Stephen Vincent Benet commemorative stamp. Original art by Michael J. Deas.

Creating a celebrity’s likeness is a challenge for a portrait artist. Unless you happen to be a famous portrait artist, like Simmie Knox , you probably won’t be working from the live model, but from someone else’s photograph. (This presents copyright issues, which I won’t go into here. Just be aware that most photographs of celebrities are protected by copyright law, and copying such a photo (whether with a pencil or a Xerox copier) is likely a copyright violation. Something to be aware of.) Even famous portrait artists sometimes have to work from photographs. For example, by law, US postage stamps can only depict images of actual people once they have died. So how do you paint a color portrait of someone when all you have for reference is old black and white photographs?

2009 postage stamp commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, by Michael J. Deas.

Master portrait artist Michael J. Deas has faced this predicament many times. Deas has created 16 commemorative stamps for the US Postal Service, including James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Carey Grant, and most recently, Edgar Allan Poe. Below, you can see one of the photo references Deas worked from. Deas has done more than simply “colorize” an old photograph. His portrait looks like the man actually sat for the artist. The eyes have life in them that is not really present in the black and white photo. Poe seems a bit more handsome and confident in Deas’s painting. Deas has made some artistic decisions to make the portrait work better, such as changing the color of Poe’s coat from some light color to dark brown. The background is dark with a glowing center, giving it the look of a classic portrait. His hair looks curlier, as though he’s skipped the Brilliantine today. Overall, it’s just an amazing piece of work.

The full portrait of Poe by Michael J. Deas. Reference photo inset.

Perhaps the most famous of Deas stamps is his portrait of Marilyn Monroe, of which an astounding 400 million copies were printed. As you can see, even when working from a color photograph, Deas did not just copy an existing photo. He used a photo for the face, but used a model friend to pose the hand and body. The result looks completely natural and lifelike, as if it were based on an authentic, previously-unknown photo. This is true of all Deas’s work.

Portrait of Marilyn Monroe for 1992 postage stamp, by Michael J. Deas, left. Reference photo, right.

Here’s a classic example of Deas’s ability to create authentic-looking portraits. I’m assuming the photo was combined with a shot of a model dressed as Mark Twain for reference. The result is completely convincing and authentic. Due to Deas’s skill, we now have a living, breathing portrait of Mark Twain.

Portrait of Mark Twain by Michael J. Deas. Compare with the black and white reference photo.

This next example just blows my mind. Even when Deas does not add to the existing reference photo, as with Twain and Monroe, he manages to bring out more information than exists in the original photo. His skin tones are made up, obviously, but they’re utterly convincing. His knowledge of anatomy, and skill in capturing a likeness, overcomes the lack of detail in the original. To the art critics who think “copying photographs” does not take talent and skill, I’d point to this portrait as a counterargument.

Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt, by Michael J. Deas. Based on inset reference photo.

Beginning portrait artists can learn a lot from the following portrait of Cary Grant. Beginners tend to trust photographs implicitly, and copy whatever has been faithfully recorded by the camera. The problem is the camera is limited, and often does a poor job of capturing reality. The shadows under the eyebrows are too stark and black, for one thing. And in this case, the art director for the USPS (United States Postal Service) wanted the franking amount (37 cents back then) to appear in the lower right corner. Black tie dress was specified, therefore, to allow the number 37 to show clearly. For these reasons, the artist needs use the photograph as a means to an end: a good portrait. Deas used the reference photo as just that — reference– and created his own composition and design for the stamp. I’m guessing that, once again, a model or another photo of Grant was used for the costume change. The hands may be the original, just reversed, but I’d say another shot of someone’s hands was used. On the other hand, Deas seems to have an uncanny ability to work with very little good reference.

Portrait of Cary Grant, by Michael J. Deas. Notice the changes made by Deas from the original inset photo.

Our last Deas portrait is one that has me scratching my head. I have no idea what Deas used as reference for this portrait of Lincoln. The photo shown next to it here was probably used, but obviously there’s not enough there. Deas must have used other sources, and combined them to create this unique portrait. That’s an awe-inspiring talent, in my book. Keep an eye out for more Deas masterpieces, coming to a mailbox near you.

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, by Michael J. Deas. Possible reference photo shown.

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This looks like a lot of brushwork, but it actually took very little time. Learn how to create convincing stone texture using Corel Painter's Papers.

Corel Painter has several ways to quickly generate complex, realistic textures that might be difficult or impossible to accomplish by hand. Painter’s tools for texture include the Image Hose, patterns, weaves, and papers. Today we’ll look at how to use paper textures in Painter.

First, let’s take a look at the Papers palette. If it’s not currently visible, go Window > Library Palettes > Show Papers.

The Papers Palette controls

The triangle in the upper right of the palette gives you a drop down, where you’ll see “Open Library…”. Click on that to open a different library of papers. For now, we’ll assume you have the default set of papers open, and use those papers for this exercise. The dropdown below that opens your current library, allowing you to choose a different paper. The invert button allows you to paint either the negative or positive space in your paper’s design. The sliders at the bottom allow you change the size, contrast, and brightness. Move them around and you’ll see the effects in the preview window.

To begin, create a new document (File > New). A good size is 4 x 4 inches at 200 ppi. Click inside the Paper Color preview area, and a color picker appears. Select a white or off-white color for your paper. Now click OK. Use the lasso selection tool to draw a rock or stone shape, as shown below. To give your stone a soft edge, go Select > Feather… and choose 3 pixels. Paint a base grey color using the Digital Airbrush set to about 25px, at a low opacity. Once it’s all grey, choose a dark grey, and paint around the edges to give it some roundness.

Here's what your stone underpainting should like, before you begin texturing.

Insert a new layer by clicking on the new layer button at the bottom of the layer palette, or go Layer > New Layer. If the Layer palette isn’t visible, go Window > Show Layers. Click on the second dropdown (as explained above) to access the papers in your current library. Choose Large Handmade Paper, which ships with Painter. Now, we need a brush that works with paper texture, and for that any brush that has a Grain control in the tool bar will work. Let’s use the Chalk variant called Variable Chalk. Make it about 40-50 pixels big, opacity around 30 percent, and (very important) make sure the Grain is set to 11 or so. Move the size slider to 200% on the paper palette, as shown, to paint the top area of the stone. Move it 110% to paint the sides. This helps to add to the 3D illusion. Also, use a darker color when painting the sides, since this area is in shadow.

