DESIGN CRIT 006
BEYOND THE ROUGH DRAFT
Taking a finished design and finishing it EVEN HARDER. We’ll talk about some simple strategies for taking your imagery way past the rough draft stage.
MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO
TRANSCRIPT
Well hello! My name is Carey and today we’re gettin into some finishing techniques for putting a real polish on your designs and giving yourself even more ideas in the process.
Last time we looked at a really illustrative piece by Viktor Blinnikov and explored some quick photo-bashing techniques to give your work some extra life. He had actually made several images for that challenge in the visual design lab, where you’re focused on conveying a specific theme. The theme for his first image was wilderness, and this time we’re gonna look at one of the others that he did on the theme of… architecture.
This is a pretty cool take on architecture! There’s a bunch of little ideas in here, which is fun and they give you some different little things to look at. Viktor’s a motion designer, and I think you can pretty easily imagine this being animated into a little looping vignette of some sort. It’s sort of quiet but playful at the same time… a lot like this wilderness piece, actually. And also a lot like that one, I think we can push this one forward, by spending some time putting a few finishing touches on it.
Last time we looked at a really illustrative piece by Viktor Blinnikov and explored some quick photo-bashing techniques to give your work some extra life. He had actually made several images for that challenge in the visual design lab, where you’re focused on conveying a specific theme. The theme for his first image was wilderness, and this time we’re gonna look at one of the others that he did on the theme of… architecture.
This is a pretty cool take on architecture! There’s a bunch of little ideas in here, which is fun and they give you some different little things to look at. Viktor’s a motion designer, and I think you can pretty easily imagine this being animated into a little looping vignette of some sort. It’s sort of quiet but playful at the same time… a lot like this wilderness piece, actually. And also a lot like that one, I think we can push this one forward, by spending some time putting a few finishing touches on it.
So what I want to do is show you how simple it can be to use some photo-bashing and compositing techniques with real imagery to inject some life into stuff like this, and really into just about anything you make. So I spent maybe 30 minutes on google images grabbing stuff that I thought I might be able to plug into Viktor’s image. We’re not gonna use all of it, but you never know what might end up being useful, and it’s better to grab it while you’re searching than to look for it again and not be able to find it. So we’ve got some different clouds and skies to try, some different kinds of mountains… some rocky, some forested, which should come in handy… it doesn’t all have to be stylized stuff, so we got some basic trees, and… I think we’ll just start there.
Now, this is intentionally a really isometric view, built with 3d and flat shapes, so it doesn’t have normal perspective and all of the indications of depth that come with that. So I’m just using some simple perspective tricks to clarify where the depth might be. Y’know, arranging the rings like this with the foreground parts of them crowded together kind of tricks your eye into perceiving that there’s a bit of a slope here. And your brain also kind of assumes that this hole would be in the center of the dark grey shape, so moving the whole setup down kind of suggests that it’s sunken instead of just off-center. So those are some simple perspective tricks, but I’m gonna fuss with some other details to keep pushing that perception of depth even harder.
Viktor has built this so that there’s a light falling on some of these things. You can see it on the building and the steps and the spheres, where it looks to be consistently coming from the left. So I’m going to push that idea that the dark grey shape is underneath the surface by doing my best to paint in some shadows that are consistent with that lighting. Again, just adding up more indications of depth, which will give these shapes some form that your eyes can actually detect and understand, as opposed to something flat or featureless. Flat isn’t inherently bad or anything, but it does feel a little default. And to be fair, it feels default because it is. That’s what you tend to get out of software, and it just takes working it over for a while to give it character. And like the touches we added last time, these added details are naturally going to add just a little bit of character, which is nice. It’s gonna be lookin gooooood! Although at the same time, I don’t want to introduce anything too crazy, because I am gonna try to retain the general feel that Viktor was aiming for.
Like, in the original photoshop file, he had tried out this glow around the edge, and then apparently decided to turn it off. I actually think it still fits the feel of what he had, and I really like it, so I’m gonna bring it back in, but use it in a softer way so it’s less pronounced. I’m gonna blur it out and dim it down so it looks kind of like underlighting.
And then, after giving this top surface some shape with these shadows and highlights, it’s starting to look a little like a sand dune to me, and I think it’d be cool to push that idea, so i want to bring in some sand dunes, but to keep the sort of illustrative, graphic vibe we have, I’m choosing an image that still feels kind of graphic. Like, it looks more like an illustration than this does, for example, so it better matches the look and feel of what we have going on. And by setting it to “overlay” we get those shapes, and we get the idea of sand dunes, while keeping the general feel that Viktor had.
