Micro's wips

Hey guys thought i'd post my wips too, planning on painting a lot more now so any crits feedback would be put to good use, here's a couple wips i'm working on, want to develop a portfolio so trying to make a creature/character scene, landscape and vehicle scene all at the same time. So far I just have started on two of the three scenes. The vehicle scene is going to have sort of an airship rowboat rowing through the clouds, but it's going to be hard to pull off because i've never made a vehicle in my life.

I really like your wips Mic. They are always so textured and full of interest.

Thanks Dom, appreciate the encouragement I had some time to work on the vehicle pic, but at the last minute it sort of transformed into a cloud base, so I think i'm going to go with that.

Is it part painted part photo manipulation? The clouds at the bottom look very good!

The railcity image has a walking dead enviro feel to it.

Hey Dave, I got the idea from a photo my friend took in Australia, you peaked my interest on making it all dark and apocolyptic like but i've been making such dark pics lately I want something colorful and vibrant.

Dom I do use photos in my pics at the beginning mostly for composition, then I try to paint over them or just sketch what I need, it helps me for now to understand the feel and look I want early on, otherwise I lose my ideas really quick.

The cloud base was originally a photo of a canoe so I could get the angle but then I just painted over it and used some of the texture for it to put into my design. I really like just pure brush strokes I think it really makes a painting look awesome, but i'm noticing a lot of professional artists use a lot of 'photo textures' in there stuff so its basically 50% photo 50% paintover. I don't really want to get into that habit though so hopefully will not need the photos very much longer.

It looks great Mic.

I think an artist should use whatever method is most appropriate to the work, so you shouldn't feel that using the photo, even in greater proportion, is somehow illegitimate.

Plagiarism is one thing, but using photos for texture, or to enhance lighting and accuracy isn't a sin!

Thanks Dom, that's cool, I think i'm going to feel less guilty about it then, but if I do a canvas painting ill have to get the glue out! Worked on the cloud pic a bit more, starting to like the direction its going.

I like all three enviros so far Micro - especially that green swamp beastie! With the cloud landscape I think I finally figured out what I couldn't previously put my finger on: The clouds are far more saturated in colour than the structure & ship, which are supposed to be the focal point. Perhaps this was going to change anyway as you were working. I do really like the texture of the cloud layer.

I'm always partial to a good cloud city picture and this one's coming along fine.

On the issue of photo textures I think the technique is quite prevalent in the industry especially with matte paintings. And actually the latest issue of IFX has a creature cover by Aaron Blaise that uses an elephant trunk and leaf textures to make the detail in the critter's skin. It's a great video too!
One thing to keep an eye on though is to make sure that the texture detail matches the perspective and form of your objects. And apologies in advance I've been scribbling over other people's pictures again but I can't explain it clearly with words...




Note that the horizontal texture lines (Red) don't quite have the same angle as the object's horizontal perspective lines (Green). It's a quick fix though, just select the dark textured areas, copy to a new layer and using Free Transform skew them until the angles match. Just tried it myself in Photoshop and I think it works.