starno's CGPortoflio Gallery

Cleopatra Queen of Egypt Matte Painting

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:01:34 +0000

To begin with, I always wanted to create a Matte Painting with the famous Taj Mahal monument from India. This project was also a great occasion to do something different than usual, not dark and scary but beautiful and hopeful. So, I found an interesting photo from my trip to India and just start to reshape it slowly during free time. The overall work was a bit chaotic because I had no ideas where I was going until I decided to do an Egyptian theme, inspired by one of the movies from Dreamworks, The prince of Egypt.

It finally end-up with this image which is a mix of 3D geometry, photos manipulation and digital painting. It was also a great opportunity to do a special collaboration with the 3D illustrator RainFeatherPearl who did an amazing 3D Cleopatra and a few props. Cleopatra Queen of Egypt was done on and off into a period of 7 weeks, including the collaboration and few photoshoot sessions. Different part of this image was done with 3D softwares but mainly in Photoshop CS3.

See the tutorial page for information about how this Matte Painting was done:
http://www.laberge.qc.ca/fred/tutorials.asp

Frederic St-Arnaud site: http://www.starno.net
RainFeatherPearl site: http://rainfeatherpearl.deviantart.com/

Rise of Niburu - The myth of planet X

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:29:50 +0000

Rise of Niburu is a personal matte painting inspired by the myth of the planet X, also called Niburu. This hypothetical astronomical object become more popular since the arrival of 2012. I though it could be funny to do an image about this story. I made it in 6 hours, inside the same day.

From Wikipedia:
Sitchin's theory proposes the planets Tiamat and Nibiru. Tiamat supposedly existed between Mars and Jupiter. He postulated that it was a thriving world in a much differently shaped solar system, with jungles and oceans, whose orbit was disrupted by the arrival of a large planet or very small star (less than twenty times the size of Jupiter) which passed through the solar system between 65 million and four billion years ago. The new orbits caused Tiamat to collide with one of the moons of this object, which is known as Nibiru. The debris from this collision are thought by the theory's proponents to have variously formed the asteroid belt, the moon, and the current incarnation of the planet Earth.

Beginning in 1995, websites such as ZetaTalk have identified Nibiru or "Planet X" as a large brown dwarf currently within our planetary system, soon to pass relatively close to Earth. Sitchin disagrees with the timing of passage.

To the Babylonians, Nibiru was the celestial body or region sometimes associated with the god Marduk. The word is Akkadian and the meaning is uncertain. Because of this, the hypothetical planet Nibiru is sometimes also referred to as Marduk. Sitchin hypothesizes it as a planet in a highly elliptic orbit around the Sun, with a perihelion passage some 3,600 years ago and assumed orbital period of about 3,750 years; he also claims it was the home of a technologically advanced human-like alien race, the Anunnaki, who apparently visited Earth in search of gold.

The Decline of Babel Myth - Jacobsen War

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:24:04 +0000

Here is a personnal matte-painting that I did during Christmas holiday. I took some photos with my digital camera on top of the empire state building in New York City last summer while I was at SIGGRAPH 2006 Boston, there is only 4-5 hours of driving between.

The modeling of the ships was done by a friend of mine: www.kami.ca

Cockpit Girl Crash

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:26:19 +0000

This was a quick concept art that turned suddently in a more complex image of a plane and his two passengers crashing on a mysterious land. It's no more than a moody image with satured colors.

I used XSI at the very beginning to help me with perspective issue and then, I switched to Photoshop, using many photos and painting over them.

College de Valleyfield matte-painting

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 19:53:20 +0000

Hi there,

This is a matte-painting project I did for a School based in the area of Montreal, Canada. The general idea was to integrate the building into a fantastic landscaping. The tricky part of this work was to erase one by one, each trees in front of the main facade.

Frederic St-Arnaud
www.starno.net

This is the original photo-shoot I did:

The Global Flooding of 2010

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:18:49 +0000

"The Global Flooding of 2010" is an Artwork inspired by the true scientific theory (see the movie "An inconvenient Truth") of a really quick flooding that would touch huge areas of the Earths most densely populated regions.

You can see in this image, the city of Shanghai, China completely flooded.
This scenario involves the melt of glaciers by creating a liquid water (melt zone) layer below the ice that lubricates and moves the ice a very high rate -extremely rapid as glaciers go, flowing the glacier into the ocean. The quantity of water in that sheet would raise sea levels about 15 meters.

