Matte Paintings // The Valley

Today I planned on making two matte paintings and changing one to look more “dead” without having to do a lot of extra work. I made the living world first and then began striping away the saturation and color. I also had to destroy two waterfalls. This was a lot of fun and I feel pretty good about them.

The Flood is in the middle of post production / sneak peak

This movie has to be finished by Tuesday the 21st and I am about half way finished with the post production and compositing. Many of the scenes have had some really problematic footage which required a lot of time to stabilize and color correct the problems. I wanted to share a few stills from the movie in the meantime. Thanks for checking it out.

Strangest Baptism Animation Concept.

I am not really sure what I was thinking. I might take this idea somewhere else. There are these tall 3d stone looking towers with text on it. I like the environment look and I really think it will look cool if it were to be animated. Anyway, here it is, take a look.

 

surreal world matte paintings.

Join the Rhythm – Branding

JoinTheRhythm.com

I just wanted to get this design out there. Chaz did a good job with the logo and I think achieved the light streak technique he was going after. I had to make some wallpapers for the group and get a blog up for them by this weekend. Check out more of the designs at jointherhythm.com. I made a post last week, you might remember, the vector web badges. I used one of those to make a web badge for this group.

Win a free Wacom Cintiq 21UX

Wacom Cintiq 21 on the right

You can enter once ever day to up your chances to win the Wacom Cintiq 21ux. I have been thinking about getting one of these tablets for a while. They are usually $1,999 which is a bit expensive, but I think worth it. I currently use a 9×12 Intous 3 Tablet. I would never try painting in photoshop without it. I think the possibilities are endless with direct interaction with your digital canvas on a screen. Makes so much more sense. This competition is being offered by SnapVillage, a source for royalty-free images. The drawing will be September 5. Anyway, enter in the competition and good luck. Click Here.

More Designs to check out

Yes, these are designs for a blackoutgraphics client, but i thought I would share it anyway. I like where they are going, I just need to finish them. Please feel free to let me know what you think. This is a really high end interior designer looking for something artistic. Her main request was black with her logo red.
Thanks for your thoughts.

Interior Design website 001

Design 002

Free Photoshop Texture Brush

It is nearly unbelievable to me that someone would make such a hi-res brush set available for free. The download file is 65MB. Yeah, it was so big, my download timed out. We are talking about 2500px brushes here. It’s good stuff. Take a look. I find these handy when you need to overlay a texture on something, or you just need a good pattern as a background.

Download the brushes here. 

Cornerstone Web Comps

I’m working on the new cornerstone website. We are hoping to use SiteWrench.com as the CMS. Here are the two comps I made. No, they are not done. The flash player is pretty intense, if you or someone you know can build a player with some pretty crazy mods and functions, please let us know. It’s a paid gig.

Design 001

Comp 1:
I think “thin” sites are in, or at least are cool. There are too many sites out there that have too much going on, too many links, images and the desired destination can be hard to find. If this comp gets picked, you’ll get to see all the small details that make this site cool. There are small tabs on the right that allow the user to choose between 3 style sheets (skins). I know, impressive. 

Free Vector Stickers by various artists

Free Adobe Illustrator Vectors for websites

If you are designing a ‘pop’ style website, you might want to check out all the free vector ’sticker’ downloads available through webresourcesdepot.com.

Free Nature – Photoshop Brushes

Rain Brushes.

I am working on a project that requires a lot of nature painting. These brushes won’t be used for primary focus but could save time in background areas. There are many more brushes to download inside.

Video Animations / Titles

I had to make a few quick animations for FCC. The first one is the title of their announcement show called “the Advance”. Loretta Cooper is keyed out for either a 3D studio or a virtual world serving information via animations or backgrounds. Here is the title part and I’ll include some other pieces inside.

Color Picker: Mondrianum

Do you ever need some color ideas? One thing I have done in the past is find a picture that has cool tones and complimentary colors and picked a few colors from there to make my pallet. This is especially effective when you are using the art/graphics with that photograph. Sometimes you have a blank sheet of paper and you just want some ideas for color combinations. Mondrianum acts like a built-in, system-wide color picker. It becomes available in any mac application that supports the color pick feature. I have found this especially useful in CSS, photoshop and After Effects projects. Try it out and let me know what you think.

Mondrianum combines the best of the community content on kuler and the nativeness of Mac applications. If you work with colors on a Mac, be sure to check it out!