http://pmd.cgsociety.org/gallery/ pmd's gallery of images en-us 120 http://pmd.cgsociety.org/gallery/640835

Hey everyone,

I love macro photography, so I set about trying to create a moment - secretly stumbling across this tiny creature in the undergrowth and snapping him in a confrontation with some other forest denizen. I hope I captured the mutual curiousity of the Wood Dragon and the Ladybird.

Anyway, the Wood Dragon was created using a mixture of painting and photo-texturing (all my own) - his wings are a mixture of leaves and water, using batwings as reference. The background is cobbled together from various shots of mine, and heavily over-painted - I was trying to mimic that really short depth of field inherent in macro stuff. The full res is close to 6000 x3000 (this is cropped in width) and you can see a lot more detail (some of his organs are visible, and there is a tiny friendly parasite attached to him on his back - it's a healthy symbiosis ) The ladybird is painted from reference also.

I have about another 4 of these on the go, with the little Wood Dragon encountering various other creatures - I'll pop them in this thread if people are interested.

Hope everyone's well!

Best,

Phil]]> Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:46:39 +0000 http://pmd.cgsociety.org/gallery/643329



Hey everyone,

These are sounding more and more like Indy titles I thought I'd combine two images in one thread to save cluttering up the forum - apologies to anyone with Wood Dragon fatigue! I'm happy to leave it at 3 images for the time being, and am going to work towards modelling this critter in Maya/ZBrush when I find the time.

Same process as before, lots of painting, lots of photo elements (the spider, webbing, background are all painted/Apophysis, the twisted hazel is primarily a macro shot of mine from the undergrowth in Stephen's Green).

Below is the Wood Dragon facing down a cricket, who is fairly nonplussed, it seems. It's funny how a slight change in the Dragon's posture made this more 'I'm going to eat you' than the Ladybird image. The cricket escapes of course. This is the moment before he springs away, shooting our intrepid Wood Dragon the bird as he soars into the rain

Anyway, that's my Wood Dragon adventures done for the time being - thanks for looking and hope everyone is doing well!

Phil]]> Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:39:18 +0000 http://pmd.cgsociety.org/gallery/643327

Third is a series of images based around the adventures of the tiny Wood Dragon.]]> Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:37:18 +0000 http://pmd.cgsociety.org/gallery/612860

Hi everyone,

This went through a number of iterations over the 6 weeks or so that it took to complete – I began with the idea of an ancient dryad presiding over some kind of wedding ceremony, and it evolved into a concept based around birth and parenthood. This dryad is nurturing her own young sapling in the gloaming.

The image is about 11500 x 6500 – the biggest I’ve ever done, and was created that large so I can print it off as a mural for my daughter, about 3 metres wide. You can’t see it at this resolution, but the glade is teeming with life – beavers, a fox, wild boar, a stag, a faun, fish, frogs etc – all things she can pick out when this is printed at full resolution. I’ll probably add more as time goes by but I wanted to call this ‘finished’ for now. It is my usual combination of painting and photography (all my own except for the heavily over-painted little girl and some stock critters).

Thanks a million for looking and take care,

Phil

PS I'm rambling a bit here but in case anyone's interested, I kept track of the 200 or so layers, trying to show how it was built up from scratch, tree by tree, rock by rock almost - you can see a ‘guide’ image here, where every 'patch'is a seperate layer -

http://tinyurl.com/345npj

Edited to add method details.


]]> Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:19:37 +0000 http://pmd.cgsociety.org/gallery/572858

Hey everyone,

This is a kind of follow-up to an image I did called 'Magic'.
This kid has wandered even deeper into the forest, and chanced upon The Greenwood Deep, the heart of the wood. I wanted to create a river of power, the forest's golden blood, surrounded by faery dwellings, all in the shadow of the ancient tree.

I took a long time on this one, three weeks at least - again a combination of many many hours of painting and photo texturing/manipulation. Any photos I used in the process are all mine, bar the little girl, who originated here -

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_42/11407341516Om50Z.jpg

You can view my original plate here -

http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=greenwoodplatecl6.jpg

- a photo I took in a wood called Ravensdale. I just loved the atmosphere and colour.

