I finished the painting by adding some fine detail to the rope, and developing texture in the chipped, painted surface of the buoys:

For a change of pace, I thought I'd do a painting of the bouys from Peggy's Cove that I sketched a while ago. For this piece I experimented with complimentary colours, and wet-on-wet techniques to reflect the aquatic theme. I used frisket to protect the white shapes, which I'll be adding detail to for the final stage of painting.

Noodling away at more faces today... I was aiming for a loose sketch of each face that would reflect the character of the subject. So far, that seems to work best on a small scale.

Here is the portrait after values were adjusted, and more detail added:

In my ongoing effort to draw faces more accurately, I've decided to try a tonal underpainting of sorts, with the intention of getting the values down properly before I go on to fine detail. I used a hard graphite pencil to block in value, and a kneaded eraser to recover some areas of highlight that had been lost. My next step will be to fine-tune the values and proportions, then deepen the shadows and work in more detail.

I tried a more painterly approach for today's painting. This Indian's man's face was so wonderfully expressive, with his twinkling blue eyes and craggy face:

A little sparrow in ink to allow me a tiny break from faces!

Jen and I have spent the last week continuing to work on the first iteration of the graveyard level of our game. This involves theorizing on what will look good, then modifying and testing over and over, each time changing things ever so slightly.

For instance, the first few gravestones, rocks, and statues Jen made looked like this:

Using these as a base, we added another set of gravestones:


When we filled the graveyard with these stones which are really unique and beautiful, we found that their uniqueness was a problem. Your brain would recognize the patterns, and the result looked cluttered and repetitive. The solution we came up with was to add some generic, non-distinct gravestones:



When our engine creates the graveyard, it uses an algorythm instead of pure randomness, to create the look we are after.

The algorythm is 92% likely to place a generic gravestone onto a layer. The engine then tints the stone a random colour, then randomly resizes the stone. There is a 4% chance it will place one of the more unique stones, a 2% chance it will place a rock or a statue, and a 2% chance it will place a tree.

We've added a couple of different fences, and a whole lot of foliage and fog to round out the scene. After bumping the brightness up a bit and adding a blue fog to everything, the level looks good so far:



Did I mention the fact that I spent 12 hours optimizing the engine and have gained 200% to 300% of a speed increase? That's boring stuff anyway. :)

Happy Halloween!

I did another version of the Geillis Duncan drawing, this time using digital ink and ink wash. Ink is certainly a much more challenging medium to use, because a single line can either express everything, or muddle everything. I certainly admire those who use this medium so well!

Another sketch of Geillis Duncan that I might try as an ink drawing at some later date!