Checking The List

Daz Studio, Iray, rendered to a beauty canvas and 3 light canvases, combined canvases and did a bit of post work in PS. 

I worked for a couple of weeks doing different renders of ideas, I completed several but none seemed good enough. Then I had the idea for this piece. It took me a long time and several renders to get the lighting right. Even then I decided to render to lighting canvases to emphasize the glow around Santa and the play of shadow on his face. I probably took a day to find all the elements and get the scene together, and two days to get the lighting right with multiple renders going on as things changed, post work was done in an hour as there wasn't much. Putting together the canvases and setting layer modes, adding the smoke, tobacco and glow to the pipe, then final image toning. 

Inspiration is two part. 

1) Years ago, on Christmas Eve, my then 6 year old high needs child was being very naughty. Her grandmother told her if she didn't behave Santa would bring her coal for her stocking. She said she didn't care, and 10 minutes later sucker punched her 3 year old sister in the face. We didn't take presents away, but we did raid the neighbors  flower bed for a piece of lava rock that night and dropped it into her stocking. In the morning we let her believe that it could have been another present if she had not hit her sister on Christmas Eve. So Santa is checking his list, even on the night before Christmas to be sure everyone is still being good. 

2) From the story of the night before Christmas itself, this part of the description of Ol' Saint Nick inspired how I wanted him to look, deciding which model to use and deciding to add the pipe and pipe smoke around his head. 

 "His eyes‍—‌how they twinkled! His dimples: how merry,