Hello everyone! Following the suggestions from my patrons and my mailing list subscribers, I’ve just finished setting up a bunch of additional works in the shop. I also increased the font contrast, now it should be easy to read on a wide range of different conditions and screens.
You can take a look here , let me know what do you think. Of course if you find some errors, bugs or other problems, please also notify in the comments.
And of course, tell me which ones are the works you would like to see added next!
Thanks a lot!
The list of the work I just added:
Arches0
BadCliff
Balance
BeachDusk0
BeachDusk1
BeachDusk2
BeachMorning0
BeachMorning1
BlackSea0
CanalPoles
Countryside0
Countryside1
Flow00
GreenShrimp
Landscape00
LightHouse0
LightHouse1
ParkingCart
RailroadByTheSun
RamoDelRosa
SeaCoastInDarkInk0
SeaCoastInDarkInk1
SoloAutumn
SundanceRange
Tenacious
TheBalcony
TheWheel
Totem0
Totem1
Tunnel0
Have a nice evening/day!
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From Freiburg (Germany), Martin’s Gate or Martinstor, one of the ancient city gates.
Hello everyone! I’ve just completed a few jobs that were absorbing me during the last weeks (mainly 3d animations and some electronic assembly for video recording and wireless transmission).
So…. I’m finally able to get back to MatericLook and some (art)works! Months ago I sent out a survey to my subscribers… During the next days I will implement some of the precious suggestions I received back, thanks!
Germany, Freiburg: Martinstor
-The Place
A few months back I visited a dear friend during a weekend… he lives in Alsace, so we had the opportunity to visit Freiburg im Breisgau, a beautiful city in the Southwest part of Germany, close to France and Switzerland. Freiburg is very nice, with a beautiful historical center. It’s the ideal place where to take a walk and have a look at the stunning squares, a merchant’s hall and various gothic buildings, and the cathedral.
-The Work
The shot I used for this work has Martin’s Gate (Martinstor) as a main subject, surrounded by beautiful historical buildings. The lovely geometries of the roofs and top floors give a nice perspective and direct the eye toward the open sky…
I started from an HDR photography (single shot), so I created a few variants, each one optimized to better present a specific part of the image, in terms of lights and shadows. I then used the various parts to assemble more (and nicer) variations.
Then I experimented on each one with some filters and digital painting. This time I used a lot of different digital painting techniques, fully manual but also automated. The latter are almost always unexciting because you have basically no control on the type of strokes and direction… generating, in my opinion, patterns too “uniform” and uninteresting.
I wanted some specific effects I created during the painting. For example the lower parts of the buildings are “streaked”, following each building’s facade direction, to give a more dynamic shape. The sky at this point has a almost uniform “wormy” pattern. I wanted the clock face to look fragmented and a bit fluid, like if seen through a textured glass.
Here’s a detail of the final image (a bit less than half the final resolution). You can see different patterns and strokes all around:
I then identified all the parts I would like to have in my final image, proceeding to put them together (mostly through masking, to control how they overlap and dissolve into each other).
At this point I proceeded with the final steps… After some minor color and light corrections here and there, the lower part of the buildings needed some more darkening. I used a black painting “creeping” on them, following the painting patterns. Also the sky needed some movement through the dark/light “waves” in the middle-right. Plus some more chaotic patterns around the top and right border.
Last steps: some highlights/reflections accents on the gate rooftop. And slight modifications to all roofs’ tops to give them a twisted, more gothic and less perfect look. These also disrupt the shapes geometry and perspective alignment. I think it makes the work more interesting to look at.
And that’s all for now, I hope you’re enjoying the images and the description has been somewhat inspiring 😉
As (almost) all my works, this is available as a print on large canvas (limited to 10) or cotton paper (signed). If interested you can take a look at the shop. If it’s not available yet, you can contact me directly.
Here are some free works for download as wallpapers, as well as some animations to watch.
If you like this or other of my works, please consider supporting me on Patreon with 1$/month, or donate something through Paypal:
Last week I participated as DoPe to a private exhibition/event hosted by a friend in his house.
A pair of works from DoPe (me and Paolo Dolci) were printed and exhibited in small wall structures made of metal and wood by paolo. I’ll post some pictures in a future update. We also presented one of our sphere animation as a projection, on a large icosahedron placed centrally in the main exhibition room.
The icosahedron was also built by Paolo and you can see it here, to have a sense of scale:
Projection Icosahedron #0
The projected surface gave the impression of movement and continuous change, morphing and reshaping itself, with colors creeping around and geometric shapes rotating mechanically….
During the whole evening the event was accompanied by great ambient music created by Luca Bergero. He also executed a great live performance, using carefully prepared objects as sources for his sounds and music. You can contact him here: luca DOT bergero@gmail.com
The music and ambient sounds, and also the guest’s voices were used to change, in realtime, the second projection. Its main theme is the sphere animation, plus a sequence of related artworks from DoPe.
The projection background is more or less visible, depending on the currently played audio frequencies. It’s a realtime video of Luca creating the audio and the rest of the animations and effects are composed on it. Colors and brightness are both influenced by the video (Luca’s movements). It’s possible to see his profile while he moves around, working on mixers and “cabled” objects – his musical instruments!
A wall acted as a screen and during Luca’s live exhibition I also worked “live” on some of the animations and colors.
You can see a short abstract here:
You can see the icosahedron at the bottom center, while the realtime-animated projection is on the right.
I will provide a nicer video as soon as I can get my hands on a friend’s footage. After some small editing work I should be able to present something more “structured”…
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Hello! lately I’ve been absent, due to a few overlapping projects as a freelancer… sorry about that. I couldn’t complete any new work, but I want to update you on what’s going on and throw some ideas around 😉
The freelancing projects I’m working on are (partially) related to graphics and the like, I’m speaking of 2D animation, 3D animation and some electronics (related to transmitting and recording video wirelessly).
