ARCHITECTURAL COLLAGE TUTORIAL

A student in Chicago emailed me a while back asking how I created the back cover of my undergraduate portfolio. The image was a collage of all of my projects Photoshopped together into a single composition. As time consuming as it may look, I probably only spent 2 or 3 hours on the page. I didn’t use any Photoshop “tricks” to get the final look, but instead just used the eraser tool with a soft brush to remove the backgrounds. Most of my time was spent experimenting with the layout and figuring out how all the pieces would fit together. Using some type of underlying grid was my way of maintaining control of the geometry and avoiding a chaotic look.

1) I began the collage with a simple black and white background that continued the theme of my other portfolio pages.

2) I next chose a few images that would act as organizing elements of the collage. To avoid harsh edges, I chose the "Eraser Tool", selected a soft brush, and lowered the opacity of the brush just under 50%. I then simply erased around the edges to allow the images to bleed into one another. For experienced Photoshop users, I would suggest using a layer mask instead of the eraser tool to maintain more editability.

3) The three images where arranged to cover much of the page and act as a texture for the collage. I overlaid a grid to show how the images related to one another and how they act as an organizational foundation for the rest of the collage.

4) I next added very neutral black & white images to infill around the edges. These images again add texture to the background but won't grab too much attention.

5) With the background in place, I then begin placing in foreground elements. The same method of using a soft eraser brush was used to help blend the different images together. I also lowered the overall opacity of some of the foreground elements to help set them into the background.

6) Again, many of the foreground elements still relate to the grid created by the background elements. As subtle as these relationships may be, they make a big difference in the success of the overall composition.

7) I created icons for each project throughout the portfolio. I wanted to find a way to add these icons to the back cover without them getting lost in the geometry of the other elements. I solved this problem by adding a streak of shadow behind the icons giving them depth. The shadow is barely noticeable, but really makes the icons pop. In the image below, I have separated the shadow and icons from the collage to better show the shadow shape.

Below is the final composition that was used for the back cover of my undergraduate portfolio. Most people probably won't even see the back cover, however, I wanted to do something a little different rather then just leaving it blank. It hardly took any time to create, and is one more thing that could stick in someone's mind when applying for schools and jobs.

WATER REFLECTION TUTORIAL (VIDEO)

Taking inspiration right out of the Bob Ross playbook, I put together this little tutorial showing a really easy and fast way to Photoshop a water reflection into an architectural illustration. You may notice some correlation to my “Wet Street” tutorial, however, this tutorial has some minor changes and uses a little cleaner workflow. I have been wanting to do a water reflection tutorial for a while now, and finally was able to come up with an easy enough workflow that still looks good and worthy of a post.

One other thing, some views may not be at eye level like the video shows where you can simply mirror the building for the reflection. In cases where the camera is at a bird’s eye view, I would suggest just rendering a glass surface in place of the water in Kerkythea, before Photoshopping. This will give an accurate reflection and doesn’t add to the rendering time.

Above, the initial image before post-processing

Above, the final image with the water reflection added using only Photoshop

WINTER SPECIAL

I don't know if I'm just in the holiday spirit, but I thought I would write a post about winterizing an illustration.  In essence, this tutorial takes your typical daytime rendering and turns it into a snowy winter scene, which is easier than you might think.  After some experimenting, I realized that the smudge tool worked really well for a drifting snow effect on the ground. I also used a common technique for adding falling snow. This method can be found all over the web and with a little manipulation can be used to create rain as well.

You don't see too many winter scenes in architectural presentations. It's something I wish I would have tried while still in school.

Below, I have shown the before and after images of the tutorial. Its a dramatic change in just a short amount of time.

WORKFLOW VIDEO: LANDSCAPE VIA PHOTOSHOP

This video builds off of the post from last week explaining the workflow I used to add landscaping elements via Photoshop. There was a lot of information to cover in a short amount of time, so the video slows down at important stages of the process and speeds up where the steps have already been discussed and would be redundant to explain again. You will probably notice a lot of similarities to the GRASS TUTORIAL, however this video better explains how to handle shadows as well as adding trees and vines.