And then, after giving this top surface some shape with these shadows and highlights, it’s starting to look a little like a sand dune to me, and I think it’d be cool to push that idea, so i want to bring in some sand dunes, but to keep the sort of illustrative, graphic vibe we have, I’m choosing an image that still feels kind of graphic. Like, it looks more like an illustration than this does, for example, so it better matches the look and feel of what we have going on. And by setting it to “overlay” we get those shapes, and we get the idea of sand dunes, while keeping the general feel that Viktor had.
But here we can actually see the bigger bonus of continuing to explore these kinds of little details, maybe even past the point that you think they’re done. And that bonus is that: as you slowly work on adding and refining the details, you’ll tend to keep having little ideas like this that you can pursue, and that enrich the image overall. And over time, those ideas can build on each other. Y’know, I just thought this surface should appear to be underneath this one, so I started adding some shadows to it, which made it seem to me like the top surface is curved, like these contour lines sort of suggest, so I added highlights and shadows to that, which made it feel like a rolling dune, so I added some dunes to it… and now there’s a sense that this is in a kind of abstract desert, which is an idea that didn’t exist here before. And that’s kind of great, right?!
Really, this is a process of “play”, and we get into how to do this more effectively and really well in the visual design lab, so you can get a lot more out of it, but even if you’re sort of randomly stabbing at it, or just doing what comes naturally to you, if you’re kind of engaging in the little ideas that come to you, even simple ones like painting in shadows and highlights, it gives your brain a chance, while you’re doing those things, to kind of work over and interpret what’s happening in the image, and maybe generate some new ideas in the meantime that you can try out. And whether the ideas are big or little, broad or specific, if you keep exploring and trying out those those things that occur to you, they kind of add up. And over time, you end up incrementally improving your image a lot by investing it with little touches, bit by bit. It can slowly go from pretty good to really great. And that can often be the difference between doing average work, and doing work that people will really be into. It can give your work that edge that gets it noticed and appreciated.
In part, the key is to just keep playing. Keep trying little ideas out, even if they might seem almost inconsequential. You never know what you might try that will suddenly make you think of something you hadn’t before, and then you can go pursue that little idea. You can always tear these ideas out afterward if you went off in a direction that didn’t turn out, which can totally happen. But you’ve got that safety net of saving versions and using undo, and you can trust in the ability to pursue those little details. To just play and see if anything comes out of it.
Like, I decided to replace the space image in this big hole with this one because I thought a tiny bit more color would be good back there, and as I was straightening out these steps, and making some little fixes to clean up this ladder, I kept looking at that galaxy back there and thinking: I wish there were a way to have some of the light from that galaxy down there kind of illuminate the bottom part of this building, like a glow coming up out of that hole. And eventually I thought, “well let me just grab another copy of that galaxy and borrow its color…”, and in doing that, I realized it would be kind of cool to just have some of the stars from that image come forward and sit in front of the building, for a little bit more depth. So it’s kind of like they’re coming up out of the hole. That is kind of a cool idea. So what if we keep exploring that and try adding some also spilling over on to the surface?
Really, this is a process of “play”, and we get into how to do this more effectively and really well in the visual design lab, so you can get a lot more out of it, but even if you’re sort of randomly stabbing at it, or just doing what comes naturally to you, if you’re kind of engaging in the little ideas that come to you, even simple ones like painting in shadows and highlights, it gives your brain a chance, while you’re doing those things, to kind of work over and interpret what’s happening in the image, and maybe generate some new ideas in the meantime that you can try out. And whether the ideas are big or little, broad or specific, if you keep exploring and trying out those those things that occur to you, they kind of add up. And over time, you end up incrementally improving your image a lot by investing it with little touches, bit by bit. It can slowly go from pretty good to really great. And that can often be the difference between doing average work, and doing work that people will really be into. It can give your work that edge that gets it noticed and appreciated.
In part, the key is to just keep playing. Keep trying little ideas out, even if they might seem almost inconsequential. You never know what you might try that will suddenly make you think of something you hadn’t before, and then you can go pursue that little idea. You can always tear these ideas out afterward if you went off in a direction that didn’t turn out, which can totally happen. But you’ve got that safety net of saving versions and using undo, and you can trust in the ability to pursue those little details. To just play and see if anything comes out of it.
