Friday, August 13, 2010

An update on Nina...

Back on May 14th, I posted a pic of my sister-in-law Nina, who recently passed away, and how I was working on restoring a picture of hers that was in incredibly bad shape. Well after quite a few technical issues, mostly a major computer crash and restore, and just the average workplace projects getting in the way of everything else, I've reached the home stretch of getting her photo done and just needs some more fiddling with some color correcting and nitpicking on the really tiny defects.



From Fuck Pencils! I Design with a Mouse!


I pretty much had to repaint several portions of her face, including the eyes and browridge (there is still some discoloration over her right eyebrow), but the hair has been pretty easy to patch and paint and the background is being discarded for something a little different.




While most people would just created a background using the "Difference Clouds" filter in Photoshop, I opted for something a little more random and the ability to add some color. This background image was created with a program called Filter Forge, using a filter called Stormy Clouds. While it's a little pricey ($399 at the time of this writing, but they have discounts and occasional sales), you can download a 30 day, fully functional trial version and access to over 7000 filters created by a growing user base. While the casual graphic artist probably won't use it often, you 3D modelers will find the ability to quickly build textures, complete with bump and displacement maps, indispensable!

I'm also going to include with his post are a couple of line art drawings I've been doing for a little while now. I have a store in Second Life where I sell emblems for superhero costumes. These two pictured here are of bat symbols and lantern symbols for those who do the superhero roleplaying in the sim.




I'm looking at maybe trying to get posters and t-shirts made, but there may be copyright and trademark issues.