How To Create EPIC Scale In Art

have you ever wondered how artists create such an epic sense of scale in their work [Music] hello there in this video we're going to explore how artists create a sense of scale how we can use those principles and share some common pitfalls at the end of the video let's get started the very first principle is contrast of size when starting out your piece there are some really fundamental and abstract elements that trick our brain into seeing scale if we have a plain old cube with no relation to anything we don't have a very strong idea of how big it is but most of us might say that's you know it's in human scale maybe a bit smaller maybe half a meter to one and a half meters but if we put a smaller object next to our cube then suddenly we start feeling a sense of scale not exactly in measurable units but we do feel that the original cube is larger somehow this technique of contrast or comparison is super common in art simply contrasting something smaller with something larger helps us see how big it is like in this piece from either where we see drake contrasted against the massive head-like ruins or in the shot from quentin with the tiny boat contrasting the massive ruins in the background how small these objects are in frame really underline the scale of the ruins the second principle has to do with how we experience the world as humans let's look at camera angles seeing our setup from three different camera angles we can see the effect it's having on our perception and understanding of the scale number one has a pretty neutral camera angle and it makes our cube feel within human scale however it is still hard to tell number two has a camera tilted upwards and it feels like we the viewer are looking up at the cube and therefore it feels larger in number three we have our camera tilted down and therefore everything feels smaller because it feels like we're looking down at the object but this angle could also give us a better sense of the scale as we're getting more of an overview but it doesn't give us the same grandiosity we're seeing in number two in this piece we get an epic sense of scale and we can really feel how the upwards angle makes us look up so we can fully see the towering heights in this painting from flora we are looking down at everything so everything feels smaller but it does show a great sense of depth which can show massive scale even though we're looking down so the principles can be applied differently here there's a third angle i would like to mention i call it the satellite this camera angle involves a lens with a high millimeter or a long focal length it typically flattens out the image a bit however it has a feeling that we the observer is quite far away like on a plane or in outer space and the understanding of scale has a slightly delayed comprehension at first we might look at this piece in the top and think oh humans could be here but then we see the floating ships around it and we get a much better understanding of the scale and we can truly tell how massive it is so working with the camera can be a great addition to visualizing your epic scale i'm also building a piece on the side here i will have the viewer looking upwards to really feel the scale the third principle is composition in this piece by raymond we see a massive creature walking through the jungle for us the creature is in full view and we can see it all and it helps us understand the creature's exact scale to the world and we can tell that it's massive this type of composition makes the scale of the creature very clear and it gives us the ability to relate the subject matter to its surroundings easily but we can also obscure the subject and leave out selected parts to let the observer's mind run wild creating a deliberate crop of our image because when we can't see the full scale of an object the viewer can imagine it much larger than it really is implying a sort of vastness which we can see in effect on this massive rusty ship hull in the background and there's a secondary effect we might feel that the subject is so big that it can't even fit into the frame i think i'll apply something similar to my piece so i will extend my subject up and create sort of the crop to imply vastness the fourth principle is super interesting we're talking about proportions if we look at this piece by oliver we are met by these towering structures and their tapered upper halves that turn into spires this tapering serves two purposes physically and constructionally it is easier and more stable to reduce weight over time which you know if you stack cards before but it also creates a trick of perspective tapered structures makes us believe that they are much taller than they are because how it is emulating the effects of perspective this was a common technique while building the early skyscrapers like the chrysler and empire state building this principle also accounts for organisms because of what is known as the square cube law which in basic terms means if you double the height of an organism you usually have to quadruple the weight so the physics applied change and therefore bone density and so on can no longer keep up unless you compensate somehow this is quite clearly seen in something like attack on titan on the colossal titan we can see they have designed it with massive column legs thinned out arms and made a tiny head all to emphasize the forces that are at play on this massive body another place we can see this in effect is on the giants from game of thrones here we can see the proportional differences between our giant and tiny tormund it's okay we still love you i know that on top the sometimes silly proportions of the t-rex's human-sized arms actually help to underline and frame the creature's actual scale there's no one way to make your creature but overall to make your creature feel larger think of how you can balance out its features to match the physics and help sell the creature well i will for sure create a few tapered towers around my main structure and tape with the main one a little bit the fifth principle is a tricky one i call it relative scale in this piece by paul we see a flying carrier ship and we also see tiny people in yellowjackets looking around the ship we see objects that are made to fit human scale like the railing on the ship sides the human eye is quite sensitive to scale so in optics that we expect to have a certain height but doesn't we lose our sense of scale so everything in the scene like window heights cockpit sizes and doorways will have to be within a relative scale windows can be many different sizes however the details around the windows can be tricky if you imagine a window set in a building with a cross if you simply took the same window and scale it up that wouldn't feel quite right because we would assume that the frames around the windows would be the same to line up architecturally so instead we want to do something like this staying consistent can sometimes really make or break the scale of your image well i better scale in those windows a bit ah much better the sixth principle is great fun repetition repetition is one of those principles that are just fun and easy to implement and they always help show the scale very well take this illustration made by martin here the massive colon-like structures don't quite look like anything we have here on earth and most certainly this scale is beyond human capabilities as of now but by repeating the massive structures between the clouds we can so easily tell that we're dealing with massive constructions this example is also great as it really underlines how massive these trees really are using repetition here is quite neat because we do have trees that look similar to these so we could confuse the scale at first glance but seeing them repeated like this shows us how they are towering over the grasslands you can also have supporting elements repeated around the subject to show scale i in particular like this