Patrick J. Jones - Concept Art Techniques

Pa t r i c k J J o n e s
Sci-fi & Fantasy

II ll ll uu ss tt rr aa tt oo rr
CONCEPT ART TECHNIQUES
S T E P • B Y • S T E P
I l l u s t r a t o r
Sci-fi & Fantasy

CONCEPT ART TECHNIQUES
Contents
Page 4 Concept Art Steps................................The Making of Joe’s Diner
Page 14 Book Jacket Art Steps........................The Making of Aqua World
Page 24 Concept Art Steps............................The Making of Babylon Lost
Page 36 Concept Art Steps................The Making of The Fall of Atlantis
Page 46 Alien Worlds...............................................................Concept Art
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W hat follows are various techniques that I use to produce my digital art. Most of my work is
done in Corel Painter. As versions change the shortcuts may too. To deal with any changes
to the software simply try adding one of the ‘power keys’ to the command. The power keys are
Shift, Control, Option/Alt and lastly the command/Apple key. Try these keys when clicking on
layers and layer masks for a magical discoveries. If all else fail try a right-click to see what hap-
pens. What matters most here is the creative process thinking. Putting your artistic mind to the
task is key...
I expect to be impressed by every piece that comes out of the hands of Patrick. His control of
the paint and brushes is truly amazing. His technique is impeccable...
B oris Vallejo
L uscious color! That’s the first thing I think when I see one of Patrick’s paintings. Then my
eyes roam around and see the silky skin of the characters, the intricate design work of their
ornamentation...
J ulie Bell
For a complete list of downloadable sf SF & Fantasy DVD tutorials, glicee prints, original
art and more books in this step by step go to:
www.pjartworks.com
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J o e ’ s
Digital Tutorial:Concept Art
B a c k
W hat is backstory? Backstory is an important part of the creative process. Without backstory we walk in the dark a
ated, you fix the imaginary story in your mind then create. When working professionally in the movies the backs
creative persons. Working alone on a personal project you need to have some idea where you are going. It doesn’t m
mind open, evolving the idea as you go by asking yourself questions. Here are some of the questions I asked myself
Q uestion: What is the scene I want to paint? Answer. A desert scene. Question: Action or serine. Answer, Serine. S
would a traveling mercenary stop to refresh? An Oasis? What if an entrepreneur set up a rest stop? Would it be f
ground? An apocalyptic city? You get the idea? With backstory a whole world opens up and will unfold not only to the
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D i n e r
s t o r y
and are lost. Backstory is the basis of a painting, it’s the imaginary story that happened before this scene was cre-
story will be handed to you in the form of a movie script and from there your mind can soar from the ideas of another
mean you have to have a fully formed idea, just a germ of an idea to start with is fine and from this you can keep your
along the way:
So Now we have a mood and a backdrop. The next set of questions concern what’s happening. Question: Where
fancy? No, let’s make it a Diner as this will appeal to the meat and gravy palette of a drifter. What’s in the back-
viewer but also to yourself....and everybody loves a story.
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S o here we are at the germ of an idea stage. At this point I have my mind wide open and just scribble wildly
in Corel Painter with the Scratchboard Tool found in the Pens brush category set at 20% opacity until some-
thing emerges to match my desert scene. I soon see the shape of a large building at upper left. Using black and
white keeps the process going fast and establishes the all important values (values are light to dark tones). The
Scratchboard Pen is a great tool because of it’s pressure sensitivity. I usually work with a large brush and use
light or heavy strokes to get wildly varied lines. This needs a lot of practice and confidence to get right.
M aking a layer above in multiply mode I colour with sharp chalk using desert blues and ochres to set the
scene. Now we have a great mood and the most difficult part of painting is complete: establishing value and
colour, which equal mood and atmosphere. This is a good time to squint your eyes and see what needs knocked
back colour and value wise to tell the story of distance.
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A t this point I toy with the idea of a derelict, wasted landscape of abandoned mines or an destroyed city, as
the strokes are still abstract enough to go in many possible directions. I decide to stick with the idea of a
functioning Diner; a rough and tumble road stop for future villains and heros to stop and grab lunch before ven-
turing off again, and so I start blocking in the bottom of the main structural lump with windows.
I ’m thinking of echoing the shapes of the futuristic spiral in the structure of the
restaurant windows acting as sun shades and also adding a distant town. Now
the story is in full flight and other ideas will come more freely.
I make a new layer with ‘pick up underlying color’ enabled. This allows me to blend
through to the layers underneath. This time I choose to blend with the pointed
stump blenders, but you can also blend through while painting with other media
such as oils and oil pastels, as long as this box is checked.
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W ith an idea to run with I name the restaurant ‘Forbin’ in typed in Edwardian Script which gives the impres-
sion of Coca Cola and further enforces the idea of a diner. Using the Free Transform tool I fit it to the build-
ing. The Free Transform tool is shared with the Layer Adjustment tool (that’s the Move Tool to you Photoshop-
pers). Painter will ask you to ‘commit’ before transforming. This is the same as Rasterizing in Photoshop.
F orbin was the first thing to come to mind and ipays homage to the SF movie ‘The Forbin Project’ but on
second thought I change the type to ‘Diner’ and am thinking of a water tank in the foreground that possibly
