well, his guys, as most of you can see I'm purty new on the forum, and also reeeaaaalll new to digital painting.

so I hvae a question for yawll that I'd like to know.

ME and a friend of mine are strating work on a children's book abour pirates, and it seems to me that the quickest and most realistic way to paint islands ( we're going for that thai island look) seems to be matte painting. however, I am totally cluesless as to how the process of matte painting works and also where I can find some good stock photos...

can anyone help? 

well i can't say i know much about matte painting, but i think it's certainly not the easiest way, most people who post matte painting here have worked for ages on theirs and they are very detailed and difficult to do well. I wonder if you might be thinking more of photomanipulation? But i wouldn't think that would work so well with a childrens book.

 Either way, i wouldn't think the easy option would be the best one, especially if you are trying to get published, but i'm quite possibly completely misinterpreting your question, ha ha

Matte Painting is not that complicated... It just needs a little time and patience like any other craft :)

There are different approaches you can take. Usually a layout through speedpaint and / or 3D helps you get your perspective right and a working composition, the 3D lighting of a rough 3D layout also helps later integrating the photo elements. Afterwards using more elaborate/ finished 3D elements and stock footage helps give it the photorealism you need. (Gnomon workshop has great demo DVDs on the subject)  

For stock images... well a good digital cam can't be beaten but the web is also full of sites like "flickr" that have zillions of available material.  You just have to be carefull to use only parts of the images as not to break the owner's copyright. If you want to use a full image "as is"... then asking the owner for permission is probably the best thing. 

hope this helps a little :)

so it seems matte painting takes a lot longer then, awel, I'm still at the trial and error stae in desgining the look and feel of the book, so I'm considering every available option, Matte being one of them. I'm not overly worried about time consumption, since haste in art usually makes waste, especially with me.

thanks alot for the advice about flickr etc...stupid to think I never thought of using flickr.... 

you make it sound so easy yellowdog..... lol, kidding, it does look harder than it is then.

by the way just looked in your gallery, wow, it's awesome work! i love 'why so serious' what a brilliant idea. Great stuff. 

Thnks for the good word !

Matte Painting is not that hard... It can be boiled down to some photomontage over an illustration in order to make it more photorealistic. ;)  The hardest parts are the same as for a good illustration... composition, lighting and dynamism.

It's a lot quicker then having to do a whole scene in 3D.  Usually studios use Matte works to save time and energy on shots that won't have multiple camera angles or that aren't reused often. That way then can use 1 artist to produce the shot over a couple of weeks instead of a whole crew over months for a full fledge set.  The matte shot is camera dependant so it can only be used for that shot... the 3D set is more camera change friendly.