Digital Art, Paintings and 3d work created by Christian Tigaer Hecker. News about the artist and Interviews with Artists like Dylan Cole, Gary Tonge and Syd Mead.
Alright. Here we have the attempt to sort of revive something. I don’t count the ‘Aliens VS Predator’ movies as real ‘Predator’ movies. So for me the Predator 2 movie was the last real Predator movie. But that only my opinion. There was a lot of buzz on the internet prior to the announcement of the new movie and it got my attention right away. The guy who placed an ‘Alien’ head in the Predator ship at the end of Predator 2 must have been a genius. I really dig the design they established with the earlier movies and wanted to see more of that gritty sort of action movie style… with a touch of ugly faced alien.
I don’t have to say much about the story since it’s pretty much the same like in the Schwarzenegger movie. Some mercenary soldiers and other special characters of human society get shipped onto an alien planet and find out that they’re the prey for some hunting game practiced evil ugly aliens.
The overall casting reveals a very interesting mixture and all of the folks do their job nice. Topher Grace for example plays a good part in not revealing his true nature until the end of the movie. I didn’t really saw that coming for his character. Alice Braga does a nice job too in playing an isreali army sniper. Nonetheless the events that make her characters skills pop out seem a bit constructed. The other main guy is played by Adrien Brody. I was very excited for his part. He’s not exactly the type of guy/actor you would think could take such a soldier role. And again he surprised me by playing the badass in this movie. It may not be the most amazing performance but he plays believable. I guess he makes the best off of the script they had. His character is not necessarily the most likable but he definitely carries the movie. The Laurence Fishburne part was pretty unnecessary from my point of view. And Danny Trejo dies far to early.
The movie has some weird issues though. More than one time you see our heroes wander through the thickest rainforest and a few scenes later they’re in a totally different kind of forest with different sorts of trees and everything. Another example is that in one scene you have the ultimate dust storm in a pretty much no vegetation scene and one minute later they’re in a field of grass with lush trees in the background. I mean ok it’s an alien planet but that cannot be an excuse.
The VFX aren’t really amazing too. For a high profile production like this one, parts of the VFX are pretty weak. The only thing i found really nice was the integration of the alien dog things into the live footage. That worked amazingly well in an early ambush scene. Aside of that things could have been better. Especially the planet environment could have been a little bit more alien to really sell it. And by that i really don’t mean ‘Avatar’ like. Everything just looked too familiar.
Beside its prominent weaknesses it really was entertaining. The movie has a nice pacing from my point of view. It also creates some thrilling events when our heroes become trapped or ambushed. Good stuff.
It’s been a while since my last update on the site. The concept art gallery never looked really nice so i decided to update it over the next few days. Nothing special to be honest. I just want it to be a more pleasant viewing experience than it previously was. I will also take this opportunity to remove and add some pics. I hope it works out and will let you know when it’s done.
Actually this is no new picture. It took me a while to find the right title for it because i wanted it to be part of my ‘Heimat’ series. I also invested a bit more time into it to get the best off of it. Therefore this turned out to be more a manipulation or digitally darkroomed instead of a standalone photo. However – i think i got some beautiful color harmonies into it. I don’t even know anymore how exactly i made the photos for this one. I only know that it’s several shots combined and blended together. I dig it… hope you too!
That said… i hope you guys enjoy the Wallpaper Pack. 1680×1050 & 1920×1200 and more versions of the scene. Have fun with it!
Every summer has its big big summer movie. Now this one surely is the biggest candidate for this year. It got all the ingredients. It got that special ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ feel to it. No wonder… it’s a big Jerry Bruckheimer production. It got everything these productions are known for.
I don’t think i have to say much about the story since most of you have probably seen it by now. It’s no big eye opener but nonetheless very entertaining. I felt a bit bored sometimes because there were a few lengthy parts i think. However the characters, played by Jake Gyllenhaal and a wonderful and beautiful Gemma Arterton, are fun to watch. Jake is playing a very unusual role. When you look into his acting past then there never was such a superhero role where there was a lot of body work involved. He’s doing a great job with that. That means he really is a good actor and very versatile. Gemma Arterton on the other hand plays the perfect counterpart to Jake’s character. Both create some funny moments in their scenes together. As well as some romance too of course. They are both fun to watch and they both carry the movie nicely.
