I was excited by my previous Corel Painter 2016 and Wacom Cintiq 27" project painting the Dodge Charger with much freer and larger strokes than the highly detailed Typhoon, Spitfire, or John Deere I first painted. 

But right from the off, I was dragged into the layout and fine detail according to previous habit - it was already less 'free' than I had been with the Charger. That said, by the close of the first night, I had been carried away and already had much of the hard work done.

The source image was not the most detailed so I had some trouble discerning details, but of course that wasn't a bad thing, especially as I was obviously over doing the detail already.

By the second night, I was beyond worrying about the intended style of the painting and just had a hoot playing with the pastel brushes and enjoying the 'canvas' textures showing through.

The rear lights of the Countach are horrible. Their designer needed either a swift slap to be certain they are awake, or sympathy for their needlessly ruining the futuristic nature of the car. Regardless, I drooled over the Countach as a young lad before turning over and dropping off to sleep myself all those years ago when the car lived on my bedroom wall. And I took licence from the magic of those dreams and I gave the light cluster a much-needed cover! Well, I can, so I did.

As with the Charger, I had worked so swiftly and naturally, that I forgot - or didn't feel the need - to use layers. The oil pastels were quite forgiving though, but some adjustments became a little messy. But now I wanted to 'ground' the car, so I opened a new layer and worked on the road surface.

I played with adding 'burn-out' smoke, which didn't look bad as smoke goes, but it just made the composition look to school-boy, so I took to adding glow and highlights to breath some life into the monster.

Job done. I did sketch out a licence plate for the first print, but I'll update that in time. For now I was pleased to finish before I got too sucked back in to the details and sharp edges of the shiny stuff and reflections.

As for the Charger, I printed the Countach on Canon Photo Paper Premium Matt using high-quality settings on the Canon Pro-1. The colour matching right out of the bag is superb, although I will one day invest in a colour profiler to close the small gap between screen and print renders. That aside, the printer is superb and again I was pleased with the paper giving a slight texture to the finished painting.

And that was it. Another large chunk of my childhood nostalgia hanging on the studio wall ready for someone to come and claim for their own love. I really do hope it is enjoyed when looked at as much as it has been enjoyed painting it.