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Endeavours – Welcome Home

Monday, August 28th, 2017



Endeavours – Welcome Home

“Finally! I see them waiting for me! Can this shuttle go faster please?”

Of this second part of my Endeavours series I may like this one the most. It’s probably also the one I invested the most time into. I played around with a couple of ideas and elements within the pic. I wanted it to be moody and needed the lighting to be right. Something ‘golden hour’ like. I added a ton of lightsources to get a satisfying feel for the overall scene. Hence the render times went up a bit once it came to redering the final plate. It also marks some sort of a turning point in the little story. We’re finally where our protagonist wanted to go and we meet his little family. This pic was also the one that gave the initial idea spark for the Towers on this planet. And yeah, I didn’t necessarily do the images in order. A lot of jumping back and forth between them kept the creative juices flowing and also produced some neat last minute ideas.

As usual I used Vue to set up the scene. The characters were done with DAZ3d. The house I created from scratch in C4d. The renders didn’t come out ultra clean so I did go in an fix quite some stuff in Photoshop. There I also enhanced the lighting and atmosphere. I ended up using some photo plates and painting here and there to add/suggest additional detail in the landscape. Final mood tuning happened in Lightroom.

6000×2739 – Vue – C4D – Photoshop – Lightroom

Plate

ENDEAVOURS Part One – Six

ENDEAVOURS Part Seven

ENDEAVOURS Part Eight

ENDEAVOURS Part Nine

ENDEAVOURS Part Ten

ENDEAVOURS Part Eleven

ENDEAVOURS Part Twelve

The artwork on:
DeviantartArtstationDrawcrowdCGSocietyBehance

wallpapers available

Regards

signed

Endeavours – I Shall Pass

Wednesday, August 2nd, 2017



Endeavours – I Shall Pass

“Almost there! Like giants protecting a treasure. My wife told me that every tower comes with a different pattern. They suspect that these patterns can even change, which must be quite a sight! I just spoke to her and she suggested not to forget to breathe when seeing the towers up close! A sight to behold. The shuttle needs at least 5 more minutes. Very long 5 minutes. Almost home!”

Now this one is a little special as it wasn’t part of the original second leg of artworks for the series and slipped in while I worked on something else and got inspired. I loved the look and scale and definitely wanted to add it to the series as an complementary piece. To show the towers a little more. I was creating a preview piece for my 8k heighfield terrain freebie when inspiration hit me. I liked how the lighting of the scene complimented the detail of the terrain and started playing around by adding the towers. A small stream of light suggests our small little planetary transport pod, zipping through the air. I really wanted to show the dimensions here and the scale works great. I’m also happy how uncomplicated (compared to my other stuff) the scene comes across.

Created, as usual, with Vue, to create a base to work from in Photoshop. I used my freebie The Ghost terrain and its materials and masks to create the landscape. Layout of the scene was done fairly quickly. Invested some detail work here and there nonetheless. In Photoshop I fixed some parts of the render, added some textures and atmospheric effects.

6000×2739 – Vue – World Machine – C4D – Photoshop – Lightroom

Plate

ENDEAVOURS Part One – Six

ENDEAVOURS Part Seven

ENDEAVOURS Part Eight

ENDEAVOURS Part Nine

ENDEAVOURS Part Ten

ENDEAVOURS Part Eleven

wallpapers available

The artwork on:
DeviantartArtstationDrawcrowdCGSocietyBehance

Regards

signed

Endeavours – Port Fenster

Sunday, July 16th, 2017



Endeavours – Port Fenster

“This trip felt like it took 6 years or an eternity! Finally approaching Port Fenster and the town of Valley Call. Imagined it bigger. From what I can see this environment looks very close to what I know from old pictures of the old Earth – except the towers. Look at these towers! They’re gigantic!”

For the most part of our journey we’ve been either in up the air or in space. It’s time to get back to the ground! Here we see our ship in its last appearance during a landing procedure. We see a small town here, which could best be described as a colony. It’s safe to assume that this place is destined to grow quite a bit in the years to come. Therefore I aimed for an established look and not something too fresh. It’s also not the only place we left our mark on here on this planet. There are small settlements all over the place. But this little town is one of the main places, managing the colonization process and all that comes with it. Although not everyone is allowed to just apply for a home there. This planet demands a more selective process. At least for now.

For the scene I used Vue and some assets I bought via DAZ. I modified these assets so they helped me building this little town. It works good enough but I’m not super entirely happy with it. Which goes in line with the more experimental approach of the pieces in this series. Some things work better than others. =) The mountains/landscape was created via World Machine. “This alien planet looks kinda like Earth!”, you say? Yes, it does… there’s a reason for it I hope to explain in an upcoming series of images. For the foreground I used some HQ trees made by Aron Kamolz. Thanks buddy! =)

4500×2054 – Vue – World Machine – C4D – Photoshop – Lightroom

Plate

ENDEAVOURS Part One – Six

ENDEAVOURS Part Seven

ENDEAVOURS Part Eight

ENDEAVOURS Part Nine

ENDEAVOURS Part Ten

ENDEAVOURS Part Eleven

The artwork on:
DeviantartArtstationDrawcrowdCGSocietyBehance

wallpapers available

Regards

signed

Endeavours – Forget The Way We Lived

Monday, May 1st, 2017



Endeavours – Forget The Way We Lived

“It’s finally happening. Barely sleeped last night. Boarded the ship that will take me to my loved ones. My new home. Can’t wait to get there. Can’t wait to welcome that new life. The view from up here is stunning. It really gives perspective. I wonder, will I miss this place?”

