http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/ yellowdog's gallery of images en-us 120 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/739592

I guess after reading "Arkham Asylum" from DC for the nth time... This would be my depiction of the Jane Doe character trying to mimic the Joker. (ok..ok... also a lame attempt at getting the joker from the" Dark Knight" movie out of my system)

It started as a rough sketch in my sketchbook then mostly photoshop work... also it's another attempt at painting hair. Hopefully I'll get better at it... but the combination paint + smudge tool I used takes forever.

comments and crits always welcome !]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:46:53 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/655090

One of my latest commissioned work... A matte painting used in a mexican sports drink commercial. This is the main image used in a moving shot. The original plate photography was tracked in Boujou, the 3D work was done in XSI and the painting itself in photoshop. Since it was done for a tv commercial, the deadlines where short and tight... but a little rush is fun once in a while !
At first I was supposed to keep parts of the original plate and at to the foreground, but as the project evolved I was asked to add to the sky, redo the entire FG (wich where rice pads in original), change atmosphere, change mood and even change the camera move.
It was a very fun project taking me back to my publicity / tv roots !
What do you guys think? comment and crits welcomed !]]> Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:38:03 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/589112

This is actually the first image I did that started me on my "holiday illustration frenzy" where I did 9 images from november 30th to December 22nd.

This images started as a Photoshop speed painting where I wanted to test some new photoshop brushes and got really out of hands... I just couldn't put the stylus away and go to bed... did it in 2 sittings for a total of a bit over 5 hrs. (It's called Caprica simply because I was watching BSG: Razor while painting it..) ]]> Mon, 28 Jan 2008 06:12:43 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/505188

This is one of the multiple matte paintings I've done for the "EndWar" trailer. It represents part of the russian troops' camp wich comes under attack from JSF forces. A bit of the FG is hidden by a piece of CG ground and a huge tank in the final shot. It was a very fun matte to do since I have a soft spot for demolished sets and cities. Lots of occasions for details and mood.

This matte was entirely painted in photoshop over a simple 3D rendered pic made in XSI. The weird ratio is because it was to be camera projected back onto 3D once done.

Comments and critiques are always welcomed !!]]> Sat, 09 Jun 2007 02:27:51 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/589115

I had a lot of fun making this one.... Still not sure though if the girl is the ghost or if she's just there inside a haunted house.

This was the continuation of my pre holidays images... tried to keep this one very gritty and bizarre... Moody without necessarily going for the very dark and hi-contrast we usually see in a haunted house. Was also trying to stay away of my prefered color pallette to challenge myself a bit.

Photoshop work, about 8 hours of work in 3 sittings.]]> Mon, 28 Jan 2008 06:19:01 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/505192

Another one of the matte paintings for the EndWar trailer.
It is visible in the trailer when the camera is looking from the russian position and when the Osprey gunship crashes down. I really liked working on these matte paintings and on this project... REally moody pieces.

Entirely done in Photoshop over a 3D layout done in XSI over a 3 days period. The black shape masks the spot where the 3D elements where to coincide with the matte.
This matte was also reprojected onto 3D geometry once finished.

EndWar trailer:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=19905&type=mov&pl=game]]> Sat, 09 Jun 2007 02:55:16 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/589101

After doing matte painting non-stop for a long period of time, I was happy when, at work, I had to go through a period of character concept. That period kind of re-awakened my love for character drawing... so right before the holidays I set off on a series of drawings / character art to try and push further my observation drawing, anatomy sketching, painting and illustration skills all together. The goal was also to figure out ways of speeding up my concept work.

I wish I could paint as tight as some of the artists on this board.. but I have a very short attention span / patience threshold when it comes to working on characters. So forgive the roughness around the edges... I tried to keep everything as spontaneous as I could.

I'm in a weird Luis Royo / Tim Bradstreet phase so the Winter Queen (and the rest of the images I posted in my portfolio from this set) is vaguelly inspired from the dark wastelands you can find in both thoses artists' art.

The work is mostly Photoshop based on a quick sketch and layout made from observation based on a small 200 pixel wide picture of Scarlett Johanson I found in one of my references folders. Used that picture because I like the pose and wanted to practice more realistic drawing (that was painfull... it has been so long since I had done any life drawing)... I also used a bunch of texture images from my matte image banks to speed up the texturing process.

From start to finish the image took me about 7 hrs to produce...

so what do you guys think !?
comments and critique are welcome... !!

]]> Mon, 28 Jan 2008 05:47:25 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/505189

This is only the first part of the final pullout shot of a near future Paris being obliterated by a kinetic strike. Notice that the Eiffel tower is not there... It was the only 3D element in the shot. everything else is matte painting and camera projection.
I did this painting of near future Paris over about 3 days.

This complete shot was done entirely in Photoshop with the help of XSI for 3D support and projections. The turnover for this shot was very quick and was a collaborative effort from the whole matte dept. (Andrzej Tutaj did the cloud layers and Sophie Codaire did the final planet establishing)

You can see the animated trailer here:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=19905&type=mov&pl=game

]]> Sat, 09 Jun 2007 02:43:20 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/589105

Another image from my holidays illustration frenzy... I actually realised that I had never done any portraits before... so this image was done to see if I could pull off a portrait from scratch. The other constraint was that the final character had to be recognisable.

I used a very well know picture of an actress as visual reference for my starting sketch... I then painted the whole thing in photoshop in a bit under 8 hours (I try to give myself a 6-8 hours time limit to mimic a normal work day)... The medusa theme is there so that I didn't concentrate on simply reproducing the original image but rather have fun making my own stuff.

]]> Mon, 28 Jan 2008 05:58:18 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/442596

Aargh !!! ran out of time again !!
This image is my Xmas gift to my little sister... to be printed out on art board at 48" x 32". I had to finish this one in a hurry in order to get it to the printer tomorrow (so that it's done and printed by the 22 when everyone here in Canada leaves for the holidays).
The color palette can be a bit off on certain monitors because it's made to be printed out on paper in CMYK color range. Overall, it a bit different from my regular matte work, a lot more painterly and rough around the edges... I've made this image to commemorate my sister's wedding and her honeymoon to France. The composition is also different from what I do in my "day job"... Theses days I'm trying to push myself outside of my comfort zone. I guess this explains the strange color palette and composition.

Done in photoshop with help of XSI and my trusty digital camera... (ok it might not be a matte painting but the techniques used are similar) over about 40hrs of "on and off" work.

What do you guys think !!? Comments and crits are always welcomed ]]> Tue, 19 Dec 2006 07:08:50 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/589118

One of the last images I finished from my holiday frenzy... Spent a bit more time on this one... since it's one of the xmas gifts I gave my mother ... can't wait to see how it's gonna turn out printed on art board !

Done in photoshop based on a pose from a small picture of an actress I found on the web and a picture of Big Ben tower in london (for the clock) ... 10+ hrs for this one... damned clock !!]]> Mon, 28 Jan 2008 06:26:48 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/356885

This is the final version of the openning matte painting for Assassin's Creed E3 2006 trailer. It was a lot of fun to do. It mostly consists of Photoshop work based on photo reference (thanks Francois for letting me acces your Scotland pics!! they where a huge inspiration!) and 3D rendered elements.
After the painting was done, it was projected back onto 3D geometry in XSI to obtain the camera move as it is seen in the trailer. ]]> Fri, 12 May 2006 22:59:48 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/589109

Ok here's another one from my holidays serie... After a while, I started going back to childhood stories for inspiration. This one is my twist on Alice... the queen and the cat (God that cat scared me when I was a kid.... I guess this is why I'm a dog person now )

Again this time... Photoshop painting (about 9 hrs) on a sketch made by observing random pics I found in my reference folders. Tried to keep the color palette saturated and colorfull.... it's Wonderland afterall !!

]]> Mon, 28 Jan 2008 06:05:34 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/367556

This is a personnal matte painting I have been working on for a while now. It started of as an idea I had while walking home after seeing the movie "28 days later" at friends house. I started to wonder what my home town would look like if it had gone through the same zombie filled situation as in the film. At the same time it was a fun exercise in destroying a city and making everything grim and moody.

I started off with a bunch of live plates I took with my digital camera and painted from there. Mostly photoshop work, lots of painting, some references from stock shot and a few models made in XSI (mostly the front barricade and watch towers).

For those who would like to see how this piece evolved I posted the WIP in the digital matte painting forum.

link: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=359214&page=1

comments and critiques welcomed !!]]> Thu, 08 Jun 2006 01:09:03 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/593268

Snow White.... another based off of fairytales. This is another image of the series I started before the holidays... The original is 3k pixels tall.
The pose and character where referenced for the initial sketch from a magazine picture of Milla Jovovich (still trying to get my observation drawing better and faster and since I have no time to get to a life drawing class, I still use whatever I can find). Entirely done on photoshop from a pencil and paper sketch.
About 8 hours of work total.]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2008 04:54:45 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/334050

This shot was done as an establishing shot of Vexcor tower, where the serie's evildoers reign over alphaverse.
Based on a live plate shot in South Africa showing Capetown's sea port. Made in photoshop using lots of reference from the live set combined with 3D generated elements.]]> Thu, 23 Mar 2006 04:42:03 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/599029

A friend from work that followed the image's progress suggested I called the image "Sarajevo Princess" since it had a similar mood to some (terrible) images from the ex-Yugoslavian conflict we use at work as debris and damage refs for matte projects.

