College Student...

[kmblackbear06]

Hey everyone, I just signed up here and am excited to get the help and critiques needed to better my skills and help me to learn. I am sure this post has been made before, possibly hundreds of times, but is there a place that someone could direct me to start with? I have never done a matte before, I am building up my traditional art skills, and my digital skills... Is there a place or link or helpful friendly member that can give me some good advice of where to start in the process that I need to know? Lighting, color theory, perspective, drawing, painting, etc etc... I am watching Dylan Cole's Matte Painting DVD's right now, and it seems a bit advanced (my color theory/painting/lighting knowledge kinda sucks) Am I starting too late to ever get a job in this field? Okay, back to the DVD's. Thanks everyone, glad to be here and I can't wait to learn all I can.

[Xdreamer79]

Best thing I can think about is to get some high resolution photographs and compose a scenery. It doesn't have to be that good the first time but you'll get a feeling for lighning/coloring such as perspective drawing. I am not really a matte painter (or better not yet *g*) and I watch dylan's dvd all the time, learning and using it the same time in photoshop :-]

Its all about practice :-]

[Dream Artisan]

I think the DVDs are an excellent place to start. I think that 90% of the mistakes you see from beginners is their perspective is not correct, and their lighting does not match (i.e. lightsource from the same direction). Solving those issues puts you much closer to creating believable images.

Then there are issues like composition (I highly recommend Feng Zhu's DVDs for that), scale, color palette and key, value, etc.

And it's never too late to start. But it will take time and work to get to a certain level of proficiency. Good luck.

[kmblackbear06]

XDreamer - Def working on getting/building up my photo library. Composition is always a tough thing I think... Well, I think being creative is the hardest part. I am going to follow Dylan Cole's DVD's and finish them, and then work on my own style/photos... Your def right... All about practice. Oh I checked out your site by the way, what do you use to make your websites? One big piece in Photoshop, then slice it up? I am going to try to make a fairly nice looking portfolio site, and need a bit of help.

Dream Artisan - Good to know I am not alone in the perspective and lighting problem. I did buy Scott Robertsons Perspective DVD as well to help me out with that problem... I'll have to check out Feng's DVD too if you recommend them. I want to get really good at this and someday get a job doing it. I love art, and love learning... Glad to see the helpful comments :) I'll be posting my first screenshots of my progress soon. :)

Thanks agian!