Digital Art

Week 1

Intro to Digital Art - Dungeon Delve:

Being introduced to our brief in digital, we have been asked to create an interior environment - a dungeon. This will be done in 3pt perspective featuring 2 walls and a floor, ideally a doorway too. From the get-go, I found myself limited with ideas as hearing "dungeon" manifests the concept of a traditional underground dungeon with cobble walls, iron bar jails, chains and fantasy potions. I tried to keep in mind that this brief has great potential in concepts; as long as it fits the prerequisites of 3pt perspective, an interior space, and 2 walls & a floor then it's allowed. Therefore, I got to exploring ideas.

The first idea that stuck for me was the concept of an ice cave with exposed ice revealing monsters of ancient past frozen from their historic reign; snow and icicles adorn the cave, perhaps with some rocks and stone for material variety, with the ice encasing the monster acting as the focal point of the piece.

I gathered references from games/film initially to see how professional media tackled this concept, primarily Ice Age for its stylised showcase of this idea with frozen creatures ranging from puny to formidable. This shows I can vary scale and species depending on my narrative desires.

Subnautica Below Zero was another great reference for its showcase of this scene in a singular, enclosed room and its stylised translucent ice texture. Most other game references include ice cave/snowy environments.

Next, I explored ArtStation to find professional artists' references and see their concept art aligning with my idea. This ranged from 2D paintings to 3D scenes.

Top left: IceCave by Cui Xiaoyu (3D shaders)
Bottom left: Icecrown Citadel by Peter Lee
Bottom middle: Ice Cave by Jakub Rozalski
Right: Frozen in Ice by Jenn Ravenna

My particular desires with the 2D paintings were the depictions of frozen creatures, relying on contrast between the translucent ice and the dark silhouette. For the 3D scene, I liked the lighting - the transition between cool, blue ice and the warmth of the sun at the surface.

Dev Log Evaluation:

I believe this was a good start to the block, I have an idea worked out that I'll flesh out and iterate on when I take it to Photoshop. My only worry is that I haven't explored other ideas first, but if I think of anything else then I'll start idea generation on those.

For the next session, I plan to flesh out the idea with references through mood boards depicting the material callouts to help with rendering references. With that complete, I can start the iteration process. Overall, I feel confident about this specific idea - my only concern with this concept is translating the frozen monster to 3D without eating up the budget. However, I don't entirely intend on creating a large, intimidating monster and I could explore variations with eccentric creatures. I may even create a few different ones. For now, I'll flesh out the environment itself first.

Week 2

Initiating the Iterative Process:

In week 1, I had narrowed down the concept I wanted to pursue with some vague mood boards to visualise my ideas using games/film and other artist interpretations. Now, I aim to jott down my own take on this with some beginning looks at this dungeon room in 3pt perspective.

Firstly, I had a lightbulb moment a few days before the session but only had my phone on me to jot down the idea (thanks instagram). The idea pertains to the current concept pretty well, but puts a radioactive spin on it; green oozing barrels show the collection/extraction of this substance, and it could not necessarily be radiation. The monster's eyes are green, suggesting it has some part to play in this toxic substance, infecting the under ground - I really wanted to flesh out this idea further in lesson.

Kras mentioned the comparison to the show "True Detective" with the spiralling dinosaur encased and preserved in the ice.

I was reminded of Ghidorah in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. This is especially helpful since I wanted to explore the scientific side of this, with this formidable beast being studied and researched, surrounded by scaffolding and industrial floodlights.

My first iteration was pretty rough; it fits the requirements of the room (2 walls and a floor) and has a focal point of the creature, but it felt very small, without scale and yet also empty and large.

I liked my ability to roughly render the creature trapped in ice, fading away in colour by distance but I wanted to push the perspective to enhance the plausibility of this room, along with experimenting with the beast itself - he looks so stiff right now. He needs to feel intimidating!

(Used the 1-2-3 value read technique to establish basic lighting before adding details in this room)

(Employed a colour blend layer clipped to the rendered image to apply some straightforward colour, bringing some life to the drawing, which brings it to fruition better)

In this iteration, I had a much more open space on the floor with a longer wall to promote the incomprehensible scale of this encapsulated beast of unfathomable pasts.

I also added some thickness on the floor's cut off to build the 3D feel of the drawing.

