we are going to be drawing water today water's tough because I find that I struggle to teach
water because water is one of those things where I'm just kind of like I look at a reference and
I figure it out but water is really really hard to render so let's talk about it really quick so
water is very similar to reflective surfaces where water has very high contrast and hard
Edge shadows and highlights um more reflective surfaces do not tend to have edges that are very
very Blended in if you have any like Shadows or highlights anything to that effect the difference
with water and the rest of reflective surfaces though is that water is always either transparent
or translucent and will distort what is within it right so when you have when you're drawing
water if you're drawing somebody who's swimming in water if you've ever seen like that person from
above right it's not like you see like the person is up here right if you have them underwater like
this right maybe you have the ripples sure you can see them underneath but if you're gonna see them
underneath especially if the water is Rippling their body isn't gonna look the same underwater
as it does on top right it's going to be like distorted and how you choose to distort it is
kind of like you know up to you but you're gonna have a more distorted figure underneath the water
right refraction that kind of deal so depending on how clear the water is Shadows May travel
through the water onto the ground beneath right if you have very very clear water right if you
have a shadow on top you know how usually if we have let's say we have a cube right this cube is
opaque here let's say we have like a say we've got a triangle above here right if this was an opaque
object the triangles Shadow would be on top of the cube and the cube would have a square shaped
Shadow underneath it however if let's say that now this cube is like transparent what instead
we might get is now this triangle Shadow will be down here and maybe there's like a little bit of
a hint of this shadow in here so this Cube let's say is water this Cube let's say is opaque right
if we have an object over top of like another opaque object we expect that shadow to land on
top of it and it won't go through if we have water this Shadow is going to go directly through the
object onto this area underneath we can think of the same thing as when we draw somebody swimming
because the light passes through the transparent object say if we have somebody swimming and we've
got water here we've got somebody just kind of here he's kind of just vibing right though Shadow
is not gonna be on top of the water the shadow is going to be underneath it so we're gonna get that
shadow underneath not on top of the water then only worry about highlights and reflected objects
if the water is within Shadow you only really need to worry about Reflections after that because it
is already as dark as it can get underneath the Shadows so all you need to worry about is reflect
things that may be reflected onto the water water and maybe some highlights that might bounce under
there as well these are very realistic properties I think like very very realistic ways of thinking
about water if you'd like to support the channel and the creation of free Arts education become
a member on patreon um so let's talk more about General tips that I would give try not to use a
single solid color for water especially if you're doing really really large bodies of water like the
ocean or like a swamp or something more often than not it's gonna it's not gonna be super
Crystal Clear it's gonna have a color to it this is all that if you're just drawing the surface of
Water by the way and you really don't want to make anything like super crazy this is all you need to
do by the way is you need one layer so you're gonna want this like pattern of just a lot of
like circles and ovals kind of fill in the spaces between them copy that and then just make the
layer darker underneath and you have the shadow that hits the surface of the water like that's it
if you want like a really simple kind of looking water it's really easy so like this is like okay
but let's say now that we took this water and we kind of very very lightly shifted some of
the Hues around while we're working with it right so it's like a little bit less single
toned this kind of greeny look all right so now we have that sort of color going on and now again
if I choose kind of like do my kind of Shadows right it gives it a little bit more dimension in
my opinion all right so try not to use a single solid color for water water right especially if
you have that like background bit right it looks a little bit more full of life if you have the
um what do you call it if you have like a slight multi-color to the back if you look
at the surface of water like this pattern if you do a bunch of like big kind of jelly bean
shapes kind of put them all together fill in the smaller spaces with smaller circles and fill in
these spaces in between you gotta like clean it up a little bit generally you don't want to keep
these as just circles though this is like a tip that every artist gives like if you've got this
kind of look you erase back so and bits so it's not too thick looking and then if you like take
this move it slightly and then make this white boom water Reflections and you can move it as far
away as you want all right if you have like this background just blue this is like the best tip
that I have like it's like you draw these weird circle patterns and you got it it's really fun
to use different colors of water like I think that it's more interesting to have within that
leaning to like a pure blue to like a green kind of blue I tend to prefer that greenish thing but
if you you want to use like a deeper blue for sure a big question we get a lot during streams and on
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once again for sponsoring this video next tip is refraction try not to blend too much especially
when we have water it tends to look a little bit better if you um you know blend a little bit less
so let's take a look at some ocean ripples really quickly notice the number one shape that you see
a lot of is triangles you see a lot of tringles going on here right and these edges can be pretty
harsh at a lot of times like you see there's a lot of reflections of the Sun but again very very hard
edged it's a lot of just like General tringles in the wave and then let's say we've got some
highlights going on where I just kind of follow the shape of the tringles My Brightest source of
light coming from up here probably maybe I want to blend it a little bit more but like you don't
want it to be too crazy right especially if you're going really simple like blending like
crazy is not something you need to worry about all right but then let's save it like we're reflecting
the sky off to the side here so we're gonna add tringles so it's like we're reflecting something
off of here as well right so maybe there's something light blue that we're reflecting
over there and I'm starting to add in different shapes I'm starting to add in Some Loops to kind
of give it a bit of shape Dimension as well water is kind of random so it's better I find that it's
better not to think and just start drawing and if it ends up not looking good then you restart which
is like a weird piece of advice but I find that it works find a style don't get too caught up in
realism we're used to seeing all of that tutorials that are like oh this is how you draw water and
like this it's gonna look super realistic here not everybody draws like that though right as long as
you keep the general principles in mind you'll probably have your work look like water just
fine get interesting get intriguing nobody needs water to look exactly the same every single time
right maybe we've got one that looks a little bit more animated kind of water right like a
water droplet just hit the water like this one's like a little bit more as if it was like animated
say the light sources here but we can tell these are water right it keeps its basic principles so
we still kind of understand what's going on right right find a style don't get too caught up in
realism right no matter how it is that we draw our water whether it's like super realistic or
like something a little bit more cartoony right I tend to default to this kind of style I know
I add the transparency where it's needed but if it's just the water on its own you know whatever
right like this isn't super rendered right I use three colors but we can tell it's water right
it's the same thing with these two it's like it's really really basically rendered we have a more
rendered water above it and like somewhere in between above that but we can tell that
this is all water as long as we kind of have the general idea of what water is we'll be all good
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