How to Make the Life of a CG Artist Easier. Tips From the Creative Director of Kevuru Games

My name is Stefan Dowhan, and I am the Creative Director of Kevuru Games. In this article, I will share my observations on what, in my opinion, beginners and even experienced CG artists lack in order to work faster and more conveniently. While the techniques described may be obvious to you, in my experience, some of the information may be new to you.

Novice artists can often be recognized after they complicate the drawing process for themselves. I had the conviction that if a photograph consists of pixels, then I just need to repeat each one, and I can depict anything. Following this approach, the beginner tries to repeat the photo exactly, but even painting on top of the photo will not give the desired quality without understanding the basics.

For comparison: on the left is the work of Outlinesbya, coloring a photo without understanding the basics, on the right is the work of Oliver Sin

To learn how to draw better, it is more useful to study someone else's art, rather than photographs. This is more likely to help you understand what you want to achieve in your work, and, first of all, understand that drawing is always the ability to find patterns, simplify the complex, and not repeat it.

A good example of a developed style within the Chinese school. Created by Ruan Jia

It is important to learn from the experience of others, because if artists always did only what comes to their mind, the history of art would remain at the level of cave paintings.

Art develops when it is based on the achievements of past generations, otherwise objectively modern quality cannot be achieved. It seems like a paradox when you remember that the creative community is essentially a countercultural phenomenon that wants to stand out and seek to rethink any tradition.

There is a certain abstract limit in the creation of art, where the artist's own opinion ends and the general opinion of the art community begins in the form of art styles and trends. The desire to blow up the system is also part of the system. Everyone defines this limit for themselves. On the one hand, by following only the instructions of others, the artist risks becoming mediocrity without their own opinion, on the other hand, following only what comes to mind, without examples of imitation, creativity is threatened with stagnation.

Just as a creator needs an audience, so art as a whole needs material for rethinking in order to exist. Artistic styles have been formed on the basis of thousands of years of human experience in art, each one contributes only a part of their opinion to this stream of thinking. Therefore, becoming someone's fan or finding a mentor is a must in becoming a good artist.

The best way for a beginner to get better is to study and follow sloppy-looking art and sketches. In such works, it is best to notice patterns and form your own observations. Here you can see the technique inside out and recognize what techniques achieve the desired effect.

Created by Ben Lo

Authors: left hand Heater Lenefsky, middle Catherine Kehoe, right hand — Ben Lustenhouwer

Created by John Grello

Once at the institute, one professor liked to repeat that mathematicians were the laziest people in the world. As you might guess, it's not the usual understanding of the word "laziness". Mathematics always has an optimal solution path, an exhaustive number of operations to solve a problem, from which axioms and theorems appear within its framework. It is from this point of view that I propose to consider the work of a CG artist. The desire to solve problems in the simplest way is the experience that distinguishes the beginner from the master, when, looking at the art, you can understand how easily it was created. One precise brushstroke can make for art more than a hundred made without proper understanding.

It seems to me that most often in achieving the goal of improving quality, artists are limited to tools. If you draw a parallel with mathematics, it is like forbidding an experienced mathematician to use some mathematical operations to solve an equation ? it is impossible to solve it that way. While the ability to use all mathematical operations without knowing the axioms and theorems is a difficult task, but achievable. Thus, understanding your ability to use all possible tools for a CG artist is the first goal, and everything else comes with the experience of using them.

It is these tools for the CG artist that will be discussed, although it can rather be called a chaotic set of tips that I consider important in my work.

Search for References

Google search is the most obvious source of information in reference search. To improve search performance, you should try to use English for queries. But we should not forget about alternatives in the form of any other available languages. Google has image search tools such as sorting by specific size, color, and type.

Also, a useful feature is to find similar images. If there is only one suitable reference, you can find a similar one or download your intermediate work if it has reached a dead end. Thus, it can be developed by comparing it with the found pictures.

Search engines can most often help you find photos, specific poses, lighting, and something that best matches the words of the query.

The next indispensable search tool is Pinterest, thanks to its algorithms for finding similar images. Word search on this resource is very bad, however, if you at least roughly find what you need, the algorithm perfectly selects similar images. Pinterest, unlike search engines, is based not only on the recognition of the image itself, but also on user search histories. Thus, you can easily find even what is difficult to describe in words. It's best to use Pinterest to find art for reference.

The Sketchfab website is incredibly useful for references. A wide selection of 3D models to view online makes this website a great resource to find photorealistic scans of people, styling examples, locations, and everything else that can be done in 3D. Few people know that if the light with the model is separated, it can be set along the horizontal axis right on the website by pressing ALT and the right mouse button and moving left and right.

Sketchfab is great for finding the perfect angle, lighting, and pose (you can find the animation and pause at the right place). Also, unlike the search engine, you can find out exactly whether the model is free to use.

Photobash

Photobash is most referred to as cheating in art since it is the easiest way to achieve some results with it. However, in order to skillfully, and even more imperceptibly, make a photobash, you need considerable experience.

Photos can be used not only to directly create art, but also auxiliary, temporarily, just to feel the space, detail, perspective, lighting, and composition for future processing or to get a shape (highlight). Example: this is the silhouette shape of the trees in Asteroid_ill.

Even more skill is required when creating textures using photographs, as they are often too complex to be simply applied to a surface. Using the buildings in Asteroid_ill as an example, you can see how the texture is simplified to the limit, almost to the binary state of shadow and light. Without this technique, a textural porridge turned out from oversaturation with tones and colors.

Sampling (Application or Collage)

There is no better example of this technique than the work of Thomas Scholes. Simply put, this is an application of pre-made pieces. With such a Psd-file-blank at hand, you can create a concept or illustration relatively quickly, simply by operating with pieces, putting them on stage, followed by post-processing in the form of global illumination and color correction. You can use this method not only for others, but, for example, to collect pieces of previously created characters and combine them in different combinations. As a result, you can get many options for sketches in a short time.

Basic Experience in 3D Programs

As a rule, any art comes down to simple figures, and nothing will help you learn how to depict them in space more than at least basic experience in 3D programs. 3DsMAX, Maya, Blender, ZBrush, Unity, UE4, and any other shape manipulation software can greatly develop spatial thinking, which will be needed in planning composition and perspective, complicating simple shapes, understanding lighting, choosing angles, etc.

Basic knowledge of 3D, without much delving into the subtleties, can help directly in creating art. For example, by combining simple shapes in 3D, namely the "blocking method", you can greatly help yourself with understanding perspective and lighting.

Author: Andrew William

To create a character without much knowledge of the software, Daz3D and Honeyselect can be useful. Having a standard human figure and clothes, you can put it in the right poses and use it for a subsequent example when creating a drawing.

Another simple program is Facegen, with its help you can quickly get an image of a face from the right angle.

To create an entire location, you can use the Unreal Engine. Even though it's an entire platform for making games and learning it can take years, with the least experience in 3D, you can figure out how to put finished assets into a scene. Free packs of assets from the market will be enough to make a sufficiently detailed composition for further delineation.

A Bit About Photoshop

A setting in Photoshop that I want to pay special attention to is switching between brush pressure modes. The importance of these buttons was not obvious to me for half a year at the first job, which made the drawing messy. Simply put, turning on the left button is necessary when painting, right ? when lining. These buttons are just as important for conscious control of painting as the sharpness-blurring switch on the brushes.

It seems to me that stain painting has a noticeable hallmark ? the use of large, rough strokes, which are surprisingly well suited for the artist to create fine details.

Authors: left-handed Linran, right-handed — ZUDartS Lee

A similar effect is achieved by frequent use of selection tools ? lasso and curly selection, as well as clipping masks in layers. Thus, the process of painting consists of selecting the desired area, and then shading with large strokes or with a gradient tool. It turns out that where necessary, accuracy is achieved, and where not, coarse strokes and inaccuracies are clearly visible. Taken together, this effect is a sign of the author's high level of understanding of where to use sharpness and where to blur. For example, drop shadows are clear, while the model's own shadows are blurred.

Author: Jin Yi

With any kind of photobash and correction in general, it is important to be able to achieve the accuracy of the desired color and tone using the correction tools. To determine the tone, you need to be able to work with "Curves" and /or "Levels". To find the right color, these are elective Color Correction”, “Gradient Map” and “Black and White”. Other correction tools are also useful, but they do not carry anything that cannot be achieved with the capabilities of the above.

The combination of ctrl+shift+C to copy an area to the clipboard instead of the usual Ctrl+C is important for convenience and speed, but at the same time a little-known technique. This copies the selection area, no matter what layer the drawing is on. This allows you not to be distracted by the organization of layers, when it is not important for the final goal, but rather to operate with pieces, for example, in the Thomas Scholes application method.

Neural Networks

Recently, advances in image generation using neural networks have gained popularity. They are quite different and have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Artbreeder. A great tool for creating a realistic portrait, although not very flexible with camera angles.

It is also a good tool for character concept creation, although there are much more repetitive shapes and visible neural network artifacts than with a portrait. It is useful when looking for a silhouette.

Disco Diffusion. An excellent tool for creating art locations from a verbal description with wide customization options and build variability, since it is an open source Python. It creates architecture well and is regularly improved with the help of like-minded people.

Neuromers to Increase the Brightness/Diffuseness of the Image

Remini. The program on the phone, the best use is to improve the quality of portraits.

Topaz Gigapixel AI. The program on the PC, the best use is to improve the quality of locations.

Preserve details 2.0. The latest versions of Photoshop have their own built-in neural network for enlarging photos. You can find it when resizing the image Alt+Ctrl+I in the resampling tab.

Finally, I would like to comment on copyright. The above techniques blur the boundaries of copyright in a work to one degree or another. Professional CG artists have a certain understanding of how to avoid such problems in their work. Although it is rather very conditional, it all comes down to ensuring that the work is not too similar to someone else's.

However, even the work of an artist who paints in oils may not belong only to them. In a certain sense, those who created the canvas and those who made the paints can also be proud of the picture. I mean, if the issue of copyright morally prevents you from using any of the above tools, I want to remind you that your work still does not completely belong to you. Anyone has the right to participate in our creative activity: the creators of Photoshop, the operating system, the computer, and so on, up to the first tool of labor.

Therefore, I do not advise you to limit yourself in methods of improving your own work, for fear of losing originality. Any way to do a better job is the way to your own originality.