Thumbnail Sketching for Environments

2.2 Thumbnail Number 2

So let's get to thumbnail number two and so we just finished number one let's keep the momentum going here. So I want to you know. Keep that creative flow going so sometimes you don't want to stop depending in like you know. If you like date or if you want take a break you can always take a break in between but it's totally okay. So I have this idea that I was thinking of and I want to, so I'm drawing like a top-down map kind of thing. And so what I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna distort it, so again, and you'll always see me kinda do this one. And I'm gonna zoom out here so I can get the perspective, something really interesting here. And hopefully that will make this really interesting here. And so, notice that I'm kinda starting with lines first, and there's no reason behind that. It's just, I'm just trying to mix it up a little bit. That's all that I'm really trying to do so. So this is what I would like to do if at all possible. All right, and hopefully by doing the line art as well, this is more me kinda going in this designing phase. And then this will make my job easier later on. So this is more of a kind of a central, maybe we'll do that to kind of break it up a little bit. As a little bit more of a centralized composition, which usually I'm not a fan of, but I think it will be cool in this instance so we're doing a little bit of line art. See, there you go, and I'll merge that all down. And so that kind of gives me a little bit of a nice little start here to kind of figure some things out. Okay, so I'm just gonna keep kind of just figuring out the design, all that fun stuff. So to kind of break up that central composition there, I'm gonna add a little bit of, you know, bit of a layering here. That would be cool with the clouds, but I don't know about that, we shall see, we shall see. All right, cool, so now that we have that, let's see. I don't wanna think too much, I kinda wanna have my instincts take over at this point. So I'm trying my best not to get I'm trying my best not to get too caught up into all of the details at this point. Because again it is it is a thumbnail, so that's where I really wanna try to again. All right, I wasted too much time on that, so I'm just gonna make this into a multiply layer so I can still see the lines. I'm gonna lower the fill a little bit. So you can have that. And this will kind of be serving as a guideline for myself, so I'm going to use my layer management skills here. I'm going back to my kind of standard brush that I've been using today. Make it a little bit lighter. I imagine that to be pretty far in the background here And we're just gonna fill that in as best as we can. So, by you showing you guys different ways of approaching, it's totally up to you. So again, there is no right or wrong way. So it's kind of keep that in mind. There is no right or wrong way. It's just which ever way suits you at the time. So there are times where I will start with lines, there are times where all start with color, there are times I'll start with black and white painting even 3D sometimes, right? There is no right or wrong way. It's just what suitable for you, so I'm just kind of showing you guys the ways I can approach it at different times, and you want to be flexible. Sometimes certain clients, this happens to me a lot. Certain clients respond differently to different methods of painting. For whatever reason that is, I still don't understand that to this day. I have some clients that love line work. I have some clients that love black and white drawings. And I have some clients that just love rough 3D models. And so depending on your client. You going to have to understand you know. You know understand the best way to to show your idea so it's definitely really important thing here. Okay, underneath that, what I'm gonna do, set a cryptogram plane here. So I'm just gonna use the the marquee tool which is M. I'm just going to fill up the dark color I guess. I think that and what I want to do though too so I think a little bit lighter. I don't know a lot that transparency so I don't have to pay outside of it. And I want to use the gradient I'm just gonna drag. I'm gonna pick this gradient tool right here. I'm gonna go from foreground to transparency. So that means it is like a foreground to nothing, as opposed to foreground to background color. So my background color's that light gray. I don't want that. I want this one right here. And so I'm hoping that if I drag this down a little bit it's gonna create that atmosphere. That I'm looking for right there. So that's what I want. So you can kinda see these things right here. I'm thinking they're gonna be like a maze. And so that's what I'm trying to get across here. So I'm actually gonna lock the transparency. This one I might not even finish because it's already kind of, I'm already complicating it more than I have to. But that's okay. Like, it's a cool idea, I think, so. So I want to, you know what, let me use a marker type brush. I think this brush might be a little look more conducive to what I'm trying to do so. So I'm just trying to drag it down so that way the planes are all going down. It's very very simple kind of concept here. And again I don't really care about the edges that much because I am going to be painting over that. I'm not put a layer on top of that. So I don't really care. But it's just get the idea so I don't want it too dark back there. So the basic rule of like environment design is things get lighter as they get back. That's just because of atmospheric, cuz of pollution makes things a little bit mistier. It breaks up and diffuses light. So, I'm just kinda painting in those dark areas, like that. All right, so that makes my job a little easier. And I can make a new layer. And I'm gonna get a lighter value here. And I'm gonna tried to paint within the lines as best as possible. Like that. So hopefully this works. All right, so if it works, it will look like it's a canyon and then these are like the top. We're seeing the top of the canyon, and then everything that's dark is gonna