In 2011 I started an open ended series of pieces, trying to tell a (even though really basic) open ended story. These were done for The Luminarium. The artgroup had picked a topic for their 15th release which was titled ‘Sequential‘. So I tried myself in creating pictures that could also be comic panels. Now we have 2017 and I finished the second part. Again I used this project to play around and try a couple of new things. Some more, some less successful.

So I took off where I left so many years ago by opening up the scene file I kept of the space station. As usual I used a Vue render as a plate and took it into Photoshop. There I added textures and played around with it quite a bit. I did not work super pixel perfect and wanted to keep it a little rough. I wasn’t happy with it for a long time. I originally approached it by going with a widescreen/cinematic format. Whatever I tried, nothing convinced me. Since the point of this whole series is to play around and try new things, I tried rotating the image. Suddenly it worked for me. I understand that it’s probably a taste thing and the overall composition is very unconventional. But rotating it 90° counter clockwise was the solution I needed. Last but not least I moved the picture into Lightroom and fiddled with the colours. Ended up with a high saturated mix that really worked for me. So in the end the piece does have a rather unusual format and I thought about cutting parts on the bottom, but ultimately decided against it.

Hope you enjoy the view too. Let’s see where it leads us!

4500×2054 – Vue – Photoshop – Lightroom

ENDEAVOURS Part One – Six

ENDEAVOURS Part One – Six

ENDEAVOURS Part Seven

ENDEAVOURS Part Eight

ENDEAVOURS Part Nine

ENDEAVOURS Part Ten

Plate 1
Plate 2

The artwork on:
DeviantartArtstationDrawcrowdCGSocietyBehance

Regards

signed

Architecture Feature

Thursday, December 29th, 2016

Archithese Issue 4/2016 Feature

Two of my works were used to visualize articles about futuristic/scifi architecture. Issue 4/2016 of the swiss architecture magazine Archithese is all about futuristic architecture and its influences. From Here I Can Almost See The Stars is featured on a two page spread in the magazine and Gates To Elysium in an introductory article about the magazine issue. Since I’m no architect, I find it quite interesting that my stuff could possibly be an inspiration, for people working in the field of architecture. So having my work feature in a magazine like this is really special for me.

The word magazine is almost an understatement for this publication. It’s almost a book and feels really good in your hands. It has a nice weight, which gives it a nice feel of quality. As mentioned before, this issue of the magazine tackles Science Fiction and how it has influenced architecture in real life and media. Movies like Blade Runner as well as Star Wars are discussed. As a scifi fan, working in art, it is quite an interesting read.

Archithese Website & Article

Regards
signed

Gillian’s Place

Wednesday, July 27th, 2016



Gillian’s Place

I started this one a while ago, after I finished ready “Stranger In A Strange Land” by Robert Heinlein. Early in the story we are in an apartment where the floor is covered with a carpet of grass. I already had the idea before I read this book but the book helped me to flesh out the idea. So the inspiration for this scene came, in parts, from the book. There we also have this lady character Gillian who loved the grass carpet in the apartment of a friend and I wanted to give her her own apartment. =)

I used this project to dig a little deeper into 3d modeling and how I can use it for my ideas. I also tried myself on basic cloth simulation for the sheets. So ultimately there went quite some time into this scene because a lot of it went into experimenting. For the sculpture I also experimented with subsurface scattering to give it a quasi translucent look that captures the light. The modeling part happened in C4D and the scene setup in Vue. Photoshop brought it all together and I refined and fixed a lot of things I wasn’t too happy with in the renders.

6000×3000 – C4D – Vue – The Plant Factory – Photoshop – Lightroom

Had my fun with this one and hope you enjoy the view. :)

Wireframe 1
Plate 1
Plate 2
Plate 3
Print Detail

wallpapers available

The artwork on:
DeviantartArtstationCGSociety

Regards

signed

Fly Me To The Moon

Tuesday, March 29th, 2016



Fly Me To The Moon

This one was a commission done quite some time ago. It’s done for a young lady who wanted a special gift for her boyfriend’s birthday. She told me that he’s a very big Scifi fan and wanted something personal and special. The sweetest thing ever and the girlfriend we all dream of, don’t you agree? I ultimately was very happy to help her out and together we managed to create something everyone was very happy with. She very early on made clear that the pic should show a moon scene with a base and Earth in the back. I took it a step further and started to build a city.

