TIGAER-DESIGN.COM_.v5

Halcyon Awaits

Here we have a picture that resulted from an actually different picture idea. Originally I wanted to go for a more fantasy like approach and create something with a big fortress. I cannot exactly say what specifically happened but it turned into a Scifi pic. Although you can see parts of the original idea in the setup of the final picture. What we see here is intended to be some kind of holiday resort. A place where people go to have some fun, find peace and enjoy nature a bit. Even though I leave interpreations, about what this place really is, open to the viewer. It’s certainly a nice panorama of nature and technology.

Technically speaking it’s my Vue & Photoshop mixture again. This time though I attacked the creation of mountains with Worldmachine. A great tool for creating terrains, and sometimes easier to handle than Vue, when it comes to achieving a certain look. For the structures I used a bunch of models and reworked them to my needs. Among them a couple of Stonemason objects which you can buy on DAZ3d.com. These give you a great starting ground for your ideas. I also want to mention Sebastien Hue who created a model after a concept I did. I used that model for the small flyers, zipping about on the right. The bridge objects I mainly created with Vector and the Text Tool in Vue. It may sound strange but hey, it worked. =) Overall the creation process was tedious but fun.

This pic also made it into last year’s E-On Software Environment Competition finals. Even though it did not win anything, I still think that’s a great thing, and worth to mention. =)

Vue – Photoshop – 5000px wide

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Arcady’s Epiphany

Arcady, very early on, showed a huge fascination with all kinds of adventure stories. The traditional heroes and their bold undertakings to rescue a damsel in distress. Soon enough she started to think about becoming an author herself. “Someday, when I’m grown up!” She used to say. On her 12th birthday morning, her father decided to take her out into the field. Arcady had no idea what her father had in mind, but she saw him smile and his eyes shine bright like a star. “A place that always made me imagine my own adventures!”, he said. “Something inspirational!” Arcady could not resist, smiled at her dad and made herself ready for the trip. A quick breakfast and some words Arcady will never forget, when her dad said, “Time to write your own stories, darling!”.

This one was done for the 20th Exhibit of the Luminarium artgroup, created between October and December last year. The topic was ‘Adventure’ and I immediately had some ideas in my head.

Inspiration for this came from… I don’t know. Could be a mixture of things I saw in videogames and movies… as well as descriptions in books (and no, I haven’t seen Burton’s Alice yet) =). I was also playing around with Xenodream and its fractals. Its feature to export fractals to a 3d format enables creativity to fiddle around with a lot of ideas. The exported 3d fractals were easy to import into Vue. So I started to setup the scene until the almighty creative spark lit up.

Next stage was Photoshop. Again I used the Multipass options of Vue to render out additional elements to enhance the scene. A lot of work went into making everything fit and creating a nice depth. The original render already worked well but, as usual, I started to enhance the atmosphere part in Photoshop too. The plate pics for the planets were created with Vue as well. I’m not the most awesome space artist but I think the planets do look good enough. I also allowed myself to go for some really strong colours. I really wanted this to be an eyecatching pic, even in thumbnail size. Eventually I got to a point where I was rather pleased with the result.

When it comes to using fractal 3d objects then it’s highly possible you’ll see more of that in the future. =)

Hope you like what you see here. Enjoy!

The short little snippet of story is inspired by a character in Isaac Asimovs’s ‘Foundation’ books.

This pic is part of the 20th Exhibit by ‘The Luminarium Artgroup‘. A lot of great art for your inspiration! Check here.

Vue – Xenodream – Photoshop – 6000px wide

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FOUNDATION

What we have here is a picture that I would consider a quickie. A mashup of my earlier Scifi cityscape pictures. It still took a while to get it done but the general composition was set very early on and kept throughout the making. Normally I tend to sometimes drastically change elements of a picture even within the making. Always depending on how good things work out. Sometimes you have to work out things and look at them, to fully understand if something in a picture works or not. Had not to do this hassle for this one. Instead I did a lot of finetuning, especially in the front parts. The city I kept rather basic without investing too much time and detail on it. Just wanted to keep the background more rough. Slammed some textures and lights on it. Does the job and creates enough depth for what I wanted. Something that works really nice is the sense of business that a city like this would generate I think.

Technically it’s, as usual, Vue to create me a base picture to work on. In Photoshop I added quite a load of textures and made them fit somewhat nicely within the scene. I added masses of lights to suggest even more detail. The lights required some time to place them good in the scene. Then I tried to add a little more depth with some atmospheric glow and haze. Overall it works good enough for what I had in mind for the picture.

The docked ship in front was originally a concept drawing I did a while ago. My french Luminarium colleague Sebastien Hue managed to create a nice 3d model from my rough drawing. So a big thanks to him! Pay him a visit here. You’ll see some variations of that ship in future works soon, that’s for sure.

6000 wide – Vue – Photoshop

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THE ELLENSHAW CORRIDOR

This one could be seen as a sister project to my ‘From Here I Can Almost See The Stars‘. I basically used the same city scene, along with a few changes. Originally the picture was created to work out some material, I could use for chapters on a German workshop DVD (more info), I got invited to do. The energy spheres and ship engine trails for example. I previously used energy spheres, as a detail in my work, and really liked how it turned out. On the other hand I wanted to experiment with a darker toned atmosphere. Work with harder contrasts. Which turned out rather good in this picture.

You could say it’s another generic scifi cityscape scene. Nonetheless I hope the lighting and perspective is at least something that stands out in this one. As usual I used Vue to create a base of operation. Several separated renders helped me to get in all the elements I wanted. A lot of Photoshop then helped to get in the details, that make this picture look alive.

It does look like a place you can easily get lost in. And our guy there is probably thinking the same. But I’m sure he knows his ways around this place.

5000 wide – Vue – Photoshop

If the German language is in your skillset, here is some info about the workshop.

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THE MOEBIUS PASSAGE

This is a picture I started a long time ago. It started as a little experiment and turned into something bigger than I intended. I also wanted to use this picture for a little training exercise, working in that format/aspect ratio. I haven’t done so in quite a while. I must admit that I did myself hard finding a good enough composition. First when I played around with tilted camera views I found a suitable setup. That made the pic come to life for me. Added quite a nice and dynamic feel.

Technically it’s less a digital matte painting approach than a digital painting style. I did not want to strangle myself with trying to go as photoreal as possible. I just wanted to play with this one. Again the layout of the scene was done with Vue. In Photoshop I reworked quite some parts and added textures here and there. The overpainting was fun to do. Additional renders helped to implement more ships and the foreground elements. I really enjoy the view here but I doubt it is something for people with fear of heights.

When I was in the last stages of the creative process I heard that the fabulous Jean Giraud aka Moebius passed away. I admit that I don’t know too much about the person, but I can clearly see how his art influenced tons of Scifi movies. And me… well I’m influenced by these movies. That’s for sure. So I did not have a title for the pic and decided to dedicate this one to Jean Giraud. His art will definitely live on and keep the memory alive.

5000×3333 – 300dpi – Vue – Photoshop

Wallpaper Pack contains two wallpaper versions in 1920×1200 and 1680×1050.

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ANCIENT MEMORIES

Holy cow, it’s been a while! Over the past weeks and months I was quite busy and did not have much time. Enough whining! Yes, here we have a new one. Finally. This one was actually done for the latest exhibit of The Luminarium. Its topic was ‘Gaia’, which makes it pretty much a nature theme. I also combined the creation process with a video workshop, that might be interesting for especially the germans. I’m not explaining the whole creation process… but how to implement atmosphere and certain elements into the scene. But more on that later.

I always wanted to try myself on a, by nature devoured, city. Overgrown by trees and plants of all sorts. The picture does not have a particular story. The message I wanted to get accross simply is, that we should be careful with what we do. Right now I have the feeling that mankind is straight on the edge of either ruining it all or finding a way to get it all together. Reading and watching the news says we’re closer to the fail than the success. The city in the pic is a symbol for a hard and painful learning process. Obviously there was a civilization that did not make it. But there is still hope, overall. And that’s the person. She may be a simple explorer or even more specific… an archeologist. Whatever she is, the sight of that city will fascinate her. Will make her go down and explore it. As long as someone is willing, to do the research that may help us to understand the failures of the past, there is a chance of learning. So much for the wishful thinking.

The truth is that the world, now more than ever, is filled with ignorance. But enough preachy talk.

The picture was created with Vue and heavily postworked with Photoshop. Especially within the city, a lot of overpainting and detailing happened. Several Vue renders helped me to extend the scene, even after I started with the post process. Overall the pic was fun to do. All the little details help it to come alive.

This picture is also part of The Luminarium’s 18th artpack release ‘Gaia’. Some pretty amazing and inspiring work there. Info can be found here.

4500px wide – Vue – Photoshop

If the German language is in your skillset, here is some info about the video workshop.

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FROM HERE I CAN ALMOST SEE THE STARS

For a long time now I have a certain image in my head that I still/yet have to make. The picture we have here brought me a little closer to the image I have in my head. The pic I have in mind is something with a giant huge space port/dock structure. And yes, other artists already have made very awesome attempts on that. But hey, I want my own super cool space port! =D

What we have here is indeed a cool space port kind of thing and I really honestly like the result of my attempt here. I really had some fun playing with the colours. I wanted to go for colours I rarely used so far. So this pic will make a nice addition to my portfolio. I’m still undecided if we have a morning or evening scene in this pic. That’s what I leave to the viewers. Yes the scene is artistically nothing entirely new but I think it just looks sort of soothing.

