Stained glass window

[Enug]

Something different again. Stencils, texture, watercolour.

[afrah15]

huh thats too amazing

[D Akey]

Very cool, June.

Suggestion to enhance the 3D quality, if you care to, is to create some edge to the stones that is facing the window -- wrapping around creating an edge that would be mechanically necessary. The thing is to consider that the stones are at a different depth than the mortar. The shadows show that to be a given that you've established for the viewer. The stones bulge out some as seen because they cast shadows and have highlights. But the dimension ceases to be when it butts up against the window frame where it goes as flat as the window pane.

The whole trick to these things is to go through and use some logic to create what you know would be happening and remain consistent throughout your pic. You establish the rule and so you stick to it and don't deviate from it unless you want to play with people's perception for a reason.

You'll never go wrong if you think in these terms and then from a place of command over the universe of your picture you can decide to play by the rules or not. There are painting styles that have the information but they're overall flat because that was the artist's style. But they're nearly always flat everywhere in the pic.

But that's only one point. The glass looks wonderful. Love the beveling texture and all that in the glass. Very cool surfaces. Also the stone texture is really nice as well. Go Enug!

[Caesar]

You had a really brilliant idea and got an interesting effect indeed!

[Enug]

DA, I understand what you are saying but how to achieve it! I took the easy way out and just used the stones as a background. I'll scratch my head a bit and see what I come up with - without going to Paintshop Pro and applying a bevel (maybe I will).

Thank you Caesar - not a work of art but playing around with ideas.

[Bobbi]

You're having fun, aren't you. Keep it going.

[D Akey]

DA, I understand what you are saying but how to achieve it! I took the easy way out and just used the stones as a background. I'll scratch my head a bit and see what I come up with - without going to Paintshop Pro and applying a bevel (maybe I will).

Well, sometimes we just have to go in and do detail bit by bit. It's not a trick or automatic thing where there's a hidden 'Turn" feature written into the program. Just go in with a brush and craft it. . . if you choose to, or if it's worth it to you.

For the shadow as a whole, you pick your light source and everything will be logically created based on how that light would fall. You invent a general depth the stone will go in. From that you know already from study of your primitives that you will have the form shadow on the stone and the cast shadow on the glass. If this were a product shot they would probably light it where there would be no shadow on the glass. But shadows go a long way to create illusions of dimension.

So you would make up a general circular shape of the shadow. Once you have that you go in and round out the corners so they're in perspective. It looks like a one point perspective kind of thing so it should be fairly straight forward, so to speak. You could probably eyeball it anyway since the stones are somewhat rough hewed. But it wouldn't hurt at this stage of the game to go the long way round to get a little experience with perspective. But you could side step it too and fake it by just indicating that the stones have an oblique side.

When you don't know something, think in terms of the simplest, no-detail way it would work. That's usually fairly manageable. And then you go in and have your details conform to that.

But that's only if you want to know how to create shapes and take a painting to a professional level. Tricks are cool and good as an end point. But it's rather handy to know how to think in the physical world way in case you want to invent something to make it work better. There are certain style of artists who don't care about that kind of thing. But it usually shows when it's wrong based on what is in the rest of the painting. You have depth in the stones, so you would have to carry that over to the whole illusion. You set up a 'contract' with the viewer that this is the paradigm we're playing with. If it were loose and washy, then you think in terms of moving colors around and effects of the paint and less about realism.

[Enug]

As I said, I took the lazy woman's route - I simply pasted the window on to the background - and it looked like it. If I were to do something like this from scratch I would certainly take into account the points you have made and try to produce something believable in regard to perspective and shadow.

This image was basically colouring in a stencil with watercolours and I hadn't bothered to keep the layers intact so when I took it to PSP to add cutout and shadow the result was not very effective. Thanks DA for your help and suggestions along the way - some even sink in!

[Albert]

Keep it going.

[D Akey]

Doesn't that feel better to you? I think it's a great improvement. And you took it to a softer place which is great. Gives it a more integrated feel and the dark adds to the luminous effect of the window. Brava!

So being lazy doesn't enter into it for me, not that it matters what I think. But I look at a picture and if it works, it works. If it doesn't it doesn't. Skillful people can do amazing things in very short order. Skillful people can also do amazing things and take a long, pleasurable ride getting to a happy place.

So anyway, I think this works now. It's certainly not the only solution either. But getting there a time or two should be enough to know if it's somewhere you want to go to again.