Note: if you find that the grain is filling right in, or isn’t painting much at all, make sure your Brush Tracking is set. Go Preferences > Brush tracking, and stroke in the window provided to calibrate your stylus. This seems to really help with painting on textured papers.

Let’s add a new layer. We’re going to use a separate layer for each paper. This way you have the flexibility to change each layer’s opacity and/or blending mode. Experiment with different settings and you’ll see how helpful this can be for building up deep, realistic textures. For this second layer, change the paper. Choose Worn Pavement, and this time use a grey-green color. Change the paper size to around 150% for the top area, and then use a darker color at 100% for the sides. If at any point you’re not happy with what you’ve painted, grab the eraser: you’ll only be erasing that one layer’s contents. Or delete the layer and start again.

Add a third layer, and this time use the Pebble Board paper. Use a light color this time, and use a paper size around 65% for the top. Then darken it, and use a size around 50%. We’re building up detail, beginning with larger shapes on the first layer, and smaller shapes as we move up.

For our fourth layer, use Artists Rough Paper, and go even lighter with your color (see below), and smaller with this paper size. This time, concentrate on the top edge and the near edge of the top surface, to help give it some more dimensionality. Once that’s done, go Layer > Drop All.

Make sure that your selection remains active throughout all of this. Now that you’ve flattened your image, the only layer you have is the one called Canvas. Save. The next step might seem a bit counter-intuitive, but the sharpen step seems to help the next step (smearing) work really well. Go Effects > Focus > Sharpen, and use the settings you see here.

With the Blender variant called Just Add Water set at 20% opacity and 0% resat, gently stroke away at the stone, blending details into each other. Don’t lose all the detail, just soften it. It should look like this:

We’re nearly done. This last part really makes the stone look realistic. Add a layer, and change the blending mode to Multiply. Use the Large Handmade Paper again, with a paper size of 70%. Use a dark brown color with the Variable Chalk. Add details all over. Add a second layer, this time use Screen blending mode. Now use a light yellow color. You may want to turn the opacity down a bit, as I’ve done here. The result is a pretty darn convincing stone, with pits and highlights. You can continue adding details, if you like. The more you add, the more real it becomes. We’ll finish the stone by adding a shadow.

To add a shadow, first go Layer > Drop all, then Select > Invert. Now you are selecting everything *but* the stone. Choose a nice dark gray-blue, and add a shadow with the Digital Airbrush. That’s it!

Portrait of a stone, by Bob Nolin

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Bronze Dragon (detail) by Keyem Beyit

After painting exclusively in Corel Painter for five years, I decided to finally learn how to paint using Photoshop. I found Painter pretty intuitive to learn, since the brushes and papers act very much like their real-world counterparts. Not the case with Photoshop. Without going into a lot of technical detail, here’s a simplified explanation of the difference between brushes in Painter and in Photoshop.

Painter: The brushes interact with color on the canvas, as in traditional media. Blenders allow you to “smear” pixels around, like a brush or fingertip. Some of the brushes, such as the newer Real Bristle brushes, use computer power to mimic real brush behavior. The downside is that these brushes are often too pokey to use, even on a powerful computer.

Photoshop:The brushes here act like rubber stamps, in that a single bitmap image (the brush tip shape) is repeated over and over rapidly to simulate a brushstroke. Strokes can interact somewhat with colors already on the canvas, by sophisticated use of blending modes, but nowhere to the extent you’ll find in Painter. The “rubber stamp” quality, however, is a great strength when it comes to painting textured surfaces. Photoshop’s blending tools are, surprisingly, not very good.

As you can see, each application has positives and negatives. Indeed, there are artists who use both to create a single painting, getting the best of both worlds. (Here’s an example.) Methods and techniques for painting in Photoshop are quite different from Painter and traditional media, due to the “rubber stamp” method it uses. I spent quite a bit of time searching the web for good Photoshop digital painting tutorials for beginners, and I’ve collected them all below. I wish there were more, but good beginner’s tutorials are rare.

Let’s define terms, before we begin: “digital painting” does not mean photo manipulation, cloning, or paint overs. We’re talking “from scratch” here. A “good tutorial” is, for our purposes here as beginners, one that doesn’t assume anything. Brush settings and methods are explained, not glossed over. Most digital painting “tutorials” are more accurately described as walkthroughs. They explain process and thinking, but not methods and technique in any detail.

Now, on to the tutes! I’ve arranged these in order, starting with simplest beginner, and progressing from there. The further down the list you go, generally speaking, the less hand-holding. Enjoy!

Painting Clouds by Steven Stahlberg

Start with this excellent beginner’s tutorial. Begin with clouds before you take on portraits! Note: a “ramp” is a gradient.

Applying a Texture to Your Painting by George Patsouras

As mentioned earlier, Photoshop’s “rubber stamp” brushes are great for adding texture to an image. This tutorial introduces you to how to create your own brush and use it to bring an image to life. “Render first, texture second” is a basic Photoshop painting method used by many artists. Once you’ve learned how to texture a wall in this tutorial, you can apply the technique to a dragon, next.

The Making of Bronze Dragon by Kerem Beyit

Beyit’s dragons are an Internet sensation, and he has been kind enough to explain his method. You’ll focus on values here, since this is fairly monochromatic, and texturing. Substitute your own brushes for textures. (Need brushes? Check out this post for free Photoshop brushes galore.)

Time out!

We interrupt this list of tutorials in order to make a clarification. It concerns textures and patterns. These are two very different beasts, but sometimes you’ll hear someone refer to a texture when they’re really talking about a pattern. What’s going on here? Let’s see if I can shed some light on this.

