245 replies to this topic

[Lord Bazaah]

May I just say I love your art style, and your Shatterer is on my work desktop now. <3

[DuskWolf]

I don't know why but Charr technology always gives me cold shivers. There's something so alien about its construction, and that appeals to me. I mean, that mortar is made of steel, but it almost looks organic... and like an armadillo.

I'd actually love to have that mortar as a desktop for a time. Lix, cooould you do a 1920x1200 version of that, or 1440x900? Anything of widescreen proportions, really. I use a laptop, so a 4:3 monitor isn't an option for me.

Edit1: Oh, wait, it's not actually square. Just Firefox fooling me into thinking it is. Hey, I can do this reshape myself then, whee!

Edited by DuskWolf, 21 October 2010 - 02:17 PM.
Would've helped if I'd added 'mortar' the first time. x_x

[elixabeth]

Ryuzaki said:

Any chance you could make a wallpaper from this piece of concept art? 1920x1080, please. :P

Would prefer a darker color around the piece of concept art, instead of white. If you know what i mean. :P

Great work btw. :)

Concept Art - Totally Badass Charr

Download

Lord Bazaah said:

May I just say I love your art style, and your Shatterer is on my work desktop now. <3

THANKYOUUUUU. <3  Happily for me, ANet's INCREDIBLE team of concept artists make it hideously easy to make cool-looking derivative work.

DuskWolf said:

I don't know why but Charr technology always gives me cold shivers. There's something so alien about its construction, and that appeals to me. I mean, that mortar is made of steel, but it almost looks organic... and like an armadillo.

On anything but a specifically-requested wallpaper, I try to make the edges all a single colour so that resizing can be done easily, given the vast variety of screen dimensions that people have out there.

[Sock Puppet]

Okay so could you please stop making new wallpapers? I don't wanna change it every hour or so.

[elixabeth]

Sock Puppet said:

Okay so could you please stop making new wallpapers? I don't wanna change it every hour or so.

I can't halp it! Especially with all the gorgeous new art that got put up today. :3

[aurora2]

Hey elixabeth :)

I like these "paint plash" style backgrounds you make, they are looking nice.
Could you make an Asura themed background in this style, but with darker colors? The size is 1280x1024 if it's not a big problem ^^ ty :D

[Winterclaw]

elixabeth said:

mod!Question,
Should I be adding new fanart down here, or does that count as 'illegally' bumping the thread?  Should I just add it to the front post?  Should I do both?  Neither?

No you can keep adding it in new posts.  Doesn't all have to be on the front page.  The only thing that most people don't like is double posting when you post times that are really close together.

[Doctor Overlord]

elixabeth said:

EDIT-EDIT: Here's a dark-background alternative:

Woohoo!  Thank you Elixabeth.  I think I found my new desktop :)  Very nice job on all of them!

Edit - aw yeah, that's a much better background for my desktop.  I finally found one to replace the Old Republic Bounty Hunter :)

Edited by Doctor Overlord, 22 October 2010 - 03:34 AM.

[axhed]

nice work! i've grabbed a few of these. :)

[elixabeth]

aurora2 said:

Hey elixabeth :)

I like these "paint plash" style backgrounds you make, they are looking nice.
Could you make an Asura themed background in this style, but with darker colors? The size is 1280x1024 if it's not a big problem ^^ ty :D

I'll get right on it. :3

[Drogon]

elixabeth said:

Concept Art - Totally Badass Charr

Download

Thank you so much. :D

[elixabeth]

Ryuzaki said:

Thank you so much. :D

You're so welcome!!

axhed said:

nice work! i've grabbed a few of these. :)

Thanks! :D

Overlord said:

Woohoo!  Thank you Elixabeth.  I think I found my new desktop :)  Very nice job on all of them!

Edit - aw yeah, that's a much better background for my desktop.  I finally found one to replace the Old Republic Bounty Hunter :)

Whoooo!

Winterclaw said:

No you can keep adding it in new posts.  Doesn't all have to be on the front page.  The only thing that most people don't like is double posting when you post times that are really close together.

Thanks for the clarification.

aurora2 said:

Hey elixabeth :)

I like these "paint plash" style backgrounds you make, they are looking nice.
Could you make an Asura themed background in this style, but with darker colors? The size is 1280x1024 if it's not a big problem ^^ ty :D

Download

This work?

[~PolarisNova~]

Great looking wallpapers Elixabeth!

[Excel]

These wallpapers all look amazing. The original art is awesome of course, but you have a great ability to complement and enhance the style of the original piece.

I'd offer you a cookie, but I eated it. So you get a clap instead. /clapclap

[aurora2]

elixabeth said:

Download

This work?

I like it, thank you ^^ Nice work again :)

[Tommy's]

Stunning job on the Asura Elixabeth. Colours are great.

[Naoroji]

Wonder what it'd look like with this one,...


Sharper, less painterly, moar 'OMG ASURA PWN WITH SPACEAGE TECH AND OMG OMG OMG'. Lol.

[elixabeth]

Naoroji said:

Wonder what it'd look like with this one,...


Sharper, less painterly, moar 'OMG ASURA PWN WITH SPACEAGE TECH AND OMG OMG OMG'. Lol.

I just plugged it into the psd file - everything but Zojja is so distorted anyway that it's not all that different.

[actionjack]

Lovely work, elixababe.  

I like the splatter paint effect alot.  Loots real fitting.  Awsome skill.

How about take one of their screenshots (instead of a concept art) and try to Paint-ize it to look like a hand-painted concept art?  I think it might be interesting.

[elixabeth]

actionjack said:

Lovely work, elixababe.  

I like the splatter paint effect alot.  Loots real fitting.  Awsome skill.

How about take one of their screenshots (instead of a concept art) and try to Paint-ize it to look like a hand-painted concept art?  I think it might be interesting.

I'll give it a shot.  Their work so closely matches their concept art that it might not be too hard?  We shall see!

[Sethron]

elixabeth i love The Shatterer wallpaper and im using it now...thanks :)

[elixabeth]

Sethron said:

elixabeth i love The Shatterer wallpaper and im using it now...thanks :)

Thank YOU! :D

[Doctor Overlord]

actionjack said:

I like the splatter paint effect alot.

I like that effect too.  Could I ask how you do it?  I'm still learning the cooler stuff of digital imagery.

[elixabeth]

Overlord said:

I like that effect too.  Could I ask how you do it?  I'm still learning the cooler stuff of digital imagery.

And steal my one real talent?  :surprised:

Sure, I'll put up a brief tutorial with some images sometime really soon.

edit: /tutorial

So, I'm assuming you have a very rudimentary knowledge of photoshop, here.  This also isn't really a step-by-step tutorial, it's rather a thumbnail sketch of the methods I use, using the latest asura background as my example.

The whole point of the painted look is to make it easy to have an image that isn't the proper size for your desktop look good as your desktop background, without repeating, stretching, or having it floating in a harshly-defined island of background color.  
Hanyway, that means you start off with a blank document with the background colour you want (I chose a dark grey that I selected from the image itself), then put your piece of art [concept art] in a separate layer.  Create a layer mask, as that's what you'll be editing the most.

I have a whole host of paint, spray paint, and texture brushes- some of which I've downloaded, many of which I've made myself.  I use these (at 100% opacity, set to black) on the white layer mask).  I use black-on-white so that I can see the entirety of the image as I'm taking space away from it, then I later go back and invert the colors on the layer mask, so that everything I hid initially now shows.  So, using your black splatter/grunge brush, start brushing over the parts of the concept art that you want to show in the final piece.  

The background layer will end up looking something like this:
.
Then you invert it, so that all the places that are black become white, and vice versa.  
Now you should have an image that shows what you want, with a painterly effect around the borders.

Then I just keep doing that with replicas of the original piece of concept art, occasionally desaturating or colorizing the layers.  
For example, two of my layers, when isolated, look like:


This lead to my layers panel for this image looking like:


To give the splashes around the border, I took another related piece of concept art, played with the levels, and blurred it, so it was just the color and feeling, then did the same thing, just giving it light splashes so that there was some tie-in between the actual image and the background surrounding it.

Voila.

...This was pretty hasty. Tell me if I can explain anything more clearly for you.

[grey_foxx082]

so that's how you do it!

Anyway, I still try to create random brush splatter paintings but everytime I do, stuff don't look messy/random enough. It starts to look like a weird shaped head, a bear, a dog, an owl... but not very painterly. My brain needs to learn to be less organized :(

Edited by grey_foxx082, 26 October 2010 - 09:42 PM.

[elixabeth]

grey_foxx082 said:

so that's how you do it!

Now the secret's out, and everyone will be able to make their own, and nobody will look at my stuff again.  Yup!

[Doctor Overlord]

Thanks for the tutorial, very informative!

elixabeth said:

Now the secret's out, and everyone will be able to make their own, and nobody will look at my stuff again.  Yup!

You are forgetting about the inherent inertia of people in general.   Why do it when someone else will?  lol  And time constraints and desire too, not everyone wants to dabble in artistic endeavors.  

Besides you have a very good eye for making a striking composition, that's not easily duplicated either ;)

Edited by Doctor Overlord, 26 October 2010 - 10:04 PM.

[elixabeth]

Given the relative popularity of these backgrounds, would people be interested in avatars in the same style, or should I not bother?

[Excel]

YES PLEASE!

Love the wallpapers, and love that dwayna avatar already. The only question is, will it still look as good with the forum's avatar size constraints?

[elixabeth]

Excel said:

YES PLEASE!

Love the wallpapers, and love that dwayna avatar already. The only question is, will it still look as good with the forum's avatar size constraints?

It's only 50x50 pixels too large, should look fine.  I'll account for the size constraints from now on.
...any requests?