Below, the starting point of the video before post processing

Below,The image after the landscape has been added using Photoshop

If you look at the last post you will notice that there is still some post processing to be done. I will try to cover this in the future. Its mostly simple stuff such as adding people and color overlays. See you next week.

TUTORIAL: QUICK SITE PLANS

With this tutorial, I wanted to show the workflow that I use to develop a clean looking architectural site plan. This tutorial like many of my tutorials doesn't use a rendering engine, only Sketchup image exports and Photoshop. Although I don't use a rendering engine, a rendered roof plan of a building could easily replace the Sketchup images used in this explanation. GO TO TUTORIAL

HDR ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATION TUTORIAL

GO TO HDR TUTORIAL

Ahhh, Finally decided to throw together a HDR tutorial. Its not as in-depth as some of my other tutes, but describes the overall process I use. I created a rendering just for this tutorial, one that I thought would work well for HDR processing with lots of textures, i.e. grasses, and a cloudy sky.

For those who aren’t familiar with HDR images, it is a process of combining multiple copies of the same image, each with a different exposure, to produce a final image with a higher dynamic range. It essentially gives the image more detail in both the dark and light areas. This process is commonly used in photography where you can set the camera to bracket the photos and automatically take 3 pictures with different exposures of the same shot. The issue with applying this technique to illustrations is that there is only one image to work with. I work around this by taking the image into Photoshop and manually adjusting the exposure.

GO TO HDR TUTORIAL

SUN RAYS TUTORIAL (VIDEO)

I received a lot of feedback and emails from people after posting the "Honduras Illustration part 2" asking for a tutorial on adding light rays. I put together this video explaining how this was done. You will will realize that there's not much to them and the process of adding them is pretty painless. 

Before (below)

After adding the light rays (below)

As always, I appreciate the feedback

This illustration was a part of a series of illustrations that I created for a project at Paul Lukez Architecture. More on the project can be found at www.lukez.com under the "Design" categorie.

SKETCHUP TO PHOTOSHOP: NO RENDER ENGINE REQUIRED

As the title implies, this architecture illustration tutorial doesn't use a rendering engine. I have done a few other tutorials in the past that don't involve a rendering program, however this tutorial does things a little differently, and in less time. You will probably notice some similarities to the Ambient Occlusion tutorial I posted a while back. I realized after making the ambient occlusion tutorial that I could take advantage of the export options of Sketchup, and use the line work of the model to generate the shading. Because of this, the process is extremely streamlined and can be done in minutes. GO TO TUTORIAL

NEW 3D BLUEPRINT TUTORIAL

Yesterday, while watching my Sunday golf, I saw a commercial that folded paper out of a book into buildings that turned into a town which then grew into a city, etc. The commercial caught my attention not only because of its execution and concept, but also because the illustration style was simple and clean using only paper as the material. This inspired me to experiment with a blueprint style that maintains some of the great qualities of blueprint drawings, but also gives the appearance of the design projecting off the page 3-dimensionally. There are many subtle things going on with this image such as faded guidelines similar to what you would see on a hand drafted drawing as well as textures meant to appear as imperfections left on the paper from the blueprint chemical processes. GO TO TUTORIAL

KERKYTHEA TUTORIAL PART 3: NIGHT RENDERING

DOWNLOAD SKETCHUP FILE

DOWNLOAD KERKYTHEA SCENE

In Part 3 of the Kerkythea tutorials, I explain the process of creating night renderings. Instead of using Kerkythea lights, I go a different route and paint surfaces in Sketchup, then tell that material to emit light in Kerkythea. This method allows you create lights that work with the spaces of the design and avoids navigating around within Kerkythea. I have attached the SU and Kerkythea files so you can see the settings and practice.

NOTES:

The more lights you have, the longer the rendering will take. This rendering only uses a few, leaving some areas darker than they should be. This will allow me to show some post processing tricks in the next tutorial.

Make sure the color you use for the lights in Sketchup is not used anywhere else in the model to avoid lighting areas you don’t want to in Kerkythea.

Use multiple materials for different lights so that each can be adjusted differently in Kerkythea.

Use simple shapes for the lights. The more facets the object has, the more calculations the program will have to do, really increasing rendering times. For example, don’t use a sphere for a light.