Like, I decided to replace the space image in this big hole with this one because I thought a tiny bit more color would be good back there, and as I was straightening out these steps, and making some little fixes to clean up this ladder, I kept looking at that galaxy back there and thinking: I wish there were a way to have some of the light from that galaxy down there kind of illuminate the bottom part of this building, like a glow coming up out of that hole. And eventually I thought, “well let me just grab another copy of that galaxy and borrow its color…”, and in doing that, I realized it would be kind of cool to just have some of the stars from that image come forward and sit in front of the building, for a little bit more depth. So it’s kind of like they’re coming up out of the hole. That is kind of a cool idea. So what if we keep exploring that and try adding some also spilling over on to the surface?
And now here’s another point where exploring one of these little fixes and ideas might bear some real fruit. Because instead of this just being a hole where we can faintly see space in the background, now stars are pouring out of it. And that makes me think maybe these bigger spheres could be celestial objects too. Maybe these darker guys in the background are little moons or planets, and maybe these brighter ones in the front can be stars. Y’know, maybe they’re white dwarfs, I dunno! It’s still an abstract idea, but it means a little bit more than featureless grey spheres do. That thought takes something that was kind of a hidden throwaway idea and expands on it, and in the process gives some of these elements a purpose they didn’t have, which is, more often than not, fantastic! And like the desert imagery, the stars idea came from just exploring minor things I wanted to fix or change, or had a thought about. And one thought led to the next, and so on. I wanted more color in the background, and then I wanted that color flooding out of the hole, and in trying that out I realized I could use the stars from the galaxy image instead of just the color, and then added even more stars elsewhere, and then because of that, I changed these bigger elements to stars and planets. You can see how we could keep changing the elements just by continuing to pursue these individual thoughts and discoveries, but again I don’t want to stray too far from the style and character of what Viktor made.
But we could. Again, just the process of spending more time with your design exploring the little ideas that you have, whether that’s adding some shadowing to something, or adding some depth to a set of elements, or just fixing a ladder… all of these things are changing and refining the design in small ways that add up, and while you’re engaged in refining those things, you get a bonus because your brain is kind of mulling over some alternatives that might end up being cool. But you have to explore them. And most of them will seem really inconsequential. Sometimes exactly none of them will take you anywhere fantastic and brilliant, but as in most things, you only get a shot at fantastic and brilliant when you are trying some stuff out.
Granted, it takes some practice to get a feel for what sorts of things are more likely to push a design forward. Like, where do you spend your time? Y’know, a little while ago, I thought it would be a good idea to apply a little bit of surface texture here, and it didn’t really help. I didn’t really have a reason for putting it there, other than to just break up the flat grey, so I chose that texture at random, and it didn’t work very well. It didn’t light my fire. Maybe having more of a reason to use a particular texture might have led me to something that worked out better. But that’s part of the process of finding out, and the more times you go ahead and give it a shot, the better your sense of what will probably work out and what probably won’t.
But we could. Again, just the process of spending more time with your design exploring the little ideas that you have, whether that’s adding some shadowing to something, or adding some depth to a set of elements, or just fixing a ladder… all of these things are changing and refining the design in small ways that add up, and while you’re engaged in refining those things, you get a bonus because your brain is kind of mulling over some alternatives that might end up being cool. But you have to explore them. And most of them will seem really inconsequential. Sometimes exactly none of them will take you anywhere fantastic and brilliant, but as in most things, you only get a shot at fantastic and brilliant when you are trying some stuff out.
Granted, it takes some practice to get a feel for what sorts of things are more likely to push a design forward. Like, where do you spend your time? Y’know, a little while ago, I thought it would be a good idea to apply a little bit of surface texture here, and it didn’t really help. I didn’t really have a reason for putting it there, other than to just break up the flat grey, so I chose that texture at random, and it didn’t work very well. It didn’t light my fire. Maybe having more of a reason to use a particular texture might have led me to something that worked out better. But that’s part of the process of finding out, and the more times you go ahead and give it a shot, the better your sense of what will probably work out and what probably won’t.