In Photoshop, a texture is a small bitmap (though they can be 2500 pixels wide), in greyscale. In both Painter and Photoshop, a pattern is a continuous, infinite image, like a tablecloth that goes on forever. You use various tools in each to spray or brush portions of this pattern/image onto your painting. Painter does not have textures, though, just patterns. Photoshop’s brushes, being bitmaps on the end of a stick, so to speak, are nothing but textures. If you dab with a Photoshop brush, a single copy (like a rubber stamp) appears. If you hold the brush down and move it, a series of stamps appear, looking like a brushstroke. Hopefully the following illustration will make this clear. The top row of three boxes contain patterns. In this case, the patterns are seamless, meaning that there is no line where the edges meet. This allows the pattern to go on forever, though you will notice elements (like in the stones) that repeat regularly. So, patterns are regular. The images below that are brush dabs made with various Photoshop brushes. These are textures. In the dragon tutorial by Kerem Beyit, the texturing is accomplished with custom brushes. I hope this clears things up.

Patterns (top row) and textures (bottom row)

We now return to our list of tutorials, already in progress.

Digital Colouring with Photoshop by Troy Packer

This tutorial is great for absolute beginners. Emphasizes the use of layers for building up color and depth. Everything is explained and there’s lots of screen shots. This is just one of several tutorials on Melissa Clifton’s site.

Guide to Patterns in Photoshop by Dr. Diablo

This is a very clear, well-written introduction to patterns in Photoshop. If my explanation, above, has you totally confused, hopefully Dr. Diablo will set you straight.

A Digital Painting of Wonder Woman by Roberto Campus

Professional illustrator Roberto Campus shares his method for creating a digital painting in Photoshop. Though this is a bit advanced, the method is explained so well, I wanted to include it here. Great stuff.

Making a Planet by Greg Martin

Now, just in case you’re feeling okay with this whole pattern vs. texture thing, I’m going to throw this curve ball at you. Here, Greg Martin shows you how to paint with a texture, and the texture is a pattern! I really hope this starts to make sense at some point…. Just work the tutorials, and I promise things will become clear. And even if they don’t, you’ll have fun along the way.

Colouring in Photoshop by Gold-Seven

This is a detailed and easy-to-follow tutorial, and repeats much the same method we saw in the tutorial by Troy Packer. If something wasn’t clear there, maybe this will help. To view, click on the “Download” icon on the left side of screen.

Well, that’s all for now. It’s a short list, but it was very carefully chosen with the beginner in mind. If you know of other tutorials on digital painting for beginners, please drop me a note or leave a comment, and we’ll add it in. Happy painting!

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Sylvan Fairy, by Will Wang

When you’re getting started on a fantasy portrait, you may find yourself wondering what to do with the background. For example, say you’re painting a fairy portrait of a young woman. You’ve decided to give her fairy wings and some kind of fairy outfit. But what’s the setting? To help you answer that, first make sure you are painting a portrait, and not a figure in a landscape. To understand the difference, take a look at the following two images. The one on the left is a figure in a landscape, and the one on the right is a portrait.

Path of Petals, by Linda Berqkvist (left), and Elixir by Melanie Delon (right).

A figure in a landscape is just that: a landscape painting that happens to have one or more people in it. A portrait is a painting of an individual person (although the person may be completely made up). In the fantasy realm, when we paint a figure in a landscape, we’re almost always telling a story. This is, by definition, an illustration: it illustrates the action of a story. A fantasy portrait, on the other hand, concentrates on one person’s likeness. The viewer feels they are looking at an actual person. What that person is doing, if anything, is secondary.

This distinction is important to make when you’re beginning a fantasy painting. If you’re doing an illustration, the figure and the background are equally important. A portrait, however, is about the person, and the background serves to enhance the portrait. So if you’re setting out to paint a portrait, you might not want to include lots of distracting stuff in the background. If you throw in a dragon, a castle, some impending bad weather, and special effects, you’re no longer painting a portrait: it’s a figure in a landscape. Nothing wrong with that, but just be sure that’s the direction you want to go.

For our purposes, we’re going to stick with fantasy portraits. We’re going to take a look at some examples of fantasy portraits, and how they treat the background. Notice, as we go through our tour, that the background always stays, er, in the background. If a portrait was a piece of jewelry, the background would be the setting. It’s only purpose is to show off the jewel to best advantage. With that in mind, let’s begin.

Imagine you’ve been commissioned to paint a fantasy portrait based on the following photograph.

Photograph copyright by artist Liiga Smilshkalne.

Since this is a portrait and not an illustration, your painting should focus on the woman. Artist Liiga Smilshkalne created a beautiful portrait with a fantasy touch, by changing the color scheme to a strong yellow. The portrait has a wonderful glow to it. The shells in her hand were replaced by a flower, and her clothes were completely reimagined, but in a subtle, complementary way. The background here is little more than gradations of color. There is just the suggestion of foliage and a few butterflies.

Portrait by Liiga Smilshkalne.

In this next portrait (Europa, a 3D rendering by Soa Lee), the background is also very simple. The clouds are subdued and dark, which contrasts with the subject’s fair skin and hair. The clouds supply (pardon the pun) atmosphere to the portrait, giving it a classical feeling, appropriate to the portrait of a goddess.

Europa, by Soa Lee

In her portrait of an angel, Marta Dahlig has provided her subject with a very simple, yet effective, setting. The details (rock pedestal, doves) are just enough to establish a sense of place. Mostly, the background is just pure color, which complements the coloring of the angel. It’s a setting for the jewel.

Doves, by Marta Dahlig

For fantasy portraits, it’s actually helpful if the background is vague and undefined. After all, it’s a depiction of the Faery realm, and reality is not so solid there. The following painting (Changing, by Benita Winckler) is a good example of this. If the details were more sharply defined, it would take it out of the realm of Faery, and into something else (horror, perhaps).

Changing, by Benita Winckler

Of course, rules are made to be broken, and so next we have a portrait with some quite well-defined details. This is a portrait that also happens to be telling a story. The details are important for that reason. But they don’t distract from the main figure. They tell us about her.

Pearl, by Melanie Delon

In this next example, the portrait and the background seem to merge. Notice the use of a limited palette here — mostly greens and greys. The greens in the fleshtones add to the sense that she is part of the landscape. You can read a great article on the making of this painting here.

Portrait of Kimberley, by Jussi Lehtiniemi

In this last piece, by Seok Chan-Yoo, notice that the background is, as before, more suggestion than anything. This isn’t a recording of a person standing in a particular place. Rather, it’s a portrait that transcends time and space, as all good fantasy portraits do. The background helps us understand the character. In this case, the portrait is of an iconic superhero type.

