Concept art + SketchUP - 'Lesbian Vampire Killers' film
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Thanks for the comments everyone - I'll try to post a bit more often...
All the post processing / painting is done in Corel Painter X. Final colour correction / cropping in photoshop, but it's almost all painter.
Any natural media painting package would be fine for the job, since it's not really about any definite series of techniques beyond what any painting book would be able to tell you
. I don't use Artrage, as I'm not used to it, but I've seen some amazing stuff from people who do.Here is a rough guide to the process - I won't go too much into the painting, since this is an SU forum after all...
Step 1 - native SU output with the style 'sketchy pen black', face style 'hidden line', and shadows on. Saved as a .tiff with 'make background transparent' turned on (will be important later).
Step 2 - load the SU image in the art package of choice. It must support layers, because the first step is to copy the SketchUP image to layer 1, and set the blend mode to 'multiply'. You've then got a blank canvas, with the SU linework sitting on top of it in another layer. Because it's set to 'multiply', you can then happily start painting on the canvas, underneath the linework. I use a watercolour brush for this.
Step 3 - because the SU image had 'make background transparent' ticked when it was saved, it is possible to extract a matte of the buildings as an alpha channel. This is then used a layer mask on a new 'sky background' layer. You can then paint as rough as you want in the sky, knowing that the roofline will stay perfectly crisp and sharp.
Step 4 - make a new layer, and start painting in the detail. I use a square chalk brush for this, since it doesn't blend or pick up any of the colour underneath it. This isn't a worry in photoshop, where no brushes pick up previously applied colour. To recap:
Layer 0 (canvas): Rough watercolour painting
Layer 1: SketchUP render set to blend mode 'multiply'
Layer 2: Sky, with a layer mask extracted from the SketchUP render.
Layer 3: Painted detail
Step 5 - Finishing. For this I use a digital oil brush, which DOES pick up colour that is already sitting on the canvas. I can therefore use it to blend edges, soften gradients, and generally 'bed in' the painted detail. There's a bit of airbrushing for the atmospheric glow, and some fractal brushwork in photoshop for the chimney smoke.
This how I do almost all of my paintings. I've tried skipping the SketchUP part on a number of occasions (and starting with either a hand-drawn sketch, or just painting blindly), and the result is always substandard. It just great to be able to 'try out' all the possible angles, camera lenses, etc in SU, rather than endlessly thumbnailing - the composition always ends up miles better.
Hope that gives some folks here an idea or two...
AJ
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excellent skills. and thanks for the step by step lead there alex. amazing.
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great work, Alex.
thank you very much for the tutorial!
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Thank you very much!
Sheer genius!
I'll try it in ArtRage... as soon as I get a tablet. -
Ecuadorian: Although I now use Painter, I spent a while working wth Artrage - you can certainly get equally good results with this great little package. Painter does make the whole process a little easier, but then you do pay for it!
Alex: just taken the time to look over your re-vamped (pun not intended) website. Nice to see the new stuff in there! What I particularly like about your work is that even the 'photo-real' matte work retains a subtle painterly quality. For reasons I can't quite pin-down, this style always seems to integrate a litte better with the original filmed footage than the ultra-slick cgi style that is so prevelant now. Perhaps because the paint strokes are reminiscent of film-grain...? (although know you also add grain digitally) I hope the increasing trend to film on-set with digital cameras won't mean a decline in this painterly style.
cheers,
Andy.
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I have translated your tutorial in French for the French section
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@unknownuser said:
Alex: just taken the time to look over your re-vamped (pun not intended) website. Nice to see the new stuff in there! What I particularly like about your work is that even the 'photo-real' matte work retains a subtle painterly quality. For reasons I can't quite pin-down, this style always seems to integrate a litte better with the original filmed footage than the ultra-slick cgi style that is so prevelant now. Perhaps because the paint strokes are reminiscent of film-grain...? (although know you also add grain digitally) I hope the increasing trend to film on-set with digital cameras won't mean a decline in this painterly style.
Thanks man! I got a lot of feedback on my old site (a chunk of it from this forum), and tried to take it all on board.
Interestingly, I think almost all of the 'film work' I've done was on plates that were actually shot digitally - 'Lesbian Vampire Killers' was shot on the RedCam, RocknRolla was shot on a digital Arriflex (A D20 I think). The same issues as film still seem to apply - I am STILL amazed at how rough, soft and indistinct most 'filmed' footage actually is - even on modern digital cameras. So you are 100% correct - super sharp, crispy CG just doesn't cut it. That's one of the reasons I love painting by hand, even with access to Vue, Renderman and an internet full of photo archives. It's also something that is dying off to some extent - there are lots of matte painters (pro-level ones) who will freely admit they can't paint for toffee.
@Pilou - first time for everything! Don't think I've had anything I've ever done translated before...
Thank you!AJ
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"there are lots of matte painters (pro-level ones) who will freely admit they can't paint for toffee." Ain't that sad.... And yet some whose work is largely photo-based, are also great painters - I'm thinking of Dylan Cole, whose concept sketches blow me away as much as the finished pieces. I think (hope) real artistry will always shine-though. Only last week I was looking at some of Michael Pangrazio's old work for the first Star Wars Trilogy. Old-school painting on glass. It's amazing how loose his brush work was, and yet how well it read on film.
Anyhow, keep on keeping on
A.
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it was amazing , and the describtion is really fantastic , but i think it needs lots of experience + artist eye to reach such renders you've made.
thanx for sharing -
Yes, there are some intangible skills at work here that can't be teached. And that's what I like to call Art.
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oh ! amazing ! I've saw a video that they draw monalisa with pain softwhare,and now is you !
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cool
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hmm cannot see the pictures
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