PAINT BELIEVABLE ENVIRONMENTS

Concept artist Edward Barons breaks down his thought process when building convincing details into a scene

- Edward Barons

Everything around us tells a story, from the scuffs left on a house wall when someone was moving in, to the worn-away sections on famous statues that everyone touches as they walk past. Making an environment concept that feels like a believable place, no matter how outlandish the setting, often comes down to capturing these small details and placing yourself in the world.

In this tutorial, I'll share the steps I took in approaching a detailed personal project, how I keep my concepts moving and avoid getting stuck, and the thought process I go through to add life to the scenes by trying to capture a human element. Hopefully this will demystify the design process. I'll also share some small tricks and tips that help me manage detailed scenes.

For the 3D portion of this work, I used Blender with Sanctus Library, and Physical Starlight and Atmosphere, plus scans from Poly Haven as a base, which I highly recommend. Even when I use little or no 3D in the process, with more stylised pieces for example, the ideas remain the same. The lighting and composition are both done in thumbnail form, and ideation for level of detail around the focal point from the early stages are the same, they're just inverted so I add details rather than take them away.

1 Consider the who and why

I often think a good concept comes from the head more than the hand. Throughout the process, ask yourself questions about the world, who the people are, and what's happened there. Look to add details to support these ideas, even if we never explain them to anyone else, it will make your designs much richer and more believable as everything will have a reason for being.

2 Design sketches