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Terraglacies

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012



TERRAGLACIES

This one is a failed experiment from 2009. I remember playing with Vue and it’s displacement options for materials. I had no specific picture in mind. I was just playing around. Then suddenly the preview render was showing me a rather cool, kinda abstract, looking landscape shape. It immediately reminded my of my 2005 ‘Astounding’ piece somehow. Then I tried to render it bigger and bam… no chance. I don’t remember the exact time Vue told me but it was astronomical. I started to try my usual workarounds but nothing helped. I guess the material and the dispacement mapping ate up all the memory and when it was full the render just crashed. I managed to get out a, for me, low quality render and worked with that one. Even if I’m not entirely happy with the result I still think the pic has a certain appeal to it. I hope you think so too! =)

wallpapers available

Regards

signed

Sci-Fi Calendar 2012

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Tigaer's Sci-Fi Calendar 2012

It’s time for a short plug of my Science Fiction Calendar 2011. This time the included collection of art mainly focusses on SciFi pieces. Among them are personal favourites and awarded pieces like ‘Red Canyon’, ‘Phoenix Rising’, ‘Hadley’s Hope’ and ‘Gates To Elysium’. There are also some new pics in there I released this year.

It always creates a fuzzy feeling seeing these worlds on paper. Somehow it makes you want to explore these places even more deeply. Must be a good thing huh? =) So, if you don’t believe in the end of the world in 2012… BUY IT! =D

Enough talk!

For a preview of the Calendar please check here:
Sci-Fi Calendar 2012 Preview

You can buy this calendar on deviantart for:
$27.95 -> Find it here: Sci-Fi Calendar 2012

Regards

signed

Endeavours Part One

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011



ENDEAVOURS PART ONE

As a part of the Luminarium Artgroup I had the chance to try myself on an idea that was floating through my mind for a while now. To tell a story with pictures. Now the idea itself is old and absolutely nothing new of course. But I hadn’t done something like this before. The Luminarium topic was ‘Sequential‘. Now that could be interpreted any way you want. I chose a somewhat comic like approach. What I wanted to do right from the beginning was to show how spaceships depart from a planet surface into space. I did not know how to visualize that exactly. Soon I found that, of course, some sort of cityscape thing would be the best way to depart from. Soon enough I also had a nice little story in mind. About a guy who worked in that city. Never saw the sunlight and any joy living there and just wants to get away from there. He decides to begin a new life in the off world colonies. (You get the Blade Runner ref there? Very good! ;))

Technically it’s all done using Vue and Photoshop. In Photoshop I used several filters to achieve a certain comic like flavour. Not sure if that succeeded though. The end result was very satisfying and again I learned a few things while working on the different images.

By the end of the making process I realized that the tour from the surface into space could only be the first part of the adventure. The story needs a better finish and that’s why I decided to add a ‘Part One’ to the title. Now I cannot say when I will create the second half of the series. We’ll see when it’s done I guess. For now I’m happy with the results of part one. And maybe it’s a good thing to leave the actual destination of our two ships to the imagination of the viewers. At least for a while! =)

Endeavours Part One - Scene 1

‘Excitement’

“Do you get that feeling too? That feeling of excitement when you know the next day will be great because you’ll be off into the holidays with the family or something? Now this is not much different. To finally leave this place, start over somewhere else and see your loved ones again. This is the first step of my endeavour and I’m so excited!”

Endeavours Part One - Scene 2

‘Here We Go Again’

“There is surely one thing I will definitely not miss. Working in this heavy industrial environment was a pain. All day long in the shadows of these superstructure towers. Knowing there’s a warm sun… but never seeing it. I hope the colonies will offer a more peaceful working environment. It’ll be hard there too. No doubt. But it will be better! Not just because I won’t feel alone anymore.”

Endeavours Part One - Scene 3

‘Wave Goodbye’

“That’s the dream. At least when you’re looking for it here. Living in the higher levels of these skytowers. I never was so high up but I saw pictures of the most amazing sunsets you can imagine. My dreams lie beyond these towers and this planet. Can’t wait to get there. Can’t wait to see my own sunsets.”

Endeavours Part One - Scene 4

‘Leaving The Fields Of Steel’

“Looking down into this mess of a city it looks almost peaceful. A symbol of how far mankind came the last 500 years. All the magic we are able to do now and take for granted. All these amazing achievements. But we’re sill looking for the things we’ve always been looking for. Peace, family, hope, new goals and a better life.”

Endeavours Part One - Scene 5

‘All These Worlds Are Yours’

“I travelled into space maybe three or four times and the sight is still the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. It must be the saddest thing to work up here. Seeing this grand view but not being able to appreciate it anymore. That’ll never happen to me!”

Endeavours Part One - Scene 6

‘Begin A New Life’

“Oh, I almost forgot that funny prickling feeling when a ship enters the space dock and shifts gravity fields. That must be how true excitement really feels! Can’t wait to get through transition and board the ship to the colonies. I hope so much this endeavour will lead me somewhere good. For me it is quite a risk. I’m sure it will! Someone is waiting there for me.”

Endeavours Part One - Wallpaper Pack

Regards

signed

The Luminarium Exhibit #15

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

The Luminarium Exhibit #15

Here it is! ‘Sequential’ is the topic of the latest Exhibit release by The Luminarium Artgroup. It’s #15 now and it comes with some nice material. My personal favourites are by Finn and 021. The pack again contains submissions from all kinds of artistic fields. Digital Art, Space Art, Abstract, Photography and Music. Of course i got a piece in the collection too. The topic gave me the opportunity to do something i had in my mind a while. A little shortstory in pictures. I called it ‘Endeavours Part One‘ since it’s only the first part of a series i might continue one day. I’ll release the single pics with their story parts soon. So long enjoy the great art!

The Luminarium: WebsiteDeviantartShadowness

Regards

signed

Strange News (From Another Planet)

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011



STRANGE NEWS

Project name for this one was ‘assimilated’ until i found a title i had to use for this one. Now imagine mankind will make it some day… and meet other lifeforms (in peace!). How would a technological mix would visually break down the look of a city, that shares human as well as alien technology in its architecture? Of course this is all speculative and imaginary. The title i used is actually a 16min song that followed me through the making of this picture. “…And you will know us by the trail of dead” – Album: Tao Of The Dead. Awesome piece of music. My recommendation.

Now this one is a perfect example of a painter who has no idea what he’s doing. He’s letting guide himself from what the pic tells him. Excited like a little kid playing hide and seek. Well i basically just sat down and played with brushes and Photoshop. This time i used a plate i shot a few years ago in Berlin. I always knew this material could be useful someday. Now i finally found use for it. I’m pretty surprised what came off of it. Since pretty much nothing of the actual plate is left. Looking back at what i did so far, this pic surely has a unique approach and feel to it.

I think i got a little inspired by the style of concept guys like Sparth or Syd Mead. Everything Photoshop this time. No Vue or 3d elements in here. Well… not exactly. I created some brushes off of some of my scifi Vue buildings. That worked not bad here. The basic pic was done after 2 or 3 days. A lot of time went into (pretty much unnecessary) fine tuning. I had the time and used it to polish certain areas a little more than others. Just for fun.

I personally would say it’s one of my best pics. Really enjoyed making it. Hope you enjoy the view too!

Photoshop – 5000px wide – 1 week

Print Detail (Large File)

Progress/Plate (Large File)

Wallpapers: 1920×1200 – 1680×1050

wallpapers available

Regards

signed

Stranded

Monday, March 14th, 2011



STRANDED

For quite some time now i recognized that i don’t have lots of action pics in my portfolio. By that i mean pics where is really something happening in. Usually it’s quiet vistas and sceneries. Now i managed to do a pic with some action in it and i think it’s not too bad.

The landscape Vue render i used for this pic is actually a couple of months old. A result of my canyon experiments where ‘Red Canyon‘ originated from too. I found it looked interesting right away. It just had something missing and i invested some serious thinking into what it could be. The conclusion was that the landscape alone wasn’t exactly too fascinating to reach my current standards for a project. So i left it alone a while.

