Mattepainting

wip
1

Hi people,

I got a 2d image for you to look at. I created this in Photoshop by both painting and blending images. This my first "traditional" digital mattepainting, so go hard on me.

http://www.chahana.com/mds/hp\_1large.html

thanks,

Michael

2

Hi,
The light rays in front of/overlapping the buildings are really distracting and they sort of flatten the objects behind them. I am not sure about the scale of the trees either. It looks like they are really small or the buildings are really big, far out of human proportion. I could just be interpreting them wrong though.

The water is awesome, especially the bottom left. It looks photo real. I think that portion has a clarity that the rest of the immage lacks. The only thing about the water that bothers me is the orangish reflection but I can't put my finger on why.

Also, the scene looks very moist but the stone looks dry. I think that is one of the things that throws the scene off for me.

Regardless of the little things, that is an awesome piece of work. Thanks for giving us a look.

ww

3

This is a nice still. Of course if it were a matte painting for film, you'd need to consider animated elements for water possibly clouds, grass etc. I know it's not your intention right now. It doesn't hit photoreal yet, but I also don't know if that's your intention or not. I really do dig the look.

For critisism, the tonal range of your extreme forground tree/ elements is exactly the same as the midground foliage. It flattens it out. Adjusting the tonal range of either the midground or forefround will give dramatic results in terms of depth (If it were mine I'd try to adjust the midground, they seem quite strong/saturated). What also may help is putting the forground element in shadow. This will help put focus solidly into midground (Seen this done onset with screens a number of times). Focus, in terms of composition, you could play with it more. By subtly modyfying tones I think you could adjust the focus slightly. You should be able to ask anybody where the focus is and get an immediate response, if you don't get it, then you still have a bit more work to do. In this case I think you're 90% there, just a bit of subtle tweeking. And some of the perspective may be a little off in the roof lines. I'm not positive on it, but it did draw my eye and give me that gut response. I don't think its a hugely noticable deal, and I could be just imagining it. Nice work though I really dig the overall flow and composition. If I had done this I'd be pretty proud.

4

Thanks for the feedback. Anyone else wissing to add anything can email me directly at:

michaelds@canada.com

Michael

5

just out of curiosity, is the river referenced from behind the banff spring hotel in ab canada? it looks remarkably similar..

6

Hi! I see that you made changes on the 5th, but I still find the the trees in the middle ground are too in focus.
Also, the roofs on the buildings next to the bridge are glowing and thus distracting.
Where is the highlight near the left waterfall on the front of the buildings coming from? It should be in shadow (?)
There is something right below that and above the grass that is bluish- I am not sure what that is.
The front grass is distracitng.

Overall- this is really beautiful! I can't believe that it is your first matte painting. It is "stylized photoreal" and I think that it is really great.