ConceptArt.org

been checking out all those amazing sb's at conceptart.org. For those that don't know what a sb is, well then you need to go over there and check it out. It stands for sketchbook and is very similar to what I am doing here, showing the progress over time, but just soo much better. There are so many amazing artists there, why should I even bother trying this? Maybe that's the risk you run into when you're an art fan, you become the humble amazer, and just stop your own progress. check out this 22 year old for example: Andrew Lay SB

Painting in 3D

Tested the blender sculpt tool today, here is the result:



It works very much like zbrush, but the good thing...it's free!! It's an addon tool for the free 3D program Blender. I feel that sculpting like this in 3D is very much like painting, you use a brush, and it's very fast and fun. It took 3 hours to make the model above and about one hour to do the photoshop stuff.

Alp Altiner uses zbrush in his matte paintings, since I'm just a hobbyist I will be using the free blender sculpt tool.

Blender
Blender Sculpt Tool

Focus

I played around in photoshop again yesterday, and realized I have to narrow my focus to increase my skills in a certain area. I said earlier that I will eventually focus on matte painting, well it's time now. In matte painting I can combine photography, 3D and painting, a perfect blend of all of my hobbies. Maybe when I get a wacom tablet I will also do other kinds of art, like matte painter Christian Lorenz Scheurer does, in for example this piece, where he combines his environment skills with a character in the foreground.

So things to learn, skills to strengthen and dreams to be dreamt. Not that I'm dreaming of sitting in an office doing my art, nomather if it's for a blockbuster movie, nope that will kill the fun. Right now I'm sitting with my laptop looking at the mediterranean sea playing around in photoshop, sounds better than a dark office with a tight deadline?!...doesn't it?

The dreams are of distant excotic places I will create mattes of, like the great mountain city in the nexus range on 7 the planet in the ilios system called eilo. Hehe yep those kind of dreams :-)

Painting with light

In 1949 John Alton wrote a very important cinematography book called "Painting with light", describing how he lights his movies. "Few cinematographers have had as decisive an impact on the cinematic medium as John Alton."

Bladerunner is a good example of a movie that is painted with light. Matrix is another good example. I like this style, dark and atmospheric.

Some of the paintings I like the most are subdued and painted with light. A good example is Steven Stahlberg's One Last Time.

Other examples: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Fifth Painting

Yep a space art piece (click on it to view larger version).



Starfield and planet made following the tutorials by Greg Martin (links in previous post). hmmmm many of the stars seem square...so not the best starfield, but hey it's just practice. The couple is doodled in very quickly, so if they look human...cool. The grass is made with the standard photoshop grass brush.

Space Art

Gary Tonge makes the coolest space art around. Check it out here.

Space related art is also called Celestial art, but that is more tuned towards heavenly/dreamy characters that often have space art as a background. Here is a website with celestial art.

In my last piece of art I made a planet by following this tutorial by Greg Martin. Here is another tutorial by him about how to make a nice starfield. He also has created this article for 3DTotal discussing how to make space art. Check out his gallery here.

And lastly here is a tutorials how to make nebulaes.

Fourth Painting

Yep, a painting on a photograph.



Here is the original Image. Took this photo a week ago. This dude controls a light canon for a live tv show.

I continue my starry night style. Guess I have to learn how to make a nice starfield next then, right now I'm just clicking with a soft brush.

Painting on photographs

Mattepainters usually paint on photos to make reality a bit more spectacular. Here is a good example of that: LOTR Matte. Roll the mouse over to see the original photograph. This was painted by Dylan Cole for the LOTR.

My favorite photographer painted on his photos. His name is Jan Saudek. Here's some pics from him:
Zuzanka's Night Window
Hey, Joe!
120 km/h

He also did just photographs, and pure paintings, but the ones I like the most is when he mixed the two arts.

I guess that's where I am heading, since I am a photographer learning painting, and it makes sense for me, mixing these two. Making reality a bit more exciting, isn't that what we all seek?

Third Painting

ok, it's a weird one, but hey it's a speed painting :-)



Maybe it's a bit dark, but click on it to see a larger version. I used a couple of hours on it. Don't know the time limit for when it's speed painting or not. Actually I like the term sketch better, but maybe joining the hype is good for search engine traffic.

Speed Painting

I guess speed painting is a fancy word for sketching. They are both done quick and have few details, but enough to see what it is. I think this is a good way to learn painting, because one doesn't need to fickle with details forever, just getting down ideas and strengthening basic skills fast.

Check out Craig Mullins sketch gallery. Some are very rough, but still he creates an illusion of more detail. This is an amazing gallery! Here is a tutorial explaining the basic steps of his sketching process.

The good thing with these are that you can make many paintings a day, and increase your skills very fast. I have seen many styles of speedpainting, some hinting forms with finer strokes, other blocking in big shapes, and refining from there. I will just try out different stuff to see what works for me.