2007 Matte Paintings (All the images are in the first post!) - Update: 19th October

[Suirebit]

New year, new topic :) Thanks in advance for taking a look at my images and any comment is appreciated! A rate of the thread will also help me know the level of this year's images.Updates are marked in bold.

NEW: You can now view more of my woks on my website: http://www.suirebit.net

Update: 19th October

This is an illustration I've done for the cover of Hung's latest album, called Progeny. I never had the chance before to work on such an evil and dark setting, but it was a lot to fun and also a challenge to make something interesting with a rough land and little light....

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/2571/artworkff5.jpg



Update: 4th August

Two images which got later selected in D'artiste Matte Painting 2

http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/561/wip11si2.jpg

http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/6594/hallrh1.jpg



Update: 5th July : Boreal and El Paradiso


http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/8207/elparadiso2oh5.jpg


http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/179/borealcountryywc2.jpg


Update: 14th June : The Mansion

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/234/dracula62uf9.jpg




Update: 15th April : Hokkaido and Desert Countries

Another two of the images done for King of Houston.
Hokkaido was also selected in D'Artiste MP 2.
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/3391/hokkaidopo8.jpg

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/4949/desertcountrieskg3.jpg




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[Faradoon]

Have you used references? Or is it a photo?

Lokes realisitc and I really like the atmosphere :teeth:

[Suirebit]

It's a matte paiting faradoon :)

[supersalenco]

Wow seems a photo. What resolution has the paint?How do you make it? :)

[Faradoon]

Oops!

No hope for me, I should first try to read, then think and then post :nohope:

[Lotet]

the foreground has to strong colours and dosnt fitt in the scene

other then that, really nice, also, it whould be nice to see the photos you used for this

[Wolfbane]

Have you used references? Or is it a photo?

Lokes realisitc and I really like the atmosphere :teeth:

Wow seems a photo. What resolution has the paint?How do you make it?

This is a matte painting guys, if you don't know what it is, go to wikipedia or sumthin' :P but basically its a piece thats made of different pictures. Used for movie backgrounds and so forth.

[Mull]

i feel it could be better if the colours of the various elements tied in a little more, they look too clean (if that makes any sense ?), perhaps add more atmosphere.

[AngryScientist]

Edges of the forest-mountain can be cleaned up - the trees and branches just end and there's the sky, making it look awfully 2d. The lighting of the "mountain" needs work, there are strong contrasts in places (around the middle lower part) and none at other places, not what you call realistic, doesn't follow the form. The clouds in front of the mountain don't interact with it, looks very cut-pasted, the rest of the clouds don't convince me they're in perspective. There is no reflection of the mountain in the water. The left part of the coastline just goes grey all of the sudden and doesn't hold any interest, the composition does nothing to help that. The left tower with light shining out from the top is also placed badly, again not helping the composition. The foreground trees and land seem to be lit differently but that could just be me, if I were you I'd fix the color settings on that.

And that's what I noticed after looking at it for 20-30 seconds in whole. It's not a BAD image, no, it just has a long way to go before it's a real matte painting.

[Suirebit]

Thanks for the feedback AngryScientist, very helpfull :)

[Alezunde]

This is a matte painting guys, if you don't know what it is, go to wikipedia or sumthin' :P but basically its a piece thats made of different pictures. Used for movie backgrounds and so forth.
Matte paintings are used to create "virtual sets" and "digital backlots". They can be used to create entire new sets, or to extend portions of an existing set. Traditional matte painting is done optically, by painting on top of a piece of glass to be composited with the original footage. Nowadays, matte painting is done in computers with the use of a tablet as a drawing device. In a digital environment, matte paintings can also be done in a 3-D environment, allowing for 3-D camera movements.
Made of different pictures? Matte paintings are just paintings or images used as background.

[stalsby]

thats sick dude! i like the clouds at the peak of the mountain! And those blue laser cities are nice!

the only critique i have is that the sky at the top goes from the dark blue on the left to the light blue on the right too harshly. I think if you made it blend in with more of a nice gradient transition it would be more pleasing to the eye!

nevertheless nice work & cool concept!

