Friday, March 23, 2007

Dense Jungle

©2006 Armand Serrano.
I've notice that I've been designing a lot of foliage and organic elements for features in the past six or seven years. As of last month, I'm officially doing visdev on "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs" for Sony which is slated for 2009. And the first production task I have to do is design two environments heavy on foliage. Why am I not surprised! Anyway, so I've been busy lately with work, at the same time doing the final editing for the music video and finishing up the script for my David and Goliath project on the side. So for now, I'm posting another practice piece which I did last year. I love playing around with foreground elements using them to create another "aspect ratio" for my shot. The intention for this practice is to make the elements graphically designed yet dimentional and not to feel like "cut-outs". Lighting plays a big part as always.

26 comments:

Oliver Kurth said...

Very atmospheric piece. I like the composition with the big black areas in the foreground. Really puts the focus on the clearing. Great!

I can almost hear the jungle sounds and drums.

PS: The rest of your blog is great too!

C.Deboda said...

You seem to have this lighting stuff nailed down. Great atmosphere. I like!

Joshua James said...

'sigh'

I wish I could take your class! I'm sick of being a hack.

Inspirring work as also sir!

-JtJ

Shuku said...

Foliage and trees and flowers are -beautiful- and important! says the botanical nut who's crazy about heirloom roses and who goes bananas at really badly done foliage. It is a talent and a gift and OH MAN that practice piece is lovely, Armand! Keep them coming!

--Shuku

craig said...

great lighting and texture. wonderful mood

Marcos Mateu said...

Great lighting! kick butt widescreen! that's the way I like it!

laojie - painter said...

great work & impressive blog, armand! well done!

Tim Bye said...

Super work Armand! Vey atmospheric

Noelle said...

Very cool and creepy. I wonder what's lurking....

Alessandra Sorrentino said...

ohh nice :)
Great wideshot Armand, so atmospheric, really well done.

Jared Shear said...

SUPER FANTASTIC! Love those foreground elements.

Anonymous said...

Great mood and just the right amount of ambiance . Nice " creepy " feel to it . Great framing - I too love the wide screen format .

Cheers Armand .

Kisel.B said...

Greeeeat work Armand!

Armand Serrano said...

Thanks guys!

Armand Serrano said...

message to changsha laojie:

Hey Jie! It's so good to hear from you after a long time. I'll definitely link you up and drop you an email soon. Take care my friend.

Armand

kcirbuk said...

WOW and WOW!!

Paco K.

Richard Gaines said...

Armand,

Words cannot describe at the intensity you display. Your prowess is impeccable as well as very diversified. What I want to know is how you made those beautiful tones on the bird's-eye-view of the colonnade (I think from Mulan).

I pay my respects.

Armand Serrano said...

Richard,

Thanks for the visit and the kind words. I believe the process how I rendered the colonnade is as follows:
1. I roughed out the entire layout in light blue pencil even using rulers for the straight lines.
2. I blocked the midtones and darks with 20% and 50% warm grey pantone markers respectively.
3. Then rendering was done in freehand probably with a B or 2B pencil. Hope this answers your question.

Milenko said...

I really like this one, and I truly enjoyed the rest :)

Cheers to your skill,

Regards,

Milenko

Unknown said...

Great blog!!
Yuo're atmosphere are awesome!!
I really love the Lilo and stitch storyboards!!

Seth Hippen said...

Hey Armand! Thanks for the comment on the ol' blog. You are an amazingly talented guy! Thanks for the inspiration.

Mark McDonnell said...

AH!!! Beautiful man. Such a nice sense of light and mood with nice shapes and silos in the FG. AH, like a nice cold drink of water on a hot day. Beautiful Armand.

I hope all is well. I really wanted to partake in your class but the timing didn't work out. I hope it was fun for you too.

Best as always. And thank you for the nice comments,

MAC

Marco Bucci said...

This is just great Armand. I like your description with the 'secondary aspect ratio thing'. Something I have to think about more! Awesome value arrangement.

Philip Dimitriadis said...

Armand,
this is great!!! Awesome mood and love the foreground silhouette shapes. What a great read. I would love to build this in Maya!!! It would be insane, but it would look great!!! Nice work.
thanks for sharing..

Jacobo said...

Great ambient with few colors!!Is a fantastic bakground concept, directly to the brain. It´s clear that you enjoy playing with the forest of the foreground to create a very three-dimensional sensation.I´m open-mouthed yet!!

Unknown said...

WOW!! Stunning!! Love the deep shadowly feel!!