Thursday morning potpourri
Thursday, July 5th, 2012 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I hope that those who celebrate had a satisfying Fourth of July. We here at the Cat Farm had a working holiday, breaking early to view John Carter of Mars. Among other things, this has produced an urge to re-read A Princess of Mars, which is now sitting on the kitchen table.
From the mailbag, we have news from David Mattingly, who created the wonderful covers for Mouse and Dragon, Saltation, Ghost Ship, and Dragon Ship among a mountain of other fine covers and art. David has just finished producing an online tutorial about digital matte painting. Here's the course description:
The course shows how to turn a summer daytime scene into a wintry nightscape using Photoshop and After Effects. Well-known author, teacher and illustrator David Mattingly demonstrates his production-proven matte painting techniques. David shows how to take a plate, or a still shot from a film, and alter key elements to change the season and time of day. Using advance digital matte painting methods, David will remove all of the greenery from the mountains, fields and trees, and cover them with snow. Then he will replace the sky, and add realistic touches such as chimney smoke, icicles and night-lit windows. In the final chapters, you'll discover how to create an animated version that cross-dissolves between the two versions.
You can find the tutorial here: