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Hey lovely patrons! Here it is: my tutorial on environments. In it, I run you though my process for making environment speedpaints, where it’s not so much about accuracy but much more about capturing the feeling and vibe of the original reference photo.

The main technique that I use is the lasso tool for painting. If you want to know more about this technique, you can find a step-by-step here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/step-by-step-36570445

I also use a lot of the techniques from a previous tutorial called Simple Tricks for Lighting and Mood. That tutorial explains in detail how I use the feathered lasso tool and color editing tools to make gradual modifications to the lightinng. If you haven’t seen it already, you can find it here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/tutorial-video-41372669

If you guys want to try along and paint from the same reference photo, please feel free! Here is the picture that I used:

One thing I want to address, and apologize for, is the quality of the audio. I always struggle a bit with getting the audio right, but with this one I struggled even more and was really not happy with the final result. I hope that the closed captions can somewhat make up for it with this video.

Moving forward, I've invested in some new audio tech to improve the quality of future tutorials. I have a great mic (the yeti blue blackout) - and I used it for this tutorial as well as all my previous ones - but the issues were with my setup. The mic works best if it is really close to my face and it was hard to get the mic close enough without it recording all of the bumps and disruptions from my drawing process. So I bought a boom arm and mount that fixes this issue, and there’s a pop filter on the way. Here’s a photo of the new mount:

I did some audio tests with it and it sounds amazing. I'm really happy with it and kinda regret not getting it earlier.

So once again, I’m so sorry about the audio quality and promise much better and crisper sound in the future tutorials!

I hope you guys enjoy this one, let me know what you think of it!

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Comments

Anonymous

Hey Loish question about reference photos- where do you draw the line between using something as a reference photo and copying. And do you make sure that all your reference photos are royalty free to avoid any future issues?

Loish

hey katie! yes, I try to get my reference pictures from sources that allow use of the images in that way. I get a lot of them from unsplash currently! I also sometimes use my own photos. sometimes I'll reference something that isn't royalty free but I'll try to transform it from the original.

MJ

Yayy! Finally here ❤️ can’t wait to save up some time and watch this!

Anonymous

Thanks for sharing Loish! I always struggle with audio as well, even with the proper set up 😅 Do make sure you turn the microphone in the right direction, so with the 'Blue' logo toward your mouth and the dial on the other side should be on the circle with the little indent. You can find some videos on YouTube about how to set up as well. Good luck!

Loish

thank you so much!! yep, I had it in that direction, but I just kept leaning way too far away from the mic. I'm definitely gonna check out the youtube vids! thank you for your help :)

Anonymous

Yess!! Love that dynamic range of colors. I can finally learn how you did it and then miserably fail to recreate it haha

Anonymous

No problem! It also helps to adjust your audio afterwards, tweaking it a bit. It can easily be done in Audacity for instance. There are some helpful videos out there for that too, still not sure if I'm using the right tweaks myself though ;) It sure takes some time getting used to talking in the mic, especially when drawing and talking at the same time. Oh and I also found out it helps to wear headphones connected to the mic so you can hear yourself while talking.

Loish

yes for sure! I have audition to tweak the audio, I need it to get rid of noise and tweak the levels. but I've never tried headphones while recording! thanks for this excellent tip!

Anonymous

Jaaaa deze heb ik nodig! <3 Kan niet wachten om deze in alle rust te bekijken en je lessen toe te passen.

Anonymous

It was amazingly helpful!! Thank you so much ❤️

Radka Kopecka (radu.k.art)

This tutorial is just P E R F E C T!! I love all the tips, messiness, short-cuts, color tweaks to get the most of a simple image. The atmosphere of the final piece is awesome and I especially appreaciate that you added the character and explained what you did and why! A little bonus which I also enjoyed is how you giggled when saying power tower, that made my day :)) Thank you so much for this one!

Anonymous

It is a great tutorial 😍😍😍

Anonymous

I loved this tutorial ❤️ It was well explained, the colors and the atmosphere are amazing. It was a joy to watch 😌

Anonymous

Could you ever make a tutorial about environment painting in procreate? I really rely on the lasso and color pick tools, both of which are not as user-friendly in procreate. I'm trying to do more plein air painting, but really struggling. Any tips or advice? I know you've mentioned before about some of the difficulties of using procreate.

Loish

hey stella! yep, procreate is really different. having said that, I've done quite a lot of environments in procreate and found it better for using textured brushes. I made all of these on the ipad: https://loish.net/project/cevennes-2018/ I could dig up the process videos and write up some notes on how I did those / how it differs from my method in photoshop :)

Loish

thank you! haha i still don't know the proper name of those things.

Anonymous

Thank you! I paint landscapes often and it was really helpful to see your approach. It helped me see a few areas I have been struggling with in a new way.

Anonymous

Thank u soooo much! This was really helpful 💖

Anonymous

Loved this tutorial.. thank you so much for doing this Lois!

Anonymous

Really appreciate your tutorials, Lois! Thank you so much. Trying to do one of these right now... man you make it look easy haha!

Anni Tendo

I loved this tutorial so much, I actually tried it myself and it was so much fun to do :D (it's on my instagram @niunae)

Anonymous (edited)

Comment edits

2023-06-13 05:40:08 Thank you a lot! I have so many beautiful reference photos that i would love to paint up. I love how just a little bit of grass on a pond catches your eye, and while for somebody this is just a simple country side road, for an artist, turns into this mesmorizing environment! &lt;3 its beautiful!
2020-11-27 17:07:37 Thank you a lot! I have so many beautiful reference photos that i would love to paint up. I love how just a little bit of grass on a pond catches your eye, and while for somebody this is just a simple country side road, for an artist, turns into this mesmorizing environment! <3 its beautiful!

Thank you a lot! I have so many beautiful reference photos that i would love to paint up. I love how just a little bit of grass on a pond catches your eye, and while for somebody this is just a simple country side road, for an artist, turns into this mesmorizing environment! <3 its beautiful!

Loish

so glad you like it!! i feel like the more i practice environments, the more i learn that it's about those small details.

Anni Tendo

Thank you so much, your comment means a lot! Your tutorial really inspired me to practice environments way more 🙏

Anonymous

Hey Loish, firstable i follow you for many years on instagram and I have your two 3Dtotal publishing artbook so I’m a huge fan of your work. Now I discover your Patreon and your tutorial are so good cause you have talent and you are a good teacher, It’s priceless. This studie about environement is really successful I learn so many thing for my own work so thank you share your knowledge.

Loish

hey denis! thank you so much for the support, I'm happy to hear you're happy with the content :)

Anonymous

YES! I've been waiting for an environment tutorial since I first discovered your patreon. Thank you so much!!

Anonymous

How do you copy textures from pictures?

Loish

I usually just find the texture online and then right click + copy it! then paste it onto my drawing!

Anonymous

I’m really excited to practice this lesson this weekend. I always forget about the lasso tool except when I need to move something around.

Anonymous

Ive been really nervous to start trying to learn how to draw environments, but this tutorial is an awesome starting point and I’m so excited to try it out!

Anonymous

I love this video because you showed me a few ways to work that I never considered. Thank you Loish.

Anonymous

Thank you so much for this tutorial! It's a great starting point for me of venturing into the wonderful world of environments 😅

Anonymous

thank you so so much for this! I was particularly struggling with getting lost in the details and trying to create really complex texture right off the bat...but I can see that you definitely don't do that and let the elements, composition, shape, and color speak for itself. I particularly was struggling with painting a beach littered with footprints. I started with trying to paint in the footprints but it became a tedious process and distracting to the central element-- a sunset / couple on the beach. What do you think? should I try to replicate the footprints with some rounded shapes or bypass them entirely? the footprints are irrelevant to the overall painting, but theyre very much present in the reference photo.

Loish

It's good that you're weighing the choice to heavily detail something against the more important elements of the painting (the sunset)! In my case I would just keep them super rough and basic, and think about detailing them at the very end when the rest of the painting has been worked out. then you can assess for yourself how necessary that degree of detail is for the impact of the final piece!

Anonymous

Hey Loish, thank you for this tutorial! I've been so intimidated by landscapes for such a long time, so your advice of focusing on overall skill improvements and not individual pieces was a great mindset shift for me. I'll give it a try this week and see what happens!

Loish

happy to hear that! for me it really helps to just see it all as part of a process. i'm forever frustrated with my ability to draw environments but there's growth happening!

Anonymous

Hi Loish! Thank you for the tutorial! I had fun following along. One thing that I struggled with was the gradient tool. For my default gradient tool in photoshop, I set it as it looks in your tutorial, lower the opacity. However, they gradient color always expands too much when I worked with the sky. The yellow gradient took up the blue sky with just 2 strokes. If you don’t mind, could you please let me know how you set the settings for the gradient tool?

Loish

hey! it sounds like you need to turn on the setting "foreground to transparent" for the color. this way, it doesn't use the background color as your second gradient color! let me know if this works!