04/10/2018

Mineral Dream House


By the end of September, I was joining Roman Muradov class "Digital Illustration: Drawing with Shapes & Layers" at Skillshare. I was unsure, since it involve things that I fear most in digital and traditional drawing: drawing with negative space and without outline.

The class objectives are to create a design based on 2 shapes we see around us and challenge ourself to use more irregular shapes, also experiment with screen-printing and digital techniques (adding and subtracting, overprinting, resizing) to achieve a balanced composition.

Here are some notes I made during the class:

1) Software: Photoshop CC 2015

2) Preparations:
  • colors I used: #EEA369 & #5EA8B2
  • brush: Kyle T. Webster Gouache A Go Go (the same brush too for eraser)
  • prepare to draw without outline (I'm not used to draw like this, so I had to adjust every now and then)
  • Things I saw in front of me:
>> Yasuhiro Yamashita's "Reflection of Mineral" house (I was googling Japanese house and suddenly it came up on the search result)
 (via Everybody Sucks But Us)

>> Yas Kaz's album "Virgo Indigo"


3) Things I learned from the class:

  • Use the bright color instead the mute one, CMYK tends to mute it down. If you're having a second thought and want to switch it to RGB in the middle of process, I think it'll leave you with disappointment. Stick to RGB or CMYK since the beginning.
  • Try several color combos using "replace color". Since you're doing each color separately, it will helps with indecisive mind. I'd prefer bold color, but it won't hurt if you want to go pastel.
  • Things that inspired most for the drawing are Yasuhiro Yamashita's house in Japan (I collect small pyrites, the house shape resembles to it) and Yas Kaz's album (for the color scheme). I know these are not really the project instruction, but it's something that lays in front of me by the time I started to draw.
  • You could turn up/down the opacity of each colors, if you find the default colors are too harsh. I did it for building's shadow or shadow inside the room.
  • Do not forget to switch between layers and colors!
  • 1080 x 1080 pixels is an ideal workspace
  • Using magnetic lasso or pen tools for more precise drawing, but I personally am a "Shift + eraser" type of person. Erasing is so much fun than drawing nodes.
  • Drawing with negative space is harder than I thought, but it's very rewarding if you finally finished a project!
I also try two other color combos:


(This is my first color choice before switching to purple-orange)


(I also try pink-green)