S-Girl, by Seok Chan-Yoo

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In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create a soft watercolor vignette, perfect for a bridal portrait.

Today I’d like to share with you a technique for creating portraits with a watercolor look. This is a fast and easy technique, and doesn’t use the somewhat difficult watercolor brushes that come with Painter. Instead, you can download and use the custom brushes I developed for these kinds of portraits. You can download them here. Unzip the file, and then copy both the folder “Bob’s WC Brushes” and the file Bob’s WC Brushes.jpg into your Painter brush folder. When you restart Painter, you will have a new brush category with the custom brushes in it. These three brushes are:

• Bob’s Soft CapBristle - a variation on the ever-popular Captured Bristle variant of the Acrylics category. The cover method is Soft Cover instead of Grainy Soft Cover, which gives this brush a softer, more pastel-like texture.
• Bob’s WC Edger - This brush is based on the Grainy Water variant of the Blenders category.
• Bob’s WC Edger2 - I created this brush from scratch, using a captured dab that looks more like a watercolor stroke than the other two. It also uses a cover method of Plug-In, subcategory of Liquid Brush. By varying the Strength, you control the amount of “pull”, and by varying Grain, you modify the amount of softness. Give it a try, and you’ll see what I mean. I really like this new brush!

Bob’s Soft CapBristle is used to paint the majority of the work, and then you’ll use the Edgers to feather out the edges. This gives it that signature “watercolor sketch” look. Let’s get started.

If you’d like to follow along, the stock photo I used here is free, and can be downloaded here. This photo was taken by Fernando Weberich, and is provided by the Stock Exchange site.

We’ll need to do a little upfront editing before we can begin painting. In Photoshop, create a new document, 20×30 inches at 300dpi. Tap the “V” key (the Move tool) and drag the photo into your new document. Resize it and reposition it as shown below. (To resize, go Edit > Transform > Scale, and hold down the Shift key as you stretch the corners. Use the Move tool to position.)

Distracting areas (in red) need to be painted out. The green line shows the shape of the vignette we'll create.

Let’s remove the background distractions (marked in red) first. Use a soft brush at high opacity to cover them over. Also, add some color above her head. When it’s done, it should look something like this. Make sure there’s some room around the figure.

After painting out the background distractions, and adding some headroom, your image should look like this.

Flatten the image (Layer > Flatten Image) and save it. Now we’re ready to open it in Painter. Once it’s open, create a Quick Clone (go File > Quick Clone, or in versions before 9, go File > Clone, then Select All, then delete (backspace)). You’re seeing the image through digital tracing paper, basically. In Corel Painter 9.5 and above, you can vary the opacity of the tracing paper, which is very helpful. Click on the blue square in the upper right to toggle the paper on and off, and to access the opacity control.

This is what a Quick Clone looks like with tracing paper turned on. Toggle it on and off using the blue icon, as shown.

Now it’s time to paint. Start with Bob’s Soft CapBristle brush, set at Opacity 50, and Resat 30. Use short, directional strokes, following the form, with a 40 pixel brush. In the background, use a random, playful stroke at about 100 pixels. Leave a ragged edge, as shown, which we’ll develop into the vignette later. Make sure you have color cloning turned on (the “rubber stamp” icon next to the color wheel). Here are two screenshots. The first shows the work with the tracing paper turned on, the second with it turned off. Turning it on helps you see details, and turning it off lets you see your actual painting.

This shows the painting after the first step, using a large setting on the custom Bob's Soft CapBristle brush. Tracing paper turned on.

This is the same step, with tracing paper turned off.

Now go back over the whole thing with a smaller size of the same brush (Bob’s Soft CapBristle). Use size 20 to 40, depending on the area you’re working on. Use the smaller size for the face and other detailed areas, but don’t over work. Remember, we’re going for a loose watercolor look.

After a second pass with Bob's Soft CapBristle, it's looking more solid and defined...but not too much!

Make a third pass over the painting to define things like the tiara, earrings, and eyes. This time, though, use the Soft Charcoal variant of the Charcoal category. Use a small (5 to 10 px) brush. Make sure color cloning is active. For the eyes and lips, you may want to use a little Soft Cloner, to help bring out the details. Just a touch will do it.

Details are brought out in the face, flowers, dress, and jewelry, using the Soft Charcoal brush.

Okay, the painting is done! Now we just need to feather out the edges to create the vignette. Give each of the custom Edger brushes a try, and see how they work. You may prefer one over the other. These work like blenders, and they don’t add color. They just spread around the paint already there. So pull and push along the edge, and try not to overwork it. You’re looking for a fresh watercolor look, so lots of roughness is the key. Here’s the finished version. I completed this with Bob’s WC Edger2. Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Happy painting!

The completed painting.

Close-up, showing the feathered edge and part of the face.

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Vue 7 - Beyond the Basics, by Richard Schrand, Course Technology 2009, 342 pages

Usually, when a new version of a major software package comes out, book publishers respond by updating the old book to reflect the new version. Many times, it’s really the same book as last time, starting at square one again, with a few “New in Version X” textboxes scattered about here and there. “Vue 7: Beyond the Basics,” by Richard Schrand (Course Technology, 2009), is kind of a rare beast among software training books in that it doesn’t cater to beginners at all. As the title says, the book is for those of us ready to go “beyond the basics.” To be sure, Schrand provides excellent coverage of the new stuff in Vue 7, but his audience is folks who already know their way around Vue 5 or 6. Vue 7 was mostly improvements to the existing toolset, so a full-blown book starting from scratch isn’t really necessary, unless, of course, you’re new to Vue. If you’ve read Schrand’s previous book on Vue, “Vue 6 Revealed,” then you’re ready for this. There’s really no overlap at all between the books, either. You’re getting your money’s worth with this one.

Overview

As good as “Vue 6 Revealed” is, “Vue 7: Beyond the Basics” (”BTB,” from here on out) makes two major improvements: the book is in glorious full color (yea!) and comes with a DVD stuffed with goodies. The color illustrations are clear and sharp, making the book a joy to read. The list price has doubled since last time, but it’s listed for only about $10 more on Amazon than “Vue 6 Revealed.” (Note that Amazon, and other sellers, claim the book is over 500 pages long. It’s actually 342 pages.)