Here are two iterations for the scenery and decor in the room I drew on a different layer; the first features a more stable, sensible compilation of objects with floodlights and scaffolding for observation, and scattered papers and screens the scientists would be using. This feels controlled, whereas the latter is chaotic and maddening.

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In this scene, a giant needle points towards the beast, leading to its eye to draw viewers in even more. This needle suggests an extraction process as green barrels of liquid dot the room, along with large vials bubbling and lighting the room. The ever-growing cracks imply that this procedure is unsafe and the beast could be released if anymore damage is dealt to the environment - perhaps the creature is one colossal allegory for man's hubris in dominion over nature.

The session ended before I could do some more iterations on this version, but I want to do another where this creature is slowly infecting its surroundings even despite its stasis in ice - this would establish it as a great threat as its release would unleash the ominous power it harbours.

Dev Log Evaluation:

This session was a big success for me - rendering my iterations loosely rather than using flat colour is helping me build my confidence coming up to the final drawing when I usually feel lots of anticipation for it. Building up to it like this will make the creation of the final piece more natural, and I'll be ready for it.

My concept is certainly an ambitious one, and will be something to tackle when we translate this to 3D. However, I really want to challenge myself and prove I can leave my comfort zone to create something truly amazing. In terms of digital, the lighting of the creature within the ice may be difficult as I want it to be lit well, but clearly behind the ice so I think I'll have to employ some distortion created by the glossy, wavy wall of ice. I look forward to using photobashing with the floors of thicker ice, and grainy snow.

For next session, I need to have a proper final sketch to work with and I also want to create a better reference board on PureRef with my previous references, along with real life and stylised materials found in this environment, and also any scientific equipment I may include in the final scene.

Week 3

Continuing Iterations:

For today's session, I wanted to get the larger early iterations complete so I could finalise my concept and begin bringing it to fruition soon - that included a 3rd iteration on the sketch from the previous lesson, some NOTAN studies to experiment with lighting, and the development of my PureRef board for this project.

(Experimenting with sculpting the terrain to feel more natural)

For my third iteration of the set dressing within the dungeon, I turned to the spectrum's opposite end. I removed any man-made and architecture or signs of modern life to pursue the concept of a freaky alien/ancient era of animals frozen in ice and therefore time. This concept leans away from sci-fi, and towards the fantasy/adventure genre.

Unspecified and unidentifiable creatures frozen in ice, the largest taking up the entire right wall with its peering gaze, indicating its maintained consciousness - the minor creatures' eyes glow green, akin to the colossal monster's skin hue. This perhaps suggests a narrative of control and influence stemming from this large creature, the ice only subduing its spread.

I also added a large hand sprouting from the ice in the ground, its shadow fading into the depths which suggest a much larger creature is connected to this appendage. Ultimately, I knew I wouldn't follow through with this concept - the hand especially would be a challenge to render and then make in 3D but I don't mind the idea of including some of this in the final design.

With my three major iterations complete, I received some feedback on where to take them. Craig liked all of them and considered how I liked aspects of each, advising that I mix elements together; for example, I think the sciencey one works best to fill a scene cohesively but I liked the green vials from the 2nd one, along with the less scifi nature of the 3rd iteration despite its challenging nature for an overall finished drawing. His advice was to make it a research base like the first iteration, along with radiation elements from the 2nd one since they do coincide conceptually. Another suggestion was to include a smaller creature in the research zone, cordoned off with hazard tape and in the process of being experimented on. In addition to this idea, I think it'd be interesting if this creature is being thawed too, with half the ice gone, the subject's upper half stiff but free from ice.

Craig also suggested how the objects in the first iteration could appear more natural by rotating some objects to converge by different vanishing points. Ultimately this makes the scene feel less calculated, scientists tend to have a frazzled stereotype due to their busy workload so their equipment is strewn around chaotically. With this, I can use the visual clutter to build a pathway with the areas not covered by piled equipment and papers of notes.

I had some mood boards from week 1, but I started to prep my PureRef version to accommodate for game/film scenes akin to my concept, artist renditions, props, real life objects, potential photobashing images and material references. (I'll continue adding to this throughout the project).

