Design Fundamentals online

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DQ

In reading the DQs for this week I run across the term realistic used when writing about volume and form. But just because something has volume, looks 3d, does that make it realistic? These terms will become more important as you progress in academia -

For example, go to CranbrookPosters and look at the posters Elliot Earls (find out more about him on your own - important designer) did for Cranbrook. There are 12. Are they realistic? Abstract? Can't something be 2d and flat and still be a 'sign' for reality? Below is a sample - you can see details when you go to the site -

(Above) Elliot Earls Poster for Painting Dept Cranbrook

Destroyed City. Digital Painting. Dario Coelho. 

 

Student DQ Response:

I chose a design by Dario Coelho, a concept artist and illustrator. I've attached the image file, but it can also be found in his gallery here (the fourth image). 

It is a digital painting of a ruined cityscape that makes great use of value and perspective to add depth. He uses strong darks and lights to create a sense of depth, as well as add contrast and visual interest. Since we are viewing a large scale scene where we see far into the distance, he uses value to his advantage by hazing out the background and reducing the detail and contrast as we go further back. This hazing effect can be demonstrated in real life by looking far off into the distance. Colors begin to lose their intensity, values get lighter, and of course detail is lost. When viewing the foreground we can see the most color and saturation along with the heaviest darks. Although there is very little color used in the design, nearly all of it can be found in the foreground. In a scene like this, this is exactly what we would expect to see in real life. The greatest amount of detail is reserved for these areas in the foreground as well, with the individual pieces of debris visible in the foremost building. As we move deeper into the scene, the debris begins to lose its distinction and blurs out. The artist has also used texture well to add to the depth of the design. When viewing the far off buildings, we see very little if any texture. Most of them are shaded with fairly smooth value, while the areas up close have visible texture and more varied values. These buildings have scratches and surface imperfections that add to the realism and depth. The artist has also uses more simple methods of adding depth to a design, such as overlapping visual elements, keeping the buildings in perspective, and using proportions and scaling to show how the structures move off into the distance. Overall I think the artist has done a great job at showing depth and volume in this piece of concept art.  - Matt Hockensmith

 

Instructor Response

Great analysis, and I love the image - see attached - Do you see how a good comp can often be abstracted and flipped and still work as a comp? Range of values, interesting edges and textures...You can see how artists figured out that they could get rid of representation and just deal with form back at the turn of the 20th century - J

Texture

Click the image above to see an example of original image turned into a field of texture. Tutorial below:

Texture from Photo tutorial here a 4.5 minute Jing tutorial I put together that uses a photo to create an organic tactile texture in Photoshop. Be sure to click on the 'full size' button when viewing

How to use the clone stamp and healing brush Get rid of 'copy/paste' syndrome

Note: Hi Class -
Sometimes you need to get rid of things that are duped in a composition (it happened to some of you in the texture assignment) Above is a link to a short Photoshop tutorial on how to use the clone stamp and healing brush...

Archive

Crystal texture
Jen Altman texture
Lori Pelar volume

Photoshop/Textures-and-Patterns/1

Texture tutorial
Jay Arraich
Lauri McCormack Student texture step by step

 

Matthew Martsolf Texture made from face/self portrait 2010 (click)

Jessica Maceda

Today, we took a walk to enjoy the stark scenes produced by the first snow of the season. In the middle of our outing I remembered that I should be paying attention to the various textures I came across to get inspiration for this assignment. I found quite a few interesting surfaces like the pebble path we followed, and the swirled wood grain found in the picket of a privacy fence. However, I ended up using a photo of fuzzy moss covering a tree trunk to create this texture.

To stay within the assignment guidelines I desaturated the image so white, black and gray were the only colors left. Afterward, I began using the ellipses marquee tool to select specific areas to help complete the pattern in spots it was faint or concealed by snow. Once I evened out the pattern to my satisfaction I made adjustments to the levels so that I could add and subtract value from certain areas that needed an increase or decrease in contrast. I also duplicated several layers so that I could change the orientation and move them around the texture to create a stronger illusion of depth by overlapping the images of varying opacity. The texture really didn't come to life until I started playing with filter effects. I think I tried all of them! The one that added the most visual appeal was the glowing edges filter. Once I applied that effect, the texture began to take on a look of skin or bacteria magnified under a microscope. Doing so also added more depth & dimension since the texture now conveys a subtle spiraling motion that draws you in and activates a desire to explore the tactile image further. It kinda makes me skin crawl :D - Jessica Maceda

 

Jenna Dickes*
Daniel Krell
Gilbert DeLuna*
Brenda Cann
Monica Cash
Travis Wickham
Chris Zittle
Colby Miller
Nicholas Kienzle
Brad Eyers

Depth and Volume

Depth tutorial 4.5 min - above image and photos used (click to view)
I used several photographs, desaturated, ajusted levels, copied, pasted, transformed to create a composition dealing with depth and volume.

Harlan McCoy Depth and Volume example with step by step description

Volumetric shapes the gradient tool photoshop tutorial Dusty Miller PDF 1mg image from the above steps

 

Written component:

For this assignment I used a series of my own photographs.  I used a picture of my spider, a gas mask that was placed on top of a glass head, the cemetery by my house and some trees around dusk time. I cropped the images I wanted and placed them onto my canvas.  I used  the desaturated for each of the images and made adjustments accordingly.  I tried to use large and small images as instructed and tried to create depth from near to far.  I wanted to get enough volume and depth by using different shades with the gradient tool.  When I was done and happy with my image I added some canvas to the bottom of my image and added my label

- Jenny Daigle

Diane Andrews Assignment 3

Matt Johnson 2010 Depth and Volume

Kitty Alea 2010 First Time in Vegas, Depth and Volume