The art director and instructor explains the challenges of correctly placing mech creations in his compositions
For his image Pack Horse Pass, Hamish Frater notes: “The image was made for my video tutorial: Mech Illustration with Story and Character. It depicts a caravan of merchants passing through a small settlement in a post-apocalyptic world.”
He then defines the through-line of his workshop process. “The workshop covers the full creation process for the image, from initial ideation, reference gathering, and sketching through to the final colour painting and finishing touches in Photoshop,” he adds. “I generally use 3D as a base for my paintings, and the workshop covers how best to combine the flexibility a 3D package gives you with the more expressive and textural look you can achieve from freehand painting in Photoshop. Each chapter begins with a short lesson relevant to that stage of the pipeline, then we put that lesson to use creating the final image.”
Hamish then turns his attention to lighting in an image, emphasising: “This is a great chance to harmonise the colours and bring out the mood. I further emphasised the reds in the environment, lighting them with a warm early evening sun spilling into the scene. I held off going too blue in the shadows; I wanted a slow, relaxed mood, so I kept a lot of colourcontrast out of the lighting.”