In other roles are a Ben Kingsley as the bad guy. He has no problems with his character. Nonetheless it feels a bit underwhelming. They should have given him more evil character scenes. Alfred Molina has a part too and does his job nicely. You see his character not very friendly when we first meet him. Later his character is changing and you start to like him. Solid jobs from my point of view. Both of them could need bigger parts to really use their amazing talent though.
The VFX are nice and especially the finale is an eyecatcher. Other scenes in the movie don’t really get the right mood accross somehow. Maybe they got into some deadline trouble. Some more detail in certain scenes would have been nice. Anyway… solid job from the VFX people nonetheless.
Overall it definitely is a summer movie. If you got a few bucks left… go see it. If not… just wait for the dvd and make a nice movie evening with friends.
First of all i must say i miss movies like this one. In the style of Cronenberg’s ‘The Fly’. Bad and evil companies trying to change the world and all that stuff. Splice falls into that niche and does a fairly good job.
Basically the movie is about a couple. Both are scientists and experimenting around for a company that tries to find cures for several diseases. All this gets explained in the first 10 minutes of the movie and serves very well as an intro. The cast does a nice job but shows a few flaws later in the movie. Overall it’s a solid and believable performance. Adrien Brody seems to be a pretty versatile actor and i’m excited for his part in the upcoming Predator movie. Sarah Polley is a good cast too. She does a good job in the beginning of the movie. It’s a believable ‘mad scientist’ performance from her there. In the middle of the movie the roles of our characters seem to switch. And the one actor plays the part of the other actor from the beginning. It’s a nice twist and good change of perspective. The movie took some bold directions storywise – it’s interesting and fun to watch.
The VFX through the bench look really good. Especially the ‘Dren’ creature and the later CG extensions. Dren herself later in the movie does indeed have something sexy on her. I guess that’s what’s the design wants. And it does it good. That one sequence where she’s dancing with Brody’s character is extremely well done and surely the best and most beautiful scene in the movie.
Ultimately i must admit that the movie is 10 minutes too long. The end is a bit predictable and from my point of view not really necessary. Of course i don’t want to say that every movie has to have a happy end but this movie’s ending is or feels a bit too constructed. Much like “we have to do that because we have to do that!” – if that makes any sense. =)
Anyway… check it out. It’s something different and definitely an entertaining movie.
Now i’m a long time Ridley Scott fan. Alien, Blande Runner, Gladiator or Kingdom of Heaven (dc) are just amazing. The attention to detail. The camera work. The worlds they created there. Everything is rich in these movies. So full of atmosphere.
Russell Crowe is one of Ridley Scotts favourite guys since Gladiator. They both seem to have a connection. Scott once said “we’re both angry all the time, i guess that’s what connects us two”. Now i’m angry all the time too… maybe that is why i like his movies so much.
Robin Hood, formerly known under the working title ‘Nottingham’, isn’t one of Scott’s better movies. Chances are good that it comes together with a highly possible directors cut release on dvd and bluray. Same happened to Kingdom of Heaven. First the DC made the movie a whole. I have a strong feeling that a similar thing will happen to Robin Hood.
Robin Hood also isn’t the typical, magic movie you would expect. It is dark, it is gritty and there is absolutely no lovely magic in the air. It’s based on a realistic foundation. Now Russell Crowe’s character makes a transformation right in the beginning of the movie. They’re having a french fortress under siege for a while without any success of taking it. They’re trying to get home from the big crusade and have seen enough of war. Suddenly the King dies and Robin and his friends take the chaos to get away from the troops to try their own luck. You will find all the usual suspects, character wise, that belong into a Robin Hood movie, which is a good thing. These characters often understand it to bring some funny moments into the otherwise serious theme of the movie. All the actors are cast well and fit their characters very well.
Now this is a very long movie for a story like that and in the middle parts it often shows some weaknesses. The ending when the french attack the coast feels far too constructed to naturally flow with the rest of the movie. Even if it all was technically nicely done it was missing sense and somehow totally off the tone the movie has. Just weird. I wished we would have seen more of the crusade part instead. Since Kingdom of Heaven i really would love to see more of that historical area.
Ultimately the movie ends where a lot of people hoped it would have begun. I’m excited for the highly possible directors cut of this movie. It may bring in some missing links that make the movie feel more like it’s in one and the same flow. It’S a different take for the Robin Hood theme and it’s a good and interesting one.
Nonetheless the theatre version gets a 6.9/10 from me.
