Different Digital Painting Techniques

Original Fedora Thumbnail #1

Fedora Thumbnail Redrawn as Value Study

 Today in Jordan's session we looked at several concept art techniques and value studying. Value studying is using blacks, whites and greys to create depth in a exterior scene/composition, for example blacks are at the bottom to represent the nearer parts of the scene and as it gets further into the distance gets white to show fogginess and creates distance. When painting over with whites and black I use an air brush really big so only the soft edges of the brush actually go on my canvas.
The task was to take a thumbnail we've already drawn and redraw it as a value study, I chose my thumbnail (left) of Fedora to redraw (right).

Abstract thumbnails 

The second task was to create absract thumbnails based on city descriptions e.g. Esmerelda and zig zags. These were the thumbnails I created (not based on any cities in particular). Then I took a couple of my thumbnails into another photoshop document and messed with the blending modes on it and the transform options like skew and perspective to create the scenes below and paint over. This is collage thumbnails.

Collage Thumbnails and 1 Construction thumbnail

The first one is of Phyllis with the white and blue tiles on the floor, the bottom two thumbnails are of Despina, I did half of them and Jordan added some final touches to bring out the depth. Once the thumbnails were done it was then I knew which city it was, each one wasnt designed with a city in mind. The point of the exercise was to see what we could see when looking at abstract shapes to make into a city, the first abstract thumbnail I used as rocks, the second middle as floor tiles, the top left was sky horizons.

The final digital painting technique was called Construction where we replaced the custom shapes in photoshop with city related ones and you mindlessly build up these shapes that start with low opacity towards the back and you build up the transparency more and more so it gets darker. Whites in the distance, blacks up front.

I think these are great techniques but I dont feel like collage and construction works for me however after value studying I feel like my thumbnails have improved, when I go back and do more thumbnails I will bear this (and the other techniques) in mind.