‘Collins City’ is a mixture of DAZ3d models and modified 3d models. Everything arranged and setup with Vue. The challenge was to create a scene without using atmospherical effects. The moon has a very specific lighting going on and I wanted to recreate that as good as possible. The foreground required some extra time to get the microcomposition right. The lighting was a little tricky too. After rendering the elements I used Photoshop to fix things and overpaint a couple of elements. Also the mood and the lighting received some touch ups.

So in the end we have a neat scene where even I managed to learn things from. And a young couple that enjoys the result very much and has something I created as a symbol of their love. That’s pretty amazing.

6000×3000 – Vue – Photoshop – DAZ3d

Print Detail
Creative Process
Earth Photo Credit

The artwork on:
DeviantartArtstationCGSociety

wallpapers available

Regards

signed

Red Sands

Wednesday, September 30th, 2015



Red Sands

This picture started as a project for a movie. They had some scenes on Mars and approached me if I would be interested in trying myself on it. I did some concept work and was playing around with a Marsbase kind of idea. I sent them my ideas and they promised to come back to me on how to go on with it. Well, that was 1 1/2 years ago. Nothing happened. Not a single word. So I decided to not write off the extensive work time I already spent on the project and finished it myself as a personal project. The guys I wrote with obviously had no interest anymore. I finished it up right in time for the Mars hype that’s going on right now! =D Flowing water on Mars. That’s amazing news and opens up great opportunities.

Technically I started this one with Worldmachine and trying to create a landscape that sorta kinda could serve as a Mars landscape. I’m sure it’s not 100% realistic (if at all…) but I managed to get some nice variation into the terrain that works well enough for the eye. I combined various terrains with Photoshop and imported them into Vue. Adding the base was a difficult task. I had to work the terrain quite a bit to make it fit the parts where I wanted to place the structures. I’m not entirely happy with how it turned out… but it’s good enough for me to work. Sometimes you have to make a cut and stop working on something. To make it even more unrealistic I played with the idea of some local terraforming around the base.

Overall it’s one of my more realistic ‘looking’ pieces. At least when it comes to the visual feel and photographic presentation. Hope you enjoy the view and who knows… maybe the pic is at least a tiny glimpse at how our future on Mars could look like.

6000×2740 – C4D – Vue – Photoshop

Print Detail

The artwork on:
DeviantartArtstationCGSociety

wallpapers available

Regards

signed

Quest For Eternity

Wednesday, August 12th, 2015



Quest For Eternity

This pic was an experiment. I started it August 2014 and saw it as a prequel to my, earlier in 2014 released, ‘The Eternals’ artwork (hence the rather cryptic title for this one). In said picture you can see rather prominently a ship zipping by. I really liked the look of the ship, so I thought “wouldn’t it be funny to see where it came from?”. And that matched with the experiment I had in mind. I wanted to try and work in 16bit colour depth. It was also a test to see how my machine would be able to handle the load. It did well… but saving a larger Photoshop file in 16bit… literally takes ages. Naturally I wanted to have a quite striking image in terms of colours. So the colour depth would make sense. And I hope I got something neat for the eye with that.

If you ask me what this place is then I honestly don’t have an answer. I was fiddling with C4D when I stumbled upon this spikey shape. It instantly made me want to play with it in Vue. After some trying this and trying that I had a scene. Everything fell into place. In the end it was something like a docking or landing area for ships. The spikey things… well, let’s say it’s some ‘modern’ architecture thing. It adds a nice abstract component to the scene. =D

Usually my work is loaded with detail. That doesn’t always work. So ultimately I wanted to do a very clean cut pic for once. Something that’s simple and yet eyecatching.

6000×2739 – C4D – Vue – Photoshop

The artwork on:
DeviantartArtstationCGSociety

wallpapers available

Regards

signed

Domes Of Hope

Tuesday, August 4th, 2015



Domes Of Hope

Here we have another collaboration piece. My second in a short period of time. After not doing collabs for a very very long time. Now I do enjoy the outcome of these projects and may do more in the future.

This time I had the pleasure to work with GTGraphics’s very own Tobias Roetsch. He’s also a pretty well known Scifi and Fantasy artist that enjoys some vast and grandiose environment vistas. He explained me his idea and I started to do work in Vue to created a serviceable plate. That includes the landscape and the design of the domes. While working in Vue we both talked about how to bring in a good composition. Then I rendered the material in several passes and combined it in Photoshop. After adding some detail, fx and textures I sent the Photoshop file over to Tobias.

Tobias did his magic with adding the city, additional landscape details and a very neat sunset atmosphere. Then it was my turn again with adding some more little details like the ships and some fine tuning. After that… we pretty much had it. I tried to play a little more with the overall colours but always ended up throwing my adjustments away. The atmosphere Tobias created works pretty much perfect.

Vue, Worldmachine, C4D, Photoshop – 6500px wide

Please check out more of Tobias’s work here:

GTGraphics.de
Artstation
Deviantart
Facebook

The artwork on:
DeviantartArtstationCGSocietyBehancewallpapers available

Regards

signed