I want new Sci-fi work from you Mr. Scott! I’m excited for the new Alien movie and his other upcoming projects. This man is a restless filmmaker… my respects.
Phoenix Rising is without doubt the largest personal project i ever did so far. The project involved in depth work with Vue 8, Photoshop, After Effects and minor sound editing. The techniques i used were basically digital matte painting oriented and involved camera mapping, editing, motion tracking and of course 2d and 3d work.
In the beginning i was thinking about how i could top the success and personal achievements i got out of ‘Gates To Elysium’. That was late May 2009. That picture was able to gain itself a CGChoice Award on CGTalk and that means a lot to me especially motivation wise. But the question still was how i could top that. And by that i don’t mean prizes or awards. Would i be able to create a similar good or even better piece of work? Something that would satisfy me on all levels…?
November 2009 i started to play with an idea without actually thinking about making this my benchmark for 2010. I fiddled around with Vue since i knew it would play a significant part in the upcoming project. I tossed around some objects and soon packed the scene full to the brim with stuff. Since i still am not the brightest light in 3d modeling i worked much like in the last years project and used parts of the DAZ 3D Cityblocks to arrange me the scene. Again i took lots of the models apart and reorganized them to make the buildings look the way i wanted. Knowing that quite some Photoshop work would be laid on top of it all. Vue already started to act up because of the load. So i decided to leave that behind and concentrated on the atmosphere aspect of the scene. I already had a really beautiful cloud setup and lighting. I knew i had to do something with it. Soon after that i felt a deep pain in my brain when i saw the needed render times for that atmosphere. I started a test render for those clouds and the atmosphere and it took ages. I did the render just to see how it would look in the end. I were like 60-70hrs when it was done. And the clouds still looked nice on 5000px wide.
February 2010 i picked up the project and really started to work on it. Building up the city elements and experimenting with the tons of ideas i got when i worked on it. Finding the right position for the camera wasn’t an easy task here. I already was playing with the idea of making a camera mapping animation out of the project. Friends are calling me ’sick’ and ‘lunatic’ now. But that’s the price you pay. If i would have known how much work i had to invest… i guess i would have stopped right away. But i didn’t know and when i was already working on it… i wanted it to be done right.
Early March was the time i started to render the final parts for the Photoshop work. Starting with the atmosphere and the background city. The atmosphere and background elements were rendered on a slightly higher quality than the foreground elements since the lighting and clouds needed to look good. Without too much noise and everything. It was a painstakingly 90hrs render. It took me 5 days to render it. Thank god for the resume ability of Vue. But it was worth the wait! When it was done i had really good multipass material to work with. All the other foreground elements were rendered in roughly 30hrs. Light and atmosphere did not require super high settings so i turned those down a but. All of these renders were done with multipass options. The ultimate freedom for the Photoshop work.
With the main renders done i started to stitch everything together in Photoshop. That was the easiest part. I already had several hours into the Photoshop work when i accidentally overwrote the Photoshop file with all the layers. §”4%&=? awesome! In the end i would say that it was good. I had the chance to redo some of the work steps and saw that i also had an alternative way to do certain operations. That lead to a better picture quality in certain areas of the sky. Nonetheless i wasn’t happy when i found out that my PSD was ruined. That was the first time something like that ever happened to me. Normally I’m very careful with my PSD files.
With the Photoshop work going on i discovered possibilities in the picture that i had to take. So i dug out Vue again to add even more details. Again multipass was helpful to easily place the new elements in the picture. The ultimate freedom! The Photoshop work was a lot of fun and seeing worlds building up in front of your eyes is always very satisfying. I was thinking about the fact that i really would love to see this in moving pictures.
I also thought that i must be crazy. All the ideas i had in mind for an animation. All the time i would need to realize these ideas! Yes, crazy! However! Late march i started to play with Vue and made first experiments with a possible camera mapping animation for the picture. The picture was pretty much done, except for some stylistic things and very small details.
Now camera mapping is not a thing i would say I’m an expert in. I’m not exactly firm in 3d modeling and kept the ingredients from the original Vue scene pretty much untouched in Photoshop. That means i did not add extra elements to the buildings etc – i only added things within the actual building shapes. Always keeping in mind that i ‘could’ be doing an animation of this. To have worked that way really helped me with the camera mapping. Nonetheless i had to take the painting apart again. Foreground, background, middle pieces etc etc etc – so that you would be able to see what actually is behind the big towers. All these textures demanded extra attention and a lot of extra work. That done i could concentrate on the ships!
