Kippy's Environmental & Anatomy

[kippish]

This sketchbook is only for environmental studies only.
My Other Sketch Threads are currently in the works.

++++++

Purpose Of This Thread:

I really want to improve on my environmental studies, so any critiques on environment studies would be a huge plus! I want to eventually become as talented as the background artists you see in feature films and animation. So feel free to critique away!

++++++

The first sketch was my attempt at an animation background one would see in a cartoon with a bit of a budget. It was an attempt at Knothole village from Sonic the way that I saw it. So the entire scene is from my imagination only.

The second is a study of some mountains I found on google.

The third is from a local area where I live!

[kippish]

Here are some ingratiated attempts. :>

Alex Alexandrov helped me a LOT and gave me wonderful tips of how to compose the background on the mouse piece.

My friend Maren Marmulla did the background on the megaman piece. I did quickman and dust effects.

The last piece is my interpretation of Sally Acorn and Antoine integrated with the above background. As you can tell, I didn't spend a whole lot of time on detail on this one as I did with Quickman.

[kippish]

Some studies from either observation or imagination.

[Kharnaghe]

Y u no have middle ground?


Haha, whoa. I like the way you colored the small creature and it's back grounds, and I like how you coloured the the creatures in the last pic.

That quckiman drawing is boss, but again, try maybe dropping the detail of the building on the left a bit. And for the background, it shouldn't be possible to see every lit window and definite shapes. Maybe blur the buildings a bit and give it a slight bluish tint to signify distance? And decrease the definition of the window shapes.

Very nice. I'm no good at enviro's so I can't offer any real advice besides trying to illustrate a middle ground. Your drawings seem to have fore ground, back ground, annnddd that's it.

[kippish]

Very nice. I'm no good at enviro's so I can't offer any real advice besides trying to illustrate a middle ground. Your drawings seem to have fore ground, back ground, annnddd that's it.

Thanks for the complements! However I'm not exactly sure how I would achieve a middle ground... seems as though that's more something to do with depth of field. Having things sharper wherever the focus is, then blurred out in the other two dimensions if I'm not mistaken.

Hopefully someone can fill me in with more info on this. I am new to environments after all!

[Iboltax]

Hey Kippish, thanks for the comments on my sketchbook. I'm still very much trying to improve my environment work also so I'm no expert really but I can offer some suggestions from what I've learned.

The thing I've found with environments is that composition and selective detailing plays a big role in being able to actually put across a good image. Forests and natural things are tricky because on the one hand you need to pick out the big shapes and structures and simplify them into a good composition like you would with any image. On the other hand, in order to sell something as say a tree or a bush or a rainforest you need to get specific and actually detail in some bits. The hard part is making a good composition and knowing what to pick out and make specific and whats ok to simplify and be vague about. If you are specific about everything then you get an image that looks like a mess, if you're not specific about anything then you get something that lack any focal points of interest and is boring.

The environment you have that is more animation style with the two characters is good, but the composition is too centered and symmetrical, especially for a scene in a forest where the environment should lend itself to a more natural feeling composition. Think about big foreground elements and how you can incorporate the characters in the scene where they aren't just side by side and equal size, unless that's really what you want, but that kind of compositions tends to be hard to pull off and not have it feel boring.

Also on that image, it shows you haven't really researched or used reference to get specific and interesting bits of leaves and trees and bushes. The ones you have in there that are specific look very made up. Its a good idea to actually get reference and draw a specific type of tree/branch/rock/whatever. Especially in animation style layout, simplifying things into bigger shapes is very important, but you can only really do that if you have something interesting to work from.

The studies from life/photo you did are getting on the right track, doing more of those is the only real way to improve. I know i need to too.

[GoGoJojo]

Hello! That mouse is great! I really love the veins in it's ears
Um... there's not much more that I can think to suggest that Iboltax hasn't already touched on, I would like to see plant studies if you do them though!

[kippish]

@ Iboltax

Thanks for the critique! It was very helpful... right now I'm focusing on city studies because an upcoming project has a lot of them. I'll be messing around with that middle ground thing in the meantime.

@ GoGoJojo

Thanks! I'll be sure to do more of those in the near future. Right now I'm going to focus a bit more on buildings. Although plants are most likely going to be very important later on for the above mentioned project.

+++++

A new study. Will most likely do some more tonight.

I'm still not sure what "middle ground" is but here's what I've done so far.

Also, I know I didn't get the perspective on the windows right. D: I'll be more observant of that in the future.

[n1frit]

So enviro... I think to you it is necessary to adhere to several simple rules.
First of all watch for perspective. Its strong implement yo make a deep and dynamic to ur works. Then watch for objects value. Darkest near, lighter far. Use different temprecher of colors for mark shadows and light. Put some interesting details around Clearing up interest at the spectator. Good idea its half of successful work. Also be not afraid to experiment. Embody the most mad ideas! )) Keep it up!

http://www.fengzhudesign.com/tutorials.htm

[kippish]

@ n1frit

Thanks for the tips! I thought I was following some of them (mostly distance lighting) but i guess not? I do need to work on crisper perspective so I'll be sure to pay more attention that that in my next study.

+++++

Another attempt at perspective. This one is partially based on this image but as you can tell, there are some measurement flaws. I really did try to get everything proportionate but after two hours of messing with the lines alone I grew exasperated to be honest.

Someone mentioned to me that the horizon line was off, in terms of the furthest background not alining to that right. I'm not exactly sure what they mean but I was hoping someone here would redline that for me and explain it better.

Even though this has some flaws I'm going to finish it because I've already come so far.

[kippish]

Alexds1 suggested I trace the points of perspective from images and from that I should see how everything aligns at various points.

Maybe I did this wrong but aren't I supposed to have only one horizon where the vanishing points meet up?

Here's the image I traced.


And here's what I came up with.

I stopped because although I seemed to be getting the vanishing points right, nothing was aligning on one horizon.... Can someone please redline and clarify? I'm not sure I'm getting how things are supposed to work here.

PS: Point two actually was the other part of the bed and the cabinet.

[jady]

give or take measuring inaccuracies since this wasn't a big photo, I've got perspective points lining up on the horizon line. I can't tell in your extrapolation, but it looks like you have lines measuring off the pillows and mattress which you can't do - they won't be machine/square.

all the verticals are perfectly... well, vertical so I'm not sure why you have some trace lines in green on an angle?

[Icedearth15876]

Very good stuff, I like how you put the characters on a previously created background it looks great

[Dana_T]

Jady's got it right. When you're doing two point perspective those two vanishing points are always on the same horizon line. And for that you don't really need to worry about the vertical stuff, they'll almost always be perfectly straight.
When they're not that'll be during 3 point perspective when you want something to look big and menacing. Two points will still remain on the horizon line but the third will be WAAAAAY up in the sky.

Also the thing with photos (and I should have mentioned this before) is that depending on the cameras you're using there will be a certain amount of distortion. I noticed this with iphone photos whenever I'd try to take reference pictures for myself. There may be a slight bulge in the center that will throw you off. I dunno if that happened here but I know it happens to me a lot. x'D

Hope this helped >3<

[GoGoJojo]

Perspective can be a bitch, can't it? If you can find it, I would suggest looking at the book "The Complete Guide to Perspective" (creative name, huh?) by John Raynes, It really helped me understand a lot of that stuff.

[kippish]

Thanks guys! You've all been super helpful.

I know it's too soon to do my own concept background things, but a friend of mine really wants me to be a background artist for his animations and so he's giving me a grace period for trial runs. Right now we're just seeing if we can match styles, but he gave the ok to upload so here are some of my first attempts for you guys to critique!

What to do beyond horizons is always complicated for me to understand. But I think for my second attempt these turned out great considering. However, I know there are flaws. He doesn't care how accurate the perspective is really as long as its readable. But I'm a perfectionist sooooo...

[jady]

I drew some perspective lines over your first sketch and I came up with three different horizon lines and a small problem with one of the fancy doors.

If it's one point perspective, everything has to line up to the main vanishing point and I do mean everything. If you're rotating stuff into two point perspective, the horizon line still doesn't change but I don't think that's what you were going for. Keep in mind that door placement and fancy elements also need to be figured out in perspective for center lines, etc.

I hope this helps!



I also picked out just one of the problems in your coloured version -- the left side of this building tells me there's a ledge built out and there's even a shadow underneath it - but the right side of the building tells me it's just something painted on. Which is it?

[Vaejoun]

Hi there, thanks for the nice post.

I think your problem right now is just inaccuracy or the lack of the understanding behind the perspective lines.

Try to think of a scenery in another perspective, for example from the top. Like in the last street scene: If you would look at it from above and all buildings would be parallel to each other, then they would share the same VP. Same goes for the picture with the bedroom, the wall, the window and the furnitures share one point because one side is alway arranged in the same direction.

It seems to me that you already have an idea of perspective, but lack the discipline to use it correctly. ( I lack patience as well^^)

The first thing you need to know is where the HL is.