Lighting 101 and my routine

Well, with a big discussion on Monday about the team, it was decided that Grigs will teach me the way of lighting as he wanted to work on SPLAY, which is fair enough that is why Phil wanted him on the team! Before it was just simple add a physical sunlight and bam your lighting for exteriors was done, but we are working with interiors for Polished Off, so i cant do that anymore.

So for me i am now under a lot of pressure again and it reminds me of trying to use particles, nCloth and Sub Surface Scattering, going into unknown territory and expecting to see results.

So Grigs did an amazing base shot of Ed in bed, however he lost the file, and so we went through this week looking at lighting and how to light link, what each light does and how to use them effectivly. So, we worked on the flowers and after alot of tweaks we were starting to get some results and this is were one of my weaknesses comes in, if i think something looks ok to good then i am happy to leave it and get on with something, this can be good when there are other things to get on with, but i have just realised how important the base shot is. It is featured a lot, so all this week i have been trying to recreate Grigs one image and i am just finding it fairly difficult, but i am not a quitter, but i also know ther are so many more shots to be getting on with and so little time, i need to make the most of college. I have a busy life, monday - friday is college, however two of those nights i have meetings about my youth group, which i am also running days out, which need planning. Then other nights my girlfriend is back from uni. Saturday is work day, i work 9-6 at Argos! Then on sunday is church and youth group, with sunday evening being the only real time i have to relax.

However, i am a fighter and will not back down from a challenge especially one that will mean a lot once i have finished college, below is the base shot so far, guys be as critical as you want! Oh the squares on the right are from the occlusion so dont worry about them! The only real differences i can see is the rail is lighter and the Ed is alot brighter talking to grigs he did this through using a ramp shader, so that should be easy to fix as wel as the rail, however the shadows are different and i feel that is to do with the difference in the pose of Ed and the pillow, which are totally different meaning different shadows something i dont think we can change!