Tidying up more lose ends! I have successfully completed all the tasks from my last post and i'm now finalising my Matte Paintings. Once I start animating i'll probably find there there are more changes to make, but taking lessons from GL i've created 3 slightly different versions all in the 2D / comic / The Wolf Among Us / Borderlands style.
I've been looking at some Jonathan Lam
tutorials for some extra matte painting insight, but as i'm not going for the realistic style there wasn't a massive amount I could take away from it, buttt I know it'll be useful in future artistic endeavours.
HOWEVER, there are 2 things I can use now - his tips on importing and animating your matte in After Effects, but even earlier than that - thumbnailing.
To help me grow in confidence when it comes to painting landscapes I know that I need to take it much slower (not just rush in to try and finish he whole thing) and DEFINITELY thumbnail and block out the flat tones of my idea.
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| Thumbnails!! |
This has helped massively in terms of me deciding to make the landscape a bit (not heaps...i'm not that good..YET) more complex, but also establish it's depth and scale! Something my previous matte painting was definitely missing.
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| OUT WITH THE OLD!! (Old Matte Painting... by old I mean one that I was really happy with a couple of weeks ago.. for shame) |
ALSO, now that I know how to use After Effects a bit better - and knowing that I can use and abuse the layer system, I know that I can be a lot more flexible with the placement of mountains - those in the foreground especially (as my character will be emerging from behind them in a couple of shots.)
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| Landscape 1 |
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| Landscape 2a |
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| Landscape 2b |
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| Cave Wall |
There's definitely a few colour corrections to be made and I need to finalise the sky, but there's potential for me to do this in After Effects (and try my hand at animating the stars and atmosphere).
I'm also working on one for the 360 shot that I have... I still need to figure this one out... but i'm hungry
