Dali Surrealism Review

Forward: I own NONE of these pieces. All can be found at [ http://www.flickr.com/photos/dali_museum/sets/72157634434072880/page2/ ] These pieces were featured for personal review only

 This piece struck me right away, the overall completeness and polish is suburb. The creative use of transparency  gives the viewer a wonderful sense of depth while the colors work in perfect harmony with each other, no one overpowering the other. Overall, this was my favorite work from the 5 pages of artwork.

One can admire this piece for the excellent photo manipulation job. The transition between creature and tongue is nearly seamless and the texture is spot on. Overall wonderful execution and a clever concept.

I'm a sucker for a shallow depth of field and this piece implements DOF beautifully. I also enjoy the warm tones which gives the work a greater impact than the use of cooler and less saturated tones probably would have provided. 

Cherry Blossom WOP

I've been following a Cherry Blossom tutorial for my most recent project. Since the composition is fairly simple, I haven't been following the tutorial very strictly since I wanted to take my own approach. There aren't any needed specular, bump, or normal maps , only one UV for the pedal texture. I'll possibly incorporate this flower into other pieces using it in an entire branch of flowers or an execution similar.

Artist Emulation 2

I've been experimenting with Wireframes recently and tried to incorporate it into my latest piece. This particular work went through many phases. I changed the settling just about every day of this week and settled on deserted island/rock. I would like to go back and touch up the rock more or add something interesting to the sky.

Valley Analysis

Structurally, I tried to balance the piece by creating a composite along the horizon using the sides of the valley, the bridge and the sun. The sun represents the main focal point and emphasis of the piece. The hanging board is in the position it is for this exact reason. Furthermore, one may say the scale of the sun is disproportionate to the rest of the scene. This too is intentional since its size, from a technical standpoint, evenly lights the scene without giving glaring highlights or lowlights, and a structural standpoint to become the main focus, unify the piece.

As for the developmental devices of the scene, there's a flow of lines pointing back the sun and bridge, where the main content of the piece lies. Moreover, the water reflection draws one's eye back the center of the scene. I worked hard to make the texture as life-like as possible. From a technical perspective, the cliffs are a collection of specular maps, normal maps, bump maps, texture maps, displacement modifiers, and hand sculpting to give a realistic and tangible feel. Fortunately, space is a breeze to composite in a 3D application since objects can be arranged how they would be outside of the computer. Lastly, the color choices came from inspiration and reference images to attempt to make the most realistic scene possible, still keeping a unique and hyperreal conception.

Cliffs

This week, I'm working on a tutorial piece using cliff faces in Blender. The tutorial implements many concepts new to me which in synthesis, produced a beautiful result. This is still a work in progress and I plan on making something entirely different, using the same techniques and materials. I'm using just a plane for now to make perhaps an auxiliary piece or something supplemental for a larger project.

Artist Emulation Piece 1

Using a synthesis of both 3D rendering software and photoshop, I was able to create this image. The pillars were done in Cycles with a normal map and Diffuse BSDF material to create a concrete-like texture. I then placed in the tattered flag, sky, and lighting effects using Photoshop. Most of this could have been done entirely in Blender but that would have taken far too much time, which I was at a lack of to begin with.

Artist Review: Adam Martinakis

For Adam's piece titled "Roots of Fire", and many of his other works is the synthesis of sharp cutaway lines with the smooth and subtle engraved lines throughout the main focus. I particularly enjoy the material he chose for the "skin". It's a concrete-like material with a wonderful looking bump map and slight gloss and specular. The composition of this piece even follows a gentle curve as does the details.

In his next piece, "Fatal", we see the subtle etching again accept this time with a slight bevel or smoothing to them. Personally, I enjoy this style more but it convey a different impression than the former piece; almost as if the face and hands were composed of many of thousands of planes skewed in both size and curvature. Lastly, his use of depth of field helps to add a strong sense of reality and hyperrealism.

Somewhat similar to the first piece listed, "Baptized By Fire" conveys a powerful feeling especially since the giant man at the left looks to have inflicted this blaze upon himself. The detail of the vines and the complexity of the background make for a stunning synthesis and adds a certain sense of depth to the scene.

Continuing with the theme of fragmentation, "truEnd" uses a stunning element of motion blur to convey an action of shattering. This is by far the most active and kinetic work of the other 3 listed.

Lastly, "The Dark Matter" is composed in a completely different style than the other 4. While being similar to a wireframe, what truly amazes me is the randomness of line occurrence and density throughout the piece. Looking closely, the material almost has an extruded and paint look giving it a large amount of tangibility and realism.