COMMISSION A ORIGINAL WORK POSTER / PICTURE / POSTER SET TODAY!

UPDATE:

Some of his newer work here:



Max is a budding freelance artist from Celestial Order with massive talent but not earning a lot. I took a look at his artwork and decided it needed to be given the recognition it needs!

I'll give you a taster first (he'll be handing me more samples of his artwork later).

This is a screen from Sins of a Solar Empire (NOT HIS WORK). As you can see it's not very impressive.



Now watch what he does to it!!!!!! This is his OWN drawn portraits. Not taken from anywhere else.



This is his full set which he is still working on as a hobby:



See Milla Jovovich? He based that pic on her.

Frankly these pics blew me away and everyone else who saw it and I would love to see more of his works and put them into prints! But we need some support to get it into print form and I want to gauge interest before I start sourcing for printers.

Don't need to talk about price yet, but just want to see if you guys would be ready to ask him to draw something (fantasy related) or a set of pics and I'll help him distribute his prints to you all!

Please do post your interest in commissioning him to do a poster or something where we will share the cost and sell you the prints! Price has not been decided yet (nothing LOWER than RM30-RM40 (depending on sizes) though these are going to be original pieces) but just let me know if you are interested first!

He is also flexible enough to do other kinds of graphics like websites and all sorts of media. He's a really really nice guy (too nice) so I will be helping him screen people out for him.

Taken from blog:
http://bolehvpn.net/blog/?p=48

This post has been edited by Reuben: Jan 12 2010, 08:35 PM

*Post reserved for updates and new samples*

Nice ... well he the second picture is definitely much better than the first.

pretty. i like the 2nd pic

Nice for the second pic....

Milla Jovovich is nice+pretty...

Nice & fine.It is from our local???

nice photomanip.

Yeah 100% local

Nice work it seems like he is a game/concept artist? (notice the game interface?)

command & conquer style?

The game interface isn't his. It's from Sins of a Solar Empire but he just thought the original one sucked balls so started doing his own. I placed the game interface there so you could see how it looks like in its intended form.

looks very nice.
hope to see more, bigger picture of his works.

I just updated the first post with his continuing set for Sins.

I can't put them too big or else they'll just be stolen

Reuber u show us here no use one, all will say nice nice only, ask ur friend to apply his portfolio in the UK doing character design in Europe. Cause most of the game development are there, why not try it out cause what i can see ur friend art work can compare to my friend one and he is from the one academy, after my friend finish his study, straight find work in the UK doing character design.

wow i'm blown away, he did these portraits all by himself? what tool did he use?

He did all the portraits by himself.

Some of them like the first Vassari he had some reference designs to base roughly on.

Not sure about the software used. Can ask him.

This post has been edited by Reuben: Mar 14 2008, 10:25 PM

photopaint. (medium over the original photo)
photomanip like it say

This post has been edited by cymon: Mar 15 2008, 02:53 AM

max? he was my colleague

cool artwork

This post has been edited by ghoster: Mar 15 2008, 07:29 AM

Well, with his skill he should be earning much if he have the opportunity.

i actually meant more full size picture in a sense, can see more than just portrait faces...
( i know anything more than 600 pixels posted sure gets stolen, if there is no watermark there )

nice artworks...

Wow! Looks like a pro's work!! Mind blowing talent!

Woah, the second picture with the blue hair, loved it.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/journey_begins/

hope he could peer here and other cg channel, sites like dis does help buding artist.

if im not mistaken, he used to take part in guild wars competition and won

yup, here's the link http://www.guildwars.com/events/contests/h...05/winner05.php

This post has been edited by ghoster: Mar 24 2008, 10:27 PM

it's nice.. but not worth to collect.. no point keep such things..
in the NICE poster.. those are just nice... not very special

whoah nice job ter...i'm proud to know that ter is such talented artist in our local scene "two thumbs up"

Maybe...(would need more details)

New piccies

nice poster. great job dude

i dont understand. photo manip means he didnt draw them frm scratch?

