JW Learning

How to Paint Reflective Surfaces - Metal, Leather, Glass and Chrome

Great start to these! The Christmas balls look great. Yeah, leather is a little bit tricky because you have to really figure out how to separate the specular reflections from the form underneath. This leather sketch is pretty good, probably just needs a little bit more texture here and there to make it pop a little more. Cracks in the leather are the key for the effect, without it it can start to look a bit lifeless and even rubbery. The coloured die looks really good, great work on the transparency there. The glass orb looks pretty good too, was there something specific about the reflected light that was troubling you? Looking forward to the last sketch!

Thanks! I can see that the leather I did does look a bit rubbery mostly on that top band piece, I will fix that more when I do the chrome ring ;) What troubled me the most for the reflected light for the glass orb was how busy it was with the shadows and stuff. I'm still not sure how to simplify all the details? I saw the rusty doorknob and it has so much detail with the rust and even with the background, how would you go about painting that?

Hi! I finished the chrome ring, was really difficult but I got it done :)

Looks great! Well done on all 5 sketches. The chrome image was worth the pain. With regards to the Glass Orb, and just glass in general, the best thing to do is to look for the most obvious areas of shadow first.  There's really temptation with glass to jump straight for the highlights, but the shadow areas are generally where the main shape of the object comes about. If you're running into trouble, squirt or blur your eyes (or blur an image in some photo editing software).  That will knock out all all the details of the reference image and leave you with the light and shadow areas. With regards to the doorknob, what I can do is sketch up a little image for you tomorrow with a breakdown of my process.  With tricker things like rust it's about creating layers, so bear with me and I'll post an image for you to download and look over. :)

Yeah the chrome ring was something else, didn't really know what do with the rock it was sitting on so I just did an impressionist kind of style and it turned out okay! I did see a few videos where they said to blur the image in a photo editing software, so I will try that from now on for the more detailed photos ;) Yes, please that would be very helpful I appreciate it!

Apologies for the delay! I'll have time tomorrow to do that sketch for you.

Hello again!

Appreciate your patience. Here's the quick study to help out:


<a href="https://imgur.com/ipBY07h" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">imgur.com/ipBY07h</a>   Rust eats away at metal and essentially creates a series of very subtle steps. So, when we paint we want to think of it as being something that has layers to it. The first is the general form, colour and shadowing layer. As mentioned the best way to do this is the blur our eyes, or the image, to knock out all the details.  The second layer is the Shape Texture layer. Here, you want to look for the most obvious shapes for the textures. Don't worry too much about the actual texture, but more the most obvious grouping of texture shapes. You can base those groupings on colour or value or amount of texture, or any combination of the three. In short, just look for the most obvious areas of contrast and develop their shape. Remember those groups have to still adhere to the the form and shadow in Layer 1, so adjust their value or colour accordingly.  The third layer is the Specular Reflection layer. This is usually the hardest layer to separate from the initial reference image because it's so obvious to our eyes. Avoid the temptation to dive straight into the highlights and add this in last. This is really where the texture starts to pop out. All the little bumps and edges formed by the rust will have to adhere to the direction of the light source, so pay attention to how the light is hitting the object. Be careful not to over render it however. In the same way we don't need to draw in every strand of hair, we don't need to paint in every scratch and dent. The audience will intuitively start to see the surface as rusty once you add the specular highlights to it. So, the key is to think in terms of layers. Let me know if that helps or if you have any other questions! :)

Yes that definitely helps, now that I see it all drawn out! I guess my biggest issue is not focusing on values, and over blending which I hate when I do that because I want the more painterly look. When I drew the fabric on my apple studies that was all drawn out using negative space and values, so when I actually focused on those things you can see how well the fabric turned out...Not sure why I stopped doing that with these studies ;( So I downloaded a few reference pictures and I am going to really focus on values and try to be as loose as possible!

Yes, it's easy to get caught up or lost in all the details. Focusing on shapes is the way to go.  Just takes practice for it to become second nature!

Well I got 2 done so far! The leather belt was by far the most difficult. Will get the rest done whenever I can ;) 
<img srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/c2c243d46f565c6474970357576fcc3b/d8a63176.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/c2c243d46f565c6474970357576fcc3b/d8a63176.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" src="https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/c2c243d46f565c6474970357576fcc3b/d8a63176.jpg" loading="lazy" alt="Reflective Surfaces - image 1 - student project">
*UPDATE* Finished the die and the glass ball ;) I didn't really know what to do with the reflected light on the ground for the glass ball so I just made it up 
<img srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/c2c243d46f565c6474970357576fcc3b/e7522847.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/c2c243d46f565c6474970357576fcc3b/e7522847.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" src="https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/c2c243d46f565c6474970357576fcc3b/e7522847.jpg" loading="lazy" alt="Reflective Surfaces - image 2 - student project"> *UPDATE* Finished the chrome ring, took forever but I am happy with how it turned out ;) 
<img srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/c2c243d46f565c6474970357576fcc3b/f9150aaf.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/c2c243d46f565c6474970357576fcc3b/f9150aaf.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" src="https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/c2c243d46f565c6474970357576fcc3b/f9150aaf.jpg" loading="lazy" alt="Reflective Surfaces - image 3 - student project">

Reflective Surfaces

Company

Work With Us

Teach with Us

Shop

Mobile