From a film still. I colorized this to fit the mood of the film.
I’m not sure what the class is calling for, but don’t be afraid to add some contrast to punch up the depth/volumes, in particular the castle on the hill. Direct sunlight creates dramatic lights/shadows. Also, don’t just scribble lines for detailed areas, focus on the main forms that are happening in those areas. Some good reading is http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/ his books are good reads as well. My ex-studio-neighbor is an excellent landscape painter http://karlheerdt.com/ check out his work!
One last note: don’t get obsessed with how long it takes to do something, only obsess on the end result. I know these days there is a lot of fascination with speed painting, but why do people want to rush as though painting is such a horrible thing like pulling off a band-aid? Relax and put some hours into a study, you will notice a big difference. I know you haven’t posted times or anything, I’m just saying don’t get caught up in that mentality unless you are in a situation that demands it.
Hi (jay), thanks for advice and links. I must admit I’m usually focusing on very limited objectives with most of what I’m doing here. Using a simple value scheme to represent distance (essentially a z buffer image) conflicts with shading (as you’ve mentioned) and also material properties, such as the bright reflective lake in the foreground. Also how to deal with planes that extend from foreground to background (gradient? banding? and how to indicate detail (darker or lighter?) etc. So I’m trying to meet the initial brief, which is to use 6 values to represent distance in a series of rough thumbnails, 15 mins work each, while addressing these issues as best I can.
I’m hoping that by the time the course is finished I’ll be producing some fairly sophisticated work, and that that will be ongoing. No doubt I’ll be spending a lot longer than 15 mins on each piece when I reach that point. Three weeks down, five to go.
A couple more rough value studies. I think next week I’ll be tightening things up a bit.
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I’ve done a couple of lake/river bridge scenes but I quite like the overall shapes in this one. These simple thumbnails are really week 1 stuff, but Simon (tutor) says to do as many as possible, and I’ve completed week 3 exercise which is to copy in value three landscapes. Besides, if you do a lot of stuff you’ll eventually run out of boring generic themes and start to create more interesting images.
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Week 4 - starting to tighten things up a bit, though still working in value. Beginning to use some photo textures. Using the custom shapes we made in week 2. The architectural elements were roughly modelled in Blender, with fairly heavy PP for the final image.
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I’m a bit bemused by statistics such as these:
There are currently 509 users online. 82 members and 427 guests
I guess I checked that because I’ve had nearly 1000 views on this thread but only a few posts from other members. In my more paranoid moments I imagine an army of people checking 3D and other art forums for concepts to rip off. And guessing that once anyone starts producing work that is worth ripping off they stop posting to public forums. I’m sure that’s just paranoia…
I work at a print shop, believe you me when I say people are ripping each other off left and right.
Anyhow, I see a trend happening here where you are putting dark objects in the foreground and going lighter as they recede, it’s almost becoming methodical. I understand that atmospheric perspective is a common technique, but I think you need to focus more on the actual values in the reference, not a general rule. Brutal I know! My best teachers were meanies and I love them for it.
BTW the traditional forums never get much love, maybe you’d have more luck a CA.org or http://www.drawingboard.org/
Hi (jay), your comments and crits are welcome and I can take lots of constructive criticism. I am absolutely following a rule here, partly because that’s what our tutor is asking and partly because I’m not using any specific reference. This last image started as the thumbnail in #24 where I’ve replaced the castle with some more complex architectural elements and thrown in some photo texture.
Being an 8 week course it’s an evolving process and no doubt by the end we’ll be following reference a lot more closely. I think the fundamental idea behind this is that one needs to have a very solid understanding of how value works in perspective before taking into account all the other things that affect value too.
About traditional art not getting much love here, my main motivation for this thread (and for doing the workshop in the first place) is because I think the concept development phase of any project often does not get the attention that it needs. I’ve got some books on the art of Lord of the Rings and everything was worked out by painters before sets and costumes were created.
Here’s another. About an hour’s work. Concept stage, not final works. And I acknowledge the strong influence of LOTR in the design.
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I think you misread what he wrote, he wrote forums not art. His suggestion was that if you want more comments and critiques you would be better of posting at drawingboard.org or conceptart.org.
I’m interested in the cross-over between 2D and 3D art. Painting is used in movies including animations (matte painting) and a lot of concept artists drop 3D renders as elements into their paintings, so there’s a two way interaction. I don’t see a lot of that on BA though. Just wondering why not. Anyway, I might check out those other sites, thanks for the links. Or I could just stick with the CGSociety. They’re pretty good for all CG stuff.