Worldbuilding sketches

Jag couldn't sleep, so Jag opened Photoshop and proceeded to draw random places that would fit in the failnovel in a vague attempt to prompt the plotbunnies to get their butts in gear, and then before she knew it she'd been poking at the stuff for six hours.

Yeah, it surprised her too.

All of these done on 'toshop CS4, working size 2000x1400px, single-layer work (though duplicated to death, so as to have a fallback). Screen/multiply are my best friends in the whole wide world, as is the hard brush set to 10-40 opacity and 20-50 flow.

I. Because Every Fantasy World Needs A Cave With Pretty Shiny Glowy Crystals, Amirite
5 layers, ~45mn


II. Me, Have A Thing For Drawing Weird Clouds? Neverrrrr.
8 layers, ~45mn


III. Rocks Are Hard. And I Mean To Draw, Though The Other Meaning Works Too. And Yes, That Is A City In The BG.
9 layers, ~1h15 (srsly, rocks are hard)


IV. Seriously Why Must I Inflict This On Myself Wait No Don't Answer
10 layers, ~1h15-30

Short thing, cause I have no idea how to review this:
Gorgeous. I love the use of opacity and color, and your lines are wonderful. Personally, I've never done this sort of stuff on photoshop, so I don't really know it's capabilities/drawbacks, but great job.
I love the second and third; the first feels a bit bubbly to me, too much so for there to be fire involved. And, I already mentioned the texture of the rocks. The only thing I could possibly comment on is that (and this might just be a result of the program, and might not be able to be changed) the lines all kind of blur into each other. This isn't a problem in itself, but it makes the scene a little vague and almost abstract. This was especially apparent on the third one; the rocks have a really odd texture to them.

Like I said, I don't know if there's anything you can actually do about it though. Might just be the resultant style of the program.



Either way, beautiful job. And a great idea.

Hey Jags!

I can't really review this properly as I'm not artist. I just wanted to drop a comment and say how much I love these pictures! I can't believe you can do this sort of stuff on photoshop. I'm assuming you have some sort of drawing tablet? I think I remember talking to you about it.

As far as my favourites I would say that number four, the one of the forest, is my absolute favourite! Like I would frame that and put it on my wall and even if it's not giving you plot bunnies it's definitely giving me plot bunnies! I just love the twistyness of the trees and the light filtering through. It's making my brain fire off in different directions.

I would say my least favourite is the rocks one. For me I would've like to see more of the city and less of the rocks or I think it could've been cool if you had added in a person like looking at the city from the rocks or something like that, just to give it a little something extra.

The other two are good and I don't really have anything to say about them!

I just love the textures and the colours and stuff (I know, I so know my art shizzz).

Good job! I really enjoyed looking at these!

Bex x

This art looks like it comes from 100 years ago, but it is all made by a computer! Fantastic work! This art has a moody, unrealistic, dreamy-like trance to it. If that makes any sense. Anyway, you should put these settings into stories...if you weren't already planning that. Keep up the grat work =)

I wish I could draw like you so that I could tell people exactly what something looked like. For some reason I often base my settings of real places because if I can picture it in my mind than I can convey things to the reader much better. Instead of trying to decide how big something is I can focus on more important things like emotion. Mostly for fantasy though.

My favorites are two and four. I really like three as well, but I feel it needs something more. I suppose the landscape you were trying to make is very plain because it is winter. Maybe more shadows to make the path on the glacier stand out more? One thing I really liked about this picture was that you didn't make it dusk or dawn. People seem to only think the sky is beautiful at those times, but even a winter sky might not be 'brilliant' or 'stunning' at a time like you've shown it is still a great work of art.

Sorry about my ramble. I really do like the pictures and I could never do anything so great.

Thanks,

A. S.

P.S. We haven't talked in forever! Not that we really ever did, but... XD

So... do you fancy being bad at something? Just one thing would be cool.

I actually noticed that photoshop tutorial you just posted and you used the last picture here as an example. I saw it here and I was like YES, so I thought I'd drop by and leave a comment.

Basically, I adore these. I never knew anything like this was possible on a computer, so I can't applaud you enough for what you've got here. You make me want to download photoshop so much. Out of all of these, I'd actually have to say that the first one is my favourite. What can I say? I'm a sucker for purples. It's more fantasy than the rest, so I love the whole creatvity of it. I also love the last one - the forest one.

I'd have to agree with the others on the whole rock thing in the third drawing/picture/computerised painting. I mean, I could tell they were rocks after looking at it carefully, but the texture on them seems off, I guess. Now, I know as much about photoshop as a naked mole rat knows the feeling of warmth in winter (er... no.), but there's bound to be a way of tweaking the texture. What I think you need to do is to make them somehow look harder. Right now, they almost look a bit like they're melting or something. If possible, maybe you could try and make the edges harder or something.

Overall, I heart these so much.

Keep at it!

xoxo Skins

*mumbles* When you said you were going to post sketches, I expected doodles--not beauty.

I particularly enjoy the crystal formation--it has surprising depth and I keep finding new things inside it. I think one thing I would like to see in these is a stronger use of hard lines, especially with things such as the rocks in pic 3 and the cave in pic 1. The soft touch works for organic and whimsical things (the trees in pic 4, the clouds and grass in pic 2), but hard things need hard lines!

...Of course, I'm sure this is due to the nature of the sketches.

Well done.

--D

This was so beautiful!!
I loved the texture and brightness of the drawings (:
It was really breath taking ang it made me feel very bad in comparison xD
Well all I have to say is that the six hours paid off xD

Am I the only one who sees a frog sitting in a block of ice for all of them? I'm also getting a "domain unrecognized" error message.

I'm getting that too, Canislupis.

Hey Jag Just would like to say, I think these are really cool. No wonder you got so many reviews. I've worked with photoshop myself before. Pretty fun stuff I must say! But I've never really seen anything done quite like this.

The colors and contrast, it has a mystical, magical quality to it. I really do love all these. I find it difficult to pick a favorite. How'd you construct them? I'm really curious to know. Each picture, though different, look warm and bright, and intricate. They're just so pretty to look at. Great work here! No complaints or criticism. This is wonderful computer artwork.

canis, Jen: imageshack appears to be stupid right now >.> It still shows for me, and apparently other people, but it's been acting glitchy lately. Might relocate them all to photobucket if the problem persists.

Also, thanks everyone for the comments <3
(and re:stones: yeah, I'll make them extra jagged next time. Promise.)

Smyl: I pretty much used the same technique (briefly exposed here) for each drawing, just with differing colors and degrees of opacity.

These are gorgeous. I really like them.
I draw myself, occassionly, so I know a good artist when I see one. I love all of these.
I think the glassy effect on all of them is awesome to say the least. It gives them depth and a mystical appearance. I really genuinly think they're amazing. I'm preety sure I haven't reviewed your art before so I'm pretty *umm* Well lets just say my mouth is hanging open!

You got a good thing here,
Keep working on this!
Kaka xo

I get buggy problems with Photobucket all the time, you might want to just use the 'upload attachment' tool YWS offers.
I really wanna see! I just got into the digital art scene recently, y'see?

EDIT: I see them! Yes! Canislupis, you just need to go the the imageshack site and make an account there.
The third image needs a more defined sky, perhaps one of those handy gradients?
I love the sky in the plains one, though! What PS brush are you using?

Meerrh, using gradients feels like cheating :P (I did run a very low opacity white brush over the blue over on the left. Probably too low xD).

And I used the same brush for everything, only varying opacity/flow: the first default one, with the hard edge.