Tutorial_01
Software used: Sketchbook and Photoshop
step 1.
I start usually with resolution around 1900x1280. I use white background -- I know most of the people consider it not very useful, but for me it works very well to notice the initial problems in the sketch. I put the three axes for Isometric projection -- for concept work I personally consider isometry to work better than perspective -- it helps greatly the 3D guys to get right the volumes and proportions.
step 2.
I start in Sketchbook, I love the way it works for Industrial design. By all means, one can start with Photoshop directly. I make a very rough sketch with a hard brush with very low opacity (10-12%)
step 3.
I tighten the sketch with a brush 1/2 the size of the previous one and 2x opacity (20-25%)
step 4.
I make the final version of the lineart, tight brush, 100% opacity, pure black
step 5.
The cleaned up lineart. Here's where with a heavy heart e leave Sketchbook aside and move to Photoshop (damn layers incompatibility)
step 6.
I put down a basic blocking color. Helps a lot further on :) Usually i pick up something in a very desaturated cobaltblau.
step 7.
I pick up the direction of the light and block out the main shading. At this stage, i don't bother with nuances and value of the shadows -- just simple hard shadow blocking out. From a 3D perspective, after the renderer draws the edges of the geometry it starts working on the shading -- and here we are, doing the first part of this step.
step 8.
With a soft brush, I put the "shading pollution" -- its 3D equivalent is called "Ambient Occlusion" at the areas where it usually takes place. The "shading pollution/AO" takes place because of bouncing of the light from areas with slightly different surface properties and bounces around losing its photon energy at a different rate.
step 9.
I very sketchily and superficially mark the directly illuminated areas. I personally prefer to keep the illuminated areas up by simply not shading them. This is the 2D equivalent of the self-illumination material property (in certain 3D packages they mix it with the ambient color which is pedagogically incorrect, but anyway)
step 10.
Here comes the Photoshop chicanery :) One of the most important steps. I make a few textures, and using the magic Free Transform Tool I conform parts of these textures to the forms and volumes defined by the lineart -- mainly just the large areas (the smaller ones I fix with the brush). The curvatures take usually 5x as much time as the straight ones. In 3D terms, this the moment when the renderer begins to read from the texture using the information provided in tangent space (the UV coordinates, in a simpler term). After I place the textures, I put their layer in Multiply mode so that they pick up from the color and the shading underneath them.
step 11.
I take away the lineart and start little by little to tighten the image using the specular areas. I also start painting on top of the jet engine texture so that I can remove it later (otherwise it looks a tad too sterile). I also beging putting in details wherever I feel like doing it.
step 12.
This is the result thus far when I switch on the underlying layer that has the shading in it -- with the Multiplied textures on top of it. I continue tightening the image and put in details.
step 13.
The main volumes are covered already, I continue putting in details
step 14.
More detail, this time around the lights are on, they are the main reference in this case as to what size is the vehicle.
step 15.
I put in the paintjob. The hull is painted white, with Burgudy as its red counterpart. Both the white and the red are in Overlay mode so that let sufficiently the material and the shading to pass through them. I personally prefer to keep the paintjob Overaly layer at around 40-50% so that they don't mess up with the layers below them. After I block out the paintjob scheme, I take some irregular brushes (I've made a custom brushes set precisely for this kind of tasks) and scratch up the paint good in order to give the spaceship some history.
step 16.
Final step. I put in a neutral background to increase the readability of the concept. I resize it down to a reasonable resolution, and smack a Sharpen on it if need be. I pass over with Dodge or Burn soft brush at a veeeery low intensity -- 3-7% -- and put in a frame and the text.
Et voila :) Takes just a couple o'hours.
The steps will look very familiar to the people with 3D background. Indeed, they have direct equivalents in the course of the rendering process (or compositing, for this matter). For the people with Classic Art background (this approach might look very strange and unintuitive -- then aiagn, it might not By all means, this is an entirely digital technique which i am pretty certain can not be duplicated with a traditional media.
I hope this quick tutorial has been of help to someone.
Have a very nice day
Drone