Working With Reference

Hello! Last week, I spent a lot of time looking at how artists use reference and how we can get the most out of the resources that are available to us today.

I should add that I have a very special mission here too. One of the items I was really looking for was to find a way to work with reference that was markedly different than “copying” from a photograph. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that photographs are incredibly valuable to us as artists.

What I am interested in finding, though, is very specific ways to use photographic, video and other reference or approaches to the idea of using reference that can ultimately make us better artists.

For example, how can we use photographic reference to learn more about the human face? How can we use YouTube videos to learn more about human movement or the gestures and behavior of people in settings such as bars, nightclubs, cafe, ect?

I mean, you can’t have your sketch book with you all the time, right? Or what if your hands are full with beer/scotch/diet coke/pellegrino and you just have no place to put them? Well, don’t worry. Someone is capturing it on YouTube!

A YouTube Mermaid Digression

Some months ago, I was working on a mermaid theme. I was focused on sculpting the hair and I thought, “Wow. How am I going to get reference for this?”

The last known sighting of a mermaid was somewhere in South Africa and I didn’t think that I could talk Pixologic into footing the bill for such a slim chance at finding one.

So, I created a simple 3D dynamic simulation of hair, played with the variables and in general was not happy with the results. Then I went to YouTube and I did a search for “mermaid”. I got some results but not what I was looking for.

As a last ditch effort I searched for “underwater”. A simple word but man, 10 videos down the list is just the reference I was looking for! Somebody had the brilliant idea of filming various girls underwater doing things from sitting, walking and swimming.

By stopping the video just after they had settled to the bottom of the pool, I was able to capture the look of long flowing hair underwater. Fantastic!

So, I didn’t have to go to South Africa and hunt mermaid or try to coax one of my long haired colleagues into a swimming pool myself. YouTube already had it!

Click here for some underwater hair reference. Note, the link includes girls in swim wear.

Using Reference As A Launching Off Point

So let’s look at one way that you can use photographs, as a launching off point.

When I am not working in ZBrush, I am usually in the studio working in encaustics. My painting below is called Ophelia and came about from a photo shoot with a friend.

The idea was to turn the traditional depictions of Ophelia around and show her “drowning” in the urban forest of concrete. I mean, I live in downtown Los Angeles and I haven’t seen a river since the last time I watched A River Runs Through It!

The LA river, you may know, contains more concrete than my building and only fills up when it rains and who, in LA, goes out when it rains? You’ll just get run over by one of those Californian drivers!

To the right is the photograph and some of the explorations I did to try to find the look I wanted.

By taking photographs I was able to get the model in for a very short period of time and try out many different poses and ideas. Out of 30 odd poses, one of them really worked for me.

By the way, if you’re wondering what that piece of furniture is that she is laying on, it’s called a LoveSac. It has its own little corner of the loft and is a hit at parties!

To the right is a detail of the painting so you can see the glory of encaustics. Its a fabulous medium with great versatility. It allows for a beautiful translucence. Not to mention that it put my George Foreman Grill to a better use than my cooking!

Tony Scherman is a great example of the possibilities of this medium and he is one of the leading artists using it today.

Using Reference To Learn More

So, using photographs as a launching off point can be valuable but what if I want to use photographs to help me learn more about anatomy and structure?

In my next post I will take a look at how you can manually “process” front and side view photographs to establish the planes of a person’s face and quickly block in the basic shape of a person’s head.

In the process we will fine tune our understanding of human anatomy and get a big boon from ZBrush versions of Freedom Of Teach’s clay sculpted Flesh Torso Set.