DIGITAL WATERCOLOUR NPR Tecniques of Allan Casas

digital watercolourNon-photorealistic rendering

line-artsketchup modeling techniques

artistic presentationdigital paintingdigital editing

fast & easy techniqueadvance digital watercolouring

Digital Watercolournpr techniques of allan casas


digital watercolourNon-photorealistic rendering

line-artsketchup modeling techniques

artistic presentationdigital paintingdigital editing

fast & easy techniqueadvance digital watercolouring


AOC4 digital watercolour

FROM THE AUTHOR______________________________________________________________________________________

Edition 2012

All effort has been made to ensure that all information in this mini publication is complete and accurate.

However, the author assume no responsibility for the use of this information, nor for any infringement upon the

intellectual property rights of third parties which would result from such use.

No part of this mini-publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written

permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This mini-publication is made in the Philippines

All software and third party plugins are registered trademark of their respective companies.

All illustrations and artworks in this mini-publication are created by Allan Casas.

Cover and Artwork design by AOC4 studio.

________________________________________________________________________________________DIGITAL WATERCOLOUR


AOC4 digital watercolour i

TABLE OF CONTENTS______________________________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR .................................................................................................................................................... 1 WHAT IS DIGITAL WATERCOLOUR ....................................................................................................................... 2 BUENA VISTA RESORT VERY QUICK INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 3 THE TOOLS ....................................................................................................................................................................... 4 WHAT YOU NEED ........................................................................................................................................................... 5 PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER ........................................................................................................................... 6 SKETCHUP MODEL ............................................................................................................................................................................... 6 LINE DRAWING FROM SKETCHUP .............................................................................................................................................. 7 RENDERED IMAGE FROM MAXWELL RENDER VIA SKETCHUP PLUGIN .................................................................... 8 FOTOSKETCHER OF THE RENDERED IMAGE .......................................................................................................................... 9 SPLATTER TEXTURE ...............................................................................................................................................................................10 PAPER TEXTURE ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 11 FINAL RESULT: DIGITAL WATERCOLOUR ................................................................................................................................. 12 CHAPTER 2: LOWELLS APARTMENT EXERCISE: THE QUICK GUIDE

LOWELLS APARTMENT EXERCISE: THE QUICK GUIDE ................................................................................13 INTRODUCTION: LOWELLS APARTMENT EXERCISE .......................................................................................................14 STEP 1: ADDING A RIPPLE TO A LINE DRAWING ............................................................................................................. 15-16 STEP 2: FOTOSKETCHER THE RAW RENDER ...................................................................................................................... 17 STEP 3: COMBINING THE IMAGES IN ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ..................................................................................... 18-19 STEP 4: CREATING A PAPER TEXTURE .................................................................................................................................... 20-21

CHAPTER 3: THE JEFFERSON BUILDING: IN-DEPTH & ADVANCE TECHNIQUE

THE JEFFERSON BUILDING: IN-DEPTH & ADVANCE TECHNIQUE ...................................................... 22 INTRODUCTION: THE JEFFERSON BUILDING ................................................................................................................ 23 STEP 1: HOW TO USE THE MAXWELL RENDER PLUGIN INSIDE SKETCHUP ..................................................... 24-28 STEP 2: FOTOSKETCHER THE RENDERED IMAGE ........................................................................................................... 29 STEP 3: CREATING A LINE DRAWING ................................................................................................................................... 30 STEP 4: ADDING A RIPPLE EFFECT ON THE LINE DRAWING .................................................................................... 31 STEP 5: POST-PROCESS THE RENDERED IMAGE IN PHOTOSHOP .......................................................................... 32-36 STEP 6: CREATING A SPLATTER TEXTURE ............................................................................................................................ 37 STEP 7: COMBINING ALL IMAGES IN PHOTOSHOP ...................................................................................................... 38-40 STEP 8: ERASING SOME AREAS IN THE DRAWING ......................................................................................................... 41-42

CHAPTER 4: BONUS EXERCISES

THE LOUIS E. BROWN APARTMENTS .................................................................................................................................... 43 THE POOL-SIDE PAVILION.......................................................................................................................................................... 44 THE BUENA VISTA RESORT......................................................................................................................................................... 45 THE AMENITY CLUBHOUSE........................................................................................................................................................ 46 THE RUSSIAN COTTAGE............................................................................................................................................................... 47

ABOUT THE AUTHOR______________________________________________________________________________________

Allan Casas is an Architect, Designer a 3D artist and a Digital Illustrator, his background in Architecture and Interior design helped him in his work as an Architectural Visual Artist. As an Architectural Visual Artist he have made numerous projects with the technique and helped alot of Design firms and companies that have used his services.

