Dialing Things Back


Tony Koester made some excellent points in his March Trains of Thought column. The piece dealt with one of the most important modeling topics, color management. He made a point that often gets skipped over and that’s the fact that we view things through atmosphere. As a result, saturation drops off with distance. In addition, […]

Color Management


The challenge of having so much information instantly at our fingertips is, that when something particularly insightful is written, it can get lost in the background noise. There is no element of modeling that contributes more to visual impact and plausibility than nailing the colors. To that end, Tony Koester’s editorial on color strategy in […]

Empasizing A Subject via Contrast


The Jack Delano photo above is an example of using contrast to emphasize a subject. Note how the white skyscraper stands out from its neighbors. Also notice that the neighboring structures are fairly similar in color. All of the hues are plausible. A key concept in art theory is that of directing the viewer’s eye, […]

Color Layers & Color Spectrum


It’s safe to say I’ll never be accused of being a cultured art critic.  That aside, in the last year I’ve had the chance to visit some of the more notable art museums on the east coast and attended a number of art festivals.  The difference in a painting done by one of history’s masters […]

Foreground Composition


One of the great planning fall backs is, when stuck, just copy the prototype.  I’d been struggling with one aspect of composing the foreground structures.  Specifically, if I put a row of foreground structures end to end on 50th street it would be difficult to see the background structures.  The solution?  Remove every other foreground […]