Thursday, August 30, 2007

Using Dinosaur Models

The key to making a painting of a dinosaur look three-dimensional is to look at actual models. By setting up a variety of models in actual sunlight, you can see what happens with the textures and the reflected light.

This painting called "Chasing Shadows" shows a Brachiosaurus walking on a beach. He's lit from behind by a late morning sun, and the light is bouncing up from the warm sand onto his belly. Surrounding the painting are digital photos of a variety of dinosaur sculptures. The ones on the bottom are by Kaiyodo, a Japanese company. The ones in the upper right are by David Krentz, a very talented sculptor who has worked for all the movie companies. The little head just to the right of the figures is from Jurassic Park.

It's a good idea to work from the inspiration of a lot of different models, so you're not basing the painting on just one. Each model has unique little nuances. It also helps to paint the models a flat, neutral gray tone, so that they photograph well, and you can see the form more clearly.

2 comments:

Emilio said...

Reflected light in "Chasing Shadows" is great. Using models at painting is best way to get a successful paint (would say andrew loomis).

K_tigress said...

Yeah I agree with the above poster. Great way of visualizing a large object from a worm’s eye point of view.

I'd love to see some tips of how to make certain perspective things grander looking. Say you're designing some buildings maybe the inside like a cathedral or the outside of some scenery, in order to get a "wow look", a “how to” would be much appreciated.
You know, that feeling you get when looking at how large the Grand Canyon or Niagara falls gives you.