[braden m]

Wow that is really amazing. I need to try some of that matte painting sometime. Very nice work.

[Suirebit]

Thanks guys :)

Just to clarify what Matte Painting is:

Digital Matte Painting combines digital painting, photo manipulation and 3D in order to create "virtual sets" that are otherwise hard, if not impossible, to find in the real world.[...]
Matte Painted scenes are used widely for any kind of application that requires fantasy or sci-fi environments,but, of course, movies are still the ones who use it the most. There is no single famous movie made after 2003 that didn’t hire a famous matte painter to make its backgrounds; ‘Lord of the Rings’, ‘Matrix’, ‘Star Wars’, ‘King Kong’, etc.
[...]
Basically, in modern movies, the actors are performing on a small area called “active set” or “platform”. This can be a studio room (like the weather forecasts which are filmed against a blue/green background), an outside platform or even a real environment. It’s then the job of the matte painter to change everything around them and to make it blend with the active set.

extracted from an article I wrote a while back, about MP.

[AngryScientist]

Thanks for the feedback AngryScientist, very helpfull :)

No problem, mate! You did a very good job for 10 hours, problem is most mattes usually take 4+ times as long :)

[dkounios]

the flying ship (i think) in the back heading towards that floating piece of rock with city scape on top looks a bit wierd/off. and the top of the main piece of mountain in the foregroun seems a bit too blury (where you start adding the clouds up top). could just be me.

other than that i think you got a really strong piece.
great work man! nice way to kick in the new year!

[Rolo]

the clouds are very very good! but it looks wied because the colors of everything changes drasticly in one half!
the clouds seem to low.. but i guess its just me.. maybe its because the mountain goes forever! it looks like a photo when i first saw it and really well done!
it looks a bit 2d ..with the shadows..that look a bit akward..try to use colors that blend in with other stuff
well
i dont know much about scenarios.. because im not into that yet! but i can tell its really good!
just not yet a matte matte! just lil fixes and ur ready to make awsome matte stuff!
wow
i love
so keep it up!
-rolo

[grundybug]

that exotica picture is amazing......is it for a book cover or movie or game......could you post the answer in my sketch book if you have time?

[Sleep_Eden_sleep]

Hm, at first glance, I thought you worked for NCSoft or something. The picture is very reminiscent of art work for the upcoming MMORPG called Aion. Pictures here:

http://www.plaync.com/us/games/aion/images/screens/AION_Concept_01.jpg
http://www.plaync.com/us/games/aion/images/screens/AION_Concept_04.jpg
http://www.plaync.com/us/games/aion/images/screens/official_screen2.jpg

Anyway, it looks awesome, but the some parts of the photo seem more realistic compared to some others.

[Suirebit]

Lol, no, I don't work for them :D Thanks tho' :)

[Suirebit]

I'm curently working to a set of matte paintings/illustration for King of Huston.
I've got permission to showcase some of them so I'll post here some samples soon. Stand by!

[Dayon]

It's sci-fi, but peaceful green sci-fi :)

[Suirebit]

Peaceful it is :D

[Suirebit]

Update: 14 February 2007 - Added one image - Area 51.

[i.am]

Holy hell these look great. Torn between Area 51 and Paradise. Both are top notch. Keep it up.

[Kan Muftić]

Hi,

Great work, dude. Have you posted this on mattepainting.org too?
You should.
The only thing is that in the sceond MP, the weird mountain doesn't really merge into the scenery and looks to be just pasted there.
Why not giving it a bit more of a depth, or to try to something with it's top?

But maybe it's just me.
Great work overall.

Cheers,

[Suirebit]

Thanks guys :) No, I haven't posted area 51 on mattepainting yet...dunno why, maybe because I considered it's too much painting in it (more than 50%).

[Redcoyote]

wow. Nice!

[sevencrows]

they're pretty good

[arjun sawant]

amezing work.looks like photo,different style.great work!

[arjun sawant]

amezing work.looks like photo,different style.great work!:x
great work to see.anybody can inspire from these wok.

