WIP nearly done!

WIP update

Started to do more to the foreground, still about 35 % to go before completion

 

WIP update

Progress Update:

I decided that the original composition was too one sided, so I changed things round a bit and started to work into the left hand side some more.

The density of detail at the moment is extremely inconsistent as most of he newer stuff is just painting, however once more photographs have been implement and more time has been spent painting detail the scene should start to look a lot more like a movie shot as appose to a piece of concept art.

Field trip to Robin hoods bay.

As modern Matte Painting can be heavily reliant upon photographs and textures. I decided to create a library of good quality photographs to use as textures, plates or reference. As copy write laws are very strict many artists advice you to take your own photographs. So a couple of fellow students (aspiring matte painters also) and myself borrowed a good quality camera and set out to the local coast of robin hoods bay to take some photographs. Here are a few example of the kind of pictures we took.

 

First Matte Painting W.I.P

 

Above is the initial sketch on Photoshop

I then tried to quickly paint out an idea of where the lighting might be

I decided that the lighting needed to be a lot warmer, so I went back a bit in order to sort out the lighting more

 

 

After painting into the piece a bit more, I decided to increase the texture density through throwing lots of photographs at the painting.

Starting to paint into the photographs, I wanted to kind of work from the background to the foreground so I started with the mountains behind the castle.

 

 

 

After looking at artists like Noah Bradley and Feng Zhu, the mentioned it is a good idea to flip your image regularly to make sure the composition works both ways.

 

Still painting in detail, although the castle is by far still not finished I have decided to work on other parts of the painting to keep everything fresh

 

 

This is a closer version of the castle so far. much detail and structure needs to be added.

 

Overall progress is going well. It has taken slightly longer than expected as painting in detail is very time consuming. so far I would say I am about half way through, progress will be updated as it happens

First attempt at painting on photographs

I after doing some research I have decided that one of my final matte paintings will be painted on to live action footage. This is because (according to Christian Lorenz)  in most matte painting work, you are sent a back plate and your job is to create something that isn’t really there onto the plain back plate. I have attempted a quick study, by just getting a low quality image and trying to create something simple, (in the case a bridge) matching the 3 perspectives up, colour, value and linear.

I am overall reasonable this first attempt, however this was a full matte painting there would be a lot more components that would included to the piece such as debris on the floor under the broken bridge and grass beside the pond.

 

Some of the techniques used in the study, I learnt through watching a gnomon work shop video about Matte Painting, starring Christian Lorenz who talked through is workflow and techniques he uses when matte painting.

First Matte Painting Ideas initial sketches

Futuristic Shopping Mall, The idea behind this sketch is kind of a large public mall, very Tokyo esque with thousands of advertisements plastered around the place, heavily populated and lots of vivid colors. I may choose not to take this piece any further that concept art level as (after some first hand research) some companies mentioned that they are looking for more realistic content in student portfolios.

This is an idea for my mountainous environment. I decided to use beacons after being inspired by a similar idea used in the lord of the rings films where various beacons dotted across the mountains are lit up.

For this piece I tried to incorparate different aspects of nature in to one painting, taking ideas and insipiration from the previous art study on natural environments. This city or temple has been put there to add some form of size perspective. the lighting on this piece would be very golden, probably around 5 pm – 6pm (magic hour) where the sun is either just risen or is about to set.

 

Art studies: Nature

To get a better idea of the kind of textures you get in natural environments  I have done a relatively quick art study using digital painting. I tried to recreate traditional painting techniques as much as possible with Photoshop and Wacom tablet, so I didn’t use any photographs for texturing or use the colour picker on the photographs I took reference from. I used photographs heavily for reference which I understand isn’t the best thing to do however the Idea behind the study get a feel of how to paint different textures and lighting so I can replicate it on other pictures.

 

Mood boards for all 3 environments

City Moodboard

Mountainous Moodboard

Nature Moodboard

Mountain Design Idea W.I.P

 

 

 

This piece started out as an art study, as I was originally trying to get to grips with painting mountains, rocks and snow. however after painting a few examples I decided to join them together and create a possible design for the mountainous matte painting. Reference pictures have been looked at however there has been no direct copying, I decided not to use photos in this painting to learn more about the fundamentals of painting itself. I plan to progress this piece into a fully fledged concept for the mountainous matte painting.