Bringing uncanny realism to an artificial medium
Sometimes you’ll see an image and read the description. Then your mind will start to argue with your brain. Volleys of disagreement will flutter away as you re-read the description. No, no this can’t be right. This isn’t a photograph?
Bert Monroy is an artist from New York City who uses a digital palette and canvas to create his very unique art. His photo-realist style has developed over many years of manipulating images created on computers, starting back in 1984 with the purchase of a Macintosh 128.
The image above is an excerpt from a larger scene of the Damen Station on the Blue Line in Chicago. Originally unveiled at PhotoShop World Miami in March ’06, it was painstakingly created using Adobe Illustrator and PhotoShop.
To give you a sense of the enormity of creating such an uncanny scene, here are a few stats from Monroy’s website:
- The image size is 40 inches by 120 inches.
- The flattened file weighs in at 1.7 Gigabytes.
- It took eleven months (close to 2,000 hours) to create.
- It is comprised of close to fifty individual files.
- The overall image contains over 15,000 layers.
- Over 500 alpha channels were used for various effects.
- Over 250,000 paths make up the multitude of shapes.
See the whole image and read more about the Damen Project.
These days, Monroy helps to inspire and teach new artists with his how-to show called PixelPerfect on Revision3.
See Also:
Bert Monroy
Photo Gallery
