A retinue of rag tag barbarians try to get to their secret island hideout during a storm! Trying to push a more cartoony style with the characters while keeping the environment somewhat realistically textured and colored.
Some colleagues and I were lucky enough to be featured in the June 2012 issue of Imagine FX regarding our recent plein air trip to the Italian and French Alps. pick up the issue here:
http://www.imaginefx.com/02287754330940030870/imaginefx-83.html
or at Barnes and Noble. I’ve attached a snippet from the issue below. A special thanks to Ian Dean from Imagine FX for putting the article together.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
ASUS N53S / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
The Dominator Shipwreck in Palos Verdes. An incredible broken down cargo ship that crashed on the coast and was too bulky and costly to move, so they left it! 3 hrs in the field, 4 hrs at home.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
ASUS N53s / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Las Virgenes off of Stunt Road in Malibu / 3 hours in the fields, 2 hours at home.
Worked for a year of Pre-Production on Naughty Dog’s new game changing (literally;) franchise!
http://kotaku.com/5868306/the-first-art-from-the-last-of-us/gallery/1
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Arroyo Seco Creek in Pasadena. Picked this composition based on only on the fact that I wanted to sit next to a creek for 2 hours:)
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
The second painting of the day of Sella Pass in the Italian Alps. 2 hours in the field, 2 hours at home adding details and working on edges.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
One of those mindnumbingly pleasant locations that you only see in movies and retrospect didn’t really sink in at the time. Tried to focus on not adding too much detail but at the same time indicating all the Ivy. Noticed from looking at Richard Schmidt paintings that he makes each window a visually different shape and size to break them up, tried to copy that. Also removed some boats in the foreground to simplify on Eytan’s recommendation:) 2 hours in the field
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
From the snow bank on one walkway looking onto the real badasess who traverse these mountains for fun. I think I would need a new set of knees for these kinds of shenanigans! This was painted with the usual process, black and erased white block in with some juicy brushes applied to locked layers and then a little edge blending and overpainting at the end with the mixer brush tool in CS5. 2 hours in the field.
Also as I side note I have to give it up to my Dell Inspirion 1525. Bought 6 years ago brand new for $500 intended for checking email only, it’s turned out to be fast and reliable enough to withstand any outdoor condition, temperature and constant battering and 3k files with ease. I could do every professional and personal project on this, what would be considered “junker” laptop, and it’s still ticking … Well done DELL and Windows 7!
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Another fast second painting of the day, this time from the warmth of the cafe rather than the -3 celcius outside. The challenge I’m trying tackle with this kind of montain vista is how to indicate the scale of the little snow bits without having it look noisy (like it does in real life) and keep the painterly style. 1 hour in the field
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Our second painting of that day and were losing light fast! 1 hour in the field.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
A purely delightful 2 painting day, The first was at this drive-able mountain pass in the Italian Alps. Everywhere you looked hurt your face from sheer awesomeness, 3 hours in the field.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Sat down for second painting after the first was a epic fail. A lot of looky-loos on this this one. Makes me think we should start putting out a hat and make some cash-money in the process:) 2 hours in the field.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Day 1 of our Italy Painting trip, trying to figure out an expressive way to paint architeture… Still a bit stiff but going to pick a simpler more organic composition tomorrow. 3 hours in the field, 2 hours at home.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
First plein air I’ve done from a plane window:) On our 9 hour flight from LA to Milan. Clouds were passed way to fast to paint but I tried to half make up something using the same colors. 2 hours in the sky:)
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Had about a 7 minute window when the sun was like this and I happened to be at the point in the painting where I could get it in real quick. There were about 5 other sun situations that were equally epic in a 60 minute span, damn you crappy iphone camera. 3 hrs in the field.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
A couple spent 2 hours fighting and sobbing outside this house when we were there… but it was too late to move:) Tried a more clean graphic technique for this image. When there is a architecture like this I feel like it lends itself to the line tool, but then you lose painterlyness. Then again I don’t mind leveraging photoshop to do what photoshop does best… lines:) – 3hrs in the field.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
An easy 30 minute hike to the falls. Got the colors blocked in on location and did most of the painting love at home. Trying to channel a new artist I found named Dorje Bellbrook who has some amazing digital landscapes deep in his blog. 3 hours in the field, 3 hours at home.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Painting of the Palisades cliffs. Working on keeping brushwork loose and descriptive. 3 hours in the field.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
2 hours and 3 dollars of donations to homeless people… we didn’t dare venture far past the entrance of Famina. Working on simplifying shapes and going for a feeling of the place rather than an accurate depiction.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Mandeville Canyon in Santa Monica, 3 hours in the field and 2 hours in the Studio. Made the mistake of painting the shapes how I wanted them to be lit instead of finding something with the lighting I wanted… so I had to fudge the colors quite a bit to make the initial b/w comp work.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Our 3rd trip to Point Dume in Malibu trying to make some sense out of the complicated and noisy rock shapes. 3 hours in the field 1 hour at home.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Another painting from our 8 day Utah painting trip. Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park done on location. 2 hours in the field, 2 hours at home.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 and Custom Built Desktop PC / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet and 21ux Cintiq / Photoshop CS5
A great show at my friend Jung Park’s new concepting school, Red Engine Studios. The project was to do a piece that had something to do with a Red Train. 4 days to complete.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Participated in a TED talk on Saturday done by my friend and colleague Nick Pugh. He did an amazing lecture on digital life painting and the future of plein air painting. And a bunch of us did live paintings for the show. 45 minutes in the field.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