I think this works pretty well. It lends itself a little more to something you could animate with some real intention. So I did! And obviously, this is just one way to interpret what’s happening here, because it’s still a really abstract image. But I think the design itself is at a point where, when you look at it, you get some ideas about what might be going on, how it might move, what might be happening here. It’s been developed to a point where it has some of those ideas already in it. And that’s important, because one one of the things you really want in any design that you do is for it to give people ideas. You want it to tell people what it’s about, what’s happening, what it means.
And ideally, that’s what this process of play is leading you toward. In all honesty, a lot of designers stop when what they have is kind of a rough draft. Instead of just handing in that first draft, you sit with your design, and as you fuss with its details, you’re gonna be improving it, but you’re also gonna kind of passively imagine what certain elements are really there for or what they’re doing. You’ll look at some accidents or some things you did arbitrarily and ask “why is that there? Why is it that way?” And you’ll find little ways that certain things could change to be more interesting, and in doing that, maybe it gives you ideas about what else could be happening in the frame, or how to develop some theme further… y’know, whatever comes to you in general. These spheres were kind of cool, but I don’t know what they were doing there, and they were kind of bland to look at. Now they mean something that’s relevant to other things going on in the frame. They’re part of a theme that means something, and frankly, they’re also more interesting to look at, as a result. And we got there really just by fiddling with details and following a trail of little thoughts about what might be.
And ideally, that’s what this process of play is leading you toward. In all honesty, a lot of designers stop when what they have is kind of a rough draft. Instead of just handing in that first draft, you sit with your design, and as you fuss with its details, you’re gonna be improving it, but you’re also gonna kind of passively imagine what certain elements are really there for or what they’re doing. You’ll look at some accidents or some things you did arbitrarily and ask “why is that there? Why is it that way?” And you’ll find little ways that certain things could change to be more interesting, and in doing that, maybe it gives you ideas about what else could be happening in the frame, or how to develop some theme further… y’know, whatever comes to you in general. These spheres were kind of cool, but I don’t know what they were doing there, and they were kind of bland to look at. Now they mean something that’s relevant to other things going on in the frame. They’re part of a theme that means something, and frankly, they’re also more interesting to look at, as a result. And we got there really just by fiddling with details and following a trail of little thoughts about what might be.
So you’re getting multiple benefits by doing this: you’re constantly adjusting and building in details that enrich it aesthetically and make it nicer to look at. And also periodically finding ways to enrich it conceptually and make it more compelling and interesting overall. And all it takes is spending some time to really look at and dive into those details and explore their little possibilities. A different shape here, some lighting there, adding an extra little detail or making a fix to something, a more appropriate texture… y’know, whatever you spot as you work on it. You never really know what’s going to trigger a bigger idea, but you’re sweetening your design and getting more familiar with it as you do.
Now, there are more effective and less effective ways to engage in play, but doing it isn’t exactly complicated, so it doesn’t seem like something you’d really have to pay attention to, but… you kinda do! You kinda have to remember to do it, but it totally pays to give yourself some time to consciously play like this. To do it intentionally. To do it in the middle when you’re still figuring out what you’re making, and to do it especially when you think you’re basically done. I mean, this was done, and yet… here we are! It’s more refined, there’s a little more to look at and think about, and it has more narrative so there’s more immediate potential for animation ideas. I mean, look at all that jjjjjuice!
So make time to do this, and to do it consciously… throughout working on it and when you think you’re finished. Make fixes. Fuss with the details. Explore little ideas. Give your brain the time it needs to really get familiar with it and consider some possibliities. And see where they go. If nothing else, you’ll be sweetening your design while you fiddle with it.
Alright, thanks again to Viktor. 2 cool designs for the price of one! I hope you enjoyed this one. Pop a comment on this bad boy, let me know if want me to keep doing this. Ok, OK, jeeeeeezus. Check out the design lab if you’re down to hardcore improve your game. Now get in there and push your work forward! See you soon!
So make time to do this, and to do it consciously… throughout working on it and when you think you’re finished. Make fixes. Fuss with the details. Explore little ideas. Give your brain the time it needs to really get familiar with it and consider some possibliities. And see where they go. If nothing else, you’ll be sweetening your design while you fiddle with it.
Alright, thanks again to Viktor. 2 cool designs for the price of one! I hope you enjoyed this one. Pop a comment on this bad boy, let me know if want me to keep doing this. Ok, OK, jeeeeeezus. Check out the design lab if you’re down to hardcore improve your game. Now get in there and push your work forward! See you soon!