Recent Personal Painting

[dylan]

Hello all.
I apologize if you saw this on CG talk.
Here goes.

http://www.dylancolestudio.com/Matte/personal/images/ManhattanMPv01.jpg

Vital Stats-
All done in photoshop, no 3D
4900 pixels wide
done in somewhere around 40 or 45 hours.
Good mix of photo ref and paint.
I hope you like.

[swoop]

whaooooooooo

it's amazing...No 3D !!
I love it...
I'm a fan of your work... :D
very impressive

[MoonDog]

I guess this should be true of all high-end professional matte painters - but it's especially obvious in every matte you've posted - you not only are a true master of technique (it's always invisible), but you also have a wonderful sense of conceptual design.

This "inverted city" idea has been around for a while, but you truly make it your own by making it realistic (for the first time, in any treatment I've seen). It looks plausible. The hint of "mushroom clounds" in the building shapes, the inpenatrable wall of buildings on either side of the frame, so tightly bunched together, there's no room for sky to peek between - really wonderful.

Please post other personal works whenever you feel the urge - I know that there's a huge audience on this forum eager to draw inspiration and knowledge from your works...

PS - Sorry to gush, but this is like seeing a frame from some imaginary summer blockbuster - spectacular job.

[homer]

I like photo realistic matte paintings.
It’s a believable fantasy.
Well done.

[nisus]

pphheeeewwwww! Wonderful!

Great that you add specs so we can learn ,-))

nisus

[smooth]

Nice! Good work as always Dylan.

By any chance is this the result of your iRobot work that you did? Meaning...the reference photos you came accross/acquired for that project is used in this matte painting?
Curious as always to see the images used. :)

+smooth+

[tobiasth]

:shock:

holimoli! great work!
this is awesome....! :wink:

[jamesvfx]

hey dylan this is a great matte painting, for this futuristic cityscape some flying vehicles in motion could help the image giving to it more life,
I was wondering did u take this photo ? or you buy them. a great photo by the way, how did u work on this?? do you have a skecth or you just simple start painting and the ideas just come naturally??

great work man

[nisus]

Hi Dylan,

Simply wonderful. Can you show us what parts are pictures and what parts are painted?

rgds

nisus

[DMPjedi]

I concur ^^ Being new at matte painting right now, I'm pretty much impressed by anything :oops:

But I hope to learn a lot from this great site. I've already been overwhelmed with such great info :lol:

[Slave]

H*O*L*L*Y*S*M*O*K*E*S*!!!!!!!!!

THATS HOT!!

:shock: :D :shock: :) :P

[Novalism]

Jawdrop :)

It seems a huge task to make this! So much detail!
You mind posting some full detail shots ? 8)

[dylan]

Hey Guys,

Thank you all very much, I am glad you like it.

MoonDog-Thank you, it means a lot, I have been trying to work on my design sense.

Smooth-I wouldn't say this is a result of my I, Robot stuff, I just love doing cities. I did use some of the same ref from a trip that I took to Sydney.

jamesvfx-I found a couple small photos on the web which became the basis for the sketch below. I altered them enough so they are unrecognizable. All of my other ref I shot myself. There was no one photo for palette, I just hacked at the sketch until I like where it was going. I had a vague idea of the flat top superstructures, but that was about it.

nisus- hopefully these details give you a better idea of what was painted and what was photo. Obviously all the photos had to be heavily manipulated to work with perspective and color. It was more about individual buildings and not large areas of photo.

Novalism- here you go.

http://www.dylancolestudio.com/Matte/personal/images/ManhattanDetail1.jpg

http://www.dylancolestudio.com/Matte/personal/images/ManhattanDetail2.jpg

http://www.dylancolestudio.com/Matte/personal/images/ManhattanMPsketch.jpg

[homer]

Thanks Dylan,
This is a great work.

[smooth]

thanks Dylan for posting the development stages of your work, and the closeups of the details.
very nice!

+smooth+

[rrische]

This is great. Dylan was an intern at ILM when I was there, I think in 2000.
It's nice to see you've come so far, Dylan! This is really really nice work!

[stevenbray1]

Thanks for the great picture AND the breakdowns.

More than anything, it's the "how to" that really counts on a site like this.

Wonderful work.

[tobiasth]

wow, thx for the details!

[i n n e r c o r e]

it's really amazing , I luv very much :D

[DMPjedi]

What amazes me is the detail in this. It's so seamless between the painted stuff and the photo stuff. This site gets me so pumped to do some more work of my own :lol:

[Timser]

WOW :o

Dylan,
that is trully spectacular as all of your work is. You inspire me to learn more everyday. Can i ask a big favour? Can you add more 'WIP' images with your next piece please, including more steps of how it evolves? Have you ever made any tutorials that i could get a link too? This is really really helpful whilst learning and would be very much appreciated if you have the time.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give, not just from myself, i am sure i speak for many new mattepainters the world over. Keep up the great work.

[smooth]

I just checked out your site again and found you posted some new work. Man the shot of Shangri-La from Sky Captain - the movie doesn't do it justic. Wow.
When should we be expecting a Gnomon DVD? :) I'd be surprised if you have yet to be approached by them to produce one.

+smooth+

[dylan]

Hey everyone, thanks again.


Rick- good to hear from you, I am glad you like the painting. I would also like to publicly apologize for being an overly enthusiastic, pestering intern:)

Timser-The tutorials are a possibility,though the simple truth is that they take time, time that I don't have. I have broken down several paintings into steps, but none have been posted, I am waiting to figure out what to do with them. Please be patient.

smooth- Glad you like the Shangri-La painting. I was a little dissapointed to see it in the film. As for DVD's there will probably be an announcement soon. I will post info here when it happens.

[stormeffex]

hi dylan, i love your concepts and technique. i just realized that you went to the conceptart.org workshop and did a demo right? if i had known about that sooner, i would have definitely gone. i'm regretting that i missed out on such an event. maybe next time. thanks for the inspirational material.

[nisus]

Hi Dylan,

This is a great addition ,-) Really marvellous. Tnx!
rgds

nisus

[smooth]

Cool. The only problem I had with the Dusso dvd's was it's resolution. It's the technology they use and from what i understand can't make them any sharper for NTSC use. I personally ply my dvds on my computer so I would welcome a higher output.
But they compress them to play off of a tv. :( Again doesn't do your work justic...sigh* Maybe H264 might help...http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/h264.html . I've mentioned it to them but I doubt they checked it out.

In the second dvd I had trouble trying to figure out where his brush was. So i guess it would be cool in regards to that to give us some closeups of your brush work. Not to mention how to produce the effect your trying to get using PS in that certain way. Know what I mean? Dusso was very general in his dvd's. Which was ok. But the more details the better!
Just a little input on my behalf. I understand the methods of these dvds might already be laid out etc. Either way I'm looking forward to them. I hope your making more than 2! :)

+smooth+

[Riddick]

It is sure that the reduction of this big picture make the difference.
But this picture is really crazy! Fantastic work on the photorealistic atmosphere!
This is not always easy too work on things in the light of a beautiful day!
And you have well done this!
Hurray Dylan!

[Fuzz]

Hey dylan, thanks a lot for the tight shots. I'm amazed you find time to actually have personal work. I have two quick questions for you. Regarding the water, Is that an overlay of photography inorder to get the grain, or is that just a brush you created to fake the Darks and lights of light play on the surface?

I also have a question about your edge coloring on the distant building clusters. I'm really happy to see that you actually use the optical illusion of red edges on blue hazy shapes. I've been trying to figure out how to replicate this in my own work. Is there a rule of thumb you use? For example is it just a matter of complementary colors so that blue objects in the distance take on a red outline, yellow take on violet, and so on?

Thanks Dylan, keep up the good work.

[proconpictures]

the sunlight coming in from the side is fantastic