[Gecko]

These are for a folklore article about old myths and cures about Finnish reptiles and their bites.

Some of the advice was pretty funny, for example, it was thought that if a snake bites you, running to water before the snake get there eliminates the poison and you'll be safe.







I've been trying to do some matte painting tries as well, but it is still very odd to judge what might pass as photo-quality and what looks like drawn by an idiot.
I've been having some ideas such as this:



Oh well, one day I'll come before your eyes with something worth showing, i promise :).

[EviLToYLeT]

rofl. they all look so humorous. great work as always gecko... havent seen you since that clown piece.

Anyway, the matte is looking good. if you back up for a long while, kinda squint it looks realistic

[Dom]

Great and funny! Great job.

The second one from the top is somewhat weird because of the lack of detail on the girls face and body. The snake has great detail but the woman has very little. The action is great though. The arms need some more work too.

I like the matte painting. Great ideas. Not much to say other then of course no detail Finish it up. I would like to see the original picture though.

Great stuff as always.

Cheers

Dom

[jasonN]

mmmm. I love the cool blues in the 2nd and 3rd pic. They're really nice to look at.
The matte painting seems to be coming along. Post up when you've done some more!

[BooMSticK]

hiya gecko friend.
very nice looking paintings! Colorchoises are rocksolid as usual. Love the last one with the horse!
As for the mattepainting - I think one point where it falls through is the misleading perspective that comes from misfitting shapes. Shapes that doesn't get smaller according to distance. I believe a good and fair share of planning (with perspective grids etc.) is the only way forward when doing complex mattes like this gecko. But keep working at it. I would really like to see how far you can push this image!
great post!
,boom

[Morbid Guy]

Great paintings Gecko. I really like your style, very simple but gets the message across well. I love the second, the leaping pose on the woman is wonderfully done.
The matte painting is coming along really well too.

[ April 18, 2002: Message edited by: Morbid Guy ]

[Dom]

You know what would make the second piece even more effective? If the woman had her head slightly turned and looked at the snake while jumping in. Sort of to tell if she will make it, with slight fear in her eyes, anticipation.

[The Magic Pen]

Looking at the stuff craig did for Final fantasy you relize how important it is to get the lighting and the angles correct , don't be so hard on yourself about matte painting , I think as far as a lot of people are concerned only some of the most skilled painters in the world can do it at a pro level so give yourself time !! Just keep trying at it !!

I think that if I was going to try to be a matte painter in this fay and age I would learn Maya well enouph so that I could do block modeling . Look at Craigs final fantasy stuff . A lot of what he did what taking the ligting and the shapes from the block models and painting over them . It really helps to start with base lighting and shapes..something to think about anyways !

[ April 18, 2002: Message edited by: The Magic Pen ]

[Gecko]

I tried to tackle some humor in them since the article was meant to be taken lightly, too.

evil:
about the matte try.. i painted over the bridges and whatever to what a huge hole in the ground would look like.... an accidentally overwrote the damn thing. eh.

dom:
Yeah that girl was a tough one, I'm doing a portrait right now to learn the damn anatomy.
You are very right about the girl looking at the snake, that would've been the ideal pose, but nooo, I couldn't get it to look good.
I settled for a curve with the arms, couldn't get anyone to pose for me at the time :[

Hey Jason, those blues work for me too. I like them pictures more than the green one, the green one was by far the most difficult to pull off, though.

Boom, I drew some guidelines, but the lens distorts so that they curve too much, it got really hard to lay down the geometry right.. which I guess it's not. :)
All I have from the image is this small jpg, I guess I could blow it up and continue from there, replacing the pizza part from the original scan. I hope I have time for this really soon, now everything's pretty busy.

morb:
I'm trying to learn to fight the digi-look of my images with more textures. I guess that's what causes the simple look (I really hope I get can rid of it, when necessary :).

themagicpen:
I agree with using the current technology to help me with the mattes, but there's this annoying bugger in my head telling my to learn to do it by hand first, just so I know how everything works and what's the basis for it.
I'll be glad to learn 3d in the near future but until then, learning the basics.

ah well, the pictures are supposed to be in tomorrow's paper..