Interior Design Studies
How Small changes make a big difference
from sddrawings.com
In this next part of Renderings & drawings, Sherrod Drawings continues to find fast and accurate renderings to be an integral part of architecture. Today, I am going to look continue to look at the Great House interiors. In my previous post, we look at exterior renderings for the same building.
The life like renderings below should capture the design and true feel of the built structure. Some of the aspects we are going for when rendering is to capture the scale of the building. In the first "photograph", I wanted to show how large the opening to the dining hall was. To do this, using people (in this case, a very beautiful client in a blue dress has come for dinner; possibly meeting a date?) She is obviously flanked by the columns giving the viewer a feel for the height in the structure.
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| Studio Sky Design, Sherrod Artistry |
I did very much the same thing in this second photograph. Using people as our scale (we all have a very good sense for how large something is when we put a person next to it). Let's check out another pretty lady in front of the screen door on the left. She is obviously not three foot tall, so we immediately get the feeling that this door is very tall. The couple at the bar also show just how high the beams are above their heads. SO people as scale is a fantastic way to show the size of something and give the "feel" of what we're looking for.
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| Studio Sky Design, Sherrod Artistry |
The 2 Great House renderings above represented about 30 hours of work. It is 100% digitally composed in a combination of Sketchup with finishing touches in Photoshop. I've drawn upon 30+ years of real life watercolor and painting experience to help with all of these renderings. What's different when trying to render a scene completely realistic versus an abstract water color (as can be viewed in my last post) is that we have to remember a lot of different invisible variables. Because the two mediums require different expertise. If you want to learn, you have to do. Pickup a paint brush or download Sketchup's free version and just draw.
Thinking about the different variables between a realistic drawing and a watercolor, using today's example, if we draw the scene too perfect, it will obviously be seen as a fake by our mind's eye, because it is trying to be realistic. To compensate, I've worked on a few different aspects. Check out the vase in the foreground in the second photograph. It's slightly off center, giving a feeling of "real life happens". People come in, move things and someone else has to come back up and put it back, or we get to see a vase that is not perfectly centered. I also really liked how some of the people in the right hand side of the photo were cut off behind the column. That's real life. You can't see everything at all times. People move and talk and turn their back to you. I really wish the lady on the left would face us though, she's absolutely striking, reminding me of a dear old friend back in a tiny little town back in Alabama.
Some of the items I'd like to explore in future renderings: If we look back at the vase, I actually created a vase inside of a vase (using a free Sketchup object as a base). The outer vase is clear glass while the inner glass, I applied an opaque colored finish. I'd like to play with the mirrors in the same way. If you look at your bathroom mirror, you can see the depth of the glass before the light hits the reflective material behind it. I wonder if that would make a difference, however slight in these renderings.
Some of the other fun items I've played with was colored lighting at the bar. In several instances, the colored lighting from the bar bounces back and shows some reflection in the slightly reflective wood surfaces through out the photos. I do not think the intensity of the lighting is very realistic on a door or the coffee table. So I believe another change would be to modify this to a much more defused reflected color, though what do I know compared to rendering engines. This may actually help the mind to see that there's something else going on, things are not perfect and will help to tie the scene together as being more realistic because it is imperfect; as well as using the same color thought the photo. So I'll leave it for now. In my mind's eye, I also expect to see more reflection in the floor from exterior lighting though the french doors. So all of that being said, I could continue to pick this piece apart and never truly be done with it. So at the end of the day and when "Pencil's up" is called, I think it's good enough.
The lesson I am sharing is that not everything in life is as we "see" them. Consider a palm tree (if you're lucky enough to live in a tropical climate). My palms outside are not made of brown trunks with a green canopy. The trunks are actually grey. If you look closely at what we THINK something looks like and what something ACTUALLY looks like, you'll finally be find your artist's eye. I didn't officially go to school for any of this (rendering computer generated scenes like this wasn't even a possibility back in high school, the best we had was Doom). So, keep your eyes open, actually see what is in front of you, can you really see the tree, or are you making it all up as to what you see? i.e... a brown trunk and green leaves.
Thinking about the different variables between a realistic drawing and a watercolor, using today's example, if we draw the scene too perfect, it will obviously be seen as a fake by our mind's eye, because it is trying to be realistic. To compensate, I've worked on a few different aspects. Check out the vase in the foreground in the second photograph. It's slightly off center, giving a feeling of "real life happens". People come in, move things and someone else has to come back up and put it back, or we get to see a vase that is not perfectly centered. I also really liked how some of the people in the right hand side of the photo were cut off behind the column. That's real life. You can't see everything at all times. People move and talk and turn their back to you. I really wish the lady on the left would face us though, she's absolutely striking, reminding me of a dear old friend back in a tiny little town back in Alabama.
Some of the items I'd like to explore in future renderings: If we look back at the vase, I actually created a vase inside of a vase (using a free Sketchup object as a base). The outer vase is clear glass while the inner glass, I applied an opaque colored finish. I'd like to play with the mirrors in the same way. If you look at your bathroom mirror, you can see the depth of the glass before the light hits the reflective material behind it. I wonder if that would make a difference, however slight in these renderings.
Some of the other fun items I've played with was colored lighting at the bar. In several instances, the colored lighting from the bar bounces back and shows some reflection in the slightly reflective wood surfaces through out the photos. I do not think the intensity of the lighting is very realistic on a door or the coffee table. So I believe another change would be to modify this to a much more defused reflected color, though what do I know compared to rendering engines. This may actually help the mind to see that there's something else going on, things are not perfect and will help to tie the scene together as being more realistic because it is imperfect; as well as using the same color thought the photo. So I'll leave it for now. In my mind's eye, I also expect to see more reflection in the floor from exterior lighting though the french doors. So all of that being said, I could continue to pick this piece apart and never truly be done with it. So at the end of the day and when "Pencil's up" is called, I think it's good enough.
The lesson I am sharing is that not everything in life is as we "see" them. Consider a palm tree (if you're lucky enough to live in a tropical climate). My palms outside are not made of brown trunks with a green canopy. The trunks are actually grey. If you look closely at what we THINK something looks like and what something ACTUALLY looks like, you'll finally be find your artist's eye. I didn't officially go to school for any of this (rendering computer generated scenes like this wasn't even a possibility back in high school, the best we had was Doom). So, keep your eyes open, actually see what is in front of you, can you really see the tree, or are you making it all up as to what you see? i.e... a brown trunk and green leaves.
The end product of any CAD system and drawing mechanisms (which ever you choose to use) should be a beautiful useful end product. I'm pretty happy with this one. Pencils up.
-Michael Sherrod
-Michael Sherrod
