Digital art

Digital Rendering

Introduction to Photoshop

week 1

In our introductory Photoshop lesson our task was to explore different brushes, familiarise ourselves with the the keyboard shortcuts, and organising layers with folders. Although I am no stranger to digital painting, I have always found Photoshop and it's multitude of buttons intimidating. Our initial exercise involved creating gradients from white to black using different brushes and techniques. I really struggled to make my gradients look smooth and satisfying because I was struggling to control the opacity of the brushes. I wasn't used to using the eyedropper tool [i] so consistently because I am more accustomed to the sensitive pens of the Apple Pencil. I spent most of that lesson working on the gradients because I felt that if I couldn't get this fundamental right I wasn't ready to move on to harder exercises. After the 4th attempt of creating a gradient with different brushes and approaches, I decided to move on to rendering a sphere.

1st attempt in class

I struggled to keep the consistency and value transitions satisfactory because it was my very first time using a wacom tablet and pen but it was a nice exercise to practice the keyboard shortcuts and finding my way around Photoshop's interface. I spent a long time trying to get the values to transition effectively for this attempt but you can see in the shadow how I was still struggling to control the pressure sensitivity of the pen. Since I produced a passive highlight with uneven value transitions, the surface looks matte and clay-like (which could be useful for certain textures but wasn't what I was going for).

2nd attempt in Drawing Centre

For this second Photoshop rendering attempt, I used a mouse and the default brush at the drawing center. The default brush has a very feathery texture which makes it easier to blend tones together, especially when I'm not using a pressure sensitive pen. It does, however, make everything look airbrushed which is not a good look for many materials and textures. it only worked for this because it is meant to produce a smooth visual surface such as marble or stone. Another brush should be used to produce sharper edges and tapers to imply a volume change. The highlight I drew, however, would suggest that the light source is coming from an oval shaped studio lamp but it still doesnt seem to work awfully well. I also didn't include a fresnel or much bounce light. This was the quickest render I did out of the three.

3rd attempt back at the studios

Coming back to Photoshop with a Wacom pen, I used a reference picture online to try and recreate a real life sphere with visual examples of active and passive highlights, bounce lights, Fresnel, and ambient occlusions etc to analyse these effects for myself (reference picture below). It was a really quick process because I was a lot more comfortable using the software. Also, having a reference gets rid of any guess work as the answer stares right back at you (despite this I have missed a few fundamental aspects to consider). Using references like this, however, can be slightly dull as no creativity is required and it can also easily become a tedious task of simply just copying pixel by pixel if you choose not to actively understand and learn what you are recreating. I would have wanted to work on my sphere a little longer to try and smoothen out the value transitions to imply a smoother surface but for some reason my layers started restricting the use of dark colours and I could only paint using high saturated colours or white despite my layers being on normal mode. (I have found out that it was because my brush was in an overlay mode). I'm satisfied with this outcome, however, I would have liked to have spent a bit more time finalising it and making the value transitions more seamless.

I haven't displayed a core shadow in my study which is very clear in my reference. I have mistaken the core shadow to be a reflection of the ball's surroundings. I only noticed this after my fifth trad lesson when Kras mentioned how I hadn't thought about the core-shadow in my teapot and this was really eyeopening.

I used a gradient map to add colour 'easily' to my grey-scale render. It is supposed to be easy and non-destructive but I didn't feel confident using this tool at all so I wouldn't call it easy for me. I simply used a preset colour gradient map because every time I would try and personalise my own, the values would be affected and wouldn't give a satisfactory result. I should work on this as it is a part of a mainstreamed non-distructive workflow that I should attempt to adopt but right now I am not a fan...

this is the reference image I used for my third sphere render attempt. My study looks a bit more metallic in contrast to the reference. In the reference it looks like it has some kind of grain underneath it's glossy, glazed surface. This is happening because reflections from the ball's surroundings is being displayed with more contrast in my study and the light isn't being diffused to the extent the reference is; implying a more metallic surface.

4th attempt at rendering a sphere in photoshop

Basic Value Rendering

week 2

For this lesson I tried to render a collection of three-dimensional shapes in perspective to practice both perspective drawing and digital rendering. This exercise did prove to me that I am gaining confidence in using Photoshop to paint but I have still got a lot to work on.

The shadows being cast are incorrect, especially noticeable on the cylinder where the shape's form has no affect on the shadow's shape where it should be curving with the cylinder's face and reducing it's sharpness. I have also realised I have a tendency to draw my horizontal lines tipped (with the left side always higher than the right) this is visible in both my digital and traditional work so it will be very helpful in all aspects of my art once I remove this tendency. This has lead the cylinder shape to look like it is slidding off the surface.

