Breakdown of 30 Minute sketch

enough of you have asked, so here's a very simple breakdown
1. grad for sky and water
2. marquee tool for land shape and basic brush with scatter for texture
3. flip layer for reflection, set to overlay
4. light and shadow, transform to match mass better
5. water, reflection and ripples (basic round, squashed with scatter)
6. waves, soft edges and a little value adjustment

MORE 30 MINUTES STUDIES

the latest quick studies. the water brush i made worked well. it's just a flattened round with scatter. most of the "custom" brushes just have a little scatter used. in 30 minutes i think perspective is what suffers most but that's not what i'm aiming for with these.

Art of Uncharted 2

Ballistic releases the long awaited concept art book to the game of the year title. we're all really proud of how well the game and book came out. there's also an interview with yours truly here to tie in with the release. thanks Ballistic! great job :)

PLAYIN' in the sandbox

I spent a few hours exploring the Sandbox feature in Sketchup this
weekend after reading this book. Sketchup has again shown what a
powerful simple tool it is. Now it's not going to be as robust as
Zbrush or Mudbox but it is a nice terrain modeler with a few hidden
features.
The first is changing the area of influence

but you can also select

points

lines

surfaces

and multiple selections of each.

So, you can model with the circular brush or pick only what you want to shape.

Here's a simple mountain I made. Again, other programs are going to
have a lot more perameters to work with but this , like the whole
program, has lots of hidden power.