I think he drew most of them from scratch. He had some base photos for his ideas for the TEC ones (the human ones) and i believe they are drawn as well i'll check with him.

yes, it mean only apply another layer of medium over it.
really no big deal in world of professional.
most of photo manip artist just take another image and apply their style on it.

can see the different between original painting and photomanip.

photomanip request less creative coz everything is good enough of the original image.
(sort of lighting, composition, perspective, balance & etc)

---

Added on April 7, 2008, 6:20 pmtake a look of the first image that you post and compare the rest of the image that you post.
you can see the different.
there are huge skill gap between those images.



vs



This post has been edited by cymon: Apr 7 2008, 06:21 PM

Not sure what u are talking about. The FIRST post is the ORIGINAL game. That is NOT him. That's the default game image.

Not him.

I'm just showing the comparison with the set that he made for the game for his own pleasure.

This is him completing one of the Advent pics. As you can see he's drawing from scratch (the first pic is no where inside the original game)



As far as I can see he is MUCH better than the original artist. His Vassari race (the insect race) also looks quite different from the game concept pics.

This post has been edited by Reuben: Apr 7 2008, 06:38 PM

Wow they look great we need more asians.

These works aren't a photo manip. This is drawn by him, and he's a very good artist.

This post has been edited by Xeoalpha: Apr 11 2008, 08:19 PM

you mean 'aren't ?

I want to say, yeah Max is good in painting. But does he want this thread to exist? because the Max i know is not someone that like to show off.

I asked him for permission and a little positive publicity never hurt anyone. Max is too humble to do it on his own and it's always nice as an artist for people to appreciate and want his work.

yes

Nice artworks! But no offence, I originally thought the same - photo manipulated. Cymon's doubtful because the faces are too much like the real photo that he used. Maybe it's Max's idea to follow exactly though I think it'd be better if he does it less obvious. Hehe I love the illustrations in the middle column!

Well if you guys don't believe it, you better believe it now

Take a look at this piece he had recently done and see how he colors stuff.

Here is another example (skipped steps you can see the whole thing at his Facebook)





He also did the game cover artwork for an indy game called Armor Valley which was recently recognized as an example of good indy art. You can find it here.

http://maximilian-wilson.deviantart.com/ is his site and if you want to see his tutorials, head over to his Facebook and see his galleries:

This post has been edited by Reuben: Jan 12 2010, 06:15 PM

Just really want you guys to see how talented this friend of mine is and hopefully give him some jobs!

Starving artist!

(He's even bald cause of over-eating Maggi Mee)

Ok, maybe not but you get the drift. His prices are VERY reasonable considering the professional quality of the work done and most importantly he's a frickin nice guy.

I'm hoping the guy who contacted Max through me for the Armor Valley project can post a kind word of feedback here.

Show the painting in a convincing step rather than trace over a picture and a lot of people smudge the original picture and call it painting. Artists of great talent and experienced should create jobs for themselves than asking the public for commission work because most people will not pay even for a master piece in traditional medium.

This post has been edited by Reuben: Jan 12 2010, 08:31 PM

can't seem the post the entire thing due to image limit but it's all on his facebook really which I have linked above for any who are in doubt (which seriously there is no reason to be doubtful)

Master artists aren't often master marketers (not that I am just helping a friend). Why do you think so many artists die unknown and only are recognized as great artists when they are dead?







This post has been edited by Reuben: Jan 12 2010, 08:32 PM

And here's the next set:

And the next!

The final few which involves touching up







One more after this post!

Tadah! Finished!

Sorry, no offense, still have my doubt. His arts are quite inconsistent throughout and that it felt like he copied it or traced it from some other references. One of his painting also feels like he took it off from some office brochure and has practically no meaning to why he needs to paint that.

But hey...., if I'm wrong, then congrats on finding such amazing artist.

If you're referring to the office paintings it's cause his client wanted it and it's cheaper to get someone to paint it than to get real life models. Of course the alternative was clip art but he can do those office paintings really quickly and charges quite low for them.

Well, I've commissioned a piece from him and so has my friends and the artwork he did for the indy game is def legit. The piece I commissioned is highly personalized so there's no way he can be grabbing a clip art from somewhere.

Oh well can't please u guys I guess. Even with a step by step thing you can still say trace....:/ ppl not so free to fake step by step ok and to do that would require a lot of skill to begin with also.

Seriously, there ARE people that free to fake step by step. It's a big world out there with even a guy taking time to paint a whole mona lisa picture pixel by pixel using old ms paint or painstakingly reverse paint the whole thing to fake it for fraud reason. It doesn't matter if it's cheaper to paint than to get real life model, bottom line it still feel like copied from an office brochure somewhere cause I seen that similar setup before. His artworks are also highly inconsistent ... or perhaps it's just me.

