[dandurda]

I've been lurking here for a little over a year, greatly enjoying everyone's artwork, and decided that perhaps it was time to jump in and put some of my own personal work out here to see what I can learn. I am a professional astronomer and hobbyist artist, although my artwork has been widely published. I'm primarily an astronomical artist, with a deep personal interest in exoplanets. I'm not a matte painter per se, although much of my work uses a lot of the same techniques. Hence my interest in this site and in learning from you all.

I've seen several of you use 'mouse overs' or 'roll overs' on your sites to compare your final pieces with the original plates and I really love those. It inspired me to add such a gallery to my own page in prep for my introductory post here.

http://www.3dimpact.com/

Navigate to the "GALLERY" section and my 'Digital' and 'Mouse Over' galleries to see my digital art. Some pieces are 100% 3D, some nearly pure Photoshop, and some digital 'matte paintings'.

Here are just two samples to introduce my work:

Final piece ("Beach 1")

Original plate


Final piece ("Desolate")

Original plate:


I'll update here in this thread as I generate new pieces with appropriate digital matte painting techniques...

Dan

[matgilson]

Dan!!!! You're work is amazing as ever! I love the new "roll over" section. I love getting to see a bit into your process. Thanks for sharing both the images here and the galleries on your web page! Keep up the great work Dan. Very inspiring sic-fi/space images, I can't wait to see what comes next from you, man!

[Jadrien]

I enjoyed looking through your site, especially the traditional gallery. Looking forward to more!

[nickmarshallvfx]

Awesome stuff! This is exactly the sort of thing that got me interested in digital photo manipulation about 8 years ago and i still love looking at astronomical paintings! In fact, your timing is uncanny, as i just started a freelance painting this evening along very similar lines. Its clear you have a great eye for photo manipulation, im looking forward to that video gallery going up on your site. Thanks for sharing!

[miragenz]

hey Dan... you’ve finally joined us, yay! they look great (of course) look forward to seeing your next ones... featuring your starship perhaps? keep it up. dave

[dandurda]

Wow - thanks, everyone, for the really nice 'welcome aboard'! I'm looking forward to continuing to learn and improve...

Dan

[nickmarshallvfx]

Ok, so unless there happens to be two Dan Durda's, both of whom are astronomical scientists, I just saw an interview with you about the Russian meteor on TV... Trippy!!
Took me a second to think where I knew the name from :)

[dandurda]

Heh - yeah, that's me :-) You'll see me soon on another production with Liz Bonnin, and I'm about to film a show with Richard Hammond in a couple weeks. I've done dozens of these (History Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, ...) and it's a ton of fun to get to share a bit of the things I know from my research life.

I wonder if I'll ever get to do a show about matte painting...

Dan

[miragenz]

yes indeed and its the same 'Dan' who’s heading into space next year! of course we will all be expecting to see some incredible plate photography of above the clouds and examples of how the atmo meets space... hmmm dont suppose you could pop a gopro on the fuselage? :) dave