My Personal Illustration project and experimental lighting techniques

[Christine Garner]

Hi
I'm working on a personal illustration project and documenting the progress at https://thimblefolio.com/jane-the-elf/.

I've been experimenting with 2d and 3d art for this project and learning more about character development and world building. I'm currently looking into improving my lighting skills and I taught myself an interesting way to light 2d art using normal maps.
If anyone is interested in that sort of thing I wrote an article about it here: https://medium.com/the-art-squirrel/digital-art-technique-using-normal-and-depth-maps-to-create-lighting-effects-in-2d-art-3c5d3fedaa5f.
I'd love to here your opinions on this if you have time. It's a technique I'm still tweaking, and it has made me want to improve my 2d art lighting skills in general, so I don't think it was too much of a diversion, but I have to keep working on things.

[robgale]

@Christine-Garner Fascinating! I read through your article, it seems like it could be great, if for nothing else, to quickly try a bunch of lighting scenarios before jumping into the final piece.

[Samu]

Excellent project!!!

[Christine Garner]

@robgale Yes that's what I think as well, although I'm wondering if it could be useful on background textures / elements that can be lit differently and reused in scenes as well :-). It has different applications- it's mainly used for 2d games and animation which might require dynamic lighting conditions.
@Zombie-Rhythm thanks