Help please, Environments thumbnails tips and ideas ?

[Mr_S_14]

I was wondering if anyone would be willing to share their tips or suggestions and ideas on creating environments, what's worked for you for certain things when it comes to creating environments and architectural scenes?

1.How do you thumbnail them and develop them into larger and more detailed images ?

2.What have you found works best for you ?

3.Do you begin your image with perspective ?

4.Do you fill in the image guessing and go from there ?

5.About how many might you have per page ?

One thing I have noticed is that if I think a little bit about the story of the image as I'm making maybe have an abstract thought process I like what I come up with a little more. I have found I have a tendency to use similar compositions in larger images that's something I'd like to change so my images don't all look the same at glance.
If you have any questions that I may not have thought of that are related to enviros that you would like to answer or have answered that's fine too. any knowledge you share and I can learn from would be great. also if you could post examples that could be helpful too, THANKSxaLOT !

(note: I added numbers to the questions to hopefully make it easier to reply, use them or don't , they were more of an afterthought)

~Sean

[Kan Muftić]

Hi,

Forget the whole story thing and just try to replicate enviroments, creating quick thumbnails WITHOUT color picking but trying to match the colors you see.
I wouldn't even bother with perspective too much on this. Focus on the colors / lights.
If you don't understand my broken english, go to my sketchbook and you'll find few sheets of those enviro-thumbnails, so you'll see what i mean.
Let me know if you need more help,
Khan

[Musselfarmstudios]

When choosing enviroments just try to think like a cinematographer making a movie and try to establish the key elements that are essential for advancing the story or compostion depending on what the drawing is about.

Figure out what angle would convey the mood you need for the drawing and pay attention to the kind of lighting that you might want.

In regards to thumbnails . . . they are a personal thing. Some artist like to draw thumbnails that are pretty big in size 4 x 6 or some as small as what I like to use 1x2.35 inches. In regards to how many per page . . . its up to what you feel most comfortable with and whether you want to leave notes with the thumbnails. But just be sure to leave enough room between thumbnails so that the images aren't competing with each other when your judging them.

The thing about thumbnails is that they are meant to layout the composition while keeping the details out. The masses are the most important element. You don't need to get technical when it comes to perspective . . . just eyeball and guess at what your working at. Keep the values simple try working with no more than 3 or it could get complicated depending on the size of your thumbnails.

As with everything it gets easier the more you do it.

Hope this helps . . . later Bra!

[Mr_S_14]

Hi,
Thankyou MusselfarmStudios and Chupacabra for your tips, I'll keep in mind everything you two said, I even took notes .It seems I need to focus a little more on colors ,lighting and mood.

Musselffarmstudios, The Idea of using no more than three values seems it will be helpfull when creating thumbnails, and keep me from getting lost in color. Thankyou

Chupacabra ,I'll put replicating existing environments/images on my list of stuff to do on a regular occasion. That's a great Idea, Thankyou. and I won't color pick. Also I went through your sketchbook and found some stuff that was helpful, and I'll be sure to let you know if I think I need more help. Thankyou

~Sean
P.S. I found the environmentoring thread a few weeks ago but still had some questions, so thanks again.

[Interceptor]

You know, I'd have a look at sktechpadofdoom.blogspot.com
It's Idiot Apathy's enviro thumbnail blog. And really good stuff. I'm not saying copy him, but there's a plethora of great work there, you might find inspiration or ideas from it.

[Mr_S_14]

I'll go there right now, Thankyou Interceptor, I appreciate it.

Edit: Nice, Those were just the kind of examples I've been looking for Interceptor. thanks