About Paradiseworld

Paradiseworld.net (not .com, it's a pron site, the bastards) is committed to the idea of doing something creative everyday, or most days, because you don't get good at something by not practicing and opting to sit on your ass all day. Although technically drawing is sitting on your ass all day, but you're doing something...you're drawing, or programming, or writing. See there's a lot of things you can do while sitting on your ass all day, and this site is an expression of that and the processes it takes to do it. The moral: Get on your ass and do something creative! Or get on your friend's ass about doing something creative. Just keep riding them, they'll give eventually, and then you can do it together!

Sketch of the Day
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Things have been sparse around here...
Author: Glenn Song Date: Friday, January 2, 2009 - 26 weeks ago
Size:
1920x1200
Uploaded:
Friday, January 2, 2009 - 26 weeks ago
Naughty or nice? Either way, it has to be nice!
Happy New Year!

No, putting this painting up doesn't signify that I will be updating with new daily sketches, but, it is a new painting. I did this for my brother, the GrimbySlayer, as a Christmas gift. What better gift to give than Catherine with handcuffs and a suggestive candy cane.

In my nearly 18 month absence from updating this website, I have been drawing and gradually making improvements. Most of those improvements are in art technique and not so much so in my portrayal of the fairer sex, but we all have our vices, don't we? This image for instance, started out as a grayscale image so I could get the range of values correct without worrying about color and texturing. I spent a lot of time getting the values, proportions, and balancing right of the girl (Catherine). Adding color was simple. I just overlayed the color on a separate layer. I had to figure out how to blend it in Photoshop but it wasn't too difficult. I ended up using a layer setting called "vivid light" and then adjusting the color using the sliders in the hue&saturation dialog until they were what I wanted. A nice side effect of this process is that I can change the color to whatever I want without screwing up the shading.

The hair has a totally different process. I did do a grayscale version of her hair but I hated it. I redid it a couple of times and I found making a grayscale image and then trying to overlay colors looks like ass. It looks like ass because the edges of her hair are individual strands and that's hard to cut that precisely to overlay color. So instead, I made a blonde palette for her locks and created a hair brush which is a just a couple of dots that streak and fade out with pen pressure. With that I was able to give her hair that layered subsurface-scattering kinda look.

The candy cane I will admit looks like utter shit.

All the leather that she's wearing I'm quite pleased with (aside from the obvious reason). Next to the glossy looking shading I gave it I also added a layer of texture -- something I've been wanting to try and do and this image gave me my first chance at it. I don't think it looks great, but it'll improve with time. Her stockings also have a layer of texture giving it a fishnet look (and making her look trampier).

The handcuffs turned out really well. I started out with an image I found on google of a pair of handcuffs. They did not look like that. Rather the cuffs were displayed almost flat so I could get a pretty good front  view of them. I used the vector tool in Photoshop and traced the outline of the cuffs and made the two parts: the clasp and the main half ring thing that connects to the other cuff. I took those vector outlines and skewed and distorted them until I got something with a bit of perspective. I shaded them to look like chrome. So really super bright for the parts facing the light source.

Oh, you may find some inconsistencies with the lightning. Yeah...I'm working on that, but I feel that overall it's not terrible. Though not great.

I like the way the bean bag/sack of toys looks. I don't know what's in that sack. You might imagine that it should have some corners protruding since its supposed to contain presents. To achieve the look I got a texture of crushed velvet, desaturated it, and turned it into a photoshop brush with some scattering effects and alpha and then I just sloppily drew over the nicely rendered image of it on a separate layer to give it a textured look.

Overall I liked this workflow the best and I like the detail that painting it gives me. I've tried to ink and color my work, but I'm not a big fan of lines. I am learning to do more inking with various japanese pen brushes and super thin pigment liners, and it's looking good, but I like the fully painted and rendered look. I think that suits me best. Just to prove I am still drawing you can see my drawings here on DeviantArt:

http://albinogrimby.deviantart.com/

I also don't post too much to Paradiseworld anymore, because I have a new blog at

www.cournesupremacy.com

Yeah, I don't have another better reason for posting there versus here. I guess one better reason is that I'm tired of maintaining the backend of Paradiseworld and the PHP scripting I did for it, I'd rather just use wordpress and have a blog without all the hassle. Plus Paradiseworld's format is more restrictive based on how I built the website. It's about drawing on a daily basis and putting those works front and center. I don't sketch everyday anymore and instead I've turned my eye towards more finished projects. The Courne Supremacy is an outet for me to document those changes.

Gallery Spotlight


Click on the image to visit the The Writer's Cramp Gallery Gallery!
Size:
600x600 		How to Build a Snowman
Uploaded:
1/15/2004
Rob: Detailed step-by-step directions on snowman construction. Thanks to a small snowfall in New York on Monday. I gave the snowman my clothes because the wind chill was in the single digits, and I didnÂ?t want him to get cold. Look how happy he was! But then I went inside and made him some hot chocolate. It melted his face off. I cried. Well, not really, but it wouldÂ?ve been funny if I had. ...Or embarrassing.

Paradiseworld is produced by the staff of Paradiseworld. You're welcome to link to this site. You're welcome to tell everyone about this site. I know I can't stop you from pirating our work, but I ask you to respect our intellectual property. If you do like the work please mail me at webmaster@paradiseworld.net.