On my own

My time at Weta Digital is over. I've been there for over six years. I'm very excited about getting out there again. Right now I'm working on some hopefully kickass portfolio stuff. Next week will be portfolio and reel assembly time. You might see a lot more updates here too.
Oh and if you're in need of an environment concept artist or matte painter, shoot me an email. Thanks. Cheers!

Know that movie?

This took 10 minutes (obviously) - have great holidays everyone!

Just a Quickie Render

Hi! Here's just something I played with in Vue. Nothing special, but I like the atmosphere! :) Until next time!

Waterballs!

Hi there! Yep - been busy again! At work. But - I had time to render this - nothing spectacular but I like it in a kitschy kinda way.
When I was asked years ago why I went into computer graphics I used to say that it's the perfect tool to manifest phantastic things in a realistic appearance. As examples I used to mention "you can make spheres of water, just floating like in space". I never made such an image - but finally I kept my word. Vue's caustics are pretty cool. I love the flower overload too. Anyway - let's see how long it takes until I make something else! Until then! Oh and - render time at 2K was 17.5 hours! Haha!

New Songs

Hi there! No new visuals at the moment - sorry. I'm back at work and all my pixel powers are being sucked away by it. I found time to make a new track tho - and made some new ones during my time off too. Please enjoy!


Electric by F_6

Never again by F_6

Ohspecialyanot by F_6

Sproinnngh!

Just testing stuff with Vue 8.5 - more soon!

The Making of Crater Lake

Hello and welcome to a step-by-step for my latest image! I had a request to make it and since I had some time on my hands I was happy to oblige. It's been way too long since I've been doing that anyway. Here we go:

This is the geo of the 'crater'. There are some cloud shadows on top - my apologies. And actually it's a vortex. The Vortex was modelled in a popular sculpting program - my first foray into it.

Initially I wanted to have a mystical green light shining from the bottom of it but I deviated ... looking at it now - maybe I should've stuck with it.
Maybe it might be worth doing another version. Anyway - here's one early render:



Here we have the first 'real' render of the final image. There is an eco-system with some shrubs covering everything. While it looks pretty good in that resolution, my computer gave me some problems rendering it in a higher one. Should have worked with dynamic population in Vue I guess.



Here is the final render out of Vue. Yes, it looks too dark. The reason why it's so dark is that I wanted to keep the contrast without the highlights blowing out. The eco system is painted in and there are cloud shadows from a cloud layer above the camera.


This is the first step in Photoshop. I color corrected the render a bit and since I wasn't happy with how the lake looked, I replaced it with something in a lovely blue. Once I put that new water in, I knew I was on the way:


Here's the final painting in Photoshop. Cloud layers, glares and a much softened, humid atmosphere help this along. Then I 'borrowed' some birds from somewhere and it is done:


As a last bonus, here's a side-by-side of the original render and the final:


I hope you enjoyed this quick and dirty show and tell. Please let me know if you have any questions! Until next time! :)

Crater Lake

Just a little thing I did in Vue. I think it turned out pretty well. Let me know what you think :) Click on it to see a bigger version.

Forgotten Stairs

For years I used to drive by this place. It has a garage at the bottom and from the street one can see the stairs leading up to the woods. I always wanted to climb them and have a closer look. I got wet feet because there's water gushing down the steps. That path must not have been used for years and looks pretty much forgotten.

Check out the full set on flicker!

Am I?

Hi there! Sorry - no artwork again, but another song. Please give it a listen if you have nothing better to do and please leave me a comment if you liked it or not and why! ;) See you next time!

Am I? by F_6

For those who are interested:
Did this during two nights. The instrument you hear in the beginning is a Roland Juno-106, the growling, howling voice is a Korg MS-10 and, finally, the hard raspy bass is a Roland SH-101. The software I used is Propellerheads Reason/Record.

Tibetan Sound Bowl - Fish Bowl?

I recorded out Tibetan sound bowl (or chiming bowl) and also a big fish bowl we have. Out of those sounds I made the following song. The fish bowl is doing the main work, with the chiming bowl coming in here and there.
It's a basically an almost endless loop I'm adding to.
Give it a try - it's a quite mellow but interesting track.

Soundfishbowl by F_6

Rotorua

Just got back from a trip to Rotorua - the center of volcanic and thermal activity on the North Island. It was a great vacation - much of it spent soaking in hot thermal water. When we were not, I took a lot of photos - here are some of them:

Lonely Cat

Could have pushed this way further, but want to move onto other things. Done in Vue and Photoshop. Yes, that's my cat sitting up there - he likes elevated locations ;) See you soon.

A Walk Through the Wellington CBD

Today I had to be downtown Wellington and took my camera with me. There was a tiny bit of sun, but still pretty cold.

Been way too long!

Hello everyone! Time to get this blog started again! Quite a few people have seen this already - I've been featured on e-on software's hompage.
Go and check it out if you haven't - I think it turned out quite nicely - features a few frames of my work on Avatar.

Been pretty busy since the last time. I got married to my sweetheart in March and then worked my butt off on various things. End of this week I will go on a two month hiatus to just relax and air out my brain. Might lead to some new artwork - who knows - I have no other agenda than chilling out.

I will start posting stuff on a regular basis again - and if it's just photos. So check in again from time to time!

Peter

Summer, Wellington, 2009

Made this little video as a Holiday Hello! for my friends abroad. It shows some impressions of the summer that has finally begun here in New Zealand.

"Wellintgon,Summer, December 2009"

Jupiter and the Other Side of the Bay

Shot through my telescope. I made my own adapter for my Canon SLR - took like 10 minutes and off I went - first about 5km distance across Wellington Bay. And here's Jupiter and a couple of it's moons - not very exciting, but, well, a bit.

For a Gray Monday

For a gray Monday. Made today - finally a song without a beat. Mostly my old analogue stuff. Just had fun - a relaxing piece - inspired by the gray skies and relentless drizzle and rain on this monday in Wellington.
Leave me a comment if you hate it or like it. See you soon!

One Last Look ...

Quick painting inspired by a project I worked on recently. Made from a render in Vue and a few photos. Rough around the edges but hey ...

One Song and Four Photos

Say Hello - a little music sketch I did over the last two days. Uses all old analogue synths of course. Lead voice in the second part is done by a Roland SH-2000 - a synth from 1973. Very nice little critter.

Here are three photos from when Glenda and I went to the Cook Islands recently. L0ve the sunsets!

Otherwise - work's still going strong but the show is in it's last throes. Hopefully things will tone down a bit soon, so I can make more music and even ... paint!!! ;)

Until then!