Very passionate about he's drawings and still create freehand sketches of some of his digital works, loves to paint with watercolor and take pictures of old buildings. He's favorite tool in his daily work is Sketchup and Maxwell Render with this tools he have created a rendering style that is unique with other artist out there that he can call his own.

Presently, he works in his home studio creating digital artworks for Architects and Designers all over the world. He have handled small to complex projects over the years and a very advance Sketchup, Photoshop and Maxwell Render user.

________________________________________________________________________________________


AOC4 digital watercolour 1

DIGITAL WATERCOLOUR

WHAT IS DIGITAL WATERCOLOUR______________________________________________________________________________________

Digital Watercolour is a painting technique that uses computer and digital devices like mouse, stylus and tablets as brush and with the help of photo editing softwares digital artist can mimic real watercolour paintings done by hand.

There are many variations of digital watercolour depending on the artist's technique and the software that the artist uses. The type of digital watercolour that will be discuss here is for Architectural Visualization, Colored Perspectives that Architects uses to present their proposal for a client.

The advantages of Digital Watercolour in terms of workflow and time is enormous, the turn-around for Digital versus By-hand is very short and the mistakes are avoided because of commands like " undo" and " redo " which is not available if you are doing it by hand.

Digital Watercolour paintings can be kept safe digitally in a hard drive and can be printed again and again. Many traditional artist have gone digital because of the advantages that digital media gives and also because of its acessibility to many people worldwide.

________________________________________________________________________________________



DIGITAL WATERCOLOUR

sketchup modelline drawingfotosketcher

maxwell rendersplatter texture

paper texture

Digital Watercolourthe buena vista resort

very quick introduction


THE TOOLS______________________________________________________________________________________

SOFTWARES

GOOGLE SKETCHUP http://sketchup.google.com/ Easy to use 3D modeling software for creating three dimensional objects in 3D space. MAXWELL RENDER http://www.maxwellrender.com/ Unbiased rendering engine that produces photorealistic images.

MAXWELL RENDER PLUGIN FOR GOOGLE SKETCHUP http://www.maxwellrender.com/ Sketchup connection to Maxwell Render

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP http://www.adobe.com/ Photo editing software

FOTOSKETCHER http://www.fotosketcher.com/ Converts your photos into art.

COLOR EFEX PRO http://www.niksoftware.com/ Photographic filters for Adobe Photoshop

3D MODELS

FORMFONTS 3D MODELS http://www.formfonts.com/ A site that sells quality Sketchup 3D models.

DIGITAL DEVICES

PC MOUSE / WACOM TABLET



SKETCHUP IS A REGISTERED PRODUCT OF GOOGLE

MAXWELL RENDER IS A REGISTERED PRODUCT OF NEXT LIMIT TECHNOLOGIES

MAXWELL RENDER PLUGIN FOR SKETCHUP IS A REGISTERED PRODUCT OF NEXT LIMIT TECHNOLOGIES

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP IS A REGISTERED PRODUCT OF ADOBE

FOTOSKETCHER IS A REGISTERED PRODUCT OF DAVID THOIRON

COLOR EFEX PRO IS A REGISTERED PRODUCT OF NIK SOFTWARE

ALL FORMFONT S 3D MODELS ARE REGISTERED PRODUCT OF FORMFONTS 3D MODELS

WHAT YOU NEED____________________________________________________________________________________

OUTPUTS



SKETCHUP MODEL3D Modeling and Composition

LINE DRAWING FROM SKETCHUPHand drawn effect in the render

RENDERED IMAGE FROM MAXWELL RENDER VIA SKETCHUP PLUGINGlobal Illumination, Reflections, Shadows & Materials

FOTOSKETCHER OF THE RENDERED IMAGEWatercolour effect to the image

SPLATTER TEXTUREColor variations to the render & mimics the mixing effect of Watercolour in real life

PAPER TEXTUREMimics the paper texture of the real Waterclour artwork


PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER________________________________________________________________________________________

SKETCHUP MODEL


The very first thing to do is create a 3D scene in SketchUp with complete entourage and 3D objects. As much as possible every element in your scene is in 3D, like 3D people,Trees,Cars, Furnitures etc...this is important and what I prefer and you will soon know later on in the tutorial.

