Concept Class Sim

[LostFayth]

Whew....That was harder than I thought. I did around 20 of each location but at the very end I chose some thumbnails from three locations. These three locations match my brainstorm session and I think it´ll be a good exercise for me and challenging to keep me going.

I played around a bit with composition and placement and these are in my opinion the best ones. If you have any suggestions and comments please let me know.

[Wrenatus]

Turtle: Nice! These are great quick, idea based thumbnails. Good job. I wouldn't mind seeing a few more when you post the final assignment.

Suggestion/Idea for you: Incorporate your locations into the brief from assignment one.. you chose Drama, which is largely a water world with limited land. Think about how that would affect your environments. Perhaps everything is on a coast, or near water, or you can see oceans on the horizon. Perhaps your farmland is actually floating structures of gardens... So think about that a bit. Great thumbs, again!

[LostFayth]

Thanks a lot for the new input you gave me. I totally forgot the brief I chose. It really changed the way I looked at the assignment.

Assignment 2: Concepting Environments - The Results
Here is what I did. I made some more thumbnails and redid some of them. And I actually have grown fond of them. I regret to inform you that my thumbs for the valley locations still sucked. So I might not use them further along the way. I might combine the second mountain thumb with the one to its left.

As for the yellow and green dots: The green dots are the ones I really like and they will be my first choice. The yellow dots are my second choice and I might use them or combine them together to something new (f.e. a waterfall near the coast).



I also thought of my world and this are the results I came up with. I think they will help me in other stages of this mentorsession.

The world: -Nameless-

The islands:
- Kanto: A large island with a large city. The city is home to 70% of the world's population.
- Tsushima: A medium sized island with a lot of nature. The island is home to the world's sea/land and land-creatures. Also there are people living on the island but not so many because of the wilderness.
- Rishiri: A small island in the high north of the world. It's a island covered with snow and ice. There isn't one human living on this island because of the cold and the strange humanoid creatures that live here. It is thought that these are intelligent humanoids but no one had ever the guts to go to this island and meet with the creatures that live here.
- Wuhan: A large island completely covered with mountains. No human had ever set foot on this island' mountains but legend says there is a hidden village within the mountains. Kyoukan the home of the Mountain Elves.
- Chi: A medium sized island with a lot of wild live. This is where most of the creatures of the world live. They live in peace and nature hasn't been touched by the humans because they think this is the home of their gods.

Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions and comments please let me know.

[Wrenatus]

Here are my thumbnails. I chose Environment Set 3 - Wild Planet if simply because I thought it would be an additional challenge to wrap my head around the idea of natural landscapes set in a Victorian world... so I put buildings in them.

And I keep picturing these buildings as being quite large, perhaps even the size of a small city, all contained within the shell of a building that looks like it was copied from the sights of Victorian Britain. And these 'cities' are placed within these vast landscapes, untouched and wild except for the glass and stone of a lighted city perched on the side of a cliff or straddling a great waterfall.

Ah, and there's my poetic side coming out.

[Wrenatus]

Turtle: Those thumbnails are good, they communicate the idea without getting too distracted. Nice. I'm also glad that you revisited them and applied your locations to the world brief you chose in assign.01, I like how they reflect that. Your marked favorites are good choices of those you posted, they are more interesting and offer better composition than the others. I also like your top water-works thumbnail, it's a good one too.

If you are going to combine a couple ideas, I would suggest drawing thumbnails of them to see how they would look, but you don't have to post them if you don't want to, though I'll certainly comment on them if you do.

Wonderful!

[Quixotic]

well, I'm still working on my thumbs, so I might be a day or so late sorry. Engineering is a rather involved major unfortunately. (I really should be able to fit this and my classes in comfortably...)

[LostFayth]

Wrenatus: Thank you for the feedback! I like your thumbnails a lot. It's good to see the red lines too. They give another dimension to the thumbnails which makes them even better. I think there are some really strong thumbnails in your collection you should continue with. It would be nice to see them used in the next assignment. My favourites are the third and fourth from the right of the Valley series and the third thumbnail in the Coastline series.
I think your Water-works series could use some work. I understand the fact that you wanted to put buildings in your thumbs and research it but the buildings in these thumbnails are too dominant. I see too much building and too little environment. Unless that is what you aimed for.

Nice job!

My fellow students: Where is your work. I can't wait to see them.

[Asatira]

Sorry I'm late. I think I got a bit over confident and procrastinated like you wouldn't believe. Forgot how hard it can be to come up with ideas, especially a dozen versions. Yeah, not doing that again.

