During week three, we covered tone and value.
(Source: https://www.zhillustrator.com/projects/YOZ03)
Tone and value refer to the use of contrast between light and dark colours within a painting, drawing, or photograph.
In terms of animation, learning about tone and value is extremely important as it allows us to effectively add light to our scenes and animate and colour our characters with said light in mind. It is also important to understand for backgrounds and concept thumbnails.
Tone and value can also help us define the forms of our characters, lending itself to the solid drawing and appeal principles.
In this example, the animator relys solely on tone and value to portray the forms of the characters as the characters do not have lines in the final render.
In this example, the animators make use of tone and value to give a sense of dynamic light and contrast throughout the short.
Tone and value can be the difference from your colours and shadows looking flat, and making it look believable and real and is an important concept that we as animators must be mindful of.
Design-A-World Project
This week, we were tasked with producing six new thumbnails based around our Design-A-World project using tone and value within our thumbnails.
Similarly to last week, I wanted to keep a lot of my thumbnails very abstract, further exploring the world and things within it.
This time around, I wanted to focus on locations rather than portraying events.
Reference
(Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5864539/Urban-explorers-reveal-hidden-depths-abandoned-Soviet-submarine.html)
(Source: https://www.michaeljohngrist.com/2011/08/abandoned-lighthouses-talacre/)
(Source: https://marine-conservation.org/deep-sea-corals/)
(Source: https://blueocean.net/coral-reef-art-on-the-great-barrier-reef/)
(Source: https://wallhere.com/en/wallpaper/151857)
(Source: https://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2014/01/)
(Source: https://dasauge.co.uk/-sarah-engelhardt/concept-art/)
(Source: https://pinkymarmalade.cgsociety.org/environments/t4x4/evening-thumbnails)
(Source: https://www.domestika.org/en/projects/447759-thumbnails-sketches-of-planetary-station-conceptart)
Tone and Value Thumbnail Work
I far prefer these thumbnails to my previous ones, I really enjoyed the process of blending different tones and values and working with different levels of contrast and shadow.
I think I could have taken some of the contrasts further, adding more subtle values throughout the works but overall I’m happy with them.
Tone and Value Full Piece
The second part of this assignment was to take one of our thumbnails and do a full page piece of it, going into more detail with the tone and value.
I chose my fifth thumbnail.
I think this came out far better than the thumbnail, it has a much wider range of contrast and the details really bring it all together. I also think that the subtle water texture over the piece manages to make it far more clearer that the scene is underwater.
I believe I could have pushed the contrasts a bit further in this piece, maybe worked in more details and paid more attention to my lightsource and the effect it would have on the values within the piece, but I’m happy with how it turned out. I look forward to taking what I have learned with this weeks work and further improving my artwork.