Karvan Swara

I had an idea to create a destructive cityscape in smoke and fire after looking at the ‘Dark knight’ poster. I went off and took a few photos that I can work with, and this one was perfect. It has the right composition to begin with; the buildings draw the eye to the far right of the photo, and this is where I wanted to assemble the crumpled buildings.

In the matte painting, I removed pedestrians, vehicles, trees and the lights from the traffic. I then proceeded to paint over the glass to make it appear broken. The same goes for some parts of the buildings and pavement. I then continued to add buildings at the back ground to create the cityscape and to also put them in the same perspective as the photo. I further enhanced the destructive appearance of the buildings by matting out parts of it out and painting loose cables and pipes over it. I continued to add the fire and smoke but not so that it over crowds the painting. It’s quite difficult to add just the right amount to any painting, because one can sometimes add too much detail or too little. In this case I wasn’t afraid to lose some details because it then brings out the details of others. I finally inserted an adjustment layer to create the dark mood and another to bring out some parts of the fire and bounce light from the fire on the smoke. I was quite pleased with the result and will be looking forward to doing more in the near future.

In this matte painting, I took a different approach. Instead I had a concept painting already done. I then wanted to do a matte painting of that concept art.