Inspiration
Concept Artist Pairs Photography and Digital Art to Take Us Into The War of the Future
Hollywood has painted for us a view of the future. From robots to the fight for humanity’s survival, the future seems as bleak as Orwell’s dystopian 1984 must have when it was written back in 1949. When you picture the future what do you see?
A professional concept artist from Malaysia, Johnson Ting has an image in his mind of what the future may hold and in his free time, he creates these images with nothing more than a Wacom Intuos Pro tablet and Photoshop. The world he pictures is straight out of the video games he works on. As a child, Johnson was always fascinated with video games. “I was so amazed by how beautiful Starcraft is when I was a kid and I’ve been aiming to have a chance to work on games ever since, managed to put myself through art college and I was lucky enough to achieve that goal when I got out of college.”
[REWIND: TIME IN MOTION: DAWN TO DUSK SHIMMERS IN ANIMATED LAYERED LANDSCAPES]
As a professional artist in the gaming industry, Johnson has worked with clients such as Activision, Netherrealm, Infinity Ward, Electronic Arts, and DICE, 2K and spends his life immersed in gaming. When he’s not working on a project, Johnson is playing all the latest games and reading up on his other interest, military history, equipment and technology. So is the inspiration behind his two current projects: Neo Japan 2202 and DefCon Zero.
With DefCon Zero, Johnson has taken images he finds of soldiers and will spend 15-20 hours on an image to create a futuristic looking warrior in his own futuristic gaming world. He has also crafted stories around some of his images and is working on a book project for his series, Neo Japan 2202.
His images are found usually through stock images or images that are public domain and he incorporates his art so seamlessly that you’d be hardpressed to tell where the original image begins and where his art has been merged in.
The original image from the photo above can be seen here. The detailing that goes into Johnson’s work is quite intricate, down to the scratches in the metal on the soldier’s gear, though he’d be the first to admit that he is still learning. Here is a closeup of the detail that shows why it takes Johnson so many hours to create an image:
You can watch his process in the video below:
The images below are from his Neo Japan 2202 series, which you can see at Johnson Ting’s DeviantArt.
[Via Sploid]
Those are some amazing images, thanks for sharing.
Very cool mix of photography and digital art. Love it!
C’est Incroyable! It’s amazing what people can do with a little time and creativity. Love seeing speed paintings like these.
Brilliant!
Wow, his Photoshop art work is amazing, thank you for sharing!
Thank you for featuring this artists work. The blending of the real photograph with the generated portions are seamless to my eye. I wish I had half his skill in Photoshop. Also +1 for the use of the Halo soundtrack in the video :)