Metal and Reflective surfaces - An introduction by William Li
By  William Li
Overview
© 1998-2005 William Li, except where stated otherwise.
Although this article is meant as a tutorial, it can be used as a reference. It helps you learn a technique by giving you guidelines in a step by step manner (the How). As you progress in this tutorial, underlying principles of these guidelines are discussed in depth (the Why). However, I must say that understanding perspective is almost a prerequisite for this tutorial. See the index of the F.A.R.P. on this subject.
The most frequent referal to reflective surfaces is metal. Therefore I will focus on and speak of metal as the reflective material. Almost anything I discuss about metal is also true for other highly reflective materials. So if you're drawing some object that's reflective and is not made of metal, the information in this tutorial will still be useful!
I hope you enjoy!
Now, about this tutorial...
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— Reflection and transparency: metal and glass. Mainly found together in our current vehicles.
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The essence of metal is its highly reflective quality. (Can we be more obvious?)
If polished, you can see the surroundings reflected in it like a mirror. So drawing these reflections is the key to drawing metal. Doing this accurately is a painstaking and difficult process.
Fortunately there's a quick way to make fake reflections and still get good looking results. I'll discuss two methods in Chapter 1: a really fast one, and a less faster one which requires a bit understanding of reflection. The method is demonstrated step by step with hand-drawn examples.
But sometimes this faking method will not do, because the reflection plays an important role in your drawing or you just get lame results. In that case you should understand more about reflections. Chapter 2 describes the nature of reflections and elaborates on Chapter 1. Underlying principles are discussed and 3D imagery is used as reference.
Before you read Chapter 2, read Chapter 1 first. Chapter 1 just might be all you need.
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I've had comments suggesting that drawing reflections as demonstrated in these tutorials would not be applicable to traditional media such as a pencil. Of course this is quite untrue. Any skilled artist in traditional media will acknowledge this. So, although the images in these tutorials were made digitally (except for the one on this page ;) ), the techniques are universally applicable.
If you have a good imagination of how light (rays) interacts with objects in our world, all this should be a breeze for you.
Here are the 2 chapters, each one with increasing depth. At all times I will tie the information to its usefulness in drawing. I will not go too deep into science :-)
1. Fast metal: the quick and dirty way.
2. Understanding and refining reflections: to reach the greater heights.
If you have any comments, suggestions or questions, don't hesitate to contact me. They're welcome!
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Anon.
thankyou