Unless he can come up with something more original that doesn't feel like copied from some sources like perhaps reinvent a totally new character that's hard to figure out where it might come from, people are definitely going to have doubt.

Leech is such a cynic and perhaps jaded already. Max's stuff have a consistent improvement every 3 months over his older stuff. In 2 years he's improved much.

Look abit... "stone" yet i like the colour tone

well truth be told, it never really bothers me what people want to think about my works, good or bad, like it or not, because in the end, its just something personal to me. some people think picasso's art is magnificent, some others outright hate it. art is just subjective that way and as for myself, i dont really make a point to try to show my works, because i never feel its ever good enough. but again, this is me and how i am.

as for those paintings like those 'office brochures', it was actually done for an ad agency, which they wanted to use in their proposal to their client, to show a friendly, cozy environment in an 'office', rather in that particular case, a bank.

as for the finishing, it looks rather unpolished, but recognizable enough i believe to depict the scene. it was part of a rather rushed thing, as i had to complete about 15+ paintings of those kinds in under 48 hours. now, i'm not bragging, nor am i attempting to defend myself in any way. i'm just merely explaining why some works turn out the way it did.

and since i joined up facebook only ... er i dont know when, maybe a couple of years back? XD none of the works there are timestamped. some of the works are from many many years ago, and some are more recent. i'd like to think that i have improved over the years, be it true or not, its really hard to judge sometimes. to some extent, i do like the look and feel of some of my older works too. but i guess, as i delve in more towards commercial arts, my finishing tend to get more and more polished and refined because a lot of people seem to want that more.

do i like to paint photo-realistic paintings? actually i dont. to me these paintings lack character. and character, is an important aspect to me. but is it more commercially viable this way? apparently it is. also, as much as i hate to do it, sometimes, clients require you to paint in certain ways, or certain styles. back in those days, i'd outright reject this notion ... but as we grow older, and become more realistic, sometimes, we have to compromise on principles to put food on the table.

of course, admittedly, not everything i do is 100% original and from my imagination. many times, i'd use references too. take the sins portraits for example; something which is rather obvious, the milla jovovich picture. if you're asking, i'm not denying, i had used references for that. yukie nakama, etc. there's no real shame in this to me. if you asked me to paint a falcon, like the one i did with the elven girl, i had to use google to look up a whole bunch of falcon pictures, to study them a bit, etc. etc. and use those references to paint too; because admittedly, i dont really know the features of one. but hey, it got it done. also there are works where i outright copied from other pictures because it was requested of me (clients hand me a picture, and tells me they want it to look like a painting). of course traditionally many people would probably just add some effects and touchup the pix to make it look like a painting. its like sketching class in college where i remember some friends just photocopy the reference big enough, and trace it ... and i remember screwing them for it (some of them might still remember getting into arguments with me over these matters). its not a big deal to many, but i like to make it a challenge still. if i had to copy pictures, i still would redraw and repaint it. why? well for one, i'm not a designer. not to insult anyone, but granted a designer's strength isnt in paintings, and thats a good alternative for them. their strength is in design. mine is in painting, so whatever comes my way, i want to enjoy the process, rather than 'tracing'. i'd never be able to improve that way.

but the real question here is this: can i actually paint? or am i purely someone who does image manipulations? i dont think we can find pictures of real armored bots with exploding buildings and flying ships, or a picture, today, so accurately depicting a sketch i did 8-9 years ago randomly in front of a group of people. or perhaps pictures so strikingly similar that its like turning those sketches i did in the client's office after a brief, into a painting.

i'm no genius, i'm no savant, and i'm certainly not a master in any aspect. i'm just another guy doing what i love to do. and i wish sometimes, i had time to do more of what i love, which is more fantasy oriented stuff. i rather create characters, worlds, the inhabitants but alas, again, sometimes, we are forced to do what we dont like as much just to put food on the table. but thats the cold harsh reality we live in. thats our society.

so yea, what i really want to say is, i think i can paint. i certainly would like to think so, after spending so many years of my life doing it haha. and i honestly still dont really care what people what to think of me, be it a fraud, or a fake, it doesnt concern me. some people that have commissioned some artwork that's based on things, objects, creatures, or situations even, thats not easily found, and have seen me sketch out samples in front of their eyes, picked one of it, and later see a finished painting based on the sketch, might still believe me (i hope hahaha).

