Just put the gun down and step away from the computer. Everything is going to be allll right. heh heh

untrue! I name all my layers, but obviously you have never seen my desk.

It's a lot easier to be virtually organized than it is to be physically organized...

Hey Rey Rey thats ace work. I was wondering how you decide on what detail to add? Do you use a reference/ references and apply them to your image? I have a hard time knowing when something i make is realistic (enough for my standards atleast) or if not, what is wrong.

good question that. reyrey do you know this stuff through experience or do you actually examine how things look in real life when you're putting a chop together?

Some stuff I have done soooo many times, I don't need reference anymore. If I am not sure of something I set something up to see how light reacts or reflections look, etc. It's kind of like using a live model to paint a nude or a portrait. You study everything. Not just the fact that something reflects light or color a certain way, but why it does. If you figure out why it does, then you start to understand what makes something look real. Everything is there in real life, you just have to learn to see it. Some things may really add dimension to something and you may want to exaggerate that. (like a secondary reflective or cast color from a light source.) If you want to make something look like ice, go make ice! Hold it up to the light and see what it does. Look at it under a lupe. Check it out. Tomato ketchup has a texture. Why. Do you see the texture if the light is not hitting it right. You can color it red and call it ketchup but if you add a texture to it using lighting, that catches the eye and makes you look longer. It adds realism. Don't make things perfect. Be perfect while creating it but add some rips, rust, sparkle, holes, scratches, rough spots, ripples, freckles, pores. That's what makes it real.
Make a bottle of ketchup. Show the fine edge of the label. Add little imperfections. Add dried up ketchup on the rim under the cap. Put a dent in the metal cap. Take some of the ketchup out and show where someone scraped it out with a butter knife. Add a reflection from the overhead lights in the diner and sphere it to the round shape of the shoulders of the bottle. Go crazy! Imagine and create. Some people like to create make believe worlds, things that knowbody has ever scene. I like to create real things that people think they have seen. But I know they have never "Really" seen it the way I would like them to see it. bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla ART bla bla bla bla bla bla bla Study bla bla bla bla Learn bla bla bla bla bla bla Listen bla bla bla bla bla LOOK bla bla bla bla bla and LOOK AGAIN!!!

but would you cut yourself so you could do authentic blood?

I like all the Blah, blah, blah, secrets!

Only a non artist would have to ask that question! Of course for the realism. Don't you?

hey i actually had someone stab me in the back so i could do my 'dead guy' chop last month. i did the chop from my hospital bed

That's the spirit, Nothing can stop the chop! Nothing can stop the chop! Nothing can stop the chop!

Oh I almost forgot, Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,Bla ,..........and Bla ,.
Got That?

Yup thanks, this was more along the lines of the response that i was needing.