be the bottom of the canyon. So it's like a big giant maze, I guess. So this is gonna be kind of a cool idea, I think. So it looks like it's like one big giant like canyon, cavern, whatever you want to call it. That's kind of what I would like it to be. And you're gonna have a little bit more of erasing there. So you can see these little bits and pieces. So maybe there's like some pieces a rock that are kinda jetting out and stuff like. So you don't want to have a clear view to the very end. You know what I mean? So we're gonna kind of just do it like that and so. I don't want to waste too much time on that because I'm already kind of like eight minutes in. So we'll let that simmer. But we will have to kind of come back and redefine that some more but it's not a bad job. I like where it's going, so we have all that on that one layer behind it. We gotta figure out this moon, [LAUGH] so I didn't draw a perfect circle by any means. So hopefully that will make my job a little bit easier. So let's see what we can do right here. All right, let's see if we can make it a little bit lighter, there you go. I think that works perfectly. It's not too bad. And let's actually make it a little bit darker in front of that, and that's gonna be these background mountains here that we're gonna have. And bam. Huh, not too bad. So we'll go on to that. Also, back on this layer, can't forget the little guy. [LAUGH] Let's just do this guy right here. Bam. I'll fill that guy in. So to fill a color in guys, it's just Alt+backspace. So just kinda keep that in mind when you're doing that. So if I just kinda make that selection again Alt+backspace and you fill it. If you use the marquee tool, again, I'm using M. If you wanna fill from the center, hold down Alt+Shift, it will drag it from the center. Otherwise if you just drag it, it will always drag from the point where you touched the stylus. Where you touched the way come tablet. So it'll be like that. So when in doubt If you want to make a perfect circle. If you want to drag from the center, hold down Alt, but you can always kinda distort it a little bit, but if you wanna make a perfect circle, just hold down Alt and Shift, and that will make sure that's a perfect circle, okay. All right, so let's turn off the line art here. Real quickly and see what I'm working with. All right, not bad. It looks pretty good to me. So let's start kind of messing with this a little bit. I'm gonna use this dark layer that we had before, and let's see if that makes it look a little bit nicer. So, all right. So the cool thing again is I can just erase whenever I want. I don't have to worry about things, and that's what it's about. So this could be like a cool. I don't know, alien. I'm thinking some cool kind of like alien planet thing. And just figuring out the light and shadow. And because I had that already done in the last one, I had similar shapes and similar shadow shapes, it makes my job a little bit easier so sometimes you can take the previous one and kind of use that as inspiration for the next one. And so then all of them kind of have a certain kind of continuity, and then they're not too different. But sometimes you want that, sometimes you don't, sometimes people want, you know, three completely different ones. Totally up to you, you know what I mean? We're gonna really erase from that. Boom. I imagine there's gonna be a lot of atmosphere. So I'm actually gonna take this color. I'm gonna lock the transparency. I'm gonna drag upward a little bit. So you see that right there. Boom. I'll probably drag like that. So I don't want this to affect that one. So I'm just gonna get the regular selection tool so I don't effect this guy, so I'm just gonna go back here, I'm gonna drag up. So we get that atmospheric perspective. I'm not sure what I want to do in terms of the clouds, if I want to have them or not, but I probably should at least kind of block that in to some degree. I'm actually gonna use a cloud brush this time. I'm gonna, not because I don't feel like painting clouds, but because the effect that I'm trying to go for, I think it would it work a little bit better. And I'm gonna put this in front here, so I want this to be like very Very atmosphery if that's a word. So I'm trying to get that nice atmosphere. And I'm kinda using a different kind of cloud brush as an eraser to kinda keep that fog level going. And I think with that I'm gonna put something in front of the ground plane, and just to create some fog. I think that would be kind of cool. So I'm gonna, you know what, let's actually just get a more of a kind of a different brush like that. And so the cool thing you can do too is I can always like make this brush and then let's say that's way too much, like it's too defined. I can either lower the opacity, I can hit, Ctrl+Shift+U. And I can just make the lightness less light. So just kind of go in there like that and it makes a little bit easier, okay? And then, what else I can also do is I can even kind of blur it a little bit, so back there it's going to be pretty blurred out. So what I'm going to do is I'm actually gonna take the motion blur. And hopefully at this works. My turn up a little bit. And it should kind of like make it kind of spread out like from left to right. If I go up and down. You'll see what happens you can see that kind of stuff ik you can see the streaks and they're the one to the left to right so that will kind of really help it. Read a little bit better. And then where do the my kind of pepper that in someone a race from a distance had bit with another kind of soft brush. And that will kind of help pepper that in like a little bit so it kind of gives it that you know. That uneven feeling cuz obviously, you know, fog and smoke won't be the same across the board, so we're just trying to kind of create that randomness that happens in nature. And there you go. So I think it's pretty good for the next one so we'll probably have to come back and you know figure out what the plan's going to look like, all that kind of stuff. But let's go on to the next one. I think we're done with this one, okay. All right, see you at the next one.