighting) to teach myself the basics. I'll then try and workout how different lights react with each other on a fixed point. I'll then attempt to work towards adding in how lights react to different materials and textures differently. Obviously this plan can change greatly as I learn more about what I'm doing

Now a lot of this will probably be common knowledge to painters and there are obviously lots of ideas and terms I'm getting wrong. My current method for learning to paint (or learning anything really) is a mix of Google, Pinterest, YouTube, and then trial and error until I can move on.

This project should coincide nicely with my switch to Arcanists next year, so hopefully you should see some very well lit gamin and robots in the coming months.