ref: http://www.fontplay.com/freephotos/seve ... 107-03.jpg

Not the first time I used this doll model for rendering even similar things, but just showing that I'm inching ever close to the elusive Ben Stein result (automated).

As a side note, I used the result below along with convolution enhancement (this example has no CE applied) for the mask. Thought worth sharing since it's sort of a new way to engrave.

Both came out great. I especially love the dots as stippling is one of my favorite techniques.

Thanks Greg. The reason why the dots don't follow the black striped lines is I invert the image for the mask before feeding it into VS. I then invert the dots (white dots) which G'MIC's Blend (Shape Average) likes to colorfy the dots (original as the source color).

Thought I would do a re-do and present the dots as artificial pearls.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34520999@ ... 1/sizes/o/

The pearls are amazing! I must try to duplicate the effect!
I would love to see the steps outlined in order, a tutorial maybe??

Sorry Greg, but I do have to now keep my secrets (i.e., way too lazy to do yet another tut. lol). Did sort of outline a flow here. Even so, I modified the G'MIC preset for Halftone Shapes to get a higher resolution (10 is way too large and I didn't want to have to downsize a target after running the preset). Also used G'MIC Pen to blend the halftone result into the lines as I showed earlier for masking.

The 'pearl' version is pretty amazing, but dolly is still scary, lol.

Thanks, 2-ton. I like using the same reference images so folk know that it's me doing the rendering and not someone else's render. I don't actually have to do this, of course, but it's my shtick.

As for the shading (pearl texture) I used G'MIC's Local Orientation preset for that (and a few other things).

Tried following, but I'm just not getting it.

What step are you having the issue with, Greg?