Willing to teach environmental design-basics

[Little-Maiden]

There were ofc partly referenced off rock formations found around mountains and similar places.

I think they came out much better than the previous attempts- I used both overlays and custom brushes.

[DAMJAN]

The third rock bottom right looks the best. The white one doesn't look good because it's too white. The thing you need to work on is on breaking up the shapes and making them look random. You have a lot of same repeating or almost same looking folds, cracks,etc. That is the hardest part when creating environments "randomness." Good job, I want to see more.

[Little-Maiden]

Sorry its nearly been 3 days since I saw your last post but i've been busy and unable to get proper rock practice in. However! I have done this today:

I tried to take your advice from your previous post (pushing the tones and going for more random-like shapes) into further use, though I'm not sure if it worked : /. Let me know what you think

[DAMJAN]

No problem, I'm busy myself. Unfortunately, no it didn't work. Are you using reference when drawing these? If not, I really urge you to do so. That way you will start memorizing the way rocks look a like and it will help you when using reference in the future. Right now your rocks look like jammed up paper. Just keep practicing and use reference whenever drawing/sketching. Good effort though.

[Little-Maiden]

yeah I am using reference though i'm find it hard to draw them properly even with reference >.< I'll do some more perhaps in just black&white to get an idea better. I'm wondering if its also the fact that i'm adding quite crappy cast shadows i'm putting on these pieces as well- either way its not helping the overall look.

I also just looked over them again, I think the overlay i'm using is too high perhaps in opacity, it looks really weird : /

[DAMJAN]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention if overlay is too high in contrast, don't be afraid to reduce it until it looks natural. Don't worry, it will take you time. Keep on practicing. In reality, no one can really teach you how to do something, just show you and then it's up to you to become really good at it. Just keep doing what you are doing. Earlier I mentioned to focus on rock paintings and not use image overlays yet. Also, desaturate the image to black and white, that will help you focus better on shape and not having colors will keep you from being distracted.

[Little-Maiden]

@DAMJAN

well heres some more all worked from photo-ref. Still can't get it all completely right. Nonetheless, since it comes down to practice and more practice now that you've shown the process would it be time to move on to something? like trees? clouds?

[DAMJAN]

much better when you use ref. I agree, just keep practicing and yes we can move onto something else. I'll create another tutorial and post it here.

[rem92]

That 2 rock looks badass, congrats, i have made some more myself, but, meh, they're crappy, and havent practiced that much, cause of school work, its anoying, but anyways, may i ask whats coming next on the lessons? o: id love clouds tutorial or water perhaps.

[DAMJAN]

We could do clouds but they are complicated. I was thinking to do clouds and water later once you guys get more comfortable with easier stuff. I think that we should do trees next.

[rem92]

Yea water and clouds are probably more complicated... trees it is then : p

[Little-Maiden]

i'm down for trees, I've watched some oil painting vids from Sheldon regarding trees and he says you can really get lost in the details if you don't watch out. Sounds like fun.

[DAMJAN]

Good stuff.

[DAMJAN]

Hey friends, here is a quick tree tutorial. I'm really busy so if I find time to create a different and a better tutorial, I'll do that. For now try this out.

[Angel Intheuk]

Hiya Damjan

This is a great thread, I'm just starting to get to grips with enviros myself and if anyone drops out I'd love to join in with this, I'm terrible at structuring my own learning.

[DAMJAN]

Hey, thanks. Go ahead and join in.

[rem92]

Hey Damjan, thanks for the great lessons, here is my tree, ill make more soon, this days are busy days

[DAMJAN]

leaves look pretty interesting but tree itself (wood) is very flat. Good stuff, just keep practicing, use images as your reference.

[Little-Maiden]

Heres what i've done:

I didn't use many overlays. I think on one or two of the trees I applied some bark textures, and leafy texture i found but I mainly built up with brushes and seperate layers. I think maybe the leaves are too "thick"

[DAMJAN]

They are not too thick because this way you've achieved more of painterly feel. Awesome job!

[Little-Maiden]

posting some more, tried to change the leaves and colour scheme a bit, these are what I have. I'll post more until a new tutorial is put up or we move on to a next assignment i guess.

A question though, about detailing bark, I tried overlays and didn't really like the way they turned out, so i've been trying to paint the wood texture of bark and I can't say i'm succeeding very well. Also- palm trees and trees with little foliage (like certain bonsai trees, willows etc etc) are alot harder to paint than bushy leafy ones like oaks and cedars.

[DAMJAN]

Nice stuff. The only solution I have for you is to find image of the wood texture up close and try to break down the shapes and then paint them yourself. Yes it's harder because you can't really cheat much, you have to hand paint it. When painting these trees, try greens that are more in the yellow range, they will look more realistic than pure greens.

[DAMJAN]

Hey guys, haven't posted anything new in a while. This tutorial is about clouds. Since I'm not good at painting clouds, I have to cheat a little and create a cloud brush from an actual photograph. Here is how.

[Little-Maiden]

i've been playing around with this, but can't seem to get it to fit right, after studying a few photos- The main problem I'm having is getting the clouds to have a nice variation in values- but despite starting with a relatively dark/mid-tone gray in the end I just end up with a whole lot of white that looks like fluff. : /

[DAMJAN]

Well that's downfall of using images for cloud brushes. They look pretty flat. What you can do is once you have your white cloud placed. Take a different, soft round brush and paint in the darker areas and then if you have that color blending tool, use it to blend it in a little bit so that transition is not that high. Or, use a smudge tool but let the brush be more chalky, grungy than just simple round. How it worked for me in that final image is that I've first drew that white cloud then I changed to color to that darker gray and reduced the size of the brush by a lot and then painted in one side of the cloud. Hope it helps. I wish I were good at painting clouds by hand to show you how to paint it like it. Doing by hand you have greater control. Oh by the way, after you have a few clouds painted like that, you can image overlay the real clouds so that it matches the rest of the painting that has images as texture.

[DAMJAN]

Hello friends, just found a great tutorial on how to paint clouds with oils. Check it out at my blog you will love it. It's highly detailed tutorial. Even though it's done in traditional medium, the techniques are the same. http://conceptartmasters.com

[cloudcan]

Is this still open for joining? if so I'd love to join! Otherwise, I'm sorry for this useless post.

[Little-Maiden]

So I've been working with clouds and trees and rocks, trying to use all the stuff i've been learning here into simple pieces, so far I'm not focusing too much on composition as much as I am on including the three that we've been working on so far in my practice.

Heres 2 pieces, 1 which I did before the cloud tutorials DAMJAN posted here (the one with the boy) and the 2nd one, (tree in the sky) I did today.

Not sure if theres much of an improvement between 1 and the other. Though I can surely say the clouds in piece number 2 turned better than 1.

[rem92]

Nice!! Little Maiden, stuff is looking good, yea cloud totally look better on the 2 one, and the tree looks better too, i didnt like how the leaf turned out in the first picture, but still, looks good, the boy sitting there is a nice touch and great focal point

[DAMJAN]

Nice stuff. The reason why second's clouds look a little better is because they have more volume. Nice tree, practice on adding texture to the trunk of the tree itself. Second, would be better if the sky looked better. that means that upper part of the sky should be darker blue and bottom part should be that light blue not white.
Yes you can join.