raven

“Raven” by Dave Seeley
About my images….I’m far more influenced by modern day sci-fi film noir than by illustration in the industry today. I certainly tend toward the painterly in non-digital illustration. I admire work of Berry and Hale, Kent Williams, John Muth, Dave McKean, and George Pratt. I love the art of Caravaggio, Egon Schiele, John Singer Sargent, Robert Graham and Odd Nerdrum.To create photo/digital images, I often tackle a piece from the ground up with photo-collage in the computer. Recently, when time allows, I’ve been painting on archival digital prints of photo-collaged images for the final piece. This tutorial is a demo of this process.

Photo/Digital Images Are composed by montaging 2 to 50 photos (usually small parts of photos) into single image, using Adobe Photoshop as the primary tool. I have about 80,000 royalty free stock images from Photodisc, Corbis, Metaphotos, the Department of Defense, Corel, and Nasa that I keep in a searchable Extensis Portfolio catalogue. There are also webpages specializing in royalty free photos for illustrators. For example:
– Human photo references for 3D artists and Game Developers– Female Anatomy for the Artist– Human Anatomy for the Artist– Environment Textures for 3D artists and Game DevelopersI also use my own photography collection and will shoot photos as necessary. I photograph things around Boston that I find inspiring, for future images or for a specific assignment. I’ll start an image with a strong photo or two chosen the assignment brief, or just because they inspire me. I’ll add parts and pieces in Frankensteinian flurry and distort, relight, repaint and overlay photos. I’ll rework figures and do sketches outside the computer to reconcile anatomy and composition. I’ll add traditional media (paint and pencil drawings) imported digitally, or physically added over and archival digital print. You have created a four picture demo of this process using the image for the TOP science fiction book Octagonal Raven.

Click on the picture above for Hi-Res version.
Click on the picture above for Hi-Res version.

Click on the picture above for Hi-Res version.

Click on the picture above for Hi-Res version.
Finished Picture:

Another photo collage:I did use photos from www.3d.sk to go through the sketch process, and build the figures in this piece for a novel for Bantam. She has Ilona’s face, and left arm from the two Silvias. Also Anetta Key’s boots. He is build over Ivan, and bits of him survive here.
(c) Dave Seeley www.daveseeley.com