2DArtist 033

Concept Art, Digital & Matte Painting Magazine Issue 033 September 2008 $4.50 / 3.25 / 2.
25
Artist
h t u n Span
Interviews Articles
Sketchbook of Hethe Srodawa Kai Spannuth & Eduardo Pea
Kai
Galleries
Phil McDarby, Morgan Yon & Andreas Rocha, plus more!
Making Ofs
Keep A Sharp Eye by Ron Crabb, plus more!
Tutorials
Speed Painting: Overloading Core in Futuristic Power Plant, plus more!
Contents
Welcome to Issue 033! Well, the summer what summer? has officially left us now in the UK, and Whats in this month? were back to our well-known grey skies, cold winds and rainy days. But, how long will the grey skies last, Creator of the Roughneck Rabbits Fight Club we ask? For are we about to get sucked into oblivion when scientists Concept Artist for Immersion Games in Geneva, Switzerland, this week fire up the biggest physics experiment of all time, in their attempts to recreate Sketchbook of Hethe Srodawa the Big Bang? Who knows what will happen a black hole, perhaps? In keeping with this science theme 10 of the Best 2D Artworks the latest 2DArtist Stylised Challenge for September has kicked off on ConceptArt.org with a Frankenstein / Science Mishap theme, so drop in on the challenge, check out the latest WIPs and perhaps join in yourself if This Months Finalists/Last Months Making Ofs you have an interesting concept to share, and you may even see your work featured in the next issue of 2DArtist! OK, so back to the September issue which we better read quickly before Using Traditional Media as a Starting Point Geneva implodes the cover image this month is a fantastic artwork by Kai Spannuth, whose work graces the pages of the interview section of this months issue on PAGE 007 . Kai is a freelance 2D digital artist based in With Eduardo Pea & Richard Tilbury Berlin, Germany, whose been using the digital medium as a means of artistic expression since 98. So with 10 years under his belt, we felt it was a perfect Planets and Starfields: Part 3 Barren Planets time to get to know a little more about this talented self-taught artist, whose
Editorial
Contents
001
Kai Spannuth
007
Eduardo Pea SketchBook
023
033
tHE GallerY
041
Stylised Characters Traditional Media Speed Painting
049
063
069
Space Painting
077
work fittingly ties in nicely with the theme of when science goes wrong. Our 094 second interview this month, in the interest of variety, we chat to Eduardo Project Overview by Ron Crabb Pea, who is a true inspiration for any would-like-to-be concept artist out there! Eduardo works for the only videogame developer in Colombia, where 101 we was brought up, but he does not see the limitations of the countrys Project Overview by Yu Cheng Hong involvement with his chosen career as a brick wall, he simply finds ways to 110 climb that wall and push the boundaries as much as he can with the truly stunning works that youll find on PAGE 023 . It is artwork such as this that Digital Art Masters: V3 Free Chapter Promotion really illustrates the creative workings of an artists mind, and I can honestly 113 say that this artist has one hell of a fantastic mind! Tutorials this month feature Joel Carlo using traditional media as a starting Zoo Publishing Information & Contacts point for the creation of a digital artwork (PAGE 063) , the 3rd chapter of Chee Ming Wongs space painting tutorial series Barren Planets on Editor Proofing lAYOUT cONTENT PAGE 077, and of course we have our regular Speed Painting slot where Lynette Clee Jo Hargreaves Layla Khani Lynette Clee this month in-house artist, Richard Tilbury, and our interview featured artist, Matt Lewis Tom Greenway Lynette Clee Eduardo Pea, tackle the brief: Overloading core in futuristic power plant. Lead Designer Richard Tilbury And our Making Ofs feature the talents of Ron Crabb, with an overview Chris Perrins Marketing Chris Perrins article of the creation of his awesome image, Keep a Sharp Eye (PAGE Lynette Clee 094), and Yu Cheng Hong also talks us through the creation of his image, RUO on PAGE 101 . Also, dont miss out on the fantastic Sketchbook article by sketching addict Free Stuff! Hethe Srodawa (PAGE 033) . I first fell in love with Hethes sketches after Wherever you see seeing the Making Of his image, Fagins Lot, and Im sure that when you this symbol, click it to take a look at this article youll, too, see the raw talents of this sketching download resources, genius! extras and even Next month well bring you an interview with Brom, the first of a 3-part tutorial movies!! series by Nykolai Aleksander on The Human Face, and Nick Miles will take us through the creation of this months gallery image, Mantis Queen, plus so much more! So enjoy this months offerings and well see you next month providing we havent been sucked into a black hole [*winks*]. Ed.
Keep A Sharp Eye RUO
Fearless
About us
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Issue 033 September 2008
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Contributors
Kai Spannuth
Is a 2D Digital Artist and Colourist freelance born and raised in Berlin, the capital of
Contributing Artists
Every month, many artists from around the world contribute to 3DCreative & 2DArtist magazines. Here you can find out all about them! If you would like to be a part of 3DCreative or 2DArtist magazines, please contact: lynette@zoopublishing.com
Germany. He started with digital painting and colouring circa 1998, inspired by the old image comic books of that era!
http://www.dpi-graphics.com/ kai.spannuth@dpi-graphics.com
Hethe Srodawa
Is an artist born from 80s cartoons who has been creating characters and worlds since he could first hold a pencil! He has a petulant passion for all things mystery, adventure and, above all, pirates! Hes fortunate enough to work as a Concept Artist in the entertainment industry and currently designs for Rockstar Games in sunny San Diego, California.
Eduardo Pea
Was educated as a graphic designer at the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogota, Colombia. Inspired by films like Blade Runner, he discovered the discipline of conceptual art for the entertainment industry and has been developing this artistic interest ever since. He currently works as a Conceptual Artist at Immersion Games in Colombia, and also as a professor at the Andes University, leading workshops.
http://www.hethe.com hs@hethe.com
http://leco3ur.carbonmade.com/ caareka20@hotmail.com
Dr CM. Wong
Has over 8 years of creative visualisation and pre-production experience, having worked on various independent game projects, publications and CGI pre-production artwork. He is currently the CEO of his own digital art studio, Opus Artz, based in London. Previous work includes his role as Senior Concept Artist and Visual Lead for Infinity: The Quest for Earth MMO 2009, plus numerous commercial publications. http://www.opusartz.com chee@opusartz.com
Richard Tilbury
Has had a passion for drawing since being a couple of feet tall. He studied Fine Art and eventually was led into the realm of computers several years ago. His brushes have slowly been dissolving in white spirit since the late 90s, and now, alas, his graphics tablet has become their successor. He still sketches regularly and now balances his time between 2- and 3D, although drawing will always be closest to his heart!
http://www.richardtilburyart.com
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Contributors
Ron Crabb
Has been working in the entertainment industry for twenty-four years. His career has included a variety of disciplines including illustration, graphic design, motion graphics, visual effects and matte painting for film and television, as well as some fine art. He moved from LA to the Northwest in 2003, and now works globally via the Internet as a freelancer for both film and television clients. http://www.crabbdigital.com/ ron@crabbdigital.com
Joel Carlo
Is a Multimedia Developer residing out in Denver, Colorado. His career as an artist has spanned over the last 14 years and includes work in both traditional and digital media, web design, print, and motion graphics for broadcasting. His client list is varied and ranges from commissioned work for small studio projects to larger clients such as Future Publishing, Burrows & Chapin, The Ayzenberg Group, NASCAR, Dodge, Toyota and Fox Television. http://www.joelcarlo.net / joelcarlo@gmail.com
Nadia Mogilev
Is an Illustrator and Graphic Artist, and a student of the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. She says that her life is 3D: drawing-drawing-drawing! She cant remember a time when she hasnt been sketching; she has been drawing on napkins, her dads paperwork and on wallpapers in her room since a child, trying to leave a mark everywhere. Growing up, she has continued to do the same thing: drawing everywhere with any medium around. http://www.nadiamoon.com nady.design@gmail.com
Raffy Dematawaran
Has been creating art and working in design professionally for over 15 years. His first freelance job started when he was still at college, at which time he was joining art competitions for the prizes and recognition, later realising that it was knowledge and experience that was far more rewarding! He rarely resists work offers now, whether major or minor projects, as long as he still has time to eat and sleep. http://www.raffydematawaran.com shatteredfx@hotmail.com
Sean Thurlow
Was born and raised in New Jersey, 1986, and has been drawing since he was a kid. He was inspired a lot by classic horror movies, like Frankenstein, and independent classics like Crawling Eye. When he moved out to Tucson, Arizona, he went for a career in illustration, and along the way was introduced to the digital medium. Hes currently working towards a degree in illustration and freelancing as he goes. http://trashyworks.blogspot.com/ deadite44@hotmail.com
YuCheng Hong
Is a Concept Artist, Graphic Designer & Illustrator. His background is in Graphic Design and 3D Animation, and, after graduating, his first job in the industrywas as a 3D Modeller. He feelshe has more passionfor conceptdesign and he was lucky,because he now work as a Concept Artist in a games company!
http://www.yuchenghong.com/ beziermix@yahoo.com.tw
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Rats are a classic and cant be missing in a host of laboratory creatures. Bill and Bob are brothers, in which the head of the smart brother Bill got transplanted away from his weak body, onto the body of his brother Bob.
From cruising around town on his long-board to creating his next abomination to enter the arena of the Roughneck Rabbits Fight Club (RRFC), Kai Spannuth chats to us about how he started out in the art word and his collaborations with one of our favourite artists, Marko Djurdjevic.
Interview
Kai Spannuth
Hello Kai, can you tell us about yourself and how you ending up drawing for a living? I was born and grew up in Berlin, during the time of the East German dictatorship. I followed drawing during my childhood, but wasnt serious enough about it. Due to the combination of the socialistic, communistic and totalitarian society of the former GDR and my politically rebellious nature, I constantly ran into trouble with the law. So studying at a state university was not an option for me. I got into digital art out of sheer personal interest and worked my way through in a self-taught manner. I always got was the critique from others, especially from fellow artists. Every artist should long for critique, because its very likely that youll get blinded by routine, which makes it impossible to judge your own artworks objectively. So my recommendation to every young gun out there is: get rid of your artistic boast, because this will keep the critique from reaching your ear. Praise is good for the ego, Looking over your portfolio, I cant help but notice that youve turned what is a seemingly loveable creature into some sort of freakish lab experiment. Could you tell us about Roughneck Rabbits and how you came up with the initial idea? I had the idea to open up a thread on a German board, in which users could create their own character (based on freakish laboratory creatures), and have their creation fight another users creation within a picture. To make it look like a real Beat em Up, I created a handful of layers with life/energy bars etc. and offered them for download. I created Roughneck Rabbit as a starting base and my friend Mario Leuschner threw his Fat Squirrel into the mix. Those two also had their first battle against each other. The whole thread got closed a while ago because the forum hosts deemed it as too violent for children. but its constrictive critique that helps you to improve your abilities.
So could you give a little insight into your progression as a self-taught artist? Where did you get the most help and do you have any advice for anyone just starting out? Well, regarding my progression, theres not much to say it was just learning by doing. But, if anyone asked me, Id definitely recommend getting a professional apprenticeship, if possible. Speaking for myself, the best help
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Interview
What are your plans for the Roughneck Rabbits? There are no real plans. The Roughneck Rabbits Fight Club (RRFC) is a personal project, that develops sporadically and gets new images and concepts added whenever Mario and I have a bit of time off. Should we ever get the chance to put a nice portfolio together that features our project in the right light, then we can move on and see what we can actually do with it. Neither of us wants to try to sell an unfinished idea!
Kai Spannuth
Whilst still rummaging through your portfolio, I came across three pieces that particularly caught my eye; if I give you the names of the artwork, could you tell us what inspired you to create them? 1. SpiFish_7, 2. Snail-O-Morph 3. Bill n Bob Muroidea Well, all three images have a common source: they were made for the RRFC.
1. SpiFish_7 Simple idea. How can a fish fight against landliving animals? Easy, if hes in some sort of robotic suit that holds his water tank!
2. Snail-o-Morph A snail might not be physically morphing but she can give the impression of doing so if you just look, i.e. how her eyes change if theyre exposed to a touch. On top of that, the idea of a small, slow and unimposing snail that morphs into a fearless monster sounded absurdly cool.
3. Bill n Bob Muroidea Rats are a classic and cant be missing in a host of laboratory creatures. Bill and Bob are brothers, in which the head of the smart brother Bill got transplanted away from his weak body and onto the body of his brother Bob. Bob, on the other hand, is strong but rather simple in nature. It gives you the opportunity to make funny twists where cunning Bill tries to get simple Bob into a fight, or even when theyre having a differing opinion about something.
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Interview
So do you have any new characters in the pipeline? Damn sure! [Laughs].
Kai Spannuth
Now, youve worked with one of my favourite artist around today: Marko Djurdjevic. Could you tell us how this collaboration came about and do you think you will work together again in the future? I met Marko back in 2000, when he was working on a German RPG-project. A mutual friend brought us together, because Marko was searching for a colourist to handle the cover for
the book he was working on. Shortly thereafter he moved to Berlin and so we finally got the chance to meet in person. We worked together on small projects on and off, whenever we had the chance. During his stay at Massive Black in San Francisco we lost contact for a while, but he recently got back to Berlin and we keep in touch again more frequently. Jelena, Markos lovely wife, who is a great and inspiring artist herself, needed help on colouring a book for Marvel that was under a very demanding deadline. So Marko gave me a call and thats how everything got together again!
