20 PROFESSIONAL TIPS FOR PHOTOBASHING
- USE STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY
FREELANCE CONCEPT ARTIST SEBASTIEN HUE BREAKS DOWN ONE OF HIS
PHOTOBASH CREATIONS, WHERE STOCK IMAGERY IS MANIPULATED INTO ARTWORK
01
USE YOUR
IMAGINATION
“Imagination is very important in
photobashing, because you need
to see beyond just pieces of stock.
In this case, I just took a photo of
a car motor as a start for the head
of my robot concept. Then I
developed the rest of the face with
other elements that would help
the design of the character.”02
BLEND AND
BE ACCURATE
“In greyscale, I tried to blend the
elements together through colour
corrections or [digital] painting to
create something coherent and
consistent. I tried to have a head
that looks like a head and so
anatomical notions are key points
as well when tackling characters,
even for robots.”03
BUILD THE CONCEPT
“Here I developed the
concept further by texturing the
materials of the robot through
metal and rust textures. The light
source is very important when
selecting your stocks, so I fleshed
out my concept keeping that in
mind, paying attention to which
stocks I picked to avoid incoherent
reflections and heavy corrections.” © SHUE-DIGITALBeforeAfter- PICK THE PERFECT PHOTOS
Finding the right images for your photobash work is
really important, as Tony Andreas Rudolph explains: “I
select the images [based on the] perspective and light
direction that I need for my concept. When I want to
print the final result, or when it will be used for a more
detailed view, sharpness and noise inside the images
are very important. Colours are not so important...
However, as well as finding the right images, you also
need to be careful where you are sourcing the
images from and how they will be used. “I am always
looking for my resources really carefully, as well as
using my own images. I mostly look for images in
the DeviantArt Stock Image section and on Flickr
with the Advanced Search set to find only images
where it is allowed to use them for commercial work
and where I am able to edit them.”