The Art of John Uibel

^{“Proscenium Streetmosphere”; Photoshop CS3}

^{Billboard concept; “Orange County Mardi Gras” © 2007 John R. Uibel
Photoshop CS3}

Thought I’d better post something, seeing I was starting to receive condolence messages regarding my (unbeknownst to me) demise. Last year I did this little number for a billboard campaign in the Los Angeles area to advertise the Orange County Mardi Gras. Text would be placed over the darker area in the upper left. Ultimately is wasn’t used (it better not have been, as they never paid me, hint hint). They wanted something ‘concepty’ and ’sketched’, which I thought would read well as one traveled along the freeway at 80 mph — but then, does anyone travel along that freeway at 80 mph?

^{“Perhaps it was the Fish” © John R. Uibel 2007
Photoshop CS2, 6 x 8 Wacom tablet; approx. 3 hrs}

Well, just something to keep the skills up, ya know what I mean? This is an assembly of about 15 photos. I can’t quite call it a matte painting, but it’s something more than a photocollage. It was Halloween recently and I thought I’d do something macabre. I know it’s a couple of days late, but whatever. I’m uploading many of the original images so you can see what I was up against.

Yeah, well sorry for the long absence (but then, is anyone really reading any of this?) It’s been a kwazy month or three to be sure. Ask me why and I’ll tell you.

In other news: I am pleased to announce the release of another 6-page Photoshop tutorial I wrote for the fabulous Advanced Photoshop Magazine, which as you know is arguably the best Photoshop idea mag out there, period, hands down. The artists and concepts put forth in the magazine really are inspirational, and I’m happy to be a part of it.

You know those inspirational TV spots (which sometimes play during trailers at the theater) that last about 15 seconds and have the tag-lines like: “Courage. Pass it on.”, or “Integrity. Pass it on”. You know those, right? They are sponsored by a non-profit organization called, “The Foundation for a Better Life”, based in Denver.

And, with my high-fiber low-sodium 6-page matte painting tutorial inside. This was a fun project to do, and I’m so thankful for Emma Cake and her staff over there in Great Britain for their willingness to just let me do my thing. It was something of a learning curve because the file ended up being enormous and slowed my computer to a crawl — probably took 10 times longer than it should have, but we still hit the deadline with a week to spare. The issue hits the stands March 1, so run out and grab 20 copies.

Here is another sketch for another matte painting coming soon. In my sneezy, fevered condition I think it turned out well enough. I was going for a pre-dawn venusian smog atmosphere kind of thing. Photoshop CS & CS2; 2 hrs of work combined with about 3 hrs of Everybody Loves Raymond.

Sometimes the sheer quantity of work and the tight deadlines don’t allow me the luxury of time to explore detail and nuance in my work the way I would like. Even with these pressures, I often get stuck in Detail Minutia Land when I really should be worrying more about the overall composition of the illustration. I hope this a common problem with everyone and not just me…

For a cerebral pick-me-up, thought-recharge and sound spanking of your environmental-design idea-making brain-thing, go out right now and buy yourself a copy of Travelogues, a collection of images and observations of people and places all over the earth by first-hand traveler Burton Holmes. It contains hundreds of large images of strange people, their dress and stylings, customs and brief explanatory notes of his celebrated travels to faraway places at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Too big to fit in your back pocket but small enough to easily slip into your trunk, you could carry this with you wherever you drive.

This is detail from a rough sketch of a proposed painting idea I did for a matte painting tutorial commissioned for a well-known magazine. I gave them two ideas and they picked the other one which I’m not going to show you until it’s published. But I still want to do this one when I have some time — I think it would be fun. PS3beta; 1 hour.