Anywho, here are my thumbnails. I had a lot of fun with the entrances and the courtyard/schoolyard/gardens. I think the inner landscaper got out. I tried to come up with settings from a variety of places, from the major urban areas to more moderate rural villages to dock areas (hey, with that much water, there are bound to be some places with utilized space on it). The classroom is the one area I think I was weakest in and came up with the least. Will have to storm some more ideas.



Wrenatus Those are some great thumbnails. They don't look like they'll need much more to translate to a finished image. I like how solid they are.

Lostlimeturtle Ditto on the solid drawing of these. I get a great sense of depth in your thumbnails.

[Velocipro]

Guys, you'll really have to forgive me. I have my thumbs right here in my book, but I have no time to scan them. I'm leaving for school in the next 10 minutes and I won't be back home until 9pm or so. (School event) I would have scanned them earlier, but it's a new scanner and I haven't have time to configure it and get it to work right. SO pllleeeaassee forgive me. I'll have everything up tonight.

[Wrenatus]

Asatira: Good thumbnails. I like how you tried to incorporate the water with docks and coastlines. Also, I can see the asian influences, nice. Over all you have a variety of ideas for your locations, and it looks like you explored a bit on what thee places could look like. I especially like the dock structures for buildings.

One idea, is to consider how the people would use water. If they live in a largely water world, one would assume that they could have some control over it (not necessarily in a magical way at all) but I would think you would find an awful lot of fountains, canals, aqueducts, water-mills, all sorts of things that use and display water. Water is quite pretty when paired with light and anti-gravity tricks, after all. Just a thought.


Ok guys, It's Friday morning. I know with Ike, a couple of you are affected, try to get those thumbnails done and posted. I hope they are at least getting done even if you can't yet post them. On the next note... I'll be posted Assignment 3 sometime tonight, which is a 2 week assignment. It'll be up to you to keep up.

Cheerio!

[LostFayth]

Asatira: I see you tried to do different things. I think you tried to sketch too quick and that you really stayed within the two minutes per thumbnail. The thumbnails look good but I'm not able to read all of them. Some simple hatching or filing out some parts of the thumbs could have easily solved that problem. I think it's since we're practising but try to keep that in mind the next time you make thumbs, it can really be helpful.

Don't think they're wrong because they have their good sides too. The minute I saw them I instantly saw the ones that I liked a lot. The upper two of the Gardens series and the one in the middle of the first row of the Entrance series are the best in my opinion. The one under the word 'entrance' looks good too.

And thanks for your kind words and feedback. I hope you don't see my feedback as an attack or anything. I just say what I think and I hope you can use my comments to improve yourself.

[Asatira]

Wrenatus Thanks. While I had considered things akin to canals (I imagined a few places where people used things like anchored rafts, and frequent uses of bridges), I hadn't really considered how things like fountains, aqueducts, and watermills. Looks like I still need to look into the technology aspects of this world.

Lostlimeturtle Yes, I admit, my thumbnails tend to be hard to read for people besides me sometimes. Some, especially a couple classroom thumbs, were more like poor overhead shots for general layout, not a good view. I need to work on the clarity of the message. But I'm glad a few were easy to read and you liked them.

[Velocipro]

Environment Set Three: Wild Planet
Farmlands was meant to be valleys

A few notes about my thumbs:
Experimenting with Marker renders and Marker/Pencil hybrids.

The empty looking thumb(s) at the top where contours, so it's kinda hard to make out the bg.
______________________

Sorry I'm late.

[Wrenatus]

Velocipro: I'm glad you looked at the values within your landscapes and experimented with that, nicely done. That will help you with the next stage. Your sense of composition and movement is strong and it shows in the thumbs. I like the bottom left one alot, and the enclosed lagoon is pretty interesting.

Consider how the civilizations of this world would live within it and what that may look like. With the Dystopia brief from assignment one, you have a pre-history type humanity living within a large, wild world. The vast landscapes was a good choice for this, but consider how villages or living spaces will look. You don't have to repost thumbnails, but I would suggest exploring a few ideas. Nice job!

[Wrenatus]

Assignment 3: Concepting Environments - Roughs

Roughs are the next step - between thumbnails and finals - roughs are full scale drawings of your subject, without half the detail and time. They are meant to take your thumbnail and mock it up to size and shape that your final will be so you can get a good idea of how it'll look.