illustration from conor and how it shows depth and scale through the train track bridges the repeated arches really help sell the perspective for the scene well i might as well duplicate a few structures around sell the scale of my piece texture and detail the seventh principle this principle relates to relative scale a little bit quite often when you need to make something large it is just more likely it will have more detail on it so adding detail and texture can help emphasize the size a great example is baradura from lord of the rings this massive tower applies a great assortment of varied shapes and sizes to the structure truly making it feel epic and huge this technique is quite often used in science fiction and artists have given this kind of detail the name greeple and adding all this creepal detail really emphasizes the perceived scale on this famous star destroyer and even though your object might be built smooth adding breakups to imply a more realistic building process can really sell the scale like here on the death star another idea of texture is that larger optics tends towards being more rough than smaller objects by this i mean that it's just more common to see larger things become more rough because the slight imperfections are more difficult to manage which is shown quite clearly on these skyscraper windows each window placed is quite smooth and acts pretty much like a mirror but when they are all put together the slightest imperfections and alignment means the overall reflection appear rougher even though the individual windows are perfect we can see the same effect with the sun being reflected in the earth's ocean the reflection is there but quite rough just from the unevenness of the waves theoretically we could make a perfect giant mirror it is just less likely to see it i am going to make something similar to bharadur and adding lots of little detail variations to my scene will help bring it further and i'll also make sure my textures are a bit more rough the eighth principle will really sell the depth and realness of your picture we're gonna look at atmospheric perspective in this towering piece we can see the structures fading into the background having your structures be so big that you have a noticeable change in atmosphere must mean that we are dealing with a scene of epic proportions additionally atmospheric particles and especially dust are a little bit heavier than air so they tend to settle closer to the ground which is something we can see quite well in this piece by g we can see it has this thick rolling atmosphere separating the different layers of the castle resting down there at the bottom leaving the top almost clear from atmospheric perspective you will also sometimes see the same effect in between mountains if we want to take it a step further we should make a use of clouds having massive structures or cliffs reaching so high up that clouds intersect really help sell the colossal heights of our subject shown beautifully here by min and even though it is a more loosely painted illustration where we wouldn't really be able to tell how big the clips are by themselves the clouds really sell that these cliffs are reaching the heavens i for sure want to see that in action i'm going to add some atmospheric perspective here bleed out the top a bit and add some epic clouds [Music] the ninth principle is most likely the one you've all been waiting for recognizable scale also called birds for scale sometimes the idea is to play something of a known size in the picture that we can relate to humans are a great indicator for scale because we're human so seeing a human relative to your subject makes it possible for the viewer to imagine themselves there and really feel the scale in this illustration for example the humans lets us combine with some repetition truly understand the massive arch hanging above them another very common recognizable scale is using birds also called birds for scale as we can see in this illustration from ankush they really sell the enormity of the god-like ruin birds are easy to place in the picture because they're flying so you could put them anywhere and they just give a sense of life and wonder to the image like in this picture from jaime seeing them swarm around this giant robot just gives it a movement of scale i also really like the use case here in tj's work the birds are not really there to show scale the human sort of takes care of that but it does give an indication of the massive height the warrior is located at and that adds a whole lot of drama to the scene which might not have been entirely clear without the birds but really any flock of animals or objects of known scale can be used like in this underwater scene from roma where small schools of fish surround this mysterious super-sized diver suit which is truly what i find awesome about these principles once you know them you can use them to defy our expectations another example of recognizable scale is using little-known environments to show the scale of something we're not too familiar with here we are seeing these massive carrier ships again and the scale of the darks environments around it helps us understand the rough scale of everything as it is much easier for us to relate to the scale of cranes and containers than this carrier ship well i better play some humans and birds for scale we're getting closer nice the final and 10th principle is special effects or effects for short when we look at the waterfalling in this image by jessica the size and breakup of the water helps us see the scale if the scene was much smaller the liquid would feel thicker and more sticky because of the way surface tension works but when we go larger it has a different feel so this principle is really about how effects react at different scales a bit similar to relative scale but for effects here we see a landscape of ruins by ricky and on those runes we see thick overgrowth but we also see there is a cutoff point of the overgrowth we may be getting too high up for the plants to reach either because of the weight or the natural limitations of how high up in the atmosphere plants can grow so you could use the growth lines to show the tallness of your scene also if you're capturing a sense of movement in your image like this one by jun ling these titans might be dragging massive plumes of dust and smoke with them and note that the look of smoke also varies as it gets bigger and smaller i definitely think it will add some overgrowth to my scene and make it cut off at a certain point and finally let's look at some of the common pitfalls when working with scale generally larger scenes have a pretty consistent and large depth of field which means that the image is pretty much sharp all over when photographing smaller objects the reverse is true and you have a shallow depth of field so we associate small scenes with a lot of depth of field unless you have a very high focal length so it's not always the case but something to look out for also be careful creating objects that are too similar at different scales because it can confuse our sense of scale so keep it clear and avoid leading lines you could by accident create something that appears bigger than it is just from the surrounding area and that's pretty much it and here we have the final image with that done i hope you found this video insightful if you want to learn more about making content art you can check out some of our other tutorials on the channel or check out our extended courses on gumroad links to all of it can be found in the description below and if you like this video leave a like if you want to see more from us subscribe that's it and thanks for watching

Channel: Critical Giants

Views: 84,160

Rating: 4.9910946 out of 5

Keywords: tutorial, concept art, blender, howto, visual development, concept, art, critical, eevee, cycles, learn, design, 3d, visdev

Id: cFXO-82Eodo

Length: 15min 40sec (940 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 06 2021