leaks. I want this to be a grubby version of a well worn future. I then Control/Right-Click on the layer, choose
‘Select Layer Transparency’, delete the layer, then with the selection still active make a new layer and airbrush
the type into the active selection. Now I reduce the opacity of the layer and erase the area that fits behind the
rings. ‘Phew!’
I think maybe it’s getting too busy with ideas and need to cut back. Also at this point everything was too sharply
focused and lacked distance so I added some dusty dimension to the piece. Still not working. I’m at a cross-
roads here and can see things are not going to work unless the art gets some kind of major overhaul.
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I decide I don’t like the bottom structure of the Diner, too many rings competing with each other, and begin
painting on top. Right away I see a massive improvement. I’m also taking out the water tank and now the
artwork is in a new exciting state of flux. Now we’re cooking again. Never be afraid do this even if you hate the
thought of all that time wasted. It will only be time wasted if you leave a bad idea in there to haunt your artistic
soul.
A huge sigh of relief as the new shape works out much better. I’ve gone from a sluggish head space back to
full cognitive power. It’s amazing how enthusiasm speeds up the workflow. I dump the whole car park water
idea and immediately see huge improvements. Fresh drama comes with the idea of the diner perched above a
canyon. A Blunt Chalk brush in ‘Grainy Hard Mode’ gives me lots of rock textures very quickly. Note: all painting
tools in Painter are in the Brush Category even if they are not technically brushes.
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W hat if the diner had a sweeping view of the canyon? People would flock. Good idea, let’s make sure it looks
futuristic. One large viewing platform later and Bingo!
S ubtle tones are added to suggest distance. The stars in the distance were added earlier with a variable spat-
ter airbrush on a screen layer. Screen layer intensifies light and is ideal for this. Make sure you erase some
of the stars with a soft eraser to give the impression of depth.
S pot the subtle changes in color. I’m working with a chunky oil pastel here. The rock textures were continued
with a blunt chalk in grainy hard cover (Command/ Control-B-Stroke Designer—General) using rock paper
textures at various sizes to create more varied textures. Painter comes with many textures on the Extras disk.
Make sure you add the disk contents to your Painter folder when installing. Click the little black arrow to the right
of the papers palette and choose ‘Open Library’ to load the new textures.
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C oming to the close now and have decided to make the canyon walls more vertical to enhance the idea of
height. I increase the opacity of the chalk to 80% to make big changes then knock it back down to around
50% and a light pressure for regular work.
I ’ve cropped the artwork to bring the viewer’s focus closer to the diner. This makes the scene more intimate and
tells us the diner is what the story is all about. I bring the art into Photoshop and color on top in overlay mode
at 50% opacity then flatten the art and give the overall image some levels to deepen the darks.
F inally, still in Photoshop, I add Joe’s Diner on a top layer and warp the type to fit. Using Bevel Emboss in FX
effects I then turn the fill to zero (below the opacity slider) this make pixels invisible and uses only the infor-
mation on the layer below giving the impressing Joe’s Diner is carved from the roof.
W hy didn’t I think of it earlier? Of course Joe would want his name on the roof for those flying in to see from
the air. A nice final touch possible only by using backstory as a device to create believable worlds!
PJ
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A q u a W
O K now we understand the strength of using backstory as a springboard to creating artwork with depth let’s move
serine. Answer, Serine. Now a further question: Utopia (bright future) or dystopia (bleak future). Answer: Utopia.
termined blue palette as it’s an underwater scene. What we can do is decide if we want to have a muted palette or a
Orange!. Very bold. Let’s go...
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W o r l d
e on to another. Question. What is the scene I want to paint? Answer. An underwater scene. Question. Action or
What about the color scheme? That’s usually something to think of after the value stage but we know it’s a prede-
a bold one. Silver buildings will give a ghostly, almost monotone effect. But what color is the complementary of blue?
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H ere we are in Corel Painter using chalks and pens to begin. Even though this is an underwater scene set in
a bright future people will still build with defence in mind and so we will set this scene on top of an under-
ground mountain. There will be roads carved as there is still a level of gravity for heavy vessels.
A multiply layer on top and a wash of color to set the scene. Notice how already
the complimentary colors vibrate next to each other.
I ’m constantly adding texture as I go. To create textures for your dry media brush-
es such as chalks and pastels first open a photo of a rock or other texture (such
as car parts) and drag the square marque tool around an interesting part, then click
the triangle at top right of the Paper Textures palette and choose ‘Capture Paper’.
Name the new paper and it will be added to your Paper texture list.
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W
e need to subdue the heavy textures made by the chalk. I do this on a layer above the art using blenders
with the ‘pick up underlying color’ button enabled in the top of the layers palette.
B lending does two things; first it obviously blends but secondly it cre-
ates more subtle colors. This is why we could be very bold with color
straight of the bat. I’ve lost the original textures and plan to put some back
in with textured chalks.
A t left is a screenshot of the Brush Creator ‘Command/Control-B’. Here

