Painting Practice

painterpractice_brunetteNot much to say on writing today, other than the fact that I’ve just missed the first milestone for my stretch goals for this year.  I’m not giving up on it just yet, though, since that schedule had some slack built in.

painterpractice_sadreaderHowever, I have been doing some artwork.

painterpractice_redhoodIn preparation for doing more covers this year, I figured it was time to practice my art skills again.  I’ve done a lot of work in 3D rendering before, but even at my best, I was still hitting that uncanny valley in about half of my work.  After talking it over with an artist friend, he suggested I work with Corel Painter instead.

painterpractice_nportmanPainter lets you work from a reference photograph, doing your brushwork on a transparent layer over the original image.  The idea being that you can start with some source material and give it a more painted appearance, and theoretically, a painted look will back me out of the uncanny valley.

painterpractice_blueprofileSo, I’ve been practicing, and I’m posting eight of my results here.  Four are from photographs, and four are from my renders.  Of course, I can easily tell which are which since I know which ones are mine, but I also know a bit of what I’m looking for.

painterpractice_rebeccaStill, I’m hoping they’ll be less obvious than before.  The idea, I suppose, is that I’ll eventually do my covers either based on my own renders, stock photography, or some mix of the two and then repaint the cover to give a more unified appearance.

painterpractice_butterflyfaceEither that, or I’ll simply throw in the towel and start hiring it out.

painterpractice_sandraoh