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Description
Here is something new. It's not anything fancy, just a lighting test – a proof of concept really. This is an experiment trying out a new painting method I devised. The whole idea behind it is to paint everything in flat colours, then separate out all forms of lighting and apply them in different layers to the scene. It's feels like making a manual 3D render of your subject, and the look is pretty similar too.

Now this turns out to be a pretty laborious process, but it should allow for very accurate lighting, especially when multiple light sources are involved. This image uses only two: direct and ambient lighting. Still, there are more than two lighting layers, because I have extra ones for highlights and subsurface scattering. The whole process is a bit too complicated to write out here, but I may post a step by step instruction some time.

Anyway, I could have put more effort into this to make it even more realistic, but I think the experiment is successful as it is. I kept it as simple as possible, for example drawing wingless twilight to avoid needless complexity. Theoretically I could paint any kind of scene with this method – in practice I doubt I'm going to use it much.

Created with Gimp and Wacom Bamboo tablet.

Creative Commons 3.0 – BY NC ND
Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (c) Hasbro

Description
Here is something new. It's not anything fancy, just a lighting test – a proof of concept really. This is an experiment trying out a new painting method I devised. The whole idea behind it is to paint everything in flat colours, then separate out all forms of lighting and apply them in different layers to the scene. It's feels like making a manual 3D render of your subject, and the look is pretty similar too.

Now this turns out to be a pretty laborious process, but it should allow for very accurate lighting, especially when multiple light sources are involved. This image uses only two: direct and ambient lighting. Still, there are more than two lighting layers, because I have extra ones for highlights and subsurface scattering. The whole process is a bit too complicated to write out here, but I may post a step by step instruction some time.

Anyway, I could have put more effort into this to make it even more realistic, but I think the experiment is successful as it is. I kept it as simple as possible, for example drawing wingless twilight to avoid needless complexity. Theoretically I could paint any kind of scene with this method – in practice I doubt I'm going to use it much.

Created with Gimp and Wacom Bamboo tablet.

Creative Commons 3.0 – BY NC ND
Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (c) Hasbro