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steve-burg β Plateau City
Published: 2012-02-15 16:36:27 +0000 UTC; Views: 12690; Favourites: 279; Downloads: 530
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I've been quite busy finishing up a publishing project, but I managed to find at least a little time to experiment with custom shapes some more.This is a quick image, and experiment really (as opposed to a finished picture). But I haven't posted anything for a while so here it is, for better or worse!
Custom shapes are an incredible time saver. The shapes I used for this painting were created from other painting of mine, although just about any source will do.
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Comments: 58
Such a cool dynamic between the foreground and the background.
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Realy looks like you are a Big Fan of Syd Mead, it realy looks like his Style....Wow, glad that i found your Gallery
Shure i'll watch you 
Or is Steve-burg only a Alias ? And you are syd Mead ? Its maybe a good way from keeping away all those crazy Fans
cause in your Gallery there are a lot of " Syd Mead Style " Illustrations . . .
I'm a Big Fan
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Hello, I've given this piece a feature over here -> [link]
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Wow the objects are looking get along. Love it!
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Wow! I like the abstract-ness of it. How did you get the textures on the building? layers w/ a low opacity? gives a neat effect
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The basic shapes start as flat areas of color, then additional layers at low opacity give the surfaces some variation. That's how the lighting falloff on the foreground tower was done, for example
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Thanks for the tip, when you lay out an area of color - is it like a filled shape or something? or some kind of abstract brush stroke maybe ... that might be interesting
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At first, I thought it was a simple pattern of lines and shades, but I discovered a futuristic city!
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Strongly remembers me of the mothership in Independence Day...
I begin to learn a little..for example I think I get whatΒ΄s that technique of custom shapes,and I think I also see the distant lights from that stock pic you published..
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**Awesome!Seem that not lonly the large tower,but all city is made of metal!
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Thank you! It does look like metal - or some material that resembles metal
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**And this make a landscape with a awesome look.
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Another great effort. And another push to do more in the digital field and finally to take on brushes and shapes. The outcome of your effort is convincing - the more so it is "only an experiment". I like when an experiment is besting some full blown works of others.
Thank you for showing!
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Thanks very much 
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Which is a sign of an open and hungry mind. I like the outcomes. Your skill is truly remarkable!
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it has a lack of something blue-ish to make it look less gray..
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Thanks so much! I am glad you like this one
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I've always wanted to live in a place like this... Damn, I was born a century or two too early.
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I would live there... but I would want a hovercraft to get around the place!
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This is simple bliss! Its rather beautiful in an abstract way!
Love the lights!
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Thanks! It is almost a pure abstract - just a few accents to make it read as "city"
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Its a blistering bit of art - joy mate, joy!
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Thanks! I'm glad you like it!
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I do - excellent stuff - keep blowing us away!!
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Such a nice experiment too, I'm currently designing a city/starport for a game and need all the inspiration I can get
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Good luck with your city/spaceport design!
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Thanks, its mostly done now with the groundside port being a decentralized affair with landing platforms just about everywhere in the upper levels of the startown. Of course larger ship cradles and CG lifter craft landing spots are well away from populated areas (the CG lifter technology displacing the mass of the vessel to whatever is directly below, can flatten people [think - try a spatula], vehicles and non hardened structures).
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It's good to consider the forces it would require to lift large spacecraft!
When a helicopter flies overhead, you can feel the pressure wave beneath it - so you can imagine the force it would take to suspend or raise a massive ship would be enormous. Flatten is right!
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Great work Steve. I featured this in my journal.
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I'd love to look over your shoulder as you work on one of these, just to see what your workflow looks like. Photoshop is so vast... and there are so many ways to approach it. When I watch someone else work I always learn something new, even though I've been using it constantly for the last 16 years.
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The great thing about Photoshop is there's really no "right" or "wrong" way to do anything. I just found that custom shapes are a way to streamline certain aspects of my work that are kind of repetitive. Plus, I like the crisp look - it reminds me of using gouache
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I keep telling myself (and anyone who isn't tired of listening) that I'd like to get into Digital Painting some day, but I know my current Photoshop workflow really wouldn't make it practical. I need to streamline my use and understanding of custom brushes. I know how they work.... but only in the most laborious form.
But yeah - ultimately the only "right way" is the one that allows you get the job done 
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My big hangup is I still tend to avoid using a tablet. A lot of people are surprised by that (when they see me working). I'd have to say that my approach to using Photoshop is probably more like assembling a collage than it is really painting. Maybe coming from a background of actual paints and brushes, I find the digital substitute intrinsically unsatisfying (?) I don't know.
In any event, I mostly build an image from sliding shapes around on different layers, and allowing a lot of transparency between the layers. Sometimes the shapes are painted, but the custom shapes tool is a much faster way of blocking in these large areas once you have made a decent library of them.
If I had to make an analogy to "analog" techniques, my approach might translate into: "cutting silhouettes out of colored paper, arranging them on the board, then glazing over the composition with transparent washes to darken or highlight selected areas. The final detail accents are done with a very fine point brush"
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Wow, you don't use a tablet?!?! You Luddite!!
For years I didn't use a tablet, and y'know? I felt I was managing fine! But I think once you get used to using one, it's hard to go back. At least that's what I found.
So "collage", huh? Interesting! I can see it now that you detail it, but it's still a surprise. It certainly gives your digital tech abstracts a unique style.
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Oh I use a tablet... sometimes! It also makes a nice cup holder!
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Too bad cup holders don't make great tablets... they're lots cheaper!
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I use the Bamboo tablet - it's 1/4 the cost of Intuos, and the slovenly way I tend to work it doesn't matter!
You don't need a tablet with "10 million levels of sensitivity" when the artist has at best 3 or 4 only
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LOL! Yep. I'm using a Monoprice at the moment. About 1/6th the price of an Intuos.
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