Digital painting involves a combination of artistic techniques and technical skill, but digital paintings almost always start as a rough concept and are gradually refined. The more effort that is put into detailing and polishing the painting, the more impressive the final outcome, but success depends on your initial concept and foundation. In this digital painting tutorial by Aaron Wilkerson, you’ll learn how to sketch a concept, build a solid foundation for a piece, and then refine it into a great concept artwork.


submitted: 5 years and 3058 days ago

Modeling and texturing electronics is something that most CG artists have to do at some point, because they appear in cinema, video games and promotional artworks. Whether it’s a spaceship HUD or an old phonograph, nearly all electronics have elements in common, such as buttons, knobs, speakers, screens, LEDs and more. These elements can make or break the realism of a 3D model, but they are very easy to create with some proper tools and instruction. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to model and texture a Pioneer CDJ in Cinema4D, with realistic CD bay, buttons, screen and lights. You’ll see how to use primitives to do the majority of the modeling, as well as using boolean and NURBs to achieve some more complex geometry.


submitted: 5 years and 3244 days ago

In this tutorial, Bruno Kenzo will show you how to model, texture and render a realistic iMac in Cinema4D. You’ll learn how to use primitives and various modeling techniques, then you’ll learn how to apply various textures and end up with a result that can be easily used in a future design work.


submitted: 5 years and 3266 days ago

Lighting can make or break any 3D scene. A beautifully modeled object, terrain or person will look terrible with improper lighting, but if lit properly, nearly anything will look realistic because the lighting will convince the viewer that the object or scene is real. For simple materials, realistic lighting isn’t too difficult to achieve, however, with transparent or translucent materials, glossy materials, liquids and others, achieving realistic lighting can be a bit tougher. The key to working with lighting for these types of materials is caustics. Caustics is light rays being reflected or refracted through a material, creating a focused light ray on the other side of the material. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to achieve simple yet realistic caustics in 3D Studio Max.


submitted: 5 years and 3285 days ago

To create a realistic matte painting, or any artwork for that matter, it is important to understand the properties of light, atmospherics, color and perspective. Proper perspective and use of light can bring out the true scale and depth to any image, while using the wrong lighting or perspective can make the artwork feel pasted together, or make it seem as though it is a miniature model instead of a realistically scaled image. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to take a concept, develop it using linear perspective, then add in value and color perspectives, and then apply photographic references to achieve a realistic matte painting. You’ll then learn how to apply adjustments to achieve realistic scale, and understand the properties of light and atmospherics for realism. Lastly, you’ll learn some great compositional techniques.


submitted: 5 years and 3291 days ago

The artworks from Avatar and the visual effects from the film were largely considered some of the highest quality and innovative artworks seen in film up until that point, perhaps rivaled only by Star Wars in terms of their ingenuity and use of new techniques for visual effects. The world of Pandora has inspired many artworks and imaginative interpretations. In this tutorial, we will walk you through his creation of “Pandora Afterdark”. You’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of how to develop a concept sketch, work with lighting and color, use references and develop a meaningful artwork with a strong composition and clear message.


submitted: 5 years and 3304 days ago