So here is the final for the Blue Knight on "Duke" the belgian draft. Beautious! Up next is "Beltain," from a lovely photo taken by Katrina Markham, the Knights of A's photographer. Thanks to JP Balmet, I've caught the "real media brush" bug, or the strong desire to make my digital painting look, well, not digital. JP does amazing things with brushes in Photoshop, and he gave me a few tips, but I still can't seem to match the incredible brushes in Corel Painter. Originally with this new painting I meant to just get the backround in using some nice oily flat brushes in Painter, and then come back into Photoshop to do the subject, but after messing around in Painter for long enough I began to get the hang of how the brushes work. It's a whole different philosophy than Photoshop, and takes quite a lot of getting used to (my first attempt to work in Painter, 6 months ago or so, failed miserably and I got frustrated), but I am just awed by how realistic and beautiful the "paint" looks and feels. At some point I might take this image back into Photoshop, but I'm going to take it as far as I can in Painter first. Yes, it'll be a different "style" and "media" than the previous two Knights of Avalon paintings, but variety is the spice of life :-). Both methods are painterly, which is the whole point...this one is just moreso.
