Massive Update Of New Work 1.8.2012

**pstraub** · June 10th, 2006, 10:07 AM

Its been a loooong long time since I posted anything new here. So, here's a few new ones:

A puzzle I released about a year ago based on the Secret Places and Imaginaries brand

A painting from Utherworlds which was released as a Gelaskin about a year ago.

A fairly recent personal painting

A quick personal concept painting

Some Lord of the rings work for Warner Brothers

Another painting from the Lord of the Rings work I did at Warner

The third cover installment from James Dashners/Random House bestselling Maze Runner series "The Death Cure."

An upcoming puzzles release. Yes I know its sugary sweet!

I've been doing some work on a huge 600 page book based on Hungarian Mythology. Here are two versions of a dragon I did for the client:

An alternate version of the same dragon:

A galactic panther from the Hungarian Mythology book. Yes there is a galactic panther.

Some matte work I did for National Geographic a bit ago around a story about Manhattan before it was settled. This was Times Square before all the lights,

The second image I did for National Geographic.

A concept piece I did for EA a bit ago.

One in a series of personal paintings I'm doing. Can't wait to show more!

Hiya Guys,

I see its been a whole 6 months since I've posted on here- that is tooo long. A-lot has happened since the last time I shared some new work for sure. A few weeks ago I launched Utherworlds.com in advance of Utherworlds the Illustrated novel coming out. It features an original soundtrack, tons of animation, a sort of field guide that supports the novel and, lots of new art. If you have a momnt please check it out- I think you'll dig it.

http://www.utherworlds.com/

Now for the even more exciting news, my publisher, Ballistic Publishing just launched the Utherworlds book and its now available for pre-order! I worked on this thing for 6 years and this thread in many ways showcased some of the work that I did along the way. But, there is still tons in the book I haven't released. It is a huge book- the largest Ballistic have every done- a spread spans 30 inches! The book itself does not have one inch of it that is not full of illustrations and matte paintings, an original novella/novel of about 50,000 words, there are two unique written languages, a spoken language, tons of maps of the world and descriptions of the major characters. The book compliments the site and the sitecompliments the book. Anywho- you can preview the whole book now at the Ballistic Publishing site- we even put together a movie shocasing the art in a more intimate format.

http://www.ballisticpublishing.com/b...paign=20090616

Here are some spreads taken from the actual book:

And here's a recent cover I did for James Dashner's the maze runner

Enjoy and as always let me know what you think

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone!

Utherworlds Website Teaser
Also- I've put up a teaser for the upcoming Utherworlds website which should go live in a month or so. Its going to be fully interactive, with tons of animation, an original score, and lots of never before seen artwork.

http://www.utherworlds.com/

And- here is a new sneak peak image for the book and website.

NEW WORKSHOP

Guys,

Please excuse the shame less plug but, I thought some folks over here might be interested that I'll finally be running my Environment Concept Art Workshop over at the CGSociety again starting on October 20th(ish). This time the class will be expanded to 8 weeks and will include well over an hour of video tutorials along with the 125 pages of text from earlier workshops. Announcement should go out in about 2 weeks with enrollment immediately following that. I hope to see some of you folks there.

Utherworlds original IP

Ok so its been waayyy to long since my last post. But, I have a good excuse

I've been working like a dog on the Utherworlds book which, after 5 years is finally going to be wrapping up at the beginning of November. Since the day NCSoft closed its visual studio last December I've completed close to 30 new illustrations for the book - none of them have been seen by the public. The novella is aprox. 30,000 words and I've created two written languages around it to deepen the mythology, tons of maps, a screenplay, an interactive website with an original score by a well know composer and about 10 minutes of animation to go with the site. Not one page in the 128 pages, 11 x 17 format is lacking art....why- because I'm a glutten for punishment

All this on my dime. It's been an amazing experience that has taught me tons about business, time management and hollywood. In the coming months I'll be posting up some more info on the book, podcasts on the creation of the IP, and other cool stuff.

All that said, I just don't want to sit on all of them anymore so here are a few...

Sailos, the son of the, Hellzunas, leader of the Realms of Fear.

Aadyasha, the female lead from the lands of Vensialas. She is the guide to the main protaganist, Lucas

This one is a bit more complicated to explain here

There are living symbols that reperesent human emotions in Utherworlds. Each of them have thier own power and ability- this symbol represents fear and has the ability to manifest itself in a variety of ways. This is only half of a double page spread from the book...

And now a Magic The Gathering Promo card- pretty rare I'm told. Its currently used on the new Magic site.

Well- hello there again. It's finally official, the deal is done and my book is slated to come out in November 2008. It will include over 50 illustrations, many never seen before and a totally original story/IP. The book will be a massive 11 x 17 hardcover- it should be a work of art unto itself. Anyways, I blabbing, here is a sneak peak for some of the newer imagery in the book.

