I’ve always promoted saving time and improving my drawing efficiency by “recycling drawings” - tracing or modifying existing drawings to create new images. One of my previous blogs on November 12, 2010 explains this concept in further detail.
The drawings below are from a quick-turnaround visualization project in which I was asked to illustrate two alternative mixed-use towers on a site in the Middle East. In order to minimize my time investment in duplicate renderings, I chose to create a single drawing of the site and insert two different towers into the image using Photoshop. By doing so, I only had to draw the site and adjacent buildings once. Here is my process:
Tower One View (shown above): I built a Google SketchUp model of the proposed city, constructed the tower model and inserted it into the waterfront site. I then created the ink line drawing on vellum over an enlarge print of the SketchUp view. I added final color with Chartpak AD markers and Prismacolor pencils and composite scanned the image with the SketchUp print to capture the shadow and water tones.
Tower Two View (shown above and below): I modeled an alternative tower design and inserted it into the original model. Using the identical view (scene), I illustrated ONLY the new tower, colored and scanned it, then digitally "pasted" it into a copy of first rendering using Photoshop. By enlarging the view in Photoshop, I was able to fine-tune the splice and repair any edges where the two images came together. Compare the two final tower views with each other and you will see identical drawings with only the tower elements changed!
Tower Two spliced into the original drawing.
Same SketchUp Mode with Two Towers: This eye-level waterfront view used the identical process of creating a single drawing and "splicing" a second tower into the view. I constructed the base SketchUp model and exported two views with the two alternative towers. The final colored renderings below are identical with the exception of the towers.
If you ever have a project in which your client is considering several different design solutions, don't hesitate to think "recycled drawing" as a method of saving time, achieving great results and making your visualization process more efficient!
Look for other interesting articles on my blog, visit my website www.drawingshortcuts.com and read my new book Drawing Shortcuts Second Edition.
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