you can test out textures and also turn on and off paper textures in
the subcategory. Each brush is assessable from the top left. Once you
have altered a brush as much as you like just click back on the canvas
again, then Control/Right Click, rename and save your new variant to the
brush library to keep as your own unique brush.
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O n a separate layer I add some highlights in screen mode. Screen mode is a great mode for getting instant
highlights but it’s good practice to reduce the opacity afterward as your eyes get used to the high key after
a while at it’s usually less bright in real life. Show restraint as you can add more subtle highlights later in the final
stage and it will look less ‘burnt out’. Then on another layer I add texture with a large chalk.
A t left you can see my Wacom preferences with the commands set up
for Corel Painter. With these settings I can click the front button of
my pen and drag back and forth to increase and decrease the size of my
brush. The back button is assigned to sample colour. This saves me the
frustration of looking away from my art for key functions.
U sing an eraser at 70% and with a low pressure on the stylus I rub
away most of the texture for variability and Subtlety.
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I’ve dropped all the layers and made a new one on top to start changing things with the original below in case
I need to erase back to the original layer. Thinking of some distant buildings here which will turn to blues very
quickly in an underwater scene and will also be vague. The lights were painted on a separate layer and the sug-
ested balconies where simply created by erasing back with a square chalk.
A nother drop to the canvas and a new layer in screen mode for subtle chalk textures. The glow was created
by the glow brush found in the FX brushes.
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A nother drop and a new layer, again in screen mode.with the opacity dimmed to around 70%. Here I’m us-
ing a palette knife and varing the pressure as I lay down the strokes with my stylus. Turned on its side the
palette knife will give either broad or very sharp thin strokes. Dragging down lightly with a large palette knife will
create the underwater effect you see near the edges.
A n overlay layer and a diigital airbrush gives a subtle layer of color. I also used the palette knife on top in a
default layer to define the background mountains.
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I’m testing out an Image Hose brush from a single bubble that I’ve painted and copied to around ten separate
layers with each bubble transformed to be a little different. The way to build an image hose goes like this:
H old down the Shift key, and select each bubble layer. Click the ‘Layer Commands button’, at bottom left of
the layers palette and choose Group. All items are now part of the same group. In the toolbox, bottom right,
click the Nozzle Selector icon then click the selector menu arrow, and choose Make Nozzle From Group. Corel
Painter creates a new, untitled image. Name the file ‘bubbles’ and save it in RIFF format to a folder.
G o back to the toolbox, bottom right, click the Nozzle Selector icon as before, then click the selector menu
arrow, and choose ‘Load Nozzle’. Find the ‘Bubbles’ Image Hose where you saved it. Test again then follow
the same steps as before in the toolbox and this time choose ‘Add Nozzle to Library’ to save the brush.
O n a separate screen layer I spray the new ‘bubbles’ image hose around with various pressures. I then chose
the bulge, distort and pinch variants of the distortion tools to vary the bubble shapes.
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T ime to show some restraint. Although the magic of all those bubbles will be seductive you’ll want to look back
on your work without cringing at what was once an overuse of a new found toy. I make a layer mask form
the icon at the bottom of the layers palette and use black and white to rub away and reveal the bubbles until I’m
happy with the effect.
H ere’s a close up showing the palette knife strokes. These strokes whould be hard to do working up this close
and is the reason I often work at a small scale until the detail stage.
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N otice how abstract the brushwork is up close. This is known as impressionism. We have the impression of
detail which isn’t really there. This is what needs to be learned to become a master concept artist where
speed is of the essence.
T he contrast of the bubbles, the lights and the foggy water in between creates the illusion of depth. The key to
understanding this lies in constant study of the world we live in and is the key to sucess as an artist. Study,
study, study...
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Digital tutorial:Concept Art
B a b y l o
T h e S u b l i m
