Today we are going to practice some painting techniques and to make a little environment sketch.

I will use my beloved Wacom Graphite 4 tablet.

So let’s get started.

Create a new document and a new layer. Depending on the artist we use different ways to create an illustration concerning layers.

Layers a very good but they do “eat” you ram. So it is once again for you to decide ether to use more layers or less. It is also depends on the type of the illustration.

So in this one I will not use a lot of layers.

I’m using this brush that I have downloaded from the internet. I will check my recourses and I will try to give you a direct download link on the brushes for you, guys.

So here is my brush and how it reacts and blends. I’ve just set the opacity, angle and Size jitter to pen pressure.

I’m now trying to see how the brush blends here.

I’m playing with some value here.

I’m also changing the brush size to paint some primary details, but using the same brush.

I’ve made my brush size very tiny here to paint some lighting-contours on the objects.

I’m seeking for some interesting forms and shapes here. I would like it to be a some king of industrial crane and here is the rope.

We will apply some more details. This is done by a basic 3 or 4 px round brush.

I’m listening to Meatworks here (our native D’n’B DJ) – It helps me a lot). He is a one very talented and good Dj, here, in Republic of Moldova.

If you are interested see more on Meatworks at www.myspace.com/invisiblelandscapednb

So what I am doing right now is I’m just painting some details and shapes.

The best way to create an atmosphere (fog, rain, sunrays, smoke) is to
pint it with Soft Edged brush with flow set to about from 2 to 10 %,
depending on the tablet and the drawing manner itself.

So I will just create some atmosphere now.

I’m adding some shapes to have my structure more solid like.

I’m also adding some highlights on the fly. Here is important
to always keep in mind where your light source is. We have the light
coming from left top somewhere.

Now our structure is basically finished here, let’s take care
about the surrounding objects. I really would like it (crane) to be
somewhere on the swamp on a little swamp island.

Let change the brush. I will take care that you could download these.

Adding some plants there (the lights on he plants too).

I can’t finish without having at least a dot textured). Maybe it is a run towards realism).

So select these parts of the image (I’ve used polygenic lasso
tool – it’s very easy to use this tool when working
with tablet.) copy them to a separate layer and apply a pattern in
layer styles on the layer.

I will paint some coming through lights. Use soft brush and opacity about 1%-5%.

You can now see the light coming through the whole.

A very good technique is to paint the lights on the separate layer and
to erase them back if needed. It is one of Ryan Church’s
(Star Wars and many more Concept artist) techniques I’ve seen
on his DVDs.

Drop some lights on the plants too.

AAAAnd we are done with this quick Environment sketch. Enjoy.

Cheers)

Download brushes: http://designstacks.net/Jeka/MyAntiscaleBrushSet.abr