Cabinet of Curiosities
Added 2022-05-08 17:28:29 +0000 UTCThis cabinet collects an entire host of odd things from ancient talismans to cartridge video games and fishing lures. The Burning College is a place perpetually on fire, filled with eccentric scholars parsing these flames and seeking the secrets the smoke obscures.
I don't often scan my sketches and pencils, so here is kind of a rare glimpse into my process, from when I drew out the general composition, then refined it into the pencils, but still kept that sketch page on hand, where you can see me working out different ideas for the objects that I put in there, though many of the ones on that page didn't actually make it in to the final composition. I spend a lot of time on design, fiddling with shapes and their functions until i find the right ones that I think build up a degree of interest that I think will pique the viewer's interest.
When I have a lot of shapes like this, that are all different colors and sizes and I'm coloring digitally, I like to cover the canvas in blocks of color on a new layer, and find pleasing combinations without worrying about anything else other than color. Just a giant splotch of color. Then I put a mask on that layer in photoshop, then come back and color/mask in each object individually. This allows excellent edge control and a color composition that I know is going to work. After that if I want to change the colors on particular objects I can hop off the mask and back on to the regular layer, and having that mask means any other new color I lay down is going to fit nicely within the objects.
