Environment Design Rocks!

[morie]

reserving a place for week 2 assignment, but i also wanted to post these notans C:
i love drawing them!! i'm so glad you showed us this technique, it's quick, and allows me to do free-hand sketches of images from my mind in few seconds.



and there goes my assignment

[wasgodx]

After doing notans (although I mixed grey white and black so I don't think it's fair xD) and such I came up with the Collector's ship idea and this is the first one I've finished. I think I might have put too much detail. And the character ...

oh well.. Stick Man... But I'm actually proud of how did I study y'all works to get this one more or less right, so thank you everyone (and ofc Amit).



By the way @Morie, I love the third one! This might be a dumb question but is it 3-point-perspective? Because I liked it a lot and did a similar notan trying to study yours! :D

And @Adam Lina I love your clouds. I haven't quite gotten how did you do them but the feeling they give is pretty amazing. I really like the second one with those big clouds.

[Amit Dutta]

Hey guys just posting in here to cover bases. I will be doing the group stream today at 11am NZST (an hour and a half from this post). I have no agenda, probably will be doing quick crits for Bart and Lurch, then summing up the main points to reiterate from what I saw in the assignments, then let's open it up for Q&A, you can ask me about any issues you might be having doing assignment 2, or anything else.

[morie]

@wasgodx yep, i tried to sketch stuff in different kinds of perspective, turns out i used it in the 3rd sketch and few others i think. tbh, it's kinda my favorite type c:

[lurch]

Hey thanks for taking the time to do my crit Amit, really appreciate it. Got a lot out of that and it tied in well with the week 2 stuff about focal points as well.

Been busy working on the thumbnails, veeery slow progress! Still got a tonne of work before I can visualise eye levels and vanishing points properly.

Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with.

[TwilightExplode]

Just finished week 02 today. I probably did about 8 compositions and ended up scrapping 3 of them. I was having a hard time coming up with anything I liked.

[Bart]

Hi guys, I am sick,but I am trying to do assignment 02! I have problem, I did 5 sketches but I am thinking like I can't draw at all , they are so bad so crappy. I need some help! Maybe some subject will help. Because I am doing this perspectives and it looks like boxes in perspective and picture is without life or story... Could someone give me story or subject? Please? P.s my last assignment wasn't checked. but no worries. It was start. Can I ask for critique in this assignment 02 instead of 01 ? ;P

[Bookend]

Hi guys, I am sick,but I am trying to do assignment 02! I have problem, I did 5 sketches but I am thinking like I can't draw at all , they are so bad so crappy. I need some help! Maybe some subject will help. Because I am doing this perspectives and it looks like boxes in perspective and picture is without life or story... Could someone give me story or subject? Please? P.s my last assignment wasn't checked. but no worries. It was start. Can I ask for critique in this assignment 02 instead of 01 ? ;P

I think we get crits for every assignment.  I could be wrong, though.

And don't worry--  I posted my assignment 02 already on page 5.  It's very crude and child-like.  So you're not the only one.

I'm looking forward to getting torn apart so I can get better.

Hope you feel better soon, man-- Drink lots of water!

[Amit Dutta]

@Bart, sorry to hear you're sick! I did your crit live on my stream. Check it out here, it's the first thing I do: https://sywork.tv/channel/name/monkeyscratchingses

Like Book said, carry on with what you can do, doesn't matter how it looks. Write down a few themes or ideas and try and pick from those. Pirate island fortress, abandoned moonbase, alien jungle watering hole. whatever you like. It's not so important about narrative at this stage, only focus on good comps and depth and perspective.

Since you aren't one of the "registered" I might not be able to give you crits every week unfortunately due to the amount of time it takes. Read the first post in this thread for all the info there. :)

[Adam Lina]

Heres week 2. I got lots of very good advice from a few people in the hangout and was able to push them further than I expected. So glad I started working in there. I know I said I was going to do everything trad but I think digital will allow me to get more out of the assignments. Traditional painting is still part of my routine though. Im learning so much from this already and cant thank you enough for your time, Amit!

[ZombieChinchilla]

Just got three so far, but I'm feeling better about them as I do them. Might even redo the first one if I can before the deadline.

[wasgodx]

Got 3 so far as well! Everyone's works look so good! O_O Adam what you did there with the birds was really impressive!
I'm really bad at getting the nice little character silhouette done. Damn!

[lurch]

Like the scale on that last one wasgodx.

Here's what I've got for week 2, not too happy with 3 and 5 but I just kinda hit a point where lack of skill just got in the way!

[wasgodx]

@lurch Thanks! I wanted to do like a monolith of some sort on a 3rd point perspective. And ended up having some Naruto-esque thing on it, haha :P

I like 3 and 5, why do you say that? The third reminds me of some shot of Space Odyssey, I really like the depth of it.

And the fifth is really calm? Or those are just the vibes I get.. It's.. peaceful. Is it a city above the clouds? Reminds me of a modern Columbia on Bioshock Infinite. I really like it :)

[lurch]

Thanks wasgodx, I think it's just that they're not quite what I was shooting for - wanted 3 to have a line of refugees escaping a burning city, to give it scale, or a couple of ships flying over to give it some better depth, but I just couldn't pull it off!

Same problem with 5, was looking for a much better sense of scale, like some massive tower rising up through the clouds with a big city sprawling below it, but the scale got lost somewhere along the way.

They're definitely an improvement though, learnt loads doing them, it's given me some good direction for more studies as well so it's all good really.

[wasgodx]

Thanks wasgodx, I think it's just that they're not quite what I was shooting for - wanted 3 to have a line of refugees escaping a burning city, to give it scale, or a couple of ships flying over to give it some better depth, but I just couldn't pull it off!

Same problem with 5, was looking for a much better sense of scale, like some massive tower rising up through the clouds with a big city sprawling below it, but the scale got lost somewhere along the way.

They're definitely an improvement though, learnt loads doing them, it's given me some good direction for more studies as well so it's all good really.

Yeah, that happens to me as well. I'm to bad escaling characters, but thank whoever did the Scale tool for that.

Have you tried to get any reference for the ships?

And i I may ask, I'd like to study and copy those value sketches you've made? Because besides 3 and 5 (which again, they produce a really warm and calm feeling) the 4 and the 1st are mindblowing and I don't think I have the grasp yet on for example how to do a structure like yours ò_ó

So tomorrow I'll probably try to do it. The light points on the bridge gave me a nice sensation of an alive city, building itself, etc.

The best we can do I think is find new reference-inspiration and do more. I really like these exercises :3

[monkeybit29]

Definitely the Notan's help move things forward when it comes to design. I still struggle with trying to make shapes of them. I even catch myself squinting at them a lot to find a shape/design to go off of lol.

More than anything I would say that I kept forgetting to keep in mind all of the concepts you went over in the video. I find myself getting too focused on one thing and forgetting the others. I also feel like I struggled with making clean shapes and finding a clean workflow using photoshop's layers. I tend to be pretty messy and make extra layers without naming them (habit i'm working on getting rid of)


Overall this was really great and much needed practice, I already feel a bit of improvement in just these two weeks. THANK you so much!

[keeny]

Yep sure thing. Does this work? https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0...sp=sharing

Yep, that worked great. Thanks Amit!

[vossgraphite]

Really enjoyed doing these. Definitely feel like I'm being forced to flex some muscles here. Cheers Amit, you're doing an awesome job :) 

Great to see a range of different ideas from everyone else too!

[wasgodx]

What the hell guys you are all amazing! O_O