In terms of what ways we might work together in the future, well that cant be forecast right now, even though we chit-chat about possibilities here and there. Well definitely get together on something sooner or later - Marko is not only a great, experienced and incredibly fast artist, but also a great friend and partner to talk to.
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Interview
Kai Spannuth
You mentioned that you can forecast anything right now, but if there was one dream job that you would like to collaborate on, what would it be? Uh, hard question I dont think theres such a thing as a dream job for me. I think every job is ideal if you can work freely, creatively and with a good team.
Have you ever been tempted to try and push your deck designs into production or are you happy to just leave them as one offs? No, Ive never really tried to get my decks into the market, but I certainly wouldnt have anything against it! Ive just never really had the time to seriously look into the possibilities of that market. The few existing deck designs (except for the Snail-o-Morph one) were done for the 2005 Little Monkey Event, a charity auction initiated by the great Jason Jacenko from Australia. Thus they were never aimed for making me any money. I probably wouldnt want to reprint those anyway since they were exclusively for Jasons show.
Apart from drawing, what sort of things do you enjoy doing out of work hours? In summer or in the winter time? [Laughs]. I have a lot of hobbies, but I rarely focus on just one of them. In the summertime I love to be outside, meet up with friends and have a drink. In the past I used to cruise the city
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Kai Spannuth Interview
on my skateboard (longboard) but its starting to get too dangerous for the hand that I need to make my money with. In winter, I love to drown myself in a few rounds of RTS or shootem ups. Additional fitness training three times a week, not because I like it, only to save my body from falling apart from sitting in front of my desk and getting old! But I tend to enjoy even the smallest things, like a beer with friends and playing a round of Mall of Horror....
Mall of Horror, whats that? Its a fast-paced, entertaining and incredibly artful zombie board game, where the only thing that counts is your own survival and where every pact has a half-life of 30 seconds (well, the subtitle says Survival is in the betrayal for a reason). [Laughs]. The illustrations for this game were done by one of my favourite artists by the way, Aleksi Briclot.
Well it has been a real pleasure Kai and thanks you for doing this interview. One last question before we wrap things up: SpiFish has his robotic suit; Snail-o-Morph turns into a monster; if you could enter yourself into the RRFC what special ability or appendages would you have and why? Oh, the pink bunny already embodies me quite a lot. [Laughs]. But honestly, a time-travelling feature would be pretty useful, making it
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possible to start anew when I have botched something up!
Kai Spannuth
For more work by this artist please visit: http://www.dpi-graphics.com/ Or contact them at: kai.spannuth@dpi-graphics.com Interviewed by: Chris Perrins
For me, design and art are essential tools as a means of expression and communication. They open up more possibilities for interaction and, because of this expressive power, we are able to create a structured communicative tool which is well suited for the optimum understanding of a given message...
Eduardo Pena is a Concept Artist working at Immersion Games, based in Bogota, Columbia. He trained as a graphic designer, but now uses his talents to visualise environments and explore new worlds where fantasy and fiction meet...
Interview
eduardo pena
Can you tell our readers a little about yourself and what you are currently doing? I am Eduardo Pea. I was educated as a graphic designer at the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogota, Colombia. Even before entering into my professional education, I always felt a passion for the creation of worlds where fantasy and fiction meet. I had vague memories of masterpieces made by Ridley Scott, notably Blade Runner, and other such films, and these were my key inspirations until I found a great discipline in the form of conceptual art for the entertainment industry.
I have been developing this artistic interest under my own initiative, because in Colombia this discipline is almost nonexistent. The closest area was graphic design, which obviously provided me with great resources and tools that ultimately helped me to grow and mature as a designer, enabling me to evolve and better understand the aesthetics and functions of this discipline.
For me, design and art are essential tools as a means of expression and communication. They open up more possibilities for interaction and, because of this expressive power, we are able to create a structured communicative tool which
is well suited for the optimum understanding of a given message.
I currently work as a Conceptual Artist at the one and only company that develops video games in Colombia: Immersion Games. Most of my time is spent visualising environments, creating the general feel of the game, alongside other visual proposals. I also work as a professor, leading design workshops at the Andes University.
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Working at the only games company in Colombia quite an exclusive job then! Is there much competition to get in there and how do you find time to teach at the university? In Colombia, the discipline of conceptual art is still very under-developed. Nevertheless, little by little, this branch has become more evident in the art and design environments and is gradually gaining more recognition.
Regarding the level of competition at Immersion Games, well, lets just say that all my concepts have to be solid and well structured. The level of my personal demand needs to be high in order to be able to interact in a better way with other professionals that work in the same field.
Besides this, it is very gratifying for me to be immersed in the teaching field. I dont see it as an additional workload, but as an enriching challenge which is helping to shape my perspective and professional intentions within the field of art and design.
Interview
eduardo pena
Your work appears to be a collage of different components. Can you describe your approach to concept painting and how you typically construct one of your images? This collage is due to the different projects that must be developed. At Immersion Games, each project must have its own feel and descriptive force and there is a need to visualise parameters in terms of chromatic values and lines. We also have to make each game component relative; for example, in the case of Cell Factor, which is a shooter game, the nature of the game itself allows us to plan the aesthetic guidelines of the in-game universe and to generate visual propositions that better suit the story and essence of the game.
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eduardo pena Interview
In other cases, such as in childrens games, the line must have other specific aesthetic components.
There are other compositional and technical elements that also describe my work in terms of the lighting, visual force and other technical factors these are all a part of my visual language, or my rough-edge temperament!
Some of the factors that I take into account in my profession as a designer are to enrich my discipline, both professionally and personally, and to always develop my knowledge and transfer my experiences to future generations that will be looking for a meaning in the design.
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Interview
In terms of the visual language you have developed, what aspects of your education in graphic design have helped forge your style and help your current job as a concept artist? All aspects; bearing in mind that within the academy of graphic design, the structuring permits an overlap of disciplines within the field of visual language. As a designer, I have learned to develop this method as instinctively as possible. Methods, like tools, are instruments that help facilitate the execution and development of any project and also enable one to observe, interpret and synthesise not only mechanically, but with an aesthetic criteria and personal appraisal. For me, this is something that a conceptual artist that works in this specific field should understand and exploit.
eduardo pena
I try to follow through with this belief everyday, with a certain level of practicality; not as a continuous set of rules so to speak, but rather a biological need that helps me to live and better understand the environment that surrounds me.
Can you describe your role on Cell Factor and the challenges that you faced? Cell Factor has been one of my favourite projects and was the first one where I faced the
challenge of visualisation. I also experimented with many techniques to represent visuals that allowed me to enrich my artistic attitudes and be able to express optimum visual production for game development.
For me it is a great challenge to produce images with an impact, that display a visual quality. Working as a conceptual artist carries a huge amount of responsibility and a need for a high level of professionalism, and its great to be able to hold my own and earn recognition in this field. Seeing so many talented artists and facing the limitations of being in Colombia only motivates me to grow even more.
Every day I research and explore new possibilities that enrich my ability and contribute to the growth of the company where I work, all of which I hope is helping to set high standards for the quality of video game production in Colombia.
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Can you tell us a little about the new techniques you used for this project and the key lessons you learned? More than structured techniques, I work by experimenting and Ive learned to play a little with the errors that I make, to help enrich the composition and to generate new visual sensations. Nevertheless, once I have what I consider to be the general piece, I start the finishing process. And as in every piece that I work on, I always learn something new; I am always on a continuous personal exploration to create new pieces that have their own accent and own communicative visual force.
There seems to be a theme running through some of your personal work, most notably the spherical shaped droid. What is the story behind these images? In this series of images, as in many others, I established a process of visual exploration. In this case I used the graphical interpretation of William Gibsons The Neuromancer as a starting point; a masterpiece, in which I envisioned the psychology and temperament of the environments in the book. Then, I sought the type of composition which suited an interpretation, as well responding to my visual preferences. Whilst picturing an environment removed from this book, I had as many successes during the initial phase as errors, but what I focused on more than the technical issues, was encapsulating the sensation that the image produced.
Which artists have you drawn on for inspiration and which do you feel you have learnt from the most? I particularly admire Syd Mead, Stephan Martiniere, Sparth and Craig Mullins. Other people whose work Ive enjoyed include Frank Frazetta, Ashley Wood, Jean Giraud (Moebius), Enki Bilal and artists such as Gustav Klimt,
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Interview
eduardo pena
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, William Turner, Claude Monet and Leonardo Da Vinci. I have learnt certain techniques from all of them, and also a great deal about artistic intention, which for me is and always will be the most important element in my everyday work. However, my priority at the moment is to mature in this discipline and to be able to explore new creative forms and designs within the language of art.
One last question: if you could own one painting or artwork in the world, what would it be and why? Generally, I would not have any preference for an artwork in particular because among the preferred ones, each one awakens a specific state of mind within me, and contributes to my daily education in some way.
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For me it would be selfish to have a piece of artwork from someone that I admire; Id rather share words, brushes and talk about the creative process. I think that, in some ways, I would like to share this experience with the artists that I mentioned in the previous answer.
Eduardo Pena
For more work by this artist please visit: http://leco3ur.carbonmade.com/ Or contact them at: caareka20@hotmail.com Interviewed by: Richard Tilbury
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I bounce between mediums a lot. Sometimes Im drawing with pencil on paper, sometimes ink on paper and sometimes in Photoshop. I create painted sketches all in Photoshop, or I should say almost all; every now and then, when Im away from the computer, Ill sketchpaint on my Nintendo DS.
of
a w a d o r S e h t e H
In this article, Hethe Srodawa shows his versatility through a variety of different artistic mediums
Sketchbook
Sketching is very important to me as an artist. I definitely spend more time sketching than creating planned, finished works of art and thats certainly the way I like it! My day job as a concept artist is a good fit for someone like me. Sketches are where most of the learning happens; where all the magic happens. I love the freedom of a blank canvas or piece of paper. I can just create whatever I want. The skys the limit! So, suffice to say, I sketch a lot!
Hethe Srodawa
Sometimes, when Im doing sketches for an illustration, Ill be working on figure drawings like these (Fig.0 1).
When Im sketching characters out for a story idea, Ill be working on something like these (Fig.02 04).
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Hethe Srodawa Sketchbook
Often, when Im just sketching characters that come to my head, Ill perhaps develop a story from one of them later on (Fig.05 19).
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Sketchbook
Hethe Srodawa
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Sometimes I do studies so that I can learn through observation (Fig.20 22).
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Sketchbook
Hethe Srodawa
I also do a lot of scene sketches. Some are story driven and some are merely mood driven (Fig.23 28).
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These last set of thumbnails were painted on my Nintendo DS (Fig.29).
I bounce between mediums a lot. Sometimes Im drawing with pencil on paper, sometimes ink on paper and sometimes in Photoshop. I create painted sketches all in Photoshop, or I should say almost all; every now and then, when Im away from the computer, Ill sketchpaint on my Nintendo DS.
Hethe Srodawa
For more information please visit: http://www.hethe.com Or contact: hs@hethe.com
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This month we feature: Phil McDarby Nick Miles Helena Rusovitch aka SLIDE Soheil Danesh Eshraghi Dumitrescu Ioan aka Jonone Morgan Yon Win Arayaphong Hoang Le Alexandar Alexandrov Andreas Rocha
10 of the Best
The Gallery
The Wood Dragon and the Ladybird