This is a project-based book, and is best followed from beginning to end. You can, however, jump ahead if you like, as all the completed projects are included on the DVD. The projects are much more useful this time out, in my opinion. While there are some useful tutorials available on the web, what’s really needed is a full-scale workflow walkthrough, which is just what BTB is. Schrand knows the product inside and out, and he teaches Vue on the college level. It’s obvious, as you read, that he has lots of experience dealing with students who are just about at the stage I’m at: we’ve figured out how to use Vue, but not how to create truly professional images with it. This is because, up till now, there’s been little information about workflow, and the techniques the pros use. Schrand also seems to know exactly which areas students avoid, such as the dreaded Function Editor. He introduces the Function Editor early on, in a very painless way. (There’s also a chapter at the end devoted entirely to the Function Editor.) And everything is explained as you go along. Schrand doesn’t just tell you what you to do, he tells you why you’re doing something.

Here’s a breakdown, chapter by chapter, of the book.

Chapter 1: Land Development

The first chapter shows you how to create a cliff-face similar to Mount Rushmore, using a supplied carved head object. You’ll learn how to use the twist function of the Numerics panel to create a cliff, and create a material with three layers. You’ll use color-coding to easily see where each layer lies on your terrain, and determine where each lies using the Environment tab. You’ll apply an Ecosystem to one of the layers, and then import and place the head object.

Chapter 2: Hitting the Ground Running

The project in this chapter has you create a lake surrounded by terrains. You’ll dip into the Function Editor to modify the default Blue Water material, to make it more realistic. Schrand explains how to add a custom camera to help you work more efficiently. There’s lots of practice with modifying materials, scaling, and adjusting the atmosphere. Though I’ve created scenes like this many times, most of the methods used here were new to me.

Chapter 3: Highs, Lows, and Points in Between

In this chapter, you’ll learn how to use image maps (greyscale JPGs) to tell Vue where to place your ecosystems. You’ll create a cornfield with an alien crop circle formation. The function editor is the key here, and you’ll be amazed (I was, anyway) at how easy it was to do this. In the second part, you’ll use the Boolean function to create a volcano, using one terrain to sculpt another. You’ll turn a cylinder into a pretty impressive-looking log, add it to an ecosystem for your volcano, and top it off with a steamy Metacloud.

Chapter 4: The Grand Vista

Here we take our new volcano and create a landscape setting for it. There’s also a good discussion of composition and design principles. You’ll dig into the atmosphere controls, and learn about the different atmosphere types, and the new Spectral 2 clouds with their new Sharpness and Feathering controls. The Ambient Light and Light Color controls are explained.

Chapter 5: Going to Great Depths

As you may have guessed, this chapter has you dive into an underwater scene. You’ll work with the new Water Surface Editor at first, creating an island, and get some exposure to the Fractal Terrains Options window (one of those tools I’ve never figured out). Then there’s more filter fun with the Filter Altitudes and Add Function buttons in the terrain editor. After this, you go under the sea to create an Ecosystem on the sea floor. You’ll learn about caustic lighting effects for underwater realism.

Chapter 6: Building Better Cities and Towns

Here you use a group of black and white image maps to create a small riverside downtown area, with paved streets, curbing, painted lines, greenery, and buildings. The image maps are provided on the DVD. This is the sort of project that might seem a bit overwhelming if you were to try to figure it on your own. Since the author has already done your “city planning” for you, you can concentrate on the process. Once you’ve gone through it here, you’ll be able to adapt the techniques to your own designs. At the end, you’ll use the new Dynamic Ecosystem to populate your buildings and greenery.

Chapter 7: Beautifying the Neighborhood One Plant at a Time

One of the most common types of scenes is a house with a landscaped yard. This chapter shows you how it’s done, starting with creating flower boxes and planters, moving on to the cobblestone walkway, and finally placing the house. In between you’ll do a little carpentry, creating a group of display tables, such as you’d find at a local nursery, for the plants. This gives you exposure to the aligning and replicating tools in Vue. You’ll also create your own wood material using the Function Editor. You cover a lot of ground (sorry) in twenty pages.

Chapter 8: The Growth Industry

The first part of this chapter is all about the Plant Editor, and how to create your own custom vegetation. Next, you’ll create an animation of a tree growing from acorn to full-grown. The final section shows how to work with image sequences to create animations with low polygon counts. The technique explained here would apply to any type of animation, I assume, not just trees growing.

Chapter 9: Other Outdoor Activities

This chapter covers three different areas. The first deals with painting ecosystems and two methods for keeping ecosystem populations from growing out of control, and then explains how Ecosystem Affinity works. In the next section, you’ll have your head in the clouds, learning all about customizing clouds. You’ll learn how to use the cloud sliders (as I call them) as well as the Function Editor for even more creative freedom. Did you know that you can use image maps to shape clouds? I didn’t. And lastly, Schrand demystifies Godrays for us. Thank heavens!

Chapter 10: The Great Indoors

Here you’ll learn basic concepts around interior lighting. You’ll create a simple cubical room, assign some color to it using (you guessed it) the Function Editor, and then learn methods for lighting your room. This chapter is long and deep, so if you’ve been wanting to learn how to light interiors, you’ll probably find what you need here. Other lighting topics are covered next, including converting an object into a light, image-based lighting, and HDRI (High Dynamic Range Images).

Chapter 11: Creating Toon Material for Comics and Illustrations

Vue doesn’t seem to have a “toon” (cel shading) ability out of the box, but apparently with some (cough cough) Function Editing, it can be done, though to me the effect looks more like clip-art than cartoons. Since no toon materials come with Vue, you’ll need to create everything you need from scratch.

Chapter 12: Playing Well with Others

This chapter talks about combining Vue with Flash and Photoshop, mostly for use in web graphics, television ads and logos, and that sort of thing. You’ll create a short “id” animation for a fictitious firm, complete with a flying logo in the sky. Next you’ll learn about importing a Poser figure into Vue, and incorporating a walking figure into your animation. You’ll need to know and use Flash to get use from this chapter.