T he influence of artists you admire will enviably shape and help define your own individual style. But sometimes th
created in Corel Painter and Photoshop that will highlight near the end the influence of the great British artist Jose
and almost abstract shapes make his work still feel fresh today. He was a concept artist centuries ahead of his time,
brushwork of Turner, merely acknowledging a debt. The spooky thing is, I didn’t consider his influence until the paintin
throughout history and fill your mind with their imagery, believe me it all stays in there, it just needs a trigger to bring s
idea of what I will end up with by laying down chaotic strokes and following where they lead.
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n L o s t
i n a l M i n d
hose influences can be so deep rooted you may not notice the effects. Here are the steps of a digital concept piece
eph William Turner (1775-1850). Although almost two hundred years have passed since his death his use of color
a time when his work was mostly misunderstood. I’m obviously not comparing my humble scribbles to the mighty
ng was almost complete. My advice here is to not only study the work of contemporary digital artists but of all artists
some of that influence back to help you evolve and mature as an artist. In this demo I will begin a piece of art with no
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N o doubt Turner would have worked bold at every step and I do the same here in Corel Painter making slash-
ing strokes with a loaded palette knife, scratchboard pen and chalks all set at opacities around 70%. I also
vary my pressure on the stylus to create ghosted overlapping shapes in grayscale. I’ve also dropped in a photo
of a machine to suggest a monolithic structure in the background. At his stage I only have a vague idea of an
abandoned world as the theme of my painting.
W ith a new layer in multiply mode dimmed to 70% I block in some hint of a color scheme with a large digital
airbrush. Multiply will keep the colours from getting too bright. If the painting is bright at the early stage
chances are it will have burnt out highlights by the end and your art will look bleached instead of lush.
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O n a layer above with ‘pick up underlying color’ enabled in the layers checkbox I use a simple palette knife
and a pointed stump from the blenders and pull shapes around until I start to see buildings that are alien in
design. If I’d thought this through in pencil beforehand I wouldn’t have found such unusual shapes. I’m surprising
myself here.
I t’s spot the difference here but I’m gradually losing the background and defining the foreground by using light
strokes. A good tablet and stylus will have very sensitive settings and you can work as if you were lightly strok-
ing with a feathered brush. My tablets of choice are the professional Intuos range by Wacom. Superb!
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I’ve put the idea of the monolith on the back burner for now and am using an oil pastel with the default ‘grainy
hard cover’ turned to ‘flat cover’ in Brush Creator ‘Command/Control+B’ This takes the paper grain out of the
pastel strokes. If you want to save this new variant hold down ‘Control/Right Click’ and choose ‘save variant’’
and rename the brush to add to your oil pastel brushes.
A t this stage I copy and paste a photo of a car clutch plate into a new layer and dim the layer. I only want an
impression of something mechanical that I can springboard from. I’ve also used some textured chalks on the
giant rock to the right.
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H ere I’ve coloured the art in two separate layers; one in multiply for depth of colour and one on top in over-
lay for saturated colour. I play around with the opacity of each layer until it’s just right. I colour the art with
chalks and airbrush as they don’t smudge. Smudging and blending tools such as pastels and blenders can
cause ‘streaky’ marks in these particular layer modes.
I drop all the layers and begin painting in earnest sampling all the colours I need from the image. Some palette
knife here and sharp chalk. I’m also starting to work in some decay on the background monolith and add a
piece of junk that’s fallen into the sea over the passage of time. As I mentioned before it’s important to create a
backstory to give the work more depth. I now have my story of an alien, decayed and forgotten Babylon
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T he foreground building isn’t grand enough to compete with the background monolith and so I paint it out and
have a rethink. A good lesson here is learning to let go of an idea if it’s not working. This is not admitting de-
feat, quite the opposite, it’s showing you are an open minded decision maker, an army general leading the battle
toward great, rather than mediocre art.
Icopy and paste a photo of a car turbo and dim the layer. Using the transform tool in the toolbox I transform to
