A retinue of rag tag barbarians try to get to their secret island hideout during a storm! Trying to push a more cartoony style with the characters while keeping the environment somewhat realistically textured and colored.

http://www.imaginefx.com/02287754330940030870/imaginefx-83.html

or at Barnes and Noble. I’ve attached a snippet from the issue below. A special thanks to Ian Dean from Imagine FX for putting the article together.

]]> http://www.shaddyconceptart.com/blogs/imagine-fx-digital-plein-air-feature-2/feed 0 http://www.shaddyconceptart.com/blogs/ai-class/life-painting-to-stylized-concept http://www.shaddyconceptart.com/blogs/ai-class/life-painting-to-stylized-concept#comments Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:40:07 +0000 shaddysafadi http://www.shaddyconceptart.com/?p=1712 Here is an example of a life painting turned into a concept. The top left image is the photo, the top right image is what got done in the field after about 1.5 hours. A few things to notice:

1. How the shapes in the environment were used as a starting point but then altered to suit the action. Branches were moved around, rock clusters and shapes were simplified, The foliage in the background was almost entirely made up using what was there as a hint.

2. The farther back elements have a SLIGHT Gaussian Blur on them, and the edges of certain foreground things have a BIT of Ned Stark on their edges to take away the super crisp photoshoppyness. The way you decide what needs to be softened is if at a glance you feel like it’s taking too much attention and drawing the eye then you soften it with Ned.

3. Character was designed previously and bear was referenced from a photo in that exact pose. Also the character was created EXACTLY like the landscape, flat black silhouette, then flat graphic layers for each item of clothing, then shading done on each individual clipped layer, THEN the whole thing was flattened and a duplicate sun layer was erased out.

4. Fog! added it to pop the guy, otherwise he wouldn’t read in that spot at all. Also made sure to darken the fog on the left so the bear wouldn’t compete for the first read.

1. Finished concept piece based on an image you already have that is at least 3000 pixels wide.

PROCESS

1. Black and white sketch using flat solid blacks or greys, no blending. And just because mine went fast doesn’t mean yours will. spend time FIRST blocking the shapes in (who cares how sexy you’re just figuring out what you want where)… THEN spend time making the shapes FINAL… YES FINAL. Design those shapes beautifully and THEN send it to me for evaluation.

2. Find a photo that has the exact lighting scenario and color you want (spend an hour looking for it if you must) and put it in your image by making more room at the top and pasting it in.

3. Color in your B&W shapes by color picking off the photo and making adjustments to the colors based on your outdoor painting knowledge. Then make a copy of that color comp and put it up there with the photo above your image. BUILD A 3-D mock up of part or all of your image that needs it and put the render of that in the image in the your composite

4. Do another photo ref search for EVERY SINGLE ITEM IN YOUR IMAGE… EVERY INCH OF SCREEN REAL ESTATE SHOULD HAVE DIRECT PHOTO REFERENCE. Find photos in ambient light composite all of them into the image in layers. You should have a very shitty looking unlit composite image.

5. Love on the the shitty composite by making duplicate layers that are color dodge and painting your light in with layer masks on said color dodged layers.

6. Overpaint on the whole thing for hours softening edges, keeping your comp and focal point in mind. Soften the texture of some photos, add detail where you want it. put things in the photo didn’t have, specular light, fog layers etc.

7. JUICE IT TO DEATH.

Repaint over of Ashton’s image. Trying to get dumber and simpler and focus on the action… plus cheating our asses off, grabbed both the horse guy and the monster from google, colors picked off a photo with the exact same lighting scenario. (this image is only %40 done. NONE of the painting love, texture love, or final 5 hours of styling is in yet. AKA this level of finish would NOT fly for next week.)

Repaint of Noel’s image. Trying to get a more dramatic realistic looking shot by… you guessed it CHEATING OUR ASSES OFF. photos from the grand canyon, a horse from a “gasp” Bill Anton painting (AND I WOULD DO IT AGAIN AS I TOOK GREAT PLEASURE IN THESE ACTIONS) and some 3-D in the buildings. This one is closer to %80 done, needs some love on those vista rock formations, love on the architecture to make it more alien.

PROCESS/MATERIALS:

ASUS N53S / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5

The Dominator Shipwreck in Palos Verdes. An incredible broken down cargo ship that crashed on the coast and was too bulky and costly to move, so they left it! 3 hrs in the field, 4 hrs at home.

This week I want you all to go back and bring 3 paintings you’ve done in this class up to par. Using what you’ve learned so far and looking at other peoples work as well as the work of the Artists we’ve talked about I want to you rework/love on them until they are A level. COPY THE ARTISTS I GAVE YOU FROM LAST WEEK!

I’ve also attached 3 paintings from our class that I would consider A along with their photos so you can see what each artist did to you add to and change the image to make it work for them. Pay close attention to how they did textures and how they stylized shapes. Heck email them and ask them what the heck they’re doing because it’s working.

To turn in I want to SEE 3 paintings revised INCLUDING the old version and the original photo all included in ONE IMAGE. SO 9 images in ONE GIANT JPEG that has 3 photos, 3 old paintings and 3 new paintings.

Ashton getting his Dorje on.

Assaf doing a great job of stylizing elements

Sylvia really pushing the stylization of the shapes! awesome!

OTIS: Another painting from life copying one of these 4 artists styles.

ACCD: Finish the Matador Painting and do another FROM LIFE copying one of these artists styles.

When I say copy the style I don’t mean look at it and soak it in and then go about your painting. I also don’t mean combine the this with your own style to create an ALL NEW personal style. NAY! I mean copy the style, COPY IT! Copy it exactly and as precisely as you can… Dissect the reasons it’s awesome, try to see what kind of brushes were used or what kind of layers/techniques were implemented and make your painting look like it was done by the same artist. I included 2 Dorje paintings, one Neil Campbell Ross (the more graphic one) and Scott Christensen (The more painterly one)