So I want you to choose a few thumbnails that you like, try to get two to three different locations (from your location list in the last assignment) and do some roughs. Specifically, do two roughs for three locations.

The roughs are you refining the quick, sketchy idea of your thumbnails on a larger sheet of paper. Spend more time on these (but not too much) and start blocking in some values and details. You may use color, but focus on the values (lights and darks) in the roughs. Use color only in flat forms, blocks of color, rather than get lost in playing with the subtlety of colors in the roughs when that's not the main point of them. I would suggest to do your roughs in grayscale, and add transparent layers of color (with a computer likely) over them after you've established the values. Color is important, and roughs give you a great opportunity to explore color palettes, but I don't want you to get carried away with the coloring. Focus on the shapes and values of the pieces.

Your roughs should look like they came from the thumbnails you did. The same dimensions, the same idea. So if your thumbnails were horizontal, than your roughs should NOT be vertical/portrait or square. Most - if not all - of your thumbnails should have been the same dimensions, so measure the size of one of them and multiply it out to find the dimensions that your roughs and finals should be. Got it? You shouldn't be drastically changing around your ideas at this stage. That was what the thumbnails were for! The roughs are built off of the thumbnails.

I do not care how large you make your roughs. But just know that your roughs should be the same size as your final will be. So don't get carried away, and keep in mind the amount of time it would take you to create a final artwork in poster-sized dimensions. Do not, however, make your roughs any smaller than 7 inches square. This is because I don't want your finals to be any smaller than that. I would suggest something about the size of a standard letter.

I don't really care what medium you use, though I prefer hand drawn mediums for sketches and roughs. You may use your tablet to draw into the computer if you are comfortable with that. Otherwise use graphite on paper and scan them in. One thing you can do with the computer, is play with some transparent color layers in order to explore color palettes.

Ok, I also want you to consider the atmosphere of your roughs. I'm giving you two weeks for this assignment because I think this stage is important in drawing, and because I'm adding to your briefs to give you some additional challenge.

When you do your roughs I want you to consider one of the following atmospheric condition sets that will affect the environment that you are drawing. Atmosphere is something you need to pay attention to. Every location has atmosphere. This isn't just the scientific use of the word about air and oxygen and so forth; places have a sense/feeling/soul about them that makes them different and interesting, and a place's atmosphere can change (sometimes drastically and quickly).

So to make you pay a bit of attention to that, I'm giving you a few briefs to choose from. Each has a different type of the "scientific" atmospheric conditions to play with. But don't forget about that other type of atmosphere either.

So pick your poison:

Atmosphere Set One: Weather
1. Hurricane
2. Drought
3. Spring Rains
4. Partly Cloudy
5. Storm on the Horizon

Atmosphere Set Two: Time of Day
1. Pre-Dawn
2. Dusk
3. High Noon
4. Twilight
5. Early Morning

Atmosphere Set Three: Seasons
1. Early Spring
2. Dog Days of Summer
3. Late Fall
4. The Rainy Season
5. the Ice Road

Atmosphere Set Four: the Heavens
1. Solar Eclipse
2. Comet
3. Planetary Alignment
4. Winter Solstice
5. Meteor Shower

You can interpret the atmosphere sets above on your own. If you are unsure what they are or what they mean or look like, than do research!

Your Assignment:
1. Choose your brief. Each atmosphere set has five conditions. Consider at least two of them and how they would affect your environments. You don't have to use one of the atmospheres listed for every rough (just at least 2 of them).
2. Do more research if you need to (you should!).
3. Draw at least 2 roughs for 3 locations. That's 6 total! Make sure they are the same dimensions as your thumbnails. That's important. They do not have to all be based on the same thumbnail, but they can be if you want to, and I'd suggest considering it. Focus on values.
4. Scan them in, post them up.

Remember, your roughs should look like their thumbnails! Thumbnails are for sketching different ideas. Roughs are for refining those ideas. Don't change your ideas in the middle of the roughs. That's a bad idea. Stick with it.

Post this by Fri. October 3:
1. Tell us which atmosphere set you chose. Tell us why, if you feel like it.
2. Post the thumbnails that you drew your roughs from. (small format, please)
3. Post all 6 of your roughs. (don't get carried away with file size, keep them so they are easily viewable without mass scrolling please).
4. Talk about them.

If you want some work in progress critique you can post WIPs IN A SMALL FILE SIZE and I'll definatly take a look and give you some feedback!

Advanced Challenge: Choose a location and make a rough that shows each of the five atmospheric conditions in your set.