Creating a good composition is very easy in SketchUp just constant practice and a little imagination. There are also instances that after you have done everything, the scene would not come out as what you want it to be. Here are the tips; what I usually do is play with Colors/Materials and importantly play with the Shadows. Shadows will play an important role in this kind of technique so choose the placement of shadows very carefully.

Proportion is very important too, placing people or a car that is not proportion to the other elements in the scene will ruin everything. The scene should always be in the right scale, this is related to proportion and when exporting your scene in Maxwell Render the render will look right.

As much as possible make the file size low, remove 3D objects or models that are not seen in the camera to avoid very long render time in Maxwell Render, the navigation in SketchUp viewport will also improve when the file size is manageable.

When modeling a house or building in SketchUp build the model as if you are building a real house, there should be wall thickness and the interior should be modeled as well because it adds a nice effect when rendering the scene. Emitters inside the house also brings nice effect in the rendering when it's peeking through the windows.

Lastly, avoid very large high resolution texture in SketchUp if you will use continous patterns like bricks make the texture seamless and not in a 1000 pixels range shrink it down to half.

3D PEOPLE3D TREES

3D FURNITURE

SHADOWS

We need the Line Drawing from SketchUp to give a hand drawn feel to the image, as much as possible all the 3D models in the scene should have an edge or outline when you save it as an image file. In the sample above I have even added some additional lines to the floor tiles textures, the additional lines will help alot in the final composition later when we combine all the images in Photoshop.

The Edges are important in this kind of rendering style that's why I make it a point to use all 3D models in my scene. Edges and Lines will make your image look like Hand-drawn.

The part of SketchUp that controls the edges is the Style Toolbar, the Style that we will be using is Architectural Design Style preset in the Default Style. In the Edit Tab I play with the settings until I am satified with the result.

This is usually the first Output that I create out of SketchUp and it is important not to turn on the Shadow on this one, the shadow will come from the Maxwell Render output.

Importantly, the Output size of the Line Drawing should be always be the same with the render output from Maxwell Render . Outputing an image from SketchUp is very tricky the first time because of its different style of proportioning images compare to other software like Maxwell Render. So what I do is, first I get the SketchUp output size and then in Maxwell Render I copy that size so the two image will have the same size output.

Lastly, when saving a scene or camera angle instead of choosing "Perspective" choose " Two Point Perspective" in the Camera menu. My mistake in the past that I always use Perspective instead of Two Point Perspective the result is my vertical lines are slightly slanted.



LINE DRAWING FROM SKETCHUP


ADDITIONAL EDGES FOR A HAND DRAWN EFFECT

3D MODELS GIVES BETTER EDGES

THAN 2D MODELS



RENDERED IMAGE FROM MAXWELL RENDER VIA SKETCHUP PLUGIN


Next we need a rendered image from Maxwell Render, you can use other render engines but I prefer Maxwell Render for this technique. The rendered image is important because we need Reflection, Shadows, Lighting, Environment and Material treatment.

No post processing needed here just the Raw output from Maxwell Render is enough here. For production the render size that I use is 3600 pixels and usually render an hour.

Carefully check if there are errors especially in the materials and the output size. The size should be the same with the Line Drawing from SketchUp. If the image looks right then it is right so we are on to the next one....

REFLECTIONSSHADOWS

MATERIALS

ENVIRONMENT

REFLECTIONS

Tip: The Maxwell Render output should always be the same with the Line Drawing that will come from SketchUp, so when we Overlay them in Photoshop the edges will fit with each other.

For example: In SketchUp, my export proportions is 3600 x 1757 px...in Maxwell Render we should also output a render size of 3600 x 1757 so the two image will fit when we Overlay them in Photoshop.

SketchUp image ratio is not the same with Maxwell Render so in Maxwell Render we need to unlock the proportion in the render output.

http://books.sketchucation.com/

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DIGITAL WATERCOLOUR NPR Tecniques of Allan Casas