Phil McDarby http://www.philmcdarby.com philmcdarby@yahoo.com
Land Concept
Win Arayaphong pavidcha@yahoo.com
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Flower Concept
Soheil Danesh Eshraghi http://danesh.cgsociety.org/gallery/ soheildan@gmail.com
10 of the Best
The Gallery
Pinka (Vanilla Pixy)

Helena Rusovitch aka SLIDE http://slide.gfxartist.com slidemill@gmail.com
Peace
Hoang Le http://aurory.deviantart.com theaurory@yahoo.com
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The Gallery 10 of the Best

Approaching the Gates
Andreas Rocha http://www.andreasrocha.com/ rocha.andreas@gmail.com
Forest Dragon
Alexandar Alexandrov whiteeeeeee77@gmail.com
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10 of the Best
The Gallery
The Mantis Queen

Nick Miles http://www.exula.co.uk nicholasmiles@gmail.com
Meeting
Morgan Yon http://www.morgan-yon.com morgan.yon@gmail.com
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Worm Licker
Ioan Dumitrescu jononespo@yahoo.com
2DArtist Magazine introduces the Challenge section of the mag. Every month we will run the challenge in the conceptart.org forums, available for anyone to enter, for prizes and goodies from www.3dtotal.com shop and to also get featured in this very magazine! Here we will display the winners from the previous months challenge and the Making Ofs from the month before that.
Supervillain
Stylised Challenge
In Association with
Stylised Challenge
SuperVillain
Supervillain
The Challenge
Welcome to the Super Stylised Monthly Challenge. Each month we will select an theme and post some images in the Forum Thread as reference. All you have to do is to create a 2D image in line with this theme in a stylized / abstract / cartoon style, whilst keeping your image instantly recognisable. We wanted to publish some content in 2DArtist Magazine on how to create stylized images, such as you see in the many feature films and cartoon galleries. We thought this regular competition might bring
7th gnahz
http://gnahz. deviantart.com/
7th GunTrouver
6th Tuovni
augusto.goicoechea@gmail.com
7th loztvampir3
joewiegts@yahoo.com www.loztvampir3.deviantart.com
in just the images / Making Ofs that we need, whilst giving away great prizes and exposure. If its a success we will start to boost the prizes up as much as possible! This months theme was Supervillain. Here you can see the top seven placed entries, as voted for by the public.
What are we looking for? 6th CamSyko

www.2dartistmag.com
camsykes@hotmail.com http://camsyko.deviantart.com/ Funny and humorous entries which break the theme down to its most recognisable components; emphasize these in whichever ways you think
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SuperVillain Stylised Challenge
5th rosatron 6th Lucent Verner
rosatron@gmail.com www.rosatron.com/
4th Tommoy
www.2dartistmag.com
info@thecartoonfactory.nl www.thecartoonfactory.nl
3rd Shatteredfx
shatteredfx@hotmail.com www.raffydematawaran.com
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Stylised Challenge
best, and render your stylized / abstract / cartoon masterpiece. The rules are pretty laid back: please submit 1 x 3D render (minor post work is OK); its up to you if you want to have a background; include some graphical elements or text on your image. Renders of the 800 pixel dimension sound about right, but the winners will be featured in 2DArtist Magazine, so if you can create some higher res images too - all the better!
SuperVillain
There will be one competition per month, with the deadline being the end of the month (GMT). For a valid entry, just make sure your final image is posted in the main competition thread before the deadline. We require the top three winners to submit Making Of overview articles that will be shown on either 3DTotal or in 2DArtist Magazine. These need to show the stages of your creation - different elements and some brief explanation text - of why, and how, you did what you did. We will format this into some nice-looking pages to give you some great exposure, and us some quality content. Each competition will have one main thread which starts with the brief at the top. All entrants should post all WIPs, give feedback and generally laugh at the crazy ideas that are emerging each month...
2nd ScaryPotato Challenge Thread
rslater4@telus.net www.scarypotato.com
The entire supervillain competition can be viewed Here The current challenge at the voting stage is: Ancient
Warrior
The current challenge taking place is: frankenstein
To join the next challenge, or to view previous, and / or current entries, please visit: www.conceptart.org
Or contact: lynette@zoopublishing.com
1st bstsk
www.2dartistmag.com
contactos@ffilustracion.com
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Making Ofs
Here are the Making Ofs from last months top three winning entries...
3rd Nadiamoon Step 01

I think that, for this particular challenge for 2DArtist, it was very important not just to draw a character, but to put it into a certain situation and tell a story with my illustration. I didnt know where to start from at first, but I happened to go to the Yerba Buena Park Festival in San Francisco and I saw a little girl there. For some reason she caught my eye and I took a picture of her to use it as a reference for my work. I thought she would be a perfect character for my spaceship illustration and so I started with a simple pencil sketch, which I then scanned and opened up in Photoshop to start work (Fig.01).
Step 02
I switched the layer mode from Normal to Multiply, removing all of the white and having
only the line work show up over the coloured background that I added in a new layer underneath. I stuck to an almost monochromatic colour scheme, because I didnt want to make the image too colourful (Fig.02).
Step 03
I started colouring the image in a new layer between the sketch layer (which remained on top) and the background layer. I decided to create a mysterious mood, but at the same time I didnt want the image to look scary, because of the eye and weird creatures in the background. So I chose the pink colour, which doesnt look gloomy and is childish at the same time. For colouring I usually use basic round brushes, and other brushes, like Natural Brushes Set, I usually use for texturing (Fig.03).
Step 04
Here I was experimenting with colours As I said before, I felt like pink was a right colour for this illustration because I wanted to create the feeling of an illustration in a childrens book.
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Stylised Challenge
Everyone who has seen this image asks: What is that eye above the girl about? Well basically, I have depicted the dream of a kid, where the eye is an eye of an adult who wants to take a look at childrens dreams. Many of us cant see the fairy tales that we used to see in our childhoods when we were growing up, and the spaceship is the vehicle that carries us away to the real world (Fig.04).
SuperVillain
Step 05
Sometimes when I draw or paint in Photoshop, my eyes get used to the image, and so I find it good practice to flip it and play with the colours. I just went to Adjustments and started experimenting with the Colour Balance setting to create the right feel for the final image, and I was done (Fig.05)!
Conclusion
This will probably sound really obvious, but I think that the most important thing about art is to let yourself be free and to not be afraid of making mistakes. Only then will your mind open
up and you will be able to create things that you probably didnt even expect to create (the fact is that the human brain is only 10% studied!). Give yourself the freedom of creation, follow your heart and let your mind and inspiration lead you. Be yourself and you will be surprised what your imagination is capable of ...
Nadia Mogilev
For more work by this artist please visit: www.nadiamoon.com Or contact them at: nady.design@gmail.com
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Stylised Challenge
SuperVillain
2nd Trashy The Idea

