Background, step by step tutorial

[Andail]

Someone requested a tutorial on my technique, so I thought I could demonstrate the simple sketching and painting I use to build up my backgrounds.
The background in its current stage:

This is a picture I started on several years ago, but I picked it up recently and started working on it again.

Here are the steps I save for the tutorial:
1. Basic sketch, laying out the composition. Just a large diagonal, with a chunk of ocean left for the ship to come.


2. Filling with some fundamental colours. I want a very bright scene, so I'm letting through a lot of light blue hues.


3. Refining shapes, adding details, applying a colour depth.


4. Sketching out some textures, more refining.


5. Adding the ship, laying out real textures to the sea, refining shapes.


6. Water gets better reflections, sky gets some handpainting.

[Ghost]

Andail, that computer that flew out of my window, shocking my neighbours, with me screaming "I'll never be that goooooood!" is just your fault 

Great technique, and nice tutorial. Thank you for sharing, it surely has a few tips for everybody.
Do you use a graphics tablet?

[zabnat]

Could you elaborate the process of refining a bit more?
What tools do you use for it or do you just use a brush and paint over more accurate strokes?
I ask because I usually have trouble to proceed from step 2 to step 3.
Also do you just go on with freehand painting from start to finish, or do you use masks, burn, layers, line tools, anything?

[DoorKnobHandle]

I hope not to come across harsh, your art is great, but this isn't quite what I'd call a tutorial. Many of these so-called tutorials similar to yours float around in which people break their work up in x stages and say what they did. I personally find it unusable to work with, what it needs is more description, more facts if you will. What brushes did you use? Which strength, which size? Go into detail, how exactly did you draw this feature (the flag, the ship)? Somebody who wants to learn from that isn't going to get anything out of this at all, and he's just gonna be stuck at step 3 wondering how the hell to do what you did.

To an already pro, though, I suppose it does describe your technique nicely.

[not with a bang.]

This is a pretty tremendous background to start a tutorial with, Andail!  To echo the others here, any chance that you could add a few more interim images?  Or go a little further in-depth about the transition steps?

[frission]

The other issue, of course, is that step 1 already requires a great deal of artistic intuition and talent, as crude as it looks compared to the final product. The hardest parts about drawing realistic scenes are not the refining and the choice of colors and etc., but knowing how to use scale, perspective, and composition. This is the sort of thing that feels most "natural" to someone who has drawn for many years, but it is definitely a learned skill, and the part that will baffle most newcomers.

I had a great book awhile back called "Drawing on the right side of the brain," which I thought broke down the basics of hand sketching very well. Obviously true artistic genius is something one is either born with or not, but the basic ability to sketch out semi-realistic looking scenes is something that can be taught to anyone and can be learned by anyone, but it takes a lot of practice. Basically the book argues that practicing and critiqueing and practicing some more is probably the most important thing a beginning artist can done, in the same way that anybody who has ever learned a musical instrument knows that almost 80% of playing the thing is about developing precision hand-ear coordination. Once you have that, adding new techniques and methods becomes something possible; until you have that, everything you try to produce will sound like crap. :-)

Out of the tutorials I've seen (I just read dkh's), the ones that have been most useful for me (and I would imagine to be most useful to others) were those that went over the nuts and bolts of doing very simple backgrounds (e.g. simple chunky pixel rooms -- like dkh's), that explained how you could use photographs to get an idea of how to color and shape your work (like the background art tutorial at barnettcollege.com), and things like that. Teaching broader art concepts is sort of beyond the scale of a gaming art tutorial of this sort (and probably beyond any of our qualifications!), but teaching someone the basics of how to go about making a low-res background for use in AGS is probably the most productive. Just my two cents.

I think the art is beautiful, by the way. That's just the issue -- it's a great example of how someone with pre-existing artistic skills can create a beautiful background, but for the rest of us who don't have those it is a little opaque, mysterious, and ultimately depressing! ;-) I hope that doesn't come off as harsh, because it is not meant to be.

[Babar]

Obviously true artistic genius is something one is either born with or not,

Going slightly off-topic for the Critics Lounge. I disagree very strongly with that statement. You can achieve anything you like, all it takes is practice and learning.

Moving a little back on-topic, the tutorial is very interesting, but I can't help noticing that the sharp combo of bright white and blue making the whole scene seem a little unreal. Is it just my imagination, or is there something to it?

[not with a bang.]

Moving a little back on-topic, the tutorial is very interesting, but I can't help noticing that the sharp combo of bright white and blue making the whole scene seem a little unreal. Is it just my imagination, or is there something to it?

It does look unreal, or kind of like it came out of a story-book, which might be Andail's aim.  To look more "real," the image would need a little more contrast between light and dark within colors.  So too, a little more weathering on the docks/walls would make it look a little less pristine.  But again, it depends on what you're trying to evoke.

[radiowaves]

Nice, I like it! Except the fact that perspective is wrong -- according to bottom line of buildings, the upper line should end in horizon, not on top of it. Right now the perspective point draws beyond the horizon into space.
Another problem I see is the dark area on the ship. God sakes, it is a day and there is light all around, so why should light ignore a beautiful ship???  You know, even dark things are painted lighter in bright areas and brighter stuff is painted darker in dark areas, so it wont pop out and stays balanced.
Oh, and the ship should have some water reflecting on it and vice versa, same goes with everything else. And some foam would do good. Idd add a white line where water ends and is cut, like Bob Ross does. And talking about reality, usually walls are wet when they are in water

I really like the cleaniness of the piece though.

[ThreeOhFour]

My most sincere thanks for this tutorial Andail. I hope I can learn a lot from it.

[Oliwerko]

Thumbs up, Andail, many can learn from this.

Thanks.

[Peter Bear]

not ashamed of telling that I am the one who asked

I stick to "pixel by pixel" drawing, I wanted a more "drag your paintbrush" on the screen approach. This is nice, just like I wanted it ...

And for the artistic, technical, details, I guess that Andail uses a wide brush, then a narrower one the next step, no ?

For the drawings, as someone said, some come with them when they were born, but the other can learn them. I have read in a drawing course that you just have to practise, practise , practise to become good ... like in all domains.

1 / First, draw what you see in front of you, without looking at your paper. Then check the result, this trains your brains to recreate the proportions , do it again and again

2 / then draw every thing you see, everytime, perspective, proportion, realism will grow then

3 /  now , draw from what you see in your brain, and that should be as clear as you think it ...

Good luck


Thanks again Andail you rock

[Dualnames]

Andail is just a poor bastard. He keeps posting in these forums about how fast he drew this, and that. My God. Your art skill is above many. Stop asking that. You know how many people get discouraged when they  see how good you can drow. Thank god , you haven't got on pixelation technique. Style looks good. I'd love to see some characters though.

[Andail]

Thanks a lot, everyone. I understand it's not as informative as it could be, but I still thought it's better than nothing, and this is after all a response to a particular request.
The biggest reason I felt a simple step by step sequence would be enough is that I don't use many complicated techniques, I mainly just paint with a pen tablet and there are no magic tricks involved. But I will return with a more detailed tutorial when I get the time.

Jim, thanks for your concerns, although I don't quite understand your post. As far as I remember, I only mentioned the time it took to make a background in my speedpainting thread.
One reason I mention time could be because I'm very interested in how long time painters take to finish their pictures. Most artists in most major art communities typically state the amount of time they needed. I don't know how this makes me a "poor bastard" though...
I could only wish that more..."established" AGS-artists would display their art in the critics lounge, but unfortunately most of them are quite reluctant to do so.

[Uhfgood]

ahh yes the almighty tablet... unfortunately I only have a mouse, so I have to make do.  Even so I'm generally a beginner.  But it has least given me some food-for-thought.

I think you're quite accomplished Andail

[rich]

You know what I would love to see from Andail is what I've done with some of my sprite animations... I'd love to see him make a background and record the process with CamStudio, then speed it up and put it on YouTube. I think that would be really usefull to a lot of people... and honestly, for all my searching I couldn't find any backgrounds being drawn on YouTube, so, he'd be a first.

[DoorKnobHandle]

May I welcome you to the RECORDED PIXEL ART PROJECT over at pixelation.com - check it out.

[radiowaves]

You did this with a pen tablet? Oh man, you need to stop pressing on the pen then!

[cobra79]

I think it is obvious that a tablet was used and what does "Oh man, you need to stop pressing on the pen then!" mean? Could you perhaps elaborate what you think is wrong?

[Dualnames]

Ok. Andail. Time is relevant. You draw like hell no matter how much time it takes you. I haven't tried drawing that style but I don't think I'll get a grip on it like you did.