Chapter 13: A Smattering of Techniques

This chapter contains various hints, tricks, and tips. Included are:

• Imitating particle systems
• Translucency and sub-surface scattering
• Exploring the new features in 7.5 (note that many of these are included in the free 7.4 update, as well)
• Using metablobs to create an animation of a melting candle.

Chapter 14: xStream Creations

Vue xStream is, basically, a plug-in version of Vue, allowing it to run inside of other applications, such as Cinema 4D, Maya, Lightwave, and 3DS Max. This chapter shows xStream in use, in this case with Cinema 4D.

Chapter 15: Functional Behavior

By the time you’ve reached chapter 15, you have been well and truly immersed in the mysteries of the Function Editor. So now you should be ready to get knee-deep into it, with no fear whatsoever. I think putting this information both throughout and then at the end was a great idea. You get to see all the places the Function Editor gets called into action, and then you get a real masters-level chapter to complete your knowledge. Without knowing how the Function Editor works, you’re really handicapped. Once you’ve gone through the exercises in this book, your images will improve dramatically. More than that, you’ll know how to achieve whatever effect you’re after.

Conclusion

BTB is just a superb book, as you can see. It would be useful to you even if you are still on version 6, since most of it applies. I think Mr. Schrand’s book is going to make a lot Vuesers (as he puts it) very happy.

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The Treachery of Images, by Rene Magritte. The text translates as "This is not a pipe."

When you go to the movies these days, you expect to see impossible things (King Kong, starships, X-Men, that sort of thing) in full color, looking perfectly real and convincing. We’ve gotten used to seeing anything and everything on the big screen. White House destroyed by aliens? Seen it. A man grows younger as he ages? Been there. Titanic sinks? Old news. We know it’s all done through the magic of CGI (computer-generated imagery), and so we aren’t fooled into thinking this is actual film footage. The movies have always been about fantasy and illusion, and we’re okay with that.

Likewise when it comes to ads in magazines. We know that the model has been retouched. We assume that the bottle of liquor looks perfect because it was digitally enhanced somehow, just as years ago we knew it had been “airbrushed.” Everyone knows what “photoshopped” means, even if they don’t know the origin of the word.

What you may not realize is that, in many cases, you’re not looking at a photograph that’s been through Photoshop; you’re looking at a 3D render. The reason it looks better than real is because it isn’t real at all! Let me give you some examples, all of which have one thing in common: not one of them is a photograph. Don’t believe me? Read on.

This is not an iPod. It's not a photograph of an iPod, either.

Those aren't tomatoes.

Not a photo. Fooled you, eh?

Take a look at the following to get an idea how these images were created. The lower image shows the wireframe 3D construction used in making the top image of cosmetics. No camera (digital or otherwise) was used.

Virtual product photography starts out like the image on the bottom, known as a wireframe, using a 3D imaging program such as Maya, Cinema 4D, or Lightwave.

Magritte knew what he was talking about when he named his painting (top) “The Treachery of Images.” Images are sneaky things. They can fool us. How? They can alter our perception of the real item represented by the image. When you see an image like this automobile (below), you naturally assume that a real car exists somewhere like that and you can buy it. This is pretty sneaky, if not downright treacherous.

No real car could possibly look this perfect. Is this deceptive advertising?

Back in the early days of color magazines, it was easy to tell a photograph from an illustration. But as technology advanced, the line between photo and art has blurred. For an example of this, let’s take Popular Science magazine (and it’s near-identical twin, Popular Mechanics). In its early days, the magazine cover was an illustration, usually of some new invention that was hot off the drawing board. Readers felt they were getting a glimpse of the future. The magazine, of course, tended to show outlandish–even silly–designs with little likelihood of ever being built, since this is what sold magazines. In this cover from 1940, the implication is that, in two years, the car pictured would be for sale. Most intelligent people, I imagine, would realize that the cover was just an artist’s conception. It was plainly a painting.

Did we say two years? Oops! We meant two hundred.

Beginning in the 1950’s, photographs began to adorn the cover of the magazine. Actual working inventions were shown. These inventions were still unlikely to ever be available to the general public, but now they were real. See? There’s a photograph. It must exist.

A recurring theme: the personal flying machine for the everyman.

As the magazine entered the 21st century, illustrations again began to appear on the cover, but now they looked just like photographs. This next cover, from 2008, seems to pretty clearly indicate that a real Iron Man, as shown, exists. That’s a photograph of one, isn’t it?

Wow, look, Dad! It's Iron Man!

This is the same bait-and-switch trick that Popular Science has always played, yet now it’s not obvious to anyone that the cover isn’t a photograph. In fact, it’s a 3D rendering by Nick Kaloterakis. To his credit, editor Mark Jannot does fess up, in his opening “From The Editor” comments. “I have a confession to make,” he says. “There is nothing real about that ‘photo’ of the high-tech soldier poised for action. It is a near future extrapolation of current technology.” Jannot then makes an interesting admission: “When your mission is to offer dazzling visions of the discoveries readers can expect to be coming around the chronological corner, it can be a bit of a challenge to deliver the photographs. That’s where Nick comes in.”

Perhaps this is innocent, and perhaps it’s not. Popular Science has been showing us highly implausible gadgetry since the late 19th century, and month after month, people eat it up. Who can blame them for using digital imagery to sell magazines? The problem I have with it is this: very few readers know that they’re not looking at photographs. Even the supposedly tech-savvy are fooled. Here’s a short article from the hugely-popular blog Gizmodo. Note the last line, giving a “photo credit” to Popular Science’s illustrator Nick Kaloterakis. No great harm done here, but as you can see, Gizmodo isn’t sure if the chair exists or is just a “concept.” In reality, the chair does not exist.

Here’s a link to that Gizmodo article.

In time, people will become more sophisticated about what digital imagery can do. But we are still in the early days. One of the first motion pictures, “Arrival of a Train” (1898) showed a train coming towards the camera. The audience fled the theater in panic. We’ve come a long way since then. When we go to the movies, we know that it’s all made up, and that’s why we go: to be entertained. To make believe. To dream. I’m glad that everyone knows how the movies are made. It means they’re watching them with their eyes wide open. The same cannot be said of advertising and anyone who uses images to make money. As I write here in Digital Image Magazine about the craft of this new technology, I thought it fitting to consider how, like all powerful things, it can be misused. Just something to think about. I welcome your thoughts and comments, as always.

