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Sunday, October 31, 2010

CAR RENDERING TUTORIAL

This is my second attempt at a more rendered approach since the Concept-Motorcycle two posts ago. 
I basically wanted to do a modified version of my Ford Mustang in which I'm still mainly focusing on  the technique and not so much on the concept yet as I'm still learning to render this way. Because this process is still new to me, recording the individual steps helps me see where I went wrong along the way and see what worked and what didn't.



Above, you can see the brushes I used and how I used them. I only used two brushes, a custom made elliptical brush and the soft airbrush for certain areas.  The brush circled in blue is the custom brush and the settings applied to it are displayed in the box on the right: transfer, smoothing and sometimes shape dynamics.  The brush flows very naturally on the canvas allowing for easy build up of large shapes while still being able to control details with pen pressure. To get some of the smooth organic shapes (far bottom left), I used the Elliptical Marquee tool and brushed in the color using a soft airbrush. 

Below, you can see that the initial sketch was very loose. I was trying to get the main structure of the vehicle down, mainly focusing on getting the perspective correct right away so that it does not become an issue once I'm too far into the rendering. When I draw an object that will interact with the environment, I try to but down a dark background gradient to suggest simple light source and to help me build up the shapes as I'm working. 

I generally start working in black and white so that I can establish the main values before applying color.
The elliptical brush works great both as a large brush for bold strokes and as a small detailing brush for fine lines. 



Once I have a general Idea of where the light is coming from, I start applying the color. The best way I can explain this stage is that it's similar to glazing in traditional painting. I am still using the same brush, occasionally using the marquee tool and the soft brush to highlight certain areas. 


Now I am starting to think of reflective light and am applying cooler tones to the shadows and warmer tones to the highlighted areas.  Below is a screenshot of the entire workspace as I wanted to show how far zoomed out I am at this stage. I don't zoom in until the image is almost 50% complete.


At this point (below), I feel like I have enough information to start thinking about details.  I start applying some bold geometric shapes to the rims to figure out what would work best.  I play around with applying photographic elements to the rims and painting over them and cutting them out until I get some interesting variations going on. 


Using the free program Alchemy, I create abstract shapes to create custom vinyls for the car. 



The rest is a back and forth of zooming in and out, and adding details here and there building up the values.  Since I wanted this to look like a car show room, I added a few large abstract shapes into the back, mainly painting various transparent geometric shapes on top of one another and adding a few small photographic elements in small areas to add a bit more realism to it.

At the very end, I added the Unsharp Mask filter on the image to give the overall piece a sharp, rendered 3-d look.
Voila, took about 15-20 hours to complete.

thanks for visiting, 

-Tin


Wednesday, October 27, 2010

PSYCHEDELIC UNICORN ROBOT

Birthday gift for my friend Alia. Mainly painted with Alchemy and a few touch ups in Photoshop! :)

(Reference for this piece)
thanks for visiting!
-Tin

Monday, October 25, 2010

SUPERBIKE-CONCEPT ART

Here is a rendered concept of a futuristic motorcycle that I was messing around with. I used Photoshop and a newly discovered program called ALCHEMY. The program is free and is great for creating random shapes and pulling out various representational objects.


The abstract shape that you see below was used as basis for this bike. Everything else was created and rendered in photoshop. I'm still experimenting with abstract shapes and futuristic concepts, so this is my first shot at a more complete design. It took about 8-10 hours to complete.


thanks for visiting, 
-Tin

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Goodbye Summer


Last batch of illustrations from the summer.

spot illustration for Cleveland magazine for a Theatre production featuring all the great murders and fights from Shakespeare's works.



spread for Backbone magazine (Canada) about customers interacting with the web and shopping. One example was a game on Facebook called Social City where you can install solar panels on your virtual houses and then click to buy solar panels for your real house.

monthly rules guy column in Golf Magzine. this one is about how to rule a ball that lands on a stump.


full page for Mojo magazine (UK). they wanted me to emulate the Robert Johnson King of the Delta Blues Singers cover because this new Clapton album is more blues-y.
the original cover that blows mine away because its a real painting. mine is paint and pencil with photoshop :(

Friday, October 22, 2010

CHARACTER CONCEPT

Hey guys. I'm trying to experiment with some sci-fi character designs using DAZ3d and Photoshop. I'm hoping to get a concept art portfolio completed in the next year in order to tackle other areas of the industry. This piece is a result of messing around with some custom brushes and being inspired by TRON and Metroid. I have also been watching some concept art videos from the FZD SCHOOL OF DESIGN.
Any comments/crits are greatly appreciated!

thanks for visiting.


