I know I keep coming back to this one figure ... I guess because it's just so perfect. He's the performer, the dancer, the exotic, and 3D art is the perfect depiction of this.I've done loads of renders of this character ... so many, he actually ought to have a name and a personality. He reminds me a lot -- at least visually -- of the character called Tonio Teniko in the last one or two of the Hellgate books. If ever I get to do Hellgate artwork (and it's probably ... there's a CD'Rom being talked about...) I'll "cast" this model as Tonio. Now, in the books, Tonio is incredibly beautiful but he's somewhere between emotionally unstable, so brilliant no one can believe his genius, and ... a little rat into the bargain. The character is fascinating, aggravating, irresistible, compelling, repulsive, desirable, all at once. Leave it to Mel Keegan to come up with a character like this. Anyway, this Yaoi dancer is what Tonio looks like, to me -- and here's the render where I zoomed right on his face: you can download that at 1000 pixels high, too.
Oooooooh. Right.
So, how's this done? Well, if go go back through any of the similar posts I've been giving "ballpark instructions," like this:
So, to get this shot, here's a cookbook approach:
Load Michael 4
Load the high-rez skin map
Load the hairstyle you fancy
Load any jewelry, tattoos etc.
Get everything styled the way you want it...
SAVE THE FILE!!!! Because DAZ loves to fall over.
Pose the figure
Load the loin cloth, if you need to think about your rating.
Turn OFF the Michael 4 genitalia, because the loincloth don't, uh, cover...
SAVE THE FILE!!!
Load the backdrop.
Set a Distant light;
Set your point lights ... move 'em, color 'em ... guess.
Render one, and use it as a route map for playing with lights...
Render some more, till you like what you see.
Done!
...But apparently this is just enough to drive a lot of wannabe artists into ripping out their hair, because it's not really detailed enough to get you there. Just enough to get you into the ballpark and leave you wandering around wondering what you're doing, and why it's not working.
Ohhh...kay. Well, you have to realize, guys, a proper tutorial is going to be 20pp long. It's going to take a looooong time to put together. It's going to eat up the working time in which I put groceries on the table and pay the bill to keep the lights on! So it won't be something that I can churn out fast and post here at whim. It'll wind up being a PDF book into which I've poured a LOT of work. So --
Would it be worth a couple of bucks to you? Let's say I do the job properly, and put a little pricetag on it ... $3. Would you "help to feed the starving artist," if I tell you, in intimate detail, how to do this artwork -- and where to download the software, and the models?
Right, I'll call it a project: YAOI IN DAZ 3D.
Stay tuned!
Jade, 15 December