This is my first personal matte-painting project that I did concerning the global warming issue. An other one is coming soon. People mostly agrees that something needs to be done about global warming and climate change. However, most people does'nt seems to do something really significant in their live even if the situation is urgent.

I would like to do a contribution to any serious group, organism, company related to environment who want to use this image. I can send this image (a high-resolution for any sort of prints or web) for free, as long as it is use for environment purposes.

One Avenue Project

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 16:15:22 +0000

Hi there,

This is a matte-painting I did for Alpha-Vision in 2005. This is a pre-visualization artowrk of this building before the real construction. The building was build in the area of New-York City. I did'nt have chance to see real construction unfortunately!

Thank you to Alpha-Vision to give permission to show this artwork.

I hope you'll enjoy this.

Here is the original plate:

Beauty tought

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:47:37 +0000

This is a image I did to practice my speed painting. I did it quickly with few brushes. It's also a personnal artwork, which means no constraint at all from someone else than you! I think we should always have a personnal image to work on when you have freetime.

hope you'll enjoy!

Drakensberg Castle Matte-painting

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:41:16 +0000

Hi there,

This is a personnal matte-painting I did in 2004. I wanted to build a piece of architecture without any 3D elements or photos at all. So, here it is! I did this medieval castle only with photoshop tools such as lasso and line tool mixed brush strokes.

It was an exercise, for practicing matte-painting skills.
Hope you�ll enjoy!

Frederic St-Arnaud
www.starno.net

Here is a close-up of the castle in construction in Photoshop:

Here is my footage plate before building the castle:

St-Sauveur ski resort mountain

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 15:04:59 +0000

Hi all,

St-Sauveur Ski resort mountain is a matte-painting test I wanted to do. I increased the size of this ski resort only my painting over the original photo, by using the eyedropper tool in Photoshop.

So, there is no extra photos, references or images. I did this work only with my orginal source plate.

It's a quick work of 2h30. I did that in 2003.

Algonquin Mountain matte-painting

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:58:15 +0000

Hi there,

I did Algonquin mountain matte-painting with photos I've shot on top of the mount Colden, in the Adirondack Park in the New-Work State in USA. Hiking and trekking are one of my favorite outdoor sports and I wanted to take benefit of that.

So, I did an alien city hide in a Valley. My inspiration was the Protos civilization in the famous video-game Starcraft.

I also, wanted to use the technique of brush strokes only for the whole image. Which mean that this artwork is actually huge in term of pixels width.

Here is few close-up to see how did my brush strokes:

The Day After matte-painting

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:45:19 +0000

Hi,

I did this matte-painting in 2003 as an exercice. I did not know at this point that a movie called "The day after tomorrow" will be release one year after this artwork. Coincidence!

My first idea was to show the reconstruction of a green-city on top of buildings after a huge disaster. I start this matte-painting with photo that I shot when I was on top of the empire state building in New York City as a tourist in Vacations.

the original photo was very foggy, I changed the weather in photoshop, as I was doing this project.

You can see my photo here:

General Motors commercial

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:36:14 +0000

Hi all,

This is one of my first my matte-painting I did ever. Actually, it was retouching in photoshop a full 3D image that I did for Fly Studio in 1999. Mark Hall, Gervais Deschenes and Jean-Pierre Boies have also worked on this General Motors TV spot commercial for 1999 spring season in Canada.

In the commercial, camera in going through this road while flowers are growing everywhere on the road.

Hope you'll enjoy this image.

Harmington Manor

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:10:45 +0000

This is an old personnal project I did in 2001 when I was practicing matte-paintings skills. It was an exercise of cutting element in photos and putting them together. I took pictures of a restaurant in the town of St-Sauveur when I was working at Hybride.com. I used in only Photoshop. I hope you'll enjoy it.

You can see my photo shoot:
http://www.laberge.qc.ca/fred/photos/1-MATTE-PAINTING/original/Harmington_Manor_makingof.jpg

Time Square 1

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 15:03:56 +0000

A previsualization matte-painting of the Time Square building in New York City before the real construction in 2005.

