first try at matte painting (composite)

[RobA]

Fixed the title And let me add that you keep impressing me with your more artistic endeavours!

-Rob A>

[jaerdaph]

Again, I'm reminded of all those beautiful matte paintings from Star Trek TOS.

[pyrandon]

This is nothing to sneeze at! I like it! I think the only thing really in need of fixing in the painting is the bright blue: it is so discordant with the rest of the color scheme, which could be a point of interest, but it's too bright for the environment; in this atmosphere, realistically speaking, there would be red/yellow highlights & shadows over that blue, so it would not seem so bright. Something to play with?

Great job! Did you have fun making it?

[ravells]

Thanks Rob/jaerdaph/Don! It was really good fun to make but utterly frustrating at times trying to get my head around why an image I'd dropped in just didn't 'fit' and what I had to do to make it fit. I tried to do a city in the background but it just looked too much like it had been stuck on.

Nevertheless it was a great learning process. What I found myself using a lot of was:

different selection cut out techniques
masks
feathering
clone stamping
masses of colour manipulation
The eraser
smudge, dodge and burn tools
brush painting (not much but a bit)

I wasn't very organised in my approach which meant going back and doing a lot of stuff, but that's all part of learning. There was a lot of trial and error in doing this. It does require a lot of patience which I'm going to have to learn. Impatience is my worst enemy.

It's very satisfying to produce something that looks a bit like a painting without having the first idea how to draw!

[HandsomeRob]

Sorry to jack your thread but I did something similar the other day:


It's a dragon made out of an iguana and a vampire bat.

[su_liam]

jaerdaph beat me to it. That could have been a Rigellian castle for Star Trek TOS. I miss that show. Y'all ROCK, mate.

[ravells]

Cheers Su liam! That iguana has a very dignified expression!

[jaerdaph]

Sorry to jack your thread but I did something similar the other day:

It's a dragon made out of an iguana and a vampire bat.

Now *that* reminds me of Clash of the Titans and all those Sinbad movie monsters that Ray Harryhausen created, which is really cool too.

[Robbie]

Check some of these out...also a good place to get skills http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=196


Looks good tho Ravells...my only suggestion would be to use higher res source material.