Texture Studies

week 3 -> week 7

For our Digital art assessment brief, we where tasked to study a minimum of 5 materials to paint using primitives as a base. We were encouraged to study one of the following; wood, metal, leather, and glass. These materials where specifically mentioned because they are commonly found in most game environments.

To begin preparation for this brief, I will start by collating a selection of secondary sourced reference images to pick-apart each material's unique properties and visual texture. I don't really want to replicate secondary sourced images pixel by pixel because I believe I wont be forced to truly analyse and understand the material that way. I want to make sure that through these studies, I will be less dependent on references, and build a universal foundation of rendering.

I decided to start with wood because not only is it a common material found in almost every game, it's interesting patterns and rough texture interested me. I also asumed that it would take a while for me to complete this material because of it's complexity so I wanted to start it nice and early.

Manufactured Wood

I knew that wood would be a difficult material to render so I decide to start with it first so that it would give me enough time to complete it until the deadline. I started off with a simple greyscale cube to assert the main values on each side. Looking back at the process screenshots, it is clear to me now that the values of sides 'B' and'C' where really close to each other at the beginning, but it wasn't so obvious to me when I was painting it. The lightest side of the cube was originally going to be the bottom left, but after some feedback on how the shadow would be far longer if that where true, I changed the lightest side to be the sky-facing side.

After putting down the basic values down for each side, I started to sketch in the flowing lines of the wood grain. This was reletively simple, but I did change the direction of the top side's grain direction later on. Trying to imply texture with the foreign brush packs was very challenging and time consuming. I experimented with the motion blur effect to imitate the stochasticity of the wood grains - giving it an organic appearance - but I found it less affective for the more prominent tree rings, so I resorted back to hand painting every grain line individually using a zig-zag sketching motion with a simple brush. These lines alone looked a bit too plain and clunky so I later alpha locked the layer, added noise to it, and then added motion blur to it.

Red Onion

Primary Gradient Map

Secondary Gradient Map

Painting the onion was quite relaxing. Since I had my own primary sourced photograph to guide me, there wasn't much guesswork, but I did change a few things; the highlight, for instance, is different to try and match the lighting scenario of the woodblock more closely. I want all of my materials to be cohesive and be lit the same way once they are all put together.

for the outer skin of the onion, I used a blunt brush to paint long strokes across it's body, making sure to follow its contour. For the exposed cut, I used a fluffy, grainy brush to try and imitate the loose fibres oozing with juice. Some feedback I recieved whilst in the process of this study mentioned how I hould lighten the skin and shadow of the onion. I had made them too dark and it was impacting the visibility of the grains and textures Ihad painted. I atemptedto lighten it after this feedback but I still think it looks too dark for how it is supposidly beign lit. There should be a lot more bounce light coming from the light gray plain, hitting the onion with it't grey light since it is so shinny and smooth.

Painting this onion was a lot faster to complete than the woodblock and it appears to be more realistic because I am following one reference more closely. I think I could have explored its narrative a bit more if I stretched a thin piece of the onion's skin out, or painted a bit more of the grain instead of painting it as if it where increadibly smooth and perfect.

Leather

Leather was a lot more difficult than I had assumed it would be. I contemplated whether to go for a really organic and battered sort of leather, or whether to go for a more faux, polished leather which would have a lot tamer character but have a stronger, forced pattern. In the end I decided to go for the organic leather to try and rectreate those stong wrinkles and subtle skin texture.

feedback I received whilst completing this was that I hadn’t implied the shiny surface enough by having the gray plain be reflected on both side of the leather. I attempted to take this advice and lighten some part of the leather's sides, but I think it could have been worked on a bit better. The visual read of sides 'B' and 'C' where also merging into one so I also attempted to fix this. Painting the iconic texture of the leather was a challenge. I sort of just looked through all of the brushes to try and match it's pattern more closely and I came across the 'old skin' brush. I lightly painted it over my study with a lighter colour, and transformed it so that it would match the contour of the cube.

I still think the cube is a bit too dark for the setting it is in, and the colours seem to be a bit too saturated and exagerated for the environment it is in.

Metal

I wanted to produce a highly reflective block of metal so that I could add the reflections of the other material studies onto it's faces. I didn't have enough time to execute this idea to a polished state so it isn't seen in my final submission but I did do a quick thumbnail painting of it and they can be seen at the very end of this page. Through my process screenshot you can see how I went from painting a really rough block of metal, to a really reflective cube. I also rounded out the edges to match the woodblock and leather cubes.

It was interesting to realise that, despite the other materials having lighter ceiling-facing sides, the metal needed lighter side-facing sides because of it reflecting the gray plain. I think the foggy shine on the left and top faces turned out quite well because it is showing how the metal is reacting to light and suggesting that someone's oily hands have touched the cube.