Roller Derby Montreal Logo

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:00:23 +0000

This is an illustration contract I had with the Roller Derby Montreal team. They wanted a sort of pine-up image roller girl with a skull on a plate. Acutally, it's a women team only.
I did few concept arts on paper and then, I did a scan and painted the colors in photoshop and Painter. I did that in evening, which was around 3 hours of work, including the concept art sketches.

The day after Christmas

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 02:20:23 +0000

A personnal matte-painting started with a photo that I took in sub-urban area of Montreal in Canada. I did this artwork the day after Christmas.

The modeling of the ships was done by a friend of mine: www.kami.ca

Here is my original photo:

House Rendering Matte Painting

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 18:12:27 +0000

This is a test that I did for a compagny.
I spent 3 hours to do that. I only had the 3D rendering. The rest is photos that I shot quickly with my digital camera in only one shoot session.
The main idea of this exercice was to add more photo-realism by using matte-painting techniques to this house rendering with 3 hours.
Frederic St-Arnaud

Haunted Circus

Thu, 17 Feb 2005 18:46:44 +0000

This is a projet that I did with a friend of mine, Jessy Veilleux. A great Matte Painter. You should see is stuff here: http://www.jessyv.com/
We went in a cimetery to have some references and photos. Then, modelded few objects like the church and tents. and finally painted details, ambiance, etc.

Squid Attack

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 11:57:19 +0000

This is a personnal concept matte painting. I did it yesterday night. I spent 3 hours on it. Everything is done in Photoshop. A friend of mine (Benoit Blouin) did a very quick sketch of a squid attack for me (as an inspiration) and then, he gave me the sketch and I did a final concept with it. That's the game. And I did the same thing for him: a quick sketch of a Cityscape and he create a complexe concept starting with my idea.

Waterfall Castle

Tue, 01 Mar 2005 16:15:03 +0000

It's sort of church or castle in middle of a waterfall. The image was originally a simple sketch. The idea to do a complete colour project came later. The inspiration maybe came from Lord of the Ring and everything around that. I did a sketch and painted in Photoshop over it. I used references to give me some ideas. I modelded in 3D a castle to help me with perpective and lighting.

Talaros

Fri, 10 Sep 2004 18:58:08 +0000

I wanted to do something with a city. Something with a lot of details and a lot of space.
I've started this image with a small photo found on the net. I re-created some parts of the city. I did a longer river, different buildings in a sunset atmosphere. I used XSI for the main huge building and few roads.

Here is my 3D work:

Bear Vs Hiker

Thu, 26 May 2005 14:55:48 +0000

I first, did a lot of sketches on paper and then try to putt some colors. Finally, I did a mix with pictures of my self and drawing in photoshop. I really like doing Hiking. I just think that an image on subject like that would be great to do, something scary and unusual.

Cercle Vicieux

Thu, 21 Jul 2005 02:02:04 +0000

I took pictures of rock, mountains, skies and then, I painted the rest in Photoshop with red filters.
This is a specific sort of Hell. My inspiration came a little bit from the Mordor of Lord of the rings. The rest came from the script of the movie and the head of the director.

Fear Factor Power

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 13:22:10 +0000

This is a story that I had in mind. A kind of super-hero who does'nt know how to use is power. I know that my image does'nt explain a lot about the story behind that. But it does'nt matter. I just did a concept art with this story even if it's possible to understand what happening actually. Maybe I will few more about the subject later.

Tourism On Venus

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 19:07:12 +0000

Hi,
This is a matte-painting that I did for fun just after the release of Star Wars 3 in DVD. I wanted to do a small spaceport on Venus for tourism. It's as well a practice of modeling in Softimage XSI.
Frederic St-Arnaud
www.starno.net

The Final Battle

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 12:48:33 +0000

This an image that I did with mostly with Painter. I wanted to improve myself with this software and also apply to the Painter contest with Ballistic Publishing.
This image represent someone that I know very well in the middle of a big sci-fi war. I wanted to give an heroic style. Something with bravery, courage, confidence.
Here is a close-up of the face as well, to see more details...
Frederic St-Arnaud

Desnoyers Ville

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 01:04:09 +0000

Hi,
This is a Concept Matte that I did with the idea of my friend Martin Desnoyers. He started a landscaping with city with mushroom buildings shapes and the he stopped and I had no inspiration to continue is city.
He gave me is work and I did this with it.
Frederic St-Arnaud
www.starno.net