Incommunicado

Just putting up a recent experiment, and letting y'all know that I'm getting on with getting on... I've decided to focus as tightly as possible on producing work for the next few days, so please pardon me if I'm a little distant.

Amanda 1996-2010

Last night the missus and I had our older dog put to sleep. She'd been given to us as a puppy by a friend of the missus, and had been with us her whole life.

She was, more than anything else, a sweet animal. Affectionate, friendly, well-behaved -- just a basic good dog for the most part. Unfortunately, she was an Australian Shepherd, a breed known for its intelligence, and she had enough brains to give her trouble. She was a dog who should have had a job.

It wasn't an easy decision, but Amanda's quality of life had degraded over the last year or so. She was becoming incontinent, falling while climbing steps, was unable to get up on the couch anymore. When the missus found her lying in a pool of urine the other morning, we agreed it was time.

Here's a story about Amanda...

Ah, well. Not a lot to say after you've said goodbye... And I just noticed that in the photo above, she's resting her head on my knapsack, and now I'm remembering how she'd lay on my knapsack or jacket if she got the chance, the one time I found her actually sleeping in the laundry basket on top of my clothes...

Damnit.

Platypterygius longmani 9

There we go. This afternoon's tasks had me intimidated, but everything fell into place nicely. Unless I'm mistaken, this is the finished piece, awash with the tang of the briny deep.

Platypterygius longmani 8

Well, taking the butterfly wings out of the coral didn't take as long as I thought it would, and why do simple descriptions of everyday tasks sound so weird?

Anyway.

I thought this was going to be a real trial, but then I figured out a shortcut. The shortcut inadvertently shifted the color relations between the background and the ichthyosaur in exactly how I was going to do it anyway. (Notice how the fins are just about the same color as the coral? The way the gray subtly harmonizes with the background?) That saved me a good chunk of work right there. One more color adjustment and then I'm done with it.

Platypterygius longmani 7

So here's the final rendering and placement of the main figure.

The next step is going to be to modify the coral directly behind the figure. There are traces of the initial figure remaining that need to be obscured and made to fit the current composition. I'll do this using blending tools in Painter.

Next, the color on the ichthyosaur needs to be modified to fit in with the rest of the composition. This, and the rest of the piece, will be done in Photoshop.

Finally, the overall color needs to be made more oceanic and more dense -- the sense of light should be stronger as well. I may experiment with using a Curves adjustment layer for some of this...

Plus? Tonight I get barbecue... Further details to come.

Platypterygius longmani 6

Here we go, fully rendered in Painter. At first I was horrified when I realized that I didn't have the colors saved from my first round of renders -- but then I found that the rubber stamp tool was my friend. Thank you, rubber stamp tool. You're a good pal.

Honestly? I've never rendered this well in a painterly fashion before. This is turning out to be a bit of a breakthrough piece...

And now on to the final composite, background finishes, and color correction!

Platypterygius longmani 5

On inspection, this needs more rendering...

But let's get an idea of how it looks. I'm going to want to punch up the color and brighten the highlights, but this is definitely starting to go somewhere.