If your going to simulate art, it helps to do some research. For the last few months, I've been reading and buying various art magazines to help me "see" what art really looks like. One of my favorite art magazines that I've picked up is International Artist. This month, they showed some cool pastel renderings and techniques (not all techniques applies in the computer world, but it does help to see how it is done in the physical). Anyway, being inspired to do pastel (as opposed to oil or watercolor), I rendered this pastel. Enjoy. P.S.: this one's not a complete simulation since I had to do some cloning and smudging. I can tell you that over 95% of this piece is a simulation. I started with vector simplification. Ported the results in PS and used Photo-Plugins (http://www.photo-plugins.com) Local Contrast Enhancement filter to sharpen before feeding the result into Paint Engine's (http://home.centurytel.net/luvs2cr8/paintengine.html) Bad Chaulk preset. Then I needed to do some cleaning. This is a crop since I do not want ArtWanted to resample this piece. I'll pass on a link to the complete rendering to those who respond to this post. :)