Sketch a Spaceship in Perspective With Photoshop

Sketch a Spaceship in Perspective With Photoshop

on Oct 5th 2011 with 24 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Program: Adobe Photoshop CS5
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Estimated Completion Time: 18 Minutes

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

This entry is part 11 of 25 in the Digital Art for Beginners Session
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Photoshop is an excellent tool for manipulating photographs but it can also be used as a means to create stunning digital art. This tutorial is part of a 25-part video tutorial series demonstrating everything you will need to know to start producing digital art in Photoshop. Digital Art for Beginners, by Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor, Martin Perhiniak will begin by teaching you how to draw in Photoshop. At the conclusion of this series you will know all you need to produce your own concept art and matte paintings in Photoshop.

Today’s tutorial Part 11: Sketch a Spaceship in Perspective With Photoshop will explain the three most important digital art skills that we have learned: sketching, drawing in perspective, and shading objects. In this lesson we will draw a concept sketch of a spaceship based on a thumbnail we did in the last tutorial. Let’s get started!

 
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Martin is a Hungarian graphic designer, digital artist and an Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor (Design Master). He is currently teaching and working in London but usually travels around the UK and share his love for Adobe products and graphic design. You can follow him on his blog or on Twitter.  

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  • Serge

    Martin, thank you for your tutorials! You’re doing a very good job!

    But there is one mistake that can’t be forgiven in this lesson :) The shadow of the tail of the top of the cabin seems to be not in the right place. It must be in the same line with guns, according to the light direction. But now it shifted to the left.

    • http://www.yesimadesigner.com Martin Perhiniak
      Author

      So true Serge! Thanks a lot for pointing that out. I must have been tired when recording the tutorial. Thanks again for that mate.

      • Serge

        Thank YOU, Martin! :) You lessons is very inspirational. Couple of weeks ago I wouldn’t even noticed that mistake in your sketch!

  • Kaiser

    Grest, but the perspective is completely wrong. Proof? imgpaste.com/43Tm.png

    • walent

      I totally agree. I didn’t need to see those perspective lines and I was already able to spot a lot of perspective issues. Especially at the wings, they’re definitely not symmetrical. There’s something wrong in every part of this drawing.
      I’m not saying building vehicles is easy, I find it the hardest thing to do, because it relies so much on perspective.

      Sorry, Martin, this tutorial in kind of very low quality. Maybe the artists that haven’t worked much with perspective will think this is great, but in fact, it’s wrong.
      If you encourage people to paint this kind of things, I mean vehicles mostly, that need a very accurate perspective calculation and a very sharp finishing lines, then you need to know what you are doing, otherwise you’ll drive people on the wrong road.

    • http://www.yesimadesigner.com Martin Perhiniak
      Author

      Hi Kaiser and walent,

      Thanks a lot for your comments. Especially for the corrected perspective drawing. In this tutorial I tried to show that without constructing actual perspective lines you can still achieve a rough 3D feel. Obviously if you construct all the lines it will be better and more accurate.

      It is a great example how small details can make such a big difference. In my case I was too loose in applying the perspective rules at the start and that is a good lesson to learn not to do. If you want to emphasise the 3D quality of your object you have to assure that your perspective is correct.

      Thanks a lot again for the comments and the guidance. We are all learning from each other. I showed you the technique, now it is your time to make it better and more accurate.

      Cheers,
      Martin

  • Spencer

    Guys – Give him a break – Take the overall concepts, take the skills and abilities and use them in your work – We are all human and we all make mistakes – Great tutorial = Keep it up.

    • neil bloodtitan

      Spencer, perhaps you should give walent a break. While it’s laudable that people create tutorials, it’s important to make sure these tutorials send people on the right road (as walent suggested).

      While techniques might offer a variety of implementations and have no “right way”, hard rules like perspective most certainly have a “right way”. Walent wasn’t criticizing the tutorial’s effectiveness as much as its lack of adherence to necessary rules. He was giving him a break (as he acknowledges these drawings are the hardest to do)…

      I think everyone here will acknowledge that any artist who cannot endure useful criticism (and takes it personally) ought to change professions.

      It’s a great topic for a tutorial, but it needs to be 100% accurate to be useful.

  • DJ

    As usual another great tutorial! Being more of a computer person I am really enjoying your different series and seeing how people who have been blessed with artistic creativity accomplish things. One part I would have liked to see you explain a bit more was where you obtained your initial perspective lines from (i.e. what part of the original sketch each line matched up with). The technique of narrating your time lapsed actual drawing is spot on.

  • Steven

    Martin, thanks a lot for your awesome tutorials! I’ll miss seeing you on here every week. Your tuts were great and it was a pleasure following along.

  • Trevor

    Beam me up Martin, another great Tut. looking forward to next weeks already.

  • flyingfox

    Have to agree with Kaiser and walent on this one. It would have been easy to set up correct perspective beforehand and would have taken only one or two minutes. The rest of the sketching process is just fine. The harsh contrast between the nice “look and feel” and the poor perspective kind of breaks it.

    When “free imagination” was the key in the last tut (the thumbnail tut i mean) precision would have been the key in this one.

    Still, keep up the good work Martin, i really like your drawing session.

  • Serpent

    I have Photoshop cs4,And it that i dont have perspective,So what do i do?
    Thanks

  • http://melodynieves.com Melody

    I think it would’ve been beneficial if you created the perspective lines first, then created the ship using the “box” method of sketching used in traditional art. Then you could’ve created the ship to fit in nicely with the correct perspective…

    • http://www.yesimadesigner.com Martin Perhiniak
      Author

      You are right Melody, that is a great way of starting a concept like this. That is a fast and effective way to assure the correct perspective.

  • Paulo Moura

    Martin How I set a image thumbnail panel in photoshop?

    I think you did a tutorial, but I don’t find him.

    • http://www.yesimadesigner.com Martin Perhiniak
      Author

      Hi Paulo,

      Watch the first part of this series. I talk about the Adobe Configurator there.

      Cheers,
      Martin

  • Chris

    Great tutorial!

  • Melanie

    CYLON.

  • http://www.designoris.com Ori Shilo

    thank you for a great lesson.

  • http://www.severinu.com sever3d

    Nice tutorial. Will use it ASAP ! Thanks !

  • fatpig
  • carlos

    Great tut

    The way you do it is clear and excellent

    Thank you so much

  • perlos

    GREAT tutorials :DDDDDDDDD