C O U R S E G U I D E

W E L C O M E !

Congratulations on enrolling in Painting Environments. This is one of my favorite courses and I know you will find it
incredibly fun and valuable! The techniques and shortcuts that I will lead you through will have you creating environment
concepts at a higher level than you ever thought possible. My sincere thanks to all students for taking the leap and join-
ing our community and we wish you a very warm welcome. Once you’ve completed the course, I hope you will post some
of your work so that we can all see what a rock star you have become. If you feel stuck at any point in the course, just let
me know! I pride myself on fast and helpful support.

- Course Creator Hardy Fowler

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS COURSE

Painting Environment teaches real world skills and is designed to have students creating professional level work much
faster than they ever might on their own. Here is the general format we will follow and some tips on how to make sure
you’re getting as much out of this course as possible.

• BRUSH UP ON FUNDAMENTALS - If you haven’t already, I strongly encourage you to check out both
Art Fundamentals in 1 Hour and Photoshop Fundamentals in 1 Hour. These courses are free to all students and are
packed with great information about art and the software we’ll be using. Even if you’re an accomplished artist or feel
relatively comfortable with Photoshop, these courses could really help and will guarantee that you’re not missing
anything in Painting Environments.

• REVIEW OF ‘BEFORE’ WORK - In order to gauge how far you’ve come, it’s a great idea to find a piece of
environment art that you have done already as a baseline. If you’d like, post it for review and I’ll give you my honest
thoughts and let you know which parts of the course you may want to pay special attention to.

• CONCEPTS/THEORIES/EXERCISES - Before diving in, we will spend several videos talking about some of the
concepts and best practices to keep in mind when creating environment art. These will include the Course Overview,
Depth & Scale, Mood & Story & Composition. Then we will learn some fantastic techniques for rendering realistic,
memorable and professional level environment art.

• COURSE PROJECTS! - After viewing all lectures, it’s time to dive in for our real world creature projects! I will
creature 3 full artworks and every single step will be explained and discussed in detail. Once you have viewed all 3
projects, it’s time to start one of your own. Feel free to copy my designs as an exercise, but it is my hope that the
design principles that I teach will give you the confidence to come up with your own awesome environment concepts!

• PRACTICE / CONTINUED SUPPORT - The course does not end once you’ve reached the end of the videos.
I strongly encourage you to keep creating environment art following the steps that we lay out. Practice and repetition is
the best way to see fast improvements, so keep at it! I’ve also created a list of additional environment briefs to give you
a good starting point for additional creature projects. Let’s fill that portfolio up with awesome work! Also, post as many
and as often as you like and I’ll get back to you with my thoughts. No one flies solo in this course!
 E N V I R O N M E N T P R O J E C T S
The full projects that we’ll do together are the core of the course. I’ve included a wide variety of assignments to give you
a broad base of knowledge. The techniques covered over these 3 projects cover just about every terrain type that you
might encounter as a student or a professional. Below is a look at each project that we’ll cover and what design and
rendering techniques they were chosen to highlight.

H I D D E N P A T H
This first project will give us a great chance to put all of our
rendering techniques to use. This one will be very technically
simple so that we can focus on creating a strong composition
and making great use of custom shapes

E P I C V A L L E Y
Here, we will expand our knowledge by creating something
a bit more complex and involved. This project will focus on
creating depth with layering and atmospheric perspective,
great use of photo textures, and our first use of custom
brushes

I R O N W O O D F O R E S T
In our final project, we will use every tool and technique we have
learned to come up with a really strong portfolio piece. We will
make great use of custom shapes and custom brushes to render
great looking trees, rocks and water. We will also make good use
of dramatic lighting and color.
 P R O C E S S O V E R V I E W
Let’s take a look at a breakdown of the steps that we’ll follow in the course. This will give you a very easy-to-follow road
map for success that will give you consistently great results.

1 . C O N C E P T / S K E T C H
This is the starting point! We will tackle the blank canvas and start
getting our ideas out there. This part is wide open - be as free
and creative as you want. Don’t worry about nice looking lines or
marks - ideas is all we’re worried about here.

2 . R O U G H C O L O R
After your basic idea and is defined, we’ll use photos and filters
to get a very rough color statement made on the canvas. This will
focus on lighting and mood.

3 . D E T A I L
We will add complexity and richness to our image with custom
shapes and custom brushes. The textures and details of our image
will start to come to life!

4 . P H O T O T E X T U R E S
Next, we’ll use photo textures to add interest and color variation to
our image. A variety of photos will be used on soft light blending
modes to make our painting even more detailed and interesting

5 . F I N A L P O L I S H
Here we will do some hand painting and touching up to
make our image as cool as possible! We’ll add in all kinds of
details and effects to maximize the drama and impact and
arrive at an outstanding final product

I R O N W O O D F O R E S T
FINAL PRODUCT
 K E E P R O C K I N G !
The course doesn’t end here! Keep rocking out environment projects and your progress will continue to skyrocket. I’ve
put together a page of additional project briefs and web image references just to give you some ideas. Consider this a
worksheet of environment painting homework. If you have aspirations to be a professional concept artist, use these briefs
to get some stellar portfolio pieces!

MOUNTAIN PATH
• winding path going up a mountain
• show path in near ground but meandering out into distance
• show huge depth and scale
• make mountains unusual in some way
• tribal markings along the path

ALIEN PLANET SUNSET

• vivid colors as the sun sets on alien landscape
• show multiple moons/planets/suns in the sky
• desert-like landscape but with unusual rocky formations
• show glowing luminescent plant life only in cracks/shadows

FANTASY SWAMP
• cheerful looking (green) swamp
• have oversized plants (large paddle shaped leafy plants)
• lots of vines with brightly colored huge flowers growing
• have unusual color patterns on plants to make it otherworldly
• strong light source with rays of light filtering through

LAVA PLAINS
• hellish, burning environment with black rocks and lava flowing
• imply a path with small rocky platforms above lava
• use mostly warm colors but have a glowing blue orb at the end of the implied
path as a point of interest/exploration and for color contrast
• have jagged, threatening rocky formations

GEODE CAVE
• mysterious underground environment
• rays of light coming from above through small vent holes
• glowing crystalline rocks provide most of the light and color
• use vivid, strange color

LONELY TREE
• up in the clouds
• floating masses of rocks (defying gravity)
• rocks are mostly barren but one has an interesting tree growing
• heavily use atmospheric perspective to give scene massive scale

SNOW BLASTED PATH

• frozen flat landscape with rocky cliffs in the near distance
• small crack in cliffs make a small canyon (seems like refuge - invites exploration)
• canyon should have different color scheme from snowy landscape

Images included here are for reference and educational use only and are not the copyrighted property of Digital Painting Studio