Q About Backgrounds; Starting V Complex Drawing of City +Sky

September 28th, 2009, 10:52 am

Hi,

I’ve drawn by hand this image of a city (attached), which I now want to draw using photoshop.

The image starts on a street (or just above ideally) looking at a lorry and road, over which a train is going, above which there is a plane flying, and in the background a space ship. So the key thing here is the perspective is really wide/weird/not sure of term. This is the crux of my question.

I'm really good at using photoshop to edit things or create business style logos/web components, but this sort of drawing is a totally new concept for me. At least I have the skills to use the program fine.

I was going to attempt to find a generic background in the right perspective on the internet and then place the various elements on top (lorry, road, train, bridge, plane, spaceship, adboard etc) – this in itself will be fairly time consuming and require lots of editing etc to cut things out correctly, place them on seamlessly etc.

However looking around the internet (ie google images, deviant art) I haven’t managed to find any ‘generic backgrounds’ in the right perspective (90% are of a city taken from far away). I need something starting just above or on a street (for the lorry) and then looking up and out at quite a wide angle (for the plane and then the spaceship etc), I think, according to my drawing. I think the key to this is that the change in angle/perspective/whatever is quite wide.

So my specific questions are:
- Is it possible for a photographer to actually take the sort of shot I’m looking for, given limitations of lenses etc?
- If so, would this type of shot have a particular name or something that I can use to search for it?
- Or even better can you point me in the right direction where I might find stuff to search through?

In addition I'm not really sure I'm starting in the right place. Does this sound like the right start to you? I'm quite confident in being able to cut out the relevant elements, colour them how I want, and then place them on making sure the perspectives for each fit with the overall picture. But this will be a big task. Am I going about this in the right way essentially, and can you offer any tips?

If it's of any relevance this is completely non-commercial work.

Many thanks for your time.

Kind regards,

David

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[digitalMedia]

September 28th, 2009, 4:51 pm

It's kind of hard to tell what you want, between your description and the drawing.

The drawing makes me think you can't achieve any of this photographically. It has mixed perspectives and scales. It's kind of surreal.

I would do this one of two ways; I would produce this traditionally, probably as a pencil sketch, then digitize it. Or, I would do this in Illustrator. I think Photoshop might be used in conjunction with Illustrator. Vector would be my primary creating method, though.

I think it really depends on the feel you want to achieve.

September 29th, 2009, 1:42 am

Yeah, that's probably my bad drawing skills. I guess surreal (like the aspects in my image) would be cool, but I'm not able to draw all that (time/skill).

If one started out with a very wide city-scape background looking up into the sky, would it not be possible to then just plant the various images on top, once they've been scaled and skewed into the correct perspective?

If so, any tips on what I should be searching for to find the right kind of background shot?

Thanks

[digitalMedia]

September 29th, 2009, 3:11 am

Yes, it would be possible to composite all those things together. Actually, just combining the elements would be the easy part. Making it all work together, is the hard part.

Which cityscape shot? Well, being familiar with stock, I can tell you there are virtually millions of cityscape shots to choose from, if not more. You've really got to rely on your creative instincts.

I would look for all the elements that I inteded to use before I committed to buying or working on any of them. The things I would look for are general tones(contrasts, focus/sharpness), light sources and editability.