Apocalyptic vehicle. Final Render&Enrichment
After the idea and the concept are established, I headed to start rendering. Also, I wanted to have a consistent colour palette, so I have been searching for different artworks until I found the one I enjoy. Here you can observe the colour scheme that I determined from the poster of Low, the digital novel. I wanted to have a complementary colour scheme, so the yellow colour is the main focal point. However, I decide to substitute the blue colours with military/boggy green.
I started throwing different car pictures into the canvas and was trying to fit them into my shape. I overpainted all the seams between different pictures I used, so it looks smoother.
In the picture below you can see a few crucial changes within lighting information, values and sense of three-dimensional space. I have utilized a lot of layers with multiply modes turned on. When I was doing shadows, I was relying on cast shadows and ambient occlusion. I wanted to create a very dirty, shabby look on the car's surface.
I added vines on the front window, gas masks hanging from the car body. Along with that, I have changed tires as they did not fit the car. I painted on top of the plants added some poison seeds to the plants' petals. To create more a cold and wet look, I added bluish colour to the shadows.
One of the useful things you can do is adding textures to the objects. Just use multiply or overlay modes and erase in some places after. It gives the objects a more realistic and interesting look.
Meanwhile, I have already started photobashing the back view. I started with the aluminium slates attached to the car body. I cut the shape out and placed it. I added some pipes on the back to make the coherence between the front and back of the car.
To make different one side of another I wanted to append something extraordinary and eye-catching, therefore I appended a small greenhouse. Firstly it was made of wood but I thought it has to be made of something much more durable.
Then I enhanced shadows and gave some realistic textures to surfaces. For example, I drew leaks from the plant's poison to the car body.
I added even more dirt and leaks, adjusted the common values, made shadows a bit darker, replaced tires with the one I picked out recently, added bullet holes into the metal slate.
Apocalyptic vehicle assembly:
Lastly, what I needed was background and colour loot. I found one picture of broken asphalt and easily used it here. In addition, I dragged a picture with broken asphalt and developed them into the background. I did not want to create a distraction for the car, so I was mostly drawing on top without distinct details. I added some vegetation and cracks on the ground. I also darkened the corners of the whole image to make a nice vignette effect.
Furthermore, I experimented with different colour schemes for the whole atmosphere in the picture. I stopped on a cold purple&blue colour scheme. Though I like warm green lighting (4 pic) I decided to go for more cold temperature.
Here is the final piece
Overall, I liked photobashing and it is a very outstanding way to create a concept design for a short time. It took me an approximately full week to complete this piece after I established the idea. Now as I know how to use this technique I can ease the drawing process when it needs efficiency and quality.
Apocalyptic vehicle. Project proceeding
There have been quite a few changes in the idea. I was looking for different variants and came to the plants vs zombies idea. I did more iteration as well. After that I marked the ones I liked most and I asked for feedback few people and they approximately had the same opinion on it.
There have been quite a few changes in the idea. I was looking for different variants and came to the poison plants vs zombies idea. I did more iteration and marked the one I liked the most as well.
I have found these references while doing the iteration:
For fitting this idea, I had to get a clear impression of the vehicle, that has a poisonous weapon like these poison plants. This car is not very protective due to the open cage and you can easily destroy the plants. On the other side, the car is supposed to be very fast and because of that, it will compensate for the disadvantages.
Week 4-5 - Apocalyptic vehicle. Project start
This is a very interesting and broad theme for art. You can think about the back storytelling or perhaps where this car exists. I started with the first step - finding references. At first, I had no idea what exactly car type it would be but then I found some eye-catching shapes.
I was thinking about the storytelling as well. The idea itself is the apocalyptic world with an air-spreading disease that infects people and animals. In the very last stages of the disease, people become like zombies and lose their minds at all. They attack other people and can't recognize who they are. In this world setting, the situation has become that worse that people can't even breathe outside without oxygen masks because they easily lose their consciousness and gradually face death. Even though, people have to take antidote every year to decrease the chance of being infected. Therefore, people's main value is this antidote, which is very hard to get. My characters are going to scavenge some supplies and are willing to find some antidotes for themselves, but they face a lot of issues in this trip like infected zombies
I have googled this picture and found out about the ZU-23 anti-aircraft gun which is going to be a perfect example of the weapon for the car.
I also found out about the minigun and decided to use it as a car's weaponry as well.
I like this idea most and I already started photobashing some real-life objects into that car. I found some interesting military cars that have very powerful and heavy machineguns, so I wanted to implement this into my car.
Here are a few references I used as the main concept.
After a few digital art sessions and a time with experimentations, I have dome some different sketches for the vehicle. I was also considering drawing a sci-fi car that has the same base but with a modern design. I got rid of that idea as long as I decided that it is a boring idea in terms of that I didn't add anything new besides the style.
I also was suggested to draw iteration for this project. I regret that I did not decide to do it first as It very helps to explore different concepts and find the most fascinating one.
Somewhere in the middle of the process, I came up with the idea of poison plants and usage of them as a weapon. It is the same air-spreading disease storytelling. This car is supposed to be a good vehicle for transporting poison plants. The plants should be in a security and at the same time easy to be utilized. The car has a greenhouse or sort of cages for the plants, so they can grow but can't hurt the passengers in the car. It has to be protective and has shields or perhaps metal panels that will secure the vehicle while riding.
To sum up, I still need to think about the plot and look at the realistic part of the project, I have to develop the idea more.
