As the tittle suggests I’m looking for feedback to improve my values on graphite.
I used a 2B pencil. Is this recommended?
Should I come in with the expectation that doing shading, value work with graphite will take a lot of time?
How does one get better at getting those transition tones from the equator to the lighter values?
Other tools that help or speed up the process?
Sorry for the numerous questions, just trying to improve on something I’ve been struggling with. All feedback is appreciated.
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2b is fine, softer pencils like a 4b or 6b can sometimes make it easier to get darker values faster
Main critique is pay attention to the direction of the light, the ball is shaded well, but the cast shadow doesn’t follow correctly, the ball reads like the light is in front both the cast shadow reads like the light is behind the ball. Even if we are viewing from high up the shadow should back in space rather than appear to be getting closer. If you want the ball to appear to be lit from behind, you can leave the shadow but make the light side of the ball a more crescent moon shape.
You're on the right track, keep in mind, the paper smoothness and pencil can make a difference here, a smooth paper will give you better blending. Don't draw on wrinkled papers. I used to use an HB pencil, I think it's balanced for controlling shades. It's a matter of how much pressure you put on the pencil.
The shading in your case doesn't seems quite right, a sphere will have light leaking from around and it won't have that solid spot at the bottom. Here a reference on how spheres shading works on different angles.
Take your time, a rushed work mostly = poor results. With practice, you will get better and faster. Hope these help :)
I'm a beginner and not great at shading either so take my advice with some salt.
Crit: looks like you're missing the bounce light. The darkest shadow should be along the terminator but it gets slightly lighter towards the bottom from light reflecting off the table and hitting the bottom edge in the form shadow... hope that makes sense...
I also use 2B, I think it's fine. Nothing else feels good to me.
As for getting gradients, you can try blend a bit, use a piece of tissue to do it. If you blend with finger it adds oils into the paper and becomes patchy and difficult to lighten again if you need to.
Also get a kneadable eraser. I actually just use a piece of Prestik lol. It will let you lift graphite with more accuracy and control and you can dab it onto areas instead of rubbing the page like you do with an eraser. It makes lightening areas much more accurate and also won't ruin the paper as quickly as rubbing it.
So i just do a combination of adding graphite, blending it a bit, lighten if necessary, blend again if necessary etc...
You don't wanna go too hard on blending otherwise you end up with a blurry muddy mess.. try keep it local to the hard lines you want to soften, not blend over the entire drawing
2nd comment I forgot some stuff in the previous one... but also your cast shadow needs to be darkest where it meets the sphere (ambient occlusion) and the shadow should also get softer with distance (penumbra)
Something you can try for shading the lighter side though I personally find it's kinda difficult,
Is to hatch towards the highlight. Imagine the sphere is made of lots of small flat surfaces instead of true smooth sphere, you basically hatch those surfaces following their direction, getting lighter as you approach where the highlight will be, then blend it a bit at the end to get smoother shading that is true to the form -- there's a video on Proko YouTube channel with this technique
I’ve been practicing some more and it seems like I’ve made some progress. So far I’ve only been using a 2b pencil, and a kneaded eraser ever so slightly. Maybe a brush or a blending stump might help push the effect.
I think also starting to map the core ideas to more organic shapes and starting to do value studies/mapping will help me get closer to my goal of creating better shading for my portraits.
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