DIGITALPhoto Photoshop hatte mich vor ein paar monaten eingeladen für die ausgabe 02/2010 einen Digital Matte Painting Workshop zu verfassen. Nun hatte ich die möglichkeit für ausgabe 05/2010 einen kleinen workshop zum thema tiefenschärfe zu schreiben. Um genau zu sein wie man mit digitalen mitteln tiefenschärfe in ein bild hineinbekommt. Das prinzip wird anhand eines beispiels erklärt und kann auf dvd zum besseren verständnis auch begutachtet werden. Das foto selbst ist eigentlich ein just for fun matte painting gewesen. Wird im magazin nicht drauf eingegangen. Ich möchte allerdings die gelegenheit nutzen und das plate hier mal zeigen. Bestehend aus zwei unterschiedlichen bildern vom selben strand. Allerdings ist in dem plate schon einiges gemacht worden um die bilder zusammenzufügen.

Schaut mal rein. Es ist durchaus einen blick wert!

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This project was a lot of fun. Partly because it ended a personal creative blockade after the finish of my ‘Phoenix Rising’ project. Again i was playing with Vue and certain lighting settings. I think i found a good base for future projects now. Rendertimes went skyhigh though. However the image quality certainly speaks for itself. My goal here was to setup (or find a way) to light the scene as realistic as possible. That succeeded and after tons of hours for the render to finish… i eventually had a great plate to play with in Photoshop.

The final result is 65% Vue and everything else Photoshop. Of course i added quite some extra textures to get in the needed details. As well as extra painting in areas that did not turn out too good. The overall Photoshop postwork was done fairly fast. So i’m really happy with the outcome.

Vue – Photoshop – Wacom – 30hrs Render – 10hrs Postwork – 4500px wide

Vue Plate & Print Details

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Storywise i’m sure you guys know that it’s about a mafia family environment. The Sopranos. More about Anthony Soprano who’s taking over the leadership of the organized crime in New Jersey. He’s dealing with a lot of problems in his business and of course family stuff happens too. Due to some health problems he’s consulting a psychiatrist and does that throughout the whole series.

You sort of get thrown into the cold water with this series and the famous ending takes you out of the water as fast as you got in. The best way to conclude this particular series. I’m sure a lot of people were disappointed at the time. And i think i can understand that. But from an artistic viewpoint it was a bold and intelligent choice to end the series that way. What am i talking about? Well i don’t want to spoil anything. Check it out yourself! The series is definitely worth watching from beginning to end.

A weird thing i encountered was that there actually was no character i was able to build a connection with. All of them were pretty violent and all of could have needed a psychiatrist. Not just Tony. Nonetheless the quality of the cast really pays off throughout the series. James Gandolfini is a god here. In a later season we have Steve Buscemi entering the series. His character was the closest i was able to connect with. Buscemi also directed episodes. I love that particular episode. It’s a funny one. Beside him there are quite some familiar faces to see in this series. All of them playing their part. Most of them even played in the Godfather or Goodfellas movies. It’s sort of a perfect cast and you always want to know how it continues. What’s happening next. You don’t want to know what happens to a particular person. But you want to know what happens to the collective of characters when something happens.

If i would have to pick an episode that impressed me the most then i would have to take the second one “Join the Club” from the sixth season. It’s actually a series of episodes where Tony gets shot and is in a coma. While the world around him goes on, he is having some sort of dream that possibly shows him a life he could have had. Far away from all the crimes. In that dream we see how versatile a James Gandolfini can be. The Tony we see there is completely different. He’s lost in this dream and practically fights against dying. When that second episode ends and that Moby song starts to play you could almost cry. The whole thing seeing Tony in that totally different light of what could have been. How lost he may have been living such a life. That he may be destined to live that dangerous, bad and sad life he’s having there in New Jersey. One of the best tv produced pieces of film i have ever seen.

It’s really hard to write a short review about all this since there are so many names to be mentioned, so many stories to analyze and etc etc. – so i will end this review here with just saying that it’s definitely a series worth to watch through.

A 9.0/10 from me.

The Sopranos on IMDb

I finished this quite a while ago and finally i got it onto my page. All the time i was thinking about what else i could add to make it even more interesting. Stuff like that can be a trap. Instead of realizing that the pic is pretty much done you keep thinking and thinking. In the end this is a rare pic to find in my gallery. I can’t remember many night scenes i did so far. It’s not that it’s difficult to do them. Somehow i’m more the evening or morning type with my paintings. This picture here has quite some nice details and atmosphere. Could be a scene straight out of Total Recall or Blade Runner.

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Yet again it’s been a while with concept art gallery additions. Like stated in previous update posts i revamped the concept art gallery. It looked evil and should make a better impression now. Beside the structural update i also cleaned up the exhibited pics and added quite some new additions to the team. Everything quickies, sketches and just for fun. Hope it gives some inspiration to you guys. I can say that it would be a blast to fly around with some of the ships in there. :D

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THE ABYSS

Here we have a picture i created last year for an experimental shortfilm by Chris Bouchard. He’s the guy who made that fairly successful ‘Hunt for Gollum’ LotR fanfilm that created quite a buzz and generated millions of hits. However… what he needed were a few backgrounds and i tried myself on some. We also used my ‘Epica‘ painting, with quite some extensions, as the general background. This picture here was not used like intended but still found it’s way into the film. I really like this one a lot and it’s my favourite of the ones i created. Maybe because it reminds me of that famous Blade Runner scene at the end of the movie.

CLONE Shortfilm Here

Before/After
View from the back

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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.

A 7.4/10 from me.

Predator on IMDb

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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!

WALLPAPER PACK

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