Obligatory clean version for the day crowd.

Remember this? http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6633145/
That was made using Corel Painter 12 shortly after I got it. This piece was made with Corel Painter 2016.

Since 2013, those storm clouds on the horizon have gotten a bit... closer. A hellton of blending went into this one, as well as subtle usage of Painter 2016's particle brushes, advanced blending, and all that fun jazz. I also tried a new approach to how I handle shadows and gasp highlights!? I do those now!? Well it's about damn time!

Like it's predecessor, this was a test of the program's features, and I must say Corel's really outdone themselves! Also like it's predecessor, the background is all on one layer, and good lord did this take a long time to pull off... I'm guessing at least 15-20 hours for the BG alone. I've learned that, while I love photographs of severe storms... I'm not quite good enough to replicate them just yet. This isn't terrible in my opinion, but it's not quite as menacing as the reference photos, and I'm not quite sure how to manage that just yet. It's not that easy to tell that the topmost layer is actually the anvil flaring out in the upper atmosphere as opposed to the stratus-level clouds on the levels below. Still, I learned, so good experience was good.

I may be switching from Photoshop to Painter for awhile since Painter's really gotten it's shit together and is now phenomenal if you want a painterly look to your work. Give the free 30 day trial a go at http://corel.com but remember this: The CPU/RAM costs for this program are considerable for larger canvases like this one. If you don't at least have an i5 processor or AMD quad core and 8 GB of RAM, I'd advise keep your canvases on the small side or you will probably hang.

What do you think of this one? I tried to give this thing everything I had so it can serve as an effective benchmark of where I am skill-wise. How do you think I did?