A Tattoo Needs Skin

Some more progress on the tattoo for Annabelle Utrecht's book cover 102. I am adding skin and eventually a texture via Blender so there will be a bumpiness to the skin. I am really liking the tattoo look of it. I thought I might have to revisit the feel of it a couple of days ago, as it wasn't working. But persistence has payed off.

Blender Jellies Take Shape

I am really getting into Blender. The learning curve isn't a steep as I thought. I have really been hesitant to muck about with materials and textures before, mainly because instant results are tricky. But I soldiered on. Now I am getting results after reading as many tutorials online that I could find.

I have yet to add all the detail and light it correctly but I feel its a great start.

Next, The Jelly Snakes

I am playing with Blender to perfect a jelly snake texture.The modeling is yet to come, but for now I want to work with a standard blender render material. Blender does come with Cycles which is a good rendering engine also but I like the results you can get with the old Blender 3d render engine.

Roughing The Details.

The edges of a real tattoo are bleedy as the ink will spread between layers of skin. So I have roughed the edges using brushes in gimp and played with some layers transparency to get a real hand done look. This detail is of the lines, I am trying to get the coloured layers working right at the moment.

Make Cow Not Human

I just took a squzz over at Makehuman to see whats new.  I was totally blown away when I discovered you can now Make a "Cow" Yay!!

Quetzalcoatl Tattoo

As part of this book illustration, I have to design a tattoo of a Quetzalcoatl (the winged or feathered snake from ancient South American history). I have begun the first part in Inksape in RGB. I will convert it to CMYK using some online tools for import into Scribus where I will finally save the completed title in *.pdf format ready for the printers. I still will need to give it more of a tattoo texturing, as tattoos tend to be more dot gradient than solid in colour. I am also going to layer on some skin texture in Gimp. The next stage is a string of jelly snakes that make up the rest of the zero in the 102 title. These will seemingly wrap back around and end inside the mouth of the Quetzalcoatl.

102 Cover Begins

I have taken on another book cover project. This one is for a pop dilemma novel by Author Annabelle Utrecht. Its called 102 a contemporary cowboys and Indians story. On a higher level it questions modernity and the ability for indigenous cultures to survive in a world that moves so rapidly to a state of cultural entropy. It follows the lives of several people who are often in a state of turmoil. 102 is a native american reservation where a drug and alcohol free zone is to exist. A tribal elders daughter is to be the reservations nurse. All is going smoothly until .... You'll just need to read it yourselves. But you can get to see the cover come together here. Here on its first draft is the sketch that won me the gig.