Just give me your philosophy on approaching light and shadow.

>>3049969
read loomis, he explains it how it works.

It's related to perspective and the angle of the plane versus the direction of the light.

is pretty mechanical but most artists don't give a fuck (they're amateurs).

just read loomis.

there's also three gnomon workshop dvd on this topic.

>>3049969
Shadow is the absence of light. In it's true form, it is completely dark and any object within it cannot be seen (because there's no light to bounce off the object).
"But anon, why can I still actually see objects within shadow in reality?"
Because literally everything causes light rays to bounce and scatter everywhere. When light hits an object, the object's light plane acts as another light source, projecting its color properties within the environment. This light hits another object and another and so on until the photons of light scatter further from each other (light falloff). The sky is also a light source that fills in the upward facing planes in shadows with a nice blue tint. Any light that isn't the primary source is -never- as bright. The lightest part of a shadow should never be lighter than the darkest part of the light planes. Now there's a lot of grey area here, but a good rule of thumb for beginners is: lights cannot occupy the same space. Now, obviously they can and you can easily replicate it in reality... But that rule of thumb will always work no matter what. So for outside, sunlight for the light plane...skylight for top planes in shadow...and a color from the ground for the bottom shadow planes. Rimlight only appears in the shadows.

An object closest to the lightsource will project a larger shadow. Cast shadows are sharper the closer they are to their origin, otherwise they get softer the further away they are. Form shadows are soooooft shadows that run along the form.

You would know this if you picked up Scotts book.