Exercise 27 Practice Sheet: Candy Study

Check out the Exercise and Download the Practice Sheet HERE

EXERCISE:  Analyzing how to look at different materials and textures and how to accurately capture shading and rendering them

While this exercise may sound sweet and simple, it’s actually quite the underlying challenge. We are looking at how to re-create 6 different types of candies and look at look at them analytically. So what distinguishes a jelly bear gummie from a candy cane? Just from looking at them both you can tell, They treat lighting differently and the surface material is vastly different. It is our job as digital artists to be able to analyze a material and be able to know how to capture and re-create the same look and feel on a canvas. So don’t be fooled by the simplicity of the allure of candy, for this exercise is bittersweet!

What are the 6 confectionery treats we will be taking a closer look at? Go through each below with some tips

• Jelly (Gummy) Bear – The light will be split, half being reflected and the other being absorbed. The light that passes through the surface will create a subsurface scattering effect making it appear as if the material has a soft glow of color.
• Jelly Bean – This hard surface candy will still absorb some of that light must will mostly be reflected. If a gummy bear was 50/50 on light being reflected/absorbed, this would be around 75/25.
• Peppermint – Recreating this surface will require an attentive focus to highlights and where you are placing them. Stay concentrated and intense will your highlights.
• Sucker – This is similar to the gummy bear is that light will pass through and you can see the contents within (the stick of the sucker is still visible), but also carries the surface of a hard candy and will give more concentrated highlights similar to the peppermint.
• Sugar Coated – This is all about the outer coating of texture. Take the initial direction of a gummy and then coat it with a speckle brush.
• Licorice – This is similar to the peppermint but not as intense and the focus here will be on the ridges to accurately capture how light affects the surfaces.

GOAL: To strengthen your analyzing skills to interpret different materials and textures.

This is sweet way to strengthen your artist eye and be able to capture different lighting information on different subject matters. Take what you learn from this and apply it to any texture and material!

Download your handout and submit it by next Friday to be one of the top submissions entered for this exercise!