Animation Background Painting using Satori Film FX Software

Special web edition. Written and Illustrated by Michael Hirsh.

Tutorial 01. Page 4 of 5

Step Six, continued:

Now use your mask to paint some big splattery texture into the butte's shape. Try using the Chalk, Pastel, or Spatter brushes, set at more than 300 pixels.

Painting big splatter within the masked butte.

Do a couple of strokes that are darker than the average colour of the butte, and a couple that are lighter. Fool around with it, have fun.
Place a few Irregular Polygons full of Box Corner fills on the highlight side of the butte. Use Feathering on these shapes. Extend the polygons beyond the outside edge of the butte, the mask will give a clean outer edge and the inner edge of the shape will have a soft fall-off. These shapes can sit flat on top of the textured body of the butte.

Hard edged on the outside, soft on the inside.

This is how the Mid Butte should look, full screen view.

Three beautiful buttes.

Step Seven:

Create the "Arch" layer in the same way, making a User Mask from the silhouette to contain the textures. Once again, put some abstract sunlit shapes on the top rock and upper surface of the arch.

It's starting to come together now.

You'll need to place the shadow cast by the Arch on to another lower layer. You could save a layer here and combine the "Sky" layer with the "Ground".
Place a Box Corner filled Rectangle over the brushing on the "Sky", fitting it just up to the horizon line. Use a big Spatter or Crayon brush to fill the foreground with a two-tone texture, then, use the Geometry tools to build up the road and the white line down the middle. Then either paint the shadow colour on top of the road using the Shadow brush, or if this gives too "dirty" a colour, use the Geometry / Irregular Polygon / Box Corner fill, using the Opacity Slider, for better looking results. If you do paint the ground onto the Sky layer, remember to delete the empty "Ground" layer.

Of course you're sure, aren't you?