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

DIGITALPhoto Photoshop hat mich eingeladen einen Digital Matte Painting Workshop zu verfassen für die ausgabe 02/2010. Das magazin erscheint alle zwei monate und ist randvoll mit nützlichen tips zum thema bildbearbeitung. Das bild welches ich zu diesem workshop erstellt habe kann man sich hier mal ansehen. City View war anfangs nur eine inspiration zu einem bild von Kai Bellmann, einem freund der vor kurzem in Vietnam unterwegs war. Dort hat er einige sehr schöne fotos machen können. Unteranderem eben auch diese strasse. Glücklicherweise hat das magazin angeklopft und ich hatte die perfekte gelegenheit etwas mit diesem foto anzustellen. Dabei habe ich versucht dem leser ein paar meiner techniken im feld Digital Matte Painting näher zu bringen.

Vielen Dank an DIGITALPhoto für diese möglichkeit.

Schaut mal rein. Es ist durchaus einen blick wert!

Digital Artist is still a very young magazine that comes from the same publisher like the Advanced Photoshop Magazine. The Digital Artist Magazine focusses on a more wider spectrum of tools though and gives you the chance to explore a wider spectrum of artists. In case of the workshops it shows you how to combine different tools in one artwork and how to seamlessly combine the various elements the different tools give you. In my case i got invited to write a workshop about extending photos. In that particular case i took some Digital Matte Painting techniques to get things done. I took a fairly boring snapshot i took in Berlin and added a sort of futuristic skyline to it. Nothing too exciting too but sexy enough to get the techniques explained. Ultimately i really like the result. Looks cool. Check it out!

Thanks to Jo Cole for the great support.

Regards

Für die 60. ausgabe des englischen magazins habe ich einen workshop zu ‘Artificial’ schreiben dürfen. Dieser artikel ist nun auch in der deutschen ausgabe des Advanced Photoshop Magazine erhältlich. Darin wird erklärt wie man mit Terragen eine gute vorlage zu weiterführenden arbeiten in Photoshop erstellen kann. Wie man eine richtig coole szene erstellen kann. Auf der disc zum heft kann man zudem nachsehen wie die Photoshop datei aufgebaut ist. Ein vorteil an diesem projekt war das man es ohne grafiktablett möglich ist. Das bild ist von 2005 und damals habe selbst ich noch ohne tablet gearbeitet. Also auch für einsteiger interessant. Soviel mal hierzu… :)

Schaut mal rein. Es ist durchaus einen blick wert!

Regards

After some brief experience with the Advanced Photoshop Magazine in the past i now had the opportunity to write a tutorial for the UK Magazine’s issue #60. I picked my ‘Artificial’ artwork for this tutorial. That’s mainly because i made this picture without a tablet. Which means that theoretically everyone with a standard pc setup can create something like this. Another reason was that Terragen was a request for the tutorial. My artwork has a very unique approach to Terragen. To explain that to a wider range of people surely widens the horizon of possibilities. Even if i switched to Vue now it was fun to go back and revisit Terragen for that tutorial. Beside the Terragen part i’m explaining how i did the Photoshop work in this picture. Back then i worked a lot with blending modes. A lot of playing around what worked and what not. Now with a gfxtablet i more flexible when it comes to transparencies. But i still check out how blending modes can affect the look of a picture. Sometimes it gives some fascinating results or helps you out when you are creatively stuck at some point.

I also packed tons of material from the project on the DVD because i wasn’t able to go into too deep specifics within the tutorial! So if you don’t know further then check the PSD files. I’m sure they can be very helpful. There’s planets, textures and the whole artwork itself with all the layers. I’m sure it’s a fun peek into these files!

Advanced Photoshop Issue #60 is available now! Check it out!

There is also new painting new stuff ahead! That means some nifty wallpapers on the way! =)

Stay tuned! Thank you very much.

