Almost Home

October 31, 2012
Photoshop CS5

Digital matte painting for my illustration class. Basically, a matte painting is a landscape scene photomanipulation/painting used in films as a background, to be green-screened behind the actors. Digital mattes are used in a lot of recent sci-fi and fantasy movies, like The Dark Knight Rises, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter movies, etc.

I used a painting by Thomas Cole called The Citadel and the Waterfall as a reference for composition and lighting.

To me, it's finished--loooong finished. But it can't be officially finished until my teacher says so, and she has a habit of making me think that everything I'm doing is just fine until she decides to grade it... So I may have to post a slightly updated version shortly, but I've gone too long without posting something here in dA as it is!

P.S. The colors look more washed out on my PC--they're far more saturated on the MACs at school.

EDIT: I added another knight to help with perspective and composition, worked on the water and reflections, and added a cloud shadow over the village for atmospheric effect. I also cropped off some of the sky, to give it more of a widescreen, movie-scene look.
EDIT 2: I got an A on this after all!

Member's choice at

_{~Castlemoor-stock Castle Stock 01 | ~KittyKati727-stock Cityscape 12 | *AustriaAngloAlliance Old Bridge over the River | =MaureenOlder Stock Photo Riverside 17 | ~SandsibStock Waterfall II stock | ~Reeza-Tree-Stock BG3 and BG13 | =senzostock Thailand IV | ~Eirian-stock Dark Knight IV and Colors of Cow V | ~ThyDarkestHour Shades of Pink | *GothicBohemianStock Stock Mountain Tree | ~SuperAwesomeStock Garden 4 | *midnightstouch Birds of a Feather II | mist is painted with default brushes}