Every year, for the April fool, it's a tradition and an excellent challenge for me to try to remix various popular universes with fake project.
For the previous year I made some fake concept for Yoshi Island, Dragon Ball, Back to the Futur and more. You can discover my old April fools here : https://www.artstation.com/tohad/albums/77406

This year, I asked to all my team of Umeshu lovers to participate to the fake project "Kiki & Chihiro : Spirited Delivery", a fake video game and tribute to the amazing universe of Ghibli.
Here a resume of all the work we made together for this challenge :

It's a huge team work of environment design, charadesign, Zbrush sculpt, 3D block out and digital painting.
You can discover the portfolio of each talented member of our team here :

https://www.artstation.com/jennymati

https://www.artstation.com/gevoel

https://www.artstation.com/luciem

https://www.artstation.com/elairin

https://www.artstation.com/kahess

https://www.artstation.com/jihenesifi

See you in 2022 for our next AAA April fool!

The colorful landscapes of William Wendt ( 1865-1946 )

Backgrounds from Roujin Z (老人Ｚ, 1991, APPP) 

The Mandalorian concept art by Jama Jurabaev http://jamajurabaev.com (2019, Lucasfilm / Fairview Entertainment) 

This week I wanted to share with you the Roman Sculptures Cutout pack, one of my masked photo pack I propose on my Artstation store. I offer you 25% OFF COUPON for it with the code "WEEKOFINSPIRATION27". It's valid during one week until Apr 4, 2021 ! Enjoy :D

This packs contains a compilation of sculptures that you can see in Rome and the Vatican. There are busts, lonely characters or in groups, a few animals. All are in very expressive and stylish positions, evoking a big variety of emotions and situations. 

You can see a composition that I made in 6 hours with a photobashing of this pack. 

Have a great week folks!

Backgrounds from Only Yesterday (Omoide Poro Poro, art director Kazuo Oga, 1991 Studio Ghibli) : 

Backgrounds from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1917, Walt Disney Productions)

Chauncey Foster Ryder's trees (1868–1949) 

  

The elegant precision in the compositions of @Gb_Vizdev  : https://guillaume_boucher.artstation.com

More inspiration and references on my twitter and FB account : https://twitter.com/sylvainsarrailh& https://www.facebook.com/TohadChaos

Have a great week folks!

The sumptuous lights of Albert Bierstadt (1830 – 1902) :

Backgrounds from "Children Who Chase Lost Voices" (Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo, 星を追う子ども,  CoMix Wave Films) :

The work of Masayasu Uchida ( 内田 正泰 ) that I have already share but I can't resist to share again other of his wonderful art! It's a such beautiful way to express depth and scales just with hard shapes and flat colors :  

Backgrounds by @tomclohosycole, from "The Cranberries - All Over Now" video clip :  https://www.behance.net/gallery/77490697/Backgrounds-for-The-Cranberries

This week I wanted to share with you the  last photo reference pack I propose on my Artstation store. It's a  traditional painted pack of masked rocks to populate very quickly your natural scene with stones from the foreground to the background. The set, created by  Johanna Capelle, proposes a large variety of sizes and shapes to create the rocks assembly you need easily.  

You can also see here an example of composition I made in 4 hours. You can see that the painted rocks give a vibrating and unique traditional touch to my artwork!  The layered psd of this artwork is included in the pack :) 

More inspiration and references on my twitter and FB account : https://twitter.com/sylvainsarrailh & https://www.facebook.com/TohadChaos

Have a great week folks!

Backgrounds from Laputa, the Castle in the Sky (天空の城ラピュタ, 1986 - Ghibli Studios, art director : Nizo Yamamoto) 

The hills and skies of John Frost (1890–1937)

Backgrounds from Yōjo Senki: Saga of Tanya the Evil (幼女戦記, 2017 Studio NuT, Art Director : Hirayanagi Satoru) 

I have done one year ago Sayonara Wild Hearts video game by @simogo. It's a design lesson accompanied by an inspiring wave of energy. Don't miss this experience.  

More inspiration and references on my twitter and FB account : https://twitter.com/sylvainsarrailh & https://www.facebook.com/TohadChaos

Have a great week folks!