-Tin

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Less Than Jake presents: The TV/EP !





When the band went to record 16 cover songs (in 11 minutes!) from various television theme songs and commercials, they wanted to give the impression that pop-punk has taken over the air waves and you are randomly flipping the channels.

that being said, we've engineered a very special collector's edition 7" vinyl record (to go along with the CD and the digital, available now) where, depending on how you fold the panels of your record, you will actually be able to "change the channels" and determine your own cover through a die-cut television screen!

channel 2....

channel 3...

and the "inside" of your tv (with some fun filaments)...

it's a strangely proud moment for me personally, when there are plenty of people who make me doubt my versatility as an unmarketable product, that there can't be a whole lot of folks who would've excitedly tackled all the visual parodies and styles the band asked for here. it's another reason it makes our long friendship and these kinds of projects so especially meaningful.

pw!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

NEW RIDES MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION

Here is the latest illustration for RIDES Magazine. Car Personifications of Usain Bolt (Using Chevrolet Volt) and Lance Armstrong (using Mitsubishi Lancer).

Saturday, October 16, 2010

"The Swing (An Old Fashioned Necromance)" - Peter Wonsowski


(click any image for a better view)

This piece was done for a group artist exhibition "...exploring all the elements that make Halloween creepy, imaginative, and fun."

pencils:

and yes, i couldn't resist the urges to add some glow-in-the-dark flourishes on the tentacle suckers for extra fun spookiness...


Happy Halloween!
-pw!

Scholastic Comic- Tin Salamunic

In the last two months, I worked on an eleven page comic for Scholastic. It was about the assassination of president Garfield. The book is for a reading intervention program intended for high school students. This comic is part of a larger book titled Assassinations: Our Murdered Presidents and each chapter will have a unique style unto itself.











Saturday, October 9, 2010

Delaware Today Magazine- Scott Brundage

Here is a new piece for Delaware Today Magazine. The article was on "Race To The Top Funding" and her suggestion was to try to convey a group effort to get a child to succeed.

These were some of the quick idea sketches I sent. Very rough communication oriented sketches, which (unintentionally, but on reflection) break down to one ok, one good, and one worth painting.
I really wanted to push the lighting here... possibly more than I ever have previously. I knew I wanted the only pure white to be the very corner where the sun was shining to really push the heat of it. Once that was acheived, realistic color elsewhere wasn't as important.
The final result is among the more dramatic paintings I've created, but a blast to make. Thanks again to Kelly Carter for the opportunity to launch a child into the sun.

-SB

Friday, October 8, 2010

KPhat Horror Concepts- Peter Wonsowski

Coming soon to a theatre near you...

(click to enlarge if you dare!)

...from the awesome minds of Kphat Productions!

Summer Assignments- Jason Raish

This summer has seen me trolling the streets of Kyoto, climbing to on the top of Mt. Fuji, and most recently swizzlin' soju in Seoul. Also i've managed to do some work too. Let's take a look.

For the monthly rules guy column about how to rule a ball that is on an extremely steep incline



Cover for the health and science section of the Washington Post. They asked some scientists what their summer reading would be.

For the technolouge column in MotorTrend magazine. there is a new seat belt attatchment that keeps drivers snug in their seat which increases lap times but it was also found that it keeps backseat booster seats snug and safe as well.
For the monthly rules guy column in golf magazine about a guy who had to play a round while balls from other players were coming down around him.


For Emory Magazine in Atlanta. accompanies a story written by one of their alumni who is a comedy writer for television. It says if you're gonna lie, make it a good one. in the story he lies to two old co-workers about his current job situation.

-Jason

Revisitations- Tin Salamunic

Redos of older illustrations:


Sketches 5- Francis Vallejo




Some more warm-ups between 1 minute and a half hour. If you look real close, I have a male figure in there!? I've been looking at these drawings.

take care,
-fv

Sketch Exploration 12- Edward Kinsella






Lord of the Rings- Doug Cowan

Although this The Lord of the Rings artwork isn't new, much of it has not been shown before. The finished Legolas artwork was published by Topps as part of their "The Lord of the Rings: Masterpieces II" card set.

Before being assigned the character Legolas, I did many preliminary sketches. Most of these involved Gandalf, who had been my first choice.


Below is the final art; both the original watercolor and the finished image, colored in Photoshop.

Thanks,
Doug