Customer Reviews

d'artiste Matte Painting: Digital Artists Master Class

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This big glossy, expensive book on matte painting using Photoshop is high on fancy images but low on instructions and details. I'm not surprised.....given that these guys are not going to give up their trade secrets to just anyone. Don't expect any detailed instructions on how they achieved those gorgeous special effects. All you get are high level comments from each artist on how these panoramas were created in Photoshop. Basic techniques and how to achieve the final details are literaly glossed over. Something as basic and essential as the cloning tool was not even mentioned. No mention of filters or custom Photoshop brushes used, nor Plug-Ins. Great coffee table picture book but a waste of money for me....

This gorgeous book has a lot of really great material, but as several reviewers have mentioned, it does not have step-by-step tutorials on how to replicate their work. It also assumes a good deal of knowledge and skill on the part of the reader. Fortunately, one of the authors has also put out a DVD that you can order or download from the Gnomon Workshop, which does offer professional training for artists. It is expensive, but is designed for "beginner to intermediate" artists, and looks like a great place to start if you want to learn how to do matte paintings for productions. Look for the Matte Painting Production Techniques by Chris Stoski, an excellent companion video to go with the d'Artiste book.

This is my first d'artiste matte book, and I'm planning on buying the next two I liked this so much. I do agree with some other reviews that point out that some aspects are not covered, but I would counter by saying that this book is not for the beginner. And maybe the publisher should indicate experience level needed. The parts of the tutorial that some feel have been left out are simply too basic to warrant real estate. If you are an advanced Photoshop user you will have no problem filling in the gaps, in my opinion. Dylan Cole's tutorial on the Tower of London was fantastic. And in addition to the tutorials you get lots of beautiful concept art from each artist. There aren't many books out there on matte painting and this is a must have for those interested in this subject.

Length:: 0:20 Mins

Matte Painting is the third book in the d'artiste Digital Artists Master Class series. The series is actually a look at the process of creating art in tutorial style. This book presents Alp Altiner, Dylan Cole and Chris Stoski.

Each artist has a biography written by themselves on their beginnings, education, inspiration, life and career in art. The tutorials that follow are very well captioned. They explain the style, idea and the execution. Each comes with a still from the work in progress. There are lessons on using photo reference for compositing and texturing, fixing perspective and other useful tips.

Right after the tutorials is an invited artist gallery. That's where the 4 artist choose some of their favourite paintings from other artists and talk about them. This gallery is impressive. Let's just say talent shortage in the art industry is not a big problem.

This book is fairly pricey, as with all Ballistic books. I think it's pretty worth the money, considering that finding tutorials like this on the Internet is nearly impossible.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

First of all, I think this book is way expensive. It does showcase some very talented matte painters. However, it wasn't what I expected. The showcased painters uses photos to merge with digital painting and stuff. I was expecting a more varity of painters who does backgrounds in a more traditional or traditional-looking kind of way.

It's a great book to look at, but it's not a book to learn much from. And again, the price is too high. Not worth it.

This is a beautifully produced in-depth approach to digital matte painting. It covers the portfolio of several different artists and their techniques. The approaches vary from traditional (digital) painting techniques to some more- collage style approaches. Highly recommended if you can afford it.

This was exactly what I was looking for in learning how others paint both digitally and use photo ref/textures to pull off a trully photoreal matte painting.

I look forward to the second edition of this title.