René Aigner's Sketchbook

[ReneAigner]

Thanks a lot, Purple!
Thanks Piotr! I use MOI/MODO/Keyshot.

An over"painting" I did over on c-a.org;



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Neues ca "OP" (eher Over-Technik/Workflow)

(Original Artwork by Webster from conceptart-org)

Looking at this line-drawing, there are three things to consider:

1) you're doing this to learn how to draw in perspective. In that case, go full steam ahead, it's a pivotal skill to have.
2) you're doing this (an the subsequent painting/lighting) to learn how to make up light & colour. In that case, continue, maybe. Maybe, because tehre are more efficient ways to learn how light and colour work besides trying to make them up: paint from life & paint from reference.
3) you're doing this to learn a workflow (drawing - painting) to use professionally one day. In that case, stop and reconsider. Here's why.

Both the line-drawing and the OPs suffer from what I would call a lack of fidelity when it comes to light. This stems from the simple fact that the light (and the materials) are made up. It is absolutely possible to create artwork with accurate light, materials, perspective and so on from scratch, but it takes a long time and a lot of experience painting from life. In a professional environment, you either have tons and tons of experience doing it that way, or you won't be able to compete because you simply take too long and make too many mistakes along the way.

Your scene is composed exclusively of what are basically boxes. That is why this is such a prime example for what I want to talk about. This kind of scene, with no organic forms, is perfect to mock up in 3D, render and then overpaint.



This is what the model looks like- I didn't go for 100% accuracy, but I think it's close enough. This took about 30 minutes to model, excluding the furniture, for which i used old models of mine.

I then proceeded to light the scene in MODO (you could do the modeling in MODO as well, I use MOI because I like it better for modeling).

This is what the output looks like:



As you can see, that solves perspective, repeating patterns, basic light & shade for us, but it's not sexy at all really. the rendering is grainy (I was impatient) and it looks very sterile. So far, we're about an hour in, an hour and a half at the max.
Perhaps you're quicker constructing the scene in lines by hand (or will be one day) but consider this:

a) the model is ready made and can be viewed and rerendered from a any point of view. Your AD wants you to change the POV or focal lenght in a sketch, you've got to redo it from scratch.
b) everything is modular without constraints for moving stuff, including the lights, around.

Those two are so important in real life production work. I can't stress it enough.

Now, with a bit (really not that much!) overpainting, colour-grading & a bit of photobashing, this is what we get:



Naturally, in order to do that last step, you need to understand how light & colour work. You also need to have a basic understanding of perspective (which you already have). As I've said, the best way to learn how light & colour work is to paint from life. But if you have that knowledge, you can turn a bad rendering into a nice concept painting in no time at all. Particularily if the underlying concept doesn't require advanced modeling techniques.

So my advice is: work from life, learn perspective, and learn 3D. Especially for this subject matter, you can't beat that workflow.

Hope this helps.