Here's some new work for Sci Fi Channels upcoming miniseries "Tinman" I had to paint these things at like 10000 pixels- huge!

...and the recent cover for Advanced Photoshop Magazine

Wizards of the Coast book cover

A few more speed paintings for your viewing pleasure:

Hey folks,

Here's a few older pieces from the Concept Art for Superman- you may have seen these in the CGTalk story that ran awhile back on the Concept group I used to run at EA

I finally recieved approval to show a few of the magic cards I've done over the last year. I hope you like!

And another painting...it started out as a speed paint but, I ended up spending a bit more time on it

oh yeh....after more than 3 excellent years with EA I've decided to join the craziness of the LA scene and work with those uber cool folks at NCSoft

LA here I come!

One more from the speed painting series....this is fun!

Not sure if you guys knew that one of my paintings is on the limited edition can of Painter 10- guys at Corel rock!

http://apps.corel.com/painterx/us/es...mited_can.html

Another speed paint trying out some new custom brushes as well as some from the ole toolbox (gotta give David Levy credit for one of them- such a kick ass brush!)

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A quickie exploring fractals with representational shapes to create a sort of juxtaposition of opposing materials. The idea is that there is this ghostly like massive structure overwhelming the natural landscape..oh whatever I just thought it looked cool

Here you have one of a bunch of organic vehicles speed paintings I did a few days ago. I guess it was like 30-45 minutes...fun stuff!

Holy Crap this painting was annoying. I swear I made like 500 brushes for this thing and really tried to experiment with different techniques. The result is something that changed many times and as a bit chaotic but, that was the goal. I definitely learned a ton more about making custom brushes

Illustration made for an upcoming Workshop using some new software

I'll let you know more when I can

The character represents addiction and disease.

Upcoming young adult book cover for little Brown...really great read for kids 7-15. book will be released in a few weeks..

Quick sketch made for ImagineFX Q and A....and yes I did use some photo compositing...the focus was on how to quickly creat high tech concept art..

Upcoming wizards of the coast book cover

I haven't posted in awhile...so...here's some kinda recent stuff. The landscape paintings are for a poster book I'm working on and the "end of the world" piece is for the mag. Imagine FX...there's a full making of that painting in the upcoming issue.
I have a bunch of new stuff from Superman that will be clearing NDA's soon and I can't wait to show you guys that stuff as well as some Magic and Wizards of The Coast stuff.

I hope all is well....thanks for looking.

P.S: keep the portfolio's coming- I want to hire a kick ass character guy

**Kian** · June 10th, 2006, 10:35 AM

...............................
..............................Sorry, I just forgot how to speak. Beautiful and incredibly epic. Well done mate. And thats another CA.org'er in ImagineFX. nice one

I'm looking for freelance work at the mo. Check out my Sketchbook, see if theres anything that catches your eye.

**Kalango** · June 10th, 2006, 10:49 AM

Realy good ones, the vulcanic area is REAAAALY AWESOME, and the first pic is O.o wow...

**Goog** · June 10th, 2006, 10:53 AM

Sweet. Did you take photos and manipulate them? or did you paint the whole thing?

**asoir** · June 10th, 2006, 11:09 AM

thanks for the tut for the second one on IFX, great stuff.

**Phuzion** · June 10th, 2006, 11:10 AM

You're crazy Phil... That's some badass work man. I love the lighting treatment on the 3rd one, and I want to hike around the 1st one... the 2nd one I'll avoid for physical safety, but it's an awesome painting. Hey can I send in a portfolio? Or do I actually need skills to apply? Guess I'm SOL

Have a good weekend duuuude!! It's drawing and the pool for me

P.S. All you character badasses! EA (Orlando) is a seriously fun environment, and very conducive to artistic growth. Send in your stuff. Now!

**Pavel Sokov** · June 10th, 2006, 01:48 PM

Wow the last one is my background right now.
its beatifull i hope to see more sunny nature works like this from you. although the photoshop grass brush is a little obvious in that one.
i must say realism wise the first one is the best but beaty wise my humble opinion the last one is the best!
plz make more, thanks for a great background

**Geophillyx** · June 10th, 2006, 03:09 PM

oh my God!!!!!!!!

**pstraub** · June 10th, 2006, 04:41 PM

Originally Posted by Asoir

thanks for the tut for the second one on IFX, great stuff.

Your welcome

I hope it was informative

...it sucks...a few people have e-mailed me saying they've seen the issue but, I still haven't seen it!

**nofingers** · June 10th, 2006, 04:47 PM

I just started laughing, because these are so insanely awesome....making me giddy with joy or something......awesome

**Zergaloth** · June 10th, 2006, 04:56 PM

These are edited photographs, right?
Amazing skill.