fit. Hold the shift key to keep the file proportion constrained, or not as I have done. I then go to the menu and
choose, Select-Auto Select then scroll to image luminance. This selects the pixels. I then delete the layer and
make a new layer above with the selection active.
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U sing the glow brush in the FX brushes with very dark colours I get variants of colour buildup in the shadows,
then I chose a mid tone of orange and work on the lighter parts. It’s important to not start with too bright a
colour with glow brush as it glows lighter with each successive stoke making it easy to burn out the image detail
if not careful. If you want to hide the selection hold down the Shift-Option/Alt-H keys.
C ommand/Control+D to deselect the previous selection. In a new layer on top I use a sharp chalk with the
grain removed ‘Command/Control+B’ for brush creator then choose Soft Cover in Stroke Designer to paint
on top changing detail to my own specifications and erasing most of the lower portion.
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U sing an oil pastel at 70% I paint over the entire image colour sampling (Option/Alt) as I go and creating new,
more subtle colours in the process. The great thing about Painter’s oil pastels is that they drag the colour
along with the colour already asigned to the pastel therefore blending as you paint. This creates the look of an
old master painting.
H ere the hidden influence of Turner’s abstract shapes and bold colours come to the fore. At this stage I start
to explore new ideas for the backstory and add a small scene indicating people once more living amongst
the ruins by showing shadowed figures gathered by a fire. The glow was created with the FX glow brush. I also
explore something more grand and paint in a waterfall caused by a huge earthquake in the distant past.
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I discard the earthquake idea as it throws off the sweep of the composition but leave the reshaped monolith;
and work on it with the bulge tool from the distortion brushes. The stars were created on a screen layer using
the variable spatter airbrush. The spatter airbrush responds to tilt and can be sprayed left or right up or down.
On a screen layer the stars are bright already, but with the glow brush I pick out a few to really add sparkle.
I open the artwork in Photoshop and stretch the image. This is not recommended for most imagery but here I
felt it added grandeur and a nice cinematic scope. I also used liquify to change a few elements before com-
ing back to Painter. Here we see the major difference between traditional art and digital art. This art would be a
complete re-do if an art director requested this re-format with traditional oils on canvas.
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A word on Painter colour proofing mode introduced in Painter 11—Canvas-Color Proofing Mode: at last we
finally have a convention to Photoshop and back that no longer murders the tone and colour. This feature
is worthy of the upgrade alone. If you work for print make sure to turn this on with each new artwork in Painter.
Here I finish the art using the distortion tools to find new alien shapes along with some oil pastel. Only now do I
see Turner’s influence. I must be blind sometimes.
H ere’s a close up of the background monolith finished with the distortion tools and palette knives as are the
little copper headed buildings. Distortion brushes used were: Bulge, Pinch and Distorto. Be careful not to
overwork these brushes, it should look like paint rather than pixel distortion.
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Y ou can see here just how many abstract shapes there are, yet we still have a sense of detail and structure.
This is just the right amount of detail for concept art, enough so that you can imagine the detail but not
spend hours rendering it. A good tip is to squint your eyes, this will fill in the vague detail for you.
In this close up you can see just about every tool used from the palette knife through to textured chalks, FX
brushes, and down to oil pastels and blenders, along with the subliminal help from Mr. Turner.
PJ
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Digital Tutorial:Concept Art
The Fall of A
I n recent years, relatively speaking, we have seen an apparently new genre named ‘Steampunk’ with movies like Sh
imagery has been around since the beginning of the industrial age with the first modern sf novels most notably Jour
Victorian view of the future with all its nuts, bolts and brass parts was the 1960 George Pal movie of H.G. Wells’ The
the tripods from another George Pal masterpiece, War of the Worlds. Shake that stuff around in your head long enoug
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A t l a n t i s
herlock Holmes and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Steampunk may be the new tag but really this kind of
