Create A Japanese Village In Blender! - Concept Art Kitbash Tutorial

My Arstation Store: www.artstation...
My Japanese Village Kitbash set for Blender is now available on my Artstation store page! This is a personal kitbash set based around Japanese village architecture and props. Visit my store for more information.
In this video I also provide an overview of the concept art process! I cover everything from the initial question of "Why are you making this?" to the idea, reference gathering, sketching, 3D blockout, and photoshop paintover. Thanks for watching!
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[@shagun_damadia]

That rendering tip from camera clip is so good and clever!

[@kevinjickart]

Thanks! Im glad you like it! It has helped me a ton / saved me a ton of time

[@ROCKtheFOREST]

very nice, thx for showing and explaning your process in this work.

[@kevinjickart]

Thanks! I'm glad to hear you liked it!

[@TheMrLeoniasty]

A showcase of the workflow AND a commentary on your approach, ideas and techniques. This video is so valuable, thank you! It was great seeing your whole process

[@kevinjickart]

Ah thanks for the kind words! Glad you liked it!

[@TheMrLeoniasty]

@@kevinjickart Im interested in the camera clipping technique. Wouldnt using the ZDepth as a mask work the same way but there is no need to rerender?

[@kevinjickart]

@@TheMrLeoniasty Hey! Yea the ZDepth would probably work great as a mask. In the past I have had selection issues where the edges get pixelated, but im sure there are ways around that. If you are fast at it, you can probably save some time like that

[@TheMrLeoniasty]

@@kevinjickart Makes sense! The zdepth pass in blender can be wonky sometimes. Nice technique, I'll try to use it someday

[@burninggiraffe9138]

Amazing work! This is so helpful and inspiring! Thank you very much!

[@kevinjickart]

Thanks so much!! :)

[@graciedesign]

Real art from a real artist, not AI.

[@kevinjickart]

:)

[@somadardiansyah4981]

What an amazing piece, sir! I absolutely love it. The cloud brush looks cool. Would you mind sharing where you found it?

[@kevinjickart]

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it!! Ahh so I got some of these cloud brushes a while ago from Shaddy Safadi - I am not sure has still has them available for download. I think there are free brushes you can probably download!
John Park sometimes has brushes with his Gumroad Patreon tutorials, for example 'S2 Assassin tutorial' seems to come with brushes

[@HunneyChan]

very information. i will be using some of the tip in my next study

[@kevinjickart]

Right onn!!

[@clomomo5350]

amazing! I love it.

[@kevinjickart]

Thanks!! 🙏

[@philjpark]

Next level my dude!

[@kevinjickart]

Phillip! Thanks dude!!

[@russelp9666]

Love this tut. Thank u Kevin! ❤

[@kevinjickart]

Thanks so much! Glad you liked it!!

[@BoarsInRome]

Thank you for the tips. Subscribed

[@kevinjickart]

For sure! Glad you like it!!

[@jonathansuparta3857]

really cool

[@kevinjickart]

Thank you!

[@mirandadrake3508]

Can you do a video on what you wish you knew when you were first building assets? What are some things to keep in mind when building your own personal assets? I’m an environment concept artist. I do most of my work in photoshop, however have found some basic 3d to be helpful. I would love to build up my own library of general assets. Is it worth it? Or should I rely on premade assets?

[@kevinjickart]

Hey! that is a great idea and thanks for this - I definitely think it is great to build your own assets as it will be your own design, this is especially important if you want to work as a concept artist.
When building personal assets, it really helps to do drawings of them first (or a rough blockout and draw over) so that you can really control the design before you get too detailed.
If you want to use the assets for an environment concept also - I would reccomend doing a sketch first of what you want, then build the assets to match the sketch. I have run into the issue that I haev built assets first and then when I end up doing the concept, some assets I cant use and I have to make more assets haha. Its not bad for modeling practice though x)

[@sparshrawt]

thanks a lot for the tutorial sir

[@kevinjickart]

:) Glad you liked it!!

[@SaNaz900]

Incredible work, it helped me a lot to understand how to compose a scene. How long did it take you to do it?

[@kevinjickart]

Thanks! Since I already had the kit mostly made it went a bit bit quicker - I would say the 3D was around 6-8 hours (I tried to fit a ton of details in haha) and probably similar for the paintover!

[@2110299]

stunning ， subscribed ！

[@kevinjickart]

Thanks!! Glad you like it!!

