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

SITE

When I was creating my The Ghost terrain asset (quite some time ago now) I decided to play around with the materials I collected for the asset and experimented. This one is the result of such an experiment. Not too much backstory except that I always liked the natural shapes, patterns that you can see of landscapes when photographed from a very high altitude. World Machine in combination with Geoglyph 2 is able to create these natural patterns. I instantly thought it looked like an eye with all the veins going on and stuff. But also an alien planet surface maybe? I decided to add some ships and give it a more scifi feel with that. This one was fun to play around with.

6000×6000 – World Machine/Geoglyph 2 – Vue – Photoshop – Lightroom

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

Comcept 32 – Halo Over Sunset City

Welcome to SUNSET CITY! This one was a pure just for fun project. I was fiddling around in Vue when I stumbled over some atmosphere settings that created a solar eclipse kind of look. I thoroughly enjoyed that look and started to randomly add some buildings. That quickly turned into kitbashing all kinds of stuff into the scene… which lead to the results we can see in the final piece now. No specific story for this one. From what it looks like it appears to be some sort of space/port hub structure. Surely a place that could easily write its own stories – good and bad.

5000×2283 – Vue – Photoshop – Lightroom

Part of AURORA: AURORA Exhibit II

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

Shrine Of The Unknown Huntress

“Many tales, in all kinds of shapes, forms and variations, covered the deeds of this fine lady and ignited a revolutionary fire which the galaxy will tell tales that will echo through the ages – even in thousands of years.”

Cassandra’s Book, 3:29

Here we have something highly experimental (for me) again. Much like my “The Hidden” piece, this one was done with help of Mandelbulb3d. I found a neat scene whilep laying with it, rendered out several passes of it and did some Photoshop magic. I also used Vue to bring in these monumental statues. The look of it is really different compared to my usual stuff and I really enjoy how it turned out.

When working on this piece, I decided to make a loose series, that is based on my “The Unknown Huntress” artwork. What if the lady belongs to an ancient old collective or cult of warrior ladies that kind of work from the shadows and shape the civilizations of the universe. A variation on the Assassins Creed story of sorts and not superbly original, I admit. But more based in a fantasy related universe. I found it tempting and decided to go with it. =D The location we see in this pic definitely belongs to a Scifi setting. Something completely different from the first (The Unknown Huntress) picture. Maybe a gigantic temple, honoring highly decorated members of the past. A place for the members to visit and gather some spiritual energy for upcoming missions or events.

7000×2996 – Mandelbulb3d – Vue – Photoshop – Lightroom

Mandelbulb Plate

Part of AURORA: AURORA Exhibit II

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

Parsec City

Not too much to say about this one. Originally a commission, I did have some real fun with it. Earlier this year the rights fell back to me and so I decided to show it to the world! The pic is four years old and the cool thing is that it holds up. I still really enjoy this piece.

Vue – DAZStudio – Photoshop – Lightroom

Concepts

Atmosphere Study

Regards

Terminal

Mid last year I had the pleasure to create some work for “Seat 14c” – a scifi shortstory event, held by the XPrize folks. This particular image belongs to a short story by Kevin J. Anderson. Now this is very special to me since I’ve read and really enjoyed some of his books in the past. So his name was very familiar to me. Having the honour to grace one of his stories with an artwork of mine is amazing! At first I was a little overwhelmed but after reading the story I quickly kind of knew where I wanted to go with the cover image. A dream world kind of environment. Things started to fall into place and I got a scene that is very different from what I did so far. It definitely leaves a very abstract impression but in context of the story it does make sense. =)

8000×4500 – Vue – DAZStudio – Photoshop – Lightroom

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

Comcept 29 – Victory

I started this one 2 years ago and just wanted to have some fun. Haven’t touched it again until today. Time to release it into the wild! I did not have any specific story in mind for this one. Just some battlecruisers on their way home… celebrating victory over some unfortunate enemy. Pretty basic stuff. =) So yeah, pretty much a just for fun piece – trying myself on a square picture format.

Technically it’s business as usual with a Vue rendered plate to work with in Photoshop. I was playing around with filters to give it a more painterly look. In the end I decided to tone down the filters and highlight the depth of field effect a little more.

5000×5000 – Vue – World Machine – Photoshop – Lightroom

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

The Unknown Huntress

I started this one ages ago. Originally just for fun to play and learn stuff. Especially in regards to texturing within Vue. I did learn quite a bit and was able to transport my knowledge into later pieces. The reason why I turned this into a fantasy kind of direction was simply because I don’t have much stuff going into that direction in my portfolio. So, time to diversify a little bit! Is there a story to the picture? Not really to be honest. Maybe our character belongs to a tribe of hunters and is returning home from a field trip.

