The trick to painting realistic metal: Know how much white to use — or not use. Use too much and you’ll end up with something that looks like glass, plastic or a DreamWorks collector toy. Look at the beautiful illustrations and paintings below and take note of how much (little) pure white is used. More frequently for metal, the lightest parts reflect the ambient lighting, whatever colour that is.
Header image made with Midjourney: a metallic landscape, reflecting sunlight
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project: