✏️ For the sake of documentation, here is my process for this drawing. I hope it’s helpful and

✏️ For the sake of documentation, here is my process for this drawing. I hope it’s helpful and interesting to someone, thanks for looking!Be warned this write up is quite detailed, it’s a pretty long post!References and ResearchThe pitch I got approved for this spread was a scene of the teachers from both Naruto and My Hero Academia in the teacher’s office. That was 9 characters total :-( I also wanted to include some students to really give a sense that this was a school scene. These are some of my references of Japanese school teachers’ offices:Planning the LayoutWith interior views, I start with a layout that includes what big objects and furniture fills a room, where the doors and windows are, and making sure that whoever uses the space can reasonably move around in it. First I decided what my viewer/camera position and angle would be. I decided on the bottom right of the room with a view of mostly the opposite wall.Major considerations in my layout:I arranged the teacher’s desks based on which characters I wanted closest to the viewer.I wanted students to be visible so I made sure that the door was visible from that angle. I wanted the room to be well lit but didn’t want characters to be back lit, so I put windows on the left wall where they would be barely visible but still a recognizable light source.Planning the CompositionSince my composition was a 2-page spread, my primary concern was that nothing important was on the centerfold. In the thumbnail above, I placed a vertical line for the centerfold and a horizontal line for the horizon line, roughly at eye level for a tall person standing up. I wanted to show all the characters and also the top of the desks so I could draw what each teacher has in their workspace. Perspective and Layout of FurnitureBTW I grabbed these screenshots from the procreate time-lapse so it doesn’t show the grid I built for the sketch like in this screenshot: All of my perspective drawing was done with a horizon line and a 1-point + 2-point perspective grid. (I answered a question about how I did this)After my thumbnail, I drew all the furniture as rough blocks and made sure that the visible edges of objects didn’t create tangents with one another. Whenever I draw in perspective I pay close attention to the scale of objects. I decided how high my horizon line is, which is the viewer’s eye-level, and made sure the height and size of objects, windows, doors, etc. is realistically proportioned i.e. a desk is about waist-high or lower compared to a standing person, and from front to back a person sitting down should be able to stretch their legs and reach the back. Character Placement I sketched where characters should go and what poses/gestures they each have. Since the characters should get smaller towards the back of the room, I drew a vertical line representing each character’s height relative to the horizon line. Even if the character is sitting, this helped me determine what their proportions should be. In red (sorry it’s so light) I adjusted the width of the desks so that Aizawa wouldn’t be partially off-page to the right. I didn’t draw any detail except for some eyes. I find that a lot of story comes from where/at what a character is looking. I made sure that each character’s line of sight led directly to another character, and that interactions between sets of characters were clear by the eye-contact. A note: I intended to ultimately warp the 3-point perspective composition into a fake 5-point perspective image, meaning that horizontals and verticals would become rounded like in a fish-eye lens. Since I knew I was going to distort the image, I made sure to keep important details out of the top and bottom of the composition so they wouldn’t get cut off when I warped. Background Sketch and Adding ClutterBefore I started drawing all of the details, I made a list of what each character should have in their workspace. For example, Kakashi’s workspace should include his Icha Icha books, graded tests from his team 7 students, mug, more books, water bottle, photo of Team Minato, calendar, laptop, pencil case. I sketched each workspace so the objects that show who a character is/what they care about are most visible. SIDE NOTE: A friend asked how I handle designing cluttered spaces so I’ll talk a bit about arranging the desk. Here’s the sketch I ended up with.What I keep in mind while arranging objects:To create a believable cluttered space, overlap objects in front of other objects and by stacking objectsAn object with an uninterrupted silhouette/no overlaps in front or behind will stand out, which you can use for composition or focus. To talk more about the second point here’s a simplified example:Here are 5 objects where they don’t overlap with each other or with the table. The picture is flattened because there is no visual representation of how the objects relate to one another spatially, and all of them are equally significant, including the table corner.The same five objects here are grouped. The red group of objects overlaps the corner or the table, putting them visually on top of the table. Among the red objects you get a sense of volume and clutter too from overlaps: the mug is on top of the papers and in front of the books; papers on top of papers; one stack of books is in front of another stack of booksThe red objects overlap the blue laptop, placing them in front spatially. However, the blue silhouette is simpler than the red cluster, and that simplicity makes it more focused.The resulting object hierarchy is blue > red > table. TL;DR Creating interesting clutter depends on 1) overlapping objects and 2) grouping objects to create simplicity vs. complexity of silhouettes.Here’s the final color version of the table. In the end, the objects aren’t the focus of the composition so they are grouped together as a light area. Adding occasional spots of shadow helps break up the light shape and enforce overlaps. The characters are the focal point, and I emphasize them with darker values to contrast with the lighter desk, like you can see in the gray-scale below.The characters’ gestures also point to important objects on the desk and overlap objects to create additional complexity and clutter. For example, although the laptop becomes less prominent because of the value grouping, Kakashi’s propped up feet point to it and create a shadow on the table pointing to it.Lighting/Value Composition Rough Before thinking about colors, I decided how I wanted the values to read. Then I brainstormed what colors to include in the lights, neutrals, and darks to help keep the value composition legible. A note: Value roughs are great for fixing compositions before committing to something that becomes a problem later. For example, I noticed that the light on the drawers at front center of the composition was leading the eye off the page. To resolve this, I added an open drawer full of books. This blocked the vertical light shape and also filled the empty foreground space.This is how the value rough compares to the final…the rough reads better, oh well…. Separate Objects into Layers I made a flat fill layer of each object and made them different colors so I could  tell them apart when I added base colors later. Since I intended to make the background line-less, I used the lasso selection tool to trace the object outline and fill bucket so the edges were sharp. A note: My final file has 350 layers and 40 groups. For complex compositions like this, I label and group everything! Each object got a labeled layer and was put into a group i.e. all of Kakashi’s desk items and himself were put in the ‘kakashi’ folder. I organized groups like this:The nested groups helped so that when I collapse all my groups my layer window was very short and easy to navigate :) Character Line-art This is pretty straight-forward but it took a really long time because I wanted the characters to look good and for the lines to be final. I don’t have screenshots but my character process is usually 1) gesture sketch 2) more detailed sketch for construction + anatomy + clothes 3) line.I referenced the hell out of this and took a picture of myself making basically every hand pose of every character. Base Colors (Ugly) At this point I hadn’t decided on a color scheme so I just picked some ugly local colors for everything.Color RoughI used adjustment layers like color balance, curves, overlays, etc. to bring the above base colors to a more unified color scheme, then added light and shadow layers.For shadow colors, I created a flat multiply layer, and over it a single-color light adjustment layer. Then, I color adjusted and played around with adjustment layers to get different moods, and saved these 4 possible lighting schemes to compare. I put this set of lighting schemes through a photo filter app (I used one called Foodie) and ended up with the below color scheme as my final color rough. Actual Base Colors I color-picked and color adjusted from my color rough to fill in what the actual base colors of my picture should be. Block in Lighting Because of my decision to fill each object separately, I had to light each object individually. Uh, there’s definitely a way to avoid this but i work harder, not smarter. unfortunately :-(I color picked light colors from my color roughs. Lighting and Object Details From this point onward, the composition didn’t change very dramatically while I filled in all the details and adjusted colors here and there. I added lighting to all the characters.I also noticed that if I want the composition to read as a 3d space I should use different color schemes in the foreground and background to differentiate them. I kept warmer, redder colors in the foreground and introduced cooler, bluer colors towards the background. Atmospheric perspective or whatever :-) Continue Object Details and Color/Value Adjustments I slowly added details… I periodically compared my progress to the color rough and found that the drawing had lost some of it’s reddish look so I added a selective color layer to saturate reds. Details, Atmosphere, Final Adjustment Layers I added more details, textures, and adjustment layers to finish. One of my favorite things to add is dust particles to show air movement and light, like how you can see dust swirling around in sunbeams.Warp and Noise FilterI saved the file as a flat image and used warp to create a fish-eye lens effect/cheat 5-point perspective. I added a slight bit of noise to add atmosphere to the picture. Then it’s done!Thanks for reading, and feel free to ask questions, I’m always happy to talk about drawing! -- source link

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