This Photoshop and Wacom Tablet tutorial originally published in the Digital Fantasy Painting Workshop book by Ilex Press, explains how I created the Howling digital painting illustration. The image features an angry demon ripping the heart off his victim’s chest (beware: nudity). The tutorials provides detailed instructions on the Photoshop brush settings I used to paint the image. This tutorial explains, in particular, how to quickly achieve flesh tones using Adjustment layers.

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Pardon the pun
Enjoy this caricature I did today of three of the main players in season 3. 

Yes, I watch Lost. I hate to admit it.  

Comments are welcome!

p.s. Watch out for those bug-eyes!

This tutorial shows how to draw create a digital illustration of a mad scientist doing a crazy experiment! I was asked to write this tutorial by CGTALK.COM for their articles section (see here). Also, this tutorial was featured on the book Digital Sci-Fi Art: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Stunning, Futuristic Images by Ilex Press.

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This tutorial explains my technique for creating a digital portrait. Step by step instructions on how I go about painting a face portrait using Painter. This approach also works for Photoshop. A tablet (Wacom or any other with pressure sensitivity) is a must-have requirement. Enjoy!

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Oh.. the fun! How many times have you found yourself pronouncing the magical words “this is cool”?

I hope often! Because moments like that should come to us in buckets.. or bucket-fulls? Anyways, here I am going to show you what made me exclaim “COOL” with gusto. It could be a movie, a song, somewhere I’ve been.. something I found online.. anything that is COOL in my opinion.

So, brace yourself for a breeze of coolness coming your way very soon… how cool is that?!

This is supposed to be the fun-filled, fun-bursting, fun-tastical section of my site where I come up with geek-dom related stories.. expect especially hilarious recantations of moments where I have experienced geekiness in its highest form! Like.. the day I realized I had spent too much time on my tablet because I tried to click the UNDO button to fix a mistake I made while writing on a piece of paper with a REAL pencil… or when somebody mentioned a sci-fi character from Star Wars and I happen to KNOW too much about them… even what they had for lunch during the movie shooting breaks.. or the plot twists of some obscure Star Trek episode…

But.. never fear, this is also where you will find my musings on other geeky subjects.. like role playing (which I often do illustrations for), videogames (I wish I had time to play them.. sigh), computers (after all, I am in a symbitic relationship with mine), gadgets and everything else that is remotely associated with Geekiness.

Kapla’

Let’s start the eye candy section with an image from Caravaggio, my favorite classic painter from all time. I naturally evolved a style similar to his, for my oil paintings. I have seen his works in person, back when I was in Italy and still, after 400 years, they show an amazing talent, still in my opinion un-surpassed in many ways. The dramatic shadows, the perfect anatomy, Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) was ahead of its time.

Here’s a sample of his work:

I decided to use Wordpress as the platform for the new version of my site because in my opinion, it is the best (free!) blogging software available at the moment. I have done several installations and customizations of Wordpress in the past few months and have had a chance to integrated many plugins into themes I custom designed. 

If you have some CSS, php and web-design skill, you can turn Wordpress into more than just a blogging software: it can be made into a content management system, integrated with your forum and gallery. 

I will be posting about my experiences with Wordpress once in a while, including tips on how to customize it, my list of must-have plug-ins, my 2 cents on themes.. and maybe even the theme for this website if I get enough requests for it (hint.. hint).

So, check back often!

Welcome to my new downloads section!

Here I will share some of my Photoshop brushes, textures and tool presets with my website visitors.

I thought I’d start with one of the canvas textures I created some time ago. This is a scan of brush strokes on cloth canvas. I have used it to make otherwise too-smooth digital paintings look more natural, like if painted on a real canvas. I suggest using this one as an Overlay layer over your art. You can also apply it using the Photoshop render lighting effect.

Here it is (click on the download link below to download the full size texture file):

Enjoy!

In the next few days, I will re-post my tutorials with the new website look.

Shortly after that, I will start a series of Photoshop Tutorials and Tips posts, once a week if possible.

 Check back soon.