Background Blitz WINNER: LOOMINOUS

[Stefano]

Wow! Is it oil on canvas?  How did you do it, Loominous?? That's damn good.

[Redwall]

Does it intentionally echo the beginning of Myst IV?

[loominous]

Thanks for the kind comments.

Is it oil on canvas?Ã,  Ã, How did you do it, Loominous?

And did you draw it on paper or is it fully done in PS?

It is photoshop from scratch. I mostly use a fairly scattering hard brush, which along with limited sparse stroke amounts can give a analogue painting like look.

Since I'm about equally used to sketching on paper as with a tablet, I tend to skip the analogue step. It happens that I draw really rough pencil thumbnails to find a good composition, but I never bother scanning those.

So, did you really make that background in only one day?

Well, sort of. I did the sketch yesterday evening, then continued painting later that night and continued an hour or two this morning. So I suppose it depends on whether you define a day as a certain amount of hours, the passing of 12 AM, or the interval between sleep.

Does it intentionally echo the beginning of Myst IV?

My Myst experience is limited to watching some friend playing some earlier episode, so it's not intentional, but for all I know I might've been unconciously been inspired by a screenshot on some site. Do you happen to have any screenshots of that part of the game?

Edit: The two brushes I use the most

[Redwall]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/jsRedwall/myst_iv_screen.jpg

This is the best I could find via Google. I guess now that I look back on it it's not that similar, but it has the window, the arching staircase (which goes around a lot farther than is shown here), and the big thing on the left is the bottom of a chair with a desk/control panel connected to it (couldn't find a good picture of that, sorry). There's also some bookcases in the same room.

[Krysis]

OK voting starts bout now and ends early Monday morning. 

[Ubel]

It was hard to decide which one to vote, Tiki or Loominous. Both entries have good looking style. All other entries were really good too, but these two really drew my attention. Anyway, I decided to go for Tiki. There's something in the style of this background that really appealed to me. Loominous' work looks very awesome, but this one... I have no idea why, but it just feels more comfortable to me. So my vote goes for Tiki.

[mozza]

Wow. :o
loominous never ceases to amaze me.
My vote - loominous.

[ildu]

I'd like to give the other guys a bit of a handicap and not vote loominous this time. But that background is probably the most amazing image I've seen yet on these forums, so I have to vote loominous.

Special mentions for Johnny Naxx with the great color scheme and to Tiki for an original style.

[Floskfinger]

Eventhough I feel very frustrated and jealous  I'll have vote for loominous too... It's the most amazing pice of art I've seen in theese forums.

[Chicky]

I vote Tiki. It's a background blitz and i cant see loominous' entry working in an adventure game.


prove me wrong pal

[Dorcan]

My vote goes to Loominous

Chicky: hehe unless it's specified in the rules, the background doesn't have to be a walkable one Mmh and I think loominous' entry would work without problems anyway: The character could walk on the platform area, and when the player wants the character to get down the stairs, he simply would have to click on it... Also this backgound could be used as a cutscene.

Well, in fact, I just wanted to say that I have the feeling that too much people simply don't vote for the background they logicaly would have, just because they would feel bad for the others, for "conscience's sake", because they don't want to vote as everybody else, or even because they don't want always the same guy to win.
I don't know, seem to be wrong reasons to me. I don't think it's unfair that someone very skilled wins once again, if his background simply deserves it. It is supposed to be a competition, right ? We simply vote for the background which seems the best as long as it fits the rules.

Loominous : I really love your background, but there is something that bugs me, I simply can't see where the ground and the windows are supposed to meet. For me it seems as if the ground had a big part missing on the right, and the windows would go way lower... It's a bit confusing.
But apart from that, and the fact it isn't totally finished, I find it simply and purely beautiful.

[Kweepa]

I vote loominous, despite the flames and the snow painted into the background rather than left for animation

[IM NOT TEH SPAM]

I also vote loominous, even though the "ous" at the end of his name quite confuses me and forced me to copy it out of stevemccrea's post.

[Krysis]

OK voting starts bout now and ends early Monday morning.Ã, 

Ok. I think its time to say who the winner is.

LOOMINOUS WINS AGAIN!
Nice try Tiki.

[Gilbert]

:o Another Grand Slam Winner is born! :o

Congratulations loominous! 

[Czar]

As i read the title, winner:loominous, this is hardly what i expected.
It's really an inspirational piece and it  goes straight to my HDD.
Actually i'm a sucker for warm colors and creative architecture, and the fireplace and the book case. Love it.
Of course certainly didnt do this type of image first, but i sure love his.

[ildu]

So...How about a new thread...

[Andail]

Good job, Loominous. This isn't the place for c&c, but I just wanna say that you have developed a whole lot lately, as we're now starting to see some more "lively" shapes and colours from you, and not just shades of gray