**SIDE QUEST | Comics Inspired Scifi Environment (ft. Photoshop Plugin: Perspective Tools v2) — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/side-quest-comics-inspired-scifi-environment/

Tutorial on drawing industrial sci-fi environments using Photoshop Perspective Tools v2, inspired by European comics and artists like Moebius.

## Key Takeaways

- Photoshop Perspective Tools v2 greatly speeds up creating accurate perspective grids.
- Studying and applying techniques from comic artists can enhance environment design.
- Maintaining relative scale in perspective is crucial for believable scenes.
- Layering and line weight variation help separate depth visually in drawings.
- Line art quality is essential as it sets the foundation for successful coloring and lighting.

## What the video covers

- Introduction to creating an industrial science fiction environment inspired by European comics.
- Demonstration of Sergey Krietsky's Photoshop Perspective Tools v2 plugin for setting up perspective grids.
- Starting with a rough sketch on iPad, then refining with perspective grids for accuracy.
- Explanation of establishing horizon lines and vanishing points using the plugin.
- Discussion of artistic inspirations, including Moebius and Jose Ladrön's work on The Incal series.
- Tips on repeating shapes toward vanishing points using Photoshop transform tools.
- Technique to maintain relative scale consistency for objects and characters in perspective.
- Advice on layering foreground, mid-ground, and background with varying line weights and detail.
- Emphasis on resolving composition at the line art stage before coloring and lighting.
- Mention of a possible part 2 video focusing on coloring and lighting, pending availability.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction and project overview
2. 00:48 Starting with a rough sketch
3. 01:36 Setting up horizon line and vanishing points
4. 02:22 Adjusting perspective grid and plugin settings
5. 03:06 Artistic inspirations: Moebius and The Incal
6. 03:54 Using transform tools for repeating shapes in perspective
7. 05:22 Maintaining relative scale in perspective
8. 06:02 Layering and line weight for depth separation
9. 07:31 Finalizing line art and next steps
10. 08:22 Closing remarks and potential part 2

Answers

## Questions about this video

What Photoshop plugin is featured in this tutorial?

The tutorial features Sergey Krietsky's Photoshop Perspective Tools v2 plugin, which helps create and customize perspective grids quickly.

How does the artist maintain consistent scale in perspective?

The artist uses lines transferred between vanishing points to ensure objects like doors and figures maintain relative size consistency across the environment.

Will there be a follow-up video covering coloring and lighting?

A possible part 2 video focusing on coloring and lighting is mentioned, but its release depends on the artist's freelance work schedule.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:06

Speaker A

Hey everyone, welcome to another Sidequest episode on Polychasm. I felt inspired by some of the comics that I've been reading recently, and I decided to make a tutorial about drawing a sort of an industrial science fiction environment. I also thought I'd use this

00:21

Speaker A

opportunity to talk about Sergey Krietsky's Photoshop perspective tools and how I use them to set up a quick perspective grid. There is an affiliate link for this plugin in the video description below. I highly recommend checking it out.

00:37

Speaker A

There might be a second part to this video where I might go into coloring this environment, but I'm not a hundred percent sure if I'm going to have the time for that yet. So let's get started with this one first,

00:48

Speaker A

and then we'll see what happens. [Music] I have this really rough sketch that I drew on my iPad while sitting on the couch and ignoring Christina, so I'm going to use this as a base to lay out my first pass on this. I tend to sketch

01:05

Speaker A

without a perspective grid or with a very minimal one, as I don't want to limit my options for my initial idea too much. Once I feel like I have something decent, I'll bring in a perspective grid and start putting this in

01:20

Speaker A

well perspective. Let's start by establishing our horizon line first. Select the pen tool and make sure you are working in path mode. I'm going to roughly eyeball where the horizon line would be based on the information I already have.

01:36

Speaker A

Just draw a line with two points, then click on Horizon inside the plugin window. If you are happy with what you got, let's move on to creating some vanishing points. Create a new layer, then with the pen tool again, draw a line with two points.

01:51

Speaker A

I'm going over a line that I already have in my sketch to basically set that one as a reference point for everything else. Click on Grid in the plugin window, and a vanishing point should be created automatically on the horizon line you've

02:05

Speaker A

established. Now, if you hold down the Ctrl key and click on Grid, you'll get the advanced options window open. Here you can change things like the color of the perspective grid, line density, layer opacity, and such. I'm going to make this grid red. Then I

02:22

Speaker A

create another layer and establish my second vanishing point. The lines in my rough sketch imply a more distorted perspective, as if we are looking at this with a wide-angle lens. I want to change that a little, so I'll adjust the

02:34

Speaker A

reference line I'm drawing to move the second vanishing slightly further away. I assign a custom blue color to this grid, and now we are good to go. Now that I have my perspective grid all set, it's time to get to drawing. I'll