The last painting of our 8-day outdoor Painting Trip, Dead Horse Point. One of the most magestic places we have ever setup, 2hrs in the field 3 hrs in the studio.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
The first painting of an 8 day painting trip to Zion and Utah. This piece was at the top of the Emerald Pools hike in Zion. 3 hrs in the field 1 hr at home.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
On our way to a long abandoned WWII era Nazi Commune off the Rustic Canyon Trail in Santa Monica, we came across this old barn and stopped in for a paint. A truly spectacular place of ruin. Once again starting with a blockish black brush and looking at what’s there but taking some liberty with the light shapes to make them fit pleasingly on the page with JUST black and JUST white, no greys. Then doing the painting based almost exactly on this initial composition. 2hrs. in the field.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Up Cheney Trail Road in Pasadena, we stopped for this city vista. The clouds were moving quite a bit casting great pools of light over the landscape but my main goal was to try to capture the feeling of distance without getting too fiddly with the details. 2hrs in the field
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Starting with just black and white is really helping to decide what is important and what is superfluous in the initial sketch. The critical thing for me has been using a solid blockish brush and painting in and erasing out until the light shapes are fresh looking and nicely arranged. The balance of the composition is much easier to assess right at the beginning when working this way. 2.5 hours in the field, 1 hour at home adding details and color correcting.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
2 hrs in the field focusing on keeping the shapes loose as long as possible. Started with a black and white block in to figure out the main light shapes. Used custom shapes from a different file for about 70%, overpainted the last 30%
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Started very crisp and went back in with the new CS5 mixer brush tool to blend some edges. 2 hrs in the field, 1 hour at home softening edges.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Going back to some old techniques. Started of by blocking it out in black and white (no greys) which really helped establish the composition. Painted the water in 3-4 layers making sure to keep the reflection shapes separate from the underlying water color and spending a long time stylizing the reflection shapes. Used the line and lasso tool for most of the dock and building. 2hrs in the field and 4 hours at home working on the building details.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Experimenting more with using pre-made shapes that can be stamped and rotated around to make other shapes. 3hrs in the field on Catalina Island
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Practice painting for tomorrow’s Catalina painting trip. Experimenting with using pre-made shapes that can be stamped and rotated around to make other shapes.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting at Abalone Cove in Palos Verdes. – 3hrs in the field and 2 hrs. at home tweaking colors and details. The girl was added from a photo afterwards and painted over to match the style.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting near and abandoned shack at the Old Zoo in Grifith Park – 2 hours in the field.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting off of Topenga Fire Road – 2.5 hrs in field – Eytan sitting in the distance http://ezdraws.blogspot.com/
Our setup and some incredible locations
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5 / 12ux Cintiq for touch ups.
Pideras Blancas Lighthouse Area
Pfeiffer State Beach
Sur Ranch Vista (off of Highway 1)
Point Lobos, Cypress Cove
A 5 day painting trip along the Pacific Coast Highway that started in Los Angeles and ended in San Jose. Each day Eytan (http://ezdraws.blogspot.com/) and I stayed in a different city, enjoyed a gentleman’s breakfast, and head out to find a place of immeasurable beauty. We painted each day on location for about 3 hours, often in wind rain and cold, but never all three. Each night we found a restaurant that would humor our 8 plug digital campsite, where we would finish, touch up, critique and color correct the paintings done that day.
The next trip will be Moab and Utah, so if you are an artist at any level, and interested in joining us for several days of Plein Air Fun feel free to email me at shaddysafadi@yahoo.com.
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5 / 12ux Cintiq for touch ups.
Life painting at the edge of Morrow Bay California, 2 hours in the field, 2 hours at home on a 12ux Cintiq on loan from Wacom. Thanks Guys! The small Cintiq is great for painting trips like these where lugging that giant Cintiq isn’t practical.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting at the top of the Ski Lift at Mt Baldy – 1 hr in the freezing bone chilling field, after which we retired to Chipotle.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting of Downtown LA, on 6th Street overlooking the 110 Freeway. – 2.5 hrs in the field – 2 hours at home touching up. This was an attempt to paint architecture in a painterly way. It seems in such a case, it is the parts of the overpass that are catching light require the most precision, especially the curved bridge which was done using the path tool. The edges were slightly distressed later to prevent the bridge from looking too graphic.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life Painting at the Turkish Delights III drawing workshop hosted by the Gallery Girls. Trying again to keep the “Jaime Jones Vibe” http://www.artpad.org/ by paying attention to each stroke. They started with a careful drawing followed by an attempt at super economical mark making. The downside, 25 minute poses were rarely enough time to make any traction:)… Substantial level adjustments, color adjustments, overlays and soft gradients were added at home.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting of Santa Monica off of Stunt Rd. – 2.5 hrs in the field – The goal here was again a painterly technique, but also to observe how the onset of sunset effects the colors. In this case low lying clouds were blocking the sun near the horizon producing a more reddish light.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting in Zuma Canyon – 3hrs in the field – Again focusing on keeping a more painterly style by using one carefully crafted custom brush designed for painting. The left painting was done first and as the sun was setting another quick sky layer was added with minor color balance changes to the terrain to help it match the sky.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting in Santa Monica – 3hrs in the field – Focusing on keeping a more painterly style.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting at El Matador State Beach – 3hrs in the field – 3hrs at home adding details and color correcting
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting at Icehouse Canyon Creek. An attempt to work more painterly and to use fewer “job specific” custom brushes – 3hrs.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting at the Sunken City in Long Beach 3hrs.
