Make Concept Art Easier - Do What Pros Do

[@IraKane]

Implying and not showing everything is the ultimate gamification of art. It makes the viewers participate with their imagination and that there, is what makes art so cool. Thank you so much Hardy😊

[@fowlerillus]

That's it! 100% agree :)

[@owndamnhero3414]

I looooooove messy sketches. The beauty in the caos kinda thing. Like when you see the sketches da Vinci left and stuff like that, idk, it just shouts out to me and I love drawing like that. I don’t like lineart cause it feel like placing chains/removing what makes a sketch beautiful. For me. I like seeing that work on others. Having said that, I think this technique is really cool and I’m gonna go and try it out❤

[@fowlerillus]

Sounds awesome. I totally know what you mean - that chaos and expressiveness makes art feel so alive

[@KRoaming97]

Love how you opened my eye to how shape language is used in almost every character/creature design. Definitely going to practice this lesson tonight...plus a few more days😊

[@fowlerillus]

Glad it was helpful!

[@rockon8174]

Keep this channel going!!!! Awesome tips and art!!!

[@fowlerillus]

Thank you! Will do!

[@arithdev]

Its so liberating to get rid of the pencil during the design phase...absolutely love the workflow. Hoping i could muster up the courage to use this process in character design too...

[@fowlerillus]

100% agreed! I do have a slightly adapted approach for character design but it really isn't that different. Check out this character that I did for Christophe Young's channel last month - it shows the method pretty well kzbin.info/www/bejne/q5vHdqOdjbCLgas

[@ITS_JNPL]

Ooh i watched both yours and his videos. The phantom hands OMG. That looks so cool. It blew my mind tbh. And also christophe's character design with the blackhole.. chef's kiss.

[@pigcatapult]

I’m a pixel artist, and I spent so long struggling with the outline-first style they teach you for Pokemon sprites style. When I started putting down blobs of color and carving them, the world opened up

[@fowlerillus]

That's so cool! I love pixel art and it's cool to know that these ideas apply there too.

[@philipkhan7715]

Color Lookups are really nice to use as a base color coat. I use them as a basis to kick off my color process, so useful!

[@fowlerillus]

That's an awesome idea!

[@darkchild130]

I'm a Procreate user, we don't get stuff. please tell me what a colour lookup is

[@seatongrey315]

I am so grateful for this. I came up with this technique 2 years ago. Using shapes instead of lines but now Hardy you validated my idea and I can do this without guilt and with freedom. I have always hated lineart. Yes I can do it but I always avoid it.

[@fowlerillus]

That's awesome! Glad to hear it

[@jirakana869]

Thanks for sharing your technique, I was strugling on silhoutte part and this video appeared on my recommendation vids! I could listen to your voice for a day. This really helps me get through the problems.

[@fowlerillus]

Glad it was helpful! Sounds like it appeared at the exact right moment :) I appreciate your kinds words :)

[@hiimzucky7089]

I struggle with the value part :(( it's hard for me to take the shape into a 3d position or pose. I suck though so it makes sense lol

[@Antwoni]

Always liking the videos before even watching them, thanks for putting this stuff out there, it's a goldmine. Now going to watch it.

[@fowlerillus]

Oh thanks! I really appreciate the support and that will make the algorithm overlords happy :) Thanks, I hope you enjoy it.

[@MRorizs2]

Thanks for this video! This made me look into my own art and realize how the ones that I started with shape language only look much better and well composed compared to others.

[@fowlerillus]

Glad it was helpful! Thanks

[@drawn2mike]

Great TIP. You are absolutely right, very much like blocking out Sculpts.

[@fowlerillus]

Awesome - glad this resonated!

[@Balrov1]

I was really in need of this, lately i got so confused if i really needed to "draw" better, since 90% of pro artists that i know first draw everything first. But the thing that i really like is to paint and go shapes first. I feel so much freedom that in 15-30 minutes i already have all setup with color and volumes ready to go, i feel frustrated that i know if i would do a line art i would got stuck for hours just to do a stiff pose.

[@fowlerillus]

I'm so glad this was helpful! I identify completely with what you've said here

[@Itasa222]

Oh my a solution for my eyedrop problem! Thank you!

[@fowlerillus]

Happy to help!

[@nickd1973]

Great video and approach to shapes first. I’ve been doing something different but still with that same objective. I draw with a round brush with an opacity of only 5%. I keep the brush quite large so I can only draw the pose and form avoiding details. This becomes my first pass and then my next layer is rough line art.