[Suirebit]

Update: 4th March 2007 - Added one image - Polynesia

[Suirebit]

Update : 15 April Added two images: Hokkaido and Desert Countries

[Dile_]

Great stuff Suirebit.! although, it looks like your a bit unfamiliar with moods and atmosphere.. In some of your pieces the horisont is very clear for instance, which make the picture appear a little more flat^^

Keep posting please!

~Dile

[Raptor]

Your aion stuff is darn sweet! in your matts, i liked the arie 51 matte the best, the little jets are a nice touch.

I think it may need a bit more atmosphere, also the foreground dosnt match quite right. I tried to do a touch up of your matte,I hope you dont mind. if its not an improvement, don't worrie about it. I did about five hue level adjustments in specific places, I added a few highlights to the background mountains and "floties."

[Suirebit]

Thanks guys

Raptor> Yes, Exotika needs more atmo work, but at that moment I was in a rush and didn't have the time to complete. I don't agree with all your edits, but some are correct :)

[Suirebit]

Update: 14th June : The Cave & Mars 2510

[Suirebit]

Update: 5th July : Boreal and El Paradiso

[kev ferrara]

Is there an archive of this kind of stuff as a work-in-progress? I'd love to see how it's done digitally!

Nice sharp pro work!

Kev

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=101106

[Suirebit]

Updated 4th August with two images made for d'artiste matte painting 2
(check the first post)

[Paul Scott Canavan]

The level of realism in your work is fabulous. Inspiring stuff.

[Suirebit]

Thank you! :)

[Chermilla]

These are really fresh Matt-Paintings, I love the atmosphere in some of them and how clean and crisp they are in colour, I've never given Matt-Painting a go myself but seems as though it could be worth a try coz it looks like great fun!!

Cx

[Suirebit]

Update: 19th October Progeny

[Justin.]

AngryScientist handled most of the crits I had and for the last time people.. THEY ARE (mostly) PHOTOS!!!!!

[Ismail]

Love the paintings:) Thanks for sharing. Checked your site, and was unable to access the artwork there, please check your file links. Perhaps I may be the only one having trouble viewing. Is anyone else able to view the work?

[Dahami]

Your latest image at the top makes me think of the planet Arieki from Tabula Rasa, but I guess I've got TR on the brain right now. Good work.

[Beelow]

justin oaksford- You can still mess up a matte dude. Suirebit demonstrates quality mattes. You try to do a matte, its pretty tough to make photographs work together and not make them look like cut and pastes. I am pretty sure that everyone understands that these are matte paintings. It has been discussed plenty of times dude.

You have some slick mattes Suirebit. Vast improvement. Keep posting.

He shares his process on his website. Its in the resources section and it is titled "Making of Lost World".

[Thalion]

Awesome! really nice work.

[nickmarshallvfx]

Justin Oaksford - Matte paintings are not at all easy to do. I have a very decent chunk of respect for your painting ability, and followed your Marko Pollo painting very closely when you were painting that a while back. I also think you give very good quality advice a lot of the time, but this is way off the mark. Matte painters need all the skills that landscape illustrators and traditional artists need. Without a rock solid grasp of perspective, colour, composition, light and all the other important artistic skills, a matte painting will never be good.
It is too common a misconception that all matte artists do is cut and paste photos together and colour correct them. I have seen matte paintings even in todays digital age that have been painted entirely by hand (digitally) without the use of any photo elements, and yet you see them on screen without any idea of them being anything other than reality. All matte painters must be able to walk into their first day on a job, and even without any photo integration, be able to paint a cityscape / building interior / mountain range or whatever it may be, and it must look 100% photoreal. Not only that, but they must also have the knowledge of how to make all those things (colour, light, perspective etc) match to a live action filmed element and blend seamlessly.
Its common also for a lot of matte artists to work alongside concept artists in the preproduction stages, until they are required for post work. Why? Because matte painters are artists. They are not just photo manipulators.

I cannot speak for Suirebits work because i dont know exactly what is photo elements and what is painted in there, but most matte painters start with concept sketches that they paint, revise, repaint etc until the director is happy with the look, and then they go about making it photoreal. Sure, photos are used for their shapes and their textures, but then, look at the amount of concept artists that use photo textures in their work.

