Design Basics

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Since Ctrl+Paint began, I've been asked to make a series about creating concept art.  Well, this is it!  Earlier drafts took different forms, but finally I decided to make this series as versatile as possible and explore the rules of visual language.  As a result, the ideas in this series can be applied to any subject-matter you like.

[UPDATE] This is now available in the store!

Concept art is all about visual design.  After all, how do we know if we're looking at a hero or a villain? It's easy to forget that concept artists do more than just draw cool stuff.  Their real task is to communicate with a viewer through shapes and colors - to make it absolutely clear who is the hero, and who is the villain.  Design Basics, coming to the store on Wed. October 17th, examines this silent language: the language of design.

Whether you're designing props, characters, environments, or even your personal website - the rules are all the same.  The videos in this series explain how to gather and utilize visual reference, plan your characters, and infuse them with the principles of good design.  Unlike the other store offerings, this series is completely lecture-based and you won't see me drawing on screen.  Instead it covers the process and iteration that lead to the final robot design; focusing on the idea process and not the tools themselves.

Sketching: Lines

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A safe approach to most drawing is going from general to specific. Large scale before details. This video shows how apply that general form to sketching line-work in Photoshop using layers. Of course, drawing is a personal process and your technique might differ. This is the method I derived over time from my experience as a Comic Book student in art school, and a concept artist after college.

Modular Thumbnail Sketching

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The goal of thumbnail sketching is to generate a large variety of design possibilities in a short amount of time. With this goal inmind, it's not 'cheating' to take a non-traditional approach. This video shows how to "built" your thumbnail sketches instead of simply drawing them. Using robots as subject matter, we'll first build a set of modular components, and then mix and match them to create a large variety of robot designs.

Remix your thumbnails: Chop and Warp

Sometimes the digital workflow will behave completely counter to the way you learned to draw with a pencil and paper. Though it might seem foreign and strang...

Sometimes the digital workflow will behave completely counter to the way you learned to draw with a pencil and paper. Though it might seem foreign and strange, I encourage you to embrace these new opportunities! In this video I'll show how to iterate through a set of thumbnails by chopping them up into pieces, mixing, matching, and contorting them. Though it's not much like traditional 'drawing', it's a lot of fun and can be a huge time-saver.

Mirror Action for Thumbnails

In this short video I explain how to use symmetry in photoshop with an action preset.

The goal of making thumbnail sketches is speed. You're trying to get a lot of ideas onto the page as quickly as possible. This video explores the concept of symmetrical thumbnail designs. Specifically, it offers a single-button solution to create these horizontally mirrored drawings. Photoshop actions can be a huge time-saver if you know how to use them - and this 'mirror action' is no exception.