I actually started thinking of the old Volkswagen vans made in the 1960s, and all the crazy and cool artwork that came about in the hippie movement. I then found myself asking the question: what would a hippie spaceship look like in outer space? At this very point, I realised I had a pretty good idea about what direction I was going in, so I started jotting down some sketches to get a feel for the concept (Fig.01).
Starting the Piece

Early on, I cleaned up the line work on the originally sketch (Fig.02). Having cleaner line work in your work sometimes helps when blocking in the lights and shadows, and basically just makes the workflow that much faster. After getting the lines down I then started blocking in the shadows and lights on a new layer set to Multiply (Fig.03). I tend to spend a good amount of time at this stage tinkering around with the
placement of the light and shadows, and planning out the rest of the piece. I continued blocking in the values until I was happy with the results. Once I got to that point, I could then start introducing some colours and textures.
Getting Dirty!
I wanted to break up a lot of the shapes and make it much grittier, so I flattened the piece, and then created a new layer and brought in some textures. I reduced the layer opacity just a little so that I wouldnt cover the original piece, and I erased parts of the texture and cloned other parts with the default round brush. On a third layer set to Colour, I brought in some colours (Fig.04). Generally, I find that when certain things arent quite working in a piece, then if you destroy those parts with a brush or some harsh textures and move things here are there, you may actually be able to make it work for you!
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Cleaning Up!
I flattened all my layers again, and on a new layer I started detailing and cleaning up. This part was all about getting the nuts and bolts in! I started messing with the idea of steam coming out of the engines of the rocket, like it was getting ready for lift-off (Fig.05). It also crossed my mind that sticking to the washed-out tone I had going on in the piece was perhaps not in the spirits of a true hippie space shuttle Could it really be a hippie spaceship without its flying colours? So I went onwards and started adding the necessary colours.
Colours
Flattening all my layers once more, I start introducing a couple of adjustment layers. I usually use the Curves layer adjustment and Colour Balance to add in the base colours. I then tend to use another layer set to Colour to add more to it. I noticed at this stage that I could probably push
my values more, so I started working more in that area again. I also found that I could bring out those colours more (Fig.06).
Finished!
As a final touch, I added some last highlights and gave the colours an extra kick. I wrapped up some of the little areas and added more glow to the light on top and to the engines. After bringing out the steam a little more, I was finally able to call it a day, and class my entry as finished and ready for take-off (Fig.07)!
Sean Thurlow
For more work by this artist please visit: http://trashyworks.blogspot.com/ Or contact them at: deadite44@hotmail.com
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Stylised Challenge
SuperVillain
1st Shatteredfx Step 01

For every project or painting I do, I usually think of the concept first. Somehow for this painting I didnt manage to come up with anything; I was just interested in the theme and started off by doing some very rough sketching directly in Photoshop. I used a grey background and a default black brush to draw some lines, without knowing what I was actually drawing at all. I really didnt have any idea how to start, all I knew was that I had to make a spaceship, maybe with a pilot(s), but the rest could be anything! In Fig.01, you can see that the ship was really crooked and the two characters were nothing interesting at this stage, but I didnt mind as it was time to move onto the next step...
Step 02
Here I began to block in some colours. I still didnt know what the spaceship would look like (though I knew I wanted to colour it orange, with maybe some blue colours in small areas for contrast). For the pilots, I thought about making them appear alien-like (I was thinking of something along the lines of the Teletubbies), or creatures with pairs of antennae (or really big ears!). At this point I was just thinking, why not? I was still just in the ideas stage, and recalling a rule of brainstorming: All ideas, whether genius or crazy, should be considered until the final evaluation. The only difference here was that there was only one brain that was storming! Where were my art buddies when I needed them (Fig.02)?
Step 03
Okay then, so at this stage I came to the conclusion that the two aliens were going to be rabbit-like creatures, and their ship had to be coordinated with them - so what else could the form of this spaceship take, other than a carrot-filled spaceship? My pallet seemed to be on the right track for this concept as I had previously chosen to use orange, which is
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obviously the main colour of this veggie! At this stage, I decided to add a fancy-looking garden (or should I say a small carrot plantation?) in the front part of the spaceship (Fig.03).
Step 04
To make the subject pop more, I thought about painting the background with darker colours (blacks, blues and magenta perhaps?), so I started throwing some colours onto my previously grey background to add some darker hues and colours of sky, and so that I could make the bunnies and ship look like they was travelling somewhere in deep outer space. The faces of the characters in the ship started to look more bunny-like here, but I still wasnt convinced; my idea was to make them look more like intergalactic mammals, but not too weird-looking or menacing like those you see in sci-fi alien movies. I simply wanted them to look funny and uncorrupted (I wanted them to be happy because theyve brought some carrots with them... or could those carrots have been taken from Earth? Are they taking them back to their home planet to grow them? I guess I will leave it to the viewer to decide!). Some carrots on both sides of the wings were also added, and some fences on the small plantation were added to the front of the ship (Fig.04). the lights, shadows and contours in some areas. Here I tried to use more varied types of brushes some PS default, but most were my own creations. I adjusted their facial expressions, and I realised that they had begun to look cuter than in the previous attempts. I also played with their skin tones, making them more flesh coloured in comparison to the yellowish tone used before. The spaceships finer contours started to emerge at this stage; I was putting more colours on it, more shadows on the darkest areas and some lighter colours on the highlights (Fig.05).
Step 05
As I continued to make the background darker, I began to pay more attention to the forms, shapes and the colour combinations as well, and by using smaller brushes I further defined
Step 06
Okay, so almost finished here (Fig.06) at least for the colour pallet anyway, and I had started to feel more comfortable about the contrasts between the subject and background. Feeling this way, I started to work on the fine lines, adding some radiosity and saturation, and working some more on the highlights and shadows. Whilst adding some of the final touches, I used a textured brush on the ships body (some simple dabbing of scattered brush for the plantation, a splatter for the heavenly bodies) and applied some motion blur to show the ships mobility. Notice that I also lifted the
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left arm of the boy bunny to signal a thumbs-up sign to his partner. I also added third eyes to each of them, which I guess was my take on making them look more alien-like, not to mention their fashion and their facial expressions!
Final Step
For the final image, I flipped the entire canvas to check whether the overall composition was looking fine, and I finished off by rendering some more details and adjusting the colour, hue and saturation. And thats it (Fig.07)!
Thanks a lot guys for taking time to read this walk-through. Cheers!
Raffy Dematawaran
For more work by this artist please visit: http://www.raffydematawaran.com Or contact them at: shatteredfx@hotmail.com
Being able to move between mediums gave me the ability to not only take on more work, but also to understand the kind of look and feel that could be achieved with each of those mediums.
Joel Carlo explains how to create this image by using traditional media and Photoshop.
As a Starting Point
using traditional media
Created In:
Photoshop When I began working as an illustrator over 15 years ago, being competitive as an artist meant you had to be extremely flexible with your abilities. Commissions in those days for me were hard to come by, so I made it a point to learn as much as I could about techniques using multiple mediums. Being able to move between mediums gave me the ability to not only take on more work, but also to understand the kind of look and feel that could be achieved within each of those mediums. These days, applications do a good job of mimicking the look and feel of traditional artwork, but sometimes trying to pull off that exact look can be difficult with software alone. And this is where using traditional media as a starting point can help!
What gives an image its look and feel can be attributed to many factors. In the case of traditional artwork, two of the most important components are the medium and surface you choose to use. Each medium will look different on a surface, not only in the way its applied, but also in how that medium reacts to the surfaces texture. For example, running chalk across the gritty textured surface of pastel paper will give you an entirely different look than if you were to dab acrylic paint across the same surface. By the same token, drawing on canvas with a pencil will give you a completely different look than painting on it with oils. Because texture (or lack of) plays an important role in the look
and feel of a traditional illustration, we can use this information to help us recreate some of that same look and feel in the digital realm.
For this tutorial, I set out to create an image typical of something I would have created in my days before the computer... the difference being that now I would actually have the flexibility of editing inside Photoshop, not to mention cleaner fingernails at the end of the illustration! In my early days, I enjoyed working mostly with a mixture of airbrushed acrylics and coloured pencils, so the trick here would be to re-create that look. As I stated earlier, surface texture is one of the most important factors which
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using traditional media As a Starting Point

attributes how a medium will react and look along that surface. There are also many subtle nuances in how a medium is applied that will also contribute to the overall look and feel of an illustration. This is something I keep in mind throughout the illustration process, because its these very differences that will add to the believability of the final image.
I decide to begin by sketching with pencil on colored pastel paper (Fig.01). Ive personally always enjoyed working on pastel paper because its fairly inexpensive, lends itself well to multiple mediums, and in this case I knew I could also play up the surface detail of the final illustration by adjusting the overall presence of the surface, which would add to the effect. After scanning the image, I duplicate the layer and then create a new layer with a dark grey fill underneath the duplicated sketch layer, setting the layer blending mode to Multiply. Duplicating the sketch layer will give me a little bit of a safety net as I work into it, whilst still keeping the original sketch layer intact for adjusting my texture levels later on. The fill layer is there simply to add contrast until I decide what I would like to do with the background (Fig.02).
Next, I create a new layer in-between the duplicate sketch and background layer, which I will use to paint in my values. Here Im using a mixture of a palette knife and a round brush to create a value study (Fig.03). Understandably, I realise that if I were to paint this in a real life, I would be losing my pencil sketch as I apply paint to the papers surface, which is why I begin to erase in the duplicate sketch layer any areas that are supposed to be painted on. Additionally, I also begin to blend the values in my paint layer, using the blend tool in order to give them a somewhat chalky and painterly look (Fig.04).
From here, I begin to add a bit of colour and additional texture to the image (Fig.05). I create a new layer above the paint layer and, using
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As a Starting Point
several textured brushes, I randomly paint over my value study. The effect Im shooting for is similar to painting with a sponge, or even what can sometimes happen when you pull off airbrush Frisket from a surface too hastily. I also create a new layer underneath the paint layer to work colour into the background. This process is a bit more involved, as I am really aiming to give the background a traditional airbrushed look and feel. Here I use a palette knife brush with varied opacities and sizes to randomly paint in colour and to create the effect of painting with French curves or cut-out masks. I also use a soft round brush to paint in a light over-spray effect in certain areas.
using traditional media
At this point I take a step back and review my work. I feel the character needs to blend a bit better with this new background, so I adjust the contrast of the grey tones using the Curves tool and begin to work some colour into the skin. I do this by creating a new layer and setting the blend mode to Lighten. I then adjust the opacity to about 40% and lightly paint over the value layer until I achieve the soft colour wash effect Im looking for (Fig.06).
Continually working in detail to both the character and background, I begin to wrap things up by adding a bit more colour to the characters skin and painting in some grey-blue tones and highlights (Fig.07). After painting the final details on the characters head fins and adjusting the overall Levels
and Colour Balance, the image is now close to completion. All that is left is painting in some miscellaneous details, such as the speckled overspray effect, using a speckle brush at a low opacity and laying the original scanned sketch in Multiply mode over the entire image to add more texture (Fig.08).
As you can see, beginning with something as simple as a pencil sketch on textured paper is a great starting point to help you achieve more traditional-like results. Being able to distinguish and recreate some of the subtle nuances behind traditional mediums in a digital environment also helps tremendously! Effects such as the over-spray, speckling, pencil lines that peak through the paint layers, and the right texture, all add to this images believability. Every medium has its own nuances and each one can enhance an illustrations overall look. In short, there really is no limit to what you can do when you combine traditional with digital, and using both will not only compliment your art, but also make you a more flexible artist.
Once again Id like to thank Lynette Clee and the entire 2DArtist team for their help and support. I hope you have enjoyed this article and if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me any time.
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Joel Carlo
For more from this artist visit: http://www.joelcarlo.net Or contact: joelcarlo@gmail.com
Welcome to the Speed Painting section of the magazine. This month weve asked two artists to produce a speed painting based on a simple, one-line brief. Here we feature the final paintings and the overview of the creation processes.
This month our talented artists, Eduardo Pea and Richard Tilbury, tackle the topic:
Overloading Core in
futuristic power plant
Created In:
Adobe Photoshop
Introduction
Before starting this speed painting, I tried to imagine the general theme and what kind of narrative that I would like to implement in the picture. I decided that I wanted to tell a story in which things were shown in a space environment, where the circumstances reflected this, whilst still answering the brief: Overloading core in futuristic power plant. Because of the nature of this kind of content, it allowed me to
propose a story and/or physical events in a very particular way, where the idea could be unwrapped from my own ephemeral history.
Working Process
Beginning initially with a vertical canvas, I wanted to apply and propose some attractions in the visual composition. Here I applied some inconsistent and orthogonal brushstrokes to gauge the orientation of the image (Fig.01). At this stage I was only concerned about the composition, without going into too much detail. The main thing was to simply create as many happy accidents as possible, as these would later create possibilities to guide my creativity and also visually enrich the painting (Fig.02).
This process is a bit risky in the sense that its an unstructured process of building an image, but with speed paintings I like to let my instincts visually guide me towards what may be considered to be correct. Obviously, wandering around the canvas is the only way in which I can develop,
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futuristic power plant Overloading Core in

using this kind of method. Because I started off with a vertical canvas, in order to propose some attractions in the visual composition, this is not to say that this is an appropriate start for every project! However, for this piece it was a good point from which to develop the ability to observe, interpret and then propose new things to later help me make better achievements in the painting.
Continuing with experimentation, I began to develop different directions, using both linear and random circular brush strokes (Fig.03). At this stage I started to link them together, giving the impression of routes that connect with each other. And, in terms of the brief for this speed painting, gradually building up an area that could eventually be interpreted as a complex power plant.
After applying the same method of finding structures and relationships within the brush strokes to the rest of the painting, I found that this process was really starting to best describe
the theme of the image. I continued to explore this method, following the joints exposed in the structures that created lines and circles (Fig.04), which are really just basic forms if we look at them as individual pieces. But what is interesting to see is how they can become complex and elaborate forms, and how they cooperate if they relate to each other. This generates new visual proposals, and I like to take advantage of these situations that arise!
Gradually, the general form was sculpted in this image. The structures that seemed abstract and undefined at the beginning were starting to show some order and consistency; likewise, the space and atmosphere were also acquiring such characteristics (Fig.05). I flipped the image at this stage to check that everything was looking good and to give me a fresh view of the painting.
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Overloading Core in
At this stage, I also began to work on the finer details and points of attraction in the image. What I really wanted to show was the scenario in its entirety, but I thought it would also be nice to show certain things that give importance to the image, such as the holes which make up the reactor and also somehow define the space. The small garden-like areas around the structure also play with the idea of an urban quality of space (Fig.06). To finish off, retaining the structure that already existed and continuing with the treatment of colour and texture, I played with the tonal values to give more drama to the image (Fig.07). This final touch gave a little more wealth to the atmosphere and highlighted some of the areas within the picture that were of particular value to the viewer.
Conclusion
As well as painting this image I found it fun to create stories whilst I painted I played with my imagination. By doing this, for a moment in
life, I got to be the protagonist in a dream world and I was able to roam around in my mind and exercise my creativity to its full extent! I hope this is reflected in my image, and that my working process will encourage you to try out some of the same techniques within your own art works. Thank you!
Eduardo Pea
For more from this artist visit: http://leco3ur.carbonmade.com/ Or contact: caareka20@hotmail.com
Created In:
Adobe Photoshop
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Overloading Core in
Introduction
For this particular challenge I had very little idea about how I wanted the final design and composition to look. I knew that I wanted the scene to depict a large interior with the suggestion of machinery in the background and a bright light emanating from the core as though it was about to explode. I also wanted to portray a large sense of scale, so I decided to have the ceiling and distant wall invisible and have everything disappear into a dark void to help give the room a large and cavernous quality.
Blocking In
The first step was to establish the shape of the main focal point in the image: the overloading core. I imagined this as some form of centrifuge, rotating at high speed to generate energy hence the cylindrical shape evident in Fig.01.
I began by establishing the light source at the centre of the core. As this was the focal point of the image, I kept the background and foreground darker by comparison and I also painted in some streaks of light shooting outward; an indication of a possible explosion. The rough shape had now been established so it was time to add some simple shapes in the background to imply some random pipe work and cylinders etc (Fig.02).
Adding Details
With the main shapes and tonal values blocked in, it was time to refine the picture. On a separate layer for each, I added a base to the generator and some fencing around it. In Fig.03 you can see a custom brush (inset) I made to create the fencing. With regards to the base, I made half of the shape and then mirrored it.
Although the scene was a little more defined at this stage, the base still lacked form and there was no real sense of the scale of things either. In Fig.04 you can see that there are some extra brush marks to help add volume to the lower section, as well as a figure sheltering his eyes in silhouette against the light, which helped to determine the scale.
Colour Scheme
There was enough detail and information in
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futuristic power plant Overloading Core in
the scene now to warrant adding some colour, which was done on separate layers as a series of overlays. In Fig.05 I have added two new layers using the colours and blending modes in the top left corner, with the blue being restricted to the core and the brown to the surroundings.
The colours helped soften the background shapes and tie them all together a bit more, as well as emphasise the core itself, which was brought into the foreground by the blue hue However, things werent finished yet! This was only the initial phase and to help improve the composition, I decided to place some light in the right background section. This served to fracture the symmetry somewhat and also suggest that something may be amiss in the background that could perhaps be causing the overload (Fig.06). I added a new layer here set to overlay and used the orange colour (inset) to add the light and I also painted over the background with a pale pink. I carried this colour through across the foreground and added some reflections, as well as some shading around the base of the core. One other important feature that was added at this stage are the tiny highlights, picked up by the background shapes.
Final Stages
The picture was all but complete, but with a few extra touches it could be more tightly knitted together. The main addition was to bind the background colour more to the core by giving it a cooler hue. Initially I wanted a stark contrast between the foreground and background but I felt this solution was far more convincing in the end. I also used a blueish colour to add further highlights on the background shapes to reinforce this. I neatened up the fencing a little and also copied and pasted the light section of the base over itself and set it to Screen mode which now gave it a brighter and hotter quality.
The last remaining components were the particles that are shooting from the beam. These were painted with a hard edged brush on a separate layer and then Motion Blurred, leaving me with the final version of the image (Fig.07).
Richard Tilbury
For more from this artist visit: http://www.richardtilburyart.com/ Or contact: rich@3dtotal.com
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Space is a wondrous thing, and Current cosmology models suggest that the Universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old!
I - Planets and Star fields

Part 1: Stars & Nebulas- July 2008 Part 2: Barren Worlds - August 2008 Part 3: Barren Planets - September 2008 Part 4: Gaian Planets - October 2008 Part 5: Colonised Planets - November 2008
II - Transport
Part 6: Spaceships - December 2008 Part 7: Capital Ships - January 2009 Part 8: Space Stations - February 2009
III - Environments
Part 9: Sci-fi Hangar - March 2009 Part 10: Space Battle - April 2009 Part 11: Mining the Asteroid Fields - May 2009 Part 12: Space Colonies - June 2009
Planets and Starfields: Part 3: Barren Planets
Space Painting
Created In:
Photoshop
Overview
Drifting into the third aspect of our 12-part space and sci-fi art series, we take a planetary wide approach at how planets are formed, depict the destruction and death of planets, and explore the farthest regions of our known solar system! But first of all, lets take you back to the beginning... to the birth of the solar system.
THE SOLAR SYSTEM - a FIERY BIRTH AND its DESTRUCTION

(Fig.01) Space is a wondrous thing, and current cosmology models suggest that the Universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old! The constant search for how life began and the origin of the species comes to mind first and foremost. For space enthusiasts, scientists and armchair explorers alike, the current consensus leads to the Big Bang model, as originally proposed by Georges Lematre, and its modified framework based on Einsteins Theory of General Relativity by A.Friedmann.
Note: Fig.02 describes a suggested timeline of the Universe based on a 1996 WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) Satellite that measured the remnant temperature of the Big Bang (by measuring the temperature differences in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation), and thus extrapolated the age of the Universe to be 13.73 0.12 billion years old.
So how do we best depict the rise of the solar system in a painting?
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Space Painting Planets and Starfields: Part 3: Barren Planets
Our Solar System - In A Nutshell

Note: Fig.03 depicts our Milky Way galaxy (centre), with our closest neighbouring galaxy, the Canis Major Dwarf galaxy (left: red stream the Milky Way is depicted as a blue stream), and our other neighbour the Andromeda galaxy (right).
Solar System
From inside looking outwards, let us look at the Solar System as it exists. Our solar system resides within one of the outer spiral arms of the Milky Way (small spiral arm known as the Orion Arm).
Our solar system comprises of a main sequence G2 star, an inner circle of four terrestrial planets, a main asteroid belt and outer four-gas giant planets.
An outer Kuiper belt of ice, debris, Pluto (and its moon, Charon) and Makemake (initially known as 2005 FY) encircle the outermost region, also known as the Trans-Neptunian region (i.e. the area beyond Neptune). Going even further outwards lies the hypothetical Oort cloud comprising of billions of comets or a trillion icy objects, all believed to be comets having been ejected from the inner solar system and gravitational effects of the Overlapping this is a wider belt called the Scattered Disc thought to be an extended version of the Kuiper belt containing scattered objects, although it exists in a wider elliptical belt on a perpendicular axis to the Kuiper belt. Interestingly, there is also a large brown dwarf planet, Eris, within this region (which led strongly to the redefinition of what constitutes a planet, resulting in the current loss of Pluto from the list of our own planets). Imagine going back roughly 10 billion years after the Big Bang. A large star is about to die, having And beyond that, who knows...? outer planets. expended all its fuel, and from this its core eventually collapses inwards until it explodes as a supernovae sending a shock wave through the galaxy (Fig.04). It is from the remnants of this long distant star, and many others, that eventually form a new star our Sun via the fusion of hydrogen atoms in a process called nucleosynthesis.
The Birth of the Solar System

Solar System 101 aside, let us proceed with actually depicting the birth of the solar system, with the death of a star...
Illustrating A Dying Star

For our first painting we will look at illustrating the last moments of a dying star, transitioning before it explodes in a spectacular nova (which in the case of a large star is a super novae). In this instance it is probably more interesting to
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take a more impressionistic approach to space art, whilst working from a position of informed knowledge (Fig.05).
Space Painting
1. Coloured Approach: We start by depicting a loose bluish-green background with flat washes over the canvas.
2. Basic Planning: Incorporating a circular styled composition, the illustration is planned to spiral outwards from its point of origin the dying sun.
3. Edge Control: To illustrate a mixture of expanding gasses, a dash of orange and burnt yellow is applied liberally, towards the outer segments of the illustration (far left) at almost 100% opacity and with 100% flow. At the same time a softer wash of looser shapes and forms suggests clouds of gas in the mid-ground. The purpose of this is to establish early on the feeling of hard and soft edges (the analysis of clouds reveals that they often have a hard outer edge).
4. Establishing the Mood: In the initial stages the overall look is less important than the general feel and ambience. And preceding all of this, composition more so (I would normally add perspective is King, but in this instance it takes a lesser role).
5. Level 1 Details: You can start to consider various aspects like stars and local objects
at this juncture (as they are easy to forget later on in the process). Remember that the background stars will probably be very faint and only the brightest will shine through.
6. Blending: (Fig.06) The next part brings the illustration to life, as it allows the establishment of mid-tone values, allowing various colours to bleed into one another and providing a softer, more realistic feel of an expanding cloud of gases.
7. Level 2 Details: Once the general disparate colours are blended in general (remember not to blend in just one area of the illustration, but
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to work and put effort into the whole image), the next step to consider is the level 2 details. This means taking that extra care and making additional attention to ensure that the key areas of the illustration harmonise and sing together. In this image, it means adding a subtle blend of golds, jade, and turquoise with faint highlights and glows to make it all work together (Fig.07).
to illustrate in this tutorial, at this point. In some ways, it is similar to the shape of how some spiral galaxies may appear from a long distance, however not quite the same (Fig.08).
2. Work Briskly: Then, very quickly and loosely, just paint in the basic layout of a central red and orange clump of clouds that spiral outwards in a ring.
Initial Composition
In the initial stage we start with a rough layout of the proto stellar disc, using just pure deliberate colour choices on the main canvas. Using the similar principles as before we can continue as follows:
3. Technical Data: Different artists depict this the proto sun as a geometric ring, and others as faint arms within a red disc. For the clarity of purpose here, we will first depict the thin edges of the arms, and subsequently lay in the red proto disc.
Illustrating The Birth of a Solar System

Following the death of a star, a vast and widespread cloud of raw material is scattered across a region. When sufficient interstellar clouds (giant molecular clouds) of raw elements collapse under gravity, it is theorised that, in the centre of these clouds, some minor rotation already exists. As the mass of the centre gets heavier and heavier, the rotation also gets faster and faster. Eventually, clouds of hydrogen become fused together until sufficient mass is reached to form a proto Sun disc under a process called Stellar Accretion.
1. Flat Washes: Paint in a background of deep saturated blues and greens initially, and then sprinkle a scattering of faint stars.
4. The Problem of Establishing Highlights Early On: Other issues to consider are the use of Colour Dodge and brighter glows. I would like
It is this process, through which a star is born, that a stable solar system is formed. And it is this transition between the formation of a stable Stellar Accretion and a proto Sun that we will try
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to stress that, in the initial stages, it is often too easy to Colour Dodge or add highlights straight away. If you do wish to do this here, try to limit these actions purely to the central portion!
Space Painting
5. Contrast to Make Things Hotter: This is due to the fact it is very hard to add further information/pixel data onto a white value. This illustration has almost pure white in the centre, but due to the contrasting red surrounding it, it appears even hotter (in fact, it is merely a light desaturated yellow).
6. Minor Details: The ends of the disc should be depicted as wispier clouds (of raw elements). Using the method of blending as shown previously, establish your mid-tones early on. A. The foreground elements of the edge of the 7. If all of these points have been considered, the early draft of your image should look pretty decent (Fig.09). stellar clouds have more colour and mid-tones applied. Moving inwards, brighter glows with judicious use of Colour Dodge can be applied closer to the centre. To finalise, the edges of the illustration are Colour Balanced and lightened to provide relief and contrast to the final illustration (Fig.10). B. The central disc is thickened, with a more nebulous ring of circular globes that cumulatively form a rough spherical aspect. is eventually seen to emanate from the central aspect.
Maturing The Illustration

The next stage to consider is to work up the initial composition into something respectable. Thereafter, one can spend a good indeterminate amount of time perfecting every tiny detail or star, perhaps even adding a foreground element like an asteroid or some space transport of sorts basically working till your hearts content!
WHAT DEFINES A PLANET?

Or, what differentiates a planet verses a lump of rock...?
In August 2006, the IAU (International Astronomical Union) were forced to redefine the definition of what constitutes a planet, following the discovery of Eris (a trans-Neptunian object confirmed to be larger than Pluto, discovered
C. The mid-range of the disc has more orange blended within. This lends a bit of an aspect of atmospheric perspective, however it does detract from the brightness of the original draft.
The following stages refer to the Fig.09 sequence:
D. Additional details and blending are added to harmonise the overall feel. A faint wisp of red
on July 29th, 2005 by Mike Brown of California Institute of Technology). The acceptance of Eris as a tenth planet meant that Pluto would now be the arbitrary minimum size.
However, other recently discovered transNeptunian objects (TNOs) such as Quanar and Sedna also exist. Does this mean they will be included within the current catalogue of planets? For a brief moment, it seemed as if our current solar system would be welcoming these into the fold (Fig.11)!
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This created a small problem; a problem that essentially did not change how we saw the universe, but from the official stance it meant updating a clearer and more robust definition of what constitutes a planet a definition that will still require tweaking in 2009!
equilibrium (nearly round) shape, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.
Furthermore, on June 11th 2008, the IAU decided to establish even further a subclass of dwarf planets into the term Plutoid (defined as any TNO having an absolute brightness
3. All other objects, except satellites, orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as Small Solar System Bodies.
magnitude of higher than H= +1).
To summarise, in a final conclusion: Planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter,
In any event, a long story cut short, this culminated in a decision. As such, the final vote of the IAU General Assembly defined a planet as such: This means there are now only 8 planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. All other celestial bodies had to be designated into the minor planet 1. A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit. catalogue, namely Pluto, Eris (and its moon Dysnomia), 2003 El, Makemake (2005 FY), Sedna and Quaoar.
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune Plutoids: Pluto, Eris, 2003 EL, Makemake TNOs: Sedna, Quaoar, etc.
For the purposes of further self-directed learning, check out the NASA: JPL Solar System Simulator (http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/) which produces accurate depictions of planets
Pluto Now A Plutoid...?

