After Earth - Concept Art

During the production of After Earth at one point producers ( in that case that was Will Smith ) decided for the home planet of the main characters to appear more alien-like. At Iloura we were working on couple of shots related to that environment. That briefing came quite late in the production therefore the concepts were created considerably fast - within few hours. I ended up preparing around 10 options of the alteration from which one was selected for final matte painting conversion. My colleague Alan Lam was the matte painter of the final shot which is shown on the last frame of the gif sequence.

Dune World - Environment concept art

My entry to the online environment concept design competition on CG HUB. This is a great site with some stunning artwork - highly recommend visiting. I will try to participate more often now.
Attached image represents desert setting or 'Dune World' as the subject of the challenge states. Painted in Photoshop in around 6 hours. Some textures used. No tracing.

The Great Gatsby - 2nd matte painting of The Valley Of The Ashes

The daytime view proved to be much more challenging as the request at the end of the production was to indicate farm fields in front of the valley.

Final matte painting was produced in collaboration with Alan Lam and Andrew Clarke - both matte painters in Iloura. We couldn't get it done without supervision of Julian Dimsey and Glenn Melenhorst who personally stepped in at the end and finished off the painting being the most experienced matte painter in our team.

The Great Gatsby - Valley Of The Ashes /night/

Time has come to present the work I have done during last 6 months. Valley of the ashes in 'The Great Gatsby' was very important location for Baz Luhrmann. A depressing rubbish dump that characters pass when travelling  from Long Island to Manhattan. The majority of this location was created digitally.

Indicated is a wide shot of the valley straight after Myrtle's death.

Matte painting was created in Photoshop from various photographic elements as well as rendered 3d assets prepared by our team. I have started with the sky that changed few times before final approval. Extension of the horizon line had to be produced after that as well as continuation of the rail track and road. On the attached GIF image you can see the main stages. Final shot break up will be presented in my showreel 2013 which is coming up soon.

Credits from Iloura apart from matte painting:
Supervision - Julian Dimsey
Rendering and layout  - Tony Alamo
Compositing - Elena Topouzoglou

Animated GIF

Final comp still

Indonesia and Singapore photography

With my wife Jia Jia ( on the photos ) we had opportunity to explore bit of Indenesia in the last 4 weeks. We visited North Sulawesi and as well as Gili Islands and Bali. Check out the photos on Flickr, some amazing views in Bali that turns any photograph into digital painting! We stopped in Singapore so few photos also depict that very clean part of Asia.

Link to Flickr set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43091652@N03/sets/72157634096769671/

Work in Iloura and updates

It's been a while since my last post. The full time work does impact production of personal pieces. I will resume sketching soon but in the meantime let me share a little, what I have been up to recently. My experience working in Iloura has been great. Fantastic group of friendly and creative people in South Melbourne proved to be a smooth transition into working in Australia again. I had pleasure working on Great Gatsby, After Earth and I, Frankestein ( Links below ). I hope I will be back in the future for some more exciting projects!

I will post matte and concept work once the permissions arrive as well as break ups of shots.
Stay tuned. Also I have been asked to produce a Digital Tutors tutorial - coming soon!

Links:
Great Gatsby : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343092/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
After Earth : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1815862/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
I, Frankenstain : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1418377/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3

Iloura

I have started full time work as Digital Matte Painter in Iloura in Melbourne. It's a studio of around 50 based in South Melbourne with great atmosphere and some very interesting projects. I'm currently working on Great Gatsby and After Earth.

Here is the link to the company site: http://www.iloura.com.au/

Paintings will appear less frequent for the next weeks as we are busy but I will try to post something now and then.

Merry Christmas!