All the observation drawing I did before the holidays is - I think - starting to pay off. This image of my post-apocalyptic-zombie-universe-pinup "Sleeping Beauty" started off as a pencil on paper sketch made from some sketch book studies I did a while back. The posing of the character went a lot faster this time... the Rest was Painted in photoshop over about 9 hrs... original is 3k pixels tall.

Spent way too much time on the character for what I wanted to be a mood / lighting oriented study. The only thing that originated from a picture ref was the SVD sniper rifle since I wanted it to feel technically exact... I did use some matte techniques to blend the starting rifle pic to my sketch before painitng it.

anyways what do you guys think !?
comments and crits are always welcome!!

]]> Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:04:22 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/334036

Here is an exemple of the matte work I did on Charlie Jade. Since the story is about travelling to parallel universes, it was a frequent thing to produce multiple versions on the same location. In this case, theses 2 variations where made using the live plates shot in South Africa. Since these are locked camera shots they consist mostly ot Photoshop work with 3D as a base for the reactors.]]> Thu, 23 Mar 2006 04:23:55 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/603750

Here's another quick paint I did over my "do it in a day's worth of time" theme... this one took a bit over 9 hrs of time.
(don't have much free time to do much more then quick character work outside of work these days... )

I know... I know... in the book Dracula has 3 wives... What can I say... they needed someone to hold the camera. All jokes aside this pic is from some old sketches I have done a while back in an old sketch book (lots of stuff I had forgotten... always a great source of inspiration). Mostly photoshop work based off pencil on paper with some texturing added over for the grittyness.

I'm also trying to work on characters' hair... I have a hard time shaking off my traditionnal animation drawing training where I was taught to draw hair as "chunks". Started off this image wanting to do a hair exercise... and ended up spending way too much time limit on shinny stuff and faces.

So here's this image's story... what do you guys think?
comments and crits are appreciated... (and hopefully I'll get better at this !!)

]]> Tue, 04 Mar 2008 06:33:51 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/334047

This is a matte that was based on a day plate shot from Table Mountain of Capetown in South Africa. I had to transform our universe's Capetown in the serie's Alphaverse version "Capecity". Done in photoshop.]]> Thu, 23 Mar 2006 04:37:07 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/692970

I've been working on this image on and off for a while now... has a test for my new LCD screen. I find I'm having a hard time with LCD vs. CRT differences... even with both screens calibrated I find that on the CRT everything comes out too dark.
Will take some time getting used to I guess

Tried something new for this one lots more saturated colors then what I usually go for and also played around the darker part of the range to try and figure out what I could get away with...

Work is mostly Photoshop with some matte techniques used for the BG. Hopefully my idea of mood for discovering paradise is not a total disaster...

What do you guys think? comments and crits always welcomed !]]> Fri, 07 Nov 2008 04:57:52 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/334040

This is a matte made for the tv series Charlie Jade. the frame is a bit weird because it is originally a camera projection. This shot was particularly interesting to do because it was to be a day for night shoot. Photoshop was used for the painting part, Boujou and XSI to obtain camera tracking and projections.]]> Thu, 23 Mar 2006 04:31:59 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/332681

This piece is a commissionned artwork that was done to celebrate a friends birthday. The only official constraint was that there needed to be a "butterflyish" creature in it.

I made this piece using a mix of 2D and 3D mediums, photo refrerences as well as old egyptian wall paintings and carvings. I wanted to explore contrasts and the passage from one state to the other... light to dark, graphic to photographic, 3D looking to flat.
]]> Wed, 22 Mar 2006 02:32:21 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/334061

Matte painting done for Charlie Jade tv serie. This matte was used as a filler for all the night shots filmed on the boardroom set for the Vexcor tower.]]> Thu, 23 Mar 2006 05:19:47 +0000 http://yellowdog.cgsociety.org/gallery/338808

This is a matte painting I did as part of a series of mattes we had to do for Rainbow 6 -critical hour- opening cinematic sequence. The camera angle and picture ratio might be considered a bit unusual but the image was in fact used for a camera projection onto 3D geometry. The schedule for this project was very tight and this image was done over about 4 total days including camera projection and all. The 3D and 2.5 D was done in XSI, the painting part was done in photoshop.]]> Thu, 30 Mar 2006 04:15:30 +0000