For a visual artist, studying film stills can help you learn value, composition, and light as they appear in the physical world. This blog post has two parts. (1) A list of the best film still resources I found while [trying to] study to be a concept artist and (2) recommendations for how you can use these images to inspire your art, composition, and coloring style.
Resources
Try this
If you have an idea of the local values of each character’s skin, hair, eyes, outfit, etc. and then find a few film stills of the same actor in different lightings. What layer types can you use to replicate the new types of lighting? What techniques?
Consider using the following digital art techniques, writing down which ones you use and the order you use them when you do the study:
- Adjustment layers
- Gradient maps
- Clipping masks