[@fowlerillus]

That sounds awesome - I need to try that

[@beetlejuss]

This is what I want to learn and then brush economy

[@fowlerillus]

Brush economy - I love that term. Such mastery in using the fewest possible strokes to communicate your idea

[@ITS_JNPL]

As always. So cool to just watch a silhouette turn into something awesome. The fur looks good. It would take hours to render that fur look without that brush. I would want to use the brushes you used for the silhouette and the fur but krita doesn't support the format photoshop use for their brushes. Lucky me lol. Btw, this reminds me of Appa from Avatar: the last airbender. I'm a huge fan of the original animated series. Appa is a flying bison (sky bison) created for the series to be the companion and transportation of the main characters. Appa has the same fur as your creature here. The brush technique you taught us would be really useful if someone wants to paint Appa's floof 😂 Thanks for the video sir Hardy! More power to you and DPS.

[@fowlerillus]

Thanks! I appreciate it. I may have been channeling Appa (and probably Falcor) a little bit here. Fur is always a great way to make a creature seem fit for a cold environment but it also makes them seem fun to ride and friendly (like you could fall asleep on the way to wherever :)

[@RaZuMsinc]

Excellent work as usual!!!

[@fowlerillus]

Thank you!

[@waldhari_art7472]

He is so fluffy !!

[@fowlerillus]

He is indeed extra extra fluffy :)

[@eugenpapen2215]

That's stunning!🔥🔥🔥

[@fowlerillus]

Thanks!

[@pfistor]

Just underneath of "color lookup" in Layer>New Adjustment Layer> is Gradient map. It is similar to color look up but you can easily customize it to remap every value to a new color / value. I would rather use curves for adjustments but it can be good for keeping consistent color schemes between several assets that you only have to work up in grayscale. By default you can select from all of photoshops existing gradient maps but you can also make your own and use the color picker to select from say a reference etc.

[@fowlerillus]

Awesome! Thank you for the recommendation - those are really cool

[@sanyadev97]

I've been using this technique in my pixel art workflow but I never tought about implementing this technique this way. I'll definitely give it a shot, it was a real eye opener. Because god damn I prefer my art this way as well.

[@fowlerillus]

Awesome! I hope it works for you

[@graphicsamdw]

Iron Man is a hero, Batman is a hero, Luke Skywalker is a hero. But Hardy Fowler IS our hero artist....

[@fowlerillus]

thanks :) I identify with friendly Hulk most of all :)

[@taniatigris]

That is a really useful technique! Funny enough, I created recently a blender brush for Clip Studio Paint that does very similar fur/hair effect.😊 Very helpful in creature design!

[@fowlerillus]

Hi Tatiana! Nice to hear from you. That's so cool, I'm glad that idea is working for you

[@englishshadrick5296]

your the best man

[@fowlerillus]

Thanks :)

[@englishshadrick5296]

@@fowlerillus you should start live streaming your voice is nice to listen to.

[@rlopez7016]

This is brilliant Hardy! I am seriously considering your mentorship program. Will look for more details in the discord - cheers 🤙

[@fowlerillus]

Thanks! Glad you liked it. That's awesome - we have a session starting in August. If you have any questions, just let me know. [e-mail]

[@CaliRaveBoi]

paints an owlbear... awesome!!!

[@fowlerillus]

That was totally unintentional but you're 100% right.

[@afriendlyfox]

I love messy lineart, and I only do final lineart and cleanup after I've had fun with designs, but this looks cool. Maybe one day I'll be able to do this, when I get more confident without cross-contours and basic forms sketch underneath. A little question: how do you blend things from just hard edge shapes of light and shadow to the nuances of halftone and texture? I seem to either overblend things with an airbrush and they look blurry, or create ugly overlapping lines with a transparent brush, and I feel like there's something I'm missing here.

[@fowlerillus]

The smudge brush that I'm using for that works like magic. It takes surprisingly little to blur those edges into brushy texture and it also can be used for that furry texture by pulling little wisps out when the brush is made small. It's a pretty standard photoshop brush (I think) but it's also available on the DPS discord Freebies channel if you'd like to play with it.

[@afriendlyfox]

@@fowlerillus I was having doubts, but I went ahead and played around with the smudge tool, and it's actually working really well. A rake brush smudge helped me make that nice painterly looking transition. I wouldn't be able to do this just given a hard round brush with opacity, but it's forward progress. Thank you so much!

[@coreyholt8522]

When you're drawing these shapes, how much of the end pose do you have in mind? Like how early did you know this creature would have a strong forward lean?

[@fowlerillus]

I definitely had an idea of that but it was also bit of finding the right pose along the way. I think I mostly had the idea of a top heavy, ape like pose for this so I wanted huge bulk in the shoulders and a strong forward curve in the spine. From there it was sort of fine tuning things to try to put weight on the right limbs

[@ooffs_artflows]

Did this the other day just tried following along with this KZbin tutorial turned out pretty good wish I could do it without help, I just don't really know what's supposed to go where ya know.

[@fowlerillus]

I know what you mean - that is definitely the hard part. I have turned it into a bit of a formula over the years and the design principles behind that are actually the foundation of my mentorship program.

[@johnnyblaze373]

Can you do a video similar to this for background environments? Can this work for buildings? landscapes etc? Top video

[@fowlerillus]

Thank you! Actually I'm planning on doing exactly that fairly soon - this technique totally works for that too

[@shushThatThing]

Thank you tons for this video. I love creating silhouettes first for my characters. I can fill pages and pages of these. It's always fun and keeps my creativity flowing. I thing taking the shape silhouettes to the next step is always a bit tricky for me. Is there an ideal way to approach them? I can see from your video that you start shading right away. Would that be your approach with more complex designs as well? Thanks a bunch!

[@fowlerillus]

Thanks! Glad this resonated. Actually, yes I approach even complex things like robots and architecture in largely the same way, at least for design. Basically trying to nail down silhouette shapes that look pleasing and then dividing interior spaces following the same principles. It makes the process much less daunting and more reliable which I really count on.

[@shushThatThing]

@@fowlerillus OOh I see. That's cool! thanks again~

[@jaxobophiuchi676]

Amazing. What about shape painting for nude figures? Curious if this technique extends or if you know of any artists who use this method for the human form. Thnx!

[@fowlerillus]

Incredible timing! I'm working on a giant new people painting resource and I have a project where we do exactly that. It's not my go to for figure drawing BUT, I do design clothing shapes on top of a figure sketch in exactly this same way. It's just such an easy way to instantly see shape relationships.

[@thecosmographer]

You keep mentioning a “freebies” channel in the DPS discord, but I can’t find it listed there. Would love try your brushes. 🤔

[@fowlerillus]

I can help with that. When you first join the server, there is a Start Here channel where you choose a role. Just one click, I think. After that all channels will be open. The Freebies channel is near the top of the list in the Information section

[@octonolite_0]

Hi Hardy. Thanks for another helpful demo. I've purchased most of your Udemy courses and I wonder if you've thought about doing a Domestika course. It's a very high quality platform and would open you up to a massive international audience. You'd be a perfect fit.

[@fowlerillus]

Oh thanks! I'm glad you think so. I have thought about that but I have really enjoyed the mentorship program that I've started at my school and it's taking just about all of my teaching bandwidth these days.

[@hugovargas8737]

This is awesome Hardy. I'm doing some of your courses on Udemy, and you are using the sketch approach to desing and develop your art, I think it's a good way to practice and I'll continue studying that content, but it would be awesome to see this in more detail. Do you have any courses related to this or are you planning to make a course with this approach?

[@fowlerillus]

Hi! I'm so glad to hear it. This shape design stuff is the main focus on the design module in my concept art academy mentorship. I don't currently have any udemy or skillshare courses directly on that unfortunately.

[@nenedaartist]

Is the brush pack compatible with Procreate?

[@fowlerillus]

Yes! It is an ABR file which should work well with procreate

[@nenedaartist]

@@fowlerillus Hey, thanks for responding back after 5 seconds; when I joined the Discord server and tried to go to the #freebies thread, it says, "you do not have permission to view the message history" of the thread. Could you please help me with it?

[@fowlerillus]

@@nenedaartist Sorry about that! So, make sure you go to the start here channel and select one of those three roles. That should open up the rest of the channels to you.

[@nenedaartist]

@@fowlerillus Thanks for the help; once i did it i had to refresh it, but then it showed the file. Thanks for responding!

[@brushrunner]

I highly reccomend watching Moby Francke talk on Playground 2018

[@fowlerillus]

Can't wait! Thanks for the recommendation.

