Digital Paintings

Occasionally I create digital paintings from scratch in photoshop by using different brushes and tools. This I have been doing since I was 8 years old when my dad installed Photoshop 7.0 on the family’s common computer back in 2008. Since 2012 I am also using a wacom board which helps me speed up the work and create clean lines. A painting usually take over 20 hours to finalize. I always start with a blank canvas and usually paint whatever, whenever I feel like. Every stableplan is unique and personal. No help of AI whatsoever!

Type of project
Personal side project

When
2008 – now

Time

20+ hours per painting

Tools

Adobe Photoshop, Wacom board

My Personal Style

My personal style is characterized by pixel perfection, high detail and sharpness. The paintings usually have high contrast, excessive vibrance and many different colours. The skies often include dramatic sunsets with lots of pink tones. In the middle of the painting there is often a courtyard with old, beautiful buildings, usually inspired by England. The courtyard is surrounded by a rich variety of flora. At the bottom of the painting there is often a foreground object, for example a path, a fence or flowers.

I want something to happen in every part of the painting, making it interesting to look at multiple times. You should notice new things you did not pay attention to in the first place. I get my inspiration from game graphics, animated movies and things seen in the real world. I like to combine the best parts from both reality and fantasy. The kind of objects I reproduce exist in the real world (no dragons or, unicorns) but by changing small details such as texture, colour and lighting they can become fairytale-like.

History

These paintings are called “stableplans” and are used for a community website called “stallet.se” where people interested in animals, graphic design, and photography can make use of their creativity. The paintings are used to visualize someone’s account page, or “stable”, hence the weird oblong format of all paintings. A stableplan is similar to a cover photo when visiting someone’s profile on Facebook. But in the stallet.se community, a really nice looking stable plan could lead to rewards and a lot of in-game currency.

Over the years I have sold paintings for both real money and in-game currency. I made a name for myself in the community as a high quality stableplan painter. Sometimes I recieve commissions where I can get a sketch or description of a customer’s dream stableplan. It is always interesting to see how the final painting meets the customer’s vision

The website had its peak around 2004-2012 with thousands of active user every day. But since then stallet.se has been dying slowly due to lack of maintenance and investment in the website. Everything has its time. The users that are still active usually hang out there for nostalgia. I have stallet.se to thank for my interest in digital creativity.

My stableplans throughout the years can be seen above.

2008 – Overwhelmed by all features in Photoshop I started using brush tool and shape tools. I had zero feeling for perspective and colours at that point. But what can you expect from a kid?

2011 January – I had just discovered the Dodge Tool and Burn Tool and explored the world of shadows and highlights. I learned how to make better perspective of buildings, but the roads were still unrealistically straight. I also learned how to download custom brushes, so now I could just place out clouds and trees like stamps. Adding an automatically generated lens flare was a must on every painting from now on…

2011 July – This painting I remember I was super proud of. Especially the mountains that I made from scratch. I’ve started to add more details to the buildings and experiment more with varieties in the terrain, as well as colours. The roads were still straight and flat though.

2012 March – Here I started to shade trees and bushes in a different way, outlining the top part with a brighter colour to make them pop. I also started to add flowers to the grass. The roads were more realistic and less “flat”. I ditched the pre-made cloud stamps since I was able to paint the clouds by myself.

2013 – This is another painting that I used to be super proud of. I had levelled up my build game significantly. I learned how to work with multiple colours and add tiles to the roof. For the big building I actually used a reference photo of my school. I felt that I had more or less reached my maximum potential. My increase in skill level over the next years were not as visible as compared to 2008-2013.

2020 – I continued to fine tune the details. The plants had more variety now, and I learned to create interesting dynamics between background and foreground. For some parts I started to use pencil tool instead of brush tool since I wanted to have a sharp, pixelated expression. I also ditched the lens flare. This painting is still today my favourite work of all time.