Visual development artist and art director Juan Diego explains how to use perspective, colour, and detail for immersive scenes.
(Image credit: Juan Diego Leon)
Environment art can be challenging, but if you're struggling to make your landscapes engaging, I have a few tips that I think might help.
Below, I've picked out some quick suggestions to help with creating interesting and believable landscapes based on my own process. If you need new tools, see our pick of the best drawing tablets and the best digital art software.
Juan Diego León
Visual development artist JD is based in Lima, Peru. He has worked on trading card game Disney Lorcana for a number of years, plus other big-name animation projects and games.
Divide your scene into three main layers: the foreground, the midground and the background. Doing this makes it much easier to organise all the different elements of the environment.
A method for coming up with an interesting composition is to think of one element that draws attention over everything else in the scene. You can do this with shapes, colours or even lighting.
Always control the values. You should be able to have as much variety in them as possible, keeping the darker ones for the foreground and the lighter ones for the main focus of the concept.
07. 3D head start
Using the best 3D modelling programs can help achieve good compositions quickly. They’re much more efficient when you’re looking to create fast concepts and interesting compositions.
Think of a colour mood, or the feeling that you’d like to convey with your environment. Loneliness, fear, joy; use of colour can convey a lot for your story.
Use perspective grids to help you create a believable perspective for your scene. It may take a few extra minutes at the beginning of your process, but in the long run it will help you maintain more accurate proportions.
10. You’re the architect
The world is full of awesome architecture, so why not look to it for inspiration! There’s such variety for you to research, whether its through photos, or using Street View on Google Maps.
Get more tutorials in ImagineFX
This content originally appeared in ImagineFX magazine, the world's leading digital art and fantasy art magazine. ImagineFX is on sale in the UK, Europe, United States, Canada, Australia and more. Limited numbers of ImagineFX print editions are available for delivery from ouronline store (the shipping costs are included in all prices).
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Juan is a storyteller, art director and vis dev artist. He has worked on films and game projects since 2008, and recently teamed up with Disney, including creating art for TCG Lorcana. Outside of work, Juan likes creating colourful characters and making fan art.
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