After our groups were mixed up and we got into developing new ideas, our homework for this week was to create 6 more thumbnail studies and one in depth illustration, this time focusing on using tone and value.
For these thumbnails, I got to explore vastly different environments to that of my previous group, rocky lava areas, ruined cities with overgrown nature and magical bug cult caves. I chose my favourite three environments out of this world’s five in total and did two thumbnails each for them.
Environment 1: Rebel Human Base (Rocky Lava theme)
Trying the crosshatching technique + using some texture and gradients to help further differentiate the depth and form of the shapes.
I found using the crosshatching technique alone difficult, especially trying to control values to show the different areas of the scene. This lead me to using gradients and a texture brush as well. It was a challenge trying to juggle different fundamentals here, e.g. objects being closer to the camera having the darkest values while also trying to make the focal point of the scene (the volcano) stand out as well through using darker tones. The same applies to objects in the far background being lighter and blending in through atmospheric perspective, I think in this particular study, the background mountains are the weakest point.
Two-tone thumbnail study
Limiting myself to using only black and white was challenging and I had some difficultly in trying to accurate represent things like lava and steam. I think the mountains in the background turned out well. It was a fun challenge as I continued to push myself through it. It was also difficult not being able to use different tones to emulate depth.
References used for these two thumbnails
Environment 2: The Moth Cult Cave
For this thumbnail I went back to the traditional way of making environment thumbnails by blocking in shapes using a limited tone palette, for this one I used 3-4 tones around 10%, 30%, 60% and 100%. Noah Bradley’s video on the fundamentals of landscapes was helpful in reminding me to stick to a limited tonal range, focusing on getting the initial values in and I think it was effective here.
Thumbnail 4 sketches:
- 1st sketch is too similar to previous thumbnail
- I wanted to show more of the cult aspect of this environment this time so I went to look for new references for the composition
- 2nd sketch is the result of using the new references I found
I don’t think that this thumbnail is as effective as my third one, particularly in my use of tones to try and convey depth. I think the composition and perspective angle is interesting though.
References used for the moth cult cave thumbnails:
Environment 3: Abandoned City (uninhabited by man or bug)
References for thumbnails 5&6:
Final 6 thumbnails together:
I felt like I enjoyed this thumbnail homework more than the composition one, I think that only having to make 6 made it less intimidating to complete and also the new world concept had a lot more variation in environment types which I think made it easier to come up with different thumbnail ideas for them.
Our group’s collaborative Pinterest board for this world:
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/cooki_draws/forest-society/
Some of the videos/reference that I found useful for this homework: