My workflow is based on the method explained here.
In an ideal world, I'd normally produce a black and white layout,
then a tonal sketch to get the lighting sorted out and then, if time
permits, a colour sketch that shows a rough colour version of the scene.
In this painting, I skipped the tonal. The reference photo gave me
quite a lot of tonal information even though the time of day and the
light direction were incorrect. The colour key was provided by another
photo where the time of day was just right.
I knew
I had a lot of painting to do, so I thought I'd just launch straight
in. ( Most of this painting was done at nights )
As explained at the top
of this thread, I used a lot of Geometry shapes, mostly Irregular
Polygons filled with either Flat fills or Gradient
fills. I'd then use whichever brush I needed, set to the "Replace" brush
style, and paint into these polygons.
This technique allowed me to paint into existing colour without adding
any more alpha channel information outside the colour area. No masking
needed to constrain my brushstrokes.
Brushes Used:-
I used the Solid brush
most of the time. I'd generally soften its edge using the "Profile" tab
of the Brush Setup... dialogue box. I'd use the Pressure and Limiter
sliders a great deal to affect
the amount of paint being placed.
The Solid brush was responsible
for about 85% of the paint you can see in the picture. Sometimes
I'd use the "Remove Alpha" style
to erase paint, as well as the Pressure affects Size option in the "Response" tab
of the Brush Setup... dialogue box.
The Pressure affects Size option is very useful for painting foliage.
I used the Tint brush a couple of times, mainly to affect existing
paint in the purplish decks at the centre left of the painting.
I used the Crayon brush to add texture to the foreground shipping
containers. If used at a large enough size, this brush can give a sort
of randomized texture, but it contains pixel- like blocky shapes that
are very obvious looking, so it should be used in combination with
other brush strokes so as not to stand out.
The Airbrush came in handy a couple of times. The smoke and clouds,
for example.
Custom brushes :-
There are a couple of custom brushes I have built that came in very
useful
Leaf (Download
it here ).
This movie brush was very useful in building up strands of foliage
very quickly. I disabled the Pressure affects Opacity checkbox in
the "Response" tab of the Brush Setup... dialogue box,
but I checked the Pressure affects Size checkbox. This allowed me
to rapidly build the silhouette of the foliage I wanted, and subsequently
paint into it with the Replace brush style.
I have
another special brush called "rough01" and
it was much used for the grassy areas. It was used a lot for adding
texture into the sides and undersides of the road decks.
The most useful tool of all is the Layers Palette. I used 83 layers
in this picture, and by using the workflow technique described above,
I never had more than 5 - 10 layers open in any one canvas file.
This kept Satori working at full speed.
The thing I'd most like to change:-
The shadow side of the orange shipping container is not dark enough,
and doesn't tell the lighting story with enough oomph.
I'd also like to have added some more containers on the upper decks
and a few solar panels here and there.
A nice
touch would have been to add a few swallows' nests to the underside of
the nearest road deck. Ah well.....
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