Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Digital Painting the Corel Painter way


It's no secret I love Pulp Art (Doc Savage, The Spider, The Bat, and more) and Boys Adventure Stories (Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, and more). I love the painted covers. I love the black and white pen & ink illustrations inside.

I've always wanted to create books like those. And a few years ago I published my first one. Pick it up if you haven't already. Links to Paperback and eBook versions are at www.WanderingKoala.com. I wrote the boys adventure type story (but for an older, more sophisticated audience), I drew the black and white pen & ink (and brushwork) illustrations for the interiors, and I painted a cover.

Ok, that last part I didn't do--not really.

I tried. I really did. But I just can't paint. So I did the best I could, and it turned out well, but.... I figured I would never have painted covers unless I hired someone to do them, and I really didn't want to do that. It was bad enough hiring an editor for my second novel. He did a great job and gave me numerous insights that have helped my writing tremendously, but I still want my work to be MY work--100% Jeff.

Then the other day I was watching several courses from Lynda.com (great site to learn to use graphics programs--get a subscription if you don't already). I discovered some really cool and amazing things that Corel Painter can do--things I had no idea I had software for. So I put the lessons to use.

Above is my latest work. It took several tries to get it right, but I think it turned out well. It looks like the background from Tarzan. I'm definitely going to try this technique to have a truly painted cover for my next work, The Green Bull (a Wandering Koala tale), and not just a wannabe painted cover.

I can't wait!


2 comments:

  1. Hey Jeff.

    Nice looking work. I have forwarded your blog to an illustrator friend of mine. He grew up on Shop and simply needs to take the time to realize, what Painter can bring to ones work.

    Andy

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  2. What an awesome work! This digital painting is really great. I love this! I guess digital painting through corel is absolutely nice!

    -YourPhotoToPainting.com

    ReplyDelete