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

Citizen Erazed

“It’s rotten, it stinks and there definitely happened something bad!”. That would be the best description of what we see here in this concept painting. A commissioned concept piece where i had to create a ruined destroyed cityscape. The pic will also be used in an animation. The pic itself again is something i always wanted to do. A nice addition to my portfolio.

Thx Michal.

15hrs – photoshop – vue – intuos 3

Check here for an 2.5d matte painting animation of the pic.

25hrs – after effects – photoshop

Regards

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

D³SCR!PTION

Imagine a distant planet or parallel world where there is only forests, mountains and exotic animals. And all life springs off mysterious mile high mountains that can bind the energy of the planets inner forces to create an ecology that is unique throughout the whole known universe.

TECHN!CAL DETA!LS

Here we have another digital matte painting. This time i worked a lot with photos and less with 3d or painting. It was quite a task to get all the photos look right with the lighting etc. I don’t think i succeeded 100%. Nonetheless it’s, for me, a quite nice result. Something different for my gallery.

35hrs – intuos3 – photoshop – 5500px wide – 300dpi

Wallpapers can be found in the gallery.

Special Widescreen 1680 Wp.

See here for Print Detail.

See here for various concept stages.

See here for plate i started plate with.

Regards

D³SCR!PTION

No big story behind this one. I just needed something new to make and here we have the result of 2 weeks of work. I’m still surprised how good it feels to create pictures like that one. Once you’re done with the picture, it’s like you let the people look into the photoalbum of your imagination. Skim through each page and discover new worlds.

A little explanation to the title. When i started the painting i did not have that ruin sit on that mountain thingie there. The mountain then looked much like a wolf teeth peeking into the sky. I never got away from that title… so i left it. A friend of mine made fun of the title and named it “World Of Lurking Faeries”. Bullseye.

TECHN!CAL DETA!LS

Once again i worked with digital matte painting techniques. Lots of photo reference. The waterfalls were created with 3dsmax. It was just a test i did. The render suited the painting… so i used the waterfalls in it.

Print Detail: here (2,5mb)

25hrs – intuos3 – photoshop – 5000px wide – 300dpi

Wallpapers can be found in the gallery.

Regards

D³SCR!PTION

Another one of my big ideas done. I wanted to do that kind of image for years! Now i finally could do it. Since i saw the fellowship of the ring on the big screen i had this kind of pic in mind. When the first part of the lotr trilogy hit the big screen i barely started my journey through scenery art. back then i did not know that i would come that far with my work. today i think… it was a long way! and there is still so much to learn. special thanks to gary tonge for some composition hints! helped a lot!

TECHN!CAL DETA!LS

not much to say this time. this time i worked with photo and painting only. manips included. no terragen or c4d. please check this link [link] for more info about how the pic was done. i worked with two psd files. the first psd to establish the basic background elements. the second psd to build in the details.

25hrs – intuos3 – 6000px wide – 300dpi – basics psd: 304mb/adv. elements psd: 451mb

inspired by: dylan cole & yanick dusseault (their lotr matte work)