HISTORY:
In 1929 a sizeable section of land in the southern tip of San Pedro began to unexplainably slip into the sea. The 600 block of Paseo Del Mar began moving seaward in 1929 and continued to slip until the mid 1930s. Movement was measured as high as 11 inches a day. Due to quick action, all but two of the houses on the seaward side of the street were moved before toppling into the sea. The eastern section of Point Fermin Park was lost and the entire area is very unstable, yet not moving at the present time. Geologists have termed this phenomenon as a “slump” and this area has been featured in many geological studies and books.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting at Temescal Creek, Samurai added from photo reference afterwards 3.5hrs.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting at Wailea Falls Kauai, 2hrs.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting at Queen’s Bath Kauai, 1.5hrs.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting at Hanalei Kauai, 2hrs.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting at Tunnels Beach Kauai, 3hrs.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting at Eaton Canyon, Pasadena CA, 3hrs.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting at Marina Del Rey 1.5hrs.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life painting at Temescal Canyon Creek. 3hrs.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Life Painting at Vasquez Rocks, Agua Dulce CA. 3 hours laptop painting in the field, 2 hours in the Studio adding at adjusting details. The latest Photoshop brushes can be found under “BRUSHES” above.
HISTORY:
Vasquez Rock was the site of a battle regarded to be one of the most heated in confrontations in TV history
PROCESS/TOOLS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
1. The first step was to pick a composition that would show as many varied layers of distance as possible.
2. Next a bright textured red-orange base was put down to compliment all the desaturated blues that would be in the scene. On another layer all the major compositional elements were roughly painted in.
3. On a third layer, after making the second layer semi-transparent, solid flat silhouettes of the forground rocks were painted in. Careful attention was paid to the variety and energy of their shapes as well as their realism.
4. The transparency of the previous layer was preserved and a quick wash with a rock textured brush (see Download for brushes) was placed over the rock shapes previously drawn. Light painting and cracks as well as some attention to the direction of the ambient light started to create their forms.
5. A similar technique was applied to the middle and background layers until completion.
6. Generally the goal is to find custom brushes that naturally express the materials in the scene with out literally looking like them.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
1. The horizon line is placed usually on the top or bottom third of the picture.
2. Next a quick mess brush marks to get the general colors of the whole image but making sure to include some odd opposite colors to add variety.
3. Ocean detail was added on a layer using squashed and scattered custom brushes and all the pier parts on another layer drawn carefully in perspective with the polygonal lasso tool and corrected along the way
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Point Dune surf with newly acquired custom brushes which can be found under the DOWNLOAD tab.
Figure Model “Mala” at Bickart’s Sculpture Studio. 8-12am the last Sunday of every month.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Architectural elements created with a square shaped brush with no rotation and the shift key held. Brushes can be found under the DOWNLOAD tab.
PROCESS/MATERIALS:
Dell Inspiron 1525 / Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet / Photoshop CS5
Painted on a Laptop from life. See previous figure painting post for details.
Attempting to make custom brushes for a very simple palm tree. This image had two, one for the leaves and one for the trunk. The custom brushes did the %80 of the work and then last %20 was adding randomness and details.
AND… After a 7 year hiatus from “figure” painting I attended a figure drawing workshop at Jonathan Bickart’s Sculpture Studio. I was going to bring charcoal and keep it super real and then I decided that if I’m going to use photoshop for a living I should us it for everything.
Materials/Settings
Adobe Photoshop CS4 with a Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet
Brushes: See brush swatch above. The tip has an irregular
shape (that I stole from someone) and the other important
element of it is that in the Brush Settings/Other Dynamics/Opacity Jitter that you set the Opactiy Jitter to “Pen Pressure” this give you a nice soft brush you can blend with.
A Naughty Dog group show at the Gnomon Gallery
http://www.gnomongallery.com/
Opening Reception
Saturday, March 6th 7-11pm
1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Hollwood, CA, 90038
(Everything bug related is mine:)
After two long years and a brutal home stretch, Uncharted 2 finally hits shelves this Tuesday.
We knew it was fun and we knew it looked good, but it’s always a surprise to see how all the pieces come together.
Hats off to everyone at Naughty Dog because it really was the staggering collective talent that made this game happen.
