Alon Chou's, Taipei, Taiwan, Death Blow is a prime example of what can be achieved with Photoshop. It depicts a dramatic battle between Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, and Megatron, leader of the Decepticons (click image for a larger view).


Optimus Prime is skidding forward ready to deliver the final blow as Megatron is coming down from an explosion.

The image leads you perfectly towards the focal point. No matter where the eye enters the image it will always lead to Optimus Prime's fist getting ready to swing. The composition is truly well done.

His environment is very dynamic and full of dramatic lighting which dramatizes the image even more.


To the right you can see some detail shots of the art work. The first top left panel show the detail that was put into Optimus Prime. The panel next to that (top Right) show Megatron erupting from the explosion. Right below that he show the carful details in the sparks that are coming from Optimus Prime as he skids forward.

The bottom left Panel show some of the dramatic lighting on Optimus' arm. You can also see right next to that another Autobot very close to the explosion looking up as Megatron is coming down.


Overall Alon delivers stunning work and I highly recommend that you check out the rest of his portfolio over at CG Society. You will not be disappointed.

Emre Husmen has incredible vehicular designs. He currently resides in Toronto, Canada and is 22 years old. A lot can be learn from his rendering techniques using Photoshop CS3. Check out more or Emre's work over at his DeviantArt Gallery. Enjoy his tutorial on rendering a Mercedes-Benz LC concept.


First of all, open your sketch on Adobe Photoshop and make it 2000 pixels wide. I usually work in high resolutions, because it allows me to create high quality renderings.



Open a new layer on your sketch and fill it with white colour. Make it's opacity about 85%.


Let's start with selecting the body shape. I always use Pen Tool for that. Select the shape, open a new layer, fill it with grey tone. And try to keep your paths for future usage.


Select window shapes, open a new layer and fill it with black.


Do the same thing for front grills.


Make wheel ellipses above the body layer and put shadow under all of them.


Select the headlights and chrome parts (separate layers). Fill them with white.


Select the basic body parts and fill them with darker or lighter grey depending on where are they facing.

Create more body details with the same grey tones.


Now, start using the Dodge and Burn Tools! Use 200-300 px "airbrush" with 20-40% exposure. Darken the lower parts and lighten the upper parts. Also select a part on the windows for shining; open a new layer above the window layer and use a white airbrush to fill it a little bit (do not fill it all). Darken the headlight.

Find some nice rims from reference pictures (or you can create your own). Cut and paste it above the body layer and play with its colour and contrast. Select an ellipse on headlight layer and fill it with white. Give it some outer glow effect. Colourize the windows from Hue/Saturation menu (press CTRL + U).

Make a simple background with black and white gradients.

Decide where the light will come from. Duplicate your rims two times, each, use the ellipse layers under the rims and create your tires with using Dodge and Burn Tools.

Colorize the body with a matt tones (use the Hue/Saturation menu).

Put more details on your design. And now it's time to give some shining to your car. Open a new layer on the body layers; select & airbrush it with white. Complete everything except your final body color. Merge layers from the lowest body layer to the top. Keep the shadow and background layers separate.

Duplicate the "merged layers" two times. Colorize them with blue and yellow tones (separately). Now, you have to use airbrush eraser to remove the mixed parts of those colors. Use the "overlay" effect (under the layer effects menu) for both of them. Put some white dots on the edges to make the shining more realistic (on another layer). Lastly give some reflections to the car and the background with layer effects menu.

Everyone seemed to really enjoy the speed paintings of Nico Di Mattia so here's a bit more from him.

A lot can be learned through the speed paintings of Nico Di Mattia. He is able to use Photoshop in a way that allows him to mimic traditional techniques and work efficiently. By recording as he paints the viewers (you) are able to see every step that he takes to get to his final product.

To Nico "A speed painting is an experience that includes the fusion of many areas: the drawing, the painting, the cinema, the music, and the digital technologies. Its principal objective is to try to entertain the spectator, taking him to an original world, where he could enjoy the genesis and the process of creation of an artistic piece."

Below are a few videos for you to enjoy of him rendering out Iron Man and Spiderman.




Iron Man
Time of working: 6 hours.
Number of Photoshop layers: 14
Music from Black Sabbath and Stratovariu



SPIDERMAN
Time of working: 5 hours.
Number of Photoshop layers: 15
Music from “Spider Man” OST by Danny Elfman

You can check out more from Nico Di Mattia and his Photoshop Speed Paintings through his website at speed-painting.com.ar

That's right Digital Art Style dot com's first issue of D.A.S Ezine is out and ready for download. i think you are going to be in for a nice treat. We have some awesome art in there waiting for you guy to glue your eyes to.

The way this Ezine works is makes it very convenient for you to view. All you do is download the Ezine and save it to your computer. Then you run just like any other program you would run, and right there the Zine pops up on your desktop for your viewing pleasure. You can flip the pages just like in a real magazine and also type in a page number for a certain page that you may want to skip to. It also has navigation buttons that help get to certain places quicker such as the table of contents and also contain a button to send us back your feedback so that we can inprove future issues. More so it has a button to send the Zine to some friends that you know share a common interest with you.

ok, ok enough talk lets get to the download.

Click here or on the image to download

Go check it out. O and a quick tip if you want to magnify any image or text to see it better or more up close all you have to do is right-click and a magnify window will come up.