In April then i was in the middle of the animation work. Man how much time went into the rendering of all the different passes. Not to mention the test renders! Not to mention the disk space needed! I rendered everything in uncompressed AVI format. 5.6gb for 40 seconds of film in 1920×1038. And i had to split the renders in the middle because when i rendered it in on task it produced a weird error and played the movie not like it was supposed to. So a lot of stitching of movie files going on. Not to mention that After Effects can be a true pain to work with. Tons of crashes! But somehow i got through.
Early May i was pretty much done with the animation itself and saw how i could get it polished perfectly in After Effects. I wanted to add a bit of dirt to the lens and found some helpful tutorials on YouTube. The internet generally is amazing for tutorials… even for video stuff.
With the animation done i got back to the painting and refined a few more things on it. That makes it look a tiny bit different than the animation. Nonetheless i’m very happy with both results and never thought i would be able to pull all that off.
While ‘Phoenix Rising’ is the actual project name i found it interesting to give the city a name too. ‘Hadley’s Hope’ is of course the name of the camp on planet LV426 in James Cameron’s ‘Aliens’. I liked the idea of taking that camp and its story out of the ‘Aliens’ context and wondered how that colony would/could look after 1000 years.
Oh a lot of text and it could be so much more! Hope you enjoy the picture, the animation and the whole world you can discover! It was quite a journey to explore and create it! Ultimately it does satisfy m on all level. It’s again a personal achievement i never thought i would be able to pull off. That’s a good thing.
Special Thanks: http://www.greendjohn.net for his awesome music! His piece ‘Windcatcher’ was perfect for my project and conveys exactly the atmosphere i wanted.
Hope you guys enjoy this shorty. For me this is a special animation since so much time went into it. It was the most complex endeavour i ever did and it was worth it!
5000px wide – Photoshop – Vue – After Effects – Infinite Number of Hours
The first Ironman movie had every ingredient that all the other comic movies nowadays have. You see how a normal person becomes larger than life. You follow that character on its path and you see all the problems our character must fight. We see our protagonist grow through the happenings in the movie. People like that. Starwars had it, the first Spiderman has it and so many other movies have it too. It’s like written in stone and, if done right, guarantees a success. And Ironman was a success indeed.
Now Ironman 2 gives you exactly the things you liked in the first one. Only much more of it. Maybe a bit too much. The movie starts right after the happenings of the first movie. Tony Stark is still working on the Ironman technology and faces problems with the goverment because of the fact that he is holding back the knowledge about the technology. He also has health problems because the energy source that keeps him alive emits toxic substances into his body. So he is trying to find a way to solve that problem before his body gives up. We also learn a lot about the past of Stark Industries and Tony himself. Also the relationships between the characters find more space to evolve. Which is good because, even if this makes me a sissy, i like the romance between Tony and Virgina (’Pepper’).
Now past movies series always have the dark parts of their stories in the second part. We have that in Starwars, Indy, Batman and Spiderman. Stories that show the audience that our superhero has his problems too. Tons of struggles to go through and we don’t know if our guy is going to make it or not. Mostly our main guy is a changed person after the happings in a second part. Now Ironman 2 has glimpes of that. But it’s just not enough somehow. It really is only more of what we had in the first movie.
There are also some parts that seem kind of odd to have. I’m referring to the party scene in the middle of the movie. With a drunk Tony, sort of out of his mind. I think that sequence is much too long and feels completely off. But that’s only my opinion. There is also the problem that, i think, the first Ironman movie had… the finale. It’s weird but like in the first movie it’s really underwhelming. There is a lot of baddaboom and baddabaaam but that’s nothing new. Nothing really creative. Maybe our expectations are too high. I don’t know.
On the technical side the movie is solid work. Camera, Acting, VFX and the women – everything really nice. Robert Downey Jr. really IS Tony Stark. There is no other actor who could play that part better. It’s fun to watch him. Also the romantic scenes between Gwyneth Paltrow, who is just adorable in this movie, and Downey Jr. really work so nice. It makes you laugh and happy and the same time.
Ultimately it’s a fun movie. A lot to see there. Nice action going on. More of the things you liked from the first movie.