For my next step in the iterative process, I would experiment with lighting using NOTANs, which means "dark-light" in Japanese, representing the idea of black and white coming together in a composition to form a scene, focused on the silhouettes of the environment and its focal points based on lighting.

I'd use this drawing as a template for my iterations, acting as the neutral base with illumination coming from the ice the monster is embedded in; this acts as a soft, main source of light in the dark of this underground cave. However, I would attempt more dramatic ideas with this base.

For my first attempt, I took inspiration from the game/film examples of frozen creatures, where they tend to have a backlight, suggesting the body of ice reaches the sun on the surface, or a mysterious and supernatural exudes it. Either way, it highlights the silhouette of the monster and illuminates its surroundings, bringing focus towards it. I wanted it to also cast a large shadow thanks to the backlight for a dramatic contrast in lighting between two planes in the room setup.

I considered my pursuit of a sci-fi concept with industrial equipment dressing the room, including flood-lights to illuminate the beast for research purposes, giving researches a look of clarity at this inconceivable being. These lights point towards and expand at the creature, bringing the eyes towards this highlighted area, with deep shadows extending from the lights the other way to strengthen the dynamics of the lighting with its radiating cast shadows.

In the final iteration, I took advantage of the interior requirements of this brief; as the ice cave is cast in darkness, I was able to contrast it strongly with light spilling in from the doorway of the cave entrance where subtle shadows are seen in the slice of light that depict heavy snowfall outside, these angles leading upwards to the monster shrouded in darkness within the ice. Objects within the cave also have a nice cast shadow expanded from the slice of light, their direction enlarging the room.

Towards the end of the lesson, Kras came in and gave some feedback too. He expressed affinity for the floodlight notan (2nd one) which I agree with, it draws the most attention to the giant creature, reinforcing its emphasis as the environment's focal point. For the environment itself, he suggested adding some icicles and natural icy terrain to enhance the plausibility of this environment, rather than having a geometric box - it feels organic this way. I could also cut off the corners and create an overall icy, blocky shape for the bounds to further promote the texture and structure of this room.

I did experiment with this slightly in the corner of the 3rd iteration but its tiny I forgot I even did it.. but I'm excited to add more of this because it'll make the concept so much more convincing.

Dev Log Evaluation:

I left this session feeling much more confident about this block; I had allocated my digital work to Wednesday to complete my last iteration, do my NOTANs and do the final sketch to take into the session but I was ill on that day so I got barely anything done, leading to me feeling very behind. I did do the third iteration on Wednesday but that's all I could push myself to do. In the session itself, I had a much better time experimenting with my work, doing all my NOTAN studies and producing more convincing dramatic lighting than I thought I could do! They felt full of contrast and direction, which strengthened the composition - I felt my ability in environment art improving, which is a weak area for me so it's great to see!!

I believe I still have much to iterate on, such as colour, layout and composition of the objects and elements within the cave room, monster design, but I feel like I've made good progress and I didn't need to worry too much about not getting work done on Wednesday. My goal for the next session is to at least have a final sketch to work with, as I can adjust the composition of objects on that drawing itself, especially because many elements can be photo-bashed.

lallal

(Craig said the green tentacle in an old iteration looked like a giant gherkin, so I had to render it like one properly).

Week 4

Preparing the Final Design:

With an iteration decided on and the NOTANs done, I was able to start working on a final design. I applied the feedback I was given and kept in mind how I wanted to bring this scene to fruition, constantly adding to my reference board and iterating on the layout of the scientific side to this concept.

This was the first sketch I produced, referencing my final iteration and decided NOTAN, I also kept in mind Kras' feedback on how I should break away the corners to feel more organic and reproduce ice well. I exaggerated this to truly get the material read correctly and have it be visibly clear.

To get the layout I desired, I lasso'd each part of the scene and moved them around, rescaling and adjusting to get what I desired. Here, I tried scaling the desk up so the human areas didn't feel MINISCULE - I want to communicate the formidable size difference between the human equipment and the creature, but this felt more like placing dollhouse pieces in a normal room.

I moved the desk towards the middle to bring more focus to it, leaving space for the floodlight at the back with a new staircase crafted atop a snow mound to show the scientists' integration with the natural world, or sloppy intrusion for the sake of discovery and research. However, too much space was left between each object and didn't feel natural at all.

