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I L L U S T R A T I O N S
BRETT FITZPATRICK ILLUSTRATOR
I L L U S T R A T I O N S
BRETT FITZPATRICK ILLUSTRATOR
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A Trader's Spaceship Making Planetfall
This spaceship illustration is done with vector graphics. I scanned in a nice little doodle of a spaceship from my sketchbook and, as usual, removed
the whit paper with the background eraser and turned what was left pure black in image-adjustments-levels by moving the white arrow all the way
over to the left with the black one. It took some experimentation before I found that little Photoshop technique, I can tell you. It might have been in the
instructions, but hey who reads them. Then it's just a question of building up shape layer after shape layer and watching the sketch become an
illustration.
One of the most difficult jobs in spaceship illustration and design is picking the colour scheme. Here in this illustration I have chosen an "imperial
grey"which of course has lilac highlights, following Ralph Mcquarrie. The ground is given a few passes with the blur tool to give the impression of
dust being kicked up as the spaceship flies from right to left through the illustration, and the clouds get a bit of blur as well, and we are done.
I turned down the opacity of the shape layers representing the figures in the windows, and think it gives a great effect; the shear number of figures
gives the spaceship a great feeling of scale.
This spaceship illustration is done with vector graphics. I scanned in a nice little doodle of a spaceship from my sketchbook and, as usual, removed
the whit paper with the background eraser and turned what was left pure black in image-adjustments-levels by moving the white arrow all the way
over to the left with the black one. It took some experimentation before I found that little Photoshop technique, I can tell you. It might have been in the
instructions, but hey who reads them. Then it's just a question of building up shape layer after shape layer and watching the sketch become an
illustration.
One of the most difficult jobs in spaceship illustration and design is picking the colour scheme. Here in this illustration I have chosen an "imperial
grey"which of course has lilac highlights, following Ralph Mcquarrie. The ground is given a few passes with the blur tool to give the impression of
dust being kicked up as the spaceship flies from right to left through the illustration, and the clouds get a bit of blur as well, and we are done.
I turned down the opacity of the shape layers representing the figures in the windows, and think it gives a great effect; the shear number of figures
gives the spaceship a great feeling of scale.
