TIGAER-DESIGN.COM_.v5 – Digital Art by Christian Hecker

In Their Domain

“As the dragons screech echoed through the white mountains and its mighty wings started to move, all birds, hidden and invisible a second before, came to life and filled the cool air with blurry black dots of chaos. My horse got scared and started to become nervous. It took me a while to win contol again. As I gazed over the mountains I decided it was time to quietly move on. I certainly didn’t want to meet a beast like that eye to eye. And neither did my horse.” – Dairy of an Unknown Huntress

2019 was when I started this one. I never managed to get it to a point where I was satisfied enough with it. Although I also kind of enjoyed the scene even early on. I rarely do winter scenes and I had the urge to tackle it again. Dragons are also never a wrong thing to have! Even when I’m writing these lines I’m still doing touch ups. Applying a more dynamic feel. Make it feel less static. And I still don’t know if I’m convinced by it. =D Anyhoo. It’s time to leave it be and release it into the wild.

From a technical aspect I used my usual workflow going through Vue and Photoshop. Assets I used are from XFrog, Megascans and terrains created with Gaea. Quite some overpainting going on. Especially to bring in some imperfections to hide that typical “too accurate” 3d rendered look.

Thanks to my lovely GF for some compositional hints!

8000×4300 – Vue – Photoshop – DAZ Studio – Gaea – Lightroom

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

In Her Majesty’s Eyes

Quite proud of this one. Originally I wanted to apply my usual workflow to this. Going through Vue for the scene layout and render. I decided to go with Blender though. For a couple of reasons. I need to learn Blender. I needed to understand how the DAZ to Blender bridge works. I wanted to know how rendering in Blender works. In short… I wanted to see how I can work with Blender for a scene like this. Vue is for landscapes and open vistas. And it’s designed for that. It’s not exactly made for scenes like this. Although I really miss a couple of Vue things within Blenders workflow. Aside of that I kept my workflow of rendering out passes and combining them in Photoshop.

The creative process was fun. Even with the constant checking “how do I do this or that in Blender”. I also used my Abstract Objects collection to give it an otherworldly look. The scene underwent quite some changes during its creative process. It took me a long time until I found a good setup that didn’t crush the centerpiece of the scene. The queen. I definitely wanted her to stand out. So I also played around with lighting the scene properly. As well as adding a depth of field effect to lead the viewers attention directly to her. Treating the scene kind of like a photoshooting.

5000×7500 – Blender – DAZ Studio – Photoshop – Lightroom

Part of the BRONZE exhibit by the AURORA Artgroup

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

Towers Of Solaria

This one was an exercise with colours and composition. I kitbashed with some assets I created for previous projects and just was having fun with composition and trying something new. I tend to push the details in my work to the max and that’s not always a good thing. So here I tried something more ‘calm’… for the lack of a better word. A lot of negative space and less detail than usual. Kind of an oldschool scifi book cover look. Inspiration here was work by Pascal Blanché and Nicolas “Sparth” Bouvier.

4457×6848 – Vue – Photoshop – Lightroom

Part of the FREESTYLE 2 exhibit by the AURORA Artgroup

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

Another Morning In The Trenches

“The only thing making me do graveyard shifts are these incredible sunrises in the Trenches and Calvin and Hobbes waiting for me.” Jenna’s Diary – Calista – 2733

This is one of the projects that seriously intimidated me after a while. I noticed how much work it would need until I’d be somewhat happy with the end result. I have had a couple of these projects in the past. “The Eternals” for example. Of course it worked out once I got into that certain flow state where all things kind of fall into place by itself. The work of getting there is what’s scary sometimes!

The initial idea for a scene like this came to me almost 14 years ago. I was strolling through my city and noticed that corner on the side of a building. Immediately got that idea and took a photo of it for later reference. When I was trying myself on a scene later at home I understood that I wasn’t ready. Technically and skill wise. I was kind of frustrated and left it – fore years. I never forgot though and I surely could have gotten back to the idea earlier when I finally had the skills. Somehow I never found the drive to tackle it again. Until late last year when I started to dive deeper into Blender. Kitbashing around. Trying out features and learning how to move around within Blender. When that famous creative spark hit and made me remember that age old idea. I kept bashing and created this long bar of detailed techno shapes. Learned some Blender stuff along the way and exported that huge unoptimized model. Of course I would use Vue to set up the scene and render it. Luckily I didn’t end up having any problems importing the object. The scene, of course, ended up insanely heavy and I had to optimize the scene at least in Vue to free up resources for proper rendering. Needless to say – the creative process took a long time. After finishing the model and trying to find a basic scene setup I took a break. Reached that point where I understood that this will be a bigger project. When I picked it up again I started to play with ideas on how to fill the scene and add life. It began to become very complex. Then when I had the city done I noticed I needed something for the foreground. At first I thought about a landing platform. Even modelled one! But it looked kind of wrong when in the scene. So I opted for a building roof kind of part for the foreground. What followed was the usual post work and refining via Photoshop and Lightroom. A lengthy process as well. But it paid off. I’m very happy with the view we got here. Once again a view I would love to see for real!

