Work from Background Design, April/May/June 2010

Though I'm planning on going into Animation as a career, I still try to take as many fine art-like classes I can to improve my creativity and artistic skill. I also wanted to become a Concept Artist when I first came to AI of San Diego, but quickly learned that its a very competitive career and only the very best make it that far.

I looked forward to this class to learn techniques for digital painting with Photoshop, and to learn composition and designing backgrounds/environments.

The overall theme was the story of the Odyssey.
The first painting was in all grayscale to help us learn values and such.
I designed an underwater shack as the home of Poseidon.
Next we were introduced to color. It's a bit easier digitally since you can just paint it in grayscale and colorize it.
I chose a more vertical page ratio, and designed Mount Olympus, home of the gods:At first they were going to be more Skyscraper-like, but the teacher insisted on keeping every environment within the same world in terms of style. So I took reference from 1800s style buildings.

For the final painting we were shown how to incorporate photo textures to enhance the painting and reduce the painting work you have to do. You have to tweak it A LOT to make it work though, or else it looks....photoshopped. :P

I tried an indoor environment this time, with our heroes sneaking through the home of the Cyclops seeking an escape:
The teacher showed me a way to darken the whole scene drastically, but I don't have the jpg of that version. I'd rather redo this painting, honestly.

Of the the three, I liked my first painting the most. Still, it was a great class.