Thumbnail Sketching for Environments

2.3 Thumbnail Number 3

All right, so let's get on the last thumbnail, and let's get this guy going. So I haven't done anything too structural yet, so I would like to attempt to do that for you guys, just because. So for me I like using the brush like a square brush. Why? Cuz for that very my reason. It's really easy or the kind of feel that more of a structure when you're using brushes of this nature as opposed to something else. So we'll try to just keep that as best as we can. And I'm trying to block that in as best as possible. Even out here, I wanna do a little bit of designing here. So maybe we'll just drag this down. And we can have all kinds of things. So maybe there's a big giant. All right, this is a big giant like hole or something. And so we're just kind of blending out some of these values. And I can always just take that, and it kind of blends it back out, but that's kind of what I'm looking for, a little bit. So we're just gonna put in these little holes and stuff like that. Maybe it will be some kind of like cool chamber or something. And so we're just painting in some of these lighter areas, all that kind of stuff. And, I'm going to get a brush the has a little bit more of an opacity to it. So I think this will make it a little bit easier to paint some of these things out. And so the cool thing about this too, is I can just go like this, make a lasso selection, and paint some of those things out a little bit. And so I'm just using the selection tool here to get more texture. And that's what it's about right here, so you'll see me pick black and white values. And so the cool thing about this again is that things that are light tend to kind of stick out. And then things that are dark tend to kind of recede, right? So if we see something pop out, that means that it's in light so we can see it a little bit easier. So I'm kind of picking this little kind of geometric type kind of background shape, which is kind of cool to see cuz I don't normally do that. And then some cool things you can do right here is in order to kind of get some of the light, that shadow, we commit that selection and just drag that gradient down. And you see a kind of pushes that back. And we could do it right here too. We use the marquee tool. We'll sample this dark area and kind of drag that down and all the sudden, it looks like this thing is being pushed really far back and that's what we're looking for. So we're getting this really cool, geometric feel to the environment. And that's totally what I want right now. So we shall take it. So I had no idea what I was going to do on this one. But it's kind of working out in my favor so not going to question it. It is a little thumbnail so I'm not too worried about it if it doesn't work out, per se. This guy, I wanna move down a little bit more, just so we kind of have that. Okay, and you know what? Behind it, I'm gonna actually keep this on one layer. I'm gonna try to simplify this if at all possible. I know that probably sounds a little bit ironic that I would say that cuz I've been simplifying things super hard already. But I think I could simplify it more. And so, I'm thinking like a ruins or something. And so that brush, right there, that's a problem with this brush. So the spacing is a little bit off. So if I hit F5, I could probably go into the brush tip shape, and I just decrease the spacing so I get a cleaner edge. Cuz right now it was like, you could see those little serrated edges right there. I don't want that. So if a brush is not working the way you would like it to, chances are you could go into the brush menu, mess around in the settings, and you can make it something that you want. It's not gonna always be 100% like what you're intending it to be, and that's just because the brushes are usually not made by yourself, unless you make all your brushes, but the most people don't. They find them online, and friends give them certain brushes. And then with that, you're getting people's preferences. And that's kind of important. So what I see in a brush may not be what you see in a brush and that's totally okay. That's the cool thing is to get people's brushes and kind of see how they break things down as opposed to the other person. So then someone else could be that brush is good for hard edges. And then someone goes oh no, that's totally not good for hard edges, it's way better for this. And you're like oh snap, I didn't even know that. And so it's cool to see how people kind of creatively put their spin on to different tools. And that's what they all are at the end of the day, they're just tools. And so if you know how to use them, it's not really going to matter what tools you're using. You're always going to find a way to be creative with it and that's kind of what's important here. So I'm gonna use a softer brush here, just to kind of erase. So I want there to be a little bit of a, it'll be kinda cool cuz then this is gonna have a little bit of a shadow over it. And. Because this is so structural, I'm thinking it might be a good idea to have some foliage or something. I'm not really sure yet, but we shall see. So I want this to be kind of a little bit more of a long lens kind of perspective here. Just cuz I feel like it could be really interesting if we do it that way, like a long shot. So we could put a person like right there and they're seeing us for the first time. That would be pretty awesome I think. So maybe there's some sci-fi element to it. And so I'm putting in these little cut lines here or something. So maybe at one point in time, it was something like a lost civilization or something. I'm just thinking of all these different ideas here. You know what I mean? There, again, there's not right or wrong. It's only been seven minutes, and I'm just thinking of ideas at this point. So I really can't know what something's gonna be quite yet. So that's like the cool part about it is I'm not wasting too much time. It's just get an idea out, you show it to your boss. And if your boss likes it, then good. If he doesn't, then no harm no foul. So, I probably want this to be beside it. And. Yeah. So I want to kind of show that it's like dirty a little bit. And I think maybe the best way to even do that would be to kind of erase little bit from it. So I don't want to be too straight. So I want to kind of mess up the edges a little bit, all that kinda stuff. So that way it really does feel like something kinda ancient. What I can do too to make it feel more round is just soften the edges there. So this feels like it's square. But if I do that, then all the sudden, that looks like it's rounded. So that's all I did right there. And I could do the same here. I wanna round the edges out a little bit so that way it feels like it's a cylindrical object. So that's all I did. And then I probably would have to round these edges out a little bit more, so that way it keeps in line with the perspective. So I have to kinda do some stuff like that, which is fine. They're a little bit hard to do to get that stroke, to get that right angle, but it's good practice. So you can see me mess up there a couple times but it's important to know just to kind of have it. If you're having trouble, again, you can always like, just get the marquee tool. But a force of habit I just kind of like to do it with freehand just because it's good practice. You know what I mean? It's good to be able to do freehand ellipses and stuff like that. And that's all just very much like fundamentals, nothing too crazy there that you guys don't know about. I'm actually liking this one. I think this is probably my favorite one so far. And then that's really important because it goes to show your first idea is usually not your best idea. And so this is why it's very, very important to do multiple drawings because you never know what might come of it. And that's, again, imperative for your client. If I had showed that one sketch and only went one direction, the boss could possibly not like it. He could be like, that's whack, not really sure how I'm feeling that. And then you're like, oh darn. But then if you show them multiple, well now it's like, well but check this out, like I have this idea and this idea. And then they go, oh you know what, that's actually pretty cool. And then, it opens up to way more possibilities. They're not mad at you. You know what I mean? They're not going to be like, yo, what are you doing? They're going to be like, okay, he's definitely thinking of every idea. He's not married to every single idea that he proposes to me. And that's kind of important. So I'm just gonna kinda fix up these. All right. You know what? Actually, these should probably be bigger. Because the light's gonna come from the top, so I want the light areas to be a little more thinner. So I think in the opposite way. I was thinking in positive shapes, I need to think in negative shapes. Yeah, all right, that's cool. I may want to lower the opacity here to like a 60 and kind of erase. Just so we kinda get that reflective light. Yeah, there you go. That works. It's looking like stairs, and so graphic man. Graphic shapes, that's where it's at. All right, so I think I could definitely add some cool lighting to this guy, but we shall see. I do like the idea of possible foliage so let's just kind of paint some in real quick. I guess I can use this brush, this brush is kind of cheesy. This can help kind of frame the focal point, which is the center area. So maybe there's that kind of stuff happening. Now I can always go back and erase it, because I may not like it. And, again, I'm just trying out ideas. And maybe that idea doesn't work, and I actually don't think it does. So, again, we try out ideas. And it should be kinda like a conversation in terms of art, where we're sitting here and we're just trying to figure out does this work? Is this idea cool? We're adding ideas as we go. And that's kind of really, really important. So actually, I think this works a little bit better if I use a lasso tool first to kind of get the shape. And then it has that motion that I'm looking for. So maybe the idea was cool but the application wasn't good. The way that I executed it wasn't what I was looking for. And so that's where you have to make that decision like is the idea really cool, or is it just like I suck? Am I just not in my just not doing an interesting way? And so that can sometimes happen. So we're just going to use this kind of pixelated brush. I think the pixilated brush works well because everything's very, very square in general so we kind of get that same feel a little bit as well. So I actually like that. And then we can do here as kind of the last finishing touch here is we can start to add a little bit of tree branches and stuff like that. So that way it kind of has a nice read. And boom. So look at that. It's not too bad. I definitely like where this one is going. We'll have to figure out what we can do with the finishing touches but let's save this one out. And then let's see if we can line these all up together and do some finishing touches, okay? I'll see you then.