Inspiration comes from the strangest places.

7000×3784 – Blender – Vue – DAZ Studio – Photoshop – Lightroom

Part of the FREESTYLE 2 exhibit by the AURORA Artgroup

Also on: Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

Remember The Fallen Hunters

I started this in the summer of 2020 and finished it by the end of it. I needed some extra ‘breeding’ time for it. =D Now I know it’s done. Another entry to my growing ‘Unknown Huntress’ series. It seems I’m having fun building a little world there. Playing with different ideas. And sure… pictures like these have been done to death I suppose. Still… I hope I managed to give it a unique look and feel nonetheless. I like the result. The atmosphere creates a nice moody feel while still maintaining a kind of uplifting impression with the lighting and colours. Life goes on. Even in this imaginary fantasy world.

My scenes continue to become more and more complex for some reason. Vue, Plant Factory, XFrog, Gaea, World Machine, DAZ Studio… tools that have been used here. Not even counting the 2d tools. I used this project to refresh my knowledge about certain techniques I used in the past and haven’t used in a long time. During the creative process I had to run through several technical troubleshootings – as usual with 3d. I ultimately managed to bring it all together. But not without having to optimize several parts of the scene before rendering. Photoshop brought all the rendered elements together and helped fixing and adding stuff. A lot of work but fun to watch all of it come together.

7000×3784 – Vue – DAZ Studio – Photoshop – Lightroom

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

Com-cept 40 – Sphere Valley

The result of playing around with my Myriada terrain asset (https://www.artstation.com/a/711630) and a try texturing it with Quixel Mixer. Within Mixer I used some of the masks that come with the Myriada package to distribute the textures across the terrain. Had my fun with that part! Then I moved into Vue and started to play around. I ended up with quite a catchy scene that I felt had something to it.

Terrain Test 1 Here

Terrain Test 2 Here

Find the terrain – Here

4500×2531 – Vue – Gaea – Quixel Mixer – Photoshop

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

Departures

This one I had some real fun with. Granted, I was mainly throwing stuff together and kitbashing my way through it but all I did immediately worked! Rarely happens! Key was to create something that still leaves a striking impression black and white format. A last minute entry for the Black & White exhibit of the Aurora artgroup. I’m glad I managed to get something together in time. Some fantastic work in that latest release there!

Color Version Here

10000×5405 – Vue – Photoshop – Lightroom

Part of the BLACK & WHITE exhibit by the AURORA Artgroup

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

Faces Of An Unknown Huntress

Every once in a while I’m having fun trying myself on a digital portrait shooting. Of course DAZStudio is a good tool for that. Also took this piece to learn more about it. The picture itself is a companion piece to my “Unknown Huntress” series. A try in making the characters in my artworks a little more personal. It’s a series that will definitely be continued in the future. Having too much fun with it.

5000×3333 – DAZStudio – Photoshop – Lightroom

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

Claim New Worlds II

Haven’t tackled a more complex scene in a while. This one turned out to be one. Could it be one of my benchmark projects like Gates To Elysium or the Claim New Worlds 1? I guess so. Tested some technical limits and revisited ideas I had in the last 2 years. When the environment was done I knew I needed some ships landing there. Explorers. I always wanted to incorporate vehicles created by more talented (at least in that department) people. My vehicles are mostly kitbashed without thinking about deeper design elements. Good that I know a few people! First I contacted Christian Grajewski. Following him on Facebook over the years exposed me to some of his vehicle designs and I always very much liked what I saw. He was my first choice. I asked him and he agreed that I could use his Sandpiper Ship/Glider design. He provided me with the model and textures I placed the ships in the scene. That made the scene’s composition balance fall apart a little. After some input I got from him and others I had to rearrange some elements of the scene for better readability. Time well spent. Ultimately we’re both happy how the scene turned out and hope you do like it too!

Find Project Aurora Here.

7250×3919 – Vue – Xenodream – Photoshop – Lightroom

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

I’ve Seen Things

As part of the PURPLE release of Aurora’s latest web exhibit, I decided for another neat little digital photoshoot. Playing and learning new things. Cyberpunk is rather popular right now. Despite CDPR’s failed Cyberpunk 2077 release. However, I used the inspiration I got from the game (haven’t played it yet though) and its look and decided to try myself on something I wanted to do for a while now. Plain DAZ Studio and its IRay renderer with Photoshop. The base assets I used were modified quite a bit to achieve the look I had in mind. A lot of tweaking went into the textures. All of the adjustments worked out really nice and I’m overall fairly happy with the results.

Find Project Aurora Here.

6000×3708 – DAZ Studio – Photoshop – Lightroom

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards