Perspective Part 2: The Dopest Fortress

To do this project, I started with the basic perspective layout. As said in the first part of this project, this is an crucial step, as it puts everything in perspective (ha) and allows for a cleaner product.

The next step was to actually create the building. To do this, I found a stone texture online and started distorting it to fit the lines I made. This part was slightly frustrating, as it took a few tries to get the stone texture on there correctly without completely blurring and ruining the detail of the texture.

Next, I added in a fortess door and some lighting effects to create some shadows and highlights. 

dat sunset

Then came the background. I started out with this really awesome picture of a sunset and laid the edge of the sun right on the horizon line. Next, I placed some grass into the picture and shaped it to fit well along the horizon line as well. 

After getting the background all set, it was time to combine the two pieces. I also added in a few filters here and there to help make the two pieces seem a bit more cohesive in lighting and color.

grasses and such

Although my fortress/castle was coming along pretty well, it still looked a bit out of place. To better blend the fortress into the grass, I made a quick layer mask and used a grassy paintbrush along the bottom edges of the structure. I also added in a simple pathway at this point.

finished product

And with a bit of darker edging, I was all finished. This project and I butted heads a few times, especially in the "building" process of the structure, but overall it wasn't all too bad. I'm pretty happy with the final product and enjoyed using lighting effects, layer masks, dodge and burn, and a whole lot of distortion to create my fortress. I definitely made this project a whole lot harder for myself than I could have, but I still enjoyed it and thought I learned plenty from the process.

Perspective Part 1: Grandma's House

lines, lines, lines

 To do this project, I first started with the general layout of my one-perspective room. This was an incredibly important step, as it allowed me to easily create correctly proportioned objects and promoted further realism. 

Oh, memories!

With the framework all finished, it was time to actually fill the room with objects. Unfortunately, I don't have a high-res picture of the room on its own, but it can easily be explained as your quirky grandmother's outdated living room, complete with bright orange shag carpeting, purple paisley walls, and retro furniture. I think it came out pretty well, and had fun furnishing my little virtual room.

Now came the interesting part: finding an interesting backdrop to put my fantastically grandma-esque room in. I fooled around with all different backgrounds, including snow globes, fish tanks, and even the moon. But this picture especially spoke to me, since it's possibly the least likely place to find a building: 12,000 feet above the ground. 

To add a bit to the skydiving element, I also placed a parachute above my perspective room and added in some lines to represent cord attached to the room.

look at it goooo :-)

Finally, I decided to add some falling furniture to the picture to make things a bit more interesting. I achieved this falling effect with two separate applications of motion blur at 8-16 pixels and varying angles, all under a duplicate of the original object.

perfection!

And that was it! This certainly wasn't the most challenging project, but it was certainly fun to work with all different techniques, including a lot of distortion and 3D elements. Though I'm not sure if I'd love doing this type of project all the time, it was a great skill to be exposed to and something I enjoyed doing.