Technically it’s heavy Vue work again. It started, like so often, playing around with objects and atmospheres. Originally I was thinking about creating a space scene. Then I had this great atmosphere that reacted so nicely with my objects that I couldn’t resist to make it another Scifi cityscape. The rendering happened in various steps again. First the city. Then the clouds. And last but not least the flying little ships. Throughout the Photoshop phase I continued rendering out smaller parts to replace some others I wasn’t to happy with. I still love the Multipass options in Vue. This makes it rather easy to exchange elements.

In Photoshop then happened the compositing of all the different elements Vue gave me with it’s renders. A lot of fixing, texturing and overpainting happened in the next stage. The atmosphere got some pushes too. The final result then really became a moody Scifi scene that allows the viewer to dive into.

This picture is also part of The Luminarium’s 17th artpack release ‘Illuminate IV’. Some pretty amazing and inspiring work there. Info can be found here.

I really had some fun with this one and hope you people dig the view as much as I do!

5000px wide – Vue – Photoshop

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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! =)

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LAETITIA CAELIA

We previously discovered this world with ‘The Undiscovered Country‘. Laetitia Caelia, what means something like ‘joyful heaven’, demanded to be explored a little deeper though.

By exploration I mean the creative process. Originally this was an attempt at participating at this years E-On Software Environment Competition 2011. So I seriously invested a ton of time into creating a scene that looks like something. All Vue… no post work allowed. I had a really hard time being restricted to Vue alone. The resulting scene was ‘something’. But ultimately nothing with a chance to win. However… I learned a few more things when doing this scene. Especially technical aspects of Vue.

No matter how the results of the contest were, I created the pic with the plan to do my usual Photoshop stuff on it anyway. Now I know the winners were much better than my attempt. However… can’t throw all the work and render time away, right? And there was some render time. Phew. At the hottest time of the year. They should seriously consider holding that contest in the winter months. Seriously. I mean my machine was stable all the time! (Which is a true wonder!) But the temperatures it created in my room here were beyond… there’s no word for it. Evil it was. The final render took probably 40hrs.

For the weird rock formations I used Zbrush. These were fun to create. Less fun was it to import them into Vue. Very heavy models. And yeah, absolutely… I’m no modeling expert and don’t know anything about efficient modeling. These models put my machine on the edge but it worked out. Good enough for me. Like I previously said the rendering phase was a pain. In Photoshop then I had quite some fun adding additional textures. The scene already had a great depth and Photoshop helped me to push that even more. The lighting received a nice push as well. Overpainting helped me fixing and extending certain elements.

I had a real hard time finding the right color grading for it. I, in fact, have tons of test versions lying around here. Even with this final one I’m not 100% happy. At some point you have to mentally stop thinking about it though. Or you’re going George Lucas about it… never stopping to change stuff. (Stop to ruin your movies George!)

Again I imagine this picture is showing a world/planet that was just discovered and is now being explored. It must be a great feeling sitting in one of these jets there… just having fun with the environment. Diving through the canyons and enjoying the views no one has ever seen before.

A camera mapping try on this was not planned but done anyway. Quite some time that went into this too. But I refreshed my knowledge about the techniques and again learned a few new things there.

Hope you can gain some inspiration from it all.

Vue – Zbrush – Photoshop – After Effects – 5000px wide

Exploring Laetitia Caelia – 720p/Sound – Video – On Vimeo

Exploring Laetitia Caelia – 720p/Sound – Video – On Youtube

Laetitia Caelia – Quicktime/720p/Sound – Video (50mb)

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LAKE FIREFLY

This picture was a submission for ‘The Luminarium‘ Artgroup. Their topic was ‘Asylum‘. My interpretation of the meaning can pretty much be seen in this picture. It’s a more peaceful approach. Here we have two people on a field trip to find some peace. But the environment looks a little different don’t you think? Of course I wanted to put in a little Fantasy/Scifi component. So our two friends here are either in the future on a distant planet or in an alternate universe. But that’s a taste thing. =D

Technically this picture was the first one I created with the Vue10 release. The random rock creator works really nice and is a good addition to the tool. The huge wing like mountain thingies were created with XenoDream. A very interesting tool that I might explore a little more in fhe future. Of course a lot of post work with Photoshop again. I even played around with creating some alien looking trees there. Maybe that was the christmas spirit coming through a bit. Just a little bit. =D This may also be the last piece of art for 2011 and I think it gives a nice conclusion with its mood.

Vue – Photoshop – 5000px wide

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