[@user-ts8uw1le2t]

Im also curious if this is the same method japanese game dev do for their background and buildings in game.

[@kevinjickart]

Hey! I think it might be a slightly similar method, but for game development, models need to be very optimized for game engines. That would be things like models with proper UV's and proper geometry - since I make these models for concept they are a bit rougher haha

Japan is so clean that birds have learnt to clean up their poop ^^
Really cool tut. Using canera clip is because your mist doesnt have enough data in 8 bit? Maybe having one in exr in another 32bit psd could be faster to copy masks, that can be soft too unlike the clip?

[@kevinjickart]

Hahaha, yea thats totally it xD
And yea, thats why I havent been using mist pass for masks, I felt like the edges would not be as perfect as I liked - but that is a cool idea with the mist pass you laid out here! I think there is definitely room for the mist pass to be used for masks as well, that is super cool

@@kevinjickart One good thing with the mist for mask, is that you can paint with a soft brush in overlay mode before you contrast the Mist, in order to "bend" it, so it's not a perfect flat plane in front of the camera, but you can push one element so it remains in the mask ect..
Just in Cycles it will display the volumetrics too, so you can do a render with 1 sample where you deactivated the volumes, and save that as exr 32bits. In the world settings you can set the far & near planes of the mist, and the interpolation, to have more data far or near ect.. This way it should be possible to have super clean flexible Z masks, without the banding / dither you have in 8bit.

[@kevinjickart]

This is awesome - next level stuff man! I gotta try it out, thanks a ton for the tips with this. Hearing your method really opens up the possibilities with just the mist layer and using it for masks and blending, that's awesome

[@Last0wner]

what if I can't sketch at all? whats another way I could go about thumbnailing my ideas?

[@kevinjickart]

Hey! I would say even small sketches, such as pen and paper is totally fine even if you are new at it! It can be simple shapes, thats totally okay!
If for example you know a bit of 3d, you can block out a space in 3D using boxes and cylinders and then start from there.
Another thing you can try is finding a reference, such as a street on google maps or a cool reference photo and then take a screenshot and draw ontop of it. you can use it as a base and change things up a bit based on your story. The #1 thing is practice!

[@comic_compo]

Hello Kevin, I have a problem of trying to find a way to grab an existing 3d model and entering into the interior because some sketchup files provide access to outside of the house, but not much of view from inside out (hard angle controls), allowing me to use as a reference for photobashing etc. Do you perhaps have a recommendation for 3d newbie (mac user). Also, did you make the kit? How long does it take?

[@kevinjickart]

Hey! Thanks for the questions - These 3d models are for Blender, so I am not sure they would work with SketchUp. They were also designed for use as exterior models (no interiors were build for these) so if you wanted interiors, they would need to be custom made. I do provide some wall pieces / wall panels in the kitbash set so you could theoretically make it yourself!
For a new 3d user on mac, I would definitely recommend Blender! It is free, there are a ton of tutorials here on UA-cam to learn all the steps and it is an amazing program. I would try out different tutorials, but Blender Guru has great introductory tutorials and Ian Hubert has great tips and tricks for when you picked up the basics.
And yes! I did make the kit. It took a while but it was really fun for me to make :) Certain elements were made in 3D coat as well (a program good for sculpting). If you are just starting out, start out with Blender though! They have good sculpting tools in the program as well.

[@cg_meleegod]

is this the same course Environment Concept Art - Japanese Stilt City on ur Artstation? or just a short version of it bro?

[@kevinjickart]

Hey man! This is not exactly the same but it goes over some similar stuff - the Stilt City tutorial is much more in depth and covers also the Blender side of things; such as how I model, texture, navigate in Blender, render, etc.

[@cg_meleegod]

@@kevinjickart thank you

[@ferdinandkasangati5089]

Hey kevin my nigga,
How can i improve renders for large scale environment? (Render time, lighting,...)

[@kevinjickart]

Hey! Yea for renders / render time, the biggest thing for me is reducing the amount of polygons in the scene and the amount of textures in the scene. sometimes things just get heavy after a while when adding tons of details (especially detailed kitbash models)
I would play around also with samples in blender - I tend to do around 100 - 200 cycles samples and it should be more than enough for a paintover. Things like particle systems can slow it down also, but the main thing is keeping in mind how many detailed assets are in the scene and how many textures