Phoenix Rising – it’s been quiet the last few weeks but busy in the background. Last november i started to work on something that turned out to be my benchmark painting for this year. It’s by far the biggest project i ever did and it covers pretty much everything i learned over the past 5 years. This march i started to really work on it and now it’s in its final stages. May was always the month of my big projects so i hope i can finish this up soon. It will include a great wallpaper pack as well as quite some background info to the project. So right now it’s more than 2 months of work on it. The painting is pretty much done but i have some plans for it and therefor i’ll wait with the release a bit longer.
Again it’s a futuristic cityscape. I don’t know why it’s my favourite theme keeping in mind how damn complicated it can be to create stuff like that. I guess i want to really master that field and with this project i guess i get close to mastering it. Last years CGChoice award win really pushed me to go a step further and i really did it. I hope you guys will agree when you see it because i don’t think i’ll attack such a big project any time soon again. So much work in it!
So much for this little report. Stay tuned! I hope to release the project by the end of may.
This series was quite a big deal when i was younger and marked another spot firing up my interest in computers and what you can to with them creatively. The quality of the VFX and that special look of everything in the series. Back then the only other series i knew, that attempted to be a tv series with such immense depth, was Star Trek. Babylon 5 was so different. The creative mind J. Michael Straczynski, now a big hollywood writer, managed to create a very interesting universe with a lot of political background. All the characters we meet in that world aren’t flat at all too. All of them have a history they carry around with them. Throughout the episodes we learn a lot about these things. The cast, through the bench, does a very solid job and you can see that they love their characters and that the actors can relate and completely give back what’s written in the script. They carried the show. Now today you would say these VFX are crap. Back then it was amazing to have such things in a tv series at all. It was exciting and each season has had its own theme, leading to a big finale at the end.
While season one is establishing the whole idea and the characters, season two starts to get a more serious tone. Things that happen in season one can directly affect things that happen in a later season. The writing is phenomenal and you can see that in so many of todays tv series. ‘Lost’ for example. Connections through several seasons. Things that first start to make sense when you really keep loyal to the series and keep watching.
Like i said earlier it’s especially the characters that are fascinating. As well as the races they stand for. Andreas Katsulas who plays a Narn called G’Kar. He is the ambassador of a race that always seems to get punched. Especially by the Centauri race. There we have Londo, Centauri ambassador, played by Peter Jurasik. These two, conceptual very different characters, are played so well. They both have a history and they both have some very important storylines. Again we can see how much the actors seem to love their characters. You can see their pain… their happiness… all their conflicts through all the makup and masks in their faces. In season two we get our main guy added to the series. John Sheridan, played by Bruce Boxleitner. I personally was always a fan of him. Like all the other members of the cast he really IS his character. Captain of a space cruiser, of a spacestation and leader of an intergalactic alliance. All the other cast members deserve to be mentioned here too but that would be a bit too much. They all have their parts and they all play it very believable until the end. You know you’ll miss them when the last episode finished.
Beside the tv series there were also tv movies. J. Michael Straczynski always requested more financial support from the studios but never really got it. Which lead to the fact that the movies lacked of background detail. The sets, VFX or music. I wished they added more budget. However, the movies aren’t bad. Especially when you have already watched through the series it’s cool to get a bit more background info about certain things or events. Again all the characters are played well and it’s a lot of fun to watch them. J. Michael Straczynski refused to do more movies because of the budget problems. So there is a hope for new investors. Of course he wants his child to shine. It deserves to shine for sure and i can completely understand his decision. The chapter of Babylon 5 is not closed yet. And i like that. There is still so much to discover and explore in that universe so that every short visit shows you one more wonder. It’s worth the wait.
As you can see it’s a clear recommendation to every scifi fan. You will rarely find a tv series in that field that offers more depth.
Alright. Here we have the attempt to sort of revive something. I don’t count the ‘Aliens VS Predator’ movies as real ‘Predator’ movies. So for me the Predator 2 movie was the last real Predator movie. But that only my opinion. There was a lot of buzz on the internet prior to the announcement of the new movie and it got my attention right away. The guy who placed an ‘Alien’ head in the Predator ship at the end of Predator 2 must have been a genius. I really dig the design they established with the earlier movies and wanted to see more of that gritty sort of action movie style… with a touch of ugly faced alien.
It’s been a while since my last update on the site. The concept art gallery never looked really nice so i decided to update it over the next few days. Nothing special to be honest. I just want it to be a more pleasant viewing experience than it previously was. I will also take this opportunity to remove and add some pics. I hope it works out and will let you know when it’s done.
