Rivendell Matte Painting Competition

So in the interest of adding another string to my bow, and to quench my thirst for learning new things, I'm in the process of putting together a Matte Painting Reel.

Here's one I've been working on, which I'm proud to say managed to take out top honors in a contest over at CGChannel. The competition was run by Jonathan Berube, who kindly provided a great plate to work from. The task was to remove any signs of the modern world, then add Rivendell and modify the environment until it looked like it sat in the world of the Hobbit / LOTR films.

You can see the original plate on Jonathan's Flickr page if you like, so you can see where my work began and ended.


I've still got some work to do on this one though as it's not quite finished. I'll be sure to post a link to the video once its all done!

Environment Update

Here's where I got to with the first of the two environment thumbnails I liked. You can already see how the piece has changed a bit, though I'm not sure I'll manage to leave it alone as it is. The main difference is that I decided to fracture that large central island into several parts. Was it a good idea? I often have a tendency to want to add more detail into the simpler or flat graphic areas. These areas are important to a picture having variety and reading clearly, so it's important to have them though. So tell me your thoughts...