The Fish Eye Lens : Renaissance Technique Feat. Noble Creations.

Out for the Cosmopolitan round from 21st Nov. to 3rd Dec are these two offerings from Noble Creations :
The Duchess Headpiece
and
Elegant Cabinet

Which inspired me to create these images :

Guilty!

Piety

For Piety : (Using)
Bare Rose Nun Outfit
Genesis_Head_Nicole_2.0
Maitreya Mesh Body - Lara V3.5
Maxi Gossamer Necklace - Rosary with Black Pearls and Crucifix
The Annex - Snow Queen Pearl Earring
[NC] - The Duchess Headpiece - Black-White Stone
.ID. Splendor Eyes / Hazel

So yes I've been in a bit of a "painterly" kick  though exploring creating a faux oil paint style is not so new as I've also done :

Tudor Portrait

The techniques I've employed are slightly different in both.The above is more to do with creating an aged effect , by overlaying a cracklature over the original. The later is more of a morph in order to get the painterly strokes down what i did was to overlay a similar oil painting portrait on top so that the strokes would align. Then it was a case of blending and creating strokes to fit my original screen cap. in SL.

A before and after shot showing the actual difference in capture and final work.

Cropped image focusing in on portrait details.

The Fish Eye Lens : Water Colour FX II - Breaking it down.

So this is my second attempt at the previous technique and I think I have more of a handle on the idea. Essentially, it helps to think of the water colour technique itself which is ink on wet. Using a few strokes of the brush to gesture a form by suggestion rather than detail. (Is my theory).

    

 Here are my notes.

Original Image taken in SL.

New! from SMD. Victoria Faun Gown Set (For Maitreya) in Maroon
Maitreya Mesh Body
Genesis_Head_Nicole_2.0
Meva Vintage Necklace Brown
PIXEL BOX - Steampunk Monocle Right
Calico Hair : Theia (Just Hair Version)
.ID. Bright Eyes / SM / Earth

Step 1) Is to mask out the main areas of colour and whilst doing so...
create textures by playing with the density of your mask.

Step 2) Is to create a general water colour background to sit your figure into.

Step 3) Is a process of blending, painting in and unmasking your figure
to reveal or hide details according to your own artistic direction

You can save these brushes that I created for this project for your own experiments.

The Art Fish : Flights of Fantasy & Noble Creations

Together we can bring the storm I

I'm quite eclectic in my image making process and this is constantly influenced by the creations of others in my virtual adventures .

There's a sort of definitive aesthetic to classical fantasy images ala. dungeons and dragons. No doubt this had a large influence in my own approach in staging this shoot.

Together we can bring the storm II

I love that transmutable nature of SL. One day vampire, next day warrior princess! Noble Creations (part of MFGC https://medievalsl.wordpress.com/) is the main inspiration for my classical Fantasy image today and this gorgeous gorgeous shoulder dragon from Katatonic (Just sized up!) The New Stuff :
From Noble Creations @ Secret Affair - Amazon Warrior Crown (Ends 29th Jan)
In Noble Creations Main Store : Pauldrons and Cape (sized for both M&F) as well as these Thief Boots (They are Unisex not rigged so you can resize them via inbuilt script )
Calico Hair makes some great hair that has this fantastical element to it and this one is 'Febe' from Hairlogy
 I'm using poses from An Lar poses. Both "Simpli III" and  "Honour" Series are from Shiny Shabby.

For Full details of WL, Outfit and Pose - See Screen Capture.

I thought I would also show you how I transform my original takes in SL and give them more drama.

The original screen shot for " Together we can bring the storm I"
I plan to increase the contrast in these pictures so when I take them,
I take them dark but light the models for contrast
This is most illustrated in the model's arm.
You can see I have set up two light sources (front and back)
 in order to create this outline of light.
For light reflections to work well in SL you must have advanced lighting on.

The original screen shot for " Together we can bring the storm II"
I created this set using " Welsh rock and cliffs" set from Fanatik
and surrounding the base with {anc} mist Heavenly Blue
I also set this up at about 1000m from ground in SL to achieve this horizon line effect

My own photograph of storm clouds above my own house ;-)
While it will be too innumerable to discuss what type of techniques I employed exactly in this little blog,
the main technique I use in Photoshop is layering.
To create more drama in my images,
I have layered over the storm clouds onto my images in order to achieve the end results.

Other details of note :

I'm using the corset part from a B@R outfit I also used in my steampunk dolly shoot taken long before I became a Genre designer myself!

The Axe is from an outfit by Poet's Heart called Barbaric. Unfortunately you're not able to see in these shots that it actually has a very ornate bear shaped handle.

The arm wraps are a gacha prize I won from an FGC round by DPD.

As always, I'm happy to help out with any other info you need regarding anything you see in my images and would like to know more about.

The Fish Eye Lens : Composite Layering

"Usagi and the Ephemera"

Perhaps one of the things I most use with photoshop is layers. 

I like to experiment with creating composite images that I make in SL and often play with different windlights and shadows with a little of that " How to make a 3D image look even more 3D?" vibe to it - applying fabricated DOF and so on.

Final Composite

The Layers
As you can see, the final image consists of many component "bits"

Background Image (Original)

Layer 1 (Original) applied over background with Color properties
(This layer has also been blurred for the composite)

Layer 2 (Original) applied over Background and Layer 1 with Color Dodge properties

Credits :

Little Branch "Wildforest" from Shiny Shabby (out now) 
www.flickr.com/photos/129494941@N05/23136999026/in/pool-2... 

Cotton Bunny and Ephemera by anc 
www.flickr.com/photos/88035880@N04/19467097288/