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Friday, November 28, 2014

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Official Teaser

For those of you who haven't seen this as yet check it out. I've been waiting on the teaser trailer all week and I'm pretty excited about it. It looks good and I'm sure all the Star Wars nerds out there is going crazy. If any one of you are hardcore fans, let me know your thought on the trailer in the comments down below. I'm sure there are easter eggs in there somewhere.

Have a great Friday and "May the Force be with You"






Star Wars: The Force Awakens Official Teaser Trailer







Darvin K. Manwah: Matte Painter & Digital Compositor
ACM SIGGRAPH S3R3 Subcommittee Member



Whats your honest opinion about the teaser trailer? Let me know in the comments below.




Friday, September 26, 2014

Chris Jones Create Photorealistic Head Called Ed



So I saw this and I just had to post it. Holy macaroni this render looks crazy amazing. The movement looks pretty convincing and on my first viewing I thought it was a puppet moving an animatronic head only to be fooled by really good 3D renders.

The interesting part, besides the obvious 3D render itself looking flawless is that Chris is using Lighwave, Sculptris and Krita and he composited using Davinci Resolve Lite. My very first 3D program was Lightwave but version 5.5 I think or might have been even earlier, it's been a while so I don't remember. I used it for quite some time before switching over to Autodesk's Maya full time just when it became the industry's standard. I tried opening up Lightwave recently and I was completely lost. I tried messing around for a bit and unfortunately I couldn't figure it out. Times have changed I guess and so did its layout.






Video of Photorealistic Head by Chris Jones Called Ed








What was your first 3D Program and in what year did you begin using it? Let me know in the comments below.


Darvin K. Manwah: Matte Painter & Digital Compositor
ACM SIGGRAPH S3R3 Subcommittee Member



Thursday, September 11, 2014

World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor HD Cinematic


So here's the newest trailer from Blizzard Entertainment for World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor a few weeks ago and it looks awesome. As a digital compositor this must have been complete fun to be in production. The lighting and visual effects looks pretty spot on. I also like the water on the skin, especially in those close up shots. Also the hair looks good too, the way it moves and feels.

I love the cinematics that come out of Blizzard Entertainment, they really pour their hearts into the work. I'd love to work for their cinematic department some day either as a digital compositor or matte painter.





World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor HD Cinematic






What's your favorite cinematic trailer from Blizzard Entertainment? Leave it in the comments below.


Darvin K. Manwah: Matte Painter & Digital Compositor
ACM SIGGRAPH S3R3 Subcommittee Member


Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Digital Concept Art That's Worth Every Pixel

Article Photo

I'm always looking for inspiration for my next piece of digital art and here are few digital paintings and concept artists that stood out for me. Since I've had a bit of free time during the summer, I wanted to work on some digital paintings using digital photography with the Canon PowerShot s110. In addition to checking out the forums for anything relating to visual effects (VFX), digital painting, matte painting or even digital photography (which I've been taking a liking to recently) I was looking around for inspiration from various sources. I'm heavily influenced by matte painters and concept artists just for their wide range of imagination into their paintings.

So in my search for inspiration I stumbled across some digital artwork that I wanted to share. Each digital artist below reflects a different style when it comes to composition, colour grading and over all completion of the artwork. I'm sure having an all digital artist exhibitions with these guys would be awesome, possibly even having official canvas prints or even digital prints of these would be great for purchasing. Selling art online and making art posters from digital artists to get their work on different mediums must be exciting for any artist, digital or traditional in my opinion.

As for the digital art software used today, these include the likes of Adobe Photoshop, Corel Paint, SketchBook Pro and Painter as the main competitors. These are mostly 2D programs but are extremely powerful when it comes to the control for digital painting. So check out some awesome digital artwork from these artists below who certainly deserve the recognition. These guys are good digital painters and I think that's a great foundation towards a visual effects career.









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Ivan Khomenko // Freelance Concept Artist


Here is another concept artist that's worth mentioning. He's talented in both character designs and environments and I particularly like his use of colours and focus points in his artwork.

Check out more of his work at http://www.artstation.com/artist/Hamen











Wojtek Fus // Freelance Concept Artist


Here is a concept artist who really knows how to do character design and can do it well. Most of Wojtek's characters seem interesting based on their composition and contrasting colours in his digital painting. One of my favourite is his 'Goddess of the Sacred' from Legend of the Cryptids which is just awesome.

He currently lives in Paris France based on his Facebook page and currently works at Platige Image. If you don't know about Platige Image, you should definitely click here.

You can check out more of his digital artwork on Artstation at http://www.artstation.com/artist/Fus








Brandon Liao // Concept Artist at Riot Games

For Brandon's work, I really liked his character design concepts, especially his dynamic compositions for each piece. You can check out more of his work at Brandon Liao Art Blog






What websites do you use for daily inspiration? Let me know in the comments below and I'll check them out.



Darvin K. Manwah: Matte Painter & Digital Compositor
Online Portfolio, Personal Blog and ACM SIGGRAPH Portfolio Review Mentor


Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Transformers 4: Age of Extinction



Hey Hey Hey,

Aaaaaaaand I'm back. I've been on a break for a while more so because of my work at Zoic Studios and with its crazy episodic TV Shows and deadlines. We recently wrapped on several TV Series such as Once Upon a Time, The Hundred and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland which were very VFX demanding but rewarding when it was finally over. Now that the Visual Effects, Computer Animation and basically all 3D Computer Graphics work is slowing down, I'm looking to be back with the blog full time along with some new personal projects this Summer. In addition SIGGRAPH is on its way and this year it is being hosted at the Vancouver Convention Center, just a block away from Zoic Studios.

So to kick-start this blog again, I'm jumping head first with Michael Bay's Transformers 4: Age of Extinction. I've always found the Transformers Franchise to be enjoyable and to just be able to switch your brain off for 2 hours. When is Transformers 4 coming out you ask? June 27th which is actually only about 4 weeks away. And if you can't wait that long then you can play Transformers games such as Transformers Universe by Jagex over on Facebook, it seems to be catching on recently. Also check out the Transformers Youtube Channel with all the HD movie trailers and latest Transformers Toys. And if that's not enough then check out the Transformers TV Series with Hasbro.

For me the current Transformer that seems to be most recognized by the audience is Optimus Prime and secondly it's Bumblebee. But besides the Visual Effects cast how about the Transformers 4 trailer's leading live action cast members which include the likes of Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Ken Watanabe, Stanley Tucci, John Goodman, Kelsey Grammer, Jack Reynor, Peter Cullen and Bingbing Li. Pretty impressive line up of actors I'd say but I'm hoping this one makes it worth the theater price. Check out the latest Transformers 4 HD Trailers below.





Transformers 4: Age of Extinction Exclusive TV Spot (2014/05/30) Friday





Additional Transformers 4: Age of Extinction HD Posters & Images






Darvin K. Manwah: Matte Painter & Digital Compositor
Online Portfolio, Personal Blog and ACM SIGGRAPH Portfolio Review Mentor


Sunday, February 02, 2014

Transformers: Age of Extinction Super Bowl Teaser Trailer

Quite possibly the most highly anticipated Trailers for the Super Bowl is Transformers 4: Age of Extinction. Everyone's been talking about it for months and finally it's here. Check it out and share your thoughts on it below. Enjoy.






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Darvin K. Manwah: Matte Painter & Digital Compositor
Online Portfolio, Personal Blog and ACM SIGGRAPH Portfolio Review Mentor