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

Comcept 6

Fiddled around in vue for this one. Like all the com-cept pieces this is a pure just for fun painting. Nothing too detailed… just there to roughly nail the idea onto the digital canvas. I like the result here. I think i got some nice depth in into it.

Original Specs:

3760px wide – 7 hrs – vue – photoshop

Vue Plate

Regards

The Legacy

My first painting in 2008. After a few more quiet settings in my paintings I had to create an ‘action’ piece for my portfolio. A painting which contains some eyecatching elements. Generally I would say this painting was not a planned one. It evolved while I played with it. The longer I worked on it the more detail I explored within the picture. I constantly got ideas on how to make it even more interesting. I guess you could interpret this painting as a recapitulation of my last years experience, just in case you want to have an explanation of a deeper meaning in this painting. In the end, once again, I worked too long on it. But the overall result is satisfying. It’s a nice addition to my collection… and very different to my usual works so far.

Technique wise I worked with a matte painting mixture again. I would settle the pic more into’paintings’ though. It is worked out very rough since I wanted a concept art like look. The new thing I tried in this painting was to use filters. A lot of filters. Mainly to create a certain kind of look for the brush strokes and other elements like textures. I still have to work on that technique and I think it will help me with a few things in the future. To add interesting foliage i used vuedesprit to create some stand ins.

30hrs – photoshop – vue – intuos 3 – 5200px wide

This wp pack contains 2 wp versions in different sizes:

1600×1200 – 1280×1024 – 1024×768 – 800×600 – ca 4mb

Detail shots to see the influence of the filters i used: link

Wallpapers can be found here.

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

It took me a while to find a title for this one. I remembered the belgariad books by david eddings and searched my mind for a place that would fit for my painting. I studied the maps that are in the books and found the ‘arend’. The arend divides the lands of arendia and tolnedra. The arend flows through woody areas, which really fits to my painting, and ends in the lands where once was the mighty/legendary battle of vo mimbre. Where the people of the west fought and won against the large army lead by the evil god torak. The evil god got wounded and did fell into a sleep… until the child of light comes to challenge him. To decide all things that are and will be… for ever.

So much for a little insight into the story of the belgariad saga.

TECHN!CAL DETA!LS

I started this one as a futuristic concept actually… like… 3 months ago. Not really a big time project back then. Just something to train some basics. Over the time i got a pretty solid scifi setup that was looking promising. I wasn’t too happy with it and asked some close friends what to do. One of my ideas was to go for a nature only scene. Haven’t done that in a while. When i got that done and i looked at the pic… it was empty somehow. A close friend told me to try it with some sort of fortress or castle… waterfalls… all the full blown fantasy package. I did so. The result looks ok i guess. Surely 150 layers. Again some kind of digital matte painting thing. I was not going for a super realistic look. I just wanted to visualize an atmosphere… a feeling…

Print Detail: [link]

Different Work Stages: [link]

30hrs – intuos3 – photoshop – 4300px wide – 300dpi

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – Drawcrowd – CGSociety

D³SCR!PTION

This one was actually intended to be a fantasy novel book cover. So i was going for a portrait setup… instead of a cinemascope one. Though i prefer the cinemascope crop. Whatever. There’s actually no big story behind that pic. I started to work with some of my new mountain stocks which i got from a trip into the alps recently. Stitched together some photo elements and extended them with paintings. With lots of scifi stuff from me in the past… this pic should be a nice addition to my gallery. Since it’s more fantasy based.

TECHN!CAL DETA!LS

I guess you could call this thing a digital matte painting. I wouldn’t do so. It’s a strange mixture of pure painting and pure matte painting. Well i, at least, can tell that i worked a lot with matte painting techniques. The top of the mountain is a complete extension. The path in front is 80% painted. I did not work too much into detail on that path in front since too much detail would have stolen the show the background actually gives you. Again i tried lot of new things and i think i got a acceptable result.

creation visualization: [link]

print detail preview: [link]

30hrs – intuos3 – photoshop – 5500px high – 300dpi – project folder: 1.8gb – psd: 460mb

digital matte painting – 10hrs – intuos3 – photoshop – terragen – 3200px wide

Here the tg render i started with: [link] (the original had 3000×2000)

D³SCR!PTION

Here we see something that is intended to be a vision of heaven. Green lands. Mountains. Mixed… with a bit fantasy. That was the goal. I think i reached it nicely. Not perfect from my pov… but i leave the final decision to you. I kinda like the final version.

TECHN!CAL DETA!LS

Once again a lot of time went into this pic. I started with concept sketches. Tried a lot of things and invested some time into that stage. So i soon had a bunch of psds in my project folder. Which had 1,2gb in the end. Too much for my taste. However. Once i had a fitting idea and the client gave his ok, i started to work out the details. Added various elements and textures. My biggest problem were the buildings. The client wanted them clean… perfect. I’m one of those guys that likes to add a weathered look because that makes it look more realistic. Nonetheless the client wanted them to be shiny and bright. I tried my best. The result is pretty ok i think.

40hrs – intuos3 – 6000px high – 300dpi – basics psd: 150mb / adv. elements psd: 250mb

PRINT DETAIL: (ca 2.6mb): [link]