[Quixotic]

Hey guys, I'm really sorry to say this but I don't think I can continue with this It just seems like my schedule is packed, and I can get some time here and there but I just need some time to get my bearings here at college. And since I'm an engineering major, I don't have any art classes that this can qualify as homework. I will check in and see how this goes, but I wont be able to personally continue with this project. I do, however, feel a little like I've got something to prove, I want to do more than just doodle, so once things are a little more set, I can and will make time for my art.


Thanks for your patience!

[LostFayth]

Here is something quick with colours. I had fun with the grey scale version. I added colour on a new layer and a layermode (for instance: overlay). I used solid colours and gradients (only in the Early Morning Atmosphere). I'm rather unsure about the colours and which set I should choose. The Time of Day set looks like the most fun set and it'll challenge me in the use of colours but I think the Seasons set could challenge me too. It's hard to decide which one I should use and how I should use them.

And could you give me some direction what to do with the large green area between the mountain and city in this particular drawing. I have absolutely no idea what I could put there. There is quite a lot of space between the viewer (us) and the city.

Please help me out!

[Wrenatus]

Ah, Quixotic, I'm sorry to hear that, but I understand how it goes. Thank you for joining us, and sharing some of your work. Feel free to drop by the thread and leave a comment or three every once in a while. Best of wishes with your classes!

Turtle: Nice work with the colors, I think you got them down pretty good with the time of days. I think your night clouds should be a little greyer, and perhaps the rock blacker. If that city is glowing with light, then the land near it would be lighter too, while the further you got away the darker and greyer it would get. You just about nailed the morning time - sunrise. Try doing a sunset and comparing the differences. There are a few important differences between the two, even if the sun looks to be in the same place on the horizon. Just a thought. Keep it up!!

[Asatira]

Lostlimeturtle: Good job with the color roughs.

Sorry, I've been a little slow this week. I finally chose my atmosphere set and will get right to it. Expect some early roughs by the end of the weekend.

[Quixotic]

Hey, I would try to make the "night" one a little darker and not quite as saturated. Human eyes have a much harder time seeing colors in the dark so (I might be wrong) but desaturating that one might help

[Nocebo]

Looking good everyone.

Velocipro: love the coastline thumbs you made, the last 3. Thats a place i like to be.

everyone keep up the work hope to see more soon and looking forward to the final stuff. The part i always got most truble with.

[Velocipro]

Tada?

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Heres one of my finished ones, shaperned up a bit so you can see the details lost by resizing.



Im having difficulty judging the shadows. Besides the angle of the mountains shadow, I can't figure out what's wrong with it. From a value standpoint to just overall appeal. I think it might be something wrong with the scaling
(the gap between the forest hill and the rocky one; Almost the same problem as Limeturtle's)
I could just wrap the forest all the way into the forground, as if we where looking over the trees. Could that work?

Any comments/critics would be appreciated.

(incase it matters, this is Atmosphere Set #1: Storm on the Horizon

[LostFayth]

Wrenatus, Asatira, Quixotic Thanks for the critique! I will keep them in mind but I'll apply them later on.

Velocipro Great rough! I experience a great amount of light coming from the horizon. As for the forest: You could try to add some trees to the right. That way the image will framed. But don't add too much trees. The big rock and a bit of the ocean must be visible. And it'll give the viewer the suggestion that he or she is looking to it from the forest.

[LostFayth]

Wow, this was a real pain in the ash... (yeah I said ash ). At first I didn't knew how to start and how to work at the assignment at all. I tried some different thing and I'm rather happy with them. Actually, the last one I made is my absolute favourite.

So:
Assignment 3: The Results

I chose Atmosphere Set Two: Time of Day

Once again I visualised the ones I like the most. During the assignment I decided not to concentrate on colours but on values. There is one of them I chose not to finish because I didn't liked where it was leading to although it has a mysterious feel to it which is good according to my first brief. I also did some research on the colours of my most favourite time of the day and those are the one I'll use in the finals.







#1 Is my favourite rough. I'd love to hear what you guys think about the six roughs I made and feel free to give me critiques and comments.

[Velocipro]

@Lime:

I really like how water is playing a major role in some of your sketches.

#2: In this one, I think the water might be too calm wave for a wave splash of that size. Infact the background suggests that a wave couldn't even get in without being disorted and thrown out of momentum before hitting the shore. The narrow open prevents any medium to large waves from getting in intact.
If you'd like to keep the wave, might I suggest removing the top-right rock from this piece aswell as widening the shore at the bottom left so it extends out of sight. This would give the illusion that the shore is larger, so shore surf could get in unharmed.

