Cornered by theSea
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Description
Thanks for viewing!
I'm still not 100% satisfied with this one but I feel it is time to let it go. 'Cornered' was inspired by reading Gary Tonge's new book "Bold Visions." If you read imagineFX magazine you're probably familiar with Gary's work - he's an amazing SF artist with a gift for scale. He also uses strong color themes in a way that I found absolutely stunning and after reading his book, I decided to try something with strong two color lighting. So, much of what is good about this image was inspired by "Bold Visions." I take full responsibility for the rest...
DAZ Studio render @ 1800 x 1800. There were a LOT of render passes. Postwork in Adobe Photoshop CS3. There was a LOT of painting.
Production Credits:
DAZ's Mike 3 with Knight Errant Armor and Reival hair by AprilYSH (it's under there somewhere). Millenium Dragon 2 with RawArt's textures - if you've seen my 'The Black Dragon' and 'Death From Above' pictures you'll recognise this beast. Setting is 'the Alchemy Chasm' - all from DAZ.
I went through three protagonists and two dragons in the setup phase...
All materials tweaked by me. Human skin and brickwork are pwSurface, lava started out as pwEffect.
Lighting: the moonlight coming through the arch is one uberSpotlight and one omArealight - this was the first lighting pass. Light from the lava was represented by six omArealights with falloff sitting below the lava plane pointing upwards (second lighting pass). Finally, bounce light was represented by a uberEnvironment light with ambient occlusion that was tinted dark red in post (third lighting pass).
Two mood master passes were rendered - one pretty much at the default settings for atmospherics. For the flat layer of haze just above the lava, I created an additional camera looking straight down and applied Mood Master to that. I adjusted the depth of the fog effect so it was tight and close to the lava plane, then rendered that from my original camera.
I used surface mask creater and rendered masks of the knight, the dragon, the lava and anything else I could think of. I applied pwEffect to the building and created a pattern of thin red marbled lines with 100% ambience for the lines and rendered that without lights.
Finally I rendered the bright ambient of the lava layer by itself (I had kept it off for the lighting passes) so that the reflections of the lava would be tied to the lava layer.
Postwork:
I combined the three lighting passes in screen mode. I painted a fog layer with Ron's fog brushes and masked it off with the Mood master 'surface glow' layer. I painted a layer of fog and smoke with more 'Ron' brushes and masked that off with the main Mood Master layer. I added the red glowy ribbons and masked those off with the 'surface glow' layer, so they're just visable at the base of the pillars.
I painted over the lava to give a nice hazy, splotchy feeling. Then, I painted in new, longer hair for the knight on a seperate layer, painted some glow at the pillar bases with the clone stamp brush to clean up the joins to the lava, and painted over the dragon's wing roots to give a more organic feel.
Next I created a beam of light from the doorway and used the 'luce' plugin in photoshop, along with masks of the dragon and knight to give the volumetric effect from the light.
I spent a lot of time with my tablet, overpainting and retouching the textures and details, and rebalanced the lights several times. Finally I added a 'levels' adjustment and added copyright and captions.
Very late in the process I rotated the canvas 90deg so that the dragon was in the lower left, as I felt this made the image scan better.
Whew! The end. All told between setup, compositing and postwork: about 25 hours of work, not counting render time. I'm sick of looking at it, it's for you now.
As always, your comments and constructive crtiticism are most appreciated. I see I'm almost out of typing space so I'll leave you now...
Pax
--michael
Comments (26)
Timesurfer
love the pov!!!
geirla
Great image and explanation! (thanks for that) The POV really adds to the image and all the work you did with lighting passes really comes through.
Revelation-23
Well worth the time and effort you put into this. Having the dragon come from the lower left works. Granted, I only tilted my head to see what this looked like from a different angle, but this looks just right. Something tells me Mike is going to have a hard time getting out of this one!
jaynep12002
Fantastic render Michael! The POV is perfect for this scene! You lost me with the explanations of the lighting passes. I'm just trying to grasp that concept now (unsuccessfully) but you are a master! Great work!
