04-16-2017, 09:43 AM
@Klexvier. Again some stellar work here. Probably the best example of a project design development I've seen so far.
To try and answer your questions:
1. I think I understand what you mean. Composition is hugely about choice in camera placement when it comes to enviros. You can try to make more creative use of camera placement, POV and perspective to get more dynamic angles. You can be close to a wall which can create a nice dynamic shape or framing element for your comp, or perhaps there is an awning, or signage or vegetation close to camera at an angle that creates the leading element for you. Maybe you can use a slight dutch angle to the camera. The possibilities are endless since you get to choose where your camera goes.
2. I see that side-framing trend in your work. Nothing wrong with that kind of framing, but you don't want to rely on that all the time. It is stable or "balanced" but not very dynamic, so it should be used to evoke those feelings consciously rather than just a lazy way to balance a comp.
Out of all of your thumbs, the middle right thumbnail is the best use of this where it works well. In pretty much all the others, you don't really need a large foreground element on the opposite side to the focal point at all.
If you do want to use it, then also remember to try varying the scale and the depth of the elements on the sides so they aren't always symmetric in the comp and always in the foreground.
I suspect this "unbalanced" feeling you are getting might be a personal preference of yours towards symmetry as being the only way to balance something. Force yourself out of that comfort zone for a bit and see what happens.
Only a few of these require large elements on the side to "balance them"....yet they work.
http://conceptartworld.com/news/the-last...ncept-art/
Here's one with a reason. Gives the place a sense of stability and presence and scale with that framing.![[Image: mwghbq31n190nelbvyny.jpg]](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_original/mwghbq31n190nelbvyny.jpg)
This is what I realised after I started doing those notan exercises. You can use them to practice expanding on other ways to resolve a composition besides the ones you tend to be drawn to as comfort zone.
You can and should also go to analysis of reference. Find some similar scenes where the comps aren't framed like that, and see how they resolved the image.
4.
It comes down to workflow preference for you really.
Doing a simple shaped 2 value notan is a quick composition device, to allow you to test major positive and negative shapes. This can definitely also be done by predominantly thinking about light up front, but it won't be nuanced. It will essentially be what is directly lit vs what isn't. Or you can think about shapes only, but most likely there will be some aspect of lighting built into that just naturally if it is a representational scene.
One way to get more nuance into a 2 value notan is to simply use textured brushes that take away less from the dark layers to show up only parts of the white to give you more nuanced "mid value" lit areas. You can then simply paint in the clipped dark layers where needed for more detail in them and vice versa paint the lit areas underneath separately.
Here's an example I reverse engineered up with a JJ painting. Original and 2 value notan on the top.
Below is my simulated notan workflow. This below is a more natural progression from a 2 value notan to a final rendering.
The 4+ value layered approach I showed in my demo is actually a separate workflow entirely. In my demo I started immediately with separate layers. I didn't use two value notans to work directly from.
This shows how you can get a lot of definition of form into a two value drawing if you simply take it further. The orange shows the layer underneath. The bottom right image is where I started to paint simply in the black and the orange clipped layers respectively, to generate the nuance. There will probably be some overpainting involved to bridge specific areas and to handle edges properly but the great thing about this approach is the rendering involves almost no brains. You don't have to worry about design and shape and all sorts of additional things since the bulk of it is already done, you just have to juice up the materials and light.
I know he didn't paint this in this way, but thought it might be helpful to show how you might be able to adapt a simple notan workflow to yourself. Honestly I don't really see too many people using this consistently in their work...except perhaps Richard Anderson (flaptrap). I think it could be a huge efficiency booster yet still have a painterly feel, since you can take almost any image and make it into a two value pattern. Of course your fundamentals and visualisation need to be solid before you will be able to execute something detailed well in a 2 value notan because you aren't explicitly doing a lot of construction work, it happens in your head.
To try and answer your questions:
1. I think I understand what you mean. Composition is hugely about choice in camera placement when it comes to enviros. You can try to make more creative use of camera placement, POV and perspective to get more dynamic angles. You can be close to a wall which can create a nice dynamic shape or framing element for your comp, or perhaps there is an awning, or signage or vegetation close to camera at an angle that creates the leading element for you. Maybe you can use a slight dutch angle to the camera. The possibilities are endless since you get to choose where your camera goes.
2. I see that side-framing trend in your work. Nothing wrong with that kind of framing, but you don't want to rely on that all the time. It is stable or "balanced" but not very dynamic, so it should be used to evoke those feelings consciously rather than just a lazy way to balance a comp.
Out of all of your thumbs, the middle right thumbnail is the best use of this where it works well. In pretty much all the others, you don't really need a large foreground element on the opposite side to the focal point at all.
If you do want to use it, then also remember to try varying the scale and the depth of the elements on the sides so they aren't always symmetric in the comp and always in the foreground.
I suspect this "unbalanced" feeling you are getting might be a personal preference of yours towards symmetry as being the only way to balance something. Force yourself out of that comfort zone for a bit and see what happens.
Only a few of these require large elements on the side to "balance them"....yet they work.
http://conceptartworld.com/news/the-last...ncept-art/
Here's one with a reason. Gives the place a sense of stability and presence and scale with that framing.
This is what I realised after I started doing those notan exercises. You can use them to practice expanding on other ways to resolve a composition besides the ones you tend to be drawn to as comfort zone.
You can and should also go to analysis of reference. Find some similar scenes where the comps aren't framed like that, and see how they resolved the image.
4.
It comes down to workflow preference for you really.
Doing a simple shaped 2 value notan is a quick composition device, to allow you to test major positive and negative shapes. This can definitely also be done by predominantly thinking about light up front, but it won't be nuanced. It will essentially be what is directly lit vs what isn't. Or you can think about shapes only, but most likely there will be some aspect of lighting built into that just naturally if it is a representational scene.
One way to get more nuance into a 2 value notan is to simply use textured brushes that take away less from the dark layers to show up only parts of the white to give you more nuanced "mid value" lit areas. You can then simply paint in the clipped dark layers where needed for more detail in them and vice versa paint the lit areas underneath separately.
Here's an example I reverse engineered up with a JJ painting. Original and 2 value notan on the top.
Below is my simulated notan workflow. This below is a more natural progression from a 2 value notan to a final rendering.
The 4+ value layered approach I showed in my demo is actually a separate workflow entirely. In my demo I started immediately with separate layers. I didn't use two value notans to work directly from.
This shows how you can get a lot of definition of form into a two value drawing if you simply take it further. The orange shows the layer underneath. The bottom right image is where I started to paint simply in the black and the orange clipped layers respectively, to generate the nuance. There will probably be some overpainting involved to bridge specific areas and to handle edges properly but the great thing about this approach is the rendering involves almost no brains. You don't have to worry about design and shape and all sorts of additional things since the bulk of it is already done, you just have to juice up the materials and light.
I know he didn't paint this in this way, but thought it might be helpful to show how you might be able to adapt a simple notan workflow to yourself. Honestly I don't really see too many people using this consistently in their work...except perhaps Richard Anderson (flaptrap). I think it could be a huge efficiency booster yet still have a painterly feel, since you can take almost any image and make it into a two value pattern. Of course your fundamentals and visualisation need to be solid before you will be able to execute something detailed well in a 2 value notan because you aren't explicitly doing a lot of construction work, it happens in your head.