A few days ago i picked it up again, trying a few new ideas. Early on i had the idea to put a person on that one cliff there. To suggest the greatness of the actual landscape. Even if that adds a lot, it wasn’t too satisfying. Then i played around with painting and added that ship. Early on it started to look right somehow and i kept on doing it. A crash landed ship, in flames and very unfortunately positioned for any survivor. A pretty desperate situation. Yet you have this amazing alien planet vista. Guess our stranded folks don’t care too much about that.

Technically the base pic was done with Vue and reworked with Photoshop again. Textures, overpainting, color correction… pretty much the usual procedure for pics i’m doing this way.

Photoshop – Vue – 5000px wide

Print Detail

Wallpapers: 1920×1200 – 1680×1050

wallpapers available

Regards

signed

Undiscovered

Monday, January 24th, 2011



Undiscovered

This one is probably two years old. I did this one for a colleague of mine who worked on a scifi project at the time. They needed a vista for a specific scene and i tried myself on it. Unfortunately the project got canceled. I left this piece and took parts of it to create my ‘Red Dawn‘ project. I’m sure you recognize the mountains. However, i don’t want this scene to rot on my hard drive since there went a few hrs into it. It also doesn’t look too bad either. I like the desaturated bad weather look.

I also did a short animation test. It didn’t turn out too good but why not submit this one too. =) It’s always fun to see static pics in movement. Well… that’s at least my opinion.

Test Animation 720p (ca. 9mb)

Regards

signed

Valis Licentia

Sunday, December 12th, 2010



Valis Licentia

This picture is the perfect example of the famous ‘creative spark’. I never had the intention or plan to do a picture like this one. I never had a concept to this one in mind. I just sat down and worked it out. Everything fell to its place by accident when i was playing with the Vue 9 pre release version. Out of nowhere a creative flow started to happen.

It basically started with trying and playing with Vue again. Creating a nice mountain terrain and adding trees. Playing with atmosphere and lighting. This is actually how a lot of my personal projects come together and start out. Ultimately i had this nice mountain range, atmosphere and forest in front of me and thought… “yes… that’s it… go for it”. At this point no plans for a scifi setting. I also wanted a river in the scene. Some time went into the placing and adding and getting it right of the river part. Then the landscape part was done and i did a large multipass render of it. It took 18hrs to finish. That was early november i think. I really liked the result. The multipass also allowed me to extend the planning for the pic.

I thought around a while and found that some sort of scifi haven/port for ships would be a cool thing. So i added the towers. The original idea was to add one much closer to the camera on the left. But that did not work out well and completely ruined the composition for me. So i decided to move it farther back. That way the atosphere had much more space to unfold its nice detail and lighting. And the eye has a much more pleasant view on the overall scene. I decided to add more towers in the back to get some more depth into the scene. Not sure if that works 100%.

The Photoshop work, or ‘post work’, included refining of the atmosphere and bringing out details that i wanted to pop a bit more. Since a lot of elements, like the towers, were added in the process i had to do some extra integration work to make it all sit right in the image. I also added some atmospheric beams to bring out the atmosphere. I think that works nicely.

Not knowing what i was going to end up with was a nice thing. Even today i made last changes to the pic. Now every pic should have some sort of message huh? I guess what the pic is trying to say is that even highly developed races should be able to merge their structures into a foreign environment without disturbing it. Something ‘we’ are not able to do. The towers in the pic certainly have a very industrial look to them. Nonetheless they’re able to keep the environment untouched.

Photoshop – Vue – 5000px wide

Plates and Progress & Print Details

wallpapers available

Regards

signed

My Kingdom Awakes

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010



My Kingdom Awakes

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

wallpapers available

Regards

signed

HEIMAT DER SEELEN

Saturday, July 10th, 2010



Heimat der Seelen – Home of Spirits

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

wallpapers available

Regards

signed