Im not sure if you know anything about the history of matte painting, but take a look at the book The Invisible Art. That shows just how artistically talented matte painters are. I happen to think that today you can get away with being less artistically talented than back then because there are things like 3D and so on to help an artist out, but traditional skills are still what people look for in a matte artist. In fact its not unheard of for a matte artist to be hired without any software experience at all, just because they are a good traditional painter.

I dont want to turn this into an argument that will take over Suirebits thread, but I did want to give you those things to think about. I said it before, I enjoy your work, and i think you have some great advice to give, but I think it is unfair to bash other artistic disciplines. Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss anything further.


Suirebit - The work is looking nice. I have seen some of these at mattepainting.org too, and it is nice to see them all in one thread. I think that some of the rock forms are looking a little flat. Maybe try and work on bringin some of the light over and suggesting more form to them? Look forward to seeing a new update soon :)

Nick

[Chingwa]

I would just like to add, that an important element in these types of paintings(and well, MOST of the art on CA.org) is the suspension of disbelief... which is very very hard to do when you take photos of famously recognizable buildings (Himeji castle and Great Wall of China) and place them in your scene while doing nothing to camouflage them. It makes the scene disjointed... and defeats the "alternate" reality you are trying to create.

And just in defense of Mr. Oaksford I really don't think he deserved the lecture. He's welcome to his opinion about publicly posted artwork, just as are we all. Personally while I think a few of these matte paintings are pretty nice, there's still definate room for improvement here which I assume is why Suirebit is posting them in the first place.

In many of these scenes it's too obvious that they've been compiled together from different photos... a lot of care and retouching needs to be taken to make them look apart of the same space. A few are successful, but keep working!

[Pavel Sokov]

I loved these, honestly, i almost cried when i saw the desert one

Space sprayer: what makes a matte painting a matte painting. you said its possible to not use any photos, and still to have a matte painting. but wouldnt that makes it just a regular painting?
im confused a bit on the definition

[nickmarshallvfx]

Ok, perhaps I was a bit rash in my judgement there. I thought that Justin Oaksford was commenting on matte painting in general, but perhaps it was just a crit aimed at Suirebit. It was his saying 'for the last time people' as though this is a comment that he makes regularly about matte paintings. Sure, I see room for improvement in Suirebit's work too, so constructive criticism is great to see, but this time I didn't see a constructive comment...

manslauter - You are exactly right, matte paintings are just that - paintings. The only thing that makes them different is that matte paintings are made for a purpose, i.e. to extend a movie set / replace a filmed background. So really only a given portion of the cavas is painted, and the area that the original footage goes becomes the matte, hence matte painting. Before the late 1990's matte paintings were all done completely traditionally by hand using oil paints and panes of glass. With the advent of digital painting tools, it is a natural progression to use them to do matte paintings, and lose the risks of bad quality filming of the painting, damage to original paintings, and of course the ability to save and rework a painting without starting again etc.
The use of photos in matte painting started being used by digital matte artists (many of whom used to paint their paintings traditionally) just to save time, and add extra detail.

Check out this matte painting dvd from Dylan Cole. There is a video clip there too, so you can see how artistically talented a matte painter needs to be, even in the digital age:

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/dco01.html

Here is a website that has been started up recently that showcases some traditional matte painters and their work:

http://www.oilonglass.org

So you are right in what you say, but it is a fact that is often overlooked. Matte painters are artists. They just are required to paint photorealistically, so adding photo elements saves a lot of time and hassle. Photos certainly dont make a painting a matte painting though. If photo integration was never possible, matte artists would still be doing there stuff, just hand painting everything, it would just take a little longer.

Nick

[Suirebit]

well I don't mind, thanks Nick for clearing that up, there are still many people who think matte painting is no more than photomanip.

I don't know if Justin addressed the comment to matte painting in general or to my thread, either case Nick replied again very well and I have nothing more to add.

As for improvement, there's no perfection and as such, we must always seek to get better :)

[Suirebit]

Thanks everyone for your feedback! It was a great year :) Looking forward to 2008 and hopefully I'll be able to show you much better art :)

[Hyskoa]

Bookmarked.