Articles

Volumetric light – Understandig light in 3 dimensions   What happens when light shines through objects in hazy air and gets partially blocked by transparent, coloured surfaces?   Let’s experiment with theory of volumetric light. What happens when the light rays become visible because of light scattering which occurs due to haze or dust? Light turns into a visible 3-dimensional shape. And even more interesting; what if semi transparent, coloured material occurs in some areas and partially blocks the light […]

When working with fantasy-related art, you will probably sooner or later deal with painting slime and goo. If you’re planning on creating threads of classical dripping Ghostbusters kind of slime, the best thing is naturally to paint it all from scratch, as any layer styles or automated settings just won’t pull it off, and it will look odd. For an easier approach, like more of a non-dripping kind of slime, you can use another technique to get you somewhere close. […]

How to paint glass Glass is hard to paint. Be it simple windows to more complex shapes like statues, orbs, or objects like a glass or bottle. The reason why it is so complex is because of all the different attributes you have to consider. Breaking down the painting-process into separate “passes” is one way of approaching a clean workflow. Silhouette and shape Breaking up the rendering of glass into several passes simplifies the process. Start off with the basic […]

Painting gold When working digitally there are plenty of shortcuts as how to make things look like metal, and I believe it’s a good thing to avoid using custom made filters and still try to find a simple solution on how to do this from scratch on your own. Start off by outlining the object and add an in-between medium dark base colour so that you can easily add shadows and high lights out from this base. The next step […]

Final refinements Achieve a professional finish to your art by adding a couple of simple tweaks at the end of your workflow. (C) Henning Ludvigsen We all strive for perfection in our art, and sometimes it’s hard to know what to do to achieve that very special expression we’re aiming for. Sometimes it doesn’t need much to achieve a professional look to your artg; you simply need to know what to do to get there. It’s very easy to label […]