jbohn.art

Back to Sister Act II – I loved that film, I still do, because what happens in the end (spoilers ahead :P ) is that the daughter follows her heart nevertheless, her mom starts to understand and is proud of her. This also happened to me. Once it was clear that I had to choose another path, there was nothing but support from my family – morally, financially, everything.

But I didn't study art, I studied communications design, because I still had that little voice in my head telling me I had to find a way to earn money with my creations. That's exactly why degree programs in design are filled with young people trying to learn how to live by creating art. But the disillusion comes fast. In my first semester, a professor told us "This is not about self-fulfillment. Design is a service."

Sure you can come to terms with it. You are creating and you are even paid for it. Isn't that what you always wanted?

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That's how I felt: I was able to design, I was challenged, I grew with my tasks. I still have a great circle of friends from fellow students and in my memory, my studies were the best time of my life. Then my first jobs followed, of course in advertising, with some cool achievements, but much disappointment as well.

What reawakened in me quickly after my studies, was the desire to create and draw things that were not based on any briefing. This is how this blog came into being. Even with my free projects I tried to get better, to learn things, who knows – maybe I would be happier as a freelance illustrator if I was only 'good enough' at some point?

Bullshit. For one thing, I know in my heart I'm not the type to be a freelancer. And for another, that would just postpone the problem. I would again only do what others want me to do, deliver styles that are in demand. I would again only be a service provider.

That's why recently, after a lot of reflection and decades of denial, I realized, the one thing that I always wanted to be, is an artist. Wow. It's funny. It feels intimidating yet at the same time calming to finally being able to stop rejecting this wish anymore.

I don't know where this will take me. I don't know if I can be a 'successful' artist or if that even matters. I just know, I have to take that path. And I'm not afraid anymore.

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PS This does not mean that I don't like or that I will quit my day job. I actually like my current position as a UI designer and it should be easy to combine the two things.

3D illustration is generally a topic that evolves these days, with VR technologies becoming more and more common. Especially if you have a look at Artstation or the portfolios of concept artists, you find a lot of really cool worlds that you can experience by moving around inside of them. We are used to see 360° photos but it’s breathtaking to see fantastic worlds and imagined stories coming to life when you explore a spherical illustration little by little.

Terminology

Before starting, I want to make sure we’re all talking about the same subject. It’s not about flat images with a perspective grid (1/2/3-point-perspective), nor about an image with a parallax effect. We mean a drawing on the inside of a sphere, where you have a fixed standpoint but can change your view by turning and also looking up and down.

Software & setup

I started by buying and testing the app Panopainter on the iPad, ending up firstly fascinated and soon frustrated because of bugs and constraints that made it hard to establish a constant workflow. For example, I searched forever for a way to deselect a selection, turned around and found half of a picture deleted that I didn’t even work on at that part of the process or I did not manage to import a png without a transparent background.

So I watched this wonderful tutorial and decided to use the good old photoshop: Pano painting tutorial by Jama Jurabaev In it, he explains the basic setup for using a spherical map in photoshop and he created a 3dimensional grid for downloading that helps so much to navigate.

Summarized, the workflow goes like this:

create a big canvas with an aspect ratio of 2:1 (e.g. 6000x3000 px)

load a grid (like the one in the tutorial) or another picture that works like a 360 photo and make sure this layer is selected

(in the current Adobe CC:) click on „3D“ – „spherical panorama“ – „new panorama layer from selected layer“

you now only see a part of the picture and can move around already and draw directly on the sphere

you can also double-click on the spherical map that works like a smart object, and work directly on the map

Workflow

For the drawing process, this tutorial was very helpful: Edit spherical panoramas by Photoshop Training Channel Although it shows and explains everything based on a photo, it contains the best tips about a non-destructive way of working.

The problem is this: when you sketch something on a new layer in the normal mode and move around, the new layer moves with you. If you want to fixate the drawing to the spherical map, the steps are:

open the spherical map and create a new (empty) layer, make sure the layer is selected

save and close the spherical map

in the normal view, draw on a layer directly above the spherical one

when ready, right-click on the drawing layer and choose „merge down“ (if you are not sure you’re ready, keep a copy of the layer)

the drawing is now part of your spherical map, but it is on the layer you created before

Preliminary 3D model

For my personal workflow in the future, the next tutorial on how to build and export a scene as a 360° panorama in Cinema 4D might come in handy as well: Panorama Rendering by Konstantin Magnus I’ve successfully tested it already. The scene that is described is random but the export of it is quite tricky. The program doesn’t offer a direct way yet so there’s a little workaround:

in render settings, choose the format „Quicktime VR panorama“

the default resolution and the output size should be the same (aspect ratio 2:1)

unclick „save“ in the render settings

render and then save the image as a picture manually. Tadaa!