shading a design

here is a ruff sketch for shading practice.
it would be nice to see some different ideas toward how you might go about shading these leaves.
either as few as possible shade lines or the max...either way its your choice.

I like all your designs and this one would be a good one to see what everyone comes up with. I'll give this one a go after thanksgiving week. Thanks for posting this for us.
Gary

Didyoung,

You have some very nice leaf structures and good flow but the way this design stands it would be difficult to shade many things. I made some notes on things that could be different. Then I redrew it with some suggestion's on what to change. These are not the only way it could be done . I tried to stay as close to yolur design as I could. i didn't want or think that the essence of the design needed anything. The things i thought need4ed attention i worked on.

I think that you would find it much easier to shade this one. Of course feel free to change things as you see fit there are a number of ways that it could be done.

I will cut and shade this in the next couple days and post what i come up with.

Chris

I like that!

You're received some excellent design advise Shawn, and I all also be watching to see its outcome.

come on chris!
the waiting is killing me.
i really want to see what you are going to do here.

Shawn, Here you go. Next I will redraw the design and show how I would approach it. It's about balance not just making the fanciest leaf structures you can. I will illustrate all of that in the next couple of days.

In the mean time keep up the good work. You will be at the top in no time.

thanks chris.
well i have a long way to go so i better keep scratching

Shawn and Chris,

Thank you for this very nice thread.

Thanks Chris, that is some great study material on shading. I will have to give it a try myself.
I too like the framework you used.

arnaud

Nice shading Chris. Thanks Shawn for starting this thread.
Gary

Steller shading job indeed.

to be honest i figure that i am about 1 mile behind you:banana:....i would like to think that i was a little closer. say 3/4 of a mile behind, but to be safe i will stick with 1 mile.
so if the average scroll was close to 1 inch.........carry the 3 ....cross the t's and dot the i's:thinking:

i only need 63360 more scrolls to catch up to where you are right now.
just hold up a bit chris and i will be right there.
thanks for the lesson this will help lots of people like myself.

Shawn , Your doing great.
Here is a design based on all of this A couple of things that you will notice when you cut it and go to shade is you won't shade yourself into a corner. In other words .Many time designs and leaf structures need to be drawn a certain way to make shading them less difficult. It's not somrthing that happens overnight. I see Shawn experimenting and changing things all the time and that is the right path. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't . His resultls are still very good and the overall designs are pleasing. From here the refinement is subtle but important.
One thing that needs to happen is to learn to control the values with a few factors. Again it's not how many lines but the taper of the line. The weight of the cut and the placement. One thing that needs to be constant in your though process and Mitch mentioned this a short while back. What form am I trying to give these leaf structures.

The other issue is to consider the overall design and how fancy to make the shading. On a gun it's easy to get too many folds and such which can make the whole thing look too busy. A knife is a different story smaller canvas and less to navigate to see the design as a whole. Braclets are different than the first two because When there bent to shape you don't see the design all at once. In this case people see the design as a progression. If it's complicated and has a lot of leaf structures that are fancy it works because you see them more individualy.

When I make a ring a lot of times I set stones on the sides and even the bottom of the ring. I have been asked by other goldsmiths why? I normally just take a ring put in my finger and start talking and acting normal. What ever that is.
While I am doing that I constitaly point out that the person wearing it and the people veiwing it don't see it as in a show case from one stright on veiw. It's veiwed from many different angles including the bottom . So why not make the design of the ring to see from many angles
Always keep in mind how something is veiwed and that will help figure out how complicated to shade it.

Here is the design. I hope Shawn will cut it on one of his braclets. Anyone who wants to use it go ahead.

Here is a link to a pdf file on my site where you can download it. You will have to resize it it's large. http://www.engraversstudio.com/apps/documents/?&page=2

thanks chris!!!!

I just discovered this thread and I can only second the words of Hora, what a great teaching thread this is, thank you sincerly Shawn and Chris !!!
Willem

grear thread,

Thanks

-Omar

Very good info, thanks a lot.

Thank you Shawn and Chris for this thoughtful and helpful thread.