rney to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne and The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. My earliest memory of this
Time Machine. The time machine created for the movie remains one of my favorite Steampunk images along with
gh and it spill out a little something like this. Let’s explore the steps in the making of The Fall of Atlantis...
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F or this piece I set to work without any pre-planned image with only the notion that it will be ‘Steampunk’ in
theme. With that in mind I start with a fearsome creature to propel the action, this way I can create backstory
as I go. Question: what makes us frightened? Answer: anything that crawls or slithers, anything alien to how we
walk around. So in my initial sketch I give the creature lots of legs.
W hat defines Steampunk? I always think of it as a Victorian view of the future where robots are made from
materials of that era and powered by coal and steam furnaces. So I bring into Corel Painter a photo of a
machine part to springboard some ideas around. I place it onto the image and transform to fit. The shift key will
constrain proportions when transforming and the Command/Control key will rotate at the corners. Press enter to
commit transform. For more elaborate transformations I would switch to Photoshop and back to Painter for paint-
ing, but this is a simple transform.
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A fter roughing in some chalk textures for rocks I lay colour on top, this time with a digital airbrush on a
separate multiply layer. This gives me a nice set of muted tones to work darks and lights out of as well as
developing an overall colour scheme to sample from. My idea has developed too, to include a city for the robot
creature to attack.
W ith the palette knife on a screen layer dimmed to 70% I scratch into the art to create some sharp highlights
then create a default layer on top and work some more until I have the illusion of gleaming metal. Always
remember to have ‘pick up underlying color’ checked, otherwise you will streak the original background colour
which will usually be white. I also paint some pastel colours on an overlay layer for the bright bronze colours.
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A nother layer with some textured chalk for the rocks. In the paper texture palette I make sure to change the
papers and paper sizes to mix things up.
Idrop the layers and make a fresh layer on top and start working with some pens, primarily the scratchboard
pen. I like to work with hard edged tools to begin with otherwise your work will look like it has no depth at the
end.
I ’m working into the robot’s undercarriage with oil pastels and also introducing some blue backlight colours.
Backlight is a secondary light that is created by light bouncing back up from the ground or in this case the sea-
bed. That it bounces is the reason it is also known as bounce light and is used a lot in 3D animation because of
the extra dimension and punch it gives to form. The story is taking a new turn and I decide it will be an underwa-
ter scene. Knocking back the robot undercarriage with some blenders gives a feeling of mass as he rises from
the seabed.
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U sing the pointed stump and the smeary blender from the blender brushes I push and pull colour and tone. If
you pull from a dark area dark will drag into light and vice versa. The robot is now at a good stage to leave
alone for a while. I need to tackle the city and bring it to the standard of the robot then return to the robot and
start the cycle again. This way the work will have a feeling of the same overall quality.
A s I’ve been working on a layer above I erase back to the previous layer leaving only the best stuff. I then re-
shape the rocks with the smear tool from blenders. Now I really go to work on the city. Using a screen layer
I paint some highlights on the glass then dim the layer. Screen mode will produce highlights very quickly and be
semi-transparent so it is great for glass reflections. At this point I collapse the layers from the menu in the layers
palette.
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V ery happy now as the city was a bug I had to wrestle and now that it’s fixed I get a burst of fresh creative
energy and work in detail with pastel all over. With a Blunt Chalk from chalks I add texture to the rock the
creature is climbing and the whole artwork automatically gels.
H ere I type the letter ‘Q’ in Edwardian script then rasterize it. Now I transform the letter to fit on the glass
bubble and click the custom ‘image luminance’ custom button I made earlier, delete the layer then make a
new layer with the selection still active. With chalk I brush in colours sampled from nearby then dim the layer to
ghost it. Next I get out some distortion tools and pinch and bloat the city.
