Learning Photoshop and Developing New Workflows

 So far with this course I've been doing all of my concept work on an Ipad through the Procreate and Sketchbook apps. I recently decided I wanted to try to experiment with new workflows though, so I bought myself one of the cheaper Wacom tablets to try out photoshop on my pc. 

I've also decided that I'm going to start integrating 3D block-outs within my workflow, as these are a fast and simple way to establish correct perspective and lighting for environment concepts, processes I often find quite frustrating and time consuming. To do this, I might start looking into Maya as it would be a useful software to have under my belt anyway, though at first I think I'll stick to Blender since I already have a bit of experience with it. 

I'll be discussing 3D blockouts further in an upcoming post on my Near Eastern project, as I have some pieces planned for which I will be using the technique. For this post though, I'll be sharing some of my progress with learning photoshop over the last week.

The concept above was the first piece I made in photoshop. I was experimenting with brushes, mostly sticking to a very flat, chisel shaped brush, which I found great for creating a gestural, painterly feel. I also did some very light photobashing and paint-over on the golden disk that serves as the piece's focal point, to explore some of the software's tools. This concept is part of my Near Near Eastern project, so I'll discuss it more in that context in my next post on the project.

I spent a couple hours on this coastal concept one afternoon last week. It's unrelated to my main project and I sort of just made it up as I went along. The main focus was just practicing some photo/image manipulation techniques in Photoshop. In particular, I was playing around with using photo textures and layer masks to describe objects and surfaces in the scene quickly and efficiently, rather than having to hand paint every detail.

These figure sketches are again unrelated to my project work, as I was just having fun doing something different from my usual work for a bit that evening. Line sketching like this was nice for learning the hand-eye coordination needed for the new tablet + monitor setup, which feels quite different to drawing directly onto a screen as I am used to doing. 

That's all for now, as this was just a quick post to talk about my branching out with new softwares. I'll be returning to my more usual project work in my next posts.