From a technical point of view, beside playing with texturing in Vue, I also looked at Plant Factory a little more. Especially techniques to grow stuff on objects. Which can be seen on the pillars that go along the way in the scene. There is so much stuff you can do! It can drive you crazy sometimes!

Ultimately it’s not a piece I’m entirely happy with but for an exercise it’s good enough. As usual I lost myself in too many details no one will ever notice unless it’s a neat print they look at. =D

6000×2739 – Vue – Plant Factory – Photoshop – Lightroom

Plate 1

Plate 2

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

The Hidden

The first one for 2018! This project was started in late 2017, when I decided to take a more concentrated look at a tool called ‘Mandelbulb 3d’. It’s a free, open source fractal generator. Over the past years I stumbled over a number of artists who work with it. May it be for purely fractal based images or using the fractals as plates for concept art. I’m a plate guy and love to work with them. And the possibilities of Mandelbulb 3d are sheer limitless. For more info about the tool just check the google machine or youtube. Fantastic stuff to find there!

So yes, this picture was an experiment. And for a first experiment I’m fairly happy with the result! Style wise I wanted to keep it rough and concept arty. What I found is that it’s quite the balance act to use the fine details the fractal render gives you. Sometimes the detail is almost too much. But yeah, I’m still learning the tool and already found ways to handle the fractal detail level.

I will definitely look more into it and see how I can incorporate it into future projects. I’m sure you can agree that it’s fantastic for some alien, weird looking landscapes!

4000×1708 – Mandelbulb3D – Photoshop – Lightroom

Plate 1
Plate 2

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Regards

Endeavours – Things To Come

“Finally being where I belong, I cannot wait to discover what this new world has to offer!”

Here we go with the final piece of part two in my Endeavours series. I don’t have too much to say about this one except that I wanted a final scene that shows our small family finally united again. Along with a (maybe a little too obvious) hint of where the journey might go next. I have some ideas. Although I’m not sure how and when I’ll tackle those. As usual there are parts in the scene I’m more happy with than with other parts. But that’s just how it goes I guess. =)

I did use the base scene I used in the previous three parts of the series and changed the camera angle and lighting a bit. There might be elements that are a little adjusted and changed but I tried to keep it minimal to not ruin the continuity. In Photoshop I played around with a more stylized/dreamy look and found it works nice to conclude part two of the series.

Overall I’m happy with how part two turned out and it gave me two or three pictures I really like. With this picture concluding my year 2017, I hope you enjoyed the ride so far too!

To be continued…

5000×3333 – Vue – C4D – Photoshop – Lightroom

ENDEAVOURS Part One – Six

ENDEAVOURS Part Seven

ENDEAVOURS Part Eight

ENDEAVOURS Part Nine

ENDEAVOURS Part Ten

ENDEAVOURS Part Eleven

ENDEAVOURS Part Twelve

ENDEAVOURS Part Thirteen

ENDEAVOURS Part Fourteen

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety – Behance

Regards

Endeavours – Reunion

“I’m overwhelmed seeing you two again. Holding my little girl in my arms again. Seeing my wife’s warm smile. Finally reunited, it’s time to build something new and discover all the secrets of this place!”

This one is probably the scene, of part two of my Endeavours series, I’m most unhappy with. I played around with it a lot and it’s probably my first ever square format scene. Maybe it’s just the format. I definitely wanted to show a reunion scene with all the characters. To bring the series of images, from a more distant point of view, to a more closer (maybe even emotional) level. A part in me says it works and another part is still missing something. However, I put far more time into this one than I originally intended and ultimately I think it serves its purpose just fine.

I worked with the same scene I created for picture #13 and used a different angle/position for the camera. Due to the changed angle I had to work in some additional details. Especially on the house. Rendering went fine and bringing the scene together in Photoshop was fun. As usual I had to do some additional renders to fix stuff. The characters were also rendered in a separate pass. Overpainting and added optical effects helped to define the overall look a little tighter. In the end I decided to give the scene a (fake) depth of field blur to guide the focus to our characters and not have the eyes distracted by other detail in the scene.

4500×4500 – Vue – C4D – Photoshop – Lightroom

ENDEAVOURS Part One – Six

ENDEAVOURS Part Seven

ENDEAVOURS Part Eight

ENDEAVOURS Part Nine

ENDEAVOURS Part Ten

ENDEAVOURS Part Eleven

ENDEAVOURS Part Twelve

ENDEAVOURS Part Thirteen

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety – Behance

Regards