Hi folks, Newbie here. Got some matte Paintings to show you.

[jcdlr]

Hi Folks,

Well these are my fisrt tryouts at matte paintings. I'm here to learn and to evolve withing this awsome community....

....I sure would like to show you my stuff but It seems that I can't upload anything in here....


Can anyone help me out please ?


Thank you for your precious time.


Jean Claude

[Maryam]

See this topic:
http://www.mattepainting.org//forum/viewtopic.php?t=434

[jcdlr]

Thank you very much Maryam for helping me out. Greatly appreciated.

Have a nice day.

Jean Claude

http://upload4free.com/files/1202.jpg

[jcdlr]

Hi guys,

Here is another matte painting that I did last week and I got another one coming up.

Hope you guys can help me out with some techniques and constructive criticism.



Thanks for your time guys.



Jean Claude


http://upload4free.com/files/1203.jpg

[jcdlr]

Here is the other matte painting I was talking to you about in my last reply.

As always, thanks for taking the time to look at my stuff and replying with your helpful words and wisdom.



Jean Claude



http://upload4free.com/files/1204.jpg

[nisus]

Nice, but a waste of space with all the black around your images...

Imho the ankor temple is way too large for the mountain.. gives me a wrong sense of scale.

rgds

nisus

[jcdlr]

Yeah the black contour was to frame the whole artwork and have a clean presentation.

As for the size of the matte paintings I couldn't really blow it up really big since the reference photos were of low resolution. So I had to work small in order to evade pixelation. Anyways I tried to bring it as big as I could but even now you can see some pixelation in the matte. Got any useful tips for that ?

As for the temple, yeah I was aiming for a grand scale effect but I do admit that the scale is off....maybe if I put a human being in the foreground it would help with the scale effect that I'm trying to convey ???...What do you think nisus ?

Thank you for your time.

Jean Claude

[shyster]

Hi Jean,

Nice work.

#1: The cliffs and palace look pretty nice. The patches of fog are wrong, maybe not so white considering the warm lighting. Also the large cloud on the left looks a bit dark, just correct this with a nice channel mix mask. The foreground is the only thing i really dont like. you did a good job considering the original image was so white, however, the shadows look blowed-out and the edge of the cliff could be a bit sharper.

#2: I like the clouds and light fog from the right but if you change the sky, you should also tweak the ground plane accordingly, remember, when you changed the coloration of those clouds, you were messing with something that already looked perfect, so be careful. As far why the pryamid looks out of place, perhaps it is because there is no depth of field or depth fog added and we can see too much detail as compared to the the hills around it.

#3: Tone down that lens flare a bit maybe, could be wrong but it seems to draw my eye too much. i like this plate the best. Did you draw those asteroids?

As for the black space around the images, it does look nice and professional, but at mattepainting.org, you don't have to be fancy. we all look at in-progress-plates all day, so save the bandwidth and show us as much detail of the image as possible so we can give you better feedback.

finally, you are too talented to be working with such small images. you deserve better. find a digital camera or google images w/ the large-image-only tab selected. either that or you compression sucks. hope my critiques weren't too harsh. I REALLY DO LIKE YOUR WORK.

Post more.
--rodney :D

[jcdlr]

Hi Rodney,

Thanks allot for your comments and I really appreciate you taking the time to give me good and constructive feedbacks :) and don't worry about it lol no hard feelings taken here lol I'm here to learn and It feels good to know that you appreciate my work

The asteroides are actually Brick walls for miniature sets. I found that in my CD photo library and I simply matched the lightning and desaturated them. I created more layers and fliped and twisted and deformed them so that they looked as closely as possible like asteroides. I painted on top of them, erased some parts and blurred other sections.

I will take a look at that google search option. Thanks for the tip!

...man I really got to get myself a digital camera. Got any one that you could suggest me ?

Thanks for your time.


P.S. I'm working on a Hunted house as we speak I will try to post it when I get back home around 10 am. You will be able to see the work in progress.;)


Jean Claude
Freelance Illustrator

[jcdlr]

Here is the Haunted House that I was talking about.

Thanks for your time guys.

Jean Claude

http://upload4free.com/files/1784.jpg

http://upload4free.com/files/1785.jpg

[homer]

Keeping all the elements in the same mood makes it more believable.
"Ice Cavern" picture is good.

[jcdlr]

Keeping all the elements in the same mood makes it more believable.
"Ice Cavern" picture is good.



Thanks for taking the time to reply. Greatly appreciated.

Jean Claude

[jcdlr]

Hi Jean,

Nice work.

#1: The cliffs and palace look pretty nice. The patches of fog are wrong, maybe not so white considering the warm lighting. Also the large cloud on the left looks a bit dark, just correct this with a nice channel mix mask. The foreground is the only thing i really dont like. you did a good job considering the original image was so white, however, the shadows look blowed-out and the edge of the cliff could be a bit sharper.

#2: I like the clouds and light fog from the right but if you change the sky, you should also tweak the ground plane accordingly, remember, when you changed the coloration of those clouds, you were messing with something that already looked perfect, so be careful. As far why the pryamid looks out of place, perhaps it is because there is no depth of field or depth fog added and we can see too much detail as compared to the the hills around it.

#3: Tone down that lens flare a bit maybe, could be wrong but it seems to draw my eye too much. i like this plate the best. Did you draw those asteroids?

As for the black space around the images, it does look nice and professional, but at mattepainting.org, you don't have to be fancy. we all look at in-progress-plates all day, so save the bandwidth and show us as much detail of the image as possible so we can give you better feedback.

finally, you are too talented to be working with such small images. you deserve better. find a digital camera or google images w/ the large-image-only tab selected. either that or you compression sucks. hope my critiques weren't too harsh. I REALLY DO LIKE YOUR WORK.

Post more.
--rodney :D

Hey rodney,

Here is the " Haunted " house that I just started.

[shyster]

hi jean, sorry i didnt reply. i am deep into school right now taking matte painting, programming, and compositing courses.

i like your haunted house much better than those other low-res pics.
i can't really say much cause I haven't done this yes. I'm just now learning as well.

when i do start this picture though, i will start out with a channel mix mask so as to make the picture monochrome. then i will ctrl+alt+merge down that layer. then i'll add a level mask and level out the greyscale image until it is predominantly 100% black and white shapes.. then ctrl+alt+merge down that layer.

then i can copy the black/white layer and make a mask on my original untouched image. then you can copy the black/white image into the mask by alt selecting the mask and paste.

this makes a good mask to seperate the foreground and background. that makes it easy to work on the sky without painting over the house.

how did you go about this piece? i'll post some of my stuff asap.

[jcdlr]

hi jean, sorry i didnt reply. i am deep into school right now taking matte painting, programming, and compositing courses.

i like your haunted house much better than those other low-res pics.
i can't really say much cause I haven't done this yes. I'm just now learning as well.

when i do start this picture though, i will start out with a channel mix mask so as to make the picture monochrome. then i will ctrl+alt+merge down that layer. then i'll add a level mask and level out the greyscale image until it is predominantly 100% black and white shapes.. then ctrl+alt+merge down that layer.

then i can copy the black/white layer and make a mask on my original untouched image. then you can copy the black/white image into the mask by alt selecting the mask and paste.

this makes a good mask to seperate the foreground and background. that makes it easy to work on the sky without painting over the house.

how did you go about this piece? i'll post some of my stuff asap.



HI shyster,

Sorry for not answering sooner, blame the X-box ! LOL not the Player lol

Well my approach to painting the house was similar to what you just said. I brought the sky into the picture of the house in "overlay" mode then I masked the the sky and erased the extra portion that was showing on top of the house.

Once the sky was well intergrated, I started to play around with the brightness-contrast and lightness to try to match the lighting of the house with the picture of the sky.

I used some colors from the sky picture and added that on the rooftop of the house. I also used the ' burn ' tool ( on the house and trees )
and ' color dodge ' tool for the lights.


Where are you taking those cool classes about matte painting and compositing ?

Jean Claude