Spooky room (CMI style)

Started by Kiddie, Fri 30/09/2005 04:36:47

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Kiddie

So many people trying to capture the CMI style it seems, me included. :D  So here's my attempt.  It's obviously not finished, as there's much more to do, but I wanted to know if I'm somewhat on the right track:


Gregjazz

Looks pretty good so far! Post the finished background when you're done!

Squinky

I really dig what you have going here....seriously.

TheYak

It's looking very CMI.  There are two things in your work-in-progress that seem non-CMI to me:

- The black outlines (not that I dislike them, they just make it more outlined and less painting-like)
- The perspective (I like the picture's perspective, but CMI probably wouldn't utilize one so straight-forward)

Elaboration: There are many straight lines, those are avoided in CMI backgrounds.  You're using a warped 1-point perspective and CMI almost always uses 2-point (occasionally an "eyeballed" 3-point). 
If you warped some of those straight lines in accordance with the fisheye look you've got, it'd add to the consistency.  Also, the candles look a bit out of place since they're pretty much straight up and down.  If the bases were larger (more towards the viewer) with the tips receding slightly, it might match your perspective more. 

I had to try to be picky.  It's a very good mimicry of style and would make an excellent background after it's finished. 

Kiddie

Thank you Squinky and Geoffkhan. :)  However, YakSpit, while I appreciate the info, it's all sort of over my head. :(  The black outlines I understand, but I think they'll be less noticable once the rest of the shading and whatnot is there.  As it is it's a bit sparce, and the black outlines really stand out.  But that will be fixed hopefully. :)  And the perspective, it is a bit straight on.  I liken it more to Maniac Mansion than any of the MI series. :P  But that's sort of what I was aiming for, I guess.  So you could say it's intentional.

But to better illustrate, if you'd like to add some modifications for me to show what you mean, be my guest. :D

Robot Midgets

Check to see if the perspective of the rug is right. http://www.artyfactory.com/perspective_drawing/perspective_8.htm.
Love the colors and how you are shading. Can't wait to see the final picture.

ildu

Well. It does look good, but there's some things that are not CMI (some have been already stated.

1. It's too symmetrical. To have a room which is pretty much fully symmetrical at the center is not good. Even if you add furniture and other things, the base will show.

2. Never ever do a straight angle when trying to mimic CMI. Even Bill Tiller has said that every room, object and character needs to be shown from a tilted angle. So basically if you were to show this room, you'd need to shift the camera to one of the corners.

3. Ditch the shading. There is absolutely no pencil shading in images that go into processing in CMI. It's all black outlines of different strengths on a white background. All shading is digitally colored.

4. The outlines are too strong and maybe even too sharp. That means you need to have outlines of different strength (basically strong for shape-defining outlines, less strong for smaller details. Nevertheless, you should probably turn down the transparency of the linework a bit.

5. Never clone objects. It's quite easy to see that the two candle things are copy pasted and mirrored. Maybe this is a planning choice for now, so in that case it's alright. Anyway, I really like the detail of the candle things.

6. For that perspective, the carpet looks a bit stretched. So scale it smaller vertically or larger horizontally.

Otherwise it looks fine. I really like the colors and the feel to the whole image. I also like the detail gone into the ceiling mantles. They look very original. You've really got something here. Don't give up on it.

I maybe doing a image mod for you later today, but I may have to start from scratch to show the difference in the perpective and camera angle. What is this room for? Where's the door gonna be and what is supposed to be put inside it?

Kiddie

#7
Thank you Robot Midgets. :)  And no I'm about 99% positive while I was drawing it the rug wasn't correctly drawn, but I think I was aiming for a less than perfect appearance (ie not a perfect circle).

And thank you very much ildu, that's very helpful. :D  I'll try my best to respond to your comments. :)

1.  Indeed it is symmetrical.  But for some rooms, I'm not sure what else I could do about that.  I think some rooms are just plain boxes at times.  I think perhaps because of the subject matter, artists working on CMI didn't have to tackle symmetrical rooms because they were all extraordinary (barber shop, pirate headquarters, exotic islands, ship cabins, etc.), but not a more 'realistic' room (such as a modern day bedroom).  Not sure if that makes any sense, but I hope it does.

2.  I think at the time it was intentional, but I see now that it definately hurts the room's 'character'.  I think I was drawing on the past a bit too much (like Maniac Mansion).  I can now tell that if the camera was in a corner the room would look much more interesting.

3.  Noted. :D  It was difficult and time consuming to achieve anyway.

4.  This has always been a bit of a problem for me, I always thought the 1 pix brush in photoshop was too 'thick' for my taste, but there's really no way to make it smaller, only less opaque.  And I'm not sure if that's what I want, but I don't know.  I guess I should just mess around with it more to get something better looking (compromise between flat black outlines and darker original color outlines).

5.  Yes it was just temporary, but good spotting it. :D  Basically the entire painting layer and the 2nd wall sconce was simply a test to see if I was even heading in the right direction or not.  I didn't want a fully fleshed out line drawing only to be dissapointed with the painting layer.  But, besides all of that, would a clone with some adjustments be alright?  So long as it wasn't a noticable clone?

