Here we try to publish a healthy mix of written and video content. While written and video content are equally important and educational, they each have their strengths and weaknesses. While video is a great format for seeing exactly how an artist or instructor performs a task, it can be frustrating to stop, rewind, and fast forward parts that you may have missed or do not need to see. Conversely, while a written tutorial presents each step in an easily consumable way, some tasks may get skimmed over, or skipped entirely. That is why we have recently begun to publish more written content that also includes video. In this article, we will present a list of 15 jaw-dropping speed art videos, that include full written tutorials, that we recently published to help you learn a bit more about photo manipulation and digital illustration. Let’s take a look!
1. Create a Fantasy City Using Architectural Photographs
Because matte painting often involves combining several photos to achieve an end-result, matte paintings can be great practice for anyone who wants to learn how to create photo manipulations. In this tutorial, we will show you how to create a fantasy city that is built on a rock structure, similar to Minas Tirith from “The Lord of the Rings.” In the process, you will learn several techniques to help you incorporate architectural photos into your artwork.
2. Create a Heart-Warming Wildlife Illustration
When illustrating a scene, it is important to think about several factors including lighting, depth of field, and color. You can also enhance your illustration by conveying an emotional message. In this tutorial, Therese Larsson will show you how to create a heart-warming wildlife illustration using a variety of digital illustration techniques.
3. Create a Fantasy Storybook Illustration
Good storybook illustrators know how to tap into a child’s imagination. In this tutorial, we will show you how to create a fantasy storybook illustration that depicts a child riding a pet spider. This tutorial includes both written and video content.
4. Create Zombie Apocalypse Concept Art
One of the most effective ways to improve your concept art is to introduce motion into the scene. In this tutorial, we will show you how to create concept art for a zombie-themed video game. This piece will portray a couple of police officers fending off a hoard of zombies in the pouring rain.
5. Create an Earth Shattering Disaster Scene
If you saw the movie “2012″ you may remember that scene where the California coast begins to break apart and fall into the sea. In this tutorial, we will show you how to re-create that scene using a selection of stock photographs.
6. Create a Cute Zombie Illustration
Zombies have been a staple of science fiction and horror films for decades. Recently, the T.V. show “The Walking Dead” renewed the public’s interest in these gruesome creatures.While “The Walking Dead’s” interpretation of zombies is quite scary and horrific, in this tutorial, Liran Szeiman will show you how to create a cute zombie illustration that might be more appropriate for less mature audiences.
7. Create a Mountain Landscape
A matte painting is a backdrop that filmmakers use when the scene they need doesn’t or can’t exist in real life. In the past, they were created by actually painting a scene on a canvas. Today, they are created digitally by combining photographs to produce the scene that they need. In this premium tutorial, we will demonstrate how to create a snow-covered, coastal, mountain town scene using Photoshop.
8. Create a Red Giant Star
When a star like our own reaches the end of its life, it begins to run out of hydrogen fuel in its core. Like a car running out of gas, it will begin to sputter, swelling to a size that could encompass every planet in our solar system out to Mars. When this happens, the sun will swallow the Earth and will spell certain doom for all life on our planet. In this tutorial, we will show you how to create a red star giant that is about to swallow up a planet.
9. How to Create an Exploding Planet
Exploding planets are a staple of just about every popular science fiction television show or movie, but did you know that you don’t need your own special effects department to create these types of effects on your own? In fact, all you need is Photoshop. In this tutorial we will demonstrate several techniques including how to break apart a planetary object, create a star field, dust, clouds, and even how to create a gas giant from scratch.
10. Create a “2012″ Inspired Tidal Wave
In this tutorial, we will take inspiration from the movie “2012″ and will demonstrate how to create a massive tidal wave crashing over a mountain range.
11. Create and Animate a Sci-Fi Themed Matte Painting
In television and movies, artists are often asked to create short animated scenes that only appear on the screen for just a moment. In this tutorial, we will show you how to create a sci-fi matte painting portraying a fleet of starships orbiting a planet using Photoshop. We will then show you how to animate that matte painting using an application called Nuke.
12. Create a Colorful and Dynamic Character Illustration
Sketching out a character illustration can be a lot of fun. Giving that sketch life can be a challenging task, however. In this tutorial, Ken Barthelmey will explain how to use Photoshop’s painting tools to turn a pencil sketch into a colorful and dynamic character illustration. In this process, we will show how to manipulate your sketch, block in your colors, and finally how to add lighting and texture.
13. Create a Scenic Matte Painting From a Sketch
In this tutorial, we are going to use Photoshop’s photo manipulation tools to create a scenic matte painting that was based on a sketch.
14. Create a StarCraft-Inspired Firestorm
We were recently inspired by imagery from StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm. In this tutorial, we will show you how to create a massive spiral firestorm as seen from space. While we will use some stock photography during the course of this tutorial, most of the techniques that we will show will rely heavily on manual painting; so a tablet will be essential.
15. Create an Epic “Man Of Steel” Inspired Painting
Your initial sketch is one of the most important elements of a digital illustration or painting. Your initial sketch will set the tone of the rest of your artwork so it is important to get it right. Every artist has their own method of producing a sketch. Some artists sketch from memory, some sketch from a reference. In this tutorial, we will show you how to use a grid to help you sketch from a reference image. We will then show you how to turn that sketch into a realistic-looking “Man of Steel” inspired digital painting that conveys the same feel and intensity as the official promotional material of the movie with the addition of some strong lighting and motion effects.