[@АлинаРахманенко]

Hi everyone! I'm quite new in concept art and I'd like to ask for a piece of advice. I wonder if it's necessary to draw a character from the front/side/back?

[@fowlerillus]

Great question. I think including pieces like that in your portfolio is important for a concept artist. Those extra views are part of what is called a modeling sheet which is what gets passed to a 3D artist to help bring your creations to life. My strategy is to have a sheet where we have a single polished painting of your character in a natural pose and then include those front, back, side (etc) views as simple line art in the margins. This shows painting and problem solving skills in one portfolio piece which is great. I hope that is helpful!

[@АлинаРахманенко]

@@fowlerillus omg! Thank you so much for the information! I was always wondering about this question, thank you very much again!:3

[@CyberGhostArt]

Great video man, but i cant seem to find the discord channel

[@fowlerillus]

Oh sorry! I can help with that. When you first join the server, there is a Start Here channel where you choose a role. Just one click, I think. After that all channels will be open. The Freebies channel is near the top of the list in the Information section

[@hiimzucky7089]

Just put of curiosity, ive been getting back into drawing. Im very new. I can look at something and draw it no problem. I just struggle at envisioning things without reference.. so is your class worth it as a beginner, i dont want to waste money and not learn anything so would you recommend something to get started? I unfortunately dont have photoshop, i use ibispaint and infinite painter. Infinite seems to be pretty conplex for a samsung tablet so i figured it would be a great starting app to get used to digital art

[@hiimzucky7089]

Also sorry for asking so many (probably silly) questions

[@fowlerillus]

The questions aren't silly at all and it's what I make these videos for :) Drawing from invention is definitely a challenge but I do have some strategies and principles that make designing with shapes first easier and more formulaic. I definitely agree that you don't want to dive into an expensive mentorship without a grasp of fundamentals. Solid familiarity with basic drawing and digital painting apps (of your choice) are a prerequisite so that no one feels out of their depth. I do have an introductory course that is $9 if you want to brush up on those foundational skills. Feel free to email us at [e-mail] with a portfolio link and I can give you my impressions - whether you would be ready for the mentorship or if there are skills I would recommend working on first. Regardless, I wish you and your art the very best!

[@hiimzucky7089]

@@fowlerillus thanks so much. I'll try to draw a few before I send em your way as I only have 1 (deleted everything for a fresh start)

[@brushrunner]

What ps version is this/

[@fowlerillus]

2021

[@larsityosmarsilyet5933]

in many videos as I see you skip lots of thing like after painting how to make dirty effect or tattoo on mecs or shinings and dark points. Is there any videos for???

[@fowlerillus]

I'm planning a detailed video about brushes and effects like that! For the dirty effect in the final product, that is just going to Filter>Add Noise (2%) and then I do an unsharp mask filter. It gives it a nice extra punch.

[@larsityosmarsilyet5933]

Thank you so much! Im looking forward to that!@@fowlerillus

[@mezimforte79boribay79]

where is discord?

[@fowlerillus]

Here! www.digitalpaintingstudio.com/community

[@HuebertEllowit-LOL]

I always want to try this, and then I sit down to try it and it just looks like absolute garbage and I give up immediately. Like your shapes look like things. My shapes look like poo poo. Such a difference in ability in being able to visualize something and move towards it. That skill feels really hard to develop

[@fowlerillus]

It is something that I needed a lot of help with. I love rendering and making things look realistic first as a younger artist. I filled portfolios with polished paintings that somehow never looked right - what I eventually realized is that I had been rendering without designing and I had totally disregarded shapes. There are actually some core principles that can be learned and drilled to help those things flow, so I promise this is worth pursuing and there is a path. Not trying to sell you on anything but that is a main focus of my mentorship. I think searching Shape Design on youtube would be a great start though. Sinnix has some really nice stuff on this.

[@quagsirefan8946]

I know what you mean, I’ve been there! Having this mental image you just can’t reach. But that isn’t necessarily bad, just means you got a good artistic eye, and you gotta work to match your skill level to it! It can be hard, especially seeing others who are great. But don’t give up, take breaks if you need to and you just don’t feel good, but keep practicing and trying to learn, picking up tips and techniques, and you can get there!

[@DdDd-wi3ir]

you have a discord?

[@fowlerillus]

We do! You can check it out here www.digitalpaintingstudio.com/community