An architect friend of mine once told me that your rendering will only be as strong as your reference. With enough experience, you may be able to make a successful rendering, no matter how compelling the reference is. However, until you’re making consistently strong, engaging renders, take this idea as gospel: start with good photographic references.
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Career Advice
Not every marriage is a success. Sometimes you discover that your're better off going seperate ways. If that happens to you, end the relationship in the same professional way that you began it. Talk to your client. Explain what's going on. Chances are it won't come as a complete surprise.
You may even be able to work things out. But even if you can't, it's better to acknowledge what's happening and bring closure to the relationship than to just walk away and disappear
One must always look critically at the market and be willing to be flexible, especially in light of difficult economic circumstances. As your reputation grows, so will your prices. Price-cutting could prove detrimental to existing relationships with clients who have paid certain amounts in the past.
Too often we start the technical part of a rendering (building a 3D model) when, in fact, we should be developing a mood. It may seem like semantics, but it certainly isn’t. A rendering by itself is simply a static image. A mood is a strategy that tells your story through imagery and color.
Computer Off
Every rendering or illustration needs to start with a pencil in your hand and your computer turned off. Don’t jump into your rendering software until you’ve done your homework and have pages of sketches. If you skip this step, you’re letting the computer design and you’ll end up with a rendering without heart.
Describe the Mood
Before we even sketch, take out that paper and pencil and begin to write down words that describes your rendering or illustration, the culture, the people in the community who will use the space, what people will find when they arrive, etc. This helps to find a foundation to build your rendering on. Just because your building is 30,000 ft.², and three stories, doesn't mean, you have to show everything in one view (sorry architects). Instead, your rendering should tell your story.
Sketching Time
Once you’ve written out this list of words that make up your story, now you can begin to isolate the main threads that run through your intent. Now, you can begin to sketch with the goal of putting into visual terms these key concepts. Sketch and sketch and sketch. Put the paper down, go take a walk downtown, play catch with your kids, pull yourself away and refresh. Now, go back and sketch some more. Now Use the Computer Now take a look at your sketches, highlight those that jump out at you… now you can turn the computer on.
As you start creating digital art, try not to be too hard on yourself. You learn more from your mistakes than you learn from your successes. At the same time, don't go overlooking improvements you see in your techniques. With a lot of screen time and a lot of patience you'll, be illustrating like a pro in no time. Guard your identity! it's tempting to copy an artist you admire. However, if you genuinely desire to succeed as an artist, you want to allow your own artistic spirit to come through your work.
As long as you're consistently developing as an artist, your work will continue changing, and your style will continue to grow.
Having said that, artists have been creating art for a long time. Use your favorite search engine, or go to the library, and explore all different types of art. By studying works of art, you can discover different techniques, and styles, that you can use to develop your own skills.
Last month my son Benjamin, who is turning eight this month, had a hard day at school. After some bribing with the potential of longer computer privileges, Benjamin shared with me his troubles. Ben, who has Asperger's, told me kids at school were saying he was not normal. I told Ben, "nobody remembers normal". With the point of entry into computer graphics lowering I am seeing a lot of computer architectural illustrations being posted online. The majority of these illustrations are extremely limited and do not take into consideration the fundamentals of art. I compare this trend to the point-and-click camera. Most of us have a camera on are cell phone. Everybody can point and click to snap a photo. But not everybody takes a treasured photo.
Most computer architectural illustrations I'm seeing have a blue sky, puffy white clouds, and lack personality. These illustrations bore me and I find little excitement looking at them. Technically they might be accurate but creatively they lack substance.
Typically, in an architectural illustration, you'll see a clear blue sky, puffy white clouds, and apple green grass. Architecture's original purpose was to take us out of the elements. Try some dramatic lighting, perhaps the calm before the storm, or the calm after the storms. Concentrate your efforts on giving people a reason to go inside and get out of the storm with some bright sunny interior illustrations.
My point is straightforward. Anybody can pick up a camera or their cell phone and take a photo. Not many people know what makes a picture or rendering meritorious, they just know that it is. If all you create is blue skies with white puffy clouds and green grass your architectural illustrations will be normal, and nobody remembers normal.
Looking back at our lives, we all remember people and places, that were not expected. Referring back to my son Benjamin, his favorite Wonder Years episode, was the one with Margaret Farquhar. We all remember the Margaret Farquhars in our lives, because they were not normal.
The primary pupose of design studies is to cature and delinete ideas. Attractive drawing is desirable, to be sure, but it is secondary in importance to the visualization of the tenitive, nebulous concepts that are the initial steps to any architectural project. By necessity, you must work very closely with architects, designer, and other planners to translate their thoughts into a tree-dimensional forms. Through all stages of an architectural project, your work is a valuable means of communication among the personnel and also between the architect and his client.