Digital Painting - "Convoy"

Recent Paintings...

A few quick speed paintings done not long ago...

Exo-Planets...

Some recent science fiction images. These are 3D based, with a lot of painting to achieve the final result.

There's a lot of detail, so they're best seen in the full view...

Meanwhile, Outside the Ship...

This is a cropped version of the image. The full version is posted here:http://steve-burg.deviantart.com/

I consider this kind of a "failed experiment" - but it's still interesting enough to post...

Steel Trees

A futuristic city catching the afternoon light...

The Traverse

It is like a glacier, but it's really not a glacier...
In fact it might not be a natural formation at all. But whatever it is, the explorers shown must cross over...
I was a bit inspired by the abstract backgrounds that Syd Mead often puts into his paintings.

This image and some of the others here are also posted in my gallery on Deviant Art: http://steve-burg.deviantart.com/

The Long Ascent

This is a 3D render with some painting done on top of the image. The tiny figures were painted at a much larger scale, then reduced and integrated into the terrain.

I haven't the slightest idea what this enormous structure is!

Chasing the Storm

This is a fanciful aircraft based loosely on the AH-60 Black Hawk helicopter fuselage.

It was fun to paint the clouds using the Photoshop Smudge tool in combination with some jittery custom brushes.

Some Recent Paintings...

Here are a few personal works from mid-summer of 2010:

I recommend zooming in, there are some small details in these!

A smuggler's landing zone seen by moonlight...

A surrealistic bit of tech environment design... 

A futuristic cityscape speed-paint...

A subterranean sci-fi ruin found by explorers...

Castaway

My lifelong fascination with wrecked spaceships shows no sign of letting up.

Abstract Space Sketch

I've always loved John Berkey's art and every once in a while I try and do something inspired by his work. This is my latest humble attempt - a very very quick speed painting (less than 1 hour)

Seven Months Later...

This is my first post in quite a long time. Work has been quite demanding on my schedule, so there hasn't been much time for personal work. But I thought I would post at least a few recent images, just to keep from getting rusty at this...

"The Red Obelisk"

"Night City"

"Strange Engines"

"Strange Engines" (detail)

"Abandoned City"

Fusion Powered Spacecraft

Fantasy is great, but what will real spaceships look like? That’s what I was aiming for when producing these images – the proverbial "serious spaceship" design…

If we ever want to go anywhere farther than our own moon, we’re going to have to get serious about propulsion! A nuclear fusion powered craft is what you really want for traveling around the solar system in a reasonable amount of time (weeks as opposed to years).

Dumping excess heat and shielding the crew from the exhaust radiation are key challenges inherent in a fusion drive – hence the large shield/radiator at the rear of the craft…

“2001”: a Space Odyssey” was a major influence on the “look” of the ship, particularly the crew module at the front.

For those of you interested in such details, the 3D model is about 900,000 polygons...

Red Balloon

Like it says...

World Below...

A bit more "Tiberium" artwork.

These are views underneath a huge platform structure that supports a future city, shielding it from a harsh and poisonous environment...

As with a lot of the design work on "Tiberium", I modeled and lit many of these elements in 3D. This allowed for a high degree of consistency in our concept art and the final in-game assets.

The views shown here are more or less "straight-out-of-the-box" 3D renders, with minimal retouching. An additional layering of detail would be painted in to achieve a richer look in the concept artwork - when time allowed for it (quite often it did not!).

Here I MUST mention - We had a great art team: Jeff Hua, Ino Karella, Takeyoshi Sato, Jason Park, Raj Rihal, Kevin Swartz, Kenrick Leung & Chris Miller producing concepts, producer Jon Grall, and the project art leads: Jason Priest, John Decker, Ken Bishop, Robert Coddington & Billy Brooks... I'm sure I've forgotten people but it's just my brain damage and certainly not intentional!

The Tower...

An immense alien structure dominates the Tiberium ravaged wasteland that has spread over much of Earth's surface... silent, enigmatic - its origin and purpose a complete unknown...

These early concepts - generated primarily in 3D - helped to unlock the visual signature for this post apocalyptic science fiction world.

The Tower was to have served as an iconic landmark in the game, not unlike LOTR's Mount Doom. It was the Dark Place where the Bad Guys came from...

It's not advisable to get too close!

The Mediterranean Sea Floor, littered with abandoned ships... another environment study...

Still More "Tiberium" Visuals...

Two more images randomly chosen from the colossal archive of concept art lurking on my backup drive...


Both images feature large airborne cargo ships - one of many background elements developed for the project.

The illustrations are elaborate 3D setups, doctored up in Photoshop.

A Quiet Town...

There's a story here, but don't ask me what it is!

Unfinished WIP Environment...

I'm not sure what this will look like when it's completed, but it seemed kind of interesting in its present "empty" state.
I start a lot of images, set them aside, then return to them at a later date - hopefully with a more objective take...