02:50

Speaker A

take this opportunity to talk about some of the inspirations I've been looking at. I'm pretty sure I mentioned before how I grew up reading a lot of European comics. I was obsessed with Italian, French, and Belgian comic artists and their work. I

03:06

Speaker A

still read these types of comics and admire the artists' work on a regular basis. One of these artists is Moebius, or Jean Giraud, who was a French comic artist that left a major mark in comics worldwide with his unique style. Moebius teamed up

03:22

Speaker A

with director Alejandro Jodorowsky to work on a series called The Incal, which is a fantastic series. Recently, I got the final book in the series titled Final Incal. This one, however, is illustrated by a Mexican artist called Jose Ladrön. I was

03:39

Speaker A

really impressed by his work, how he stayed faithful to the designs Moebius originally came up with but then went ahead and brought his own twist to them. He manages to create some really epic environments panel after panel with a

03:54

Speaker A

strong sense of scale and texture. I wanted to really study his work and create something of my own to apply what I've learned from him. I created a mood board with examples from Final Incal and a few pieces from

04:07

Speaker A

Moebius as well and kept this mood board on my monitor while I was working on this drawing. The idea is to observe and analyze what I see on this mood board and apply it in an intentional manner to my own drawing,

04:20

Speaker A

instead of mindlessly copying what I see. Alright, here's a quick little trick. If you want to draw the same shape repeating towards a vanishing point, just draw it once, then select it with the lasso tool, right-click and select Layer via Copy.

04:37

Speaker A

Move the anchor to your vanishing point, then hold down Alt and start scaling it down. The transform tool will scale the shape down and towards the vanishing point. This way, once you hit Enter, you can now hold down Shift, Alt, Command if you are working on

04:54

Speaker A

a Mac, and press T to repeat the whole process. If you are working on a PC, I think you have to hold down Ctrl, Alt, and Shift. The results tend to be accurate enough most of the time, and even if they are

05:06

Speaker A

not, it's nothing a little free transform can't fix. I'm intentionally not going over perspective basics in this video because those are for nerds. I mean, there are already tons of tutorials out there where you can learn all about that, but

05:22

Speaker A

I'll make an exception here and show you how you can make sure shapes you draw in the foreground can stay relative scale-wise to shapes further back and vice versa. What I mean to say is, let's say I want

05:35

Speaker A

to make sure this door that I draw here is roughly the same size as a door all the way in the background. I draw a line marking its height, then I transfer this line towards the first vanishing point.

05:49

Speaker A

When this line makes contact with the edge of the wall where the other door is supposed to be, I draw a couple of lines coming out from the second vanishing point to transfer the door's height line to where the

06:02

Speaker A

other door is supposed to be. This way, I know that line stayed at the same relative height as it traveled back in space. You can use the same technique to roughly place some figures in the environment while keeping their size

06:17

Speaker A

relatively similar to each other. This really helps to keep the sense of scale consistent in your environment, and it makes everything seem more believable. I'm going to roughly sketch in a couple of characters just to liven things up a

06:30

Speaker A

bit. As I'm inking over the sketch, I need to be aware of the foreground, mid-ground, and background separation the whole time. In this example, my foreground elements are going to have the heaviest line weight and most of the detail.

06:47

Speaker A

When I move on to the mid-ground, I'm going to lighten the line weight and the amount of texture and detail, and the background is going to have really light line weight with sparse details. I can also reinforce this by brightening

07:00

Speaker A

up the color I'm using to draw as I move towards the horizon. I also suggest keeping the foreground, mid-ground, and background on separate layers so you can change the opacity of these layers or make other adjustments easily. As I'm adding the characters into the

07:17

Speaker A

scene, I make sure their line weight and detail level match the environment. I don't want them to stand out too much, though. This part is all about balancing. I zoom out and try to see the bigger picture regularly to avoid focusing on a

07:31

Speaker A

smaller area for too long. For me, everything should be resolved pretty much at the line art stage. If it doesn't read well at this point, it's not going to get any better with color and light necessarily. And here's the finished line art for

07:48

Speaker A

this environment. As you can see, my foreground elements are more detailed and textured than my mid-ground elements, which in turn are more detailed than my background. Like I mentioned at the beginning, I might make a part 2 for this where I

08:07

Speaker A

talk about how to approach the coloring and lighting stage for this illustration. Due to freelance work commitments, I'm not sure if I'll have the time to do that soon, but we'll definitely keep you posted. [Music] Thank you all for taking the time to

08:22

Speaker A

watch this video. Christina will be back with the part 2 of our tutorial in the next video. Take care, everyone.

Topics: Photoshop Perspective Tools industrial sci-fi environment comic inspired art Moebius The Incal perspective drawing tutorial digital art workflow Photoshop tutorial environment design line art techniques

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