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Picture Perfect If architectural illustrator Les Chylinski were to advertise his services on TV, a variation of "Is it live, or is it Memorex?" would be a fitting ad slogan. Some of his renderings are so real that you can hardly believe the buildings - everything from a condominium complex in St. Louis Park to a mixed·use tower in Dubai - are still simply ideas on paper. Chylinski has two basic techniques for creating the images. The first is watercolor simulation in Adobe Photoshop, for clients who prefer a more traditional style of rendering. This technique involves scanning a pencil sketch and painting it digitally using a pressure-sensitive pen and tablet. The second technique involves importing a 3-D SketchUp (Google software) or Revit (building·design software) model into Photoshop and breathing life into the image by adding details from photographs: people, foliage, signs, lights, and glass. Assembling the small bits of photographs creates the effect of one large photograph - and a rendering unlike any other. A former architect, Chylinski was working at Ellerbe Becket in Minneapolis when he realized his interests lay in architectural illustration. He eventually started his own business, Creative Media Illustration, Inc. (www.cmistudio.com), developing a unique style that is now in high demand. Chylinski has worked hard to improve his digital watercolor technique, in particular, because interest in the watercolor style remains strong, despite advances in graphics software and the proliferation of sleeker architectural images. "Traditional watercolor painting is a skill that takes a lifetime to master: says Chylinski. "Doing a digital rendering that looks like a watercolor takes away some of the challenges, because you can easily fix your mistakes. There is so much freedom in what you can do with color and textures because you can experiment without having to start over" Chylinski places a great deal of importance on
composition and using contrast, color, and value to showcase certain
aspects of a project. For example, he can draw viewers attention to
an entrance or deemphasize foreground information. With
modeling software like SketchUp or 3ds Max, architects can select
any viewing angle, and Chylinski often suggests a particular view
to achieve the right compositional balance in the final rendering. In
the past, he's used a number of 3D applications to create still
renderings but he finds that working in 2-D software like Adobe
Photoshop or Corel Painter provides him with greater flexibility to make
changes and more control over subtle effects like color shifts,
value, and lighting. This craftsmanship can be seen in Chylinski's
skies, which are works of art in themselves. Emily Dowd
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