but here, my friends are trying to help me, and i truly appreciate all that they've done for me. i could not have asked for better friends indeed. so i have to ask of you all, while you might criticize me or the way i do things, you might doubt me, you might even slander if necessary haha ... but please, do not make my friends' life difficult ^^"

in conclusion, i hoped i have resolved some issues or questions what were raised. and i thank you all for taking time and interest to read this wall of a post, and i hope it makes sense. either way, i appreciate all feedback, and look forward to improving myself further. thanks for your time

*edit* typos sorry ^^"

This post has been edited by wyulf: Jan 13 2010, 12:39 AM

wyulf: now stop typing here and get back to my painting!

*whips*

I'm just saying I have my doubts, no harm in that. But if it's truly your original work, then just be proud of yourself. Post your work in progress in youtube would be great .

This post has been edited by LeechFever: Jan 13 2010, 07:12 AM

like i've mentioned earlier, to be completely honest, i dont enjoy trying to throw the spotlight on myself. i've always preferred to stay low profile. it gives me a lot of room and freedom to move around.

also, like i've said, i dont rightly care if people want to think whatever of me. i dont want to live my life based on what people think. i dont wanna change because some people think of me a certain way. i am who i am, i do what i do. right or wrong, ultimately, i will let my conscience be my only judge.

to me there's nothing to prove by showing off my skills. besides like some of you have mentioned earlier in this thread, people might go 'wow' perhaps, but then no one is still going to spend money on it. and there IS much truth in that. so in the end, those who DO want my services will look me up all the same.

take nico di mattia for example. he has many youtube videos on so-called 'speed painting'. to begin with, a fast forwarded work isnt speed painting. speed painting is painting something as finished as possible in as little time as possible. its a visualization technique used a lot by concept artists and the likes. we have to rush perhaps painted figures within 1/2 hour? 45mins? or maybe full blown scenes within an hour? 2hours? thats speed painting, not what nico does. also, nico paints using references as well. now i'm not saying nico is a bad artist. he's talented and skilled in what he does, no doubt about that. but what causes the hype? because the video is so sped up you really think he could paint that fast? or because it looks really good and realistic, despite the fact you dont see the other monitor where the reference was sitting on? does these factors alone eliminate all doubts from him as compared to myself? its ok, because again, it doesnt matter to me. but all i want to say is, even in video, its not hard for someone to 'fake' something. by faking here, i mean 'not really what you would think'. ultimately its just about gaining a certain status, its about stepping into the limelight. and again to me, its irrelevant. a video of me working, and a finished painting ... its really all the same. those who would want to believe, would have believed, those who are skeptical, can always remain skeptical still.

but i dont think all this makes me arrogant. i do try to help those who want to learn. i do share whatever knowledge i have, every trick i've learned. its not something i can carry to the grave, and its better to share it with people who might need it too. i'm not worried, nor do i care if people i help or teach becomes better than me. in fact if they do, i'd be really proud

so like some friends who posted earlier (er i think that was lun XD ), he was right. i'm not really comfortable sitting here with the light on me, and i doubt i ever will. i'd love to be great, i'd love to be exceptional, i'd love to be a master of the arts, but i dont really want to sacrifice the freedom of living my life for it and thats pretty much why i do what i do ... kinda law low and keep a low profile a bit ^^"

Never mind la. There will be ppl who will be interested in your artwork In fact, I found someone who would be interested in commissioning a work from you. Look me up.

I'm the developer of Armor Valley, who Max did the front cover and some UI for the game. Great guy with great attitude, and great work.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Armor-Valley...on/177607733163

The video at the end has the bigger title image

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRczPr2iPgA

Looking forward to work more with you in near future.

hmmmm the 3D game looks nice. Never heard of Armor valley though.......further research shows it was produced by a protege production in Singapore. Nice work. One critic is the intro page at the end with the annoying gun and metal banging sound. A bit long, high pitched and sound like you took it from an old game sound effect but could be just the youtube bad sound quality.

And ya, that intro page do look like hand painted from scratch so I can at least give it a benefit of the doubt.

