What you as a digital artist need to understand is that, although you see all this fancy software on the market these days,
showing you all the fancy pictures artists made using that software,
Good Art Needs Planning! That's why, even in this era
of advanced 3D software, Hollywood artists still start their works using either basic paintbrushes in Photoshop, or using
tradition media, such as paper, pencil, pen, and marker. The 3D program is the last thing they use.
The reason is, you need
to have your piece of art planned out first; including the Lighting, Composition, Scale, Design, and as much Detail as you can
cram into the short planning period; before trying to build it in 3D. You need ALL possible questions answered before
you even start the scene in 3D so you can work fast and with
artistic vision, rather than through memorizing numbers and figures while trying to build a scene from scratch in 3D,
and so you can be assured the final product WILL look professional.
Hollywood artists work in a fast way, using certain steps to keep their creativity flowing, and assuring the final product
always looks good.
Matte Painters typically work in this fashion:
They pull up Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, and using their
Wacom Tablet,
they take big, general brushes and start blocking in
very general shapes, to get the basic form and composition down. Gradually they use smaller and smaller brushes, adding
smaller form, and
eventually detail.
Once they have a really good quick sketch down, which took them anywhere from 30 minutes to 8 hours, they show it to the Art
Director for appoval. Once they get approval, they do this:
They piece together photographs, and/or images of pre-rendered 3D models, and blend them together in Photoshop to match the
sketch, and work on it until they have a finished Matte Painting that is film-ready.
Matte Painters:
Dylan Cole,
Ryan Church,
Chris Stoski,
more »
Concept Artists typically work in this fashion:
They begin by using Thumbnail Sketches of various images until they come up with one they like. Usually using Paper and Pen,
although sometimes using Photoshop and a
Wacom Tablet with a brush set to
look like a pen, they quickly draw one or more small rectangles, then start scribbling in them to get the basic form of
the image they're thinking of. Once they have the basic form in the first thumbnail done, they quickly move to the next
thumbnail and start scribbling in a different picture.
After doing a few of these Thumbnails, they pick one they like, draw an even larger square, and start re-drawing the
image, using the chosen thumbnail as reference. They start light, blocking in the basic form, then gradually get heavier
and darker as the form in areas gets smaller and more detailed. They work until they have a good enough sketch to build
a digital painting from.
Then, they scan the image into Photoshop, or Paint Shop Pro, if it was drawn on paper, and begin painting over the drawing
using basic brushes first, and gradually working more and more detail into it.
Once they have the completed digital
concept painting, they can submit it for approval, and once approved, they do as the Matte Painters above do: Either
blending photographs together, or building the scene in 3D and compositing that together, to get the final, film-ready
image.
Concept Artists:
Mark Goerner,
Feng Zhu,
Khang Le,
more »
To help you get started with making entire sheets full of your own Thumbnail images you can make digital paintings from,
here is the Excel file I made containing sheets of different types of Thumbnail rectangles to draw in. (You need Microsoft
Excel, or Excel Viewer to open it.)
Thumnails.xls
So, to make
The Best Art You Can, Remember and Apply these points and you'll be On Your Way!
- Start quick, either with general brushes or with tiny thumbnail images. - This forces you to focus on Form, not Detail.
- Work quick. - Don't think too much or you'll lose the Artistic Vision, and everything will start needing "logic" behind it.
Also, you don't want to fall in love with any image to the point you can't come up with anything else. You need to keep your
mind constantly thinking, constantly imagining.
- Work on Form and Composition First! - If these things aren't right, no matter how much Detail you put into the image, it
just won't ever look professional.
- Get all Form, Lighting, Composition, and Detail questions answered in the Sketch or Painting before even opening your
3D Software. - Starting in 3D will leave your final image looking like amateurish 3D graphics.
- Or, get these same questions answered before blending photographs into the final digital painting.
- And finally, if you want Your Art to Look Like that of Professionals, then Work Like the Professionals Work.
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