For further reading

Is It Live, or Is It CGI? - This recent piece in Photo District News discusses how computers are replacing cameras for product photography. Interesting stuff.

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Learn how to create the look of cloth by selectively applying the Surface Texture tool in Corel Painter.

Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop both have a tool which applies the appearance of texture to your image. The result is a 2D image that looks like it’s on canvas or rough charcoal paper. Most of the time, I prefer to print the final image on canvas, so I don’t use the texture tools. But recently, I was working on a portrait that really needed a feeling of texture, but just in certain areas. Also, the mood and lighting wasn’t quite what I wanted. Luckily for me, Corel Painter has a tool called Apply Surface Texture, and it can apply a texture and change the lighting somewhat. So let’s take a look at how it works.

Here's the painting in need of some texture. The cloth could use some cloth-like texture. Also, I'd like to add some further shadows and mystery.

I painted the hood in this portrait using a very soft brush, and the result is that the hood has almost no texture. I could spend hours worked over it with a fine brush to work up a cloth texture, but instead I’ll use a custom paper I already have created, and use that in Painter’s Surface Texture tool. I’d also like to deepen the mysterious mood more, and the tool has lighting built into it, so that may do the trick.

The Texturizing Process

Since I’m only going to use the texturizer on part of the image, I’ll duplicate the image onto a layer, and make my changes there. I’ll actually texturize the whole image, and then erase the face, so that the original version shows through. To copy the base (Canvas) layer, do Select > All, then Edit > Copy, and finally Edit > Paste in Place. This creates a duplicate layer on top of the canvas layer. Next, you’ll need to select a paper as your texture. If the paper palette isn’t visible, go Window > Library Palettes > Show Papers. Choose a good high-contrast paper. I used one I created from a photo of a canvas, but you can use any paper you like. It doesn’t necessarily have to have “cloth” or “fabric” in the title. Click on the drop-down, as shown below, to access the different papers. Note the slider for the scale of the paper texture. You’ll adjust this later while working in the Surface Texture tool. They work together.

One key concept here is that the Surface Texture tool uses the paper settings from the Papers palette. So you need to tweak both dialogues at the same time. Once you’ve got your paper selected, you’re ready to apply the texture. Go Effects > Surface Control > Apply Surface Texture. The following dialogue pops up.

Choose “Using: Paper,” in order to use the paper you chose earlier. Follow the other settings as shown, and feel free to experiment. You’ll find that a little goes a long way in the Surface Texture tool. Click in the preview window, and your cursor becomes a hand, allowing you to navigate a bit to see how the settings look. I find that the results don’t look much like the preview, for some reason. So it’s a process of apply (click the Ok button), then Undo and tweak, and try again. Remember to adjust the size of your texture using the slider in the Papers palette (see above). You don’t need to use the lighting controls at all, though they are always active. What I mean is, you can leave them as is. For my purposes, the lighting is my next stop. I choose a light blue (again: a little goes a long way). I moved the light source towards the right, to match my picture. Once you’re ready to run the tool, click Ok.

Hopefully you can see the subtle texture applied. Also, note the two layers. This is after erasing the face from the upper layer.

So now I’ve applied the Surface Texture to the entire image, on the duplicate layer. Since I only want to apply the texture to the hood, I will simply use the Eraser to remove the face area from the top layer. Use a soft eraser (note the two icons in the tool bar, one for soft, one for hard). You could also use a layer mask, instead, which is non-destructive. As I erased, I decided to leave the right side of her face shadowed a bit. This makes it look like a beam or spot is lighting her. Here’s the result:

After erasing the top layer from most of her face, here's the result. Nice and mysterious!

Thanks for reading! Hope you found it helpful. See you next week!

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While Photoshop (left) can only paint with flat 2D brushes, Painter (right) paints with 24-bit images, with full color and drop shadows.

Corel Painter has a great tool for handling details, such as texture, foliage, or stones. In fact, if you’ve been using Photoshop custom brushes for this kind of work, you may be surprised to learn that Painter has a custom brush capability, and a pretty darned good one, too. Check out the following image. Can you believe it took me less than a minute, starting with a blank canvas? No cloning around this time, folks. It’s time to learn about Painter’s most well-kept secret: the Image Hose.

The image hose can create images like this in seconds.

The Image Hose is one of the brush types, called variants, that ship with Corel Painter. It’s a unique sort of brush that must be “loaded” with a nozzle file, which is a special file containing a group of images that the hose can spray onto your canvas. You access the nozzle files via one of those mysterious, tiny icons lurking at the bottom of the toolbox. (I’m hoping Corel one day addresses the inconsistency and hodgepodge nature of Painter’s interface, so that wonderful features like this don’t remain unknown and unused.)

Ever wonder what those six incomprehensible icons do? Wonder no more.

Both the Patterns and Nozzles in Painter are great ways to create complex details in a painting. I’m sure the Weave function is great for fabric patterns, too, but I haven’t come to grips with it yet. Patterns are better suited to, as you might guess, images that repeat in a pattern. We’ll take a look at Painter’s Patterns in a future article. Today I’m going to show you how to create your own nozzle for painting foliage, using the Image Hose.

Let’s Get Started

We’re going to create a very simple foliage nozzle, just to show you the process. First, create a new document, 200 pixels square, at 300 dpi. Make sure the paper color is pure white. We’ll create a total of five layers in this document, so go ahead and click the new layer icon at the bottom of the layer palette (if it’s not visible, go Window > Show Layers), or go Layers > New Layer, five times. Click on the topmost layer to activate it. Choose any brush you like (I used the Fine Round Gouache brush) to paint one or two simple leaf shapes, using a middle to dark gray. Then, click on this layer’s eyeball icon, to make it invisible. Go on to the next layer down, and paint a few similar leaves. Continue your way down all five layers, turning off visibility as you go (this helps you keep track of which layer you’re working on). Try for a little variety in the values, from middle gray to black. Here are three of the layers I painted, just as an example. Your leaves can be whatever you like. Nothing fancy, we’re just learning the tool.

Paint some simple leaf shapes, as shown. Each grouping here comes from a separate layer.

