Book 7 and a Daily Sketch

I finished Harry Potter Book 7 today! I actually had only just started reading it yesterday. I swore to myself that I wouldn't read more than an hour a day, but, well, that didn't quite work out... I won't spoil anything for those who've yet to read it, but I can say that it was gripping and enjoyable -even if it wasn't quite the way I envisioned.

The image below is inspired by that book and also done for the topic "Harry Potter" on the CG Talk Daily Sketch Forum. Done in ArtRage 2 again.

Art Rage and The Key

So I discovered a really nifty new computer paint program... It's called Art Rage. One of my favorited artists on CG Portfolios had updated with a new image and listed this little program as one of the softwares. I liked the effect so I googled it. After playing with the free version for a few hours I bought the paid version. This $20 program it has Photoshop and Painter beat for oil painting on the computer. There is such a wonderfully visceral feeling of paint about it. Not to mention it is fast, has a nice interface, and even lets you tack reference images up along the side. And the tool shortcuts are all numbers! (Something I'd wished for in both Photoshop and Painter for years). Below is the product of my playing around with Art Rage 2 for a couple of hours this morning. I love the oil painted look.



I did indeed see Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix in IMAX. It was almost too big. I think part of the problem is that the seats we got were far to low. If you ever go to an IMAX the highest middle seats are best! I have mixed feelings about the film itself: I loved the acting, the effects, the direction, but I hated the way they left so very much out. To say they cut out the plot by 1/2 is being generous... It was also very choppy feeling in parts, like they'd tried so hard to include certain things that they only showed a few seconds of certain scenes, giving the movie itself a trailer-like feel (complete with one-liners) that was unsatisfying. Fun to watch, but certainly not my favorite Potter movie. All four that came before this were better by far. But what was I expecting when the longest book is made into the shortest movie?

Harry Potter and the Ruby Apple

I'm immensely excited about seeing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in IMAX tommorrow. It's been years since I've seen anything at an IMAX. The last 20 min of the movie (the battle at the ministry I assume) are going to be IMAX 3D. Wicked!

In other movie news, I saw Ratatouille yesterday. What a cute well-done movie. Eye-candy with a good message. Props to all the artists at Pixar. :)

More work on the ruby apple painting. Mostly Painter though I have cheated a bit and used some Photoshop.