PROCESS VIDEO // factory - part 1

Here’s the process video for an older painting I did back in 2021! I put this together at the request of a patron, who was curious to see the process for this artwork. I divided this into two parts - this is part 1 of 2!

Friendly reminder: if you want to see a process video that hasn’t been posted yet, you can always request it! I record the process of most of my paintings, so usually it’s possible for me to put a video together for you. You can always send a DM or request the process video in the #tutorial-suggestions channel in the discord server! 

Here’s some information about this process video: 

• The process has been sped up by 300%, so 3 times the original speed. 

• This painting session took me about 6.5 hours in total. This video shows the first 3 hours or so of the process. 

• I used a mixture of the lasso tool and my hard round brush to paint.

• This is painted in Adobe Photoshop, but the same workflow can be applied to most digital painting software. 

Here are some helpful resources that can help understand this process in more detail: 

• Using the lasso tool to paint: This is a step-by-step resource that explains in more detail how I combine the lasso tool with gradients, brushes and flood fill to render and add detail. 

• Simple tricks for urban speedpainting: This tutorial runs you through how you can gradually build up an urban setting in your paintings. 

REFERENCE

For a painting like this, it’s really important to me to have some reference material. I love the industrial look of abandoned factories but don’t have the slightest clue how they operate or how the details work. That’s why I need some visual inspiration to guide me on which visual elements I can add. On the other hand, it’s not my goal to create an accurate depiction - I just want to capture the same vibe and mood as my reference images. In order to get that right, I need a good mix of overall shapes and details, which these images helped me with! Here are some of there reference images I used for this drawing: 

STARTING SIMPLE

I knew I wanted this to be a complex, detail dense painting, but I still created a very light and loose sketch. This is because I want to work out most of the details later on. I want to get the colors and basic shapes right first - getting to that step allows me to envision what comes next and how I can arrange that detail in a way that helps the composition. That’s why I jump straight into adding colors and layering on the details. Sometimes I think that my process for adding colors is still a form of sketching - but just sketching with colors and shapes rather than with lines. It’s just a more intuitive process for me! 

COLORS 

I started from a pretty monochromatic color scheme - just some soft blues and a few gentle yellowish tones. I really liked how it was looking about 42 minutes in. But then I decide to add a light beam to it, to add more 3-dimensionality and drama to the scene. As soon as I add that, it kind of breaks up the color scheme and creates some more complexity. This becomes a point of tension for the rest of the process: should I stick to the initial monochromatic color scheme or should I start adding some more color variation to lean into the new colors from the light beam? That’s something I go back and forth with a lot in ths process and I feel pretty indecisive about it in this first half. 

Part 2 is coming right up!