This post has been edited by LeechFever: Jan 13 2010, 10:04 PM

The third picture from his latest art piece, looks very nice. I can feel the art. Very good indeed. Keep it up!

Regards, Joey

Yup, Protege production is a singapore company, though nothing with engaging a Malaysian artist. I'm Malaysian too.

The video was not the official one. This is, but without the main page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJqkNnRuw-4

There is no shame in tracing/reference. Basically u can tell by the progress shown in the portfolio and how the understanding as an artist develops. Most portfolio will show this. From there u will know if its consistently original or too heavy on the reference side.

Mind u it takes skills evern with heavy reference. Concept artist do that alot but always come up with something totally different than the reference material. Thats what the industry wants. A creative artist and not just mere copier.

Great work!

@Leech....hows everything...man...gotta give cymon a buzz.

Key thing here is that he didn't trace tho But I think Max's art speaks for itself whether they want to appreciate it or not

Yo. Long time no see your post. Doing ok here.

Anyway, the problem is not really the tracing part, but that the artist claim he did not trace it. A bit unbelievable but if it's true then we have ourselves quite an amazing one here. To tell the truth, I'm still skeptical on the whole matter...but that's just ma individual opinion. If other believe in it, then let it be just that then.

tracing =/= using reference.

tracing is one way of how u use a reference. U can take photo of it, u can cut it and paste it, u can trace part here and part there and put it to become a new picture.

In the end, your final must represent YOU, as an artist and have your own interpretation no matter in its meaning, style or wuteva. U must state ur case for your piece - is it a study of lighiting, composition or stroke practice. If u dont state any of that, ppl will take ur final piece as totally urs and expect a story from the artist of what the piece is saying.

nice... prefer 3rd option

it's not an option la it's just showing how he slowly paint it more and more cause some ppl say they don't believe he do it.

I believed he did it with his hands...no doubt. But I also believed he had reference. If not, he got an excellent sense of anatomy, composition, color, fashion and photographical values.

If no reference, his other works must be consistent with those qualities. Looking at his early portraits thumbs, my opinion is he use referance - Which is totally fine. But to be different, we need to look at things differently. Thousands of other artists can do the same thing he did. But not everybody can be H.R. Giger or Alan Lee.

Of course, I don't think Max is comparing himself with the likes of Alan Lee or HR Giger. He's just a talented artist/painter or however you want to call it.

What other people are saying here is that he traced or it's not even his own work. References are something that are normal and I believe he blends both by looking at pics and their poses and studying them before deciding on what he wants to paint.

I think almost all artists use reference pictures perhaps only the very best and even they would have to start somewhere with reference pics as well before developing the necessary technique to create their own style. Now I'm not Max so I don't know how far he has used reference pictures but I do know that they're not traced and are his own works.

Like for eg, I've asked him to do a portrait of a friend as a Na'vi in a Pandora forest. Now he has to get the face done right and he would have to look at several reference pics of the girl. Is this wrong? I don't think so, it's indeed a necessary thing to do. Then he has to look at reference pictures for the Pandora world and work out the composition of the piece. He's not simply taking a set picture from an existing painting and then just putting the face there. He actually gave me several rough sketches on the environment and the pose of my friend and we were still working out the details of the composition before finalizing on the sketch. Of course he has to see the movie and look at pictures of Pandora but he's actually sketching them and melding them together to make a unique piece.

Is doing a portrait and placing them in a fantasy world, art work? Sure, not something that would sell for millions of dollars but it's something that I would want to buy and that's what I'm trying to tell people here. Max is a great artist capable of realizing your dreams by painting personalized pictures of you in fantasy settings.

And after all aren't most comics based on an existing universe? I wouldn't say those comics are not artwork. They definitely have to reference spiderman, superman and come up with their own interpretation and that's what Max is doing.

At the end of the day, i'm telling people here that Max has the sufficient skills to do these kinds of work and not saying he's some Alan Lee or HR Giger. Please...I don't know how this thread degenerated into this and its really quite sickening especially since you have these bunch of people telling him that he's a fraud or that he's no Alan Lee...well I'll like to see them do better.

This post has been edited by Reuben: Jan 19 2010, 03:10 PM

Dont get me wrong. Im not underestimating him at all. Just saying if he really wanna be distinct and recognised by his style and not expandable in the market, he got to be different. Thats all im saying.