ART – Coloring: It Doesn’t Hurt to Use Reference.

Shinny is hard.

As I wrote last time, I’m trying to stick to only four colors.

As of the time of this writing, this is where I left off the coloring for my latest piece.

I didn’t get a lot done, mostly because Ironman is shinny.  This slowed me down a lot.  Coloring him wasn’t at all straight forward.

There’s all that reflection do deal with.  I didn’t really know how to do it so I found some reference on the internet to help me get through it.

Here’s what I used:

The photos helped me visualize what shine on my drawing might look like.  I’m not exactly sure if I succeeded but it was worth trying.

This brings me to a different related topic…

It’s Okay To Use Reference

I teach drawing over that TheDrawingWebsite.com.  I only bring this up because I’ve noticed something.  There are some beginning artists who refuse to use any kind of reference.

I don’t know why this is. It’s as if they somehow think that doing so makes them a lesser artist.

If you’re goal is to get something that looks natural, you ought to look at what it looks like in reality.  There isn’t any shame in it.

They want to draw or paint something only out of their imagination, and make it look naturalistic, but they’ve never bothered to truly study nature.  It makes no sense.

If you’re not sure about what something looks like, don’t make it up.  Look it up.  The more you look up stuff the more you’ll educate yourself.

The more you educate yourself the bigger the library of experience you will have to draw upon when doing art.  This helps you draw more accurate naturalistic stuff from your imagination.

It’s okay to use reference.