CGMA Thumb picking

[Amit Dutta]

Hey all, I'm doing the CGMA Environment Design course with James Paick. Week 3. We need to develop one environment with the theme: Space, Scale

These are some development thumbs. Let me know which you prefer and why, or if they all suck, that too.

[AlmightyDtron]

These are awesome man!!!!! I really like the the sense of depth in the first one. I changed some things up... I just moved some of the structures around so they aren't lining up with each other. I also added another structure to the top left to brake up that side and play on the sense of depth a bit more. Hope this helps. I'm not too great with landscapes :/

[Amit Dutta]

Thanks dude. Yep you've definitely improved the comp, opened it up and added more depth. The scale is more apparent as well. Nice. I'm probably going to take both A and B to finished for my folio as I think both might make nice pieces. Will definitely take your changes into account. :)

[Wardy]

A is my favourite for sure, B close second. I find it quite hard to read what is going on with C for some reason.
Really love the shapes you made- im guessing thats a lot of playing around with the lasso tool? Need ot get some more defined shapes in my thumbs I think :D
Great start :)

[Amit Dutta]

Thanks man. Nope no lasso, experimenting with a cool inking style brush. I'm in love.

[YOLOLEX]

i think b is my favourite the others are hard to read but b just flows

[Wardy]

Thanks man. Nope no lasso, experimenting with a cool inking style brush. I'm in love.

no worries, ooh can you link me to the brush? currently using m-e-f brushes from deviantart and they are fantastic, foliage, grunge, texture, paint brush textures, fine inking, pencil, clouds- literally almost too much :D
really like the clean look of it :)

[Amit Dutta]

Thanks for the input Yolo and Ward! Unfortunately I can't send you the brush Ward because it's a procedural inking tool built into Gimp. It's basically an angled hard 100% brush with the ability to tweak size/pressure and speed/pressure. You can also pick between a round, square and diamond "tip" (ie brush shape). You should be able to duplicate it in Photoshop pretty easily. It's great for sketching.

Thought I'd update some progress. Decided to do both A and B. Well A with a twist, and B as it is. I'll probably submit B for the class, but will do up both.

[YOLOLEX]

hey monkey, i think the comp is way too busy on these its confusing where to look, theres too much detail going on i actually prefer the original b tho i cant say why. i think its the balance between the chaos of the spaceship and the simplicity of the planet and that is lost in the updated thumb.

[Amit Dutta]

Yeah I think you're right...I may have gone a bit overboard, with the smaller shapes all over...I'll be sure to tone that down in the render. Phew, nice catch man

[Alchimi]

Hey monkeybread,
nice pieces!
I was thinking about your second thumb (the one who want to submit for the class), you may have a little problem with the antenna thingy down right of the image.
It's touching the frame, and if it's the same structure as the other smaller one near the center of the image, it could maybe be bigger/more near the frame, cause it fells like just touching the frame here.

(Just to be sure I'm making myself understood, I made a image):



But it's only a suggestion, nice comp, if you work your way throught the paint render, you'll have a nice piece here.
Actually that class on CGMA interested me, (I made the digital painting class on CGMA, interesting class). Do you intend to post your work here or on your blog?
Keep on the good work!

[Amit Dutta]

Hey Alchimi thanks for taking the time to point out the tangent. I was kind of indicating the antenna being closer to us, but it probably doesn't work considering the line of the other two. Maybe I'll make it a larger tower or get rid of it. Anyway I'll sort something out. Thanks!
So far the course is pretty good and I'm really enjoying it. It started fairly basic but I feel that each week is upping the challenge and forcing me to do better work and we haven't even come into colour and photo textures yet. If you're following the blog I'll probably be posting everything including my development stuff and wips as well as finals there so if you're interested to see what we do each week for the class it will probably give you a good idea what to expect. :)

[Amit Dutta]

Well submitted the assignment tonight. It's not what I was hoping for and I still would do another hour or so to clean it up a bit tighter and tweak values, but it is what it is.
If you have any crits speak 'em now. I probably have a very short window before I dump this and move on. Thanks for everyone who helped out. I'm also going to do up thumb A in my spare time (ie when I shower)

[YOLOLEX]

its looking great monkey real nice progress, almost pro style :) gonna check ur blog out cos i wanna see what they doin over there