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A lthough I want the quirkiness of a Jules Verne novel the glass motif is a little overwhelming and I knock the
layer back. At this point I go over the painting with a light touch from the ‘just add water’ blender at low opac-
ity to knock back the legs of the robot etc to create more depth and atmosphere.
W
bles.
ith the Image Hose ‘Bubble Brush’ That I created for Aqua World I spray down some bubbles using the
pressure sensitivity of the brush, leaning lighter and heavier where needed to spray different sized bub-
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I make a screen layer and dim it down to 70% and with Image Hose spray the bubbles around. Think of where
they would ‘leak’ from, e.g. pockets of air trapped under armour and rocks etc. I spray lots of bubbles and then
erase most of them back to various opacities to suggest depth.
G lass objects and reflective surfaces are notoriously tricky to do. My method here is to paint on two layers
with the scratchboard pen set at around 50% opacity. The first layer I use in multiply mode with the opac-
ity at around 60% and start laying down stroke upon stroke, changing colour and size as I go, then I erase the
edges. On a screen layer above I use the same method for the highlights.
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H ere’s a close up of how the bubbles look. Very convincing for such a short amount of labour. Image Hose is
a great time saver. You can have various layers with bubbles with some dimmed for more convincing depth
but remember the distortion brushes do not work with ‘pick up underlying color’ so you must distort each layer
separately.
I finish the city with distortion brushes. Using Distorto, Bloat and Pinch I create slick shapes that would be very
tricky to do using painting brushes, and not as surprising. It’s important not to overuse this method. Also note
that you can’t use these tools on an empty layer so you will want to copy the layer on top of itself first, ‘Com-
mand/Control-C’ then ‘Command/Control’ first so you can erase back to the original layer. Distortion brushes
need pixels to work on, just like dodge and burn in Photoshop. PJ
43
A l i e n
C o n c e p
C oncept art was once a little known aspect of art familiar only to people working in Hollywood. Today it is one of the
pre-production stage of most movies. Artists are hired to draw scenes that will be built before the actors arrive. Th
purpose is to give the scene builders a vision to work from, but more and more the actual art is being used. When con
a green screen, then the green screen is removed on computer and replaced by the Matte art.
H ollywood has never hired so many artists as there are working today. Before the 1980s you could almost count the
the genius of stop-motion animator and creature designer, Ray Harryhausen influencing almost all artists working
industry which now makes more money per year than the Hollywood studios.
44
W o r l d s
p t A r t
e biggest employers for artists working in the SF&Fantasy field. What is it? For the work-a-day concept artist it is the
he work becomes much more interesting for period dramas, or the holy grail, fantasy or science fiction movies. The
ncept art is finished to the polish of the sample above it is known as a Matte Painting. Actors are first filmed in front of
e great FX concept movies on your fingers: Ben Hur, King Kong, War of the Worlds, Jason and the Argonauts, with
g today. But what really makes concept art such a big avenue for artists to find work in is the revolutionary games
45
H ere is a standard piece of concept art. The mood is set for a future Las Vegas set on a mining asteroid. The
mood of a hot morning sun is indicated by the glowing orange and the metal and glass structures are de-
fined by the bright reflections. This took about an hour to complete without reference. Reference can help in get-
ting ideas down but can also slow you down by having you focus on detail too much. A lot of marks were made
and erased, probably half of the work time, before ending up with what looks like a confident, quickly rendered
artwork.
H ere is another done in the same way showing a giant casino raised on a rocky mountain with a huge earth-
quake canyon below. I first laid down a swathe of blue and orange airbrush then used a textured square
chalk to block in shapes followed by palette knives to move slashing shapes around. The gold glow was created
in overlay mode using orange and yellow sweeps of chalk.
46
I really went to town with various textured chalks on this one. In the Papers Palette
it’s a good tip to move the sliders around when using textured chalks to vary the
size and brightness of the textures. Painting this way you can create not only great
depth but also new textures by placing light marks on top of each other. Remember
also you can then drag a selection around any new texture you have created and
save as a new textured paper by clicking the little black arrow and choosing ‘Cap-