I wanted to show you how we created with Johanna Capelle the Leafy Bushes Cutout pack I propose on my store, by painting first the shapes with black Indian ink.

We choose to use the traditional medium to keep the “happy accident” it provoques. It’s so interesting and rich to play with these incidents ! The traditional brushes and the liquid matter provide a big variety of trails and stains. 

For these different pieces of bushy shrubs, more or less dense bushes, thickets and plants with large sheets, we first studied natural fields. We took photos to capture the plant essence we were interested in, their shapes, colors, organisations.

Back home, Johanna synthesizes and gives shape to our observation painting the silhouettes with ink. We direct special attention to the natural shape language to create expressive figures. Then we scan in 600ppp to obtain very high resolution files to be digitally processed. 

Here is an extract from the painted sheets. You can see some shapes used in the Leafy Bushes Cutout pack and also other silhouettes we will propose in a futur Pixelref pack ! 

The next step after painting and scanning is the digital painting process on photoshop to give the volumes and colors of the bushes, but I think it will be interesting to do another blog post to show you that ! But here is the result of the digital painting of the volumes and colors of the bushes made by Johanna Capelle . You can find all details, full content and an example of illustration made with the Leafy Bushes Cutout pack on my store! 

Framed by trees, the gardens of Santiago Rusiñol (1861-1931) 

Backgrounds from LUNA - The Shadow Dust by Beidi Guo (2020, @LanternStudio_ ) : https://behance.net/guobetty

Backgrounds from Anastasia by Paul Cheng (1997, 20th Century Fox Animation)

Have you seen the last photo reference pack I propose on my Artstation store ? It's a report of urban exploration in a deserted service station. It's a compilation of 240+ graffiti textures, large and close-up viewpoints of the inside and outside of the site, burned vehicule, garbage and debris texture ...  

I propose 20% OFF during the Market Place Reference Pack Sale on all my store, enjoy! 

Extract from the pack : 

More inspiration and references on my twitter and FB account : https://twitter.com/sylvainsarrailh& https://www.facebook.com/TohadChaos

Have a great week folks!

The inspiring stylisation in the composition of Henry Wong : https://instagram.com/henrywongdraws/ 

Backgrounds from Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1989, Tokyo Movie Shinsha, art director : Nizo Yamamoto)

Panorama from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (風の谷のナウシカ, 1984, Topcraft, Toei Company, Art director Nakamura Mitsuki) :

More inspiration and references on my twitter and FB account : https://twitter.com/sylvainsarrailh& https://www.facebook.com/TohadChaos

Have a great week folks!

With the layers breakdown of this artwork, you could learn the broad lines of construction I use to build that kind of crowd image. 

You’ll see that to give a good depth of field I organise the image by different grounds. To create them I play on the size of the subjects off course. Also I set the light correction of each ground and it’s interesting to insert particles or pure haze between them to emphasize the depth and to give energy and moves to the ongoing action.   

This image was done in 30 minutes using the masked photo pack “Medieval Combat Cutout” that you can find on my Artstation store. 

The pack contains 120+ HD masked foot medieval fighters photos to create your own epic battle very quickly ! 

If you are interested by that kind of assets I invite you to follow the PIXELREF feed on Instagram. It's a Photo, Painting, Texture and Brush packs ressource for artists made by my partner Johanna Capelle and me.

The bright colors of Jack Wilkinson Smith (1873-1949)

Backgrounds from The Illusionist (2010, Pathé/Django Films) :

Backgrounds from Miss Hokusai (2015, Production I.G., art director : Hiroshi Ohno ) 

Have you seen the last photo reference pack I propose on my Artstation store ? It's a compilation of wide landscapes of rocky summits and outcrops. You’ll find grassy and bare rock terrains captured from multiple points of view.  The mountains have been masked out so that they can be pasted easily into matte paintings, like this below made by Johanna Capelle. 

I propose 20% OFF during the Valentine's Days Sale on all my store, enjoy! 

More inspiration and references on my twitter and FB account : https://twitter.com/sylvainsarrailh& https://www.facebook.com/TohadChaos

Have a great week folks!