After considering the idea, which is plants vs zombies in the real world, I did the base model in 3ds max as it will be more comfortable to have an established perspective.
Although, After placing it to Substance Painter I realized that I don't like the scale of some parts of the car. I wanted to have the body longer and bigger overall along with the driver cabin a bit smaller. I did the changes simply with the transform tool and then placed my perspective grids where I want. Firstly I did a mistake placing my vanishing points too close to the car. Turns out, it is a much better angle and pleasant view if your set your vanishing points out of the canvas and higher than the object.
Week 3- Embelleshment and polish
Today I needed to finish the character. I hac to pay attention to the small details and the quality of my work. Here is the final result and next I' m going to show what I adjusted.
I made a few adjustments to the lighting. I added bounce light(reflected light) with light blue colour. It made a significant change in the picture. The character became more vibrant and alive. I had it on separate layers on almost every object I have there. For each layer, I changed layer mode to screen and played with opacity between 30-50 %.
I did scratches on the legs and added a little texture brush on top with a little opacity. These scars I made by simply adding a new layer drawing with dark colour lines and adding bevel&emboss + drop shadow in layer settings.
Using liquify tool I made shorter the hands as they seemed a bit too long. Also, I made the katana even longer and thinner on its end.
I have erased everything unnecessary from the background or any floating marks I made by mistake. In the end, I just added some gradient grayscale to the background and drop shadows on the floor.
Week 2- More sketching and final decision
I did not really like my previous attempts so I am doing another sketch. I also tried some new features for me like puppet warp and warp tools, which helped me to create a nice base for my character. I also decided to use a girl's character reference, as I've got an idea of a girl samurai/fighter/ I found some more new references of insects and tried their match to the shape. After, I picked a colour scheme for the look. I choose desaturated and dark colours but tried to have a nice contrast between parts of the clothes. For example, a red/orange top with a green skirt, dark braids.
The thing I realized, was that each of my previous sketches looked a bit weird because I didn't have any lighting information. I only tried to implement some shadows but it still looked flat. I also was suggested to pick references with good lighting as well.
1. Sketch with colour pallete 2. Beginning of photobashing. + changed position of the right arm
I used a lot of fill content-aware along with puppet warp tools. It helped me easily fix some gaps, that for example, appeared by the transformation and shape change.
There you can see how I assembled the character using different parts of insects. I was mostly searching for interesting characters with good lighting information and patterns. Also, I've been adjusting the colour balance and hue/saturation for cut-out parts. I used Match colour tool a lot when I needed to match two layers with different colour schemes quickly.
I had a bit of an artist's block when I first started doing this assignment. It was hard to think out of a box but after seeing that I do not like my previous 3 sketches that I've been trying to like, I decided to loosen myself in sense of being more free and creative while drawing it. I understood that I have a lot of tools that can help me to be creative very quickly. After that motivation speech in my mind, I set a proper mood and there is where the fun started.
To sum up, To be creative you have to cut off your imaginary rules ( except perspective and anatomy ones) that disturb you from a creative process. And if next time I have an artist's block I'm going to start doodling and just having fun with what comes to my mind.
Week 2 - Take this insect and do whatever you can
This time I tried to put my sketches and photo( refs) together. I cut off the background in photos of insects and wanted to put different cut-out parts to my sketch.
In fact, I was doing so many changes when I was creating this first thumbnail . I had so many references and I could not decide which one to use. That is why you can see that this thumbnail looks too busy and messy outfit like you took every clothing from different picture.
Here you can see what exactly inspired me to create the character.
Next what I have done when playing around with the photobashing was trying to cover the sketches with photos of insects and see if their patterns look good and if not I changed the shapes with Liquify tool and warp mode. Roughly speaking I added just the patterns onto already existed shapes that I drew. Although, it was not useful since I only made unnecessary boundaries that did not help me to enhance the ideas. I decided to do the second thumbnail differently. I started with the same basic silhouette and nothing else. Also, I used my references to create shapes for the character and get any inspiration from it.
I started with the moth's wings and made them look like a poncho or sort of cardigan, I changed the colour and adjusted levels by creating new adjusting layers. I did a hat from one of the bugs I had and by this, I got an impression of a musician or a bard
I made these pants by cutting off a piece from a photo of a larch
I did some changes with values and colours. Also, the pants look better when they have simillar colour gamma with other parts of outfit, so I made them darker and warmer.
In addition, I added shoes.
Here you can see where are clothes came from . To be honest, I like this character more because it has a more attractive style and more colourful colour pallete.
First things first I needed to find some good references. I wasn't intended to stick to only one insect, so I went deep and found a lot of interesting creatures. So here is what I have found so far. Also, I found many interesting insects that are alike something I have already seen. For example, the insect on the right side, which suddenly looks like R2D2 from Star Wars or another example the one (in the second picture) that looks like a guitar.
I drew the first sketch and it has changed a lot since many ideas have come to my mind while drawing. For instance, these fluffy shoes and the hat with insect horns. By the way, the fluffy shoes appeared when I found that photo of the fluffy moth.
At first, I was changing it a lot because I was struggling to create an idea and had no idea what it has to look like. After a few attempt to develop a silhouette, I came up with added spikes on the character's back that has a hint of dinosaurs with those spikes. I got that idea from the rhinoceros silhouette. Also, I decided to give him wings as cicada has. I like the colour pallet of cicada as well.