ture Paper’, then name and save it to add to your papers library.
U sually I do some sketch warm ups before tackling a concept idea, like pre-concept concepts. This is done
mainly to get my arm moving to shake out the rust from having not drawn since the day before. On this one
I spent maybe ten minutes with the ‘Scratchboard Tool’ found in pens with the opacity set at 50%. The trick here
is to move as fast as you can and search for shapes to work ideas out of. Sometimes you get a big mess, other
times you have the beginning of a great concept!
47
T his artwork was completed in an hour in front of a live audience. I worked up a few lightning sketches using
the method described in the last panel then asked the audience to choose one. From there I continued to
use the Scratchboard Tool for the hard edged lines. I worked on layer upon layer, erasing as much as I laid down
before collapsing the layers and finishing the art with chalks and pastels. Working in front of an audience will
almost always leave you with work that is not your best, as there are lots of distraction and fear of judgement,
but sometimes this very combination can result in exciting concepts, and is always an adrenaline shot.
T he tools and colours you use for painting can be worked to affect a certain mood. The difference in this
concept piece and the previous one is quite a contrast. Here I’ve used mostly oil brushes and harmonious
colours to create a calm fantasy scene, whereas in the previous art I used very sharp tools and opposing colours
to create an edgy artwork more akin to science fiction.
48
A nother science fiction concept which falls somewhere between my warm up sketches and my more finished
concept sketches. Sometimes this is enough and can be delineated with notes to describe the idea. Sharp
pens and palette knives with an overlay of chalk made this happen very quickly. The lightning was created 0n a
separate layer with ‘Real Soft Chalk’ then distorted with the Distorto brush in the Distortion tools. A layer on top
in overlay with the airbrush using blues and purples gave the glow. A further layer in screen mode using the glow
brush with blue tones really made it electric.
H ow do you find ideas? This is a common question. Here is a concept for a future New York where the
wealthy live in the gated community of Manhattan and the poorer workers in the outer boroughs only come
in to work, punching in and out as they go to and fro. I’ve left the old, hellish neighbourhood of Brooklyn streaky
and vague to suggest pollution and crime. On the Hudson River leisure boats head toward the opening boom
gate back into the city. Most of these ideas came as I worked off the basic premise of a dome-encased Manhat-
tan. Why is it cordoned off? To keep out the criminals. Why are there criminals? Because of an unequal wealth
sharing society, etc, etc... Keep asking questions and the art will go some way to creating itself.
PJ
49
Sci-fi & Fantasy
PaPa
t rtirci ckk JJ JJo on ens e s
I l l
I
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s
s
t
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a
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o
o r
r
I expect to be impressed by every piece that comes out of the hands of Patrick. His control of
the paint and brushes is truly amazing. His technique is impeccable...’
oris Vallejo
B
P atrick J. Jones was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and grew up during the height of Ireland’s conflicts. Inspired by art-
ists Boris Vallejo and Frank Frazetta, he decided to follow in their footsteps come hell or high water.
W ith the support of a loving wife and two scruffy dogs, he now works from his studio in sunny Brisbane, Australia, using
FTP to cable art worldwide to the likes of Lucasfilm, Easton Press, Roc Books and Disney Studios. He also runs SF &
Fantasy Masterclasses teaching advanced Illustrator, Photoshop and Corel Painter at Gold Coast TAFE and Southbank Insti-
tute of Technology.
P atrick was recently awarded best concept artist in the Asia Pacific in a compitition sponsored by Massive Black, Corel
Painter, Wacom and Imagine FX. Apart from the pages of Imagine FX Patrick’s work can also be seen in many ‘best of’
Fantasy art books each year such as Spectrum, Expose, Exotique, d’artiste, Fantasy Art Now, Erotic Fantasy Art, etc...
50

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Pa t r i c k J J o n e s

Sci-fi & Fantasy

CONCEPT ART TECHNIQUES

Sci-fi & Fantasy

Page 4 Concept Art Steps................................The Making of Joe’s Diner

Page 14 Book Jacket Art Steps........................The Making of Aqua World

Page 24 Concept Art Steps............................The Making of Babylon Lost

Page 36 Concept Art Steps................The Making of The Fall of Atlantis

Page 46 Alien Worlds...............................................................Concept Art

A t left is a screenshot of the Brush Creator ‘Command/Control-B’. Here

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