Holding the Shift key down, click on each of the five layers, so that they are all blue (activated). Go to Layers > Group to group the five layers. We’re ready to create our nozzle file. Click on the Nozzle Icon (shown in the diagram above). A drop-down list appears, and most likely it shows you the nozzles that come with Painter. See the little tiny triangle in the upper right of this drop down? Click on it, and yet another menu appears. Click on “Create Nozzle from Group.”

First, make sure the layers group is activated (blue). Then, click on the triangles indicated by the arrows.

Painter creates a new document for you. Save it as a RIF file (very important). For easy access later, include the word “nozzle” in the filename (e.g., Foliage Nozzle.RIF). You’ll notice that all your leaf images are now on a black background. The leaf edges will look a little crude, but that’s okay.

Your nozzle file should look something like this.

We’re ready to test out your new nozzle! Create a new document, any size you like. In the brushes drop-down, look for the Image Hose brush variant. Choose the “Spray-Size-P” Image Hose brush. The “P” indicates that the size will vary depending on the pressure you apply to your digital stylus. If you try to paint right now, you’ll get a warning about not having a nozzle loaded. To load your new nozzle, click on the triangle in the Nozzle Selector icon again (see above) and click on Load Nozzle, or type CMD/CTL+L. Browse to your new nozzle file (Foliage Nozzle.RIF). Now draw on your tablet (you can use a mouse, but you won’t see the image size change). Vary the pressure, and notice the images vary their size.

Try out your new nozzle file, varying the pressure. Also, try short dabs or taps, rather than continuous pressure.

You can make the leaves any color you like. Here’s how: on the brush properties bar, change the Grain value to less than 100%. Try 50% to start. Now change the *secondary* color (see below) to change the color your leaves appear as they are painted. It’s probably a good idea to paint on layers, so you can easily delete and change things.

Change the secondary color (leftmost icon) and then paint.

Experiment with different settings for Grain and Opacity. Notice that the grey colors affect your color choices, when Grain is set to around 50%. When you reduce it to 0%, no gray mixes in at all. Now you see why we created our leaves in shades of gray. You could have created the nozzle file with green or autumn leaves, if you like. You can still modify their color by changing the secondary color and lowering the Grain percentage.

Let’s Get Serious

Okay, now let’s try to make a bush. Add a new layer, and call it “Grain at 50 percent.” Make sure Grain is at 50%. Choose dark browns and greens, and paint a vaguely bushlike shape. Add a second layer, and call it “Grain at 35%”. Lower the Grain setting to 35. This increases the chroma of the color, by reducing the influence of the gray in the nozzle shapes. Use a somewhat lighter green color. Finally, create a third layer with Grain set to zero, and add your lightest, purest greens, mostly towards the center. You should have a pretty 3D-looking bushlike object now.

I hope your bush looks better than mine does!

As I said at the beginning, the intention here was to get our feet wet. Now you see how to create a nozzle, and then use it with the Image Hose brush. There’s good information on the Image Hose in the Painter online Help. Experiment with the different brush types. In addition to size, you can vary rotation, randomness, and other things. With practice, you’ll be able to create some very realistic dense foliage, in no time at all. Have fun!

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The Nut Gatherers, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1882. Oil on canvas.

At the height of his career, William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905) was considered to be one of the greatest painters in the world by the Academic art community. His almost photo-realistic style was popular with rich art patrons. Until just recently, Bouguereau and his Academic contemporaries had been mostly forgotten. During the 20th century, their work was completely eclipsed by the French Impressionists, such as Monet and Degas. Today there is renewed interest and appreciation in Bouguereau’s work.

Recently, I found the following stock photo on Fotolia, which is a terrific stock photography site. The subject of this photo, wearing a bandana and a greenish-yellow jumper, reminded me of the children dressed as gypsies that Bouguereau so often painted. I thought I’d try to paint this photo in the style of Bouguereau.

A stock photo from Fotolia.com.

First, I began hunting through the hundreds of paintings by Bouguereau hosted on the Art Renewal Center website. There are quite a few portraits of young girls in country garb, done mostly in a three-quarter view. Basically what I was looking for was a background with a good match for coloring. Also, I was hoping to find something better for my subject to sit on, other than the stump in the photo. I found the following painting, which seemed to be a good fit. The subject in the painting has very nearly the same pose, down to the way her toes are bent. She’s even wearing a yellow scarf!

Meditation, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1885. Oil on canvas.

The yellows and greens will be a perfect match for my subject, once I change the color of her jumper a bit. By using an analogous color scheme (colors close together on the color wheel), I’m hoping to lend a harmonious, restful feeling to my painting. This is part of the “look” of Bouguereau’s work. I’ll need to make the stone block a bit shorter, since my subject is much younger. Here’s what my background looks like after cloning out the original subject (most of her, anyway).

Here's the painting after cloning out the subject, and altering the size of the stone block.

Next, I very carefully removed the background from the stock photo. After copying and pasting it onto a layer above the background just created, above, I saw I’d need to paint the shadow under her feet, since they were in a different position. Then I made some color adjustments to her jumper, removing the green, added a touch of shadow along her jumper, and it was ready to go in Painter.

Stock photo composited with painting background, ready for Painter.

Starting with a Quick Clone, I used a Captured Bristle with a large brush size to “block in” the entire image. Here’s a close-up showing how rough it looks at this point.

Large size brushes are used to block in the major masses of color.

The scarf is a modern-day bandana, so I decided to paint a scarf similar to the one in the original painting. I sampled color with the eye dropper from the Bouguereau, and painted freehand to create the feeling of a pattern. The face is pretty much a straight clone from the photo. The loose hairs were added last, using a Cover Pencil at about 9 pixels, and then blended a bit with a Soft Charcoal with 0 percent Resat.

Close-up of the final painting, showing the brushwork on the scarf and the loose hairs.

Using a smaller brush size, I went back over the entire background, pulling in more detail from the original. The dress, apple, and other details are a combination straight clone and freehand painting. Bouguereau’s painting style was very “tight,” so I tried to mimic that high degree of finish. Here’s the final painting.

Girl With an Apple, in the style of Bougeureau. Created with Corel Painter by Bob Nolin.

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