My friend Jim Danforth, who is a retired Hollywood matte painter and stop motion animator, suggested that I try painting on a smoother surface instead of canvas. The lack of texture allows for deeper blacks and purer whites, which was essential when doing matte paintings. He used to paint on glass or masonite. I did this painting on GatorBoard, which is a kind of Foamcore board that's about 1/2 thick. Works great. I'll never paint on canvas again.
Thanks! I did it for my girlfriend's new house to put above her fireplace. She loves it when she visits out here in the hill country and wanted something to look at to remind her of my home.
grainy wrote:I certainly know who Jim Danforth is! Hello from a fan in Seattle!
Jim wrote a HUGE autobiography that's available on CD. It's got tons of photos and behind the scenes information. I was privy to his drafts and photos as he was working on it. I have the final version and I'm still reading it. Very complete.
Yeah, I miss matte paintings as well. CGI pretty much always looks like CGI. In retrospect, I had no idea how often matte paintings really were used. I never would have suspected some if I hadn't been told or seen the paintings in person, though sometimes they're blatantly obvious. Some of them still look totally real even after knowing they are there. This has been replaced with digital set extension or entirely digital sets and it's just not the same effect... but it sure is expensive and time consuming. That's another thing I think gets overlooked... a matte painting may slow down the production by a day or two and only if there wasn't sufficient preparation before coming to that scene. A digital set can easily add a week to post production.
Any way, great painting. I've done a couple of oil paintings and just don't have the knack for the creation of any visual art form outside basic photography.
Lovely work! What surprises me ihe fine detail you're getting with acrylic. I never could do that, even on boards. Do you use brushes, airbrush? And it does have some of the quality of the best matt work used before CGI. I really hate CGI. I find it completely artificial. And the funny thing is, matte painting was usually pretty obvious but it didn't matter. You just go with it. Of course, it could be that I just grew up on matte painting in films and suspended disbelief. I can't with CGI. It's too in your face for my tastes. I REALLY dislike the Industrial Light and Magic look. Hats off to ya's!
Hi Roger - I think this is really good - and you've gone up another level or two. The quality of the light on the rocks in the upper middle and left is just great. Perhaps you need to work on getting more realism in the tree leaves as everything else is quite real.??
Anyway well done I really like it
Scot
Read my science fiction novel The Forest of Life at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01D38AV4K
Scotness wrote:Hi Roger - I think this is really good - and you've gone up another level or two. The quality of the light on the rocks in the upper middle and left is just great. Perhaps you need to work on getting more realism in the tree leaves as everything else is quite real.??
Anyway well done I really like it
Scot
Thanks. The leaves actually look totally different on the painting and quite convincing in person. The level of detail did not translate well into the digital image, for some reason.
Davideo wrote:Was an opaque projector used in the process?
No projection. But I do grid off the surface into 3x3 inch squares for reference. I also make a reference photo to scale of the painting and cut it into matching 3x3 squares. That allows me to mask off just the 3x3 section I'm working on and put the 3x3 reference photo right next to it. There's an old saying, "Paint what you see; not what you think you see." Breaking the image down into smaller parts makes it more manageable. I don't worry about anything else except what's in that tiny square, which helps when dealing with some of the more abstract details of the image where it's easy to lose your place.
Roger
