Mind map

After I decided what I wanted to do I started to plan the buildings on my street. After a bit of researching I decided the type of houses I wanted to use were 16th century timber-framed houses. I also wanted to do a church based on Notre Dame so I started to sketch out my ideas using references from the internet.

Finally I started to design my buildings, for the house first I draw the original building, then copied it and added in the ‘sci-fi’ aspects on top. While drawing I decided I wanted to slightly change my idea, I didn’t really like the sci-fi aspect, it was too clean and futuristic, I wanted to grunge it up so I decided to add more mechanical/grungy take, I also decided I wanted the light sources of the street to be glowing crystals.


Statement of intent


I intend my street to an abandoned 16th centenary town which has been build upon by a modern group of people. I want the street to have metal plates and wires added on by these people as well as having glowing crystals as a light source. I plan to have the scene set a night to the glows will be more intense. For my street I hope to have these three main buildings, a house, a church and a fountain.

http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/asset60055_218-e2bn.html
http://www.peartree-miniatures.co.uk/tours/stfagans2.html
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/gardelegen/Town/Gardelegen02.html
http://teenyblessings.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/15th-16th-century-houses/
http://www.grimshaworigin.org/Webpages2/GrimshawHallKnowle.htm
http://www.stmgrts.org.uk/directory/historic_house
http://www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk/Council_Services/planning/conservation/MORETON.asp
http://halmapr.com/news/apollo/2008/12/
http://www.3drt.com/3dm/sf-constructions/sci-fi-constructions_shots.html
http://www.sgnonline.com/2009/01/10/the-future-is-now-ish/
http://www.tuvie.com/search/Futuristic+city+building+design
http://planetoddity.com/the-existing-cities-of-the-future/
http://www.buildingdesignideas.com/2011/08/07/futuristic-building-designs/
http://www.smashinglists.com/top-10-futuristic-concept-hotels/
http://www.trendhome.info/2011/06/futuristic-modern-architecture-buildings/
http://www.cityphoto.tk/city-photos/notre-dame-cathedral-photos-and-notre-dame-cathedral-pictures.html

Fire textures

Today we made a fire texture in photoshop from simply using render clouds and render difference clouds then adding a gradient map ranging from black > red > orange > yellow > white. I think this looked more like lava though.

 After this I looked at another tutorial for a fire creature that got a really good effect by using the smudge tool http://blackravensong.deviantart.com/art/Fire-Creature-Tutorial-84060887

Rust textures~

Today we looked at making a rusty corrugated iron texture. First we  made long thin selection and filled it with a gradient so the two sides of the selection were black with a white middle bit. We then went into edit > define pattern. We then selected the whole canvas and selected edit > fill and chose the pattern we just made to get this. 

Next we made a new layer with rendered clouds on  it and a crystallized effect and set it to multiply. 

Then with an orangey-red colour  we brushed on some rust on a new layer with a big soft low opacity brush set to multiply to get this. 

 For a little extra touch we set the rectangular marquee tool to fixed size and entered in a third of the canvas size and selected the left third of the canvas of the rust layer. We then added shadows with the same brush with a dark grey until it looked like three separate panals.

I then used the same big soft brush on a brushed steel file to get another rusty look. 

Lighting effects in photoshop

Today we had a closer look at using lighting effects in Photoshop to make 'rocky' textures and 'raised' effects.

As you can see this simple rock texture was made by simply rendering clouds on a normal layer and also on a new layer in the 'channels' area, then going into render > lighting effects and setting the texture to Alpha 1. 

As you can see this technique can be used for giving a 'raised' or 'etched' look as well.

As you can see I used this technique to make this quick brick wall.