[Bg]

The head design is _NOT_ done by me, it's done by the talented artists at Weta Digital and Weta Workshop.

The outline on the foreground shows where Gandalf is standing.. the pillars are temporary, I'll redo them in 3d and there will be more smoke, dust and fire on the background... so it's still quite unfinished. Anyway, I would like to hear your opinion, or even better: you could do a repaint

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New Image:



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[ March 28, 2002: Message edited by: Bg ]

[Bg]

It should look something like this when finished:

[francmidi]

Wow, great work. I like the fire, it looks very realistic. And the balrog is
really frightening from this perspective. Why do you want to redo the pillars?
I think there is no need to do that. Only the "hairy ball" above the balrog's head disturbs me a little.

Again - great!

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: francmidi ]

[Lunatique]

Lookin' good! No C&C yet.

Reminds of Doug Beekman's brush work a bit.

[Immy]

The fire looks fantastic... can't wait to see what it looks like when it is finished.

[Sukhoi]

Very nice!
Perhaps make the foreground a little darker?

What program are you using?

Sukhoi

[Anthony]

Nice painting. Its not really a matte though is it? I mean, you already have all the 3d elements in there(fire, balrog, smoke). I would think a matte painting would include the architecture and the background haze and lighting, and leave the 3d stuff to the 3d artists and compositors

[Lukiaz]

Amazing man!. SOrry no help from me though.
(I'll be driving passed where the Weta dudes are located in a couple weeks!)

[Gort]

Cool man! The only thing I noticed, and since you're not finished m point may be moot, is that there is not diffusion of value between the foreground and background elements.

Good work nonetheless!

[Bg]

New version, enjoy.

Francmidi: In this type of work the perspective must be spot on, so I'm using 3d program's perspective skills, not mine

Lunatique, Immy, Tom Carter, Thanks!

Sukhoi, I'm using Photoshop 5.5

Anthony, I don't have the time to make everything from a scratch (model the creature, use smoke/flame simulation) so I'm painting everything. It gives much better idea how the background image would work as a "real" matte.

Lukiaz, that's cool! Could you throw my portfolio to Weta when you're there?-) j/k

Thanks again for the compliments everone!

[Bg]

Forgot the render:

[Presto Change O]

Couple things i see. 1) His arm appears to be too short & stubby. He has a massive head so he should have an equally ummmm large, brooding, scary body. 2) The blue light coming from the back kills the mood of the picture. You previously had all black and red (hot, angry colors) and it worked, well. Then you added blue (cool color) and it took away from the pic. Thats my biggest gripe. 3) The new deal you have on top his head looks odd, like a mohawk or somethin. I dont know what its supposed to be but if its anything like a fin, its angled too much.
My favorite is the pic just below the "Balrog_New", "Balrog_Composition". That pic has great mood. I mean its actually fuckn scary to look at. I was in awe when I saw that image the first time... ok I still am Why did you decrease the size of the balrog anyway? In the composition pic it looks like Gandalf is in deep shit, in the new one Gandalf might whoop the balrogs ass with his stick. Thats about as helpful as i can be right now. Hope that was useful.

[fuel_99]

this is a great image already, but it has not much to do with matte painting at all.

[Sumaleth]

Mmm, looking great. I'm not sure what that big bright area is in from of the demon, but it looks cool.

Row.

[Anthony]

Very cool BG, you're always getting better and better :]

[Bg]

Great crits Presto!!

Sumaleth, he has a whip in his hand, though it doesn't look like it

Thanks for the encouraging words Anthony!

Henrik and Fuel_99, I'm calling this matte, because I don't know better word to descripe it.. yeah, concept or illustration might be a better word, but it's more than just a concept: when I painted this I kept rules of painting for film and (photo) realistically in my mind, and tried to not use illustrational tricks like I do on my other images. And the concept was already there

In the original idea the environment had much bigger role, the Balrog was supposed to be only part of the background, black shadow in the air and walls.

Btw. Henrik, how's things going at the Mill Film?

And finally a new bigger res shot (I'm painting this at 2k film res):



I've probably said this before, but I LOVE these forums, the best place to get criticism!!

[Leo]

Hiya BG! Hehe seems like you're really hooked on matte and LotR! A few more steps and you can fly to WETA.

About the picture. I agree with some guy above - mixing blue and red isn't a good idea here. In movie they separeted these color shemes onto different scenes (like Balin's tomb or bridge of Khazad Dum). So same thing here - red works better. Another thing that bothering me is extremely twisted perspective (especially at left/right sides). I don't remember that filmmakers use it a lot... okay sometimes it's possible if camera moves like crazy but these shots aren't long. I can also suggest you paying more attention to edges... in your picture they tends to be shifted. Do you remember that meteor repaint by Craig? Everything is sharp and crisp. Anyway don't listern me and keep painting! luck

ow, somebody knew what these 2k or 4k film plate means? 2000/4000 pixels wide? If so well it doesn't seems too big but I didn't see any pixels at cinema =).

-leo

[henrik]

Great stuff BG! Keep the brush going.
I think you should tone down the "matte painting" stuff, as this is a very nice painting indeed, but it's no matte. It's a very nice concept/illustration piece.