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Behind the Scenes: Batmobile Illustration
🕑 Added 2024-09-23 08:52:00 +0000 UTC
Again and again, the question in the comments comes back. How do you come up with ideas? Sometimes it's hard to answer, because I look at that particular work and...well...Batman.
But when I thought about it and employed a little bit of empathy, I understood what the people in the comments ask. It's not about how I came up with the idea to do a Batman theme, sailboat theme, or any other theme. It's about the whole picture. How I came up with the final result?
Finally I understood what bothers them. They like the whole image and want to have similar spark of idea, to come up with a result of their own. Good news. I never wake up with a perfect result in my head and start working.
I wake up with only a simple nudge. Like Batman. Because I watched the '99 Tim Burton's Batman the night before. That's it. The rest is blank. The rest is about the process.
Visit the full Pinboard here
First I need to answer some questions for myself. Do I want to create some particular isolated moment, or deliver some broader overview of the theme? Outdoor or indoor? That helps me to narrow down the direction and helps me to look for references.
In this particular case, I wanted to a generic, recognizable scene, without sticking to any moment from the movie. Easiest way to do that is to use a single very recognizable element. What can be more recognizable, than Batmobile?
So from that simple idea, the simple nudge, I now had a more narrow brief. Batmobile in the dark alley of Gotham, dark and gloomy with gothic architecture elements. Now that's suddenly something you can work with.
The next step is simple, you go and search for inspiration. Movie scenes, fan art, concepts, car blueprints, whatever can help you to get more informed about the theme you're making.
With the reference board ready, I try to isolate interesting details to include. Buildings, window shapes and styles, stair types and smaller elements. Then it's time to open Procreate, or just take a pencil and start playing with those elements and details. At this point, I'm still very far from the final result. It's still blank canvas I only have a direction and element palette.
But as you go through the exploration process, it already gives you some small ideas where to start, so just listen to your intuition and start sketching. Be playful and don't commit fully. Sketch roughly and be fast. Delete. Erase. Start again. After few attempts, you will get a solid base of what you want to do and with this scaffolding in place, it will get easier to fill in the details from the reference boards.
And as you go, some new ideas might pop into your head. Give them a chance. Here for example, I didn't have any reference of the underground passage. But when I played Batman: Arkham Asylum way back on my PS3, I somehow remembered a part in the underground, where you chase Killer Croc. I remember it very vaguely as a sewer with green ambience.
And I tried to raise the diorama a little bit to see if I can fit an underground details. It looked interesting in the sketch so I decided to give it a try. And later in Blender made sure to include the green light and ambience.
You can watch the full process video on Youtube.
Comments
qDev
Looks so awesome!