Shiroyama
wow, i'm tired just from reading about all the work that went into this! well worth it, though, it's an awesome scene. the contrasting colors are very dramatic, the dragon's wings add to the sense of scale, and the perspective is dizzying.
ESarge
Fantastic image and pov!! I agree with Jaynep about being lost, but still like reading how an image was created.
gomcse
The attention to detail here is wonderful. I recommend everyone look at the full size view. Great job.
dragonmuse
An absolute must to see in full size! Amazing detail. Really love that lava.
MadameX
Wow! Excellent and dramatic pov! Love this!
scooby37
Great work and Pov and I love the colors
maraich
GAH! I could write a novel and it wouldn't go far enough to encompass the amount of work you put into this beauty. I know you're sick of looking at it, but for those of us just seeing it for the first time it's a serious treat. It just so happens that my parents gave me "Bold Visions: The Digital Painting Bible" for my birthday, so as soon as I saw your image I knew exactly what had inspired you. The dominating orange of the lava, counterbalanced by the strong darks of the dragon, is definitely reminiscent of Gary Tonge's work. The excellent PoV, and the way the dragon's wings create a frame within the frame is quite effective. The amount of work you put into the lighting and multiple layers is exhausting just to imagine, but truly worth the effort. As always, I appreciate you sharing your process. I always learn something, and it helps me appreciate your art even more.
callad
Impressive work in many ways! 25 hours ex rendering...EX! Whew!! (And you didn't count the hour you spend on telling us how!) The POV is excellent! It really shows off the tight spot hes in. The lighting absolutely is fabulous and so are the figures!! Very High Quality piece!!!
jakiblue
I bow before the Lighting God! grin Amazing work!
shotgung0d
Positively brilliant! Could be your best Studio image yet and that says a lot. Wow!
Lyndseyh
Fantastic perspective
Seaview123
This is a fantastic image, Everything you put into it is very well done. An instant fave and 5+. Really really good pic!
elisheba
I like the perspective you chose for the battle scene, very well done... Maybe you could change the format to 16/9 wich would give you a good way to increase the height of the walls :)
dreamlord08
Great one - like it.....5++
DreamRage
Being a big fan of good POV`s and lighting myself, I take a deep bow for this one....Absolutely masterly done, by all means !!!! And about you not beingh a 100% satisfied with it...yeah, tell me more about it...smile! Faved!!
Cimaira
Stunning! All that work paid off! Thank you for explaining how you bring these gorgeous images into being, I'm hoping some day to be able to understand all of that, lol.
El_Lee
The pov is what gets me, and the work you put in is obvious. Well worth it for these results.
kobaltkween
i've never seen your particular inspiration, but i found the type of illustration obvious. i think you were highly successful at implementing the style of composition, colors and lighting typical of ImagineFX covers. for me, this isn't one of your most striking even though it is still great. if i had to guess at weaknesses, it would be that we're at too straight a viewing angle, the atmospherics seem too subtly different (general haze vs. ground mist), and the moonlight and lava light seem somehow conflicting. but those are very minor points, and even though i think this isn't your strongest work, it's still at a highly professional level. i think it's great that you're sharing not only the fruits of all your labor, but the process involved. what's even more heartening than the information itself is the sense that you're a fellow student as well as a teacher. i find your experimentation and exploration are inspiring, especially because you could have stopped developing ages back and still produced high quality and very popular work. i see a lot of good artists, even a lot of good professional artists, who seem to just use the same techniques, styles, compositions, and visual elements over and over. your hard work was worth it because you not only produced a wonderful image, but because pushing your own limits helps your work grow. and for us, it's fun to watch.
ontar1
Fantastic scene and pov, excellent work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
moonbunnie
Awesome composition and pov , fantastic work!
mhossack
Excellent scene! Great POV.
amirapsp
Great work here...Hugs