BUT I’m also working on an art-related project with Paolo. We’re creating a pair of “video” installations, one similar to a projeciton mapping on a real icosahedron:
(DISCLAIMER: the following pics and video aren’t nice, they’re purely for documentation purposes; also, you’ll find some light technical babble reading on)
A standard projector will cover half the icosahedron’s shape. It will be placed in a room corner at a friend’s exhibition in November. I’ll use the faces and shape to create some interesting transitions and animations. Some of our previous animations, (mainly from the Spheres series) will be used as elements, as well as new things.
But the second, less defined part is what I have more updates about: Paolo got an old film projector (Super Almo is its name). It was hand-operated and the light came from an old lamp…
We decided to restore and modify it, you can see some pictures here, showing the parts and the modifications. I wanted all changes to be reversible, so I mostly removed and substituted parts. The only “hard” change was done to the manual advancement handle…. you’ll see later why:
So the changes have been made to the lamp, replaced by a crude high intensity LED array. I added along the light path a “reflection cone” to optimize the light flux and reduce dispersion.
The back reflective dish wasn’t useful anymore because the LED are nicely directional, compared to a traditional lamp.
The projector also became A LOT lighter by removing an electric transformer, plus some switches and plugs. Now everything is powered by a refurbished PC power supply.
To the film advancement mechanism then…
Paolo had the idea of “motorizing” it and to somehow paint and draw on a transparent film to show our content… He sourced a (less)old cordless screwdriver, so I worked on a small, simple circuit piloted by a microcontroller (Arduino), constantly moving back and forth the film… enjoy!:
As you can see, “traditional” film isn’t making any sense because of the continuous lighting and speed.
Next we’ll experiment two different things, first to create some ad-hoc content (the painting/drawing I was speaking of, these will evolve along the length of the film roll, to take advantage of the optical effect).
Then I want to use the microcontroller to control the LED lights as a shutter. By turning them on and off pretty fast they should show a sequence of full frames only. This approach will also require (probably) a finer circuit to control the motor (thus film speed).
I will keep you updated on this and other projects, let me know what do you think on the comments! Thank you!
PS one more thing: if you received and answered the survey you should get the small free print, if you haven’t already! Let me know when you get it and what do you think!
A shapeless metal creature that saw us. It’s experimenting, changing, taking on a form, something more similar to us. This serves a sole purpose: it’s trying to communicate… but for now the message it’s still far, far away…
But first, to all my subscribers and patrons that participated to the survey: the “thank you” prints are on their way, your help is very important to me!
Initially I created the 3d figure only. I was thinking about shapes and sculpting, a form similar to what you see… So I illustrated it through digital sculpting. There’s a contrast between planes and curves, smooth joints and angles. I tried to give some harmony to the object, but I didn’t followed a true “rhythm”. During the process I “anthropomorphized” it a bit though, widening the top part and giving it the “Eye” (or “Mouth”).
I liked the work, so I decided to go on and show it. A worn metal look seemed to me the most appropriate, a nice contrast to the shape. In a way a kind of unexpected material.
I worked on it for a bit, because I had a pretty precise idea in mind about that… so I elaborated some pictures to reach the results I was willing to show, in terms of scratches and color. I used them to setup the shader, a technical term for the elements controlling the final “material” displayed by the rendered object.
That’s also the material I would like to use if I’ll ever have the possibility to realize the work in the physical space -that is, by casting it! I was thinking of having it 50cm (20″) tall or more (ideally a 75cm-25″ “home version” and a 2,5m-8′ “outdoor version”).
Finally I rendered an animation with realistic lighting and setup to show the shape and, more important, from a certain point of view, to present the viewer with a pleasant and interesting transformation of shapes, reflections and shadows.
A work from the Armenia Photography series, a sunset view of the beautiful Amaghu Valley, where Noravank Monastery sits.
The valley is named after the river Amaghu, in some places it’s narrow, becoming a real canyon. Located in the Vayots Dzor region, is not far from the city of Yeghegdnazor.
The valley’s peculiar features (apart from the fascinating Noravank Monastery) are its cliffs, whose bright red rocks emerge on their sides. The drive to the monastery is nice and pleasant. This particular view comes from the bottom of the valley, before starting the short climb to the religious building.
For this image I used first of all the usual techniques, like HDR, multiple exposures and a small bit of digital painting. Then I started experimenting a bit…
I intensified the light/shadow contrast by using harmonious curves, with a “rhythm” similar to those extrapolated from classic sculpture. Finally I combined the dark and light areas with the existing luminance details, before applying them to the work.
I would say the results aren’t bad. In this particular image I followed the pre-existing land profiles. As a result the influenced areas are fitting nicely without a strong distinction.
I’d like to do more experiments in this direction, probably with other kind of images, more abstract, where the contrast can be stronger.
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As (almost) all my works, this is available as a print on large canvas (limited) or cotton paper (signed). If interested you can take a look at the shop. If it’s not available yet you can contact me directly.
Here are some free works for download as wallpapers and some animations to watch.
If you like this or other of my works, please consider supporting me on Patreon with 1$/month. You will receive exclusive works and participate to the creative process!
I layered some effects and toned some areas to give a paint-like feel to the pic… It should convey calmness when put on your office screens, now that the holidays are gone! (At least here in Italy!) 😉
Also a forthcoming change could be perceived now that, after some work, the top of the trees look naked, with no leaves left…
The image is available in hi-res to my Patreon supporters pledging from $3, resolutions are the same as free wallpapers (4:3, 3:2, 16:9).
