Invisible Art - best reference

[Boof]

Just wanted to say that by far the best comprehensive teaching tool on Matte Painting is Craig Barron's "The Invisible Art".
Not only does it delve into the whole history of Matte Painting (including the digital age) but showcases some of the best matte paintings done. Just studying the compositions alone of those paintings is worthwhile.
I believe a paperback version is available or will be by December.
A must have for the book shelf.

-Eric

[Ross Forster]

Yeah, you'll find this listed with all the other recommended books in another thread.

I concur, its an excellent book and well worth the read. 8)

[thedoc]

I personally think that refference photos are the way to go. You need to get something realistic done see? painting it by hand is too difficult. Anyway... why paint by hand digitaly? if you wanna paint then do it on glass as far as i am concerned (though i'm new to matte painting).

I think that you should 'paint' only as far as you can and just to stop the refference footage from controling your matte.

thats what i think anyhow.

[Nazgul]

Is ther a CDRom with the book?
I got mine and did not have cd

[cstoski]

Yes, there is a CD-ROM that comes with the book. It contains some extra info that isn't in the book. I worked on the book with Craig Barron and I see that the CD has what Craig wanted to be the alternate cover for at one time... the painting of the man looking through the camera at the matte painting (it's the first image you see when the CD-ROM interface launches).

It also has quicktime movies with moving shots and matte painting / composite breakdowns from several movies including Citizen Kane and Star Wars: the Empire Strikes Back.

Try and get a copy, it's worth it.

[rrische]

I give the book mixed reviews. It's a wealth of interesting
information, and some nice pictures, but it fails as the definitive
history of the field, especially in the last 25 years. IMHO.

[cstoski]

As I said earlier, I worked with Craig Barron on the book. One of the many things I learned when I worked on this project was that sometimes the studios that own the rights to significant historical matte paintings don't allow them to be photographed or published. In some cases, they are saving them for their own future publishings.

I too have my opinion on what I feel is missing from the book, it's not perfect, but I think many of us agree that there is no one better source available yet today about the matte painting industry. If anyone knows one, please let me know. The 2 closest books I would say are Peter Ellenshaw's book and the first ILM book that has all of Chapter 8 dedicated to matte painting.

Just out of curiousity, what paintings would those of you reading this thread add to THE INVISIBLE ART book?

[kevjenkins]

there was some stunning paintings done by the MillFilm guys on Black Hawk Down and A Knights tale. Dave Early and Simon wicker i think did them.

i also remember seeing some great shots in The Black Hole.

[stix]

I think the book is fantastic (I only wish the publisher didn't shrink some of the photos) and would have liked to see more work from the master - Albert Whitlock and then Syd Dutton. (I was hoping to see work from the Newsies for example.) Are you asking because a supplement is in the works ?
(PS - although the digital work done now is more seemless it just feels more sterile compared to the oil paintings of the past - I feel the same way about CGI vs stop motion)

[cstoski]

I agree, it would've been nice if the publisher would've let us keep all the images as big as possible. Also, I hate seeing images that have the focal point in the "gutter" of the book.

As for a book in the works, I don't know of any yet. I was only asking to see what other paintings people here of the forum favored that didn't make it in the book. I was just curious.