In addition, the IAU decided to further distinguish planets from dwarf planets, whereby
and satellites as seen from elsewhere in the Solar System.
2. A dwarf planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic
a dwarf planet is not considered to be a planet (and therefore Pluto could no longer be considered a planet).
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Space Painting
A SPACE PROBE
For the purposes of object interest, let us now design a space probe that can look to the stars (Fig.12). And perhaps, to project it even further, one that could look at past events or travel back in time?! Often, the challenge of producing space imagery is the lack of providing relative scale between the viewer and the main object of interest. This will often be a large astronomical object, such as a planet, star and asteroid field, or the heavens above.
Providing An Object Interest

There are two popular ways to achieve this:
1. Depict the object of interest from the view of a Moon/Surface of an asteroid.
2. Depict the object of interest from a space transport of some description.
In this instance, lets opt for the latter option.
Key Features of a Space Probe:

In the design of the space probe, the key features that come to mind are: 1. The ability to launch deep space to surface probes; 2. The ability to feature a large protective and heat resistant shield (anti solar flare/anti debris); 3. The ability to have alternative means of propulsion, e.g. a deployable solar sail or ionic propulsion; 4. The ability for secondary propulsion; 5. The ability of vector thrusters; 6. The ability and feasibility of long-term main propulsion
With regards to feasible propulsion solutions, possible viable and future technological solutions suggest: 1. A compact He3 fission reactor (e.g. The British Inteplanatery Society Daedelus Project, 1973-1978); 2. A ZPE (Zero Point Energy) alternative; 3. A trusty fully feasible nuclear powered
fission alternative which features beautiful and impressive pulses of nuclear fireballs in its wake The latter is best exemplified by the 1960 General Atomics and USAF-backed sevenyear feasibility study, Project Orion (not to be confused with the new CEV NASA space vessel also named ORION-CEV).
History contains many forgotten discoveries and advancements, and in this respect I recommend the following read: Dyson, F. Death of a Project, Science, 149, 141-44 (1965).
Project ORION
The initial idea is accredited to Stanislaw Ulam and Cornelius Everett in a classified 1955 paper
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describing the use of solid propellant discs and the release of atomic bombs, that, when vaporised, converts the propellant into hot plasma, subsequently impinging on a pusher plate and thus driving the vehicle forwards (Fig.13).
In terms of durability of the pusher plates, extensive testing of the plate erosion showed that exposure to such extreme temperatures were only for 1/1000th per second of each explosion, and that very little heat flowed into the plate. As such, active cooling was not required even. Technically, and economically, there was no flaw in the overall scheme, save for the use of nuclear powered explosions that would potentially release harmful radiation into the environment.
The project was subsequently upgraded to involve NASA involvement, whereby the design involved the Orion vehicle to be carried initially into orbit as a Saturn V upper stage (thus reducing the radiation hazard to Earths atmosphere). Ultimately, however, Orion fell quietly into the wayside for the following reasons: 1. Politics: In 1963, a nuclear test-ban treaty by the US, Britain and Soviet Union made the use nuclear explosion illegal by international law. 2. Classified: As a classified project, few in the scientific and engineering community knew it existed. For the project to survive, Orion needed to be reclassified as a peaceful scientific endeavour, and had to be partially declassified. 3. Funding: And lastly, the final nail in the coffin: funding. In 1964, the USAF indicated it was unwilling to continue support unless NASA also coughed up from its own coffers. In addition, the moon race from the Apollo missions meant that further funding was not easily forthcoming. Numerous other video material and articles show its working test models and reincarnations, which still capture the popular imagination of future space explorers to this age. For the full declassified document containing the conceptual vehicle design can be read here: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs. nasa.gov/19770085619_1977085619.pdf Technically, Mars and Venus count as terrestrial planets that can sustain life, but not workshop: How to depict a dead barren planet.
Designing a Space Probe

There is not much to add here, except to say that, using the various existing reference material and research, we end up with a simple robust space probe that has a few additional features (Fig.15): 1. The ability to deploy solar sails; 2. Multiple probe modules allowing easy deployment to explore different planets for various scientific endeavours
Thus, in some senses, mankind could have been travelling to the stars from as early as the late 1960s (Fig.14).
DEAD MOON
Moving on towards our last segment of this
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Space Painting
classically Gaian, and thus will be covered in our next segment instead (when we look at possible colonisable planets and the concept of terraforming).
the workshop, perspective is the key primary determinant when drawing craters (Fig.17). In general: 1. The closer (or more perpendicular) a crater is towards the viewer, the more circular it appears;
The dark patches seen on the moon by eye are said to be called the Lunar Mare/Maria (dark regions made of basalt which give a dark greenblue colour cast).
In this instance, we shall use our own natural satellite: the Moon in full colour, that is (Fig.16).
2. The further away a crater is, the more elliptical it appears;
Initial Layout and Composition

1. Initial Layout: Using the circular Marquee, paint a base of light yellow/grey in large flat
Lastly, nature is random, and thus, to achieve Often, the lunar surface is depicted in a bland grey, or a false desaturated blue colour. However, the advent of webcams and improved technology now show that the moon is indeed more colourful that previously known (colour photography provided from the 1994 DSPE (Deep Space Program Science Experiment) Clementine satellite). both aesthetic and an accurate rendition of the moon, try to vary the size, depth and discolouration of the craters!
washes to represent the base of the moon.
Illustrating The Moon

Some things to consider when illustrating the moon are that there is a nearside and a far side. Because our moon is tidally-locked to the Earths gravitational pull, the view of the moon is
Craters on the Moon

The key issue to consider when drawing any large circular object on a curved body, such as a planet, moon or asteroid, is the perspective. In contrast to the other aspects throughout
always fixed relatively to Earth. In the example of the Moon, it is said to be tidally locked to a larger body of the Earth. The dark patches seen on the moon by eye are said to be called the Lunar Mare/Maria (Fig.18).
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2. Palette: A colour palette of dark, mid and light tones will help in the overall production of the image using only colour. Optionally, one can choose to start out in greyscale and work out the base values based on the reference of the near and far side; however, it will take some work to make it appear painterly and naturalistic in the final outcome (Fig.19).
3. Save A Selection: In the Channels option, add a new alpha layer of the circular marquee. This will be frequently used from time to time; however, note that this will result in a sharp circular edge, whereas a softer edge is a more desirable outcome.
4. Base Shapes: Using the dark tones, lay down the dark basaltic mares, tempered with the mid-tones of pink and yellow. Finally, the lighter tones can be used to inscribe the edges of large and small craters. For a naturalistic feel, do not describe the whole shape of the crater, but rather just the edges that may catch light (Fig.20).
Adding Details
1. Work Big: For this piece, the overall image is at 6,000 pixels wide. This allows many tiny details to be faked by using purely colour complementaries. 2. Painting Basalt: Using a base of sea green, mix in a desaturated pink to suggest crater edges and highlands, and mix it in with the base green and yellow to get a good blend.
3. Craters: Try adding long light streaks emanating from some large craters. These can be thought to be left over trails from micro meteorite impacts or smaller showers.
For that final finish, try adding various foreground elements, such as the space probe previously designed, or the whole illustration can be colourgraded to a more traditional monochromic look (Fig.21).
Well, this has been a quick whistle stop tour of the start of the galaxy and depicting a barren planet. In the next issue we will look at how to terraform and paint Gaian planets!
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Dr Chee Ming Wong

For more from this artist visit: http://www.opusartz.com Or contact: info@opusartz.com
Ron Crabb presents a step by step guide to the making of his digital painting: Keep A Sharp Eye
recently Ive found myself longing to get back to some figurative work and do some storytelling with my illustration abilities.
Making Of
Keep a sharp eye
Introduction
The digital painting, Keep a Sharp Eye, had its genesis in my desire to return to my roots as an illustrator. Most of my recent commercial work has consisted of matte painting work for film and television, and that has occupied a lot of my time for a number of years now. Recently Ive found myself longing to get back to some figurative work and do some storytelling with my illustration abilities (its the variety of things I get to do that makes me love being an artist!).
The Sketch
Normally, for a paying client, I would do a pretty good concept sketch. Since I was the client for this piece, I already had a good idea of what I wanted to do, so I just did a very quick, rough sketch just to know what problems I might need to solve. This process allowed me to figure out lighting positions, model poses and prop requirements (Fig.01).
Gathering References
I then began collecting references from a number of sources, as well as online. I needed swamp images, period boat references, pirate costume details, and water ripple patterns. Once I decided to switch from lamplight to torchlight, I also needed flame references. This all came together quickly and I was then ready to photograph some models (Fig.02).
To that end, I came up with an idea to create images that feel like they have a great story behind them, even though that story hasnt been written yet. Keep a Sharp Eye is the first in the series that Im calling: Illustrations from Untold Stories.
The Concept
I had a number of ideas that have been in my mind for quite some time, but the one that jumped to the front of the line was a concept that developed during a trip to Louisiana. Ive travelled most of the United States, looking for artistic inspiration (and good location photos) for fine art, and I once found myself on a swamp tour boat in the bayous west of New Orleans. It was daytime, and I was on a pontoon boat sitting comfortably above the water (and alligators), but I instantly imagined going back in time and being there on a small skiff, gliding through those spooky waters at night with nothing but lamplight. That basic idea is the one I expanded upon for this digital painting.
All the work was done in Adobe Photoshop with just a little assistance from Cinema 4D. Heres how it all came together.
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Keep a sharp eye Making Of

The Model Shoot
For the older pirate I needed a rough-looking old guy with nice scars. Since there arent many pirates in my neighbourhood, I decided to use myself as a model (a lot of artists do this!), and I could then roughen and scar myself to an appropriate degree in the painting process. I also found two very willing children close by who were happy to help out.
A note about model shooting: I dont go overboard in trying to get everything just perfect in the photo shoot because I find that the process of correcting things during the painting phase allows for quite a bit of creativity. It forces me to think hard about lighting conditions and shapes, as well as final poses. I take many photos and often end up combining elements from a number of them to get exactly what I want (Fig.03). change in lighting and to get rid of the bright moonlight that I had indicated in the rough sketch. I felt that having it darker, without an overly bright rim light on the characters, would make it moodier; more like a classical painting than a movie poster. I would still add some ambient moonlight, but much less pronounced than originally planned. I wanted that torch to I also did a quick boat model in Cinema 4D, just to make sure I got the shape right. I then placed the basic boat into the picture, which gave me the platform to position my characters (Fig.05). really pop. I positioned the corrected photo layers and roughed some quick positioning sketches over them. I then moved the photo reference off to the side and began sketching in more details. I did this for two reasons: one, its more fun to draw than trace; two, it allows me to make the changes I want to make and be creative. For instance, I often make a mans head slightly smaller in relation to his body size and his
Starting the Painting