#6: One little thing keeps bugging me about this one, and thats how dramaticly the hill/shore bends. Maybe im just not comprehending this one well, but the roundness of it suggests a bent horizon, as if the Earth is smaller than it should be.
Also when shading rock faces and cliffs, try not to shade the sections too independently. Each one is still apart of the overall rock formations, so the shading would blend with one another. Some of the rocks in the lower region may/should not recieve the same lighting as though on the edge or in the front. The overall rock formation is blocking their sunlight, so they should be completly shaded. This is assuming the Sun is coming from the background.
If the sun is facing the forground, then its fine though, the shading should be toned down a bit.


---
Sorry if I sound a bit harsh or overly critical. In my original review, I had visual examples, but I almost caught a virus searching for cliff faces and had to shut-down the internet browser in the middle of the post. . . So I'm kinda ticked at that. No hard feeling intended.

[LostFayth]

Velocipro: Thanks for the great comments. It didn't sound harsh. It is the kind of critique I like. Hard and direct.

You are absolutely right about the power of the wave. I was so drawn into my drawing that I forgot to think properly and apply the physics of water and the force of water into the painting. I will take away the rock next to the one in the front and I will also remove the rock in the right middle area to give the waves the chance to gain some force and speed. I'll also change the composition a little. The shore will be extended on the left.

As for #6: I'm not fond of the painting at all. It was the first one I did and in my opinion the one that looks the worst. At first I was afraid to use solid blacks because I thought it might ruin the painting. At the last one I did (number 1 in the list) I decided to give it a try and it worked! I must also admit that I'm not sensing a great deal of depth if I look at #6. It would probably look a lot better if I redid the painting after your comments but I don't think it'll satisfy me.

----
I can't wait to see the rest of your rough paintings. I owe you some good comments.

[Asatira]

Finally got this done. Yeah, I am weak at digital painting and coloring. Not much to say. I focused on coloring. Had not realized how dark and orange water could look like until I did a little searching. Went with the more fiery sunset colors for the dusk picture. Twilight I kept overly simple and cool; very basic colors. I am changing the angle of the second picture if I use the for the final environments; the wall is so off.

[Velocipro]

Weeeee, I think I'm done.


My results
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Atmosphere Set One: Weather




______
In order they are:
Row 1
Storm on the Horizon, Spring Rains

Row 2
Partly Cloudy, Storm on the Horizon

Row 3
Drought, Spring Rains (Wow, that's an akward combination. Rain and Drought. XD)

EDIT:Thumbs

#2 #1 #3

[LostFayth]

Asatira: Good job! I can clearly read your drawing in this stage.
The early morning drawing is just great. I love the subtle change in colours and it really bring the painting to life.
I must say the third noon drawing works for me. The solid and happy colours makes it a scene to look at. The sunset painting next to it looks mysterious. The warm colours of the sunset and the classroom(?) makes the mountains and grass look cold. They give the perfect balance to the painting.
If I had to choose my favourites it would be the dawn and dusk paintings.

Velocipro: Your paintings look great. I like how you sharpened your images. It really gives a whole new feeling to it.
Every drawing to the right of each row are in my opinion the ones that appeal to me. I think it's because you took the time to show a light source (the sun).
I know I said to give to some good comments, but I just can't think of anything not right with your paintings. You did a great job and surprised me in a good way.

[Wrenatus]

Turtle: These are great, and you've worked up some values nicely. Number 1 especially. The rest of them are lacking in any dark values, which you should work up a bit more. Even on a bright day - especially on a bright day - you still have dark shadows, and a well balanced image will have the full range of values from white to black. So yea, work those darks up some more!

On another note, #3 isn't as interesting as the others, and your thumbnail-less beach scene is wonderfully peaceful. I mostly like # 1, 4 and 6, especially 4 with it's nice bit of movement. Nice roughs, start thinking about those details now! Good job.

Asatira: oo, pretty. I like your colors, and I'm glad you used them. O your first images, I'm a little confused on the scale, so you might want to consider adding figures or something else to help with that. Your twilight colors makes me think more of a moon-lit night. Twilight would have a few more colors in it rather than just blues, I think. Try maybe a few soft oranges or yellows for light, with some green tones.

Your dawn and dusk images are very well done. Nice! Don't forget to push up or dark values, you will still have shadows and dark tones, even if they have soft edges at dawn, or harder edges at dusk. Well done.