Visual Development
Now we can take advantage and sketch a little
How we imagine our background.
I will do this fast, we could do it in Photoshop,
But since we're here, let's take advantage.
We can define basic aspects of the fund
to give a certain character to the environment.
We can think of some elements
that may help us show that our environment is a museum.
We can go thinking a bit about what the areas will be
where will our character interact
and you have to keep a clean bottom in the main areas.
For example, I am thinking that when the character stands here
there are not many objects intersecting with the diamond so as not to distract much.
The fact that some objects are behind others
gives depth to the environment
without having to think in perspective or anything like that.
In this case, since the style we work is very simple,
let's keep a very flat perspective,
We will not worry about the height of the floor or anything.
I'm not sure how this will work,
since I don't want him to interrupt much when the character jumps over here.
But something like that may be fine, it will also depend a lot on the colors.
I think this already gives it a museum look
and it helps us to better define our environment.
I thought this at the sketch level,
but since I've used almost all rectangular shapes,
I will replace this with more neat forms
to finally leave them as definitive and paint them.
What will finish defining the importance of the background is the color.
Now I'm going to take everything to a single layer,
that is going to be BG in the background.
I will start to throw some rectangles to go defining color
and seeing how it works with our character.
At this moment I have to decide
if the background will be darker or lighter than the character,
In this case I like it more clearly,
although I thought, in a moment, to use a light,
then, in that case, the background should be dimly lit,
but we can do something in between
where the character is darker,
but, at the same time, the background looks like it is not very bright.
Maybe something like that.
The contrast we have to use in our designs or that we can use
They are not only of value, say dark and light,
but also of saturation and hue, of course.
In this case, these two colors are more or less similar,
but at saturation level they are different and that helps us to separate them.
For the columns maybe this may be similar but darker,
since they will be with less lighting.
And maybe the floor can be the darkest of all.
This object is more important than columns, for example,
So it makes sense if we make it stand out a little more.
This, since it is a small insert, I imagine it would be white.
It can have a color like that.
This is already a matter of trial and error,
and to go searching and varying until we find something we like.
I usually make sure that all objects protrude from the area,
since maybe at some point I have to move them.
And to get a better idea of what the final result will be like,
many times I make a kind of mask,
where do I make a patch
enough to occupy the outside parts of the artboard
and I cut the useful part, say,
I can paint this the same color as the background,
that unused area, and I put it on top.
To this we also put Template so that it is not exported.
We put patch or cap or something.
Then it will help us to crop the entire image
to see how the final result would be.
I am quite happy with how the contrasts are.
I think what I don't like very much
is that this color is the same as the background,
then I will see how I can do to highlight it a little more.
Maybe something like that.
We can also take advantage of giving it some aspect
of other material to the floor.
So for this I want to test how it looks if we wait.
With the tool Or I can mirror this.
Maybe if we place it here, as if it were a reflection,
Maybe we can give you some transparency with a gradient.
Here what I did is a gradient of the floor to zero.
So maybe doing this here
we give a certain reflection, like the floor is made of a certain material
or it has a certain luxury, since it is a diamond museum.
I'm not very determined if that really adds up,
because it adds some complexity to our design
and maybe we prefer to keep it flat.
But I'm going to try to give the bottom a little more depth,
maybe making some kind of light,
as if he were aiming in particular at the precious diamond.
I like how it looks,
but the columns begin to take too much prominence,
so I'll see if I do the opposite and maybe I lower them a little.
Maybe these pictures can only be contour
So they don't have too much prominence.
And this, now that it gives light,
I think what I should have is more contrast,
getting darker still.
This can be made of glass, so maybe it has only contour
similar to this.
I imagine that in reality a diamond museum would not be like that,
but we are looking for a way to make it very simple
so that our animation is easy to animate.
Now it's pretty good,
the fund is worked enough
as to continue with the character and adjust things.
I did not like this, I will leave it aside
because now I'm not interested, but maybe I want to get it back.
I'm going to make sure the floor is ahead
and trying it more clearly I think I like it a little more.
We will keep the ground line at the same level,
So we don't worry about perspective.
Now, returning to the character,
We should try to define the diamond better.
Well, I think something like that looks really weird,
even if we remove the edges.
But I don't know, maybe it can work.
I think what is missing is to look for a way to make this stand out.
I mean it separates from the hands, but, for now, we leave it that way.
Let's go back to the topic of the lines,
because we are seeing that deep down we use a line thickness
and in the other character and that makes things separate,
that look like different treatments.
Then we can try to make the bottom have a thinner line.
This line is 3 points
and the character line is 1 point.
Then we can test how it looks if we take everything to 2.
We select the entire fund and put 2.
So that way all the contours are taken to 2 points.
And with the character we will do the same.
I will group and frame 2.
I make sure that all lines have rounded edges.
So it looks pretty good, let's think that everything will look with the same zoom
and so the character and the background work well.
What yes now I will see
is that in the character we are using some black lines
and nowhere else are we using black lines.
So, we can reduce the palette a bit
and make everything black really be this color.
Or maybe the color of the boots.
So, now, what is black is actually dark blue.
I think it works pretty well.
Now we can take advantage of those lines
to see if they help us separate the diamond and give it more importance.
Something like that may be fine,
I'm going to try some more colors for the diamond.
These colors are a little more classic,
but they don't convince me much.
I think the diamond with those colors a little more fantasy
It is the option I like best for now.
I'll leave this little diamond here
and I'll see if now that we change the color floor
Maybe we can recover this resource.
Something like that I like more without the gradient,
because it made him go a little out of style.
We make sure it is well aligned and we lower the opacity a little.
I am quite happy with the result,
the only thing missing is to define the character's face better
and, if necessary, some details.
Here you can go a line that we had drawn, but it was deleted.
Anyway, before defining the face at this zoom level
we will continue with other scenes
and we will define how to do the style of the face
in the shot we have with the approach,
so later we can take that to this zoom level.