Anyway, hope everyone's well, thanks for looking and take care.

Phil]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:49:45 +0000 http://pmd.cgsociety.org/gallery/488830

Hi everyone,

This is the third of a 'Childhood' trilogy that I've been working on called 'Imagine, Wonder and Magic'.

I created the background image of the fairy village (Faerieholme) a couple of years ago - I tried to create a fantasy forest by selecting aspects of 50 or so forest shots that I took - a tree here, moss there etc, and build up tons of layers (68!) to create something new. The buildings are the same stump from three angles, for example. Anyway, I always felt like it lacked something.

I've been wracking my brains trying to find a way to finish my trilogy, knowing it was a little girl and her dog (and her bike ) but not really sure how to get there - and this is what emerged over the last few days. One found the other! The bike, dog and girl are seperate manips from sxc.hu (will post a montage strip when I get a chance), and there is a huge amount of painting and lighting around them. Other watchful presences were also painted.
Anyway, thanks for looking, it has been a cool experiment creating these images, trying to capture something of the magic of childhood.

Cheers

Phil
]]> Mon, 23 Apr 2007 16:50:48 +0000 http://pmd.cgsociety.org/gallery/437617

Hi everyone,

Spent a long time on this one - basically a mix of Photoshop painting and photo collage (all my own or royalty free from sxc.hu - the boy is an over paint using this reference - http://www.sxc.hu/photo/286795 ).

I'm working on a series of images based around the magic of childhood - the first was an image called 'Wonder' (In my sig)
With this one I wanted to try and capture the idea of Imagination, interpretations welcome!

Hope you're all well and thanks for looking,

Phil ]]> Tue, 05 Dec 2006 15:35:14 +0000 http://pmd.cgsociety.org/gallery/384810

Hi everyone,

This is the first time I've mustered up the courage to post to CGTalk

I was trying to capture a sense a wonder and magic from a child's point of view - I think a lot of people lose touch with that side of themselves as they get older, and you have to fight to keep it - I know it is in abundance at this site.

This began as an experiment in matte, seeing how credible a structure I could create by assembling pieces of buiildings and overpainting colour and light to draw them all together. The little fella arrived late in the process, another photo overpaint, and the sky is a mix of blended cloud photos and PS painting.

Thanks for looking,

Phil

PS All images were sourced from stock.xchng - www.sxc.hu - will add a montage strip when I get a chance]]> Sun, 23 Jul 2006 20:00:44 +0000 http://pmd.cgsociety.org/gallery/399928

This image went through a few programs on its way to being finished - Maya for the trees, zBrush for the pods, Bryce for a water/reflection render, tons of Photoshop painting and texturing, plus the use of a few royalty free stock photos (the monk and boat are seperate shots, composited and heavily painted). All told I think it was about a week's work. Thanks for taking the time to look.

Phil]]> Fri, 01 Sep 2006 09:55:50 +0000 http://pmd.cgsociety.org/gallery/395726

Hi everyone,

This is a follow-up image to this

http://pmd.cgsociety.org/gallery/395219/

The technical aspects are pretty much the same, apart from lighting and colour.

Thanks for looking and take care,

Phil

]]> Mon, 21 Aug 2006 09:33:41 +0000 http://pmd.cgsociety.org/gallery/395219

Hi everyone,

This was an experiment in scale - I'm fascinated by the fantastic use of perspective in a lot of images posted here, so I was trying for quite an extreme viewpoint - The city of Fathom spreads in every direction. The ships and city were modelled in Maya, with the whole thing rendered in Bryce (in a 'mirror box' - still trying to figure out this level of reflection in MR)

The city itself started out as a series of cubes which I began replicating and assembling into different forms - hence the blocky architecture.

I rendered out this scene in 4 material layers (Flat, Lined, Reflective, Lights) and blended in Photoshop. Some minor light dodging and colour correction.

I'm working on a second image set in Fathom - I think I'll do a good old-fashioned trilogy

Thanks for looking and I hope everyone's well,

Phil

]]> Sat, 19 Aug 2006 16:57:39 +0000