**pstraub** · June 10th, 2006, 05:07 PM

Originally Posted by Zergaloth

These are edited photographs, right?
Amazing skill.

hey there....no they aren't editied photographs

The first one was built in Maya and I used a base texture on much of the geometry...lite the scene there and rendered with Mental Ray. Next, brought into photoshop and Painter for the dirty work. I have a TON of custom brushes that I've made over the last few years for the organic stuff you see in here. If you look carefully you may see some repeats in foliage for which shows the custom brushes downside. The texture on the rocks is again custom brushes with some photo texture in there. All in all ...this is from scratch though.

The second one applies the same technique..I have so many building I've made now that I can just go into a basic library and throw in the geometry, light, then render the scen from there. In this case I then use some city photos to get the extra details in areas but the fire and smoke...more custom brushes....once thats done I do a bunch of post effects. The full tutorial is in the latest version of imagine FX if you want to see the approach.

The last one ....basic same technique...

Thanks for looking

Phil

**pstraub** · June 10th, 2006, 05:11 PM

Originally Posted by Phuzion

You're crazy Phil... That's some badass work man. I love the lighting treatment on the 3rd one, and I want to hike around the 1st one... the 2nd one I'll avoid for physical safety, but it's an awesome painting. Hey can I send in a portfolio? Or do I actually need skills to apply? Guess I'm SOL

Have a good weekend duuuude!! It's drawing and the pool for me

P.S. All you character badasses! EA (Orlando) is a seriously fun environment, and very conducive to artistic growth. Send in your stuff. Now!

Daniel! Thanks for the positive feedback man.

Hurry up and graduate so I can hire you!

Everyone look out Daniel is going to be the next great character artist in out industry!

Phil

**Theo** · June 10th, 2006, 05:36 PM

gorgeous

**Artifex33** · June 10th, 2006, 10:33 PM

Stellar, just stellar work!

**Corel Painter IX** · June 10th, 2006, 10:45 PM

R u Dusso? Wow, your works are amazing. The atmosphere is just perfect. I wonder how long it takes to finish each one.

**MissCeleste** · June 11th, 2006, 12:15 AM

o.o woah. That is just mind blowing.

It's SO inspiring. It makes me want to draw landscape and I usually just can't find hte motivation or desire because landscape is so.. dull... but not this... I'm gonna try to think like this from now on when I think of landscape and not limit the imagination...

Thanks for sharing.

**Zergaloth** · June 11th, 2006, 03:36 AM

Originally Posted by pstraub

no they aren't editied photographs

Hehe, I knew that, I was just expressing my level of amazedness.

But hey, thanks for the explanation.

**grue** · June 11th, 2006, 04:21 AM

Hey man, I just woke up. Do you want me to have a stroke?

Amazing stuff, truely inspirational.

Hat's off

**photeck121** · June 11th, 2006, 04:27 AM

Just wait whilst i pick my jaw up...

Astounding pieces man, the end of the world pic is amazing! so much detail and the colours are really nice.

Great stuff, you've made my day

**andreasrocha** · June 11th, 2006, 04:28 AM

Phil, it's not very easy for me to say this but I don't think these paintings are as good as your other stuff...I have a lot of respect for you and your work so I hope you don't mind me being honest.

I believe your work looks too realistic, and I think that some of the comments reflect that, when they ask if you used photos. It's really amazing that you haven't! However, one can only know that after you told us. I think that these images lack some of the soul you have put into your other paintings. It's almost as if you took pieces of photographs (I know you didn't) and made a collage. I would say that the first and the third painting suffer from the sun halo which looks too general and doesn't really affect the scene. In the second, I think that there are areas that are too detailed which distract, like the clouds to the left and some of the buildings. What I feel is that the brushwork is perfect, but there is something missing in the overall composition/lighting that doens't unify all the pieces together.

Well, I hope you don't mind having been straightforward with you. I will always admire your great work.

Regards.

PS I will buy ImagineFX for sure to see how you did it! To everyone, the promotion of the magzine sucks, but it really is a great source of information and artwork. Go get it, 'cos you won't regret it.

**Nokill** · June 11th, 2006, 05:06 AM

looks realy wonderfull you should do a tutorial

**pstraub** · June 11th, 2006, 07:58 AM

Thanks for the comments and feedback everyone!

Andrea: I don't mind at all....I actually appreciate the feedback. Let me respond this way: When you've been in the game as long as me, I think its important to stretch yourself and try your hands at new and different things. If I simply continued to do the same type of work you may have been used to from me all the time then I wouldn't grow and evolve. Realitically, as I do new things, I realize some people won't like the direction I go in and compare the new work to the old. Not to worry, I wil always do a variety of styles since that's what I enjoy doing. The people that like my children's book stuff tend to not like my sci-fi fantasy stuff, and the purests may not like the matte look because they look to photo reel and don't have the energy of my hand drawn stuff. At the end of the day, if I feel I'm growing, breaking new ground, and enjoying the work I'm doing that makes me happy....and it helps that the jobs pay

,,a man has to eat, especially if you like food as much as me

I DO appreciate your honesty!

Phil