Regards

PIXELARTS is a Digital Art Magazine that focusses on individual artists as well as Production and Studios. It’s rich of pictures and inspiring artwork for everyone who is interested in the matter. Most importantly… it’s free! I had the honour to be featured in this latest issue 13. I just checked out this months issue and again it holds some very inspiring work on its pages. Check it out online or download the full (heavy) version!

Regards

If you are a serious digital artist then this award is on your list of things you want to receive someday. That is at least how i see it. I’m a long time member of CGTalk now and i have seen some really really breathtaking artwork there. I always looked up to these people and their work. I can remember a time when i was very fresh with digital art and photoshop generally. When i looked through the Cgtalk forums i dreamed of being such a great artist with such amazing vision. I never thought i could get there too. Today i made it and it means so much to me. I almost missed the mail from Paul Hellard. But then i saw his name and checked the subject line and ‘boom’. I just got up from bed and my day was already made! Hard work pays off! You just need to hold on to it and it really can pay off. =)

Thanks to the people who supported me over the last few years as well as the great digital artists on this planet who create new worlds and places that inspire people like me to create their own worlds!

Find the cgtalk post here.

This is one happy day for me!

Regards

Derek from Jitzul.com invited me to an interview for his site. Much like i, with my ‘Meet The Inspiration’ series, he’s interviewing people he’s interested in. So i joined his interview archive and talked about various things. It’s a fun read! Feel free to check it out here.

Regards

After a small feature in the german edition of the advanced photoshop magazine i got invited to the uk version, with having a picture on the cover of their celebrated 50th issue of the magazine. A congratiulation to the makers of the magazine and a big thank you for the invitation! It’s quite a nice feeling to have your artwork on a cover of a professional magazine. Even if it’s only filling a small part of the cover. A brilliant idea, well executed. I enjoy it and hope the readers enjoy this great cover as well. :)

Beside that i want to say there were not much submissions to the site lately, but i promise to upload some new stuff soon. I have a finished painting, another addition to the comcept series, and another big one almost done. The first one is sci-fi’ish, techy and the second one more landscape based because it’s the result of an extensive vue render test i did a few weeks ago. I’ve also tried myself a bit in vehicular design. Spaceships, fighters and stuff. =) Finally learned a technique that really helps me with stuff like that. These will find their way into the concept art gallery hopefully sooner than later.

Oh and by the way, the picture featured on the cover is named HELL, and can be found here.

New stuff ahead! Stay tuned! Thank you very much.

Regards

Some of you might know the ‘advanced photoshop’ magazine from the UK. Two months ago they started to produce a magazine version for the german area too. It’s something i waited for quite a while now. Finally a magazine that covers the digital imaging interests i have. In germany, so far, there were only the usual photography magazine (tons of them) and digital production magazines… mainly thought for super professionals and very expensive. Alright the adv. photoshop magazine isn’t a cheapy too, i admit that. But it’s much more my taste than the dull/uninspiring others.

Oh yes. Almost forgot. There’s a small feature and interview about me in the 2nd issue of the magazine. That was fun!

Regards

Johne Cook from raygun revival magazine emailed me a few weeks ago for a short interview and the permission to use some of my paintings. I took myself some time to gather some info about the magazine and came to the conclusion that i really loved the idea/concept behind the magazine. Much like the ‘amazing stories’ magazines from the 50s and 60s this mag gives unknown science fiction and fantasy writers a plattform to publish their stories. Issue 46, beside the stories, also features some of my work and a short interview. Check it out if you are interested!

Regards

A few weeks ago i mentioned an exhibition. Which is exactly opening this weekend in my old hometown bitterfeld. It was quite some work to get the pics up there. Now everthing is prepared and i hope it all works out nicely. I’m not overly excited but nonetheless it’s nice and i’m glad to have the chance to see the printed pictures in good size. Among the pictures, which were sponsored by ORWO pixelnet, are examples from all through the series. A bit from everything. A colourful mix. Now lets see if i can get something out of it. I hope i can post some pics when i’m home again. The heat is killing me here and i need my own bed desperately! For now a thanks to everyone who was helping us pulling it off.

*Wasserzentrum Bitterfeld

*Pixelnet

Regards