Ok, today I thought I'd share something a little bit different. In this age of digital media we tend to cling on to terms like "sketch" and "painting" when our computers have really eroded the meanings of those words. With that in mind here's a "sketch" I made in Google Sketchup. A nifty piece of software which is well worth adding to your skill set. Sketchup lets you create three dimensional computer models very very easily. I've found this an invaluable tool to aid visualisation of complex scenes and settings. I don't generally work my models to any great degree of finish - they're used as an inspirational tool rather than something to directly use in my illustrations. Whilst I like to think I'm pretty good at manipulating scenery in my head, the finer points and subtle unexpected stuff can really be helped by experimenting with a 3D model. I graduated to Sketchup from photographing Duplo bricks...
So enough ramble, here's a bird's eye view of one of my recent models, a section of medieval town, built with the idea of being able to shoot multiple directions through it, much like a versatile film set.
Here's the clickable larger version:
And here's a couple of views through the model.
Funnily enough I didn't use Sketchup as part of my process on last week's post, which looks like a prime candidate. Sometimes I find the models really helpful, other times they can be millstones. Funny old world.