With all my photos and references in hand, I began the painting process. I created a quick background just to get a base going, using simple, hand-painted tree silhouettes (Fig.04).
I pieced together my model references, combining body positions with preferred facial expressions, and did some colour correcting to get close to the desired lighting and colouring. During this process I decided to make a slight
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Making Of
hands slightly larger. Its a common illustrator tip I picked up from a Norman Rockwell book ages ago. I also make kids eyes slightly larger it adds to expressiveness. None of it is dramatic, but I think it helps the storytelling.
Keep a sharp eye
Photoshop technique note: All through this process I keep all my elements separated into many Photoshop layers. I combine as I go, once Im satisfied with each layer.
Painting Faces
I seem to always start with faces. Thats because that is where the story is, and the rest supports the mood that is captured there. Plus its the most fun part! Once I had the line work in (as a separate Photoshop layer), I painted a new layer that was a silhouette of the characters as a base to work on. I chose the medium level value of the ambient moonlight colour
as a starting point. That way, when I started painting, I was thinking about the torchlight, how it would hit the shapes and where the resulting shadows would be. Even when copying from photo references, it is good to really understand what is going on with shape, lighting and colour (Fig.06).
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Continuing the Face
I created a new Photoshop layer under the line layer and above the character base layer. I set the transparency for the line layer to around 50% and started blocking in colour with a custom brush that has a chalk pastel kind of feel to it. I find this brush gives me results similar to those I get when oil painting with worn sable brushes. I worked quickly and started reducing the size of the brush as details emerged (Fig.07a e). It was a pretty straightforward painting at this point, but I constantly kept in mind the underlying bone structure and my two light sources (torch and ambient). I also made the character change by making the nose more chiselled than my own rounder one. I enhanced check bones a bit and weathered and scarred the face considerably. I also gave him a better goatee than I have. Artistic license is a great thing! As I neared the detailed work, I turned off the line drawing layer, or made it very transparent, and merged it down. I then finetuned the sharper details. replaced cute with beautiful, again making for a broader range of emotional appeal. I now had a cute boy, a young and beautiful girl, and a rough-looking pirate all in the same boat. There has to be a story there (Fig.08 & 09)! Compared to the people, this all went fairly rapidly and I moved quickly from boat to torch, and then to the background.
The Background
Back when I used oil paints, I almost always did the background first just for the practical reason of working back to front. In the digital realm this is not necessary, and in this case it allowed me to determine just what I wanted to do with the environment, based on the look of the characters. I decided to leave the trees in the distance somewhat graphic in style, with overlaying transparency levels. I think this gives it a ghostly appearance and fits with the mood. It also leaves the underlying texture visible, which adds suggested detail without the need for a lot of painting. I only enhanced areas on the tree trunks that would pick up light from the torch. It was also at this point that I started defining foreground elements and decided to make that detailed in shape, but silhouetted in nature. I then added some fog layers.
The Kids
I continued in the same way with the kids. During this process, I decided to age the girl from a nine year old into a young teen. I felt this would add a better range of character ages and complicate the potential story a little. It also
Moving On
I got the people to an almost finished point and moved on, knowing I would return to them for final adjustments and detail additions. I painted a quick torch to establish its exact location for lighting purposes, and then began the boat by painting on a layer above the 3D base.
Some Details
After getting the background just about right, I went back and added some details to the boat and everything inside it. I added the tattoos on the girls arm, the sword and baldric (scabbard)
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Making Of
Keep a sharp eye
on the pirate, a rifle, some jewellery, stitching and other small details.
done, I made some overall colour correction layers to fine-tune the focus on the people.
got some great critiques that I went back and applied. They included better rendering of the flame and some lighting adjustments to the boy and girl to account better for light fall-off. I had knowingly cheated the lighting (artistic license again), but apparently a bit too much (its great
The Water
Since everything in the upper half of the image needed to be reflected in the water, I naturally had to do the water last. But it wasnt as easy as simple copying and flipping the image. The reflection would have a slightly different angle on the people in the boat and the boat itself, so after making separate copies of the people, the boat and the background, I cut and pasted elements and shifted them so that they would have the correct perspective or at least a reasonably close one. I then flipped the image and used a combination of Photoshop smudging and painting.
After Some Feedback

Heres where the global community of artists came in nicely! Once this image was posted I
A Few More Details

At this point I was almost there, and just went around adjusting details and doing slight colour corrections. Once I considered the painting part
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to have the whole world of artists available to give you some good advice use them!).
all!). I decided to take advantage of 3D to get a more detailed rendering of water reflections. I took the image that had been adjusted for the reflection perspective and mapped it onto a plane in Cinema 4D. I loaded it into the illumination channel so that the image itself
would be the only light source. I then rendered a number of water reflections at different scale settings. (Fig.10 11)
Reflection Fine-Tuning
After it was all done, I discovered that I didnt like the water reflections (so it wasnt done after
I could then take them into the Photoshop file and combine them so that the reflection represented the correct water flow dynamics (or was at least close). I ended up combining some of the original hand-painted with the new 3D to get exactly what I wanted.
The Final Image

The whole process took about four days, maybe five (I was working on this in the midst of commercial jobs). The final resolution was 6,000 by 4,496. Im planning on doing gicle prints of this image and hope to do more in my Illustrations from Untold Stories series. I hope you can glean something valuable from hearing about the creative process that went into it!
Thanks for letting me share!
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Ron Crabb
For more from this artist visit: http://www.crabbdigital.com/ Or contact: ron@crabbdigital.com
In this piece I didnt start from a sketch. Instead I just started painting over the 3D shape. It was just like 3D modelling, really: you model the body first and add the clothes second!
Yu Cheng Hong reveals how he created his character Ruo.
Making Of
ruo
Created In:
Maya and Photoshop
Introduction
This piece is the third character that I have created for personal work; a dark magician with cool looks and a gloomy, cold personality. I wanted his costume to not be too armoured, but to be more modern-looking, and I intended to have the space featuring some magical steel on the wall, and so I started doing research and finding references to help me on my way.
References
Here are some costumes I found on GQ web. One of the outfits is actually by my favourite fashion designer, John Galliano. So I tried to aim for the same feeling in my characters clothing design (Fig.01 and Fig.02).
3D Work
I started in 3D first of all, because I wanted to get an exaggerated perspective, and I figured 3D would help a lot. So I went to Maya, where I started to model some simple basic shapes as references (Fig.03).
Colour
In this piece I didnt start from a sketch. Instead I just started painting over the 3D shape. It was just like 3D modelling, really: you model the body first and add the clothes second! So I painted the body first, just using Photoshops basic default round brush to paint (Fig.04).
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ruo Making Of
I then started to design the hair style, which I wanted to be punk-like, mixed with reggae braids (Fig.05).
Next I painted the shirt, which included buttons decorated with a traditional Chinese lion pattern (Fig.06).
Then, I started to design the upper suit and added some Sanskrit to the sleeve (Fig.07).
The tie was then included, with a skull and some metal on it, and I added some metal in the form of a Chinese pattern onto the suit, and also two skulls, to achieve more of a punk feeling (Fig.08)!
I started to paint the pants and added the sleeve for the shirt (Fig.09) and then I imported the chair image, made in Maya, and painted the shoes (Fig.10).
I also added Sanskrit to the bottom of pants same as for the sleeves of the upper suit - refined the shoes and changed the suit colour to red (Fig.11),
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Making Of
ruo
I saved the 3D image as a perspective guide line to check that everything worked the way I wanted it to (Fig.12).
The background image was modelled in 3D, for the chair I used a Chinese lion sculpture for the arm rests, with Eight Trigrams (a set of symbolic signs created in ancient China) (Fig.13).
At this point, I was still trying to think about what the background should look like (and it was really bothering me!) (Fig.14).
I refined the background and put more work into the lighting, but I still didnt know how the colour tone should look. So, I used the Color Balance option to adjust the colour tone; I tried to give it a warmer tone to see how it would look, but
I didnt feel it worked with the character, so I reverted back to the colder blue tones (Fig.15 & Fig.16).
Because I was still struggling with the background at this stage, I got stuck into detailing work on the chair and designing the
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ruo Making Of
feature of the metal with some glowing light on it making it more sci-fi looking (Fig.17).
I then cut the pattern and pieced it together for the ground texture (Fig.18). I thought the ground should be made of a marble-like stone, so I
copied the legs and chair to create the reflection on the ground (the same goes for the reflection on the chair) (Fig.19 & Fig.20).
I copied the light (Eight Trigrams), enlarged it and blurred it to make the light lie nicely on the ground (Fig.21 and Fig.22).
I then used the Color Balance tool to give the picture more blue and purple tones, and a generally colder feeling (Fig.23).
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Making Of
ruo
Glowing Effects
To create the glowing magic in the scene, I used an abstract brush that Id downloaded from a graphic design website (Fig.24). I used the Free Transform tool to transform and scale the glowing magic (Fig.25) and I then copied the magic brush many times, and blurred the result (Fig.26).
And after some final tweaks and adjustments, here is the final image (Fig.27)!
So, here I have just talked you through some of the methods that I used while working on
this piece. I hope my working pipeline has been of interest to you and will maybe help you in your own projects! If you have any questions or suggestion, please feel free to let me know.
Thanks!
www.2dartistmag.com
page 106
yu cheng Hong
For more from this artist visit: http://www.yuchenghong.com or contact: beziermix@yahoo.com.tw

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Concept Art, Digital & Matte Painting Magazine Issue 033 September 2008 $4.50 / 3.25 / 2.

Eduardo Pea SketchBook

Stylised Characters Traditional Media Speed Painting

Keep A Sharp Eye RUO

Issue 033 September 2008

Get the most out of your

Setting up your PDF reader

1. Open the magazine in Reader;

Issue 033 September 2008

Issue 033 September 2008

Issue 033 September 2008

Issue 033 September 2008

Issue 033 September 2008

Issue 033 September 2008

Kai Spannuth Interview

Issue 033 September 2008

possible to start anew when I have botched something up!

is well suited for the optimum understanding of a given message.

Issue 033 September 2008

Issue 033 September 2008

eduardo pena Interview

Issue 033 September 2008

Issue 033 September 2008

eduardo pena Interview

Issue 033 September 2008

Issue 033 September 2008

eduardo pena Interview

Issue 033 September 2008

Issue 033 September 2008

Hethe Srodawa Sketchbook

Issue 033 September 2008

Issue 033 September 2008

Hethe Srodawa Sketchbook

Sometimes I do studies so that I can learn through observation (Fig.20 22).

Issue 033 September 2008

Issue 033 September 2008

Hethe Srodawa Sketchbook

These last set of thumbnails were painted on my Nintendo DS (Fig.29).

Issue 033 September 2008

The Wood Dragon and the Ladybird

Issue 033 September 2008

Pinka (Vanilla Pixy)

Issue 033 September 2008

The Gallery 10 of the Best

Issue 033 September 2008

The Mantis Queen

Issue 033 September 2008

What are we looking for? 6th CamSyko

Issue 033 September 2008

SuperVillain Stylised Challenge

5th rosatron 6th Lucent Verner

Issue 033 September 2008

2nd ScaryPotato Challenge Thread

The current challenge taking place is: frankenstein

Issue 033 September 2008

SuperVillain Stylised Challenge

3rd Nadiamoon Step 01

Issue 033 September 2008

Issue 033 September 2008

2nd Trashy The Idea