07 February 2003 - Day 2

As much as I'd like to go ahead with modelling the head I need to rough out the background to set the scene. As mentioned on day one; I already have a scene and composition in my mind, but it always helps to have a rough version to clarify the vision.

Normally at this point I would sit with pencil and my sketchpad.. but there's a fairly extreme perspective in the scene and it's best to let the computer take care of the tedious stuff. All the lessons in the world on how to "do" perspective in an image become fairly pointless when a 3D package is readily to hand. There's no such thing as "cheating" so I rough out my minds eye with very simple blocks:

......a fifteen minute job to build and find just the right camera angle.

Ramble mode: People keep asking me which is the best 3D package to use and I really can't reccomend one above another. I've been a long time user of Lightwave and Maya, but now more recently 3DSMax. Every one of them has an area they excell in, but with each revision they are becoming more and more alike. People also ask me why I currently favour Max over Maya. I don't favour either of them, but as I'm currently using Max for my main project at work I tend to use it in my spare time too.

Once I'm happy with the layour and camera angle it's time to add some lighting. I usually render as many tests off in thumbnail mode as possible and choose from the best few. It's best at this point to leave it for a while and leave a mass of thumbnails on the screen. When you return to the monitor with fresh eyes later it's so much easier to see the most grabbing of the bunch;

a	b
c	d

After a hearty meal of "Beans on Toast" and an episode of the Sopranos I come back and instantly see my favourite of 20 thumbnails -"C" from the above. I drag and drop that to Photoshop to doodle out some very rough alterations that I know will need to be modelled in later. I know at this point the image will be scrapped later, but it does provide a very quick and easy preview of the desired result. It's still pretty monochromatic and cartoonish at the moment but that will all change later when it's modelled in detail, textured and lit properly..

It's getting pretty late and I usually like to come back to an image when I'm fresh in my mind, but I really can't help but outline the dragon. I want to know that my mental composition is going to work so I load up photoshop again and outline a couple of variations.. finally coming up with a layout I'm pretty happy with at 2 am:

While I'm painting composition tests I normally like to keep the resolution very low, almost thumbnails. The above image is 1:1 straight from Photoshop.. The reason for this is probably just personal: if I work at higher resolutions whn I'm sketching I tend to get distracted by the detail and overwork things to the point that they become "precious" even if they detract from the whole. Sacrifices to have to be made for the sake of a composition; so it's best to know as early as possible where the focal points are in an image and reduce the amount of stuff that needs to be discarded.

very very late now - better get to bed.