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

D³SCR!PTION

Long way home is a picture that truly deserves its title. For several reasons. One of the main reasons is the way i started to work on this monster. I got a picture/photo plate from detail24 since we both decided to do some collab thing for a dmchat mixed media challenge on deviantart.com. I asked for something with water. I got something with water. Not exactly what i expected to be honest. (check plate here: plate) The pic, nonetheless, was/is useful. I started to doodle around but only crap came up. I needed/wanted a waterfall in it – that was the deal. I left the project for a few days and restarted. I soon found out that i approached my idea from the wrong side. As soon as i had the right path for my idea i started to play around with my resources.

I’m not doing a lot of concept work when i work on my paintings… i’m just working them out. And while i work on them… it is like i’m discovering a completely new world. Every new detail i add… adds more life to the world i’m exploring. I guess that’s why i invest so much work and time into my ideas. I want these worlds to be tangible. May sound weird but that’s it.

Recently i really enjoy it to stretch my paintings over both of my screens to see them in full beauty. And it opens my heart. It truly looks like a window to a different world.

TECHN!CAL DETA!LS

Digital matte painting for the win. Once again. Did i mention that i love it? I started with rough work to get myself an idea about the picture setup. The first thing i blocked in was the waterfall. The second part were the mountains. Then the detail work started. Layer for layer i added details, highlights, shadows, foliage to the picture. Made the different photo implementations match the lighting i needed. Added the planets and played heavily with the colors. The planets were an issue that one day. Check the concept stages link below… you’ll see what i mean. First the planets make this pic really look otherworldly/off earth. They add so much wonderful depth.

Damn, how crazy beautiful must a sunrise look there? =)

I even got the suggestion to add water to the bottom of the waterfalls. I tried the idea but it did not work out as expected. It took off a lot of the mysterious look. So i kept the depths in there since it kept alive the feeling of the unknown… “where are the falls leading to…?” – “what’s down there…?” – you know what i mean.

In the end… it really was a challange for me to create something magic off that photo. But i did it. Mission Accomplished.

25hrs – intuos3 – photoshop – 5300px wide – 240dpi

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – CGSociety

Wallpapers can be found in the gallery.
See here for Print Detail.
See here for various concept stages.
See here for plate i started plate with.
Special Widescreen 1680 Wp.

VISIT HIM – detail24 – be careful, he bites – but has some tasty photography!

Regards

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 14th, 2007 at 13:26 and is filed under Paintings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.