Workshops

92 November 2007

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 In depth Spacecraft concepts

PROTOTYPE A Dr Chee Ming

Wong (aka
Koshime)

SPACECRAFT
Quickly create spacecraft concepts with Chee Ming Wong
COUNTRY: England

Chee Ming,
aka Koshime,
is a freelance
artist
specialising
in concept art and
to produce unique futuristic transport designs illustrations for various
media including games,
animation pre
elcome to this brief unless specifically asked for a replica ship workshop detailing the entire process. production, role-playing

W demonstration of transport
design and how to rapidly
prototype a space vessel.
When asked to produce fresh concept
by your client or art director.
In this workshop, I will share with you
my philosophy, thoughts and process of
Throughout, I’ll spend 70 per cent of
my time discussing producing and
conceptualising a good design, for this
and books over the past
seven years He’s also
trained as a medical
doctor (MBChB).
how to rapidly prototype and build is fundamental in producing believable www.koshime.com

designs for sci-fi spacecraft, you face the
unenviable task of steering clear of
existing styles and influences,
unique iterations of spacecraft as if they futuristic vehicles. DVD Assets
were produced from the same production For the past two years I’ve worked All the files you
line. There’s also an accompanying in- on the independent MMO Infinity: The need are on your
DVD in the Chee Ming
depth video Quest For Earth (www.fl-tw.com/
Wong folder in the
Infinity), so have had to draw unique Workshops section.
spacecraft on a daily basis, and I’ve SOFTWARE: Painter X,
Photoshop CS3 (demos)
filled numerous sketchbooks and
digital files with unfinished
concepts, studies and designs.
I find any reference to
classic cars, First

and Second
World War equipment
and transport, aviation and
existing aerospace designs
have vastly expanded my
knowledge of transport
design, which I had no prior
knowledge of.
With adequate research and
dedication, you too can have an informed
opinion of any field of art you wish to
portray. Let’s get started.

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 Workshops
Gaining approval
4 The thing to remember when
producing concept art is, try not to be too
precious. Sometimes, the concepts that
you’re proud of may not make the cut,
while a concept that you have deemed
unworthy is really liked by everyone. So,
try not to discard any of your concepts
as they may well be approved.

Visual design template

5 Using your favourite painting software, let’s conceptualise
digitally. In parallel to the traditional method, I’ll build a visual library
of shapes and forms from which we can use to produce prototype
concepts. Using this process, I can produce various ship parts such as
engines, guns or ship chassis and build a concept together like digital
LEGO. Remember to utilise any detail or shape that you have used to
build each prototype. For example, take the nose from one shape and
engine detail from another and cobble together a new prototype. You
can use any canvas size, but it’s best to start with a 150dpi initially.

Thumbnails
T
1 In
n this initial stage, the aim is to produce a design to use as a template. There are
multiple
i l approaches to this. I am going to examine the traditional approach initially,
whereby a series of small thumbnails (3x1cm) are generated by hand. Think of these
as small sticky notes to yourself, because these thumbnails will enable you to rapidly
explore various shapes and form and be creatively expressive as possible.

Improve your design Concept prototypes

2 O of your selection of
Out 6 You can rapidly build a whole
Y
thumbnails,
b the next step is to refine your production line of ship designs by
process by expanding on the various conceptualising in greyscale. It is
thumbnails. Feel free to mix and match important to remember that minor
various aspects of different thumbnails to details are all that is required at this stage.
produce your first few proto-concepts With each iteration, the prototypes will
(about 8x4cm). Again, try to keep these gradually become more detailed.
small to allow for a good six mid-sized
thumbnail concepts to be generated.

The concept
3 Now that you have narrowed your selection process, it’s a good time
N
to produce
d your first concept. Choosing one of the proto-concepts, try to
work it up to explore various angles. A front and back three quarters view
is normally sufficient for experienced modellers to use. Cross your
fingers and hope that your art director gives the stamp of approval.

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Isometric projection
7 Out of the various prototypes, I
select one to work on. In this instance, I’ll
be producing an isometric three-quarters
front view. It can be useful to plot out a
freehand perspective beforehand (I’ll use
a simple two point perspective here).
Using this, I draw out a simple spline
outline of the concept.
Shipbuilding
8 F
From the middle, project outwards
on bothh sides to produce a skeletal frame
or chassis that you can paint flat layers of
metal on to. This is akin to building
vehicles in real life. A good example is
the bare hull ribbing of old sea-going
ships. When you’ve done this, start to
conceptualise your ship’s engines and
begin to add some minor details.
Skinning
S new layer
9 M
Make a new layer and start to block
in flat shades of grey over various
sections. This is akin to adding metal
plating to a ship. Try to envision welding
together various strips of metal on to a
ship and your concept will come to life.
UNI23.tut_space 95
In depth Prototype a spacecraft
0 Adding
10 details
I utilise a Palette Knife throughout
to easily paint in flat washes of grey to
simulate metal plating (without having
to resort to using photo textures). In
Photoshop, you want to make a flat
horizontal brush with pressure support.
In Painter, a whole array of palette knifes
already come pre-built.
Decals and dirt
111 On a separate layer, I try to add
O unfamiliar with this subject matter.
decals,
l dirt and some basic highlights
utilising a simple Dirt brush or the default
Hard Round brush in Photoshop. To
make racing strips, use a simple
rectangular selection and fill with 20 per
cent Opacity grey. This can later be
adjusted via the Transform tool into any
perspective or shape. illustration.
Duplicate to
Alt/Option+V
This transform
s the Move
tool to duplica
te your
selection on
to a
new layer.
2 Painting
12 clouds
I want to show off the three
different concepts in the air, and decide
upon a aerospace setting above the
clouds. Using a simple Airbrush (or Dirt
brush), you can rapidly paint in abstract
shapes to produce a varying contrast of
cloud shapes. I would advocate studying
reference of cloud formations if you are
3 Background
13 colour
FFinally, I can start playing with
colour ffor the background of my
spacecraft. Depending on the Smudge tool
composition and mood, colour can This tool is sometimes
underused and has
determine the effect the final illustration
multiple roles and
projects to the viewer, affecting how it effects. The Smudge tool
makes them feel. You can add colour to a set to 80-100 per cent
greyscale image via many options (such with the default Hard
Round brush enables
as Colourise Layer, fill in a new layer with you to do basic
a flat colour and adjust Opacity, or the
Black and White Adjustment tool – for
correction (using
Lighten/Darken option),
paint straight or curved
more on this handy tool, see the Pro
lines, and even carve into
Secrets box on the side of page 96). In pictures. Set up
this instance, I opt for a complementary correctly, you can paint
and detail any picture
colour set, which will help my finished using this tool.
spaceship concept to stand out.
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 Workshops
Greyscale to
colour in only
two clicks
Photoshop CS3 has an
adjustment option called
Black & White
(Image>Adjustments>
Black & White). With
this, you can adjust the
value of you image, and
apply a colour tint all in
two clicks. For advanced
users, if you utilise this
adjustment via the
adjustment layer and
inverse the adjustment
(via Ctrl/Cmd+I), this
now makes your
adjustment layer into a
pseudo alpha channel
whereby you can paint
in your colour tint in
manually, or via the
Gradient/Fill tool.
96 November 2007
UNI23.tut_space 96
clouds and far off details. For closer
details, the Natural brushes and Oil
brushes are good for working on areas
such as ground and mountain ranges.
When it comes to painting the metal, a
mixture of Oil brushes and the Palette
Knife will add to that natural realistic
look, giving your craft a believable
texture. In addition, the lighting tools
enable you to globally add coloured
spotlights to your illustration.
4 Composition
14 Using the Rule of Thirds, the aim
U
is to place
l the main ‘hero’ vehicle near the
viewer, and the other two concepts on any
of the four areas on a canvas. To explain, 7 Mood
17 and
atmosphere
a
you can divide a canvas into thirds which The ffinal stages of any illustration are to
produce four areas of importance or focus add atmospheric perspective whereby
to an illustration. If you subsequently some additional haze and cloud layers are
divide each of the nine sectors into thirds, added to objects in the background and
you generate another mid-ground. A study into various jet and
four focal areas exotic aircraft contrails leads me to decide
around each on combining a pulse detonation engine
major third. To ur Painter brushes (which produces a doughnut on a rope
put it simply,
Reassign yo
shortcuts
16 I like the painterly quality you contrail) and XCOR Aerospace Methane
shortcuts for
you can locate Reassign your low .
get in an illustration from using test engine (produces a distinctive
and workf
objects near the easier access Painter’s brush set, and at this stage, diamond blue flame wave stream) set of
ned to new
I have F1 assig
Rule of thirds layer and F2
to I flatten the whole image and port my contrails to create a futuristic engine
er.
and produce duplicate lay .PSD to Painter. Within Painter, I want wake. It is tiny attention to detail that
brilliant results. to access the Blender tools to paint in soft helps sell an image, and as a gross
simplification the secret to believable
design is a ratio based on 70 per cent
based on existing design/reference and
30 per cent based on imagination.
18 Final touches
and details
In this final stage, I up the resolution to
300dpi. You can now laboriously add all
the detail, textures and minor perspective
corrections to your heart’s desire. This
stage can take up to a good many hours,
days or even weeks to make the image as
realistic as possible. If you desire to add
further intricate details, I would suggest
selecting an area to copy and up the
15 Perspective grids
To aid the composition, an arbitrary two-point perspective is placed on the
T
resolution to a new file. There, you can
paint in textures, dirt or details if you so
canvas. This is determined first by the horizon line. In this instance, we have used a wish. Once finished, you can lower the
dynamic composition, and a top down view and thus the horizon line is skewed six to resolution and re-import into the original
eight degrees from the horizontal. Subsequently, you can plot the primary vanishing illustration. Once you are pleased with
point using the Rule of Thirds to lead the viewer into the illustration. the final result, flatten and save.
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