Glass

This was another primary sourced reference image I took after being drawn to the light refracting off of my cup and onto the table. Since this was a photograph taken by me, I had the chance to change the lighting scenario so I moved my desk lamp around to try and match the lighting I had created for my other materials. Despite my effort, however, I think the light was set up too much to the side of the glass cup instead of near the front like the other materials. This made the cup look a bit out of place from the other materials in the final display but I believe this would be an easy fix by just changing the cast shadow to match the direction of all the others. I can't say I had too many struggles with this one. It was quite straight forward, but i did struggle to make it look mechanically clear and perfect. The brim of the cup was particularly hard to keep it neat - despite having the layer on an alpha lock mode. I even emphasised the water droplets in the cup to give it more character. I think painting glass by myself now would be a lot more interesting.

Salmon

I wasn't planning to paint salmon since it is an extra material study but I thought it looked so interesting when I was haing it for dinner that I couldn't help but try my hand at it. I was also thinking that my collection of materials where looing a bit dull so i thought that this pop of colour would be a nice touch.

This material was sort of rushed since I had completed it on the due date but I think I managed to capture the basics of the salmon. I painted highlights scattered unevenly across the corners - implying an uneven and shiny surface. I tried to include a bit of orange colours within the shadows to show this subsurface scattering affect the cast shadow but I don't think it was enough to show through in the final image.

I think the thing that is most interesting about salmon is the subsurface scattering that happens between the halftones and core shadow. It produces such a warm and saturated shadow that helps make salmon look so appetizing. Since this was an extra material study, I didn't see the pressure of having to start the rendering process in greyscale. I chose to paint it directly in colour instead but I hadn't noticed that my canvas was in a colour profile called 'Display P3' instead of RGB when painting so once I exported it into photoshop, the colours became a little dull, reducing the effect of this subsurface scattering. I do not think this is a problem though because it helped to localise the study into the setting, allowing the grey plane to look as it where really effecting the vibrancy and saturation of the salmon due to bounce light, however, a tiny evidence of subsurface scattering should still be seen. I would like to edit this in the near future.

Pumpkin & Freshly fallen wood

I wanted to paint a section of tree log to see the differences it would have from manufactured wood. I also wanted to study the hard, fleshy shell of a pumpkin because I thought I was going to include a pumpkin prop asset beside my treasure chest. Both of these where abandoned due to an increased interest in other materials throughout the seven weeks.

Final Submission

Setting a clear goal would have been extremally helpful for this submission. I spent my time jumping back and forth between materials which I ended up not completing because I had given up on them and began to build an interest on an entirely different material. I started a study of a pumpkin, a tree log, a lollipop, and an orange but I hadn't committed to any of them which resulted in me rushing the final three materials because of the deadline. I am glad that I used my own primary sourced reference images for half of my studies because they felt more personal to me and they weren't a replica of some random photograph online. For the material studies that didn't make use of my own photos, They have been produced using a combination of many different secondary source references to help me learn the nature of the material.

Looking at all on my outcomes, I believe the red onion and woodblock have been completed most successfully. They have interesting cutouts that give each of them more character as they showcase variation in visual texture rather than being a block of repetition. When zooming into these two materials, The quality is not lost to a bunch of vague squiggles and lines unlike the other four. I think it would be interesting if I were to go back to the other four material studies and painted over them to give each one more of an interesting story. The leather, for instance, could have a few deep cuts into it that could reveal the fluff inside of it. The metal cube should reflect the other materials beside it 9adding more colour to the selection), and the salmon could have left behind a trail of liquid as if it had just been scooped out of it's tray

I have to admit that I definitely prefer to paint using colour to begin with rather than figuring the colours out at the end. I don't see how using colour and regularly checking the values using a black layer mode set to 'colour' to check if they are correct can be destructive. I feel that if I needed to change the colour using gradient maps I could always desaturate the image when needed, or use the hue and saturation colour wheel editors. I can see how painting in greyscale can be helpful at the beginning of studies - especially for large illustrative pieces such as splash-Arts because it allows you to focus on shapes, composition, and value to easily organise detail and help grab the viewer's attention, but once it gets down to finalising and texturing it makes more sense for me to start with colour.

I hope to continue rendering materials in privative shapes throughout the year because it is a really useful exercise and I don't think I have managed to satisfy my hopes for this project. I think I should try to focus a bit more on materials that will be helpful for game production projects. Perhaps cloth or metallic armor in preparation for characters, or roof tiles, bricks, cobblestone, and plaster for environments.

Digital B1 Grade: 80/100

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