Domenico Sellaro is a rising talent! A young Digital Artist who specializes in Creative Retouching, and Matte Painting. He began to teach himself Photoshop in 2008, but has since taught himself how to use 3D programs like Sculptris and Blender too. During these years he has been selected for international exhibitions, become featured in the Wacom gallery online, and received features in international Photoshop magazines. He is now Founder and CEO at The Creative Dot and he’s working as Freelance Digital Artist for some clients from Europe and other countries.
DIYP: Tell us a little of how you got into Photoshop and Design, and who your influences are.
DS: Since I was child I have been conditioned from the digital world around me.Growing in myself was an incredible desire to change my creative life, and all the fantastic dreams in my mind. So during 2008 I decided to start using Adobe Photoshop CS2, I self-taught myself and spent all my free time editing. I decided that this was the life for me. Now I use Adobe Photoshop as a professional from about 3 years.
DIYP: You were nominated for the Adobe 25 under 25. Tell us how this came about..
DS: My Tentacle for Adobe 25 Under 25 Contest is a little photomanipulation to show to all people what is behind all my creative ideas. With this project I wanted to capture a little strange moment of my life. I lost my creativity up until I got a little kick-ass from a natural documentary about octopus and other animals of the sea. This gave me a little refresh to restart to using Adobe Photoshop again.
DIYP: How important is Photoshop in your workflow. Does your work rely on it or could you still create your images without it.
DS: Photoshop is a very important for my creative way. I have other program knowledge but my favourite program is Photoshop.
DIYP: Where would you like to see yourself in 10 years time.
DS: I haven’t an idea. I still see myself as a beginner at this time. In fact I hope to improve myself and my skills to become one of the most important Digital Artist in the whole of the world. I believe in myself and I know that I can grow up in this creative field.
DIYP: What or who, are your influences.
DS: The nature and all things around me are influences for my creative mind. I capture every day, moments of my life, and I blend it with my imagination.
DIYP: Some of your images have multiple composited elements, on average how long does an image take to complete.
DS: Each image has a different history behind itself. I spent different time for each image, from 1 week to 1 month and more. This process taught me to use a different approach with each project I create.
DIYP: With the rise of Photoshop, and most people these days having access to it, do you think it is harder to stand out from the crowd?
DS: In this moment many people have decided to use Adobe Photoshop to create different images, but I think that just a little part of them will be considered as a professional. New versions of Photoshop seem very hard to use than past editions, so all people have to spend more time to improve themselves.
DIYP: What would be your best piece of advice to people just starting to use Photoshop for the first time.
DS: Dear people, believe in yourself and work very hard to improve your skills. I suggest that you create your own personal approach on each image so you stand out from the crowd.
you should visit cgtalk…. i do 3d since 1993 and to be honest this is just basic stuff.
I used only Adobe Photoshop to create this project.
I started to use Blender this year and I created the spaceship in Star Wars Digital Matte Painting
I used only Adobe Photoshop to create these projects.
I started to use Blender this year and I created the spaceship in Star Wars Digital Matte Painting.
I’m wondering, how many of these images are 100% his own creations and how many consist partially (if not completely) of stock images. That’s a problem I’m having with the term Photoshop artist, it’s taking somebody else’s work, playing around with it and then claiming it “my artwork”. I have no problems with using stock photos, when the artist, for each image, states clearly: stock images used by DeviantArt user SoAndSo and SomeStockImageCompany.com. If that isn’t done, it’s a form of artistic dishonesty.
is there a place where we can learn how to use blender and photoshop to create images like these? thanks
Get some courses on Digital Tutors, or similar site. Spend a couple of hundred hours to get comfortable with software. Then, in a year or two you will have enough skills to do something similar.
https://pixls.us and https://blenderartists.org/forum/ might be good starting points?
For blender – I strongly suggest avoiding forums and youtube videos at first. They are too scattered, to efficiently teach you basics of the software.
Get some kind of basic A-Z Blender courses. Only when you have the basics – then go to forums and youtube tutorials, to learn specific things you are interested in. I suggest, to get 10day free trial at Lynda.com, to go through the essentials. Then, when you have the basics down – search for specific tutorials in forums and youtube…
There’s actually a free wikibook for Blender: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro that should carry you through a structure of learning interface and basics reasonably well.
I don’t think, that wiki type of resources are effective educational sources for beginners. On average, most people are too lazy, to read and they aren’t as effective as video courses with real time examples…
…personally, I use 3ds Max. I started learning with youtube tutorials, and autodesk’s knowledge database, that was a huge mistake, because tutorials are too scattered, to teach proper and effective workflow. Eventually I got my way around it, but I wasted a lot of time, by not getting into proper courses…
Basically, you could dig your way through resources, like wiki, youtube and forums, but it would take weeks, to learn what you would learn in ~8 hour video course, that you could finish in a few days.
I used only Adobe Photoshop to create these projects.
I started to use Blender this year and I created the spaceship in Star Wars Digital Matte Painting.
Out of curiosity, how do you prefer to light 3d objects, for compositing? Manual lighting, stock HDRI spheres, or custom HDRI spheres?
Curious, Can I hire your services? My skype is Hanhtdang .. email is hanhtdang@aol.com
Finally an article about Open Source Software Blender. Screw proprietary photoshop. Use Gimp instead.
The image with the angel looks very nice. However, not mentioning, that you used stock images by other artists for this seem a little dishonest to me.
http://techgnotic.deviantart.com/art/Apocalypto-134103575
https://wallpaperscraft.com/image/wood_trees_fog_foliage_autumn_cool_57485_960x544.jpg
I bought on shutterstock the image of forest and then I mentioned this artist when I have published this project.
Let’s see. You are selling this image through multiple channels even though the CreativeCommons license for the angel image does not include commercial use. You are implying plagarism on a poster design because it uses the same background stock image. You claim to have bought it on Shutterstock, even though this image isn’t sold by Shutterstock. And to top it off, you are lying when you say you mentioned the artist when you published this project. This is highly shameful and very bad practise for an artist.
I didn’t sell my project but this is just a personal project and I mentioned him when I have published this project on socials like Facebook and others.
I created this project in 2013 and I bought the image of forest in 2012 on shutterstock!
I’m don’t lying.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7f16eef4aeeab99716e87d52cea1cbe30740445c76183c313caa2cf94b1cdab8.png
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a38dc8c3f6fedc28915032e0526d5d31da80fafcd295de91c62cee21a0b04ba.png
these two screenshots from your facebook page tell another story, you do sell that particular image and you did not mention the artist – not the first time you posted that image and not ever since.
I didn’t sell my projects.
I know, I published this post two years ago but I didn’t sell them.
This was a simple mock up to show my projects, but I didn’t sell them ok?
When I published for the first time “The Nature of Angel” I mentioned the artist.
It’s a personal project, made to try some photoshop techniques.
I’m sorry…I was wrong to write those words about prints.
I didn’t sell my projects because I made them to try photoshop techniques.
I started to sell my projects on Curioos from 2 months, but just new projects I sell.
The old projects are only photoshop experiments.