Restaurant - Colored Elevations

[Eric]

Hello all! Here is a project I'm currently working on - (4) 2D colored elevations in Photoshop of a restaurant. The City wants a 3D rendering (previously posted, and included with this post), as well as 2D renderings of each side of the building. I'm anxious to purchase some markers or colored pencils and get my traditional hand skills back, but for now, I'm doing the 2D stuff digitally.

 

Unfortunately, our firm does not really have anyone with exceptional hand-rendering skills, so I've never really had an opportunity to "watch and learn" from an expert. Maybe some of the experts around here can give me some tips on improving future 2D digital renderings.

 

Thanks,

Eric

[Tim Nelson]

Man, you should be giving US tips on 2d elevations. It looks great! You did that all in photoshop? Do you have a Wacom or something, because the tree looks really cool. It already looks like it was done with markers & thats something I never see in digital elevations.

[mbr]

They all look good. The 3D - that Porsche catches your eye quickly. The horizon of the city pic looks to be higher than the rendering (could be wrong, and no one else will notice).

I like the skies a lot in the 2D. Was there a reason you did the 2D by hand? It'd look pretty cool with some soft GI and that sky you've got in the bg (something to consider for the future?).

 

Have you tried painter?

[Eric]

Man, you should be giving US tips on 2d elevations. It looks great! You did that all in photoshop? Do you have a Wacom or something, because the tree looks really cool. It already looks like it was done with markers & thats something I never see in digital elevations.

 

LOL! Thanks for the compliment! Yeah, it's all in photoshop. I do have a Wacom (actually a cheaper Aiptek), but I don't use it much. My Wacom was much better, but it's fairly old, and didn't work well with XP (the response time was way too slow) even with current drivers. I used the mouse instead - it's more accurate for me.

 

The tree is a scan of a graphic we have in our library from the old days of hand renderings in our office. Unfortunately there aren't any more hand renderers here - I'm now doing it all digitally (which I'm not complaining about - but I'd like to learn from older/experienced renderers).

[Eric]

They all look good. The 3D - that Porsche catches your eye quickly. The horizon of the city pic looks to be higher than the rendering (could be wrong, and no one else will notice).

I like the skies a lot in the 2D. Was there a reason you did the 2D by hand? It'd look pretty cool with some soft GI and that sky you've got in the bg (something to consider for the future?).

 

Have you tried painter?

 

Yeah, I probably should have chosen a more muted color for the cars right in front of the building. I still wish I would have left out the Celica and maybe the Mini.

 

You're probably right about the horizon of the city pic. I tried to adjust it to help fill in the horizon line beyond the restaurant, and ignored the vanishing points. I probably forgot more than anything - it was Friday after all...

 

The sky in the 2D is a photoshopped image of clouds (two of them actually - with opacity and layer blend modes adjusted) with various filters applied to lessen their realism.

 

In regards to doing the 2D by hand - do you mean why the Photoshopped CAD elevations as compared to shooting elevation views of my 3D model? 3D elevations would have been much quicker, since the model was already built, but I guess I have a bit of a desire to learn more traditional rendering methods to add to my skillset. I'd love to try doing these actually by hand - but I like having the "Undo" command... Maybe one of these days I'll take a risk and pick up some markers or colored pencils.

 

I've never tried painter. I just looked at their gallery, and there are some impressive pieces on there! Might have to give the demo a try.

[Chad Warner]

I agree with Tim...you should be showing other people how to do 2d elevations. For not having any formal trianing with traditional media, you do a MUCH better job than 90% of the people I see around here who get paid for it.

[Eric]

I agree with Tim...you should be showing other people how to do 2d elevations. For not having any formal trianing with traditional media, you do a MUCH better job than 90% of the people I see around here who get paid for it.

 

LOL - Thanks guys. I never expected comments like that. Maybe I'm just typical of the way (I assume) most of us feel - we're our own worst critics.

[MJL Imaging]

wow, these look great. I'll be waiting for some tips.

[Brian Cassil]

I think we are all wondering why you want to even try the traditional method for elevations. I'm sure these would fool your client and even most illustrators would have to look closely to see that they aren't. Really its a nice job. Could you talk about the process you used?

[Eric]

The technique I use is really fairly simple. The hardest part is trying to figure out which brush to use, and what color will give the best representation of final materials when used with various layer blend modes or brush modes (such as Overlay, Multiply, Normal, etc.).

 

For the most part, I always use the "Wet Sponge" standard Photoshop CS brush(it may have been in previous versions too??).

 

For light colors, the "Multiply" mode is usually best. For dark colors, the "Normal" mode is usually best.

 

Of course, the way you overlap your strokes has a big effect on the final result of the color as well, so grab a blank piece of your canvas, and play around with the brush blend modes and colors and strokes until you get the result you're happy with.

 

While you are figuring out the magic settings, create a new document, and fill a small color block of color on the canvas, with a text object next to it that gives the relevant information, such as:

 

Restaurant X:

(color swatch) Brick - Brush "Wet Sponge" - Mode "Multiply"

(color swatch) Trim - Brush "Wet Sponge" - Mode "Normal"

(color swatch) Window Base - Fill - Layer Mode "Normal"

(color swatch) Window Strokes - Brush "Wet Sponge" - Mode "Multiply"

(color swatch) Window Gradient - Gradient - Black to White - Layer Mode "Color Burn"

 

This is just a general idea of a file I setup for this particular project. The settings may have been a little different - I'm at home and can't open the file at the moment.

 

The sky was just a google'd image, resized to fit the canvas, and duplicated. Then one image was filtered for one effect, and the other for another effect. I used the "Cutout" filter on one, and the other was adjusted with "Levels" and tweaked for high-contrast, and converted to blue and white.

 

I was in Barnes & Noble looking at books one day for house plan books that have colored elevations. The magazine racks are loaded with such magazines, but they typically only have a few colored images, the rest are black and white. I went to their book section that has books on decorating and other house stuff, and found a plan book. An absolutely great book. Every plan has a colored elevation. I immediately bought the book (for reference on upcoming rendering projects for techniques - since I'm trying to make my digital stuff look like hand-stuff). After looking through the book I saw in the back that there were several more books by the same group, and all of them seemed to have colored hand-renderings for every plan.

 

http://www.saterdesign.com/

http://www.saterdesign.com/house-plan-books.asp

 

Their books are very affordable, and I highly recommend them for inspiration with rendering techniques. Plus their plans are really nice too. And you can't beat the prices!!! They are NOT magazines - they are soft cover / paper back books. The "Cottages" book is actually printed on some kind of watercolor paper.

 

Anyway, I hope this helps some of you. The key is to play around until you get the result you want. I'd even recommend buying a couple of quality markers and coloring on a blank sheet of paper to see how the markers react. The type of paper has an effect on the results, so try different papers too. Overlap your strokes before the previous stroke dries to fill in a block of color. Do another block where you let it dry, then go back over it in another direction. Study the results, then play around with brushes and blend modes till you find a way to simulate the real-thing.

 

And by all means, use something for reference to try to imitate someone elses results. You'll probably find you'll create your own style in the process that works even better for you.

 

Eric

[Eric]

I think we are all wondering why you want to even try the traditional method for elevations. I'm sure these would fool your client and even most illustrators would have to look closely to see that they aren't. Really its a nice job. Could you talk about the process you used?

 

I guess I'm wanting to try new things, and I know some day I'll come across a client that won't touch digital renderings with a 10 foot pole. In fact, I've already worked with one - they just wanted our CAD services, and wanted to keep their hand-renderer for their presentation images.

 

Thanks for the compliment.

 

Eric

[roland]

good work dude can you give me some of your rpc. if you dont mind

thanks in advance

[Eric]

There is no (Archvision) RPC in the images. Besides, RPCs are purchased libraries, not free for distribution.

 

The cars are Dosch models, also not free for distribution. All landscaping is photographs I've taken, or found using Google, or painted in Photoshop, or modeled in 3D.