Before working on my actual landscape, I decided to do some small scale tests with the grid method, as I wasn’t so familiar with it.

I then started working on my final, bigger scale landscape. Being back home in Switzerland and craving winter, and due to the kind of results I can get with this technique, I thought of doing a snowy mountain ski scene.

However, when I started with my first attempt, I quickly got confused between all the points and lines, and ended up messing up, so I decided to start again.

So from this first try, I concluded on two things I would have to change. Firstly, I slightly decreased the number of points on the grid, as after second thought that number was not necessary. I also then worked with a color coding system, so that I wouldn’t confuse the different lines and columns. This made it way clearer to work with all the points and lines.

At this point, I could have kept working by hand, but it would have been a bit messy, and as I like drawing digitally I thought this would be a good opportunity to do a bit of that.

I started by importing my drawing, which allowed me to redraw a clean version of the grid, without any of the support lines.

I then worked on adding shading, in order to make the mountain look more 3D. I could have done smooth shading, however, I wanted to explore following the grid, to keep that kind of aesthetic going.

Finally, I added some more elements to create more of a finalised scene.

At this point, I would have wanted to fully remove the grid, however I felt it didn’t look as 3D, and I didn’t have the time I would have wanted to rework the shading.

With some experimentation, I ended up making a very light version of the grid, which fit in better and kept it looking more 3D. I also ended up liking how it looked with this grid in.

In the end, I ended up really liking the grid method. It allows for  amore curved, random surface to be created, whilst still allowing my more geometric mind to not get too confused. However, it does get a bit messy when done on a bigger scale, so digital might be the right way to go with this technique.

Nov 15, 2020