Border Tower 31

[J.Edward]

For the benefit of those who don't know, Parallel Projection is a flat view with NO perspective.
It's great for straight on plan views - straight at a building or straight down for a top-down view.
Also, in Perspective view you can adjust the 'field of view' and get really exaggerated perspectives, which can be good fun to play with.

Also, with components - you can override the feature of change one-change all by right clicking and selecting 'make unique'.
There are also loads of aawesome free Ruby scripts and add-ons that let you do a lot of cool things.
And because of it's accurate measuring you can use it to create accurate grids of a particular size with subgrids nicely subdivided.

[Larb]

OK for the benefit of those interested, I threw together this basic example of my process using basic shapes in Sketchup. It's very helpful I find and is how I'm doing the tower.

Some people might call it "cheating" but it's not - it's just another tool. And I've never met another artist who actually enjoys plotting vanishing points and agonizing over shadows and whether the perspective is right or not. =P

In summary:

1) Block in basic shapes using sketchup. Set your shadow and view how you want it. Save your model then just print screen it/copy to clipboard.
2) Paste into your program of choice and put it on a separate layer. Set the opacity to low%. Draw in the basic structural lines. These also act as guide lines for any smaller details too!
3) Detail.
4) Shade/colour. I add shadows at this stage. I always put my shadows on a separate layer in black and then just lower the opacity.

[ChickPea]

Thanks for sharing this, Larb. It's great to see how you put things together. I've done something broadly similar in the past, where I've created a 3d shape in Inkscape and brought it into Gimp to pretty it up (not that my linework is ever as nice as yours!) I'm really keen to give Sketchup a try!

Also, thanks J.Edward for the perspective/projection info.

[Ilanthar]

Interesting thread with a lot of useful advices and tips!

Another handy thing sketchup has is that you can set the camera to Perspective mode or Parallel Projection mode depending on how you want it to look.

I tend to use the Parallel projection when I got a big picture since it allows you to "cut" it in different pieces (from the same altitude or distance) and then stitch them together again in a different software.

@Larb : your exemple is pretty much what I'm doing now... except that I don't have your skills for drawing over , so I did the details in sketchup too and only "paint" and texture with my usual software.

[Larb]

Finally got around to doing the main linework.

[arsheesh]

That's great work Larb! I like where this is going.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Ilanthar]

I agree, this is really cool!

[SteffenBrand]

Very nice, I like where this is heading! 3pt-perspective is always nice to see, so dynamic!
One question: Are you planning a ladder to reach the door from the stairs? It seems to be high from there...

[DanielHasenbos]

Very nice, I like where this is heading! 3pt-perspective is always nice to see, so dynamic!
One question: Are you planning a ladder to reach the door from the stairs? It seems to be high from there...

I suppose there is normally a ladder which can be removed in case of an attack, right?

Great work Larb, it is looking fantastic so far!

[Larb]

There is a ladder... I err... forgot to draw it in last night. =P