This time, I moved the desk back as to not obscure the visage of this creature, taking away from its visual emphasis but this just left more weird empty space!?? Perhaps I could resolve this with some papers scattered about as to not compete with the creature visually but solve the empty issue.

I redrew the 3rd iteration with the snow mound rotated which gave a sense of verticality in the mound's height, along with not leaving weird emptiness.

lalalala

In a later stage, I added the more structurally sound scaffolding back in as I felt it gave a sense of perspective and distance better with its converging lines as distance grows, and changed the desk to a curved one; I felt there were too many straight lines so this would complement it better - pure straight, calculated lines in scaffolding, curved and organic lines in the ice and creatures, and a mix of those in the scientists' workspace for some visual cohesion.

Ultimately, I still feel iffy about the composition as it feels much too calculated and empty. I believe rotating objects to have separate vanishing points will help the scene feel more natural, and perhaps cluttered to imply the scientists' chaotic and unorganised nature.

For the large creature, I wanted a whale-like base to grasp a sense of realism in its resemblance to existing species, along with its main characteristic of enormous size. I started researching online, looking at artist ideas and examples in movies.

Artist Credit: Paradis Sok

This one has a natural base compounded with unnatural, fantasy-based features like uncommon colours like purple and orange found on deep-sea creatures which are usually blue for camouflage's sake, along with feathered fins and rock growages.

Payakan from Avatar: The Way of Water is a great example of something I can reference, as a clear creature based on whales with fantasy twists like the hammerhead shark-akin horns and multiple tail fins and unique marking.

llLaalala

At this point, Kras helped to show me how to start photobashing this creature with a whale base - picking the right angle was key to establishing a believable scene, as the correct planes are visible since this is a view from above. Next, he transformed it to fit the perspective, shrinking with distance towards the left.

Some additional notes were to ensure a shadow would project from the creature as the flood lights cast onto it, along with perhaps having some implication of the ice it's encased in with edges of it being highlighted and going towards the vanishing point like the outer wall.

Craig told me about modular military walkways and frames which are planted into the ground and situated above it for desert areas which are difficult to maneuvre thanks to sand, which I could add due to slippy ice. I found these images during this talk which provide great reference for the calculated scaffolding in some of my iterations.

I could also photobash the smaller creature entrapped in ice using resin ice cubes as a base due to their glossiness and good visual depiction of an ice cube.

Dev Log Evaluation:

This is where I left off in this lesson, with a rough idea of how I will develop this piece based on layout and plenty ideas of how to integrate the photo-bashing aspect of this brief.

The only thing I feel unclear on is the composition, although I know that I want to rotate objects for a more naturally arranged scene with the scaffolding as a contrast in shape language to the natural and organic structure of the ice and the creatures.

My aim in next lesson will be to apply these ideas and START the rendering!

Week 5

Starting the Photobash Process:

Since I had a design I was set on and a composition I was mostly happy with, I began photo-bashing to progress my scene before detailed rendering.

lalalla

Craig helped show me how to photobash smaller objects into my scene over just material planes - we started with some scaffolding that we used object select to single out. The top scaffolding is from the original image, which we used free transform and the control points at each corner to warp into a flat view. I then reused this piece to create a full row for the longer sides.

lalalla

This is the final product of the scaffolding's foundation for each side! It turned out well but I still had a few points I needed to fit back into the 3pt perspective grid before progressing it.

I found this entire scaffolding set on a construction website which I extracted the stairs for and fit into the perspective grid. I used the polygon select tool to cleanly grab and recolour each side of the stairs to feel 3D.

lalalala

I found barred fences online at another construction shop site where I used varied length fences to implement into my scene. Due to the extreme stretching of the front-most ones, I would later reline these so the thickness of each bar corresponded with their distance from the viewer.

lalalala

I photobashed TVs into my scene by searching for early 2000s TVs which looked like scientific monitors with a retro tinge thanks to the thickness of their rims - flatscreens wouldn't look very appealing stacked ontop of one another. For the other side of the TV, I used the back panel of a microwave for that sci-fi detailing.

I found a really neat flat control panel image that I could put onto the main desk of the research station. After warping it into perspective according to the grid, I adjusted the levels and dialled the black down which helped the main value of the panel match the desk so these control pieces are integrated into the desk.

The grating of the walkway was super easy, I found a transparent grating pattern and simply warped it into perspective.

I used aquatic life pieces to make up the large monster in the ice as an aquatic being, so I used fins to create the beast's arms with a comically small size.

To integrate them better, I blended out the transition between the fin and the body and used the stylise filter "Oil paint" to make it feel a little less realistic to fit the painterly nature of my scene.

For the eyes, I cutout the image of a common fish eye and painted the deep black part with a lighter colour to feel a little more soulless. I used an image of fish scales at the flattest possible angle and adjusted its greyscale levels to match the local value of the big creature, using a soft eraser to help them transition better; since a large light is shone at the creature, the highest point of contrast would be this side where I placed the fish scales as the pattern would be obscured in shadow. Scales like this are also reflective so I could render them some more to show them interacting with the light.

This is the scene with no lighting.

Here, I put a multiply layer over the whole scene and erased where the flood light would project.

I deepened the shadow on the creature to show the light hitting it.

Week 6

Formative Feedback:

Today we'd be receiving formative feedback - at this stage most props in my scene were loosely implemented with photobashing and was at the ugly stage of the process, so I was looking forward to some feedback to guide me towards the right direction and get me to progress further.

(My interpretation of the feedback with materials photobashed in.)

Feedback:

Scaling the desk down gives space for the transition between the wall of ice and the rock floor, also making the monster feel bigger as the room isn't so cramped anymore. The general scale of the desk gives the impression of how formidably large the monster is compared to humans.
Make the wall and floor aside from the ice wall rock for material distinction and also to bring more focus to the monster as the wall in front of him is separate from the rest of the room's material.
Kras showed me how a top down ice lake view could be photobashed into the wall, if I do that and render my own highlights to showcase the ice's glossy surface interacting with the floodlight I'll have a super plausible and interesting surface.
The stalactite/mite idea is good, maybe have some cutoff beneath the scaffolding to show the scientists' haphazard and destructive integration into this environment.
Possibly lean into the comedic aspect of this piece with fans to stop the melting of the smaller creature and mop buckets to clean up puddles.
Render in some frosty stuff to show the slopeyness and transition of the textures between the floor and ice wall, with some smaller stalactite/mites too.
My main takeaway is to find some materials to reference and photobash on each wall to bring the piece along much further with believable materials.

Kras showed me a cool tourist spot in Bulgaria called Snezhanka cave which houses lots of stalactites which are great to reference and photobash.

In researching stalagmites like the ones Kras showed me, I found this great one that was translucent and icy with reflections on it which match what I want to emulate.

I decided to redo the ice wall with a new image, using the grid warp mode to get an ideal wrap on it that matches the curve of the wall I have planned

I used a hard brush with a slightly soft edge to add some detail to the scaffolding platform, dividing each corner and adding highlights to edges to emulate stainless steel.

Next, I worked on the cast shadows so the lighting interacted with objects in the scene and felt plausible. I used the polygon select tool around objects, projecting the selection following the perspective grid and the radiating lines from the light source, using the multiply blend tool to darken the areas selected rather than place flat tone.

I also did the same thing for the big fish, ensuring this value was very deep as it's directly hit by the light and needs very high contrast for emphasis to stay on it.

Using the image I found previously, I cut out certain stalagmites and turned them to grayscale, painting over the bases to blend them into the floor.

Next, I deepened the value within the translucent area to show how the dark tone of the rock wall behind it passes through.

Finally, I toggled back on the shadow layer and erased where light would be reflecting off the ice strongly.

Dev Log Evaluation:

By the end of this session, I had a better sense of lighting where it and the shadows would interact in a realistic manner. Light reflected off of surfaces more and shadows were cast. When I got home, I developed this piece by adding thinner highlights to the scaffolding platform since my reference images didn't have such large areas of flat value.

Next week is submission week, so I need to finish photo-bashing the small stalagmites holding up the hazard tape, add colour and add any other hand-painted detail that will complete this piece since it still feels a little empty.

Week 7:

Finalising the Artwork:

Soon into the lesson, Craig came to give feedback and bring my piece closer to completion.

He started by adding a black mask around the entire piece and giving it a colour balance layer with a dark blue hue to communicate the blue ice's influence over the dark room, its colour bouncing onto everything.
I was worried about time and didn't think I could photo-bash any new elements, but he reassured me on that. He liked the comedic factor of the ice melting and the monsters slowly being unleashed, with the scientists pathetically trying to maintain the ice's frozen state. I didn't have time to add a fan to cool off the ice, but Craig helped implement a mop and bucket by the smaller ice structure to show it perpetually melting and being cleaned up.
Craig also reminded me to add the transition between the ice wall and rocky floor that I was advised on doing earlier in the project so they felt connected, not so flat and boxy.
Use a special effects brush to create some granular detail on the metal surfaces.
Create a frosty vignette around the ice wall.
Add influence to the individual light sources such as the TVs casting onto the icicles holding hazard tape.

I hand-painted extra bristles on the mop so it didn't cut off so sharply and felt more like an actual mop with synthetic fibres at the handle. I also shifted the hue of the bucket to green to match the colour scheme of this environment.

For the ice-rock transition, I decided to do a slope of piled snow, starting with a blockout of its silhouette. I built this up with a lighter value using a concrete texture brush for fuzzy details, followed by scaling down the brush and using the "Add" blend mode to create highlights as it's hit by the flood light.

overlay blend layer for colour pass through showing translucency of ice stalgmites

I used an overlay blend layer above the stalagmites to add blue hues, showing the translucency of the stalagmites exposing the ice behind it.

lalala

Next, I used the concrete brush again on a clipping mask above the ice wall to emulate the effect of frost around the edges. I did it gradually on the corners for a soft vignette, and a harsher outline at the sharp edges to visually portray the freezing temperature of this cave.

Since this creature has stayed since the initial iteration stage, I decided he needed some attention and a well-deserved repaint.

I painted over the ice base with the same values, only a little darker to reflect the dark rock behind it, followed by cleaning up the monster's silhouette and giving him a brighter highlight.

Next, I painted bright highlights to show the faceting of the ice, along with drips of melted water.

For the large creature, I decided he needed some colour. I selected each layer that built this guy up and created a black mask from it, giving that a colour balance layer. From there, I shifted his bodily hue to a sickly green to follow the analogous colour palette of this environment with majorly cool tones like icy blues with a contrast of warm yellows that reflect the human integration into this place. I also used an overlay layer to manually adjust the eye colour, making it red (wow subtle) to depict the underlying danger of interfering with this creature's frozen slumber.

For the cherry on top, I added white spots in the light to expose the dust. I duplicated this layer, changing it to "Add" and adding a gaussian blur to make it glow a little more.

Final Outcome:

Post Mortem:

Starting this project, I felt super intimidated; I perceive myself to be a character artist, and although each specialist category is difficult in their own way, I believe environment art is something you have to dedicate a lot of time and effort to. There are lots of details that make up successful environment art such as composition, perspective consideration, scale, material reads, lighting interaction and cast shadows, and thoughtful colour choices. I don't have much experience in painting environments either, although I was very open to the idea of photo-bashing as it's a super cool concept (especially since it speeds up the painting process). Now at the end of this block, I feel like I've outdone myself and passed my own expectations. That's not to say this piece is super amazing, I am proud!! Although there's still much to improve; however, I've seriously surprised myself with this outcome and I've learnt so much.

Photo-bashing as a concept was new to me, I knew of it before but I'd never utilised the technique. However, I was familiar with the free transform tool and it felt very natural warping things into perspective. I think I succeeded in photo-bashing the creature, I didn't initially plan to but it makes so much sense to do so - mashing different aquatic features into one creature was very fun and gave me a great, believable result. I also believe my use of photo-bashing the walls/floor brought the piece so much further and so quickly gave me a plausible material read. The use of colour balance layers really brought this piece along as it acted for most of the colour interaction in the scene with the blue ice projecting everywhere.

I found this project so daunting initially because environment art requires alot of attention to detail and I do believe I did a good job, however I can already see spots I slipped up on. I forgot the cast shadow for the smaller creature's ice block, and reflections from the snow on the ice, etc.. I could've rendered some areas like the desk and stairs with a little more detail too.

Although, I still believe I've outdone myself! Even if it isn't perfect, I'm proud of myself for producing this and I definitely surpassed my own expectations. I'm glad I didn't compromise the concept for the sake of ease in creating the scene, so I'm super exciting to make this in 3D next block!

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