randyLabs

randall e. church

Last Hiding Place :: A win and some process
March 7th, 2010

I won the competition over at the Leaky Cauldron (yay!), so I wanted to post some process work to show how I built the illustration from the bottom up. Below is the breakdown

1. First, I blocked out the scene using a big soft brush to plan the overall layout.

Scene Block Out

2. Next, I added the sky and water. For the sky I used a series of rough, pastel brushes combined with some soft brushes for shadows and some watercolor brushes for details and complexity.

For the water I made a custom brush using a photographic reference. I painted over the highlights of the water, converted to B&W and assigned it as a Photoshop brush.

The sun rays were achieved by merging filtering a layer with “Difference Clouds” and merging it with a layer that I ran the “Add Noise” filter to. I then applied a zoom blur to the merged layer, changed blend mode to screen, and moved and masked it till it looked good.

Added sky and water

3. Here I added the mountains in the background. This was a long process, but was worth it. I made 3 or 4 mountains and scaled and masked them to fit together, then added more and more detail and contrast with a rough pastel brush. I quickly rendered a beach and a background, then painted the trees on top.

Added mountains and trees

4. I used the same technique on the left shoreline.At this point I also added in some twigs and branches for detail.

More trees

5. I duplicated the previous sun rays layer, scaled it up, and blurred it to add some subtle sun beams in the foreground. For the fog, I duplicated the background clouds layer, tweaked the curves, tweaked the mask and changed the blend mode to screen.

Added fog and more sun

6. For the dragon I spend some time sketching and figuring out the angle. I blocked out the general body – highlights, shadows, etc. – Then started adding finer details. For the scales I made another custom brush. In a new PS project I painted black scales on a white background and saved it as a custom brush. Then I painted them on, and was able to increase the brush size and change the angle as I went. I added scratches and cuts to show how old and damaged the dragon was.
For the characters, I simply painted their bodies in black, then added highlights and details with different brushes to give them a silhouetted look.

Added Dragon

7. Finally, I added my color correction layers. I added a couple color fill layers at 90% fill and masked them out in certain areas so some of the colors came through. I also added a curves adjustment layer, and added another scanned paper layer over the dragon for more details.
Applied Color Correct

8. For the overall paper effect, I used different scanned paper images and used multiply and color burn to create a coppery, aged parchment look. I also did an overall noise filter so the different parts would feel more cohesive. Then I just added the text, using some watercolor brushes to give some texture. THAT’S IT!
Final Image

Posted in Concept, General, Illustration, Photoshop, Progress | 2 Comments »

The Last Hiding Place
March 1st, 2010

Finally finished that illustration! It was for a contest over at the Leaky Cauldron, a great Harry Potter fan site. The objective was to illustrate a scene from any of the 7 HP books, and have that scene evoke the same emotion or sentiment as the text did.

I actually began the illustration thinking I would portray Dumbledore’s funeral. While it was a sad part of the books, there was still a sense of camaraderie and honor as hundreds gathered to attend. As I began illustrating the scenic background however, I kept returning to the chapter in Deathly Hallows. This made it obvious that the latter had such a strong impact on me that I would have to illustrate that instead.

So I chose the beginning of chapter 27. It follows a long, exhausting ordeal from the previous chapter at Gringott’s bank and starts with stunning imagery and captures the sense of tiredness and preparation for an overwhelming journey ahead. It’s the last time the trio is together before the final, epic events of the books’ finale, so there’s an overwhelming sense of quiet and retrospect.

Here it is! Hope you like it. Click the image for larger version.

Posted in Concept, Illustration, Photoshop | No Comments »

New Illustration
February 16th, 2010

Working on something new at the moment. Trying to get the background down before moving onto the main scene. I’m going for a golden, dreamlike sunrise.

The water effect is coming along nicely. I used a reference photo and make a selection of highlights, tweaked them a bit, and converted to black and white to use as a brush. I did the same thing for the lowlights. Then I applied a midtone blue and painted lowlights and highlights on a layer above. Will probably go in by hand later and intensify the contrast in the foreground.

Posted in Compositing, Illustration, Photoshop | No Comments »

Gonna Be… More Progress
February 7th, 2010

Some more work done on the Gonna Be 3D type illustration. Really liking the look but I feel like it might be missing something. I have some photo ideas for compositing, but for now I’ll keep it as-is.

Posted in 3D, Compositing, Photoshop | No Comments »

Getting Started
February 4th, 2010

Started work on the matte painting. Spent a lot of time finding some source imagery – a combination of stock photos, personal photos (some from freshman year) and some cg-texture sexiness.

Here is the start of the project. Once I identified some photography I started blocking the scene out, figuring out the camera angle and the geography. I used some rudimentary masks and retouching to get things looking right. Once everything is blocked out I will start refining the masks, adding some lighting effects, and finally add some details like the shoreline, waves, and maybe some birds or other wildlife.

Posted in Compositing, Photoshop | No Comments »

Matte Painting, here I come!
February 1st, 2010

Very excited to be starting a matte painting for my friend Mark’s student film project Elysium. I showed him my piece Pine and he said I could take a shot at matte painting for one of his 3D flyover shots.

Stay tuned for progress updates as I get started this week!

Posted in 3D, Compositing, General, Photoshop | No Comments »

Gonna Be
January 31st, 2010

Finally got some time to get back to one of my summer 3D projects. I had just heard the Black Eyed Peas song “Imma Be” and wanted to visual the concept of making it big and living the good life.

Still a work in progress but below is the start of some of my post-render retouching. Stay tuned for the final product.

Posted in 3D, Compositing, Photoshop | No Comments »

First Project Post!
January 30th, 2010

So in case you haven’t seen it through my shameless twitter timeline I finished my photo composite illustration Pine.

I created it as part of the Advanced Photoshop magazine’s monthly contest. Unfortunately I missed the deadline (note to self: don’t forget time zone differences) but I ended up with a pretty cool result. Check it out below and see some source image work on my folio site.

My goal for the illustration was to somehow give the pine cone a purpose or a story. I decided to play off the term “pine” and give the lonely cone something to strive for and a path to get there.

pine