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

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

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

Com-cept 38

Just for fun quickie piece I did a while ago. Finished it up. Literally no story here for this. Just a vista view over a scifi city. Last piece for 2020… what a year.

3000×1370 – Vue – Photoshop – Lightroom

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

White Rose

Here we have a try to digitally mimic a photoshoot with a model. How things sometimes go there was a big portion of luck involved. That actually goes for photoshoots as well. You wait for that moment that makes everything go ‘click’ and here it was due to a glitch in the cloth simulation, where I ended up with a so called ‘explosion’. Usually a very undersireable effect. But for this one it worked so amazingly good (it immediately reminded my of that famous Marilyn Monroe skirt photo) that I continued working with it. This also gave me the opportunity to learn more about the IRay renderer in DAZ Studio. After rendering the scene via DAZ Studio’s IRay I moved the material into Photoshop for fixes and overpaints. Naturally the ‘exploded’ dress didn’t look perfect in all places. So there were some fixes and additional renders needed here and there. I’m very happy with the unexpected and overall beautiful result here. This shooting went well! =)

8472×5236 – DAZ Studio – Photoshop – Lightroom

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

Com-cept 39

This one originally started as a test file for displacement mapping in Vue. Surely could need some tuning here and there but I liked it already. Did some quickie post work and ended up with some moody atmosphere and lighting. Of course I had to add a scifi touch to it as well. Couldn’t resist. :D

2560×1167 – Vue – Photoshop – Lightroom

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards