Create a Mountain Fortress Using Matte Painting Techniques in Photoshop: Advanced Tutorial
In this tutorial, you will learn how to Create a Mountain Fortress Using Matte Painting Techniques in Photoshop. This is on categories advanced tutorial. You can learn tutorial step by step and more easly. so let us start.
Step 1
This first step allows us to brainstorm some ideas. In the beginning
of this stage, we really have no clear direction. We just let our
hands and mind do the talking. But if we have to capture an idea, we
must try and do as much doodling as we can. It doesn’t matter what
type of tool or medium you use just as long as you can express your
ideas on paper, or in some cases, digital paper.
Tip: When sketching, it is encouraged that you try
and take your time to flesh out your ideas on paper. One way is to
create call outs to describe some parts of your sketches. Creating
variation based on look and perspective can give you a fresh new idea
on the same concept. Remember, there is no such thing as a ridiculous
idea, all ideas at this stage is useful. In our example sketches, added
notes and call outs were useful in describing certain details.
Step 2
Once we have done that, you can now start compiling all your ideas
into 4 main concepts. Only choose the ones that you like. You have the
option to refine each sketch, but keep it along the concept that you
are aiming for. In our case, we want to create a castle enveloped by a
snow mountain surrounded by lava, two contrasting ideas that can be a
challenge to create.
Choose what you think is the best among the 4 that you have made.
Choose the one that can conveys your idea strongly. Refine the concept
and add proper framing and composition. Altering or changing some
parts to make it more pleasing to the eye. In some cases taking this
final concept and creating different views of it can also help. There
might be a better angle or perspective that you can "accidentally"
discover while exploring your idea. In some ways, 3D can be a great
tool at this stage, which leads us to.
2. Form Building
Form building is the next step to flesh out your ideas. Some
mattepainters are great at creating form using hundreds of references,
others prefer 3D. Whatever tool or step you might take, always consider
the time that you will spend on creating your piece, especially with
pressure from deadlines. This is a critical part since we might waste a
lot of time if we press on the wrong direction.
We start making our form by refining our composition. We take our
initial sketch and overlay some common composition lines over it to
refine the flow and look of our final image. Feel free to edit or
transform your image at this stage.
Next, we will be using 3D as our tool of choice for creating the
subject of our work. We’ve chosen 3D for its versatility and level of
control. We can always come back to our 3D model and render different
views of the same model and change the texture and lighting when we want
too. This is true of most studio workflows where time is critical and
versatility is a must. Form blocking in 3D is also better at providing
us with accurate light and shadow direction. However, since this is a
pure Photoshop tutorial, we will not dwell on 3D building the castle,
but focus more on how we can enhance and integrate our pre-rendered
castle into our painting.
We have provided a pre-rendered 3D image of the castle that we are
going to use. You can also find several renders of the castle with
different textures and one EXR file that has passes to be used on
editing the pre-rendered images. Besides the images, we have also
included the 3D model and its textures in different file format which
you, in your end, can explore how to enhance or recreate the scene that
fits your concept.
3. Creating Mountains
Before we begin, let’s create a new file.
Our final image will then be delivered at this resolution. However if
your computer cannot handle large files, you are allowed to work on any
manageable resolution. But to fully appreciate your painting, I would
recommend your final delivery to be around the HD size, 1920×1080
pixels.
Step 1
Now on to the Fun stuff! Let’s start off with the mountains. We are
starting with the mountains because they are the biggest part of our
painting. It is also the part that frames our Castle.
First we will use our castle render as our base for the shape and
look of the mountains (see 3D render image below). Then we will proceed
with blocking the mountains really quickly to get an overall look and
feel of the painting.
Step 2
Block the mountains with the reference image that we have provided.
At this stage we are just free forming our painting. Grab any image that
you think can work. This will be changed later on with a better image,
we just need to see something really quickly. Use the Magic Wand Tool and quickly select the blue skies.
Step 3
Once that’s done, invert your selection (Shift + Command/Ctrl I) or going to tab menu "Select – Inverse." Once your selection is inverted refine the edge (Command/Ctrl + Alt + R) or tab menu (Select – Refine Edge) When you have set you settings, always tick "Remember Settings"
to save your current settings. This is useful as you have a preset that
can be edited faster especially if you have a slower computer.
Final "Cut" image should be similar to this:
Step 4
Add a "blocking" sky, it can be 2 or 3 variances of sky that can later be mixed or changed.
Add the skies and the blocking mountain behind the castle.
Integrate it as you go.
Step 5
Taking another blocking mountain image, masked it out and add it as a left side blocking piece for the mountain background.
Step 6
Take another mountain from the references and use it to block out the furthest part of your painting. A simple soft brush
can quickly integrate it with your current painting. Just be sure that
you are choosing the right image that goes with your sky.
Step 7
Here is where everything starts to get interesting. At this point we
are done with the preliminary blocking. We start off by creating our
first perspective lines using the Pen Tool (P). Choose
a side from the building, using it as a guide, click and drag your
first point to the left side of the painting. Do this again and again
until you can find where the vanishing point is. This will be our first vanishing point. Be sure to mark your vanishing point with a Guide Line.
When you are satisfied with the perspective lines you have created, paint over the lines. Select a Hard Round Brush, set the size to 1 or a bit bigger depending on the size of your canvas. Then go back to pen tool, (Command/Ctrl + left click) on the canvas to unselect any lines, right click then from the drop down menu select "Stroke Path" the choose the "Brush Tool" from the selection and hit OK. Depending on the current foreground color, the resulting line should look like the one below.
Step 8
Once you have set up your perspective lines, you can now start
building up your main mountains. We start off with a mountain that has a
more snow on it. It also comes from a set of images with the same
character, enabling us to edit it faster and easier to integrate.
Step 9
Start transforming your mountain to follow our blocking render. Lower down the opacity of your pasted mountain and Right Click – Free Transform. It doesn’t have to be accurate, but try to keep the established look as much as possible.
Step 10
Another way to get the form of your concept to your images is to
create an outline of your existing blocking render. Just quickly paint
over the outline of the 3D mountain on another layer.
Step 11
Once that is done, you can go back and keep on transforming your reference images to reflect the outlines that you just created.
Step 12
Were now moving towards screen right of our painting. Now it’s time
to create the second set of vanishing point. Let’s try and create these
lines following the edges of the front face of our castle.
Tip: Try to keep your perspective lines and painted
outlines in one folder. That way, you can easily turn them on and off as
a group. At the same time its good practice to create groups for your
elements. A classic group naming would be BG – Background, MG – Midground and FG – Foreground. You can also group each element according to their type e.g. mountain, castle, sky etc.
Step 13
Once that is done, we continue to build upon our painting by
importing images from our reference folder and transforming them to fit
over the form that we have established.
At this stage, the process is very organic. Any image you will use
will work just as long as you follow the curvature of your blocking
render. Keep in mind that slanted edges should have slanted faces. So if
you are using a reference that has a much more vertical face, be sure
to transform it to follow the contour of the blocking render
Step 14
We keep on working on the mountain using our second perspective lines
as vanishing point. At this point, we are adding the foreground
element, creating an entrance to our castle.
Since our process is very organic, you can keep on adding elements that you think would work well with the image your building.
Step 15
Add another mountain element on your current painting. Based on
your reference 3D image, try to look for a mountain that has a much more
rocky surface, or less snow on top. We want to wrap our castle on a
hard surface showing how massive and fortified it is in contrast to the
snow which is quite soft and clean and volatile.
Step 16
Add some tip details to the edges of the mountain. When selecting for
the tip on the mountains in your painting, try to look for the ones
that are tips themselves. It’s easier to have them match rather than
carving a piece of image to make it look like a tip
Now the tutorial How to Create a Mountain Fortress Using Matte Painting Techniques in Photoshop has been finished. If you need any tutorial to improve your skill in Photoshop please visit other tutorial on this blog. Ok thanks for coming. By: Eric D
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