6.  It is stretched, but this was planned.  I didn't want a perfect circle or oval for the carpet.  I think this is a bit of Burton-esque influence. :)

Whew.  That was tough. :P  Thank you for the input, I look forward to seeing what you come up with. :)  This room was basically a medium sized, somewhat decrepit, victorian living room.  The door was planned to be on the left side, but that could easily change.  As for furnishings, pretty basic stuff you'd expect from a living/sitting room, fireplace, high backed chair(s), small table, painting of famous relative on wall, etc.

Funnily enough this (and my character I made previously) aren't really attached to any idea I have.  I just felt creative and wanted to make something interesting.  So these basically have absolutely no back story to them, or anything.  You could either call them tests, or just creative outbursts. :)

I was also thinking of making a different room also, but not quite sure now what I'll do about the camera angle, because my inspiration for this room is the same sort of straight ahead psuedo-isometric view, and it's a pretty long room.  So I couldn't put the view in the corner, otherwise one side of the room would be too far away to see what's happening.  It's pretty confusing.  :-\

Nacho

I am very interested in the way you colored it... can you make a short brienf, please?  :D
Are you guys ready? Let' s roll!

Kiddie

Quote from: Farlander on Fri 30/09/2005 09:21:59
I am very interested in the way you colored it... can you make a short brienf, please?  :D

Wow, that's a first!  ;)  Basically, for the black outlines, since I don't have a very steady hand, I created vector shapes in photoshop and just stroked the selection.  I hand drew the sconces, as well as the black shading for them.

Then I just set that whole black layer to multiply, and put a plain grey 'canvas' layer under it.  Created another layer, with a sort of purple color, and filled in the scene.  I created a few layers for the candle brightness (white or bright orange, color dodge, 50% fill or so), and just painted some blobs around the candle flames.  That created the highlight effect, as well as the glow for the candle flames.  Then it was on to the sconces, same technique as before, just picked some bronze color, and filled them in.  Then added some highlights (color dodge again), and that was it.

Not much dark shading on the whole piece because I already had enough with the black outline layer.  But I think that was pretty much it, pretty simple really. :)

Here's a link to the original .psd file, enjoy.  ;)

http://www.virtual-suicide.net/users/kiddie_grinder/spookyroom.psd

loominous

#10
I'd say yes and no to whether you're on the right track.

Yes, because it does have a certain CMI feel to it.

No, because you're taking a very risky approach to the whole process.

A common situation for people with somewhat limited experience in whatever field they're into, is to start going into detail very soon. This doesn't mean that the project won't stand a chance, but it makes it likely that it will have substantial fundamental flaws, and while these can be corrected later on it will come with huge time costs.

While any part of the process can trigger the idea and remain intact, like an object, colorscheme, whathaveyou, the starting point which usually makes most sense is the composition. This would be part of an approach in which you'd go from large messy forms and ending up with refined tiny ones.

The potentially unsettling part of this process is that you'll have to make decisions whether toÃ,  proceed with a design or not based on how you think the image will look like later on, just by looking at some large, messy, shapes. With experience you'll be able to judge more and more accurately whether those large blobs have potential or should be reworked.

So, to get practical:

Start with determining the composition of the whole background. You can do this in different ways, I prefer to go directly to laying down the values, though roughly, so you'd be making a messy, simple, black and white sketch of the room where you just focus on getting things to balance and "read" well. "Reading well" means that even though the shapes are more or less silhouettes without any detail, you should be able to seperate them and be able to figure out their shape without any effort.

Apart from "reading well", you should ensure that the focus of the image is on the parts of your choosing. Our eyes are drawn towards parts of high contrast, value and/or colorwise, and also usually to the center. In doing this you can also figure out ways to lead the eyes of the viewer around in the image in a pleasing manner.

When you think you've come up with a composition that is balanced, easily read, pleasing to the eye and interesting, you can then start laying down the values in more detail, where you apply the lighting of your choice and generally get a more or less sketchy black and white version of the final image down, with only colour and detail missing. To get a better sense of whether it will work well at this stage, you can occasionally squint which will give you a preview of how a more detailed version will appear, though blurred.

Lastly, apply colour and detail.

-

This may all seem a bit hardcore perhaps, but it's what most artists use and really what ensures quality paintings. It's a bit like different approaches to building a house: starting on the walls right away versus creating a solid blueprint and ending up with the actual construction.

Edit: spelling
Looking for a writer

Kiddie

Thank you loominous, that's very informative. :)  I'd like to say that's how I work, but of course, it isn't.  But nonetheless, I'll try to keep it all in mind next project I undertake. :)

ildu

Loom is absolutely right. You should always have an idea of what the room is going to be used for and plan accordingly. Let's say you want it to look cramped, so you use lots of foreground objects and contrasting lighting. This way you'll be able to determine what objects you want to emphasize in the image, and what objects you want present altogether. This is all done before even the earlier sketches. As you draw your first draft you try to determine the composition. I usually make two sketches before starting with the actual image. The first is to determine the angles, objects and basic composition. The second is to get a good outlook for it. Recently, I've noticed that it's better to draw furniture and other objects separately from the